Ashes, Images, and Memories: The Presence of the War Dead in Fifth-Century Athens

361 Pages·2014·28.66 MB·English

by  Nathan T. Arrington

Ashes, Images, and Memories

Ashes, Images,
and Memories
The Presence of the War Dead in
Fifth-Century Athens
NATHAN T. ARRINGTON
1
3
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Arrington, Nathan T.
Ashes, images, and memories : the presence of the war dead in fifth-century Athens / Nathan T.
Arrington.
pages. cm
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978–0–19–936907–2
1. War and society—Greece—Athens—History—To 1500. 2. Battle casualties—Greece—
Athens—History—To 1500. 3. Burial—Social aspects—Greece—Athens—History—To 1500.
4. War memorials—Greece—Athens—History—To 1500. 5. Greece—History—Persian
Wars, 500–449 B.C. 6. Greece—History—Athenian supremacy, 479–431 B.C. 7. Greece—
History—Peloponnesian War, 431–404 B.C. 8. Athens (Greece)—History, Military. I. Title.
DF285.A77 2014
393.0938'509014—dc23
2013043540
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
For my parents

Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: “To See Them So Changed Would Be
Their Death” 1
1. Mass Ashes: The Origins and Impact of an
“Ancestral Custom” 19
2. The Topography and Phenomenology of the
Public Cemetery 55
3. Naming the Dead: Casualty Lists and the
Tenses of Commemoration 91
4. Sacred Space and the Fallen Warrior 125
5. Private Engagement with Civic Death: Portrait
Statues, Votive Reliefs, and Wall Paintings 177
6. More Than a Name: Private Commemoration
in Attic Cemeteries 205
7. The Limits of Commemoration 239
Conclusion 275
Bibliography 287
Index Locorum 317
General Index 327

Acknowledgments
This project began with a one-word comment that William Childs
wrote in the margins of a rough draft of a senior thesis focused, until
then, on a very different topic. Over time and after a detour or two,
I have incurred many other debts of gratitude. Andy Stewart guided
this project—and me—through the dissertation stage, and committee
members Emily Mackil and Chris Hallett provided invaluable feed-
back. Tonio Hölscher graciously agreed to serve from afar, and I have
benefited from his wisdom and acumen. I am thankful to Michael
Flower, Cathy Keesling, Michael Padgett, Nikolaos Papazarkadas, Peter
Schultz, and Julia Shear for reading and commenting on sections of
this book and to Michael Koortbojian and Oxford University Press’s
anonymous reviewers for reading and critiquing the whole manuscript.
Audiences at the University of Tokyo, the Société Franco-Japonaise des
Études Grecques et Romaine (Tokyo), Berkeley, Bryn Mawr, Princeton,
Brown, Columbia, Toronto, Heidelberg, and the Archaeological
Institute of America’s annual conference (Anaheim) helped form
my approach and shape my results. The “New Antiquity” colloquia
at Cornell (2011) and the Sterling and Francine Clark Institute (2013)
were stimulating atmospheres in which to explore new ideas—my
thanks go to Jaś Elsner, Guy Hedreen, Richard Neer, and Verity Platt
for organizing them and to all participants for sharing their insights.
I gratefully acknowledge the following funding sources that made my
research possible: a Fulbright Fellowship, a Dean’s Normative Time
Fellowship (Berkeley), an Aleshire Dissertation Fellowship (Berkeley),
the Princeton Learned Society Travel Fund, a Stanley J.  Seeger