Journal of Biblical Literature - Society of Biblical Literature

298
Journal of Biblical Literature
Figure 11. Three reliefs (left to right): Aphrodite and Eros; Aeneas’s Flight from Troy;
Poseidon. Courtesy of the New York University Excavations at Aphrodisias.
except that Aphrodite accompanies him as a figure inscribed into the background
of the scene. The meaning of the third panel is uncertain: Poseidon and
the other figures might allude to the sea voyage of Aeneas. 46
In spite of the uncertainties, the gist of this deployment is unmistakable.
The panels rework established Aphrodite mythology (Lincoln’s third use of
myth) to emphasize a special relationship between Romans and Aphrodisians:
the local city’s eponymous goddess is portrayed as the ancestor of the Romans
through Aeneas. Furthermore, there is a direct connection to the reliefs above
these (in room 1 of the third story; this is one of the few places where the panels
of the second story intersect with those directly above them). Directly above
the flight of Aeneas on the second floor is a third-floor panel with Augustus as
military victor (fig. 12), which was flanked by panels of the Dioskouroi. Taken
together, then, the reliefs of the first rooms of the second and third stories craft
a narrative in which the historical military victories of Augustus and the
Romans are incorporated into panhellenic myth, and into local myth (Lincoln’s
second use of myth, but not analogical this time). 47 It is particularly important
that this confluence of myths occurs at the east end of the portico next to the
altar area and temple, which was the ritual center of the complex. As the viewer
46 Ibid., 97.
47 Ibid., 100. The scope of this article does not allow discussion of the north portico, where
the entire second story appears to be devoted to the conquests of Augustus; see Smith, “Simulacra
Gentium.”