Virgin Sacrifice in Classical Art : women, agency, and the Trojan War / Anthony F. Mangieri.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Mangieri, Anthony F., author.

Series:

Routledge research in gender and art ; 2.

Routledge research in gender and art ; volume 2

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Women in art.

Women--History--To 500.

Women.

History.

Human sacrifice in art.

Sacrifice of virgins.

Art, Classical--Themes, motives.

Art, Classical.

Trojan War--Art and the war.

Trojan War.

Genre:

Art and the war.

History.

Art.

Physical Description:

xvi, 222 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 26 cm.

Place of Publication:

New York : Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, [2018]

Summary:

The Trojan War begins and ends with the sacrifice of a virgin princess. The gruesome killing of a woman must have captivated ancient people because the myth of the sacrificial virgin resonates powerfully in the arts of ancient Greece and Rome. Most scholars agree that the Greeks and Romans did not practice human sacrifice, so why then do the myths of virgin sacrifice appear persistently in art and literature for over a millennium? Virgin Sacrifice in Classical Art: Women, Agency, and the Trojan War seeks to answer this question. This book tells the stories of the sacrificial maidens in order to help the reader discover the meanings bound up in these myths for historical people. In exploring the representations of Iphigeneia and Polyxena in Greek, Etruscan, and Roman art, this book offers a broader cultural history that reveals what people in the ancient world were seeking in these stories. The result is an interdisciplinary study that offers new interpretations on the meaning of the sacrificial virgin as a cultural and ideological construction. This is the first book-length study of virgin sacrifice in ancient art and the first to provide an interpretive framework within which to understand its imagery. Book jacket.

Contents:

1 Introduction: Virgin Sacrifice in Classical Art and Society 1

Just a Man's World? The Patriarchal, Monolithic Male Gaze 9

The Public and Private "Lives" of Iphigeneia and Polyxena 12

Organization of the Study 15

2 What Makes a Virgin Sacrifice? 21

Towards a Definition of Virgin Sacrifice 21

Killing a Woman: Terminology and Relation to Animal Sacrifice 24

Traditions of Human Sacrifice in the Near East 26

Jephthah's Daughter: Virgin Sacrifice in the Bible 28

3 The Sacrifice of Iphigeneia 33

Iphigeneia in Greek Art 33

Iphigeneia in Etruscan Art 47

Iphigeneia in Roman Art 52

4 The Sacrifice of Polyxena 62

Polyxena in Greek Art 63

Polyxena in Etruscan Art 87

Polyxena in Roman Art 91

5 War and Womanhood: Virgin Sacrifice and the Trojan War 100

The Sacrificial Virgins and Helen of Troy 100

The Brygos Painter's Louvre Iliupersis Cup 103

Iconographic Ambiguity: Who Is Represented? 109

Between Sisters: Kassandra and Polyxena 113

The Sacrificial Virgin in Iliupersis Tableaux 117

Polyxena and Troilos 122

The Heroines Pyxis in London: The Art of Pairing Women 123

The Trojan War on Italian Soil: Resonances in the Roman World 125

Virgin Bodies: Framing the Trojan War 130

Beyond the Trojan War: The Defiant Antigone 132

Mythological Women, Representation, and Womanhood 133

6 The Sacrificial Virgins and Female Agency 141

Consent, Resistance, and the Measure of a Maiden 142

Agency and Context in Etruscan and Roman Art 149

Polyxena the Aristocrat: Agency, War, and Tripods 152

Victims and Rebels: Recovering Ancient Women's Resistance 155

7 Conclusion: The Princess and the Knife 161

The "Afterlives" of Iphigeneia and Polyxena: Their Legacy 161

After the Sacrifice and Further Questions 163

Conclusion 164.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780415301350

0415301351

OCLC:

975368638