Mantles of the Gods and Catullus 64

J.L. Sebesta: Mantles of the Gods and Catullus 6435 Mantles of the Gods and Catullus 64 Judith L. Sebesta More than halfof Catullus' epyllion on the marriage of Peleus and Thetis is in the form of an ecphrasis that describes a tapestry depicting Ariadne abandoned on Dia. Commentators have generally interpreted this tapestry as a coverlet for the marriage bed of Thetis and Peleus which is placed in a bower. The source for this setting is Theocritus' Idyll 15 ("The Adoniazusae"), which describes the marriage bed and bower of Adonis and Aphrodite that formed an important part of the ritual in the annual Adonis festival. A.L. Wheeler comments on Catullus' dependence upon Theocritus as follows: "He [Catullus] represents the ceremony as occurring in a bower of greenery which, together with the figured coverlet and glitter of gold and silver and ivory within the palace, suggests the splendors of the potentates of Asia and Egypt described for us in the Adoniazusae of Theocritus-splendors at which their subjects were allowed to gaze on festal days."1 This Idyll (15) of Theocritus recounts the visit of two Alexandrian women to the palace of Ptolemy ? to view the tableau created for the Feast of Adonis. An important part of this tableau was a figured hanging with images woven so realistically that to Gorgo and Praxinoa they seemed to be real; one of these images depicted Adonis reclining on a silver ???sµ?? (79-86). The singer of the "dirge" that concludes this Idyll gives additional details of the tableau. There are bowers (?ta?de?)2 made of fronds of dill, among which are suspended small figures of 1 AX. Wheeler, Catullus and the Traditions ofAncient Poetry (Berkeley 1964) 126. 2 The Greek ??f??« was traditionally in the form of a ?????* or a ?????, with its interior decorated as heaven. See E.B. Smith, "Architectural Symbolism of Imperial Rome and the Middle Ages," Princeton Monographs in Art and Archaeology 30 (1956) 111. A.S.F. Gow (Theocritus: Commentary [Cambridge 1950] 297) reconstructs the ataáBes as one or more canopies adorned with green dill. If this tableau is outside in a garden, he continues, the Erotes might be suspended from the branches of trees spreading over the oxidSe? under which are the images of Adonis and Aphrodite positioned as at theirbridal feast. 36Syllecta Classica 5 (1994) Erotes and eagles carrying Ganymedes made of ebony, gold, and ivory (1 19-123).3 On the ebony, gold, and silver couch are spread purple carpets (125). Gow's interpretation of the somewhat elliptical comments of Gorgo and Praxinoa in reconstructing the bower has generally been followed by subsequent translators and commentators. He argues that since the figured cloth is woven (???fa?t? 83), it is a tapestry. While tapestry weaving had been done in Greece from the time of Homer onward,4 only eastern looms were large enough to create large scale tapestries. In the Hellenistic period Alexandria was an important center of production and export of such tapestries which were described as "composed of many threads" (p???µ?ta).5 Gow interprets the text to indicate that these tapestries are hung around the tableau and do not form the clothing for the images of Adonis and Aphrodite reclining on the coverlets of the couch. The coverlets, he notes, are described later in the poem only by the word "purple." That the women are indeed commenting on figured tapestries, he thinks, is indicated by Gorgo's comment: "You would think that they are mantles of the gods" (?e?? pe????µata 79).6 Gow also argues that when the women see the figured tapestries, they have just entered the palace and have not yet pressed their way up close to the tableau. The figured tapestries, visible from a distance, must therefore be hangings. Gow understands Praxinoa's subsequent words as describing one of the figures on these tapestries as the dead Adonis lying on a silver ???sµ?? (84) for the following reasons. First, diis Adonis and silver couch cannot be part of the tableau, for the singer ofthe dirge states that the statue of Adonis in the tableau lies on a????? made of ebony, gold, and ivory (123). Secondly...