Homeric Wounds in Ancient Greek Art

Homeric wounds in ancient Greek art Horton A. Johnson, MD The author (AΩA, Tulane University 1979) was formerly director of Pathology at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital, and professor of Pathology at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. A previous contributor to The Pharos, he is presently a docent at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Photo credit: Andy Sotiriou 4 The Pharos/Autumn 2007 n 1879, when physicians had time for such things, Hermann Frölich, a German mili- Itary surgeon, counted the wounds enu- merated in Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey.1 In the latter work, he found nine from weapons and one from a wild boar. In the more ferocious Iliad, he counted 147 wounds due mostly to spears ( seventy-two percent), with fewer caused by swords (twelve percent), The Pharos/Autumn 2007 5 Homeric wounds in ancient Greek art arrows (eight percent), and stones (eight percent). Of the spear wounds, seventy-nine percent were fatal, fourteen percent were nonfatal, and for seven percent the mortality was unknown. The Homeric text is explicit about the locations of wounds. Frölich found that of the spear wounds, sixty-three percent were in the trunk, sixteen percent in the head, eight percent in the neck, six percent in a lower extremity, and 0.9 percent in an upper extremity. It follows that most of the Homeric wounds shown in ancient Greek art should be fatal spear wounds of the trunk. The Homeric text is also rather specific about the passage Figure 1. Pioneer Group. Ransom of Hektor. Attic red-figure of time—the days were often counted by the appearance of kalpis, late sixth century BC. Photo © President and Fellows of Harvard College. rosy-fingered Dawn. In 1889, Thomas Seymour, Hillhouse professor of Greek at Yale College, constructed a time line for the Iliad, which amounted to a period of about seven weeks.2 With such a scheme, the aging of the wounds chronicled in the The healing wound: work can be estimated. Hemostasis and As they illustrated scenes from the Iliad and Odyssey, the artists of ancient Greece could consult the texts about the granulation tissue bodily locations of important wounds, but the actual appear- ances of those wounds must have been taken from the artists’ own experiences. Examination of three pieces of artwork from Book 5 of the Iliad (day 22) relates the story of Sarpedon, a the late sixth and fifth centuries BC provides some insight son of Zeus fighting for the Trojans, who found himself facing into pre-Hippocratic Greek concepts of wounds and wound the Greek Tlepolemos, son of Herakles. Their spears left their healing. hands at the same instant. Sarpedon’s spear flew through the neck of Tlepolemos, killing him instantly. Tlepolemos’s spear The unhealed wound: lodged in Sarpedon’s left thigh, just grazing the bone. His comrades carried him off the field, but in their haste they ne- Hemorrhage glected to remove the ashen spear from his thigh. The jostling of the spear caused even more injury. Finally, his companions set him down under an oak tree and withdrew the spear. At A fresh wound was illustrated by the outpouring of bright that moment he felt he was dying, but with Zeus’s help, he was red blood, often projecting at an angle as though under arte- revived by the North wind. Sarpedon lived to fight another rial pressure. This could signify an unhealed wound even in a day, and the wound of his left thigh became one of Frölich’s corpse that had been dead for days. fifteen nonfatal spear wounds. But four days later, on day 26 Book 22 of the Iliad tells us that Achilles killed Hektor (Book 16), Sarpedon was killed by Patroklos, the favorite of by driving a spear into his neck, after which other Greeks Achilles. In his grief, Zeus ordered that his son’s body should took turns stabbing the body (day 27 of Seymour’s time-line). be carried home by the twin gods Sleep and Death. Eleven days later (day 38), King Priam of Troy visited Achilles This scene is painted on the great calyx krater (a vessel to ask for his son’s body (Book 24). used to mix water and wine, in the shape of the calyx of a Figure 1, a painting on a sixth century kalpis (water jar), flower) signed by Euphronios (Figure 2). The winged gods, illustrates tragic Priam pleading desperately for the body of guided by Hermes, carry the giant Sarpedon to his homeland. his son, while arrogant Achilles reclines on his couch casually His fresh and fatal spear wounds are marked by an outflow of finishing his lunch. Hektor’s body, feet bound, lies below the red blood resembling the hemorrhages of Hektor in Figure 1. couch. The painter shows the body, eleven days dead, with its Faithful to the text, Euphronios reminds the viewer of the multiple puncture wounds impossibly hemorrhaging, telling four-day-old spear wound of the left thigh. It is indicated by the viewer that they are recent, fatal wounds. There is no sign a small dot using the same color of paint used for the blood of healing. The artist knew that healing is a response only of (Figure 3).3 Here one sees Euphronios’s concept of a healing the living body. wound. It is no longer bleeding. The tissue around the wound 6 The Pharos/Autumn 2007 has contracted. It does not have the linear shape of the recent It was important that the artist show this healing wound. spear wounds, but is now small and rounded. The wound It recalls the fact that Zeus had already saved Sarpedon’s life is still the color of fresh blood. Euphronios, having seen the once before, and it reminds the viewer that Sarpedon had a growing granulation tissue of healing wounds, noted that even significant disadvantage in his final struggle. Lesser men, some though bleeding had stopped, wounds remained the color of four days after a deep spear wound in the thigh, could scarcely fresh blood for many days. walk, much less do battle. Had he not been weakened by the earlier wound, Sarpedon might have killed Patroklos, and it would have been he instead of Hektor who would have faced the wrath of Achilles. It is interesting to note in passing that there is little either in the Homeric text or in ancient Greek art to suggest wound infection. The chronically infected snake-bite wound of Philoktetes’s foot (mentioned in the Iliad but not listed by Frölich) is an exception.4 The many penetrating wounds caused by dirty bronze spearheads must have left a scourge of deadly anerobic infections. The healed wound: Fibrosis Figure 2. Calyx-krater (bowl for mixing wine and water). Signed Healed wounds, of which there must have been many, by Euxitheos, as potter. Signed by Euphronios, as painter. Late sixth century BC. Terracotta. Side A: Death of Sarpedon. were almost never shown by ancient Greek artists. The battle The Metropolitan Museum of Art, lent by the Republic of Italy (L.2006.10). Image © 1999 The scar, surely considered a mark of bravery, was avoided in art, Metropolitan Museum of Art. perhaps because it would have been seen as a blemish on an otherwise ideal body. Similarly, the Amazons were never shown with the amputated breasts for which they were named. Strange rows of dots on the skin are seen in a few early black- figure vase- paintings, and John Boardman proposed that they may represent battle scars.5 Such markings are not seen in paintings of late Archaic and Classical periods. However, one healed wound, a large mass of fibrous tissue as palpable as it was visible, was so essential to the Homeric narrative that it may have been represented on a fifth-century relief. It was cited in Frölich’s tally of wounds in the Odyssey— not a battle scar, but a scar left by a wild boar’s tusk. As a lad, Odysseus hunted wild boar with his grandfather and uncles on the slopes of Mount Parnassus. He was charged Figure 3. Detail of by a boar, which he killed with his spear, but not before the Figure 2. In the boar’s tusk had deeply gashed his leg above the knee. The center is Sarpedon’s wound was carefully tended, but it left a scar well known to his four-day-old healing family and servants. When he returned home to Ithaca twenty wound of the left thigh. years after he had left for the siege of Troy, that scar served as Hemorrhages from recent fatal wounds are proof of his identity. on either side. While he was away, his faithful wife, Penelope, was harassed The Metropolitan Museum of by nefarious suitors who wooed her, ravaged her palace, and Art, lent by the Republic of Italy (L.2006.10). Image © 1999 The ravished her housemaids. To take these vile men by surprise, Metropolitan Museum of Art. Odysseus, man of many devices, made his first appearance The Pharos/Autumn 2007 7 Homeric wounds in ancient Greek art in the palace disguised as a beggar. During his audience with Queen Penelope, he was not recognized by her or by any of her associates. This scene is represented by the terracotta relief shown in Figure 4. Odysseus, in rags, stands before the grieving Penelope. Behind her are her son and her elderly father-in-law. Seated is the faithful swineherd Eumaeus. On the leg of Odysseus, just above the knee, there is a definite lump (Figure 5).

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