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Phaedra, a lovesick heroine

The Myth.

Daughter of Minos, king of Crete, and Pasiphae. She married Theseus, king of Athens, and bore him two sons, Acamas and Demophon. At the core of her legend is her relationship with her stepson Hippolytus, Theseus’ son by the Amazon Antiope (or Hippolyte). In what seems to have been the traditional story told by Apollodorus (Epit. I, 18-19), “Phaedra, after she had borne two children, Acamas and Demophon, to Theseus, fell in love with the son he had by the Amazon, to wit, Hippolytus, and besought him to lie with her. Howbeit, he fled from her embraces, because he hated all women. But Phaedra, fearing that he might accuse her to his father, cleft open the doors of her bed-chamber, rent her garments, and falsely charged Hippolytus with an assault. Theseus believed her and prayed to Poseidon that Hippolytus might perish. So, when Hippolytus was riding in his chariot and driving beside the sea, Poseidon sent up a bull from the surf, and the horses were frightened, the chariot dashed in pieces, and Hippolytus, entangled in the reins, was dragged to death. And when her passion was made public, Phaedra hanged herself.” (Sir James George Frazer, Ed)

Phaedra was the subject of at least three Attic tragedies, two by Euripides entitled Hippolytus and a Phaedra by Sophocles. According to Euripides’ second and extant Hippolytus (428 BC), Phaedra is the innocent victim of the struggle between divine powers, and the plain story of Apollodorus is treated with great psychological refinement. Phaedra is a virtuous woman and has been made to fall in love by Aphrodite, who is getting her revenge on Hippolytus, the chaste follower of Artemis, for ignoring her worship. Phaedra, ashamed of this dishonorable love, has struggled to conquer her passion in silence – but to no avail, and so now she is trying to starve herself to death. Her nurse, alarmed because of her obvious illness, worms her secret out of her; and it is the nurse, anxious to ease her mistress’ sufferings, who reveals her love to Hippolytus.

He responds to these well-meant overtures with bitter rage against women in general and Phaedra in particular, and she, afraid that he will tell everything to Theseus, writes a letter to her husband accusing Hippolytus of rape, a slander designed to protect her children from a disgrace they do not deserve. “This day I shall die” she says, “and bring pleasure to Aphrodite, my destroyer. I shall be the victim of a bitter love. But there is another whom I will hurt in dying ….” Then she hangs herself from the rafters. Theseus returns to find his wife dead, to read the letter, and to curse Hippolytus to death by the bull from the sea.

Source: Jennifer R. March. “Dictionary of Classical Mythology”.

 

The Sarcophagus.

The unhappy love of Phaedra towards Hippolytus was carved several times on Roman sarcophagi. The sculptors represented this myth in two variants, both organized into two panels. The scene carved on the leftmost panel is always the same. It represents the main characters in their house: Phaedra with her nurse surrounded by some handmaids, and Hippolytus ready for the hunt. The two versions differ for the subject carved on the rightmost panel. This sarcophagus is an example of the first variant in which the heroic scene of wild boar hunting follows the domestic scene.

In more recent time the hunting scene is been substituted with a scene involving other characters and temporally and geographically distant from the previous one: the arrival of the delegation sent to Athens to inform Theseus about the death of his son Hippolytus, (2nd variant dating from 2nd half of III cent. AD.)

An archway divides the front panel of the sarcophagus into two halves. At the far left of the frieze sits the richly dressed Phaedra on a sumptuous throne, the arm-rests of which are supported on a sphinx. Overcome by her longing for her handsome stepson, she has turned her head towards a female servant standing behind her; to her right another servant props her chin in her hand, either listening or thinking. The lovesick heroine is portrayed as a respectable and desirable woman of high social standing: a length of her cloak lies over the head on which she wears a diadem, her robe slips Venus—like from her shoulder, and in her right hand she holds a hand garland. The miniature Amor-Psyche group before Phaedra’s throne, and the cupid leaning on a torch at her feet, represent her desire for Hippolytus, who is preparing to depart for the hunt. He holds a spear or lance in his left hand and wears only a chlamys, and stands in front of a temple, doubtless that of Artemis, while his horse beside him paws the ground impatiently. His perfect heroic body, presented frontally to the viewer, contrasts effectively with the flaccid, wrinkled skin of the old nurse next to him. She is holding out her left hand in entreaty or supplication, and has brought her right hand to her mouth in an ambiguous gesture. Two servants accompany Hippolytus: an older man with a beard, of whom only the head is visible next to the tip of the hero's lance, and a younger one, with ‘barbarian‘ features, who carries a throwing-spear over his left shoulder and takes charge of two valuable hunting-dogs.

Beyond the wall limiting the domestic ambience, in the right half of the frieze, Hippolytus is engaged in his favorite activity: the hunting. Riding his horse, he is about to throw his spear against a wild boar suddenly came out from the trees. One of his dogs has already bitten a leg of the beast. Hippolytus is accompanied by a man riding beside him, and by a woman dressed as an Amazon. She is raising her arms to support and urge the hunter. This female character is “Virtus”, the goddess who personifies the value and the strength of the warrior.

The sarcophagus dating from the early 3rd century AD was found in subterranean tomb located along the Via Latina near Rome. Many sarcophagi were here found. Among these, the remarkable Adonis’ sarcophagus preserved at the Vatican Museums and describing the myth of awesome Adonis and Aphrodite.

 

Source: Zanker P. & Ewald BC., “Vivere con i Miti. L’iconografia dei sarcogagi Romani”

 

Marble sarcophagus

Ca. 210 AD

Vatican City State, Vatican Museums, Museo Gregoriano Profano

 

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Uploaded on February 16, 2015
Taken on February 6, 2014