Palladium (classical antiquity)
In
Since around 1600, the word palladium has been used figuratively to mean anything believed to provide protection or safety,[2] and in particular in Christian contexts a sacred relic or icon believed to have a protective role in military contexts for a whole city, people or nation. Such beliefs first become prominent in the Eastern church in the period after the reign of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I, and later spread to the Western church. Palladia were carried in procession around the walls of besieged cities and sometimes carried into battle.[3]
The Trojan Palladium
Origins
The Trojan Palladium was said to be a wooden image of Pallas (whom the Greeks identified with Athena and the Romans with Minerva) and to have fallen from heaven in answer to the prayer of Ilus, the founder of Troy.
"The most ancient talismanic
Arrival at Troy
The arrival at Troy of the Palladium, fashioned by Athena
Theft
During the
Odysseus, according to the epitome of the Little Iliad (one of the books of the Epic Cycle) preserved in Proclus's Chrestomathia, went by night to Troy disguised as a beggar. There he was recognized by Helen, who told him where to find the Palladium. After some stealthy killing, he won back to the ships. He and Diomedes then re-entered the city and stole the sacred statue. Diomedes is sometimes depicted as the one carrying the Palladium to the ships. There are several statues and many ancient drawings of him with the Palladium.
According to the Narratives of the
Arrival at Rome
According to various versions of this legend the Trojan Palladium found its way to
. To this last city it was either brought by Aeneas, the exiled Trojan (Diomedes, in this version, having only succeeded in stealing an imitation of the statue) or surrendered by Diomedes himself.An actual object regarded as the Palladium was undoubtedly kept in the Temple of Vesta in the Roman Forum for several centuries. It was regarded as one of the pignora imperii, sacred tokens or pledges of Roman rule (imperium).
Pliny the Elder[14] said that Lucius Caecilius Metellus had been blinded by fire when he rescued the Palladium from the Temple of Vesta in 241 BC, an episode alluded to in Ovid[15] and Valerius Maximus.[16] When the controversial emperor Elagabalus (reigned 218–222 AD) transferred the most sacred relics of Roman religion from their respective shrines to the Elagabalium, the Palladium was among them.[17]
In
The Athenian Palladium
The goddess Athena was worshipped on the
The centerpiece of the grand feast of the
See also
Citations
- ^ (Chisholm 1911, p. 636)
- OED, "Palladium, 2", first recorded use 1600
- ^ Kitzinger 1954, pp. 109–112.
- ^ Carl Ruck; Danny Staples (February 2017). The World of Classical Myth.
- ^ The trope of an icon not fashioned by human hands survives in the Christian acheiropoieta.
- ^ Bibliotheke iii.144.
- ^ Bibliotheke, iii.10.1, iii.12.1 and 3.
- ^ Bibliotheke iii.145.
- ^ Scholia on Euripides Phoenissae 1136.
- Triphiodorus (fourth century AD), Taking of Ilios (on-line text).
- ^ Dercyllus, Foundations of Cities, Book i, noted by Pseudo-Plutarch Parallel Stories, "Ilus and Anytus".
- ^ Photius, Bibliotheca 186.
- ^ This incident was commemorated in 1842 by the French sculptor Pierre-Jules Cavelier (1814–1894) in a muscle-bound plaster statue; it depicts Diomedes alone, his noble face peering apprehensively over his right shoulder, as he cradles the Palladium.
- ^ Natural History; VII, XLV
- ^ Fast. B. vi. 1. 436, et seq.
- ^ B. i. c. 4
- ^ Augustan History, Life of Elagabalus 3
- ^ Cameron 1993, p. 170.
- ^ Tertullian. Apologeticus (in Latin). 16.6.
Pallas Attica ... quae sine effigie rudi palo et informi ligno prostat
General and cited references
- Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 20 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 636.
- Cameron, Averil (1993). The Later Roman Empire. Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674511941.
- JSTOR 1291064.
Further reading
- The Oxford Dictionary of Classical Myth and Religion. s.v. "Palladium".