01-02-2009, 12:22 AM
...Athenian Clan symbols....I was referring to the fact that there is no evidence to associate a particular badge/symbol/shield design with any particular Athenian clan.
Numerous attempts have been made to explain badges found on Athenian coins or depicted on hoplite shields as belonging to particular clans.
These are all dubious/spurious.
The supposed adoption of the 'triskeles' by the Alcmaeonid clan as its shield device is the only association which has any literary evidence to support it, and as we shall see this is itself almost certainly incorrect.( The triskeles symbol has three running human legs bent at the knee and joined at the hip.)
In Aristophanes' comedy Lysistrata the men in the Chorus encourage each other to become young again, to shake off their old skin, calling themselves 'Whitelegs, we who went against Leipsydrium'. Leipsydrium in northern Attica was occupied and held against the Athenian tyrants in about 513 by a group of aristocrats under the leadership of the Alcmaeonid clan. A later , date unknown, commentator annotated the manuscript:
"Whitelegs on account of their having a white badge upon their shields; Aristophanes means the people now known as the Alcmaeonids".
This evidence seems fairly cut and dried at first glance.
However, the word actually written was lykopedes meaning 'Wolflegs' rather than leukopodes 'Whitelegs'. And other sources tell us that the hirelings of the tyrants had wolf-skins on their legs and wolf blazons on their shields. Therefore this identification cannot be correct.
Furthermore, there are at least three references to the shield devices of members of the Clan and none involve 'whitelegs' !
1. The poet Pindar records the shield device of the mythological progenitor of the clan, Alcmaeon, as being a serpent.
2. Alcibiades, a famous member of the clan, is recorded as having a shield device of an Eros ( winged cherub) wielding a thunderbolt - seen as slightly blasphemous by many of his contemporaries
3. A clay plaque from the Acropolis depicts a warrior and originally bore the inscription 'Megakles kalos' ( Megacles is beautiful/handsome) but the name 'Megakles' was crudely scratched out (probably following his ostracism in 486 BC)and that of 'Glaukytes' substituted. Both were members of the Alcmaeonids. Unfortunately the shield device is that of a 'Silenos'/Faun/Satyr !!
So much for the only 'evidence' for an Athenian Clan symbol/shield device.
What evidence there is points to individually chosen shield devices, rather than family/clan devices, no two of which are alike !!
Numerous attempts have been made to explain badges found on Athenian coins or depicted on hoplite shields as belonging to particular clans.
These are all dubious/spurious.
The supposed adoption of the 'triskeles' by the Alcmaeonid clan as its shield device is the only association which has any literary evidence to support it, and as we shall see this is itself almost certainly incorrect.( The triskeles symbol has three running human legs bent at the knee and joined at the hip.)
In Aristophanes' comedy Lysistrata the men in the Chorus encourage each other to become young again, to shake off their old skin, calling themselves 'Whitelegs, we who went against Leipsydrium'. Leipsydrium in northern Attica was occupied and held against the Athenian tyrants in about 513 by a group of aristocrats under the leadership of the Alcmaeonid clan. A later , date unknown, commentator annotated the manuscript:
"Whitelegs on account of their having a white badge upon their shields; Aristophanes means the people now known as the Alcmaeonids".
This evidence seems fairly cut and dried at first glance.
However, the word actually written was lykopedes meaning 'Wolflegs' rather than leukopodes 'Whitelegs'. And other sources tell us that the hirelings of the tyrants had wolf-skins on their legs and wolf blazons on their shields. Therefore this identification cannot be correct.
Furthermore, there are at least three references to the shield devices of members of the Clan and none involve 'whitelegs' !
1. The poet Pindar records the shield device of the mythological progenitor of the clan, Alcmaeon, as being a serpent.
2. Alcibiades, a famous member of the clan, is recorded as having a shield device of an Eros ( winged cherub) wielding a thunderbolt - seen as slightly blasphemous by many of his contemporaries
3. A clay plaque from the Acropolis depicts a warrior and originally bore the inscription 'Megakles kalos' ( Megacles is beautiful/handsome) but the name 'Megakles' was crudely scratched out (probably following his ostracism in 486 BC)and that of 'Glaukytes' substituted. Both were members of the Alcmaeonids. Unfortunately the shield device is that of a 'Silenos'/Faun/Satyr !!
So much for the only 'evidence' for an Athenian Clan symbol/shield device.
What evidence there is points to individually chosen shield devices, rather than family/clan devices, no two of which are alike !!
"dulce et decorum est pro patria mori " - Horace
(It is a sweet and proper thing to die for ones country)
"No son-of-a-bitch ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country" - George C Scott as General George S. Patton
Paul McDonnell-Staff
(It is a sweet and proper thing to die for ones country)
"No son-of-a-bitch ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country" - George C Scott as General George S. Patton
Paul McDonnell-Staff
