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Votive Armour and Arms

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

W. Greenwell
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Extract

The custom of dedicating or of specially setting apart articles of use or ornament to divine beings has been common to many peoples, and has come down from a remote antiquity to the present day. Nor is the motive which prompts the action one in any way foreign to the impulses by which men are moved. A danger escaped, a victory achieved, is not unnaturally believed to be due, at all events in some measure, to powers not of the lower world, who can control and even overrule the designs of mortal men. In the temples, therefore, of the gods, and in other places hallowed by the more immediate presence of the divinity, it has been the habit to offer various things in recognition of benefits already bestowed, or in the hope of favours to be granted in the future. The pot of manna and Aaron's rod which budded laid up in the Tabernacle, are as trite as are the models which the same pious feeling still deposits in Christian churches, in remembrance of shipwrecks escaped from or of diseases cured. In no country was the custom more observed than in Hellas, where it was usual to dedicate a tenth of the spoil taken in war, and where at the great shrines so large were the offerings, that many of the states had θησαυροί, in which were preserved the almost innumerable votive objects dedicated to the Gods. In Greece itself there was no place, not excepting Delphi and Dodona, where more evidence of the observance of the custom was to be found than at Olympia, and in the temple where dwelt the cloud-compelling wielder of the lightning, the mighty dispenser of victory, Zeus, the King of Gods and men.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 2 , November 1881 , pp. 65 - 82
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1881

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References

page 65 note 1 In the later times of the Jewish kingdom the practice was still kept up for we read in the account of Herod's new Temple at Jerusalem: —Josephus, xv. 11.

page 66 note 1 Lib. v. cap. 10.

page 66 note 2 Lib. v. cap. 27.

page 66 note 3 The Anthologia Graeca contains numerous epigrams which relate to offerings of arms. The second of the Epigrammata Anathematica, by Simonides, is as follows:

No. 81 records the dedication of a shield, breastplate, and helmet to Ares; No. 84 of a shield to Zeus; No. 85 and No. 86 are both dedications of armour; No. 91 speaks of various pieces of armour taken from the enemy and dedicated by different soldiers to Ares; No. 97 contains the dedication of a spear by one Alexandras, “the inscription on which relates that it was dedicated to Artemis after a war”; No. 124, No. 141, and No. 264, all relate to dedications of a shield.

page 67 note 1 Boeckh, tom. i. p. 34, No. 16; Rose, Inscript. Graecae, p. 66, tab. viii. 1; Horae Ferales, p. 169, Pl. xii. fig. 1; Palaeographical Society, Pl. vii. 77b.

page 67 note 2 Lib. vi. cap. 19.

page 67 note 3 Boeckh, tom. i. p. 47, No. 29; Horae Ferales, p. 169, Pl. xii. fig. 3; Rose, , Inscript. Graecae, p. 59Google Scholar, tab, vii. 1.

page 68 note 1 Boeckh, tom. i. p. 48, No. 30; Rose, , Inscript. Graecae, p. 58, tab. vi. 2.Google Scholar

page 69 note 1 Another helmet very similar in workmanship is in the possession of Messrs. Rollin and Feuardent. It has a large round hole at the back, and the ends of the cheek pieces have also been turned up in ancient times. Like the Bishop of Lincoln's helmet, it has probably been votive.

page 69 note 2 Travels in the Morea, vol. i. p.47; Walpole, , Travels, vol. ii. p. 597, No. 62Google Scholar; Boeckh, tom. i. p. 48, No. 31; Rose, , Inscript. Graecae, p. 20Google Scholar, tab. iii. 1.

page 70 note 1 Under the N is a letter, possibly part of an O, which must have been there before the N was inscribed. It is not improbable that this was the commencement of an inscription, intended to read from left to right.

page 70 note 2 Dodwell, , Travels in Greece, vol. ii. p. 301.Google Scholar

page 70 note 3 Pausanias, lib. vi. cap. 10.

page 71 note 1 Horae Ferales, p. 166, Pl. xi.; Evans, Ancient Bronze Implements, figs. 428–435.

page 71 note 2 Arch. Zeitung, vol. viii. p. 181, No. 3; Ausgrabungen zu Olympia, I. Pl. xxi. fig. 8; The Inscription, Pl. xxii.

page 72 note 1 Arch. Zeitung, vol. xii. p. 149, No. 299.

page 72 note 2 Arch. Zeitung, vol. xi. p. 140, No. 181, Pl. 18, 4,; Ausgrabungen zu Olympia, III. (1877–78), Pl. xxv. 1.

page 72 note 3 Arch. Zeitung, xii. p. 160, No. 310.

page 73 note 1 Arch. Zeitung, xii. p. 164, No. 325.

page 73 note 2 A spear, engraved in the Journal of Hellenic Studies, has a butt of this form, vol. i. Pl. vi.

page 75 note 1 ix. 391.

page 76 note 1 Lib. i. cap. 215.

page 79 note 1 Boeckh, Corp. Inscr. Graec. No. 1603, 4004, 4367f.

page 79 note 2 Antiquités Helléniques, vol. ii. p. 731, No. 1032.

page 79 note 3 Corp. Inscr. Graec, vol. ii. p. 347, No. 2385.

page 79 note 4 Lib. ix. cap. 39.

page 79 note 5 Travels in Northern Greece, vol. ii. p. 130.

page 79 note 6 Amatoriae Narrationes, Opera, Ed. Oxon. 1797, vol. iv. p. 95.

page 79 note 7 Line 886.

page 80 note 1 Ed. Lipsiae, 1805, p. 457.

page 80 note 2 Ed. Paris 1679, p. 20.

page 80 note 3 Ed. Dindorf, l. 355.

page 80 note 4 Line 532.

page 80 note 5 Liber vi. cap. 1