The Spectacle of War on Herakles' Shield (original) (raw)

Abstract

The decoration of the shield of Herakles, as it is described in the homonymous late archaic poem, collects a series of images, which all together convey a terrifying and spectacular image of war: fighting warriors, lying corpses, horrible monsters and raging gods generate a gloomy and macabre atmosphere. This iconography interacts with the main plot of the poem, which narrates the duel between Herakles and Kyknos - the son of Ares -, both being fully equipped in their armours. None would therefore deny that the Scutum Herculis aims at celebrating the spectacle of war in its multifarious dimensions, heroic as well as tragic. This paper focuses on the relationships between the various warlike subjects, which decorate the shield, and their concrete parallels in the contemporary archaic visual art. The aim of this approach is to show that it is possible to isolate a whole collection of bloody and fearful themes in the art of the archaic ages in Greece, and that it is not just a question of a personal taste for macabre scenes on part of the author of the poem - as it has been suggested for long time - but rather of a whole artistic trend. In detail, new iconographic comparisons with some decorative subjects of the shield will be proposed, like the motif of Ker seizing warriors and that of goddesses/vultures tearing corpses in pieces. These new comparisons are even more interesting in so far as they can offer concrete archaeological records for subjects, which until now were just considered products of the fantasy of the poet of the Scutum. A further step of this inquiry is to outline a growing taste for portraying the darkest and destructive sides of war during the archaic ages: this thread rises from the few hints contained in the Iliad to its full consecration in the Scutum, passing through a series of coeval pieces of figurative art. The whole tendency is here called ‘war as theatre of death’, in opposition to ‘war as theatre of andreia and kleos’, the alternative - and better known - image of war in the Greek epic tradition.

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