Kriophoros
In ancient Greek cult, kriophoros (Greek: κριοφόρος) or criophorus, the "ram-bearer," is a figure that commemorates the solemn sacrifice of a ram. It becomes an epithet of Hermes: Hermes Kriophoros.
Myth
At the Boeotian city of Tanagra, Pausanias relates a local myth that credited the god with saving the city in a time of plague, by carrying a ram on his shoulders as he made the circuit of the city's walls:
There are sanctuaries of Hermes Kriophoros and of Hermes called Promachos.[note 1] They account for the former surname by a story that Hermes averted a pestilence from the city by carrying a ram round the walls; to commemorate this Calamis made an image of Hermes carrying a ram upon his shoulders. Whichever of the youths is judged to be the most handsome goes round the walls at the feast of Hermes, carrying a lamb on his shoulders.[1]
The myth may be providing an
In Messenia, at the sacred grove of Karnasus, Pausanias noted that Apollon Karneios and Hermes Kriophoros had a joint cult,[2] the ram-bearers (kriophoroi) joining in male initiation rites.
A description by
Not all ancient Greek sculptures of sacrifiants with an offering on their shoulders bear young rams. The nearly lifesize marble
Lewis R. Farnell
- As Arcadia has been from time immemorial the great pasture-ground of Greece, so probably the most primitive character in which Hermes appeared, and which he never abandoned, was pastoral. He is the Lord of the herds, epimélios[note 2] and kriophoros, who leads them to the sweet waters, and bears the tired ram or lamb on his shoulders, and assists them with the shepherd's crook, the kerykeion.
The Kriophoros figure of a shepherd carrying a lamb, simply as a pastoral vignette, became a common figure in series denoting the months or seasons, characteristically March or April.[6]
Kriophoroi and "The Good Shepherd"
Free-standing fourth-century CE Roman sculptures, and even third-century ones, are sometimes identified as "Christ, the
Not every Kriophoros, even in Christian times, is Christ, the Good Shepherd: a Kriophoros shepherd, fleeing with his flock from the attack of a wolf, was interpreted as a purely pastoral figure rather than as Christ, the Good Shepherd, when it appeared in the refined late fourth-early fifth century floor mosaics of a colonnade round a courtyard in the Great Palace at Constantinople.
Notes
- ^ Promachos, "first in battle, champion"; compare Athena Promachos.
- ^ This epithet belonged to Apollo at Camirus.
References
- ^ Pausanias, Description of Greece 9.22.1–2.
- ^ Pausanias, Description of Greece 4.33.4.
- ^ Dörig, Onatas of Aegina (Leiden:Brill) 1977.
- ^ Orell Witthuhn, "Der Kalbträger von der Akropolis in Athen" Archived 2017-04-15 at the Wayback Machine.
- ^ The Cults of the Greek States 1896, vol. I, part I, p. 9.
- ^ Noted by Brett 1942:39.
- ^ Two statuettes found in Thessalonike, for example.
- ^ Gerard Brett, "The Mosaic of the Great Palace in Constantinople" Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 5 (1942:34-43) p. 39 and pl. 10c.
- ^ Eduard Syndicus; Early Christian Art; p. 23; Burns & Oates, London, 1962
External links
- (Cleveland Museum of Art) Archaic painted terracotta warrior kriophoros, Crete, seventh century BCE Acc. no. 1998.172
- (Acropolis Museum, Athens) Archaic moscophoros, ca 570 BCE, acc. no. 624
- (Museo Barracco, Rome) Late Archaic marble Hermes Kriophoros, first half of the fifth century BCE - The page is no longer existing, the piece was likely moved to an alternate location, but the information taken should still be creditable.
- Perseus Sculpture Catalog: Hermes Kriophoros: the Archaic or archaizing bronze Hermes Kriophoros in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, acc. no. 99.489.
- Wilton House Stables, archaizing marble Hermes Kriophoros with a wedge-shaped beard. (Cornelius Vermeule and Dietrich von Bothmer, "Notes on a New Edition of Michaelis: Ancient Marbles in Great Britain Part Two" American Journal of Archaeology 60.4 (October 1956:321-350) p 347 and pl. 105, fig. 6.)