Atalanta as Model: The Hunter and the Hunted - Robert Bedrosian's ...

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74 CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY Volume 15/No. 1/April 1996 vase. White-ground lekythoi were most commonly associated with the funerary realm, and the Greek perceptions of marriage as a metaphorical death for the bride are well known.137 Atalanta faces a metaphorical death if she is caught in the footrace, her flight from Eros. We might recall that Amazons, those outsiders to whom Atalanta is visually linked in vase paintings of the Calydonian boar hunt, were either married or killed when they encountered Greek men-and perhaps we should understand their marriages as metaphorical deaths as well. The apples in this myth are also significant. As Marcel Detienne notes, the Greek word for apple, [rtXov, is also used of pomegranates, and according to one version of the myth, Aphrodite retrieved the fruit given to Atalanta's suitor from a pomegranate tree.'38 The apple or pomegranate is typically associated with wedding rites and with the nuptial sphere.'39 Apples appear in several myths of maidens who submit to marriage, such as Akontios and Cydippe, where they are the means by which the girl is won.140 Pomegranates are commonly thrown at newly wedded couples, and the pomegranate also recalls the famous myth of Hades and Persephone; it is because of eating the pomegranate seeds that Persephone is bound to remain in the Underworld as Hades' bride for part of each year (Hymn. Horn. Cer.).'41 Christopher Faraone has recently suggested that the apples in such myths are used to excite sexual desire in the woman, and he demonstrates their use as such in a magical papyrus of Augustan date and much earlier in Neo-Assyrian incantation texts from the ninth century B.C.'42 This posited use also applies to the jtXca in the Atalanta myth: in retrieving the apples, Atalanta accepts the idea of sexual union with her pursuer, just as Persephone was bound to Hades when she ate pomegranate seeds.'43 She competes with the suitor as ephebe, as hunter on initiatory hunt, as a young girl in a prenuptial race, but ultimately her femininity asserts itself and she yields to the male order. TRANSFORMATION What do these three myths tell us about Atalanta? She is a participant in many traditional male activities and has masculine attributes. For example, she carries armor; she participates in athletics, such as wrestling and the footrace 137. Barringer (supra, n. 91) 95-109; Buitron-Oliver (supra, n. 134) 440. 138. Detienne (supra, n. 5) 41-44. 139. Gernet (supra, n. 124) 24; A. R. Littlewood, "The Symbolism of the Apple in Greek and Roman Literature," HSCP 72 (1968) 147-81; and Jtlrgen Trumpf, "Kydonische Apfel," Hermes 88 (1960) 14-22. 140. E.g., Call. frags. 67-75; Ov., Her. 20. On apples in Greek myth, see Littlewood (supra, n. 139), esp. 149-59, 180-81 with further bibliography; Trumpf (supra, n. 139). 141. Detienne (supra, n. 5) 43-44. See also Marylin Arthur, "Politics and Pomegranates: An Interpretation of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter," Arethusa 10 (1977) 7-47. 142. Christopher A. Faraone, "Aphrodite's KESTOS and Apples for Atalanta," Phoenix 45 (1990) 219-43. 143. Faraone (supra, n. 142) 238. This content downloaded from 71.172.230.227 on Thu, 25 Jul 2013 17:02:27 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
BARRINGER: Atalanta as Model 75 (an armed race); she hunts; she competes with the suitors; and she is depicted exercising in the nude like an ephebe.44 Yet she partakes of the "normal" feminine sphere-she participates in a prenuptial race-and also the inverted world of the female Amazon and maenad. She is both male and female, ephebe and young girl about to be married, and like these liminal figures, she can also be Amazon and maenad. In short, Atalanta is a study in ambiguity and the blurring of gender distinctions. In all these myths and in all the images, Atalanta is emblematic of the liminal figure, betwixt and between male and female, immature and mature, like the ephebe who is not a boy and not yet an adult citizen, and like the girl about to be married, no longer part of her father's home, but not yet integrated into her new husband's home. Atalanta's liminal state is apparent in all the myths-in the boar hunt, where Atalanta is female yet a model pre-adult or ephebe; in the wrestling contest, an activity of the pre-adult or ephebe and in this case possibly a struggle prior to sexual union; and in the footrace, a premarital rite or initiatory hunt. Atalanta wishes to remain in this liminal state forever, not attaining and accepting the responsibilities of sexual adulthood. In this way, Atalanta represents everyday reality for the Greeks; she is expressive of a girl's reluctance to marry and leave her father's home.'45 Yet she finally does marry, and as Jean-Pierre Vernant says, the yoke of marriage domesticates the wild virgin.46 Although ancient authors sometimes mention that Atalanta had a son, Parthenopaios,'47 later Greek and Latin sources provide fuller accounts of Atalanta's later life, and typical of devotees of Artemis (and of Artemis herself), Atalanta ends in an equally ambiguous state.'4 Ac cording to the mythical strain that has Atalanta marry the man who defeats her in the footrace, Atalanta and her husband are punished by Aphrodite, who is angered at the suitor's having neglected to give a thank offering to her after the race (Ov., Met. 10.681-83; Hyg., Fab. 185). As a punishment, the goddess fills the couple with lustful feelings while in a sanctuary of Zeus or Cybele. They cannot contain their feelings and consummate their love in the sanctuary,'49 breaking one of the most sacred taboos of the Greeks. Apollodorus 3.9.2 says nothing about a neglected sacrifice and instead states that while Atalanta and Melanion were hunt ing, they entered a precinct of Zeus and had intercourse there. As punishment, Zeus (Apollod. 3.9.2; Hyg., Fab. 185) or Cybele (Ov., Met. 10.698-707; Myth. 144. On female nudity and dress in athletics, see Arrigoni (supra, n. 108) 70 and passim. 145. Cf. Richard Seaford, "Eleventh Ode of Bacchylides: Hera, Artemis, and the Absence of Dionysos," JHS 108 (1988) 119; Calame (supra, n. 12) 189. 146. Jean-Pierre Vernant, Introduction to Detienne (supra, n. 82) xv. 147. Schol. at Aesch., Th. 532.9-13, 533.1-4, 535.4-5 in G. Dindorf, Aeschylus: Tragoediae superstites et deperditarum fragmenta 3 (Hildesheim, 1962); Soph., OC 1320 and schol. ad loc; Eur., Ph. 150 and schol. ad loc, 1153, Supp. 887-89; Hecat. in FGrH frag. 32; Apollod. 3.9.2; Diod. Sic. 4.65.4, 4.65.7. 148. Cf. Scanlon (supra, n. 51) 106. 149. Ov., Met. 10.686-95; Hyg., Fab. 185; Serv., In Verg. Aen. 3.113.22-26; Myth. Vat. 1.39. This content downloaded from 71.172.230.227 on Thu, 25 Jul 2013 17:02:27 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
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