Polyphemos reclining and holding a drinking bowl is a Late Classical terracotta figurine that was created in Boeotia, Greece in late 5th- early 4th century BCE. [1] The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston purchased the statue in December 1901 from E.P. Warren, who bought the terracotta figure in Paris in 1901, from a vendor who acquired it in Thebes. [2]
The terracotta figurine depicts Polyphemos, the Cyclops and antagonist of Odysseus in book nine of Homer’s Odyssey , as a dignified banqueter consuming wine. This figurine depicts the scene in the Odyssey where, in order to escape death, Odysseus tricks Polyphemos to become highly intoxicated. [3]
The figurine was discovered in the Kabirion sanctuary, which is situated near Thebes. [4] Every year, the sanctuary held a festival where performers parodied popular myths. [5] Polyphemos reclining and holding a drinking bowl reflects the presence and importance of humor in ancient Greek culture.
The figurine is a satirical image of the Cyclops by likening his act of binging on wine to an elite drinking wine while attending a symposium. It was common to mock Polyphemos within Greek art and literature, which is reflected by Euripides’ satirical play Cyclops .
Additionally, this terracotta figurine displays the traditional artistic portrayal of Cyclops during the Classical period. These characteristics include a pot belly, large ears, a large eye in the middle of the forehead, a bulbous nose, puffy lips, and fat cheeks.
Circe is an enchantress and a minor goddess in ancient Greek mythology and religion. In most accounts, Circe is described as the daughter of the sun god Helios and the Oceanid nymph Perse. Circe was renowned for her vast knowledge of potions and herbs. Through the use of these and a magic wand or staff, she would transform her enemies, or those who offended her, into animals.
The Odyssey is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. Like the Iliad, the Odyssey is divided into 24 books. It follows the Greek hero Odysseus, king of Ithaca, and his journey home after the Trojan War. After the war, which lasted ten years, his journey from Troy to Ithaca, via Africa and southern Europe, lasted for ten additional years during which time he encountered many perils and all of his crewmates were killed. In his absence, Odysseus was assumed dead, and his wife Penelope and son Telemachus had to contend with a group of unruly suitors who were competing for Penelope's hand in marriage.
Polyphemus is the one-eyed giant son of Poseidon and Thoosa in Greek mythology, one of the Cyclopes described in Homer's Odyssey. His name means "abounding in songs and legends", "many-voiced" or "very famous". Polyphemus first appeared as a savage man-eating giant in the ninth book of the Odyssey. The satyr play of Euripides is dependent on this episode apart from one detail; Polyphemus is made a pederast in the play. Later Classical writers presented him in their poems as heterosexual and linked his name with the nymph Galatea. Often he was portrayed as unsuccessful in these, and as unaware of his disproportionate size and musical failings. In the work of even later authors, however, he is presented as both a successful lover and skilled musician. From the Renaissance on, art and literature reflect all of these interpretations of the giant.
In Greek mythology and later Roman mythology, the Cyclopes are giant one-eyed creatures. Three groups of Cyclopes can be distinguished. In Hesiod's Theogony, the Cyclopes are the three brothers, Brontes, Steropes, and Arges, who made Zeus's weapon, the thunderbolt. In Homer's Odyssey, they are an uncivilized group of shepherds, the brethren of Polyphemus encountered by Odysseus. Cyclopes were also famous for being the builders of the Cyclopean walls of Mycenae and Tiryns.
Xenia is an ancient Greek concept of hospitality. It is almost always translated as 'guest-friendship' or 'ritualized friendship'. It is an institutionalized relationship rooted in generosity, gift exchange, and reciprocity. Historically, hospitality towards foreigners and guests was understood as a moral obligation, as well as a political imperative. Hospitality towards foreign Hellenes honored Zeus Xenios, patrons of foreigners.
The sculpture of ancient Greece is the main surviving type of fine ancient Greek art as, with the exception of painted ancient Greek pottery, almost no ancient Greek painting survives. Modern scholarship identifies three major stages in monumental sculpture in bronze and stone: the Archaic, Classical and Hellenistic. At all periods there were great numbers of Greek terracotta figurines and small sculptures in metal and other materials.
Ismarus or Ismaros was a city of the Cicones, in ancient Thrace, mentioned by Homer in the Odyssey.
Cyclops is an ancient Greek satyr play by Euripides, based closely on an episode from the Odyssey. It is likely to have been the fourth part of a tetralogy presented by Euripides in a dramatic festival in 5th Century BC Athens, although its intended and actual performance contexts are unknown. The date of its composition is unknown, but it was probably written late in Euripides' career. It is the only complete satyr play extant.
Two Minoan snake goddess figurines were excavated in 1903 in the Minoan palace at Knossos in the Greek island of Crete. The decades-long excavation programme led by the English archaeologist Arthur Evans greatly expanded knowledge and awareness of the Bronze Age Minoan civilization, but Evans has subsequently been criticised for overstatements and excessively speculative ideas, both in terms of his "restoration" of specific objects, including the most famous of these figures, and the ideas about the Minoans he drew from the archaeology. The figures are now on display at the Heraklion Archaeological Museum (AMH).
The Tanagra figurines are a mold-cast type of Greek terracotta figurines produced from the later fourth century BC, named after the Boeotian town of Tanagra, where many were excavated and which has given its name to the whole class. However, they were produced in many cities. They were coated with a liquid white slip before firing and were sometimes painted afterward in naturalistic tints with watercolors, such as the famous "Dame en Bleu" at the Louvre. They were widely exported around the ancient Greek world. Such figures were made in many other Mediterranean sites, including Alexandria, Tarentum in Magna Graecia, Centuripe in Sicily and Myrina in Mysia.
Delphi Archaeological museum is one of the principal museums of Greece and one of the most visited. It is operated by the Greek Ministry of Culture. Founded in 1903, it has been rearranged several times and houses the discoveries made at the Panhellenic sanctuary of Delphi, which date from the Late Helladic (Mycenean) period to the early Byzantine era.
The Pan Painter was an ancient Greek vase-painter of the Attic red-figure style, probably active c. 480 to 450 BC. John Beazley attributed over 150 vases to his hand in 1912:
Cunning composition; rapid motion; quick deft draughtsmanship; strong and peculiar stylisation; a deliberate archaism, retaining old forms, but refining, refreshing, and galvanizing them; nothing noble or majestic, but grace, humour, vivacity, originality, and dramatic force: these are the qualities which mark the Boston krater, and which characterize the anonymous artist who, for the sake of convenience, may be called the 'master of the Boston Pan-vase', or, more briefly, 'the Pan-master'.
In Greek mythology, Maron or Maro was the hero of sweet wine. He was an experienced man in the cultivation of the vine.
Idyll XI, otherwise known as Bucolic poem 11, was written by Theocritus in dactylic hexameter. Its main character, the Cyclops Polyphemus, has appeared in other works of literature such as Homer's Odyssey, and Theocritus' Idyll VI.
The Archaeological Museum of Pella is a museum in Pella in the Pella regional unit of Central Macedonia. The building was designed by architect Kostas Skroumpellos and is on the site of the ancient city of Pella. It was completed in 2009 with the support of the Greece's Third Community Support Framework.
Ancient Greek art stands out among that of other ancient cultures for its development of naturalistic but idealized depictions of the human body, in which largely nude male figures were generally the focus of innovation. The rate of stylistic development between about 750 and 300 BC was remarkable by ancient standards, and in surviving works is best seen in sculpture. There were important innovations in painting, which have to be essentially reconstructed due to the lack of original survivals of quality, other than the distinct field of painted pottery.
The Calyx Krater by the artist called the "Painter of the Berlin Hydria" depicting an Amazonomachy is an ancient Greek painted vase in the red figure style, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. It is a krater, a bowl made for mixing wine and water, and specifically a calyx krater, where the bowl resembles the calyx of a flower. Vessels such as these were often used at a symposion, which was an elite party for drinking.
A pelike was a ceramic container that the Greeks used as storage/transportation for wine and olive oil. As seen in the picture on the right, it had a large belly with thin, open handles. Unlike other transportation jars, a pelike would have a flattened bottom so that it could stand on its own. Pelikes often had one large scene across the belly of the jar with minimal distractions around. This would focus the viewers eyes to the center of the pelike which was often a mythological scene of sorts.
The Athenian Band Cup is an Attic Greek kylix attributed to the Oakeshott Painter. It is further classified as a band cup, a type of Little-Master cup.
Odysseus and Polyphemus is an 1896 oil painting by the Swiss artist Arnold Böcklin. It has been part of the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, since 2012.