Notes on Greek Dwarfs Author(s): H. A. Shapiro Reviewed work(s): Source: American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 88, No. 3 (Jul.

, 1984), pp. 391-392 Published by: Archaeological Institute of America Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/504562 . Accessed: 12/09/2012 20:18
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Mycenaean."1 In fact, it has been demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt that they are of Geometric date.12

sociated with the Egyptian Bes,4 but is now identified simply as a dwarf or pygmy."Such figures, both in art and in life, were considered comical, as well as apotropaic.6 ROBERT LEIGHTON The dwarf is often associated in antiquity with anothDEPARTMENT OF ARCHAEOLOGY er figure who could be both comical and apotropaic, the OF EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY hunchback.7 Like the dwarf, the hunchback is small, ocEDINBURGH EH8 9JZ curs often as a theatrical character, is sometimes seen KINGDOM UNITED SCOTLAND, dancing,8 and may be depicted with exaggerated phallus.9 I believe this association may account in part for the humor of an anecdote told by Pliny the Elder (HN NOTES ON GREEK DWARFS 34.6.12) about a woman named Gegania, who bought at Martin Robertson recently published a curious red- auction a chandelier, together with an ugly hunchback, figure oinochoe in Oxford showing a dancing, naked and conceived an outrageous passion for the latter, after dwarf, a muffled woman and, between them, a winged she had exhibited him naked at a party. phallus.' Commenting on the phallus, Robertson writes, Although the dwarf with large phallus appears rarely "Dwarfs, like negroes, are sometimes credited (by those in pre-Hellenistic Greek art,'0 the tradition may help of different colour or shape) with great sexual potency, explain a puzzling feature of several Attic vase-represenbut I cannot find that this was so in antiquity."2 There is, tations of Old Age (Geras). Of five known vases depictin fact, an ancient tradition, both attested in literary ing the encounter of Herakles and Geras, a story not sources and illustrated in extant monuments, attributing found in any literary version, three show Geras as a very to dwarfs an inordinately large phallus, surely an indica- small creature, dwarfed by the hero, while on the other tion of sexual potency. This belief is expressed by Aris- two he is of normal size." The three dwarf-like depictotle (HA 577b27-29), in comparing dwarfs (vivoL) tions of Geras are not consistent in physiognomy, but with miniature mules (ylvvoL), both of whom possess they all share one trait: a large and misshapen phallus.'2 large genitalia. The same statement is contained in three That it is misshapen could be a sign of old age, when, of the lexicographers, Hesychius, Photius and Suidas, in according to the poets, the body and limbs become weak reference to a remark of Theophrastus: co Kca and bent.13 But that the phallus becomes enlarged in old vrvvova aLloiov EXovra age is not recorded in any ancient source and, on the conTL'ya.3 Among statuettes of the Hellenistic and Roman peri- trary, we might expect it to become shrivelled, as is often ods, the dwarf with distorted countenance and enormous said of an old man's flesh.14 Sexual excitement is usually indicated by a phallus phallus is a standard type of grotesque. A particularly fine example, in terracotta, from Ephesus, was at first as- which is not only large but erect, as on many satyrs in
" See most recentlyJ.C. Meyer, Pre-Republican Rome (Odense 1983) 107. sul 12 E. La Rocca, "Due tombe dell'Esquilino. Alcune commercioeuboico in Italia centrale nell'VIII sec. a.C.," novit, DialAr 8 (1974-1975) 86-103; accepted by L. Vagnetti, "Mycenaean Imports in Central Italy,"in E. Peruzzi, Mycenaeans in Early Latium (Rome 1980) 154, n. 10. On the wider issues involved, see also R. Peroni, "I contatti tra il Lazio e il mondo miceneo,"in Enea nel Lazio: archeologiae mito (exhibition catalogue, Rome 1981) 87-88. 1 M. Robertson, "A Muffled Dancer and Others,"in Studies in Honour of ArthurDale Trendall (Sydney 1979) 129-34; pl. 34.1-2. 2 Robertson (supra n. 1) 130. 3S.v. vavor.On the alternate spellings vaivos and vcvvos see LS]' s.v. vavos. 4 F. Miltner, "Vorliufiger Bericht uiber die Ausgrabungen in Ephesos,"OJh 44 (1959) Beibl. 321 and fig. 162. 5 R. Fleischer, in A. Bammer, R. Fleischer and D. Knibbe, Fiihrer durch das archiiologisches Museum in Selguk-Ephesos (Vienna 1974) 17; W. Jobst, "Das 'offentliche Freudenhaus' in Ephesos,"OJh 51 (1976-1977) 66-67. For other examples, see C. Grandjouan, The Athenian Agora 6. Terracottas and Plastic Lamps (Princeton 1961) pl. 24, no. 904 (bronzelamp in the formof a phallic dwarf); pl. 30, no. 1075 (terracotta phallic dancing dwarf). For a recent discussion of dancing, and other, dwarfs, see K.K. Albertson, in Aspects of Ancient Greece (Allentown 1979) 222-23. 6 See W. Binsfeld, Grylloi (Cologne 1956) 43-44. American Journal of Archaeology 88 (1984)
7 See W.E. Stevenson, III, The Pathological GrotesqueRepresentation in Greek and Roman Art (Diss. Univ. of Pennsylvania 1975) esp. 44-49; 151-52; 181-87, where Bes is discussed as the Egyptian "hunchbackeddwarf-deity" popular in the Hellenistic period. 8 Lucian (Symp. 18) describesa party where entertainmentwas providedby a dancing hunchback. 9 See D. Levi, "The Evil Eye and the Lucky Hunchback,"in Antioch-on-the-Orontes 3 (Princeton 1941) 228-29; pl. 56. 10 E.g., an Attic red-figurecup, ca. 440-430, showing two naked, dancingdwarfs, each with large, flaccidpenis:W. Hornbostelet al., Aus Griibernund Heiligtiimern (Hamburg 1980) 142-43. " J.D. Beazley, "Geras,"BABesch 24-26 (1949-1951) 18-20; F. Brommer,"Heraklesund Geras,"AA 1952, 60-73; G. Giglioli, "Una pelike attica da Cerveterinel Museo di Villa Giulia a Roma con Herakles e Geras,"in StudiesPresentedto David M. Robinson 2 (St. Louis 1953) 111-13. 12 The three vases are: 1) black-figurelekythos, Adolphseck 12; ABV 491, 60; Brommer (supra n. 11) 70, fig. 9; 2) red-figure pelike, Louvre G234; ARV2 286, 16; Brommer 62, fig. 1; 3) redfigure pelike, Villa Giulia 48238; ARV2 284, 1; Giglioli (supra n. 11) pl. 23. The two full-sized representationsof Geras do not have an enlarged phallus. zur Darstellungdes Grei13 See F. Preisshofen,Untersuchungen senalters in der friihgriechischen Dichtung (Hermes Einzelschriften 34, 1977) 111-13. 14 See, e.g., Od. 13.398.

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vase-painting and some statuettes of dwarfs, whereas Geras is not ithyphallic, and there is no reference in ancient writers to the sexual potency of old men.'" Dover has argued that, at least in Attic vase-painting, the phallus considered most aesthetically pleasing is very small and thin, and therefore Geras' large and swollen phallus was intended simply as a sign of extreme ugliness.16 This interpretation may well be correct, but it also seems possible that the combination of large phallus and small stature is meant to suggest a kinship between Geras and other dwarfs, whose ugliness is part of the comic caricature. The large hooked nose of Geras is also found in caricatures of dwarfs in later art." The chief difference is that Geras' frail body is in two instances emaciated, to signify his age, while young dwarfs tend to be plump, as on the Oxford oinochoe with which we began. H. A. SHAPIRO
DEPARTMENT OF HUMANITIES

STEVENS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY HOBOKEN, NEW JERSEY 07030

TWO NEW CIRCUS MOSAICS AND THEIR IMPLICATIONS FOR THE ARCHITECTURE OF CIRCUSES Two important mosaics representing the architecture of Roman circuses have recently become known. The one found by the Libyan Department of Antiquities in 1977 at Silin, 15 km. west of Lepcis Magna, has been generously published with four magnificent color photographs by the excavator Omar Mahjub.' The second was found at Luni in northern Italy during excavations by the Soprintendenza Archeologica della Liguria under the direction of Antonio Frova in 1974.2 The purpose of this note is to draw immediate attention to the interest of these mosaics for the architecture of Roman circuses, pending the appearance of the discussion of all circus representations in chapter 5 of my Roman Circuses (where full notes and bibliography are provided) and pending the full descriptions and analysis of these and other mosaics from the same houses which will naturally be undertaken by the excavators at the proper time.
THE SILIN MOSAIC

The circus panel is the typical rectangle, 4.46 x 1.20 m., set within a larger floor with geometric surround which measures 5 x 4.6 m. Dating evidence is not yet
15 On the contrary, Mimnermos 1 expresses what is surely the typical Greek view, that old age is hateful most of all because it deprives a man of the pleasures of love. '6 K.J. Dover, GreekHomosexuality (London 1978) 125. 17 Cf. the terracotta lamp from the Agora in the form of a grotesque head, with huge crooked nose and phallic nozzle: Grandjouan (supra n. 5) pl. 29, no. 1036.
1

available, but on stylistic grounds I would place this particular pavement no earlier than the late second century A.C. (possibly it belongs to the early third). It depicts a race taking place in a circus. The architecture shown consists of the line of starting gates (carceres) placed at right angles across the left-hand end of the panel, and the barrier (euripus) which separates the two halves of the track and on both sides of which the race is in progress. The carceres comprise eight stalls, five to the left and three to the right of the arched entrance which is placed below the box of the official who dropped the mappa at the start of the race. The stalls are represented in the usual fashion, with herms in front, two leaves to each stall, grillwork filling the arches above and horizontal lines which are probably intended to indicate a balustrade on the upper storey. The latticework of the three gates on the right is different from that of those on the left. The piers or columns which separated and supported the stalls are not shown (they may be assumed to be hidden behind the herms). Herms also flank the arched entrance below the box. That arch is slightly taller than the arches over the stalls. The magistrate's box has a tall column to the left and right which, oddly, begins from the top of the herms rather than from the level of the top of the entablature over the stalls, and a pediment against an attic. In the middle stands the single figure of the magistrate. The barrier consists, from left to right, of the three cones of the metae, turned unusually at right angles to the barrier so that the upper halves of the cones extend over the ends of the euripus. The metae are placed on a high detached curving platform which has mouldings at top and bottom and which appears to be decorated with colored panels, perhaps showing human figures. The cones themselves stand on low bases on top of the platform, and are divided into four sections by bands and decorated perhaps with metal attachments. On top are the customary eggs. The euripus consists of a single long basin (lines within indicate water) and the monuments rise from inside the lower edge (the near wall). The ends of the euripus facing the metae are straight, not concave as in some other representations. The monuments, from left to right, comprise a statue on a column, evidently wearing a long dress and holding a staff-like object over the left shoulder. Next comes a set of eggs, of which three are in the raised position and four have been lowered; an attendant who sits on the lower crossbar is in the process of removing the fifth egg on its stick to lower it. The monument has four wooden uprights of which all four support the lower platform on which the attendant sits, and two continue up to support the upper platform
quio internazionale sul mosaico antico (Ravenna 6-10 Settembre 1980) (Ravenna 1984) 299-306. 2 A. Frova, Archeologia in Liguria, Scavi e scoperte 1967-75 (Genoa 1976) 36 and figs. 27-28. I am most grateful to Professor Frova for allowing me to publish the drawing and a discussion in my book Roman Circuses, which is now in proof (B.T. Batsford, London).

O. Mahjub, "I mosaici della villa romana di Silin," III Collo-

American Journal of Archaeology 88 (1984)