Introduction. Under the gaze of Eros and Aphrodite
p. 195-196
Texte intégral
1By the end of the Persian Wars (c. 480), the world of heroes gradually gave way to that of the city on Athenian vase-paintings. The painters display a growing interest for the representation of the oikos, the domestic space, and women’s activities, a thematic focus that increased in the second half of the 5th century.1
2The depictions of unmarried girls (parthenoi), produced by men,2 are of particular interest. Vase-painters used play as a means to convey the agency attributed to this age group. The visual construction of maidens provides access to their unwritten history challenging a victimised view of gender relations based on the textual evidence.
3Almost all representations of women at play transpose in a virtual universe the prelude to erotic relationships and the preparations for marriage, the major event in women’s lives.3 In the metaphorical space of play, maidens are not depicted as objects of male desire. The dynamics of play showcase a discreet mode of action that sometimes resembles divinatory and magical practices.
4We have already seen that the verb paizein, ‘to play’, has several meanings. In an erotic and nuptial context, it also means ‘to banter’, ‘to seduce’ or ‘to toy with love emotions’.4 It expresses as well the power of love, personified by an ambivalent Eros who can seduce and delight, but also torture and destroy.5 Paizein can also mean ‘to dance and sing’, referring to the collective, choreographic performances that exhibit young people’s beauty, physical and moral, especially of girls of prenuptial age.6 On Attic and South Italian vases, painters use this double meaning when they depict maidens engaged in a wider range of games, paidiai, than boys, with a competitive dimension too, but without the civic value of athletic activities, athloi, performed in the gymnasium. They play alone or in the company of other girls or sometimes boys, in different spaces, occasionally defined as being outdoors, or in a domestic context. We will examine representations of juggling or dancing with balls, playing ephedrismos, spinning tops and knucklebones, swinging and seesawing, drawing lots with fingers and playing the stick game. In common, all these scenes display maidens as attractive, stunning performers to admire, and they suggest how girls were believed to manage their future love and marriage. The banter takes the form of an erotic agon, competition, in which the maidens are depicted as being intrepid and expert in the art of seduction, determined to influence their future. The dynamics of the games also reveal an inner world of uncertainty and emotion. Some games can represent a way of questioning what is still to come, a potentially harmonious union or not, and sometimes they turn into a kind of oracular procedure. All of them, in their diversity, reveal the fascinating relationship between play, characterised by indeterminacy as well as luck, and the notion of love as risk-taking. Everything unfolds under the gaze of Eros and Aphrodite because success depends not only on a proactive attitude but also on divine benevolence.
Notes de bas de page
1On these general transformations, Kaltsas, Shapiro 2008; Osborne 2018. On women, see Lissarrague 1991; Reeder 1995, the views of Ferrari 2002; Lewis 2002; Schmitt-Pantel 2003; Frontisi-Ducroux 2004; Bruit Zaidman, Schmitt-Pantel 2007; Sébillotte Cuchet 2007; Brouquet, Clément 2022.
2With rare testimonies of women painters, such as the studio scene on a hydria, Vicenza, Coll. Intesa Sanpaolo 2 (formerly known as the ‘Caputi’ hydria, Milan Collection Torno. C278); ARV2 2571.73, Para 390, Add2 128 (Leningrad P.); BAPD 206564; Venit 1988; Lissarrague 1991: 162, 226-228, fig. 45.
3On wedding ceremonies in imagery, Lissarrague 1991: 163-171.
4LSJ, s.v. paizo. E.g., Xen. Symp. 9.2. A similar polysemy is found in Latin, Sissa 2021a and 2021b. See Kidd 2021. On other meanings, see also Part 4. Childhood at play.
5Carson 1986; Calame 1996. On this notion of power and constraint, see also Faraone 1990b; Winkler 1990.
6Calame 2021.
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