Journal - Comune di Monteleone di Spoleto

48
fied the female figure as earth, whence the chariot springs
into the sky. 31 Hampe and Simon’s objection that such a
personification was impossible when the chariot was built
(they date it to 550 – 540 B.C.) is a major obstacle, unless the
master craftsman who designed the monteleone chariot is
to be considered a forerunner. identification of the woman
as Polyxena, the Trojan princess who was sacrificed at the
tomb of achilles, has so far not found general acceptance. 32
By representing the paideia, kalokagathia, arete, and
apotheosis of achilles, the master craftsman and his customer
created the most eloquent heroic paradigm of the
archaic age discovered so far in areas of italy not under
Greek rule.
The inspiration for the epic subjects. Since i agree with
Hampe and Simon’s interpretation of the narrative content
of the scenes and their reference to the saga of achilles, i
refer to their studies on the sources of inspiration underlying
the iconography of the monteleone chariot. in the interest
of completeness, however, i shall outline their conclusions,
pointing out any differences of opinion. The monteleone
chariot depicts episodes of the story of achilles that are not
in the Homeric poems on the Trojan War but instead are
in the epic cycle, episodes that were handed down orally
and used by artists in various appropriate contexts. only
the delivery of arms on the front panel appears in the Iliad.
Hampe and Simon demonstrate that Thetis is presenting
achilles with his new armor, specially forged for him by
Hephaistos. it replaces the armor that achilles provided
to Patroklos and that, except for the spear, Hector stripped
from Patroklos after he killed him. note that achilles is
not presented with a spear, because he still possessed the
one made by Chiron for his father, Peleus. 33 The combat in
which achilles kills memnon by transfixing him with the
spear is the climax of the Aithiopis, which ends with the
death of achilles and with his mother, Thetis, carrying his
ashes to the island of leuke, at the mouth of the danube.
That epic, however, does not speak of the hero’s apotheosis.
in order to identify achilles with the immortal horses
Xanthos and Balios depicted in the scene on the proper left
panel, Hampe and Simon drew on a passage of alkaios that
hints at the heroic kingship of achilles, as well as on the
conclusion of the Ilioupersis by arktinos of miletos and also
the Cypria. They suggest that, following a little-known variant,
the hero is returning to the isle of leuke, the realm of
the afterlife of heroes, after leaving it to savor the blood of
Polyxena, who was sacrificed to him by the Greeks after the
conquest of Troy. 34 The fact that the presumed Polyxena,
recumbent under the winged horses, is depicted as alive,
and thus before her sacrifice, has sparked animated and
unresolved debate among scholars. Thus, the identification
of the woman remains uncertain. 35
The scene on the proper right side frieze depicting the
centaur Chiron tutoring the boy achilles on mount Pelion is
inspired by the Cypria. although some still question Hampe
and Simon’s interpretation of the scene, 36 i agree with their
analysis, on the basis of the additional evidence i have
advanced in this section.
it is evident from this review that the person who designed
the decorative program was acquainted with the
Homeric and Cyclic poems through various sources of oral
transmission, so that different versions of the stories at times
intertwine and overlap. The artists and craftsmen who specialized
in executing such images would choose individual
episodes of a story according to their particular background
and training, the function of the object they were decorating,
and the probable taste of their customers or a specific
request by the person who commissioned it. 37 Though
it was imported from athens and made by Greek artists,
the famous François Vase, which Beazley has hypothesized
was commissioned for an aristocratic wedding, makes an
interesting comparison. 38 regarding the two male figures
seated on a throne sculpted into the Tomb of the Statues
(680 – 670 B.C.) in Ceri, near Cerveteri in etruria, Francesca
Serra ridgway wrote of “customers who surely knew very
well what they wanted and, through relationships with their
peers in other countries, knew where to find the specialists
who were capable of producing it.” 39
in the case of the chariot, the person who commissioned
it probably decided the iconographic program. He may
even have presented the artist — whom he would also have
chosen — with his specifications in some form. The patron
was certainly well versed in the Greek epics and knew that
“in the etruscan world, achilles seems to have taken on a
function of ideal reference in the definition of the values
befitting aristocratic society.” 40 The scenes depicted on the
chariot conveyed the message that he had been tutored during
his childhood just as the hero had been taught by Chiron,
that in his youth he had attained physical perfection and
moral integrity, and that in his adulthood he was a warrior and
had participated in military actions that achieved supremacy
for his own group, over which he was already either invested
with supreme power or expected to be through legitimate
succession. The further implication was that divine honors
due to the rex awaited him in the afterlife (see Section ii.C).
in all likelihood the myths surrounding achilles and the
representations circulating at the time did not include a journey
down to the underworld on a chariot drawn by winged
horses, and all scholars have encountered diffi culties in
interpreting the proper left panel correctly using available
literary and visual sources. The scenes on this panel must
have resulted from a joint decision by the purchaser and
the artist: the decoration seems to be a mixture of scenes
of triumphi as depicted in contemporary friezes on latin