Aitia (Jan 2015)
Entre histoires de familles et histoire universelle : liens générationnels, parentés et mariages dans la représentation de la trame temporelle entourant le conflit troyen
Abstract
By comparing the scenes depicted on Italiote vases with their possible literary counterparts in Lycophron’s Alexandra, this paper intends to present possible parallels between a corpus of images dating of the 4th century BC and a poem that was possibly composed in the early 3rd century BC, but which may partly echo the way in which certain myths were re-elaborated and reworked with an ideological purpose in the wake of the political and historical events of the second half of the 4th century BC. Our focal point will be the treatment of the early causes of the Trojan conflict and the rendering of the personal histories of characters and families linked to the first and/or the second sack of Troy: at the turn of the 4th and 3rd centuries BC, these mythological events were indeed likely to be understood as one of the main examples of the everlasting conflict of Europe and Asia and were, as such, of major interest for the intellectuals and artists reacting to recent events such as the campaigns of Alexander the Great. Our intent is to pay specific attention to the presentation of family relationships (relationships between generations and cases of sungeneia) and to the question of relationships between humans and between gods and humans: some of the case-studies that we have chosen are the representations of Helen and of her birth and childhood, of Aithra, and of Hesione. We will attempt to determine if the presentation that is given of these characters and of their personal fates reflects a wider conception of family and social relationships, of history and of the order of the world. Is it possible to reconstruct an underlying presentation of world history by analyzing the way in which poetry and images establish connections between certain mythological events or characters?
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