Sir Richard C. Jebb, Commentary on Sophocles: Philoctetes

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The legend of Philoctetes, as embodied in classical

The legend in

Art.poetry, is illustrated at every step by extant monuments of classical art,—vase-paintings, engraved gems, reliefs, or wallpaintings,—ranging in date from the fifth century B.C. to the second or third century of the Christian era¹. He is seen assisting, in his youth, at the sacrifices offered to Chrysè by Heracles and by Jason;—standing beside the pyre of Heracles on Oeta; —wounded by the serpent, at his second visit to Chrysè's shrine; —abandoned in Lemnos;—finally, tended by the ‘healing hands’ at Troy, and victorious over Paris.

A peculiar interest belongs to the representations of his sufferings in Lemnos, since they exhibit three principal types, each of which can be traced to the influence of an eminent artist. (i) The sculptor Pythagoras of Rhegium (c. 460 B.C.), famous especially for his athletes, excelled in the expression of sinews and veins. One of his best-known works was a statue at Syracuse, which represented a man limping, with a sore in his foot. ‘Those who look at it,’ says Pliny, ‘seem to feel the pain².’ There can be no doubt that the subject was Philoctetes. As an example of the later works which were probably copied, more or less directly, from this statue, may be mentioned a cornelian intaglio, now in the Museum of Berlin³. Philoctetes is walking, with the aid of a stick held in his left hand: in his right he carries the bow and quiver: his left foot,—the wounded one, as a bandage indicates,—is put forward, while the weight of the body is thrown on the right foot. The figure illustrates a principle which Pythagoras of Rhegium is said to have introduced,—viz., a correspondence between the attitude of the left leg and that of the right arm, or vice versa,—a symmetry obtained by an artificial balance of movements⁴. It is noteworthy that a standing or walking Philoctetes occurs only on engraved gems, and in one mural painting at Pompeii (of about 30 B.C.) which may also have been suggested by the Syracusan statue. (ii) A very beautiful Athenian vase-painting, of about 350 B.C., shows Philoctetes sitting on a rock in Lemnos, under the leafless branches of a stunted tree; his head is bowed, as if in dejection; the bandaged left foot is propped on a stone, and the left hand clasps the left knee⁵. He wears a sleeveless Doric chiton, girt round the waist; at his right side the bow and arrows rest on the ground. It is probable that the source of this vase-painting was a picture by Parrhasius, who is known to have taken Philoctetes for his subject at a date slightly earlier than that to which the vase is referred. The distinctive feature here is the predominance of mental over physical pain;—a conception which might have been suggested to the painter by the Attic dramatists. (iii) In a third series of representations, Philoctetes reclines on the ground, fanning his wounded foot with the wing of a bird, or with a branch. This type occurs only on gems, and appears to have been originated by Boethus of Chalcedon, a gem-engraver of high repute, who lived probably in the early part of the third century B.C.⁶

Some other scenes found on works of art, in which Philoctetes is no longer alone, were directly inspired by Attic Tragedy. An engraved gem, now in the British Museum, represents the theft of the bow by Odysseus, as Aeschylus appears to have imagined it⁷. Euripides has been the source of some reliefs on alabaster urns of the second century B.C.; two Trojan envoys, on the left hand of Philoctetes, are inviting him to follow them, while on his right hand are Odysseus and Diomedes, in an attitude of remonstrance; or Philoctetes, in acute pain, is tended by Odysseus, while Diomedes, at the sufferer's back, seizes the bow and quiver⁸. Nor has Sophocles been neglected; Odysseus instructing Neoptolemus appears on a marble medallion⁹ of the first or second century A.D. ; and a sarcophagus¹⁰ of the same period shows the moment when Odysseus starts forward to prevent his more generous comrade from restoring the bow to its despairing master (v. 974).

The scene of the sacrifice.