Kriophoros
Encyclopedia
Epithet
An epithet or byname is a descriptive term accompanying or occurring in place of a name and having entered common usage. It has various shades of meaning when applied to seemingly real or fictitious people, divinities, objects, and binomial nomenclature. It is also a descriptive title...
of Hermes
Hermes
Hermes is the great messenger of the gods in Greek mythology and a guide to the Underworld. Hermes was born on Mount Kyllini in Arcadia. An Olympian god, he is also the patron of boundaries and of the travelers who cross them, of shepherds and cowherds, of the cunning of thieves, of orators and...
: Hermes Kriophoros.
Myth
At the Boeotian city of TanagraTanagra
Tanagra is a town and a municipality north of Athens in Boeotia, Greece. The seat of the municipality is the town Schimatari. It is not far from Thebes, and it was noted in antiquity for the figurines named after it...
, Pausanias
Pausanias (geographer)
Pausanias was a Greek traveler and geographer of the 2nd century AD, who lived in the times of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. He is famous for his Description of Greece , a lengthy work that describes ancient Greece from firsthand observations, and is a crucial link between classical...
relates a local myth that credited the god with saving the city in a time of plague, by carrying a ram on his shoulders as he made the circuit of the city's walls:
There are sanctuaries of Hermes Kriophoros and of Hermes called Promachos. They account for the former surname by a story that Hermes averted a pestilence from the city by carrying a ram round the walls; to commemorate this Calamis made an image of Hermes carrying a ram upon his shoulders. Whichever of the youths is judged to be the most handsome goes round the walls at the feast of Hermes, carrying a lamb on his shoulders.
The myth may be providing an etiological
Etiology
Etiology is the study of causation, or origination. The word is derived from the Greek , aitiologia, "giving a reason for" ....
explanation of a cult practice, carried out to avert miasma
Miasma
Miasma may refer to:* Miasma theory of disease, bad air causing disease* Miasma , a death metal band from Austria* Miasma , a 2005 album by the melodic death metal band The Black Dahlia Murder...
, the ritual pollution that had brought disease, a propitiatory act whose ancient origins had become lost but had ossified in this iconic motif. Reflections of Calamis' lost Hermes Kriophoros may be detectable on Roman coinage of the city.
In Messenia
Messenia
Messenia is a regional unit in the southwestern part of the Peloponnese region, one of 13 regions into which Greece has been divided by the Kallikratis plan, implemented 1 January 2011...
, at the sacred grove
Sacred grove
A sacred grove is a grove of trees of special religious importance to a particular culture. Sacred groves were most prominent in the Ancient Near East and prehistoric Europe, but feature in various cultures throughout the world...
of Karnasus, Pausanias noted that Apollon Karneios and Hermes Kriophoros had a joint cult, the ram-bearers (kriophoroi) joining in male initiation rites.
A description by Pausanias
Pausanias (geographer)
Pausanias was a Greek traveler and geographer of the 2nd century AD, who lived in the times of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. He is famous for his Description of Greece , a lengthy work that describes ancient Greece from firsthand observations, and is a crucial link between classical...
of a Kriophoros dedicated at Olympia, by the sculptor Onatas
Onatas
Onatas was an ancient Greek sculptor of the time of the Persian Wars and a member of the flourishing school of Aegina. Many of his works are mentioned by Pausanias; they included a Hermes carrying the ram, and a strange image of the Black Demeter made for the people of Phigalia; also some elaborate...
, has been compared by José Dörig with a surviving bronze statuette, 8.6 cm tall, in the Cabinet des Médailles
Cabinet des Médailles
The Cabinet des Médailles, more formally known as Département des Monnaies, Médailles et Antiques de la Bibliothèque nationale de France, is a department of the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris, France, housed in its former premises in Rue de Richelieu.The Cabinet des Médailles is a museum...
, Paris, as a basis for reconstructing the Severe style of the sculptor.
Marble
Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite.Geologists use the term "marble" to refer to metamorphosed limestone; however stonemasons use the term more broadly to encompass unmetamorphosed limestone.Marble is commonly used for...
Calfbearer (moschophoros), of ca 570 BCE, found on the Athenian Acropolis
Acropolis
Acropolis means "high city" in Greek, literally city on the extremity and is usually translated into English as Citadel . For purposes of defense, early people naturally chose elevated ground to build a new settlement, frequently a hill with precipitous sides...
in 1864 (illustration, left) is inscribed "Rhombos", apparently the donor, who commemorated his sacrifice in this manner. The sacrificial animal in the case is a young bull, but the iconic pose, with the young animal across the sacrifiant's shoulders, secured by fore legs and rear legs firmly in the sacrifiant's grip, is the same as many kriophoroi. This is the most famous of the Kriophoros sculptures and is exhibited at the Acropolis Museum
Acropolis Museum
The Old Acropolis Museum was an archaeological museum located in Athens, Greece on the archeological site of Acropolis. It is built in a niche at the eastern edge of the rock and most of it lies beneath the level of the hilltop, making it largely invisible. It was considered one of the major...
Lewis R. Farnell placed this Hermes Kriophoros foremost in Arcadia
Arcadia
Arcadia is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the administrative region of Peloponnese. It is situated in the central and eastern part of the Peloponnese peninsula. It takes its name from the mythological character Arcas. In Greek mythology, it was the home of the god Pan...
:
- "As Arcadia has been from time immemorial the great pasture-ground of Greece, so probably the most primitive character in which Hermes appeared, and which he never abandoned, was the pastoral. He is the lord of the herds, epimélios and kriophoros, who leads them to the sweet waters, and bears the tired ram or lamb on his shoulders, and assists them with the shepherd's crook, the kerykeion."
The Kriophoros figure of a shepherd carrying a lamb, simply as a pastoral vignette, became a common figure in series denoting the months or seasons, characteristically March or April.
Kriophoroi and "The Good Shepherd"
Free-standing fourth-century CE Roman sculptures, and even third century ones, are sometimes hopefully identified as "Christ, the Good ShepherdGood Shepherd
Good Shepherd may refer to:In Christianity:* The Good Shepherd , pericope found in John 10:1-21, and a popular image in which the Good Shepherd represents Jesus...
", illustrating the pericope
Pericope
A pericope in rhetoric is a set of verses that forms one coherent unit or thought, thus forming a short passage suitable for public reading from a text, now usually of sacred scripture....
in the Gospel of John
Gospel of John
The Gospel According to John , commonly referred to as the Gospel of John or simply John, and often referred to in New Testament scholarship as the Fourth Gospel, is an account of the public ministry of Jesus...
, and also the second-century Christian literary work The Shepherd of Hermas
The Shepherd of Hermas
The Shepherd of Hermas is a Christian literary work of the 1st or 2nd century, considered a valuable book by many Christians, and considered canonical scripture by some of the early Church fathers such as Irenaeus. The Shepherd had great authority in the 2nd and 3rd centuries...
. In two-dimensional art, Hermes Kriophoros transformed into the Christ carrying a lamb and walking among his sheep: "Thus we find philosophers holding scrolls or a Hermes Kriophoros which can be turned into Christ giving the Law (Traditio Legis) and the Good Shepherd respectively" (Peter and Linda Murray, The Oxford Companion to Classical Art and architecture, p. 475.). The Good Shepherd is a common motif from the Catacombs of Rome
Catacombs of Rome
The Catacombs of Rome are ancient catacombs, underground burial places under or near Rome, Italy, of which there are at least forty, some discovered only in recent decades. Though most famous for Christian burials, either in separate catacombs or mixed together, they began in the 2nd century, much...
(Gardner, 10, fig 54) and in sarcophagus
Sarcophagus
A sarcophagus is a funeral receptacle for a corpse, most commonly carved or cut from stone. The word "sarcophagus" comes from the Greek σαρξ sarx meaning "flesh", and φαγειν phagein meaning "to eat", hence sarkophagus means "flesh-eating"; from the phrase lithos sarkophagos...
reliefs, where Christian and pagan symbolism are often combined, making secure identifications difficult. The theme does appear in the wall-paintings of the baptistery
Baptistery
In Christian architecture the baptistry or baptistery is the separate centrally-planned structure surrounding the baptismal font. The baptistry may be incorporated within the body of a church or cathedral and be provided with an altar as a chapel...
of the Dura-Europos church
Dura-Europos church
The Dura-Europos church is the earliest identified Christian house church. It is located in Dura-Europos in Syria and dates from 235 AD...
, a house-church at Dura-Europos
Dura-Europos
Dura-Europos , also spelled Dura-Europus, was a Hellenistic, Parthian and Roman border city built on an escarpment 90 m above the right bank of the Euphrates river. It is located near the village of Salhiyé, in today's Syria....
before 256 CE, and more familiarly in sixth-century Christian mosaic
Mosaic
Mosaic is the art of creating images with an assemblage of small pieces of colored glass, stone, or other materials. It may be a technique of decorative art, an aspect of interior decoration, or of cultural and spiritual significance as in a cathedral...
s, as in the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia
Mausoleum of Galla Placidia
The Mausoleum of Galla Placidia is a Roman building in Ravenna, Italy. It was listed with seven other structures in Ravenna in the World Heritage List in 1996...
at Ravenna
Ravenna
Ravenna is the capital city of the Province of Ravenna in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy and the second largest comune in Italy by land area, although, at , it is little more than half the size of the largest comune, Rome...
, and there is a famous free-standing sculpture, said to be of about 300AD, and made for a Christian, in the Vatican Museums
Vatican Museums
The Vatican Museums , in Viale Vaticano in Rome, inside the Vatican City, are among the greatest museums in the world, since they display works from the immense collection built up by the Roman Catholic Church throughout the centuries, including some of the most renowned classical sculptures and...
.
Not every Kriophoros, even in Christian times, is Christ, the Good Shepherd: a Kriophoros shepherd, fleeing with his flock from the attack of a wolf, was interpreted as a purely pastoral figure rather than rather than as Christ, the Good Shepherd, when it appeared in the refined late fourth-early fifth century floor mosaics of a colonnade round a courtyard in the Great Palace at Constantinople. Nonetheless, "the shepherd must have been the picture most frequently found in [Christian] places of worship before Constantine," as the most common of the symbolic depictions of Jesus used during the persecution of Christians under the Roman Empire
Persecution of early Christians in the Roman Empire
The Persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire is the religious persecution of Christians as a consequence of professing their faith. It began during the Ministry of Jesus and continued intermittently over a period of about three centuries until the time of Constantine when Christianity was...
, when Early Christian art was necessarily furtive and ambiguous. By the fifth-century the relatively few depictions leave no doubt as to the identity of the shepherd, as at Ravenna.
Examples: rough chronological order
- (Cleveland Museum of Art) Archaic painted terracotta warrior kriophoros, Crete, seventh century BCE Acc. no. 1998.172
- (Acropolis Museum, Athens) Archaic moscophoros, ca 570 BCE, acc. no. 624
- (Museo Barracco, Rome) Late Archaic marble Hermes Kriophoros, first half of the fifth century BCE
- Perseus Sculpture Catalog: Hermes Kriophoros: the Archaic or archaizing bronze Hermes Kriophoros in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, acc. no. 99.489.
- Wilton HouseWilton HouseWilton House is an English country house situated at Wilton near Salisbury in Wiltshire. It has been the country seat of the Earls of Pembroke for over 400 years....
Stables, archaizing marble Hermes Kriophoros with a wedge-shaped beard. (Cornelius Vermeule and Dietrich von BothmerDietrich von BothmerDietrich Felix von Bothmer was a German-born American art historian, who spent six decades as a curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where he developed into the world's leading specialist in the field of ancient Greek vases.-Early life and education:...
, "Notes on a New Edition of Michaelis: Ancient Marbles in Great Britain Part Two" American Journal of Archaeology 60.4 (October 1956:321-350) p 347 and pl. 105, fig. 6.)