Commentary Prepared by Dr. Julia Lenaghan, Ashmolean Museum

A 136
Telephos or Herakles. Tegea

Head of young man wearing a lion’s skin, probably Telephos. From the depiction of the battle of Telephos against Achilles located on west pediment of the Temple of Athena Alea at Tegea. The temple was constructed by Scopas of Paros in ca. 350 BC.

Marble
Pedimental Figure
H 31.4 cm, W 23.9 cm, D 26.6 cm

From the Temple of Athena Alea at Tegea. Found northeast of the temple.
Greece, Tegea, Tegea Museum, 60
ca. 350-340 BC

Preservation:
The head has broken from its figure through the neck which is almost entirely preserved. The head is recomposed of two fragments. The join line slants across the face; it runs from the right nostril of the lion skin, to the inner corner of the man’s left eye, through the left cheek, under the left ear and up toward the crown of the head. Most of the nose and mouth and some of the chin are broken or badly battered. The area behind the left ear appears unworked rather than broken (Stewart affirms the latter).

Description:
The head depicts a young male wearing a lion skin. The head is extraordinarily cubic and deep in form. The small preserved portion of the left shoulder is raised and the head turns powerfully to its left. The surviving portion of the neck bends to the left and has horizontal creases and emerging muscles that correspond to the turn of the head. Even the Adam’s apple is defined. A thin channel from ear to ear separates the neck from the jaw line. The face is short from chin to crown and broad across the brow and between the cheekbones. The cheeks are massively solid, though the face tapers slightly to the small chin. The low brow is convex. The base of the nose continues the outward swell of the forehead. The bridge is, in addition, broad. The eyebrows have a low arch and the eyes are wide and extremely deep-set. Below the arch of the eyebrows and above the eye is a heavy flap of skin (orbital) that bulges out and over the exterior portions of the upper eyelids. The surface of the eyeball is flat but set forward, and this forward plane continues into the flesh below the lower eyelid. It ends in a deep crease that marks the lower edge of the eye socket. At the outer corner of the eyes are further creases (‘crow’s feet’). They are created by the heavy flap of skin above the upper eyelid and by the merging of the full cheek with the sunken eye socket. Although the nose and lips are damaged, one can still discern that the mouth is short from side to side and that the chin is short and narrow. The lion skin on top of the head is fully rendered. Its nose appears over the center of the brow and a fang appears over the inner portion of each eye. The lion’s closed eyes and ears are depicted further back on the head. The lion’s mane runs down the back of the head. It is made of exceptionally thick clumps of locks that fall in tiers of straight, projecting tufts. The man’s hair appears only above his temples. It grows in short locks that twist in various directions. In front of the right ear is a long sideburn composed of locker, flatter locks. The short hair completely reveals the right ear which is rendered like a ‘cauliflower’. In comparison to the right ear, the left ear is flatter and more schematic. In addition, it lacks the sideburn in front of the ear.

Discussion:
The head of a young man wearing a lion skin as a cap was found northeast of the Temple of Athena Alea at Tegea. It is of the same technical workmanship and size as other fragments of the pedimental sculpture from the Temple. Moreover, although it was found to the northeast of the Temple, it seems undeniably pertinent to the story depicted in the west (back) pediment. For a general discussion of the Temple of Athena Alea at Tegea, see cat.no. A 132 and for other fragments from the pediments, see cat.nos. A 133, 134, 135, and 137. Pausanias (8.45) visited the Temple of Athena Alea at Tegea and recorded it as a remarkable structure created by the architect Skopas of Paros. He notes the Temple’s east pediment featured the Calydonian boar hunt and lists fifteen of the portrayed participants by name. His description of the west pediment, however, is more summary; he merely says it showed the battle of Telephos and Achilles on the plain of Kaikos. The story of this battle is known. Telephos, the son of Herakles and the local Tegean princess Auge, was raised in the Mysian court (Auge had married the king there) and eventually himself became king. The Greeks, searching for Troy, landed at Mysia and mistook it for Troy. The two parties engaged in battle and, because Telephos had neglected a sacrifice to Dionysos, Dionysos trips Telephos with a vine branch, enabling Achilles to wound Telephos’ thigh. It is a wound that can be cured only by he who inflicted it, so Telephos then follows the Greeks. Eventually Achilles is convinced to cure the wound, and Telephos joins the side of the Greeks against the Trojans. It is a story that has tight connections to Tegea since Telephos was the son of Auge and one that also relates to Asklepios who was prominent at Tegea. The connection to Athena Alea is not immediately obvious, though Stewart interprets the story as a demonstration of Athena’s role as an aid in adversity. Because of the fragmentary nature of the sculptural remains and the concise brevity of Pausanias’ description, it is impossible to determine which characters and deities may have been depicted in the scene. Scholars, for instance, have debated about whether Dionysos and Herakles would have been featured. The depiction of Telephos wounded by Achilles in the inner frieze at Pergamon is continually a key element in the discussion. The head wearing a lion skin was initially identified as Herakles because of the lion skin, and Herakles was conjectured to be coming to the aid of his son in battle. Yet there are several arguments against this identification and the head is now generally accepted as a representation of Telephos, The arguments against the identification of the head with Herakles are as follows: the head shows a young man and Herakles in such a scene would have had an adult, fatherly role; another head showing a bearded mature Herakles has been found at Tegea (though Stewart, who does not believe that Herakles was present, does not accept that the mature Herakles head comes from the pediment); and the expression and posture seem to indicate fear and self-defence. Although Telephos is nowhere else depicted wearing a lion skin, as the son of Herakles, he seems a probable candidate for such an accoutrement which later in the fourth century is given to Alexander the Great. Because the left side of the head was not fully worked, it can never have been visible. The head seems to have been designed for a ¾ view that focuses on the right side of the face. This viewing angle suggests that head might have been located just to the left of the center of the pediment, looking towards the center. This position would be appropriate for Telephos who Pausanias mentions before Achilles. The preserved fragment of the left shoulder was raised and this indicates that the arm was raised above the head, perhaps in a gesture of self-defence. Stewart suggests that a body fragment showing the lower abdomen and upper thighs of a nude male figure belonged to the same figure a this head, [though he admits it might also belong with the head of Achilles (cat.no. A 137)]. If this section of lower body did belong to the same figure, the reconstructed pose would be similar to that of the figure of Telephos in the same scene on the Great Altar at Pergamon. The head features the stylistic and technical details that are typical to the sculpture at Tegea. The head is block-like with massive cheeks, heavy features, and eyes that are made emotional by their deep-setting heavy orbitals. The channel that divides the head from the neck around the jaw-line is like the lines of separation visible in both the leg (cat.no. A 134) and arm (cat.no. A 135) fragments. The hair of the lion’s mane is rendered just like the manes of the lion-head waterspouts (gargoyles) also from the Temple. J. Lenaghan

Bibliography:
C. Dugas, J. Berchmans, and M. Clemmensen, La sanctuaire d’Aléa Athèna à Tégée au IVe siècle (Paris 1924) 87-88, no. 7, pls. 99a and 100a, b, and c initial publication with assessment, assumes that it represents Herakles
A. Delivorrias, "Skopadika (I). Télèphe e la bataille du Caïque au front Ouest du temple d’Aléa à Tégé" (BCH 97 1973) 123-127, figs. 2-4 identification of the head in discussion of arrangement and layout of the west pediment
A. Stewart, Skopas of Paros (Park Ridge, NJ 1977) 22-23, 53-54, no. 16, pls. 13, 14a-b, 52b-c full catalogue entry with bibliography, arguments for and against two common identifications
A. Stauridou, Ta glypta tou Mouseion Tegeas (Athens 1996) 60-61, no. 60 museum catalogue entry in Greek
B. S. Ridgway, Fourth-Century Styles in Greek Sculpture (London 1997) 48-52 recent discussion in English of the Temple and its sculpture
C. Rolley, La sculpture grecque II. La période classique (Paris 1999) 268-272 most recent presentation of material and bibliography