The Sphinxes Guarding the Lion Tomb Entrance at Amphipolis

[amyntoros]

I do agree with you, Delos13. The book's purpose is to "explain away" the myths surrounding monsters and heroes (mostly) and usually I neither need nor care to know the reasons for said myths. I'm more than happy to enjoy the stories as recorded. It is, however, a useful book for chronicling its subjects' appearances in Greece, although much there is taken from Pausanias. As far as the sphinx is concerned, I think the author failed to note that recovered funeral steles showing sphinxes are (almost?) exclusively for young men carried away unexpectedly - and there you have a connection between funerary practice and the Theban legend, the sphinx having terrorized Thebes by "carrying away" its young men.

Best regards,

[agesilaos]

I think what Boardman is suggesting is that the Sphynx story is separate from the Fate trope, bt i also think he is mistaken; the Iokaste, Laios incest story is not dependent on the Sphynx, at first glance but Oedipos gets to be Tyrranos, ie a popular leader, because he saves Thebes from the depradations of the monster and this heroic stature makes his mother fall for him; naturally there may have been an older tradition that was elaborated upon by Sophokles, but I cannot think of one.

[Alexias]

As far as the sphinx is concerned, I think the author failed to note that recovered funeral steles showing sphinxes are (almost?) exclusively for young men carried away unexpectedly

...which also ties in with the Persephone motif of a young person carried off before their time.

If we are suggesting that the sphinxes indicate that this might be a monument or tomb for a young man, could I just add this bit about why people have suggested it might be connected with Hephaestion.

One of the reasons others have said that it can't be anything to do with Hephaestion is that there wasn't enough time before Alexander's death for a shrine to Hephaestion as a hero to have been built. This is based on the premise that Alexander didn't receive word back from Siwah that Hephaestion could be worshipped as a hero until May 323 BC, shortly before his own death. Jeanne Reames pointed out that there is an article by Treves called 'Hyperides and the Cult of Hephaestion' (available on jstor) which suggests that this view is wrong and that by Alexander's death, Hephaestion's hero cult was already well established.

Hyperides' speech was a funeral oration for Leosthenes and his comrades who were killed in the Lamian War against Antipater. Hyperides was executed in 322 BC and Leosthenes' death is believed to have occurred before the end of 323 BC. His speech appears to make clear reference to the worship of Hephaestion as a hero. This is the relevant bit (taken from Perseus)

18.Yet the action fought near Pylae and Lamia has proved to be as glorious for them as the conflict in Boeotia, not solely through the circumstances of victory in the field, over Antipater and his allies, but on the grounds of situation also. The fact that this has been the battle's site will mean that all the Greeks, repairing twice a year to the council of the Amphictyones, will witness their achievements; for by the very act of gathering in that spot they will recall the valor of these men.
19.Never before did men strive for a nobler cause, either against stronger adversaries or with fewer friends, convinced that valor gave strength and courage superiority as no mere numbers could. Liberty they gave us as an offering for all to share, but the honor of their deeds they have bestowed upon their country as a wreath for her alone.
20.Now we might well reflect what, in our opinion, the outcome would have been, had these men failed to do their duty in the struggle. Must we not suppose that the whole world would be under one master, and Greece compelled to tolerate his whim as law? In short that Macedonian arrogance, and not the power of justice, would lord it among every people. . . .
21.The practices which even now we have to countenance are proof enough: sacrifices being made to men; images, altars, and temples carefully perfected in their honor, while those of the gods are neglected, and we ourselves are forced to honor as heroes the servants of these people.
22.If reverence for the gods has been removed by Macedonian insolence, what fate must we conclude would have befallen the rules of conduct towards man? Would they not have been utterly discounted? The more terrible therefore we think the consequences would have been, the greater must be the praise which we believe the dead have earned.
23.For no campaign has better shown the courage of the soldiers than this last, when they had daily to be arrayed for combat, to fight, on but one expedition, more battles than the combats which any soldier of the past endured,1 and face extreme severities of weather and many hard privations in the daily needs of life with an endurance almost beyond description.

And this is the article by P Treves

[Taphoi]

Returning to the association of sphinxes with royal Macedonian tombs, I noted earlier that the sphinx was stated to be the creature of Hera in the context of the story of Oedipus.

Laius was buried by Damasistratus, king of Plataea, and Creon, son of Menoeceus, succeeded to the kingdom. In his reign a heavy calamity befell Thebes. For Hera sent the Sphinx, whose mother was Echidna and her father Typhon; and she had the face of a woman, the breast and feet and tail of a lion, and the wings of a bird.

Noting that sphinxes decorate the throne of Eurydice, Alexander's grandmother, and another throne from a nearby tomb in the Queens' Cluster at Aegae, I speculated that the principal Macedonian queen was associated with Hera, the wife of Zeus, as an extension of the association of the king of Macedon with Zeus, which is most clearly evident in the case of Philip II. I suggested that this was why the senior Macedonian queen adopted the sphinx as her symbol.
I am pleased now to be able to make this association between the Macedonian queens and Hera explicit. Pausanias 5.20.10 describes a temple called the Philippeum erected at Olympia by Philip II in the aftermath of Chaeronea, in which he erected five portrait statues of himself and his immediate family. Pausanias 5.17.4 also notes, however, that two statues of queens, seemingly Eurydice I (Alexander's grandmother) and Olympias were subsequently moved into the nearby temple of Hera. Although the text of Pausanias is lacunose at this point and mentions only Eurydice's statue explicitly, it is generally agreed (e.g. by Rocha Pereira and Elizabeth Carney) that a gap in the text contained the name of Olympias. This evidence completes the connection of Macedonian queens with sphinxes via a mutual association with Hera.
Best wishes,
Andrew

[gepd]

Some more info while waiting for Wednesday's announcement:

a) A person who visited the lion spent some time taking pictures of the marble blocks found next to it (they belonged to the round wall) and identified markings on them, much more clear than those shown in the example from Dorothy King (which I still cannot resolve). He posted few photos in a blog discussion, and here is a sample:



One more photo is here: http://oi61.tinypic.com/ivim2r.jpg and one more block (no markings visible, but characteristic of the ones seen on the wall, is here: http://oi61.tinypic.com/i6gvo5.jpg
A general view of the wall blocks is here: http://www.thehistoryblog.com/wp-conten ... marble.jpg

b) One more person who promotes enthusiatically a solution for the tomb occupant is Prof. Mavroyiannis from the University of Cyprus. He believes the tomb was intended for Heaphestion and has given a couple of public talks for that, one can be found here from the University of Cyprus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02JBVAJc4i4
The talk is in Greek, maybe one can make a summary for everyone later? I don't have much time now. In this talk he explores historical events around the alleged period of the tomb's construction. He also refers to Heaphestion's cult discussed in earlier posts by Alexias. He tries to understand where the dating of the monument comes from, and refers to construction methods, the processing of the marble and similarities with the Hieron at Samothrace: http://www.ascsa.edu.gr/pdf/uploads/hesperia/147387.pdf

[Zebedee]

Didn't Pausanias say that the throne of Zeus at Olympia also portrayed sphinxes 'ravishing the Theban children'? Pretty sure there's the odd Macedonian coin showing the sphinxes on a throne? And one can point to the association with Athena, where a sphinx or two wasn't uncommon in the iconography associated with her. And then there's Apollo's shrine at Delphi where sphinxes were found... The use of the sphinx in iconography is unfaithful to any specific narrative.

---

Gepd - the comparison to Samothrace is really interesting. Thank you.

[Taphoi]

Didn't Pausanias say that the throne of Zeus at Olympia also portrayed sphinxes 'ravishing the Theban children'? Pretty sure there's the odd Macedonian coin showing the sphinxes on a throne? And one can point to the association with Athena, where a sphinx or two wasn't uncommon in the iconography associated with her. And then there's Apollo's shrine at Delphi where sphinxes were found... The use of the sphinx in iconography is unfaithful to any specific narrative.

Yet surely we are interested in associations of sphinxes with the tombs of the most senior Macedonians in the later 4th century BC rather than with the rich and almost infinitely diverse associations of sphinxes with other people and other things in other places at other times? Without any such focus, I completely agree with you that you can muddy the waters to your heart's content.
Best wishes.
Andrew

[Zebedee]

Yet surely we are interested in associations of sphinxes with the tombs of the most senior Macedonians rather than with the rich and almost infinitely diverse associations of sphinxes with other people and other things in other places at other times? Without any such focus, I completely agree with you that you can muddy the waters to your heart's content.
Best wishes.
Andrew

So, a sword pommel and a throne then. Not seeing the Hera link.

[Taphoi]

Yet surely we are interested in associations of sphinxes with the tombs of the most senior Macedonians in the later 4th century BC rather than with the rich and almost infinitely diverse associations of sphinxes with other people and other things in other places at other times? Without any such focus, I completely agree with you that you can muddy the waters to your heart's content.
Best wishes.
Andrew

So, a sword pommel and a throne then. Not seeing the Hera link.

Two thrones found in tombs of late 4th century BC queens of Macedon: that of Eurydice I from the Queens' cluster at Aegae and that found in the Rhomaios tomb in the Queens' Cluster at Aegae. The Hera link explains why sphinxes were so used: queens of Macedon saw themselves as a parallel of Hera in the context of the King's emulation of Zeus. It is well known that the kings of Macedon traced their descent from Zeus via Heracles (e.g. Diodorus 17.1.5 and Plutarch, Alexander 2.1), that they put depictions of Zeus on their coinage and that they associated themselves with Zeus quite generally. They celebrated an important festival of Zeus at Dion and the people of Eresus in Lesbos erected altars to Zeus Philippios (M. N. Tod, A Selection of Greek Historical Inscriptions 2, 1948, no. 191.6) - possibly indicating the divinisation of Philip II in the guise of Zeus.
Best wishes,
Andrew

[Zebedee]

A throne's a throne, but rather than looking for parallels of the use of sphinxes on other thrones, we're doing the Hera thing to retrofit onto your Olympias theory to make a connection with a pair of statues at the entrance to a tomb(?). Not debating Zeus or post-death cult behaviours, although I'd be very wary about overstating the case within Macedonia - whether they were erecting altars at Lesbos or putting Philip's cult stuff in Artemis' temple at Ephesos.

[amyntoros]

Yet surely we are interested in associations of sphinxes with the tombs of the most senior Macedonians in the later 4th century BC rather than with the rich and almost infinitely diverse associations of sphinxes with other people and other things in other places at other times? Without any such focus, I completely agree with you that you can muddy the waters to your heart's content.

You said it, Andrew! And out of that "rich and almost infinitely diverse associations of sphinxes with other people and other things in other places" we have sphinxes on three thrones. One belonged to Zeus (not Hera) and two were in the tombs of Macedonian queens. As no thrones have been found in the tombs of Macedonian kings we can definitely say that there's an association between their queens and funerary thrones - and the water there is quite clear. However, any specific association with the sphinxes on the thrones is still questionable. No actual thrones of Macedonian kings have yet been recovered so it will remain so. Now, if they discover a throne in the Amphipolis tomb I'd say you have a reasonable argument for it belonging to Olympias. Until then ...

As for the Pausanias quote, which I was reading only the other day; the statues of Olympias and Eurydike were transferred from the Shrine of Philip. No specific period mentioned, Roman or Greek. There's a long gap between the time the shrine was built and the time of Pausanias' writing. As Philip ordered the statues to be placed with him, in his shrine, I'd say that the moving of the females to be with Hera has nothing at all to do with Macedonian queenly associations. Oh, and Hera, by the way, had devoted followers in all women, especially wives, not just queens.

Best regards,

[Taphoi]

You said it, Andrew! And out of that "rich and almost infinitely diverse associations of sphinxes with other people and other things in other places" we have sphinxes on three thrones. One belonged to Zeus (not Hera) and two were in the tombs of Macedonian queens. As no thrones have been found in the tombs of Macedonian kings we can definitely say that there's an association between their queens and funerary thrones - and the water there is quite clear. However, any specific association with the sphinxes on the thrones is still questionable. No actual thrones of Macedonian kings have yet been recovered so it will remain so. Now, if they discover a throne in the Amphipolis tomb I'd say you have a reasonable argument for it belonging to Olympias. Until then ...

We have thrones in two high status Macedonian tombs of the late 4th century BC. There is no relevant third throne for me, because I am focussing on associations with high status Macedonian tombs of the late 4th century BC. In respect of that focus, I need to recall where I began this thread. The most important association of all. It still seems to be the case that the only other freestanding monumental statues of Greek-style sphinxes from the late 4th century BC are those found at the probable first tomb of Alexander at the Serapeum of Memphis by Mariette in 1851. Furthermore, we now know that the sphinxes at the Serapeum had the same hairstyle as those guarding the entrance of the tomb at Amphipolis and it does not appear to be a common hairstyle for sphinxes. They would have stood outside the entrance of Alexander's first tomb. The tomb at the Serapeum was created in 321BC, so Olympias had 5 years to commission decorations for her son's tomb before her own end. Might she have chosen something symbolic of the queen of Macedon? Or is this just another of the many coincidences. There are the Klodones complete with their snake baskets; the not-so-young Persephone with the red hair being abducted by a figure that the PhDiva confidently (and probably correctly) identified as Philip II; a lion like the lion that sealed Olympias's womb when pregnant with Alexander; a site near the city that surrendered just before Olympias was murdered and was the base of the leading members of her family for the ensuing 6 years; a smashing and scrupulous sealing up of the tomb by some embittered and fearful lord of Macedon. Finally and most tellingly, the thing was built to be a stade wide, vastly bigger than any other Macedonian royal tomb ever, as though for a deity rather than a mere royal. The case has to be appreciated in its totality...
The sources are clear that Alexander intended that Hephaistion's tomb would be built at the site of his pyre in Babylon. It is quite incredible that anyone would build something a stade wide for the Chiliarch after Alexander's death and it is impossible that it could have been completed in just a few months. Nobody would have troubled to seal up an empty Heroon with thousands of tonnes of sand and at least three layers of limestone blocks. Nobody would have built a cenotaph to Alexander at Amphipolis, because the sources are explicit that Perdiccas intended to entomb Alexander at Aegae.
Best wishes,
Andrew

[agesilaos]

Just as they arer explicit that Olympias was cast out UNBURIED and Alexander Aegos and Roxane were confined with no status; one lists reasons why not it does not do to stop half-way.

[gepd]

(...) a smashing and scrupulous sealing up of the tomb by some embittered and fearful lord of Macedon.

To me the type of sealing and findings (e.g. sphinx head, wings, lion parts) suggest that whoever did that intended to protect the monument, not destroy it. Sealing appears to have been executed in an organized and careful way. If that would have been commited out of hatred we would have probably seen more extended damages, maybe even collapsed chambers or more chaotic sand filling. Signs of extended damage are seen only in the 3rd chamber, but probably because the overlying weight of the hill was much greater than for the first ones.

Furthrmore, for Cassander to have this tomb desecrated, it would mean that the tomb's construction was commisioned and completed before Cassander took over command of the region, otherwise it makes no sense for him to allow something so costly and enormous to be built in the region, only to have it destroyed soon after. So, who would have commisioned such a construction? Antipater (no way) or Polypechron, while he was busy fighting against Cassander?

The sources are clear that Alexander intended that Hephaistion's tomb would be built at the site of his pyre in Babylon. It is quite incredible that anyone would build something a stade wide for the Chiliarch after Alexander's death and it is impossible that it could have been completed in just a few months. Nobody would have troubled to seal up an empty Heroon with thousands of tonnes of sand and at least three layers of limestone blocks. Nobody would have built a cenotaph to Alexander at Amphipolis, because the sources are explicit that Perdiccas intended to entomb Alexander at Aegae.

I would not use the word clear: I really cannot see for a start how the described pyre would have been designed and constructed within few months of Heaphestion's death. For the rest of the arguments, they apply more or less to every candidate one proposes for the tomb's occupant. I expect that even if the excavators identify solid evidence to attribute the tomb to a specific person, even then it would make no sense. But then, most things in Alexander's story are unpredictable...

[Paralus]

Well said gepd. Wishful thinking and an Erich von Daniken 'argument' of 'coincidences' do not a case make (pyramids are found the world over, therefore Egyptians traveled the word over in antiquity).

The notion that Amphipolis was somehow "the base of the leading members of her (Olympias') family for the ensuing 6 years" is a novelist's nonsense. As has been said - and scrupulously ignored - more than once, Alexander IV and his mother were held under 'house arrest' in the citadel of Amphipolis. Further, Alexander IV was conspicuously stripped of all 'royal entitlements' including his 'pages'. This was no king in waiting; rather a dangerous rival awaiting a suitable and politic time of disposal. The conditions for that disposal arose after the 'Peace of the Dynasts'. Whilst the other Dioadochi had their 'satrapies' Cassander did not. His would fall, in due course, to Alexander IV who Cassander imprisoned along with his mother and whose grandmother Cassander had murdered and left "cast out" and unburied. The point was no more lost on Cassander's rivals than it was on Cassander himself. His reaction, we are to believe, is to build (or allow to be built) a magnificent tomb for Olympias as some sort of reconciliation. A tomb he would then desecrate and seal up.