The Shield of Heracles
Encyclopedia
The Shield of Heracles (Ancient Greek
: , Aspis Hērakleous) is an archaic Greek
epic poem
that was attributed to Hesiod
during antiquity. The subject of the poem is the expedition of Heracles
and Iolaus
against Cycnus
, the son of Ares
, who challenged Heracles to combat as Heracles was passing near Itonus
.
To serve as an introduction, fifty-six lines have been taken from the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women
. The late 3rd-early 2nd century BCE critic Aristophanes of Byzantium
, who considered the Catalogue to be the work of Hesiod, noted the borrowing, which led him to suspect that the Shield was spurious. The poem takes its cue from the extended description of the shield of Achilles in Iliad
xviii, from which it borrows directly:
The Iliad gives enough detail for its hearers to marvel at Hephaestus
' workmanship. The Shield of Heracles piles on repetitive description, without gaining added effect:
The round shield's "whole orb shimmered with enamel and white ivory and electrum, and it glowed with shining gold; and there were zones of cyanus drawn upon it." Cyanus denotes a blue low-fired glass-paste or smalt. At the center was a mask of Fear (Phobos
) with the staring eyes and teeth of a gorgon
. Though Achilles' shield has nothing about it that might mar its function, the shield of Heracles is a tour de force of high relief: the vineyard has "shivering leaves and stakes of silver" and the snake heads "would clash their teeth when Amphitryon's son was fighting" and in the ocean vignette the "fishes of bronze were trembling." As for "the horseman Perseus
: his feet did not touch the shield and yet were not far from it—very marvellous to remark, since he was not supported anywhere; for so did the famous Lame One
fashion him of gold with his hands."
The extravagant description seems to have encouraged rhapsode
s to contribute their interpolations, which have been identified and teased apart by modern scholarship. Some similes may strike the careful listener as infelicitous, such as the contrast of glowering with fierce action in "fiercely he stared, like a lion who has come upon a body and full eagerly rips the hide with his strong claws..."
The popularity of The Shield of Heracles in 6th-century Athens may be assessed from instances where H.A. Shapiro detected its presence in Attic vase-painting
between ca 565 and ca 480. A calyx-krater
by Euphronios
depicting the minor episode of Heracles' combat with the Thessalian brigand Kyknos occasioned Shapiro's examination of the myth's creative reworking among Attic vase-painters, who based their imagery of Heracle's shield on the literary model. The likelihood of both oral and literary transmission during the same time is noted by Janko (1986:40).
The Shield of Heracles was first printed, included with the complete works of Hesiod, by Aldus Manutius
, in Venice, 1495; the text was from Byzantine
manuscripts. In modern times several papyri
have offered sections of the text, notably a 1st-century papyrus in Berlin (Berlin Papyri, 9774), a 2nd-century papyrus from Oxyrhynchus
(Oxyrhynchus Papyri 689), and the 4th-century Rainer Papyrus (L.P. 21-29) at Vienna. There are numerous texts from the twelfth to the 15th century.
Compare Virgil
's "Shield of Aeneas" (Aeneid
viii.617-731) and the much briefer description of Crenaeus' shield in Thebaid
ix.332-338. Marcus Mettius Epaphroditus
wrote a commentary on the Shield of Heracles in the 1st century CE.
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
: , Aspis Hērakleous) is an archaic Greek
Ancient Greek literature
Ancient Greek literature refers to literature written in the Ancient Greek language until the 4th century.- Classical and Pre-Classical Antiquity :...
epic poem
Epic poetry
An epic is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation. Oral poetry may qualify as an epic, and Albert Lord and Milman Parry have argued that classical epics were fundamentally an oral poetic form...
that was attributed to Hesiod
Hesiod
Hesiod was a Greek oral poet generally thought by scholars to have been active between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer. His is the first European poetry in which the poet regards himself as a topic, an individual with a distinctive role to play. Ancient authors credited him and...
during antiquity. The subject of the poem is the expedition of Heracles
Heracles
Heracles ,born Alcaeus or Alcides , was a divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, foster son of Amphitryon and great-grandson of Perseus...
and Iolaus
Iolaus
In Greek mythology, Iolaus was a Theban divine hero, son of Iphicles, Heracles's brother, and Automedusa.He was famed for being Heracles's nephew and for helping with some of his Labors, and also for being one of the Argonauts...
against Cycnus
Cycnus
In Greek mythology, four people were known as Cycnus or Cygnus. Most of them ended up being transformed into swans. The most famous Cycnus however, was the son of Ares.-Son of Ares:Cycnus was sired upon Pelopia or Pyrene...
, the son of Ares
Ares
Ares is the Greek god of war. He is one of the Twelve Olympians, and the son of Zeus and Hera. In Greek literature, he often represents the physical or violent aspect of war, in contrast to the armored Athena, whose functions as a goddess of intelligence include military strategy and...
, who challenged Heracles to combat as Heracles was passing near Itonus
Itonus
In Greek mythology, Itonus was the son of Amphictyon. He was married to Melanippe, a nymph, and had a son Boeotus and two daughters, Chromia and Iodame.He founded a sanctuary of Athena, where his daughter Iodame served as priestess...
.
To serve as an introduction, fifty-six lines have been taken from the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women
Catalogue of Women
thumb|275px|[[Guido Reni]]'s first Atalanta e Ippomene , depicting the race of [[Atalanta]], a myth which was known to Reni from [[Ovid]]'s [[Metamorphoses]], but is now also represented by several fragments of the Catalogue of Women.The Catalogue of Women —also known as...
. The late 3rd-early 2nd century BCE critic Aristophanes of Byzantium
Aristophanes of Byzantium
Aristophanes of Byzantium was a Greek scholar, critic and grammarian, particularly renowned for his work in Homeric scholarship, but also for work on other classical authors such as Pindar and Hesiod. Born in Byzantium about 257 BC, he soon moved to Alexandria and studied under Zenodotus,...
, who considered the Catalogue to be the work of Hesiod, noted the borrowing, which led him to suspect that the Shield was spurious. The poem takes its cue from the extended description of the shield of Achilles in Iliad
Iliad
The Iliad is an epic poem in dactylic hexameters, traditionally attributed to Homer. Set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles...
xviii, from which it borrows directly:
- "Strife and Panic were shown at their work, and there was the dreadful Spirit of Death laying her hands on a freshly wounded man who was still alive and another not yet wounded, and dragging a corpse by its foot through the crowd. The cloak on her shoulders was red with human blood" (Iliad xviii.535ff, E.V. Rieu translation).
- "Strife also, and Uproar were hurrying about, and deadly Fate was there holding one man newly wounded, and another unwounded; and one, who was dead, she was dragging by the feet through the tumult. She had on her shoulders a garment red with the blood of men." (Shield of Heracles, lines 156-9).
The Iliad gives enough detail for its hearers to marvel at Hephaestus
Hephaestus
Hephaestus was a Greek god whose Roman equivalent was Vulcan. He is the son of Zeus and Hera, the King and Queen of the Gods - or else, according to some accounts, of Hera alone. He was the god of technology, blacksmiths, craftsmen, artisans, sculptors, metals, metallurgy, fire and volcanoes...
' workmanship. The Shield of Heracles piles on repetitive description, without gaining added effect:
- "They were bringing the brides through the streets from their homes, to the loud music of the wedding-hymn and the light of blazing torches. Youths accompanied by flute and lyre were whirling in the dance, and the women had come to the doors of their houses to enjoy the show." (Iliad).
- "The men were making merry with festivities and dances; some were bringing home a bride to her husband on a well-wheeled car, while the bridalsong swelled high, and the glow of blazing torches held by handmaidens rolled in waves afar. And these maidens went before, delighting in the festival; and after them came frolicsome choirs, the youths singing soft-mouthed to the sound of shrill pipes, while the echo was shivered around them, and the girls led on the lovely dance to the sound of lyres." (Shield of Heracles).
The round shield's "whole orb shimmered with enamel and white ivory and electrum, and it glowed with shining gold; and there were zones of cyanus drawn upon it." Cyanus denotes a blue low-fired glass-paste or smalt. At the center was a mask of Fear (Phobos
Phobos (mythology)
Phobos is the personification of horror in Greek mythology. He is the offspring of Ares and Aphrodite. He was known for accompanying Ares into battle along with his brother, Deimos, the goddess Enyo, and his father’s attendants. Timor is his Roman equivalent...
) with the staring eyes and teeth of a gorgon
Gorgon
In Greek mythology, the Gorgon was a terrifying female creature. The name derives from the Greek word gorgós, which means "dreadful." While descriptions of Gorgons vary across Greek literature, the term commonly refers to any of three sisters who had hair of living, venomous snakes, and a...
. Though Achilles' shield has nothing about it that might mar its function, the shield of Heracles is a tour de force of high relief: the vineyard has "shivering leaves and stakes of silver" and the snake heads "would clash their teeth when Amphitryon's son was fighting" and in the ocean vignette the "fishes of bronze were trembling." As for "the horseman Perseus
Perseus
Perseus ,Perseos and Perseas are not used in English. the legendary founder of Mycenae and of the Perseid dynasty of Danaans there, was the first of the mythic heroes of Greek mythology whose exploits in defeating various archaic monsters provided the founding myths of the Twelve Olympians...
: his feet did not touch the shield and yet were not far from it—very marvellous to remark, since he was not supported anywhere; for so did the famous Lame One
Hephaestus
Hephaestus was a Greek god whose Roman equivalent was Vulcan. He is the son of Zeus and Hera, the King and Queen of the Gods - or else, according to some accounts, of Hera alone. He was the god of technology, blacksmiths, craftsmen, artisans, sculptors, metals, metallurgy, fire and volcanoes...
fashion him of gold with his hands."
The extravagant description seems to have encouraged rhapsode
Rhapsode
A rhapsode or, in modern usage, rhapsodist, refers to a classical Greek professional performer of epic poetry in the fifth and fourth centuries BC . Rhapsodes notably performed the epics of Homer but also the wisdom and catalogue poetry of Hesiod and the satires of Archilochus and others...
s to contribute their interpolations, which have been identified and teased apart by modern scholarship. Some similes may strike the careful listener as infelicitous, such as the contrast of glowering with fierce action in "fiercely he stared, like a lion who has come upon a body and full eagerly rips the hide with his strong claws..."
The popularity of The Shield of Heracles in 6th-century Athens may be assessed from instances where H.A. Shapiro detected its presence in Attic vase-painting
Pottery of Ancient Greece
As the result of its relative durability, pottery is a large part of the archaeological record of Ancient Greece, and because there is so much of it it has exerted a disproportionately large influence on our understanding of Greek society...
between ca 565 and ca 480. A calyx-krater
Krater
A krater was a large vase used to mix wine and water in Ancient Greece.-Form and function:...
by Euphronios
Euphronios
Euphronios was an ancient Greek vase painter and potter, active in Athens in the late 6th and early 5th centuries BC. As part of the so-called "Pioneer Group,"...
depicting the minor episode of Heracles' combat with the Thessalian brigand Kyknos occasioned Shapiro's examination of the myth's creative reworking among Attic vase-painters, who based their imagery of Heracle's shield on the literary model. The likelihood of both oral and literary transmission during the same time is noted by Janko (1986:40).
The Shield of Heracles was first printed, included with the complete works of Hesiod, by Aldus Manutius
Aldus Manutius
Aldus Pius Manutius , the Latinised name of Aldo Manuzio —sometimes called Aldus Manutius, the Elder to distinguish him from his grandson, Aldus Manutius, the Younger—was an Italian humanist who became a printer and publisher when he founded the Aldine Press at Venice.His publishing legacy includes...
, in Venice, 1495; the text was from Byzantine
Byzantine
Byzantine usually refers to the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages.Byzantine may also refer to:* A citizen of the Byzantine Empire, or native Greek during the Middle Ages...
manuscripts. In modern times several papyri
Papyrus
Papyrus is a thick paper-like material produced from the pith of the papyrus plant, Cyperus papyrus, a wetland sedge that was once abundant in the Nile Delta of Egypt....
have offered sections of the text, notably a 1st-century papyrus in Berlin (Berlin Papyri, 9774), a 2nd-century papyrus from Oxyrhynchus
Oxyrhynchus
Oxyrhynchus is a city in Upper Egypt, located about 160 km south-southwest of Cairo, in the governorate of Al Minya. It is also an archaeological site, considered one of the most important ever discovered...
(Oxyrhynchus Papyri 689), and the 4th-century Rainer Papyrus (L.P. 21-29) at Vienna. There are numerous texts from the twelfth to the 15th century.
Compare Virgil
Virgil
Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English , was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He is known for three major works of Latin literature, the Eclogues , the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid...
's "Shield of Aeneas" (Aeneid
Aeneid
The Aeneid is a Latin epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. It is composed of roughly 10,000 lines in dactylic hexameter...
viii.617-731) and the much briefer description of Crenaeus' shield in Thebaid
Thebaid
The Thebaid or Thebais is the region of ancient Egypt containing the thirteen southernmost nomes of Upper Egypt, from Abydos to Aswan. It acquired its name from its proximity to the ancient Egyptian capital of Thebes....
ix.332-338. Marcus Mettius Epaphroditus
Marcus Mettius Epaphroditus
Marcus Mettius Epaphroditus of Chaeroneia was an Ancient Greek grammarian of the 1st century.Epaphroditus was a disciple of Archias of Alexandria, and became the slave and afterwards the freedman of Modestus, the prefect of Egypt, whose son Pitelinus had been educated by Epaphroditus...
wrote a commentary on the Shield of Heracles in the 1st century CE.
Sources
- The Shield of Heracles: e-text (English translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White, 1914)
- Lattimore, RichmondRichmond LattimoreRichmond Alexander Lattimore was an American poet and translator known for his translations of the Greek classics, especially his versions of the Iliad and Odyssey, which are generally considered as among the best English translations available.Born to David and Margaret Barnes Lattimore in...
, Hesiod: The Works and Days, Theogony, and the Shield of Heracles (Ann Arbor) 1970. - Athanassakis, ApostolosApostolos AthanassakisApostolos N. Athanassakis is a classical scholar and Argyropoulos Chair in Hellenic Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara . Professor Athanassakis, or "Professor A" as he is often referred to by students, currently serves as the faculty in residence in Manzanita Village....
. Hesiod: Theogony, Works and Days and The Shield of Heracles (1983) Translation, introduction and commentary. - Janko, Richard "The Shield of Heracles and the Legend of Cycnus" The Classical Quarterly New Series, 36.1 (1986), pp. 38–59. Bibliography of the genesis of The Shield of Heracles p 38 note 1.