A palladium or palladion (plural palladia) is an image or other object of great antiquity on which the safety of a city or nation is said to depend. The word is a generalization from the name of the original Trojan Palladium, a wooden statue (xoanon) of Pallas Athena that Odysseus and Diomedes stole from the citadel of Troy. It was supposedly later taken to the future site of Rome by Aeneas, where it remained until perhaps transferred to Constantinople and was lost after the Empire converted to Christianity.
In English, since around 1600, the word "palladium" has been used figuratively to mean anything believed to provide protection or safety,[1] and in particular in Christian contexts a sacred relic or icon believed to have a protective role in military contexts for a whole city, people or nation. Such beliefs first become prominent in the Eastern Churches in the period after the reign of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I, and later spread to the Western church. Palladia were processed around the walls of besieged cities and sometimes carried into battle.[2] In this more offensive role they may also be referred to as "vexilla" (singular vexillum, Latin for "battle standard").
Nike (Victory) offers an egg to a snake entwined around a column surmounted by the Trojan Palladium. (Marble bas relief, Roman copy of the late 1st Century AD. After a neo-Attic original of the Hellenistic era.)
Troy and Rome
The original Palladion was part of the foundation myths of both Troy and Rome. It was a wooden image of Pallas (whom the Greeks identified with Athena and the Romans with Minerva) said to have fallen from heaven in answer to the prayer of Ilus, the founder of Troy. In the Trojan War the besieging Greeks discovered that they would be unable to take the city while it was protected by it, and so Odysseus and Diomedes stole it from the citadel of Troy before taking the city by the ruse of the Trojan Horse.
According to a later set of myths it was then taken to Rome, where an actual image, unlikely to have been actually of Trojan origin, was kept in the Temple of Vesta in the Roman Forum for centuries, and regarded as one of the pignora imperii, sacred tokens or pledges of Roman rule (imperium). The Roman story is related in Virgil's Aeneid and other works.[citation needed]
Athens
The goddess Athena was worshipped on the Acropolis of Athens under many names and cults, the most illustrious of which was of the Athena Poliás, "[protectress] of the city". The cult image of the Poliás was a wooden effigy, often referred to as the "xóanon diipetés" (the "carving that fell from heaven"), made of olive wood and housed in the east-facing wing of the Erechtheum temple in the classical era. Considered not a man-made artefact but of divine provenance, it was the holiest image of the goddess and was accorded the highest respect. It was placed under a bronze likeness of a palm tree and a gold lamp burned in front of it.
The centerpiece of the grand feast of the Panathenaea was the replacement of this statue's woolen veil with a newly woven one. It was also carried to the sea by the priestesses and ceremonially washed once a year, in the feast called the Plynteria ("washings"). Its presence was last mentioned by the Church FatherTertullian (Apologeticus 16.6), who, in the late 2nd century AD, described it derisively as being nothing but "a rough stake, a shapeless piece of wood" (Latin original: "[] Pallas Attica [] quae sine effigie rudi palo et informi ligno prostat?"). Earlier descriptions of the statue have not survived.[citation needed]
Christian palladia
10th-century icon of the Image of Edessa, with King Abgar V of the legend shown as Emperor Constantine VII who brought the image to Constantinople in 944
Around the end of the 6th century the first references to Christian palladia start to appear.[3] The Image of Edessa in Armenian Mesopotamia, or Mandylion, later moved to Constantinople, is one of the first and long the most famous examples. This was later credited with the failure of the Persian siege of Edessa in 544. But the image is not mentioned in the account of Procopius, writing soon after the event, and first appears as the agent of the failure in the history of Evagrius Scholasticus of about 593.[4] Specific icons, especially those of the Virgin Mary or Virgin and Child became credited with specialist functions, with their veneration aiding against disease or other misfortunes, and the military role of palladium was an example of this.
Beliefs attributing particular icons as palladia were found especially in the Eastern Churches, and have remained particularly powerful in Russian Orthodoxy, where a number of icons protected different cities. Important public officials in Imperial Russia would have an insignia that signified their status and authority. This was treated with very great respect. In Celtic Christianity, palladia were more often relics that were typically possessions of a saint, such as books, bells, belts and croziers, all housed in reliquaries.
In Ireland, these functioned as the battle standards of clans rather than protecting a city.[citation needed] They were sometimes carried into battle in their reliquaries or cumdach,[citation needed] hanging by a chain around the neck of a member of the clan. In the Western church, such beliefs have declined even in Catholic countries since the Reformation, and have disappeared in Protestant beliefs.
The Byzantine palladia, which first appear in the late 6th century, cannot be said to have had a very successful track record, as apart from Constantinople most major cities in Egypt, Syria and later Anatolia fell to Muslim attacks.[5] Just before the start of the Byzantine Iconoclasm an incident of what might be called a "reverse-palladium" is recorded. According to Iconoclast sources an officer called Constantine, defending Nicaea against an Arab siege in 727, smashed an icon of the Virgin, and this saved the city. The Iconodule sources also record the incident, but say that Constantine was promptly killed, and the city saved by other icons, including the famous series of 318 portraits of participants in the First Council of Nicaea which adorned the hall where the council had met in 325.[6]
The Image of Camuliana was an icon of Christ which was the earliest important palladium of Constantinople after it reached the city in 574, but seems to have been destroyed in the Byzantine Iconoclasm.[7]
The Virgin Hodegetria — an ancient Madonna and Child image — was the traditional protectress of Byzantine Constantinople. At times of siege it was paraded along the city walls.[8] At the final fall of the city (1453) it failed to deter the Turks, was pillaged, and disappeared forever.
Theotokos of Vladimir, a Byzantine icon of the Virgin considered the protectress of Moscow in particular, and Russia in general, now in the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow. It was in particular credited with saving Moscow from the attack of Tamerlane in 1395, and the Tatar armies in 1451 and 1480.
The Girdle of Thomas or Sacra Cintola, supposed the belt of the Virgin Mary, paraded round the city of Prato near Florence in 1402 when a Milanese army threatened, and perhaps on other occasions.
Our Lady of Kazan, a holy icon, considered the protectress of Russia and lost in 1904, though copies were used to bolster the morale of troops in both World Wars.
Palladium of the Czechs - Czech legend holds that St. Ludmila, on her conversion to Christianity by St. Methodius, had her pagan statues melted down and reformed into a consecrated image of the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus. She prayed in front of it often, and was doing so when she was murdered by agents of Dragomir, mother of St. Wenceslas. Wenceslas inherited the image and had it carried above his troops when at war. He wore it on his chest when he was murdered by his brother, and it was taken from his body and hidden by his servant. Years later it was found buried in a field by a ploughman, and was brought to the church authorities. It was named “Palladium” and has since been kept as a symbol of Czech Christianity and patriotism.
The image of Our Lady of Guadalupe has been hailed at times as a protecting image, not just for the people of Mexico where the apparitions related to the image are purported to have taken place in 1531, but also in the United States and other areas of the world where people of Mexican descent have settled. Pope John Paul II entrusted her protection to the unborn in 1999.[11]
The Emerald Buddha, a palladium (Thai: ขวัญเมือง kwan mueang; colloquially มิ่งเมีอง ming mueang) of the Kingdom of Thailand. Every Thai city and town has a kwan mueang or ming mueang (usually, but not necessarily, an image of Buddha).
In Sri Lanka the Relic of the tooth of the Buddha is often described as a palladium in the rather different sense that control of it represented the legitimacy of the king.
The Golden Maitreya Buddha in the Wat Preah Keo of the Kingdom of Cambodia.
In the Khmer Empire, specific lingams associated with monarchs appear to have had a palladium-like role in the devaraja royal cult, although the subject remains controversial among scholars.[12]
Palladia in modern folk myth include the Ravens of the Tower of London, probably 19th century in origin, though dubious 17th-century origins have been claimed. These are somewhat typical of folk myth in being one-sided in their effect, in that their removal is said to presage disaster, but their continued presence is not usually held to have significant benefit. The isolated population of Barbary macaques in Gibraltar, whose continued presence is said to ensure British control, are a similar case.
If this cup should break or fall Farewell the Luck of Edenhall!
The cup has a custom-made 15th-century European leather case and the name is first recorded in a Musgrave will of 1677. A number of other Northern gentry families had a variety of objects called "Lucks", and "Luck of Troy" was an old English term for the Trojan and Roman prototype;[15][16] the first recorded use of "luck" in this sense is a reference to the Luck of Edenhall.[17]
Some writers have suggested that the historic London Stone was once regarded as London's palladium.[18] Notably, a pseudonymous contributor to the journal Notes and Queries in 1862 quoted a supposedly ancient proverb to the effect that "So long as the Stone of Brutus is safe, so long shall London flourish".[19] This verse, if it were genuine, would link the Stone to Brutus of Troy, legendary founder of London, as well as confirming its role as a palladium. However, the writer can be identified as Richard Williams Morgan, an eccentric Welsh clergyman who in an earlier book had claimed that the legendary Brutus was a historical figure; London Stone, he wrote, had been the plinth on which the original Trojan Palladium had stood, and was brought to Britain by Brutus and set up as the altar stone of the Temple of Diana in his new capital city of Trinovantum or "New Troy" (London).[20]
This story, and the verse about the "Stone of Brutus", can be found nowhere any earlier than in Morgan's writings. No one before Morgan had called London Stone "The Stone of Brutus", and although the spurious verse is still frequently quoted, there is no evidence that London's safety has ever traditionally been linked to that of London Stone.[21]
↑ Crosby, Kate, "Devaraja", p. 418, in Southeast Asia: A Historical Encyclopedia, from Angkor Wat to Timor, Volume 3, R-Z, ed. Ooi Keat Gin, 2004, ABC-CLIO, ISBN1576077705, 9781576077702, google books
↑ Clark, John. "London Stone"(PDF). Vintry and Dowgate Wards Club. Archived from the original(PDF) on 12 March 2012. Retrieved 24 April 2013.
↑ Mor Merrion (1862). "Stonehenge". Notes and Queries. 3rd series. 1: 3.
↑ Morgan, Richard Williams (1857). The British Kymry or Britons of Cambria. Ruthin: Isaac Clarke. pp.26–32.
↑ Clark 2010, pp.45–52. sfn error: no target: CITEREFClark2010 (help)
Cited works
Beard, Charles R., Luck And Talismans: A Chapter of Popular Superstition, 2004 reprint, Kessinger Publishing, ISBN1417976489, 9781417976485, google books
Beckwith, John, Early Christian and Byzantine Art, Penguin History of Art (now Yale), 2nd edn. 1979, ISBN0140560335
Kitzinger, Ernst, "The Cult of Images in the Age before Iconoclasm", Dumbarton Oaks Papers, Vol. 8, (1954), pp.83–150, Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees for Harvard University, JSTOR
Mango, Cyril, "Historical Introduction," in Bryer & Herrin, eds., Iconoclasm, pp.2–3., 1977, Centre for Byzantine Studies, University of Birmingham, ISBN0704402262
Price, S. R. F., and Emily Kearns (eds.) The Oxford Dictionary of Classical Myth and Religion. s.v. "Palladium". Oxford University Press.
An icon is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, in the cultures of the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Catholic churches. The most common subjects include Jesus, Mary, saints, and angels. Although especially associated with portrait-style images concentrating on one or two main figures, the term also covers most of the religious images in a variety of artistic media produced by Eastern Christianity, including narrative scenes, usually from the Bible or the lives of saints.
Diomedes or Diomede is a hero in Greek mythology, known for his participation in the Trojan War.
Byzantine art comprises the body of artistic products of the Eastern Roman Empire, as well as the nations and states that inherited culturally from the empire. Though the empire itself emerged from the decline of western Rome and lasted until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, the start date of the Byzantine period is rather clearer in art history than in political history, if still imprecise. Many Eastern Orthodox states in Eastern Europe, as well as to some degree the Islamic states of the eastern Mediterranean, preserved many aspects of the empire's culture and art for centuries afterward.
Blachernitissa, also called Theotokos of Blachernae or Our Lady of Blachernae, is a 7th-century encaustic icon representing the Most Holy Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary. It is also the name given to the Church built in honour of the Virgin Mary in the Blachernae section of Constantinople. The name Blachernae possibly derived from the name of a Vlach, who came to Constantinople from the lower Danube.
The Virgin of Vladimir, also known as Vladimir Mother of God, Our Lady of Vladimir, is a 12th-century Byzantine icon depicting the Virgin and Child and an early example of the Eleusa iconographic type. It is one of the most culturally significant and celebrated pieces of art in Russian history. Many consider it a national palladium with several miracles of historical importance to Russia being attributed to the icon. Following its near destruction in the thirteenth century, the work has been restored at least five times.
In Greek and Roman mythology, the Palladium or Palladion was a cult image of great antiquity on which the safety of Troy and later Rome was said to depend, the wooden statue (xoanon) of Pallas Athena that Odysseus and Diomedes stole from the citadel of Troy and which was later taken to the future site of Rome by Aeneas. The Roman story is related in Virgil's Aeneid and other works. Rome possessed an object regarded as the actual Palladium for several centuries; it was in the care of the Vestal Virgins for nearly all this time.
Iconodulism designates the religious service to icons. The term comes from Neoclassical Greek εἰκονόδουλος (eikonodoulos), meaning "one who serves images (icons)". It is also referred to as iconophilism designating a positive attitude towards the religious use of icons. In the history of Christianity, iconodulism was manifested as a moderate position, between two extremes: iconoclasm and iconolatry.
The Little Iliad is a lost epic of ancient Greek literature. It was one of the Epic Cycle, that is, the Trojan cycle, which told the entire history of the Trojan War in epic verse. The story of the Little Iliad comes chronologically after that of the Aethiopis, and is followed by that of the Iliou persis. The Little Iliad was variously attributed by ancient writers to Lesches of Pyrrha, Cinaethon of Sparta, Diodorus of Erythrae, Thestorides of Phocaea, or Homer himself. The poem comprised four books of verse in dactylic hexameter, the heroic meter.
In the practice of religion, a cult image is a human-made object that is venerated or worshipped for the deity, spirit or daemon that it embodies or represents. In several traditions, including the ancient religions of Egypt, Greece and Rome, and Hinduism, cult images in a temple may undergo a daily routine of being washed, dressed, and having food left for them. Processions outside the temple on special feast days are often a feature. Religious images cover a wider range of all types of images made with a religious purpose, subject, or connection. In many contexts "cult image" specifically means the most important image in a temple, kept in an inner space, as opposed to what may be many other images decorating the temple.
Aniconism is the absence of material representations of the natural and supernatural world in various cultures. Most denominations of Christianity have not generally practiced aniconism, or the avoidance or prohibition of these types of images, even dating back to early Christian art and architecture. Those in the faith have generally had an active tradition of making artwork and Christian media; depicting God, Jesus, The Holy Spirit, religious figures including saints and prophets, and other aspects of theology like The Trinity and Manus Dei.
Acheiropoieta — also called icons made without hands — are Christian icons which are said to have come into existence miraculously; not created by a human. Invariably these are images of Jesus or the Virgin Mary. The most notable examples that are credited by tradition among the faithful are, in the Eastern church, the Mandylion, also known as the Image of Edessa, and the Hodegetria, and several Russian icons, and in the West the Shroud of Turin, Veil of Veronica, Our Lady of Guadalupe, and the Manoppello Image. The term is also used of icons that are only regarded as normal human copies of a miraculously created original archetype.
The Byzantine Iconoclasm were two periods in the history of the Byzantine Empire when the use of religious images or icons was opposed by religious and imperial authorities within the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the temporal imperial hierarchy. The First Iconoclasm, as it is sometimes called, occurred between about 726 and 787, while the Second Iconoclasm occurred between 814 and 842. According to the traditional view, Byzantine Iconoclasm was started by a ban on religious images promulgated by the Byzantine Emperor Leo III the Isaurian, and continued under his successors. It was accompanied by widespread destruction of religious images and persecution of supporters of the veneration of images. The Papacy remained firmly in support of the use of religious images throughout the period, and the whole episode widened the growing divergence between the Byzantine and Carolingian traditions in what was still a unified European Church, as well as facilitating the reduction or removal of Byzantine political control over parts of the Italian Peninsula.
A Hodegetria, or Virgin Hodegetria, is an iconographic depiction of the Theotokos holding the Child Jesus at her side while pointing to him as the source of salvation for humankind. The Virgin's head usually inclines towards the child, who raises his hand in a blessing gesture. Metals are often used to draw attention to young Christ, reflecting light and shining in a way to embody divinity. In the Western Church this type of icon is sometimes called Our Lady of the Way.
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Camuliana, Camulia, Kamoulianai, or Kamoulia was an ancient town or perhaps a village in ancient Cappadocia, located northwest of Caesarea, today Kayseri in Turkey. It is mostly mentioned in connection with the Image of Camuliana, an acheiropoieton or "icon not made by hands" of the face of Christ, which was one of the earliest of this class of miraculously created icons to be recorded; this is also sometimes referred to simply as the "Camouliana". During Byzantine times, the town was also called Iustinianoupolis Nova.
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