HESPERIA 7I (2002) "P R E DATO RY" Pages 325-344 G O D D E S S E S AB STRACT It is oftenassumed that depictions on Atticvases ofthe goddessEos carrying offyoungmortals were meant to conveya strongnegative message about the dangersof femalesexuality. But canwe be surethat the mythsabout Eos and herlovers,like those of abductionsof mortalsby othergods, were intended as commentarieson humansexual conduct? Goddesses (unlike women) are im- mortal,ageless, and powerfilLEvidence from the ancientsources suggests insteadthat depictionsof abductionsby Eos weremeant to representboth the romanceand anguish of divlneinterventions into mortallife, andto re- mindtheir users of the inexorablepower of the gods. ABDUCTIONS OF MORTALS BY EOS AND OTHER GODDESSES The malegods of ancientGreece are known for theirinterest in mortal women.lBut goddesses also were active in seekingout mortal consorts, at leastin theera before the Trojan War, when the gods were still dining with mortals([Hes.] Cat., fr. 1.1-10 MW; Hes. Theog. 585-587). Hesiod'sTheo- gony,in theform in which it hascome down to us,ends with a catalogueof Zeus'sconsorts and children, followed by thoseof the othergods (Hes. Theog.886-962). To this catalogueis appendeda list of"the immortal 1. Comparethe Hebrewtradition C.Sourvinou-Inwood for advice and Maine(Fig. 6); Museo archeologico aboutthe originof the giantsknown as encouragement;and to C. Gentilesco nazionaledi Ferrara(Fig. 7); Madrid, theNephelim: "the gods saw that the foreditorial assistance. Acknowledg- Museoarqueologico nacional (Fig. 8); daughtersof humanswere attractive, mentis madealso to the following: HermitageMuseum, St. Petersburg andthey took wives from whomever Antikensammlung,Staatliche Museen (Fig.9); Musei Vaticani, Archivo theychose" (Genesis 6.2); West 1997, zuBerlin, Preussischer Kulturbesitz fotografico(Fig. 10); Soprintendenza p.117. (Figs.1, 14);Baltimore Museum of Art archeologicaper Etruria meridionale My thanksespecially to D. von (Fig.2); Walters Art Museum,Balti- (Fig.11); Musee du Louvre,Paris Bothmer,M. Kilmer,and also to the more(Fig. 3); Museum of FineArts, (Fig.12); British Museum, London refereesand editors of Hesperiafor Boston(Fig. 4); Metropolitan Museum (Fig.13). Translations, unless other- specificimprovements and corrections; ofArt, New York(Fig. 5); Bowdoin wisenoted, are my own. toE. R. Knauer,B. Ridgway,and CollegeMuseum of Art,Brunswick, American School of Classical Studies at Athens is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve, and extend access to Hesperia ® www.jstor.org 326 MARY R. LEFKOWITZ goddesseswho bedded with mortal men and bore children who resembled the gods"(Hes. Theog.967-968): Demeterand Iasion, Harmonia and Kadmos,Kallirhoe and Chrysaor, Eos andTithonos, Eos andKephalos, Medeiaand Iason, Psamathe and Aiakos, Thetis and Peleus, Aphrodite andAnchises, Kirke and Odysseus, and Kalypso and Odysseus (Hes. Theog. 969-1020).2When in the OdysseyKalypso complains that the gods are jealousof the goddesseswho sleepwith mortalmen, she alludesto the storyof Eosand Orion along with that of Demeterand Iasion (Od. 5.118- 128).Homer also mentions Eos and Kleitos (Od. 15.572-575), and Sappho alludesto thestory of Aphroditeand Adonis (fr. 140 Voigt).3The Hesiodic Catalogueof Women,although mostly about the liaisons of godswith mor- talwomen, appears to haveincluded accounts of Thetis'smarriage to Peleus (fr.210-211 MW) andof Selene'sromance with Endymion (fr. 245 MW).4 In viewof the frequencywith which these stories turn up in Archaic poetry,it is notsurprising that the gods' liaisons with mortals are frequently portrayedon vases by Athenian painters, or that Eos and her lovers appear on a relativelylarge proportion of them.In thevases catalogued by Sophia Kaempf-Dimitriadouthere are more scenes depicting Eos andher lovers thanscenes portraying Zeus, either with femalemortals or with Gany- medes.5The mythof Eos andKephalos had special appeal for an Athe- nianaudience because Kephalos was a localboy; so didvases depicting the abductionof the Athenianprincess Oreithyia by the wind-godBoreas.6 The Eos vaseshad a wideappeal for Athenian audiences, as well as for theItalian market: 37 of 210 red-figuredvases listed by CarinaWeiss were foundin mainlandItaly or Sicily,and 38 areNolan amphoras.7 Kaempf- Dimitriadouconcluded that scenes in which gods abducted mortals might haveserved as remindersof the precariousnessof human existence.8 She alsosuggested that scenes in whichEos carriedoff youngmen might in somecases have served as consolationin timeof death.9 In recentyears, however, scholars have sought to extrapolateinforma- tionfrom these scenes about Athenian attitudes toward human male and femalesexuality. Andrew Stewart, in a detaileddiscussion of theEos vases, rightlymakes a carefuldistinction between ordinary rape of mortalsby 2. On the traditionthat Medeia was of Demeter/Iasiontakes place in a 109,there are 147 sceneswith Eos and immortal,c£ Pind.Pyth. 4.11;Braswell plowedfield, like the ritualmarriage of herlovers as opposedto 116 depicting 1988, p.76. The mythof Kirkemay the goddessInanna to the kingof Su- Zeusand his lovers(60 withwomen haveits originsin NearEastern epic: mer.One kingis evencalled Dumuzi, and56 with Ganymedes).Boreas and Ishtarin the Gilgameshepic turns two the nameof herdivine spouse; cf. Oreithyiais the nextmost popular of herlovers into animals(Gilg. 3.7, Frymer-Kensky1992, pp. 50-57. subjectwith 56, followedby Poseidon 6.2.26); seeWest 1997, p.408, n. 14. 4. On Seleneand Endymion, see andhis loverswith 40. The mythsabout Eos andher lovers Ap. Rhod.4.57; the storymay come 6. Bothmyths were portrayed in the mayhave influenced the characteriza- fromMusaeus's Theogony (cf. Epi- akroteriaof the Athenians'temple at tion of Kalypso,Kirke, and Aphrodite; menides3B2 I 33 DK;see FGrHist Delos;Robertson 1975, p. 356. cf. Boedeker1974, pp.64-84; Friedrich IIIb Suppl.I, p. 575).Another of 7. LIMC III, 1986,pp. 759-775, 1978, pp.39-43. Selene'smortal lovers was the Eleu- s.v.Eros (C. Weiss). 3. The mythof Aphrodite/Adonis sinianruler and hierophant Eumolpos, 8. Kaempf-Dimitriadou1969, cameto Cyprusand Asia Minor from by herthe fatherof Musaeus(Philo- pp.47-53. the cultof Ishtarand Thammuz in chorus328, FGrHist F208 = schol. 9. Kaempf-Dimitriadou1969, p.57; Syria;see Page1955, p.127. On the Ar.Ran. 1033). Vermeule1979, pp. 162-178;LIMC identityof Aphroditewith Ishtar, cf. 5. In the catalogueof vasesin III, 1986,p. 779, s.v.Eos (C. Weiss). Burkert1992, pp.20,97-98. The union Kaempf-Dimitriadou1969, pp. 76- PREDATORY GODDESSES 327 mortalsand the eroticinterventions into human life madeby gods.l° But he accountsfor the popularityof the Eos vasesby suggestingthat they mighthave been understood as a meansof definingand justifying the dominanceof malesexuality: "Mythological pursuits and abductions rep- resentnothing more or less thanthe projectionof Athenianmale desire firstupon the heroicworld and then upon the divineone.''1l Whatrole do the Eosvases play in this"projection of Athenianmale desire"?Stewart suggests that the discourse about Eos and her boy victims mayultimately be intendedas a warning:"not only do thesepictures hint at the evilsoffemale dominance (gynaikoArateia) and easy capitulation to desire,but nervouslyevoke their appalling consequences: female control of thephallus.''l2 Robin Osborne agrees with Stewart that female pursuers invertthe normal codes of sexualbehavior.l3 In hisview, the vases provide a displayof whatnever could or shouldhappen in Atheniansociety, be- causeof the closerestrictions on femaledesire, at leastamong respectable women:"in limiting scenes of femalepursuit to the caseof the winged Eos,pot painterswere able both to suggestthat women did desiremen andthat female desire could not be activein the realworld.''14 In thepresent article I arguethat Kaempf-Dimitriadou's understand- ingofthe purposeofthe Eosvases is morelikely to be correct:the primary purposeof the vaseswas to remindviewers of the powerof the godsto alterthe courseof humanlife, whether for better or worse. Painters who wishedto commenton thesexuality of mortalfemales did not need to use depictionsof goddessesto do so.In anycase, there is no reasonto believe thatAthenian men wished to discouragefemale passion, even within the contextof marriage.Rather, what the Eos vasesportray are the various stagesin theuses of persuasionand constraint in thepursuit of thegoddess's desire.None of the Eosvases depicts sexual activity, other than eye con- tact.Eos is no more"predatory" in her approaches to mortalsthan gods likeZeus or Boreas.15 Why do we supposethat vases depicting abductions of mortalsby godswere intended as commentaries on mortalsexual relationships? Cer- tainlyhuman beings project their own characteristicsonto the gods,as Xenophanesobserved: "Homer and Hesiod ascribed to the gods all the actionsthat among men causereproach and blame, lies, adulteries,and deceptionsof one another"(fr. 21 B12 I 132 DK = 160 KRS).But it is anothermatter to assumethat the reverse is true,that all of the actionsof thegods can in turnbe mirroredin thelives of humanbeings.l6The Greeks neverforgot about the limitationsimposed on humanaction by the fact of mortality.l7They madea cleardistinction between human rapes and 10. Stewart1995, pp. 74-77; c£ 13. Osborne1996, pp. 65-77. asbehind every man there is a satyr Zeitlin1986, p. 150,quoting Dover 14. Osborne1996, pp. 67-68, 76; restrainedonly by socialprotocols, so 1978,p. 88:"pursuit is the rolepre- cf. alsoFrontisi-Ducroux 1996, p. 83: behindevery