Muse Calliope(?) playing the lyre on Mount Helicon lekythos 440-430 BCE

November 30, 2019

Muse Calliope(?) playing the lyre on Mount Helicon lekythos 440-430 BCE

"§1. The overall scene, as we can best view it by way of the “zoomin,” shows a female figure, who is generally thought to be a Muse, in the act of playing a lyre. The rock on which the would be Muse is seated bears the inscription ΗΛΙΚΟΝ, which would have been pronounced Helikōn. So, the would be Muse on our right is seated on top of Mount Helicon, a sacred place that is frequented by the Muses—as every Classicist knows. And it is generally assumed that the other female figure, on our left, is another Muse.

§2. I suggest, however, that the would be Muse on our right is Sappho. As we see from a variety of ancient sources, including two epigrams attributed to Plato, Greek Anthology 9.506.1–2 and 9.571.6–7, Sappho was conventionally described as ‘the tenth Muse’; the same description applies in two epigrams by Antipater of Sidon (second half of the second century BCE), in Greek Anthology 7.14.1–2 and 9.66.1–2; another epigrammatist, Dioscorides (second half of the third century BCE), in Greek Anthology 7.407.1–4, not only equates Sappho with the Muses but also connects her with two sacred places frequented by the Goddesses—both Mount Helicon and the heights of Pieria, a mountain range dominated by Mount Olympus.Yet another epigrammatist, Antipater of Thessalonike (late first century BCE and early first century CE), makes the same connection in Greek Anthology 9.26.1–4. Finally, Himerius (fourth century CE) in Oration 46.44–46 says that Sappho in her songs—as well as Pindar—pictured Mount Helicon as a sacred place frequented by the Muses together with Apollo.

§3. If the female figure to our right is Sappho, then who would be the corresponding female figure to our left? I suggest that she is the Goddess of love and sexuality, Aphrodite. For this suggestion to be successful,however, there are at least two preconditions that would have to be met. First, the small bird that we see positioned between the would be Sappho to our right and the would be Aphrodite to our left would have to be a sparrow. And, second, such a sparrow would have existed in one or more songs of Sappho, playing the role of her beloved pet."

-taken from harvard link below

"A Muse dressed in a red cloak faces one of her sisters who is seated playing a lyre. A small magpie is perched on the rock between them. The scene is labelled "Helikon"--the sacred mountain of the Muses." (Attic white-ground lekythos, 440–430 BC).