Bryn Mawr College Scholarship, Research, and Creative Work at Bryn Mawr College Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology Faculty Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology Research and Scholarship 1988 Review of Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC), vol. 3 (Atherion-Eros) Brunilde S. Ridgway Bryn Mawr College, [email protected] Let us know how access to this document benefits ouy . Follow this and additional works at: http://repository.brynmawr.edu/arch_pubs Part of the Classical Archaeology and Art History Commons, and the History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology Commons Custom Citation Ridgway, Brunilde S. 1988. Review of Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC), vol. 3 (Atherion-Eros). American Journal of Archaeology 92:138-139. This paper is posted at Scholarship, Research, and Creative Work at Bryn Mawr College. http://repository.brynmawr.edu/arch_pubs/54 For more information, please contact [email protected]. 138 AMERICAN JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY [AJA 92 nal in no consistent or publications, resulting graphic style Plates: pp. 826, pls. 741. Artemis-Verlag, Zurich scale. In a indication is and in some many, compass lacking, and Munich 1986. DM 2100 cases, the scale of reproduction renders details invisible. assistance Nevertheless, the plans provide an invaluable in Only two years after the appearanceof LIMC II, LIMC both and text. The 180 themati- following catalogue plates, III has joined it on the library shelf. In the meantime,both at the end of the are of cally grouped volume, generally good previous volumes have receivedstrongly positive reviews in quality. the scholarlyliterature, and the future of this Herculeanin- A second contains appendix eight presence-absence ternational feat seems assured,especially with the financial three of which summarizethe associationsof differ- charts, contributionof the J. Paul Getty Trust which is here ac- ent and material while the sanctuarytypes types by period, knowledgedfor the first time. The publishinghouse has also five the of associated with remaining present types objects agreedto maintain the original level of quality and price, for bench and lustral basins. I would sanctuaries,pillar crypts, which one must be grateful, despitethe considerableexpense have that the author refer to these charts more fre- preferred each issue represents for currently strained institutional as abstract information that takes quently, they succinctly budgets.With their wealth of information,bibliography and much in the text. up description plates, these volumes are still bargains,as one realizes when The dissertationon which this volume is based was origi- trying to obtain museum photographsfor personalpublica- submittedin 1972. and were un- nally Expansion updating tions; moreover,the encyclopaediccharacter of the work be- dertaken twice before the date of 1983 xx). As a press (p. gins to be reflectedin publishedarticles, where referenceto a most recent evidence has been taken into or result, account, LIMC often eliminatesthe need for illustrations.Even is at least mentioned. While the volume Sanctuaries and plate famous and frequentlyreproduced pieces can be convenient- Cults in the Aegean Bronze Age (Stockholm 1981) is re- ly cited from the single source, and are as useful as the many ferred to xix), it is that the author has not (p. surprising unpublished or little known items included in the various made more use of it, Hiller's article sum- particularly long entries. At the administrativelevel, the of the the Linear B evidence for relevant to presidency marizing sanctuaries, Conseil has shiftedfrom N. Yalouristo but the Crete. J. Pouilloux, Postpalatial life and soul of the continuesto be the Discussions of Minoan cult can lose of the raw ar- enterprise indefatig- sight able who still finds time to data for where cult is to Lilly Kahil, amazingly teach, chaeological places activity likely and contributeentries to each issue. have taken This book that raw data for do- travel, lecture, place. presents At the it is to note that each mestic back as far as is to con- scholarly level, surprising cult, going possible original volume of the LIMC so far has had a characterof its own. texts, and requiring (p. 2) that "distinctivearchitecture and M. Robertson commentedthat, if the first concentratedon cult objects both are necessary"to identify a cult area. At heroes, the second was on divinities times, however,the identificationof a cult area is made more primarily major (JHS 106 [1986] 259). The third is a mixed bag, with many short on the basis of previous interpretationsthan on secure ar- entries on personifications,river and Maenads' chaeologicalcriteria, for example, in the case of the so-called gods, Satyrs' names, obscure heroes, and There is lustral basin. The author acceptsthe view that these are cult mythological beings. also, however, a treatmentof a areas without offering proof securely based on archaeologi- lengthy majordeity, Diony- sos 414-514, C. and A. Veneri), with his cal evidence. Thus, to judge from the chart (p. 149) which (pp. by Gasparri ramifications in orientali, in Etruria summarizes finds from lustral basins, only that at Zakro peripheria (FU- FLUNS, M. Cristofani)and in the Roman world (Room XXIV) appears to have a range of cult objects.Yet a by (DIO- 540-66, also for a glance at the catalogue (p. 137) shows that all these objects NYSOS/BACCHUS, pp. by Gasparri), total of 160 still the on Bacchus in had in fact fallen from an upper story. Fortunately,the ex- plates-and entry peri- orientali is for the next volume! tensive catalogue and detailed description contained in the pheria promised Equally is the treatment of text allow the reader to make up his or her own mind about lengthy EROS/AMOR/CUPIDO (pp. with Eros in Etruria left for a particular identification.These features ensure that this 850-1049, pls. 609-727), LIMC IV. Other consideredare Dio- book will be valuable as a starting-pointfor studies of Mi- major figures Attis, the Charites E.B. the Dioskouroi noan settlement sanctuaries,and I hope the data presented medes, (by Harrison), not A sectionof Addenda will be reviewed in the light of Renfrew's recent discussion (but yet Demeter). (pp. 1050-86) includes of approaches to the identification of cult areas (The Ar- ARIADNE/ARIATHA, ASTARTE, BAGRA- with for a future chaeologyof Cult: The Sanctuaryat Phylakopi [BSA Suppl. DAS, APHRODITE/VENUS postponed 18, 1985] 11-26). volume (s.v. VENUS). in JOHN BENNET As previous issues, one may note here a certainamount DEPARTMENT OF CLASSICS of bibliographicaland scholarly unevenness, some discrep- VAN HISE HALL ancies in format, some overlaps in entries, and even some UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON contradictions,as well as healthy differences of opinion. MADISON, WISCONSIN 53706 P.E. Arias, for instance, includes the Delphic kouroi under BITON ET KLEOBIS, while A. Hermary likes them as LEXICON ICONOGRAPHICUMMYTHOLOGIAE CLASSICAE the DIOSKOUROI and reopens the issue on the identifica- tion of the Sounion kouroi. Other cases are more complex Text and (LIMC) III. (ATHERION-EROS). plates and occasionally even puzzling, at the present state of our bound separately. Text: pp. xxvii + 1086, figs. 218; knowledge-e.g., the discussion of the Dionysos from the 1988] BOOK REVIEWS 139 West pediment of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi as if it would survive and be the proper size for inclusion into the were an independenthead with replicas (no. 205, "fromthe Baths of Caracalla seems, on present evidence, somewhat Dionysion"[?]),while the pedimentalcomposition itself (no. improbable. 489) is listed under "raffigurazioniperdute." On the other Among the other interestingtheories, mention should be hand, that same article is remarkablyup-to-date in includ- made of H. Gabelmann's suggestion that all statues in the ing the latest readings of the Siphnian Treasury friezes (no. round of the sleeping Endymionare second-centuryImpe- 651, correctly paired with Themis), which are ignored in rial creations, rather than copies of Hellenistic prototypes. the entry on Eos. Other remarkableexamples of "latestin- A. Hermary doubtsthe funerarysignificance usually attrib- formation"are the depiction of BRITANNIA on the panel uted to the Greek EROS; thus even the meaning of the Ro- from the Sebasteion at Aphrodisias, and the Nachtrag to man AMOR "funeraire"is questioned (N. Blanc/F. Gury, CHARU(N) on the Tomb of the Blue Devils found in 1986. p. 1047). The innumerablerepresentations of this popular Given this meticulous updating, it is tempting to cite here deity are classified accordingto a variety of criteria, but I two additions: an Albanian Hellenistic gravestone (RA emerge with a rather unclear picture of development;I am 1986, 136-37, fig. 20) showing the deceased descending a still doubtfulabout the properassessment of the Eros Soran- ladder from the world of the living into Charon'sboat (espe- zo (77), the "Praxitelean"types (78-85), and even the Ly- cially since the latter seems to appear on only one other stele, sippan archer (352-354 with significant comments). As is where it is thereforequestioned: CHARON I, no. 57); and a also the case for Dionysos (and clearly emphasized by the representationof the Punishment of Dirke on the cuirass of sequence of photographs),many of the extant marble types seem decorativeworks made for a Roman a late-Republican marble statue found recently on Naxos. Classicizing clien- tele. In both the DIONYSOS and the EROS I miss Much more uncertain but perhaps worth mentioning is a