ARCADIAN CULT IMAGES BETWEEN RELIGION and POLITICS Tanja S
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ARCADIAN CULT IMAGES BETWEEN RELIGION AND POLITICS Tanja S. Scheer The naval battle at Aktion had consequences not only for the immedi- ately involved opponents, but also for the Greek world. The aftershocks of this clash of enormous fleets shook the city of Rome. They also, how- ever, reached the rather remote parts of the Roman Empire, such as the Arcadian territory and the cult images of its deities. Two Arcadian poleis were apparently particularly affected by this: Mantineia and Tegea. Both cities were located inland and shared the same Arcadian plateau. Neither Tegea nor Mantineia were likely to have been particularly prominent in the naval battle, for the incompetence at sea of the Arcadian mountain dwellers was proverbial until the Imperial period. The fact that the battle of Aktion brought about unequal consequences for the two towns was due to their respective political attitude. In the Roman civil war, Mantineia had supported the victor Octavian. The other Arcadians, so Pausanias tells us, were allies of Marcus Antonius.1 These partisanships did presumably not go back to well-founded preferences for one or the other Roman triumvir, but reflected inner-Greek discrep- ancies: Sparta sided with Octavian,2 while the opponents of Sparta on the Peloponnese rallied around Antonius.3 The battle at Aktion gave the victorious party an opportunity for payoff. Friends were rewarded, but those who had sided with the wrong party had to pay for this mistake. The Athenians lost Aigina and Eretria, and the island of Kos was apparently forced to sell the famous painting of Aphrodite by Apelles on the account of having delivered shipbuilding timber to Antonius.4 One example of friends being rewarded is the city of Kydonia, which put up resistance against Antonius and consequently was awarded autonomy by Augustus.5 1 Paus. ... 2 Cf. Böhme , . 3 Cf. also Paus. ... See also Bernhardt , and Accame , . 4 Cf. generally Paus. ..–. Athens: Bernhardt , n. ; Kos: Strabo .. (C ); Plin. Nat.hist. .. 5 Diod. ..; Paus. ... Tanja S. Scheer - 9789047441656 Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 08:21:51AM via free access tanja s. scheer The principle of reward and punishment found application also in Ar- cadia—at least according to Pausanias. Possibly in remembrance of the alliance at Aktion, the Mantineans established the cult of Aphrodite Symmachia,6 but the Tegeans are said to have been punished: “The ancient cult image of Athena Alea . [was] carried away by the Roman emperor Augustus after his defeat of Antonius and his allies, among whomwerealltheArcadiansexcepttheMantineans”.7 Compared to the attitude of the Romans during the punishment of the rebellious Korinth approximately one hundred years earlier, the behav- iour of Augustus appears downright moderate in retrospect. While the Roman conqueror Mummius had wiped Korinth off the map in bce, solditsresidentsintoslaveryorslaughteredthem,theTegeans“only”lost the agalma of Athena Alea. The following contribution will focus on three basic questions: – Which reasons moved Octavian, later Augustus, to proceed in this manner in Arcadia? – What did this punishment concerning the cult image of their main deity mean to the Tegeans? What consequences did the removal of the cult statue have for sanctuary and cities in general? – Which insights concerning the religious significance of cult images in Greece and Rome per se can be derived from the behaviour of Augustus and the Tegeans? Augustus and the cult image of Athena Alea The motivation of Augustus to carry away Athena Alea appears com- pletely clear to Pausanias. On this occasion, Augustus is said to have acted according to a long-standing tradition of taking the cult statues from the defeated as a form of punishment.8 In the passage that follows, the perieget cites a whole range of further examples, according to which this allegedly happened, for example the assaults of the Persians on Greek sanctuaries. It is, however, imperative to enquire more exactly here: Was it a force of habit that drove the victors? Was it the wish to weaken the 6 Mantineia: Paus. ... Accame , ; Jost , ; –; Madigan , ; Bruit Zaidman – Schmitt Pantel , –. 7 Paus. ... 8 Paus. ... Tanja S. Scheer - 9789047441656 Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 08:21:51AM via free access arcadian cult images between religion and politics religious power of the defeated? Was it general greed, or did Augustus specifically target the Athena Alea of Tegea because it represented the enemy and its allies in a particular manner? Some circumstantial evidence points to the latter direction. The Te- gean Athena offered herself as “hostile” deity in several regards. In the Augustan era, the Arcadian landscape was apparently often falsely per- ceived as wasteland. According to the geographer Strabo, only two of the Arcadian poleis were worthy of mention at all: Tegea and Mantineia.9 If Mantineia, however, was siding with Octavian, then Tegea represented all the more the hostile pole of this territory. Tegea, with its main deity Athena, was the most important polis of the rest of Arcadia, which was siding with Antonius. If one then wanted to punish the opposing Arca- dian party as a whole, it was more than obvious to direct one’s efforts against Tegea.10 Even beyond the current behaviour of the Tegeans, however, the god- dess Athena politically represented the enemy. In Athens, Marcus Anto- nius had boasted about a special connection with Athena. He even took an olive branch of Athena with him on his Parthian campaign as a pro- tective symbol.11 Whether the Athenians did symbolically wed Marcus Antonius with Athena is highly questionable.12 Antonius did, however, regard Athena as a goddess favourably disposed towards him. Obvi- ously, this impression had become known beyond his immediate envi- ronment. In addition, one has to ask whether the behaviour of Augustus was aimed at weakening the religious potential of the defeated in favour of his allies or even in favour of the Romans. The fact that the abduction of Athena Alea did indeed reduce the religious potential of Tegea is without question. An ancient cult image, which had been the most important seat of the deity for centuries, was irrecoverably lost. Whether the goddess would accept another seat at which the Tegeans would be just as successful in establishing contact with their deity would have yet to be proven.13 Interestingly enough, in this case, Augustus abstained from passing on the Tegean cult image to his allies and thereby from changing 9 Strabo .. (C ); cf. Alcock , –. 10 Alcock , . 11 Plut. Ant. .; Kienast , . 12 Sen. suas. .–; Dio Cass. ..; Scheer , . 13 Scheer , –. Tanja S. Scheer - 9789047441656 Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 08:21:51AM via free access tanja s. scheer the religious landscape on this important Arcadian plateau for the benefit of Mantineia. This would have suggested itself as an obvious option. In the befriended neighbouring city, residents had also been admiring Athena Alea since ancient times, but their worship had never succeeded in measuring up to the significance of the Tegean cult.14 In a similar case Augustus did not hesitate to utilise cult images as a means of reward and punishment. The colony of Patrai, founded in bce, received the image of Artemis Laphria from Aitolian Kalydon on the opposite side of the Korinthian gulf.15 The synoecism of Nikopolis also left the Aitolian and Akarnanian temples to their fate. The images of the gods adorned the sanctuaries of the new victor city Nikopolis.16 In contrast to this, Athena Alea of Tegea was not used to strengthen the cultic importance of an ally. She rather became part of the Roman loot. Augustus’ attitude here does not amount to the abolition or even annihilation of religious potential but merely to its relocation and appro- priation. The cult image of Athena Alea was, after all, not destroyed but brought to Rome. Against this background, it is not clear, however, why Augustus chose this particular statue. In his description of Tegea, Pausanias lists a relatively large number of sanctuaries and cult images that were dedicated to various gods and heroes.17 So which advantages did the image of Athena Alea possess? Was it made of particularly precious material? Was it perhaps artistically valuable? Was the emphasis on the exceptionally old age or was it, like Athena Polias in Athens or Artemis Orthia in Sparta, among the small group of images which were believed to have fallen from the sky and which had special powers ascribed to them?18 Pausanias mentions the material of the Athena image. It was precious and in its own way definitely unusual. Athena Alea was made of ivory.19 If the image was made of solid ivory, it should have been comparatively small.Aconstructionmadeofwoodandivorywouldhaveallowed for greater dimensions. However, the fact that Athena Alea apparently 14 Athena Alea in Mantineia: Paus. ..; Jost , . 15 Paus. .. and –; Scheer , –; Auffarth , –. 16 Nikopolis: Paus. ..; Strabo .. (C ). 17 Paus. .–; Jost , –. 18 Scheer , . 19 For the comparative rareness of pure ivory images, see Norman , . For a possible explanation, see Lapatin , . Tanja S. Scheer - 9789047441656 Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 08:21:51AM via free access arcadian cult images between religion and politics survived the great temple fire in the year /—which means that it was saved from a burning building relatively quickly—indicates at any rate a portable, rather than a colossal size.20 If one assumes that it was a relatively small ivory image, the idea that it might have been an “image that fell from the sky” suggests itself. Modest size was a typical characteristic of these so-called diopete¯.The word choice of Pausanias, however, speaks against this thesis. In contrast to particularly ancient (mostly wooden) images, which he calls xoana, Pausanias uses the word agalma in reference to Athena Alea.21 Furthermore, Pausanias names the artist who created the statue and by doing so precludes the possibility of a celestial origin of this cult image.