Food for thoughts

Strolling through the Graeco-Roman section of a museum, I often come face to face with a statue or a head of Antinoüs, the lover of Emperor Hadrian. His outstanding beauty and the perfect traits of his being are true eye-catchers.

Hadrian, who lived 76-138 AD, was a world traveler in our modern concept. He regularly visited many cities of the prosperous Roman Empire, and the occasion was often thankfully remembered by the citizens who built a triumphal arch. Many such monuments are still visible today. They have become so familiar that I genuinely miss them when they are absent. This was the case, for instance, in Albania. In the historical context, that is not surprising, but as it turned out, I got used to the comforting idea of having Hadrian around.

As the arches remained in place, the statues of the emperor were generally safely removed to a museum. It is there that Antinoüs pops up next to him. In the back of my mind, I am confident that when you see one, you are almost certain to find the other nearby.

In antiquity, a man having a male friend or lover was a way of living. Such relations were commonly accepted, not like today when many people raise their eyebrows, to put it mildly, and condemn the relation entirely. In our modern world, people belonging to LGBTQ groups are still far from being accepted. But that is not the point I want to make, and this is not the place to discuss the matter either.

We’ll find various examples of such relationships in Classical Greece. The Theban Band, which was ultimately destroyed by Alexander at Chaironeia, consisted of elite pairs of lovers. It was a fierce and unbeatable Band of Brothers precisely because they were lovers and would defend their partner to the very end. It was a great honor to belong to this Band famed to be invincible, that is, till they were defeated by Alexander.

Achilles and Patroclus, as described by Homer, is another example. They were so vividly remembered that when Alexander reached the tomb of Achilles in Asia Minor, he and Hephaistion stripped their clothes and ran around the burial mound. They identified themselves with Achilles and Patroclus.

Another famous pair of lovers was Harmodius and Aristogeiton from Athens, who became the symbol of democracy after committing an act of political assassination in 514 BC. They killed Hipparchus, the last tyrant of the city, during the Panathenaic Festival. The Athenians recognized them as the founders of democracy and erected a bronze statue group in their honor. It stood on the Acropolis till it was robbed by Xerxes during the Persian War in 480 BC, and it was installed in Susa. This is where Alexander found the group in 330 BC, and he sent it back to Athens.

Clearly, the friendship/love between Alexander and Hephaistion was nothing new. It was common knowledge among the troops, who accepted it for what it was. The special place Hephaistion occupied in Alexander’s life was, however, a source of envy and even resentment among the other Companions and generals. They must have watched that relationship with Argus’ eyes as they all coveted Hephaistion’s privileged position. Yet, Hephaistion never took advantage of that position. He must have walked a tightrope trying to stay aloft and still accomplish the missions Alexander entrusted to him. He must have been a gifted diplomat, blessed with a huge dose of self-control and endless love for Alexander.

I find it quite intriguing that most of the statues of Hadrian and Antinoüs were made during their lifetime and have survived to this day. This is not the case for Alexander, whose statues were made after his death. Most are Roman copies from the 1^st and 2^nd century AD based on originals by Lysippos, Praxiteles, and other great artists whose works no longer exist. The images of Hephaistion are even scarcer, and one could wrongly assume that his relationship with Alexander was not important enough to be underscored in the art world.

On the other hand, we know that after the death of Hephaistion, many effigies were made. They were presented to the mourning Alexander by his generals. Perhaps they hoped to clear their own conscience or to find a way to console Alexander. It remains to be seen whether that gesture was genuine or only a way to plead their own case to obtain favors. It is not impossible that after Alexander’s own death, his generals destroyed the effigies of Hephaistion in an ultimate urge to satisfy their own desire for revenge.

The fact remains that Alexander and Hephaistion are rarely seen together. I have come across only two such cases. One set of statues stood in a showcase at the National Archaeological Museum of Athens (see: Alexander and Hephaistion side by side). Those statues, found in Alexandria, are a little less than life-size and date from the 1^st century BC. The other example is their respective heads on display at the Getty Museum in Malibu, California (see: Ode to Alexander and Hephaistion). They once belonged to a larger group made as early as 320 BC and found in Megara, near Athens. Both heads have been reworked in antiquity, and Hephaistion’s hair has been trimmed in the process.

Both men are evidently also depicted on the famous Alexander sarcophagus, now at the Archaeological Museum in Istanbul. However, they are not placed next to each other but on either side of the sarcophagus. Alexander is depicted fighting a Persian on one panel and Hephaistion is part of a hunting scene on the opposite side.

Wartime looting in antiquity

Wartime looting is something we associate with today’s unstable political situations in North Africa and the Middle East, but looking back into history, this is certainly not new, although the reasons and the drives were entirely different then from what we are facing now.

Looting can be triggered by warfare in which we have the urge to annihilate the enemy, and that includes everything he treasures and cherishes. When it comes to religious wars, like, for instance, those fought by the Crusaders, looting is translated into the destruction of religious convictions and what they stand for. Looting may also be simple greed, the envy to possess what no one else has, either because it is unique or because it is so valuable.

One of the first examples that comes to my mind is the statues of Harmodius and Aristogeiton, two Athenian heroes who stood for the origin of Athenian democracy in 514 BC, and whose images were erected in the Agora. They were stolen by the Persians in 480 BC and moved to Susa, where they were recovered by Alexander the Great in 331 BC, who sent them back to Athens.

Yet most widespread or best-documented lootings happened in Roman times when great Greek works of art were carried home as trophies or as simple spoils of war.

After the sack of Corinth by L. Mummius in 146 BC, many statues were brought to Rome, while others were sold to the King of Pergamum, who was building up a remarkable collection. Among the statues that arrived in Rome was one of Philip II that was mistakenly labeled as that of Zeus.

Better known for all kinds of not-too-glorious reasons was L. Cornelius Sulla, who launched a well-remembered attack on Athens and Piraeus. He used the trees from Plato’s Academy and Aristotle’s Lyceum to build his siege towers. When Athens fell in 86 BC, he removed choice pieces from the Temple of Zeus, hardly built a century before, and these fragments later surfaced in the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus in Rome. At the same time, an unknown number of manuscripts, paintings, and other precious objects were shipped to Rome. Further, to pay for his expensive wars, he levied heavy contributions on the wealthiest cities to acquire the treasures of Epidaurus, Olympia, and Delphi – a true sacrilege at the time!

Following Sulla’s example, L. Licinius Lucullus collected works taken from Sinope by L. Aemilius Paullus. Sinope was a great admirer of Greek art and took his time to tour the country to find the most appealing pieces, like an Athena by Phidias that he dedicated to Rome, leaving, however, (luckily) the gigantic Zeus of Olympia untouched.

Julius Caesar was another great “collector,” acquiring his objects by plunder and purchase.

The most notorious of all looters definitely was Gaius Verres, governor of Sicily, who in 73 BC seized statues, reliefs, dedications, paintings and jewelry from the Sicilians and from other parts of the Greek world. He started by requisitioning the most beautiful objects from private homes, followed by the despoliation of the island’s sanctuaries. He stole a statue of Ceres from the temple of Catania; a set of gold and ivory doors from the temple of Athena in Syracuse, together with paintings and other effigies of the goddess whose hands supposedly were made of gold; a magnificent bronze statue of Apollo by Myron from the temple of Asclepius at Akragas; and many more. On their way to steal the statue of Heracles from the temple at Akragas, his soldiers were overpowered by furious citizens. Enough is enough! Tensions rose so high that Cicero was called in to defend the Sicilians’ case. He won, and Verres went into exile in Marseille. Unfortunately, none of these works of art was ever recovered.

With the increase of its wealth, Rome developed a kind of refinement where Corinthian bronzes became especially prized (the bronze was of exceptional quality!). Among those connoisseurs was Novius Vindex, who acquired a bronze statuette of Heracles made by nobody less than Lysippos, paintings by Apelles, and many other objects of marble, ivory, and precious metal believed to be the work of Praxiteles, Phidias, and Polycleitus.

Even Emperor Nero is to be found among the admirers of Greece, making him one of the major looters of Greek art to adorn the eternal city. He did not shy away from directing his attention towards Delphi, from where he took 500 bronze statues, and Olympia, where he monopolized an unspecified number of statues. Also on his list is a particularly fine Eros by Lysippos taken from Thespiae that was, later on, destroyed by a fire in Rome. Strangely enough, he left Athens untouched but rampaged through the cities of Asia Minor instead. He concentrated on masterpieces created by artists like Phidias, Praxiteles, and Cephisodotus. Among his masterpieces, the most famous were the Apollo Belvedere, the Borghese Gladiator, and a Venus. With the end of Roman power, the import and looting of Greek art came to a halt.

By this time, the Byzantine Empire had taken over, and Constantine the Great in 324 AD, inverted the inflow of art by bringing all the treasures from Rome to Constantinople. Under one of his successors, the pagan Julian the Apostate, we know that the temple of Apollo at Didyma and the sanctuary of Demeter at Eleusis were restored.

The sack of Rome by the Visigoths in 395 was devastating, and many works of art found their way to Constantinople. The ruthless rampage of the barbarians spread as quickly as wildfire, and it was at this period that the great Chryselephantine statue of Zeus that Phidias made for the temple of Zeus in Olympia was saved at the last moment and transferred to the Palace of Lausus in Constantinople (to be ultimately destroyed by fire in the first half of the 5^th century AD). Soon, more selected gem pieces joined this collection, including the Athena of Lindos from the 4^th century BC, the famous Aphrodite from Cnidos created by Praxiteles, and the Hera from Samos made by Lysippos. Constantine also brought a porphyry column from Delphi to adorn his Forum, while his Senate was enhanced by the statue of Zeus from Dodona and two statues of Pallas Athena. Bellerophon slaying the Chimera was brought in from either Great Antioch or Corinth; the Fortune of the City exchanged the Forum in Rome for Constantinople, together with a statue of the Sun God from Phrygia.

Constantinople’s Hippodrome was outrageously populated by no less than sixty statues imported from Rome which, except for a statue of Augustus, came from all over the Greek world: Athens, Chios, Crete and Rhodes, Cyzicus, Caesarea, Sardes, Tralles, Tyana, Antioch, Iconium (modern Konya), Smyrna, Nicaea, Nicomedia and Nicopolis. Just imagine the widespread and cumbersome dragging and lugging of all these artifacts. No wonder we keep recuperating them from the bottom of the Mediterranean!

Today’s visitors to the Hippodrome in Istanbul can still admire the Serpent Column, which is part of a monument that once stood next to the temple of Apollo at Delphi and was dedicated by the cities that defied the Persians at the Battle of Platea in 479 BC. On the same square stands an Egyptian obelisk, originally commissioned by Thutmosis III in the 16^th century BC to commemorate one of his campaigns in Syria. It was shipped to Constantinople towards the end of the 4^th century AD and broke during its transport. What we see now is only the upper part mounted on a marble base showing reliefs of Theodosius I and his family attending races on this very Hippodrome.

This was also home to the life-size group of four horses we know from Saint Mark’s Cathedral in Venice. They were made of gilded bronze, and the horses are said to have been pulling a chariot. It may have been brought in from Chios or given as a present to Nero by the king of Armenia and closely resembles the group created by Lysippos for the temple dedicated to Rhodes in Delphi during the 4^th century BC. According to one theory, these horses are Hellenistic copies, but according to others, it may well be the original that traveled from Delphi to Chios to Constantinople and eventually to Venice.

Time-wise, we now reach the construction of the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, where today’s visitors can still find many columns, doors, and other decorative elements that were taken from different cities all over Asia Minor.

For many centuries Constantinople was a safe haven for many works of art from antiquity but during the ensuing invasions, first by the Arabs in the 7^th and 8^th centuries and by the Bulgarians in the 9^th and 10^th centuries, the city was thoroughly sacked in 1204 when the members of the Fourth Crusades rampaged through the streets of this once so glorious city. Most saddening is maybe the final destruction of so many documents that had survived from antiquity and that are since lost forever. 

In our 21^st century, we praise ourselves as lucky to have museums to shelter and protect our greatest and most magnificent works of art, although, at times, even the museums are no longer a safe haven for our culture. We are all aware of the dilapidated museums of Kabul and Bagdad, for instance, and we still don’t know what has happened to the Museum of Damascus and so many others in the Middle East. Looting was and still is omnipresent, most unfortunately.

[Picture of Harmodius and Aristogeiton is from Ancient Rome]