WEIGHING ICONOGRAPHY OF LOVE IN CLASSICAL AND EARLY

HELLENISTIC ART: CONSIDERING ALLUSIONS AND METAPHOR IN IMAGES

OF APHRODITE BALANCING EROS

by
Hannah Lisbeth Jones
A Senior Honors Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of
The University of Utah
In Partial Fulfillment of the requirements for the

Honors Degree of Arts

In Art History

Approved:
___________________________
Elizabeth Petersen
Supervisor

___________________________
Elizabeth Petersen
Chair, Art History

____________________________
Elizabeth Petersen
Departmental Honors Adviser

____________________________
Director, Honors Program
August 2012

ABSTRACT

Though images of Eros and Aphrodite are prolific, appearing in many material and
literary sources, scenes of erotostasia, or the weighing of Eros by Aphrodite, are rare and
have been historically overlooked in the study of Greek art. However, the four cataloged
scenes of Aphrodite raising a balance with one hand, an eros figure perched in each
weighing pan, are importantly related to scholarship surrounding weighing scenes and
Aphrodite's realm in Greek myth, literature, and art. Exploring erotostasia reveals its
connection to two major recurrent motifs in ancient art and text, kerostasia and
psychostasia. Kerostasia and psychostasia are scenes that feature the symbolic weighing
of heroic honor, represented by individual warriors or armies in total, presided over by
Zeus or his messenger, Hermes. The kerostasia scene, or the weighing of fate, was first
described by Homer in the Iliad and was later adapted into psychostasia by Aeschylus.
The scene was incredibly popular, transmitted into art repeatedly by many individual
vase-painters from the Archaic to Hellenistic Period. As in erotostasia, these scenes also
feature a deity holding a balance with one hand, with two miniature figures being
weighed. While scenes of male deities observing the results of weighing have been
studied in order to gain insight into the famous epic and tragedian cycle, erotostasia has
not been compared to these near-identical images. The implications of Aphrodite weighing erotes become clearer when we take kerostasia as the prevalent precursor in meaning,
which must have been known to both audience and artist of erotostasia. The result of this
ii

comparison makes the similar positions of Aphrodite and Zeus, as judges and arbiters,
incredibly significant. The extent to which Aphrodite and Zeus have each been described
as supreme authorities over their respective realms can be determined in many textual
and artistic sources. The relation of Zeus' and Aphrodite's placements in these scenes
speaks to the tension between the heroic and erotic realm, as well as the tension between
Zeus and Aphrodite themselves described as early as the sixth century BCE by lyric
poets. The meaning evinced by this comparison is a significant addition to the scholarship
surrounding weighing, Aphrodite, and Eros. With this thesis I hope to open the topic up
for further analysis and present erotostasia as an image with incredible depth and nuance.

iii

A sincere thanks to Dr. Margaret Toscano, for teaching me Greek and Latin, as well as being a
constant source of support and inspiration during the past five years.
I am also grateful to my thesis adviser, Dr. Elizabeth Petersen, for all your help. Your patience
paved the way for my completion of this thesis.
Finally, to Richard Herbert, who was always encouraging, loving and eager to help break my
most-stubborn writers' block, a most ardent thank you, .

iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction..........................................................................................................................1
Erotostasia Objects under Consideration............................................................................2
Methods and Aims...............................................................................................................3
Discussion of the Figures in erotostasia..............................................................................3
Allusions and Metaphor in Weighing Scenes......................................................................8
Erotostasia and its Image of Aphrodite in a Larger Context.............................................15
Conclusion.........................................................................................................................19
Appendix: Figures..............................................................................................................20
References..........................................................................................................................26

Introduction
Ancient Greek fascination with desire and love, represented by Aphrodite and
Eros, are apparent in the myriad artistic representations that feature these deities' impact
on the lives of gods and mortals alike. The complexities of the redoubtable pair were
explored by some of the most eminent Greek thinkers, including philosophers,
playwrights, lyric poets, and artists. When analyzing ancient Greek culture, the discourse
surrounding Aphrodite and Eros is a crucial topic. However, though images of Eros and
Aphrodite are prolific and scholars have analyzed related literary and material sources
extensively, scenes of erotostasia, or the weighing of Eros by Aphrodite, have been
historically overlooked by the academic community. Even in studies of the kerostasia and
psychostasia scenes, erotostasia has never been considered nor compared to research the
significance of symbolic weighing in ancient culture. The lack of inquiry into the scene is
ostensibly due to the small number of objects that feature erotostasia, as well as lack of
direct textual information explaining its exact significance. However, the image
incorporates iconographic tropes of Aphrodite, Eros, and the act of weighing that have
been individually treated by scholars and have a significant place in modern academia's
vision of the Greek world. Likewise, the image of Aphrodite raising a balance, an eros
perched on either weighing platform, is a powerful visual metaphor that encapsulates
elements of love and desire that were important to the Greeks and continue to incite
debate and artistic expression today. The textual, artistic, and historic information about
erotostasia's components is extensive and can be combined to understand how this

symbol related to the culture in which it was produced. Therefore, with the analysis of
Eros, Aphrodite, as well as the mythological development of weighing in ancient Greece,
we can thoughtfully analyze this unexplored subject and shed light on the connections it
creates between the components of erotostasia and their relationship to a modern
understanding of Greek art.
Erotostasia Objects under Consideration
The erotostasia scene is present on four cataloged objects created between the
fourth and fifth centuries BCE. These objects show a clothed female figure holding a
balance with one hand, and a winged male figure perched on each of the balance's pans.
One side of the balance always dips lower than the other, and the weighing action is the
focal point of all of the scenes. Specifically, the four known depictions of erotostasia are:
a gold ring showing a seated woman weighing two small winged figures (Aphrodite
Weighing Love, 350 BCE, the J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu) [Fig. 1]; a second gold ring
that shows a standing female figure weighing two winged figures with a third at her feet
(Erotostasia: Aphrodite Weighing Two Erotes, ca. 450-400 BCE, the Museum of Fine
Arts, Boston) [Fig.2]; a calyx krater including an unidentified male figure on the left side
in addition to the female holding the balance, which is the name-vase for the Erotostasia
Painter1 (The Erotostasia Painter, Erotostasia, 340-330 BCE, the National Archaeological
Museum, Athens) [Fig.3]; and a red-figure bell krater from southern Italy with another
full-sized male figure on the right side of the vessel and a four-legged table between the

Beazley, J.D. Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters. 2nd. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1963. 1456.1, 1461

standing male and female figures (Weighing Scene, 350 BCE, the British Museum,
London) [Fig.4].

Methods and Aims

Though each scene has a slight variation, the central action of the weighing of
winged figures by an imposing female figure is the same. My paper will focus on the
similarities in the works and appraise similar scenes in text and art that deal with the
action of weighing to form conclusions about the erotostasia objects. My method will be
to examine other images from the period to identify the winged males as Eros and clothed
female as Aphrodite, substantiating the erotostasia classification in detail, as it has not
been undertaken previously. I will then look at references to symbolic weighing in Greek
text, mythology, and art before and up through the fourth century BCE. Charting the
occurrence of such iconography will first establish the Greek visual tradition of depicting
deities weighing abstract concepts or other divine beings. My later analysis regarding the
cultural significance of weighing scenes, specifically erotostasia, will draw from a
combination of my research on textual and artistic sources to look at how Aphrodite's
image within erotostasia factors into dynamics already present in Greek myth and art.
With this thesis I hope to open a discourse on erotostasia and its place in the scholarship
of Eros, Aphrodite, Greek ideas about Eros, and the use of weighing iconography.
Discussion of the Figures in erotostasia

The first step in understanding scenes of erotostasia is identifying the

iconographic traditions we can observe, allowing for the exploration of the meaning of
the rest of the scene. Naming the three capital personalities, the imposing female figure
with the balance, as well as the two identical winged figures on the pans, requires
comparing their images to other vases, rings, and textual sources from the same and
earlier periods. The scant analyses of erotostasia are from museum catalogs that assert
the female figure is Aphrodite and the figures are erotes (Aphrodite Weighing Love, J.
Paul Getty Museum). The identifications rest on first recognizing the winged figures as
Eros, which then help to understand the female as Aphrodite. Eros is a deity that stands
out in painted form and is then an obvious identification, being one of the few gods to
appear with wings. Originally Eros was said to be older and perhaps more powerful than
Aphrodite by Hesiod as early as the eighth century BCE, who writes that the first beings
to appear in the universe were Choas, Gaia, Tartaros, and Eros: loveliest of all the
Immortals, who makes their bodies (and men's bodies) go limp, mastering their minds
and subduing their wills (Hesiod 64). However, Eros was alternatively described as a
youth or even a child in both text and material sources. In the sixth or seventh century
BCE, lyric poets allude to Eros' childish nature. Anacreon describes Eros in relation to
games in several poems. He writes of Eros having a purple ball, with which he strikes the
speaker of Fragment 378 in order to make the speaker fall in love with a girl (Campbell
67-8, trans. mine). Anacreon also writes in Fragment 398: The dice of Eros are chaos
and uproar (ibid). The childishness of Eros throwing a ball or tossing dice suggests that

Anacreon does not write of the primal generative force of which Hesiod referred, or even
the more serious deity of Sappho2, but a version that is childish and more mischievous.
Vase painters also took advantage of these two versions of Eros, depicting him in
some images as a young adult and in others as an infant.3 Likewise, varying artists
painted Eros as either singular or plural, commonly.4 The likeness of Eros we see in
erotostasia, that is, small, infantile, and in multiple figures, is quite common especially in
the Classical and early Hellenistic Periods. The Museum of Fine Arts Boston describes
the ring with the seated female, Aphrodite Weighing Love [Fig.1], saying: While the
precise meaning of this weighing scene is unknown, Aphrodite and Eros often appear on
rings made in the 300s B.C., reflecting the general popularity of Aphrodite in the art of
this period. A good example of a similarly articulated pair of erotes from the fourth
century, which are rendered more clearly, can be found on a lekythos by the Apollonia
Painter (Red-Figure "Kerch"-Style Lekythos, ca. 360-340 BC, the British Museum,
London) [Fig. 5]. These erotes each have wings and display the absence of muscular
outline, creating a body that is softer in appearance. Compared to the youth on the left
side of the vessel, who displays prominent ab and pectoral muscles, the erotes bodies are
childish much like those of the tiny winged bodies on Figures 1-4. The erotes on the

2Sappho's

Eros is not childish, but has a powerful and contrary nature. We can see this in Fragment 26
where he is described as a fierce wind. Sappho also calls Eros sweetbitter in Fragment 71 (Lombardo
xv). This labeling of his polar nature is a good way to describe his mercurial character in Greek myth.

3For

a look at Eros painted as a young adult see the Red-Figure Bell Krater by the Dinos Painter
(Hadzisteliou).

Rosenmeyer writes an interesting, if outdated, explication of the singular Eros versus the plural in Eros:
Erotes.

lekythos are to a slightly larger scale than those featured on any of the erotostasia objects,
but are still only a third of the size of the other figures painted on the vase, maintaining
the visual tradition of making younger persons significantly smaller than adult ones.
These erotes flank a towering female figure on either side, which we can compositionally
compare to the weighing scene with the symmetrical placement of the erotes on the
scales. These winged figures painted by the Apollonia Painter display common
characteristics of the childish erotes and resemble the erotes on Figures 1-4 in both form
and composition.
Eros is commonly linked to Aphrodite as her child or consort. He is described
frequently in text and art as running errands for the goddess and otherwise doing her
bidding. Ibycus, another lyric poet from the sixth century BCE, writes in Fragment 287:
Again Eros, looking at me tenderly from under his dark eyelids, hurls me with many
spells into the boundless nets of Kypris [Aphrodite] (Campbell 66, trans. mine). Many
vase-painters took advantage of the association between them for decorative
convenience, framing the goddess with double erotes flanking her (Hadzisteliou). The
presence of Eros does not always mean that Aphrodite is also depicted in the painting, but
it is more often the case than not as shown in the Apollonia Painter's work [Fig.5]. The
erotostasia scene also follows these general visual tropes and so we can move from the
identification of Eros to that of Aphrodite. With the erotes named in the scene, it is easier
to identify the more generic-looking female figure as Aphrodite.

Beyond the presence of Eros, there are several other clues that can lend to
determining a figure to be Aphrodite in a work. Aphrodite was commonly displayed with
tokens that denoted her realm of feminine beauty and delicacy. She was painted and
formed on rings often with mirrors, combs, shells, or accessories such as jewelry or
crowns. The female figures on Figures 1-3 all have a diadem, or stephane, visible on the
tops of their heads. There are also several vases with an inscription that names a crowned
Aphrodite with an eros. Two of these are by the Meidias Painter (Reg-figure squat
lekythos, side A; Aphrodite seated with Eros,400-450 BCE, the British Museum, London)
[Fig.6]; the inscription in Greek that says Aphrodite can be made out in Figure 7,
which is a close-up of Figure 6. Another similar portrayal of Aphrodite by the Meidias
Painter is on a red-figure hydria (Attic Red-figure Hydria with Aphrodite and Phaon, late
5th-early 4th century BCE, the British Museum, London) [Fig.8]. The inclusion of a
crown on Aphrodite worked onto rings can also be seen in the Beazley Classical
Archive's list of cut gems and rings, showing the iconographic tradition extending to
objects formed as well as vases painted (Hellenistic Gems: Standing Figures). Both the
erotes and the crown found on paintings and objects featuring Aphrodite make a clear
case to name the female figure in Figures 1-4 as the goddess of love.
The gods were often depicted as bigger than life-size in works. With this
technique the painter could call attention to their supernatural importance and usually
their narrative prominence within a scene. The female form in Figures 1-4 each are large,
with the females in Fig.1 and 2 being the central focus of the works. The complicating

factor is the fact that the male figure on Fig. 4 and 5 is the same size and given the same
compositional importance as the female, being directly opposite her with the balance in
the middle. Ostensibly, this has lead curators to describe these male figures as another
deity, Hermes. He lacks distinguishable attributes that would lead one to understand him
as a particular god, but his youth, lack of beard, and apparent equal status to the imposing
female implies that he is both divine and either Apollo or Hermes (both of which were
painted without beards and sometimes without their respective main attributes, the
caduceus or lyre). The other major male figures of the Pantheon are usually depicted with
beards, including other objects such as a trident, thunderbolt, hammer, etc that
would more positively speak to the identity of the male figure. Another reason we thinl
that the male is Hermes is his inclusion in the other major weighing scenes in Greek
mythology, to which I will now argue erotostasia is linked: kerostasia and psychostasia.
Allusions and Metaphor in Weighing Scenes
The central action and focus of the erotostasia scene is the weighing of two
miniature human figures. The word erotostasia comes from the Greek roots for Eros and
stasis.5 The terminology of the scene refers to the essential motion of the tool "coming to
stand stably," as the weight of the two erotes moves the pans and they are stopped in air
based on their relative masses. In each of the four occurrences of this image the balance
and its nearing-stasis position is highlighted in the composition. On both of the two
vessels, Figures 3 and 4, the painter places the balance in the center of the two figures
5

From the Greek verb : to cause to stand, to make stand. : (literally to have or posses
stasis) to stand or have stability (Cunliffe 202-04).

and the pottery in total. Added emphasis is given to the weighing by the downward gazes
of the male and Aphrodite towards the scales, with the exception of the man on the calyx
krater, Fig. 3, who instead looks up from the instrument and gesticulates with his right
hand, as if reacting to the result of the scales. The rings feature erotostasia even more
prominently in Figures 1 and 2. Leaving out any context or scenic material, they create an
icon of the central weighing in complete isolation. A consideration in analyzing these
objects and their subject-matter will be the development of weighing iconography, in
order to best understand the most prominent action in the scene. Questions addressed in
this section of research are: how have weighing scenes developed and what do they
signify in ancient culture? What does the presence of a scale or balance in Greek art
indicate to the Classical or early Hellenistic audience? Which deities before Aphrodite
were associated with this action? While we do to have specific textual references for
erotostasia, several texts shed light on other scenes of divine weighing and their
significance. These questions can be addressed by looking at Homer's lines describing the
several references to kerostasia in the Iliad, Aristophanes' weighing contest in Frogs,
Aeschylus' Psychostasia, and later the material culture related to all of these textual
materials.
The use of balances was a symbol repeatedly described in the earliest and one of
the most religiously significant Greek poems, Homer's Iliad. The Iliad is the oldest
surviving literary work in the Greek language and scholars have estimated its date of
composition to be approximately 750 BCE (Willcock ix-x). Therefore, the development

and cultural significance of the weighing scene spanned centuries of Greek history,
Homer's development of the scene influences both how other artists used the symbol and
how it was interpreted by their audiences. The way that the scene is expounded upon by
Homer over many sections can show how even later Greeks in the Classical and early
Hellenistic Periods would have approached symbolic weighing scenes, and for our
purpose, erotostasia.
References to the scales of Zeus, or the talanta6 and the weighing of fates occur in
several sections in detail, with passing mention in Il. 16.658, 18.69, and 19.223. The most
significant weighing scenes appears in Book 8 and Book 22. The lines 68-74 of Book 8,
say:

,
:

,
: .

, :
When the sun had gone to the mid-sky, the Father stretched out the golden scales.
He placed within them two fates of grievous death, one of the horse-taming
Trojans and one of the bronze-armored Acheans. Grasping the middle, he raised
it. And the predestined day of the Acheans sunk. The fates of the Acheans sat
upon the bountiful earth. (Trans. mine)

Neuter noun , always occurs in the plural when referring to the balancing
instrument, akin to our plural usage of "scales" or "weights. The singular, anglicized as talent, also refers
to a particular ancient measure of weight usually gold or silver (Cunliffe 372). An example of the
singular talantov can be found in the passage describing Achilles gift of a half-talent of gold in Il. 23.784.
6

10

The scene of Zeus balancing two keres is termed kerostasia, the word keres meaning
fate or death. The term provides the template for naming similar scenes by attaching
the object or concept being weighed to "stasia (Seidenberg 192-3). Here we see the
talanta as the determining instrument for the fate of two opposing armies, the Greeks
and Trojans. The scene illustrates events similar to those featured in erotostasia: a
deity grasps a balance in the middle, raises it, and determines which of two
supernatural entities sinks furthest-- the lowest pan represents the undesirable outcome.
The second major appearance of Zeus and his golden scales occurs in Book 22,
lines 208-13. This passage moves from the general weighing of two populations to two
individuals, Hector and Achilles.
,
,
,
, ,
: ,
...
Then indeed they arrived up to the spring for the fourth time. At that point the
Father raised a golden balance and he placed here two fates of woeful death, one
of Achilles, one of Hector, tamer of horses, grasping the groove in the middle. The
destined day of Hector sunk. It went to Hades. (Trans. mine)
The image of the fateful measuring is a motif that is present throughout the text in
various forms and provides an image to encapsulate a preoccupation with destiny and
heroic competition. As shown in these two examples, the two things weighed against
each other can be broad concepts, such as victory of a group made up of many
individuals, or specific victories of distinct personalities. Although Homer's time is far
11

removed from the Classical and early Hellenistic Periods when Figures 1-4 were made,
the enduring prominence of Homeric reading in these later ages, along with the
continued textual and visual adaptations of kerostasia imply that the image would have
held similar significance for a fourth century audience that it did in the seventh.7
The scene is transmitted into vase-painting and images, which are very
similar in appearance to the erotostasia and reflect the symbol's enduring popularity for
the Greek audience into the Classical and Hellenistic Periods. The kerostasia scene in
images is frequently indistinguishable in image form from the closely related
psychostasia, which features Achilles and Memnon instead of Hector (mostly
discernible where inscriptions identify Memnon). These types of near-identical visual
or mythological tropes happen frequently in the non-dogmatic Greek religion. The two
terms for the weighing must have also been interchangeable in later Greek periods, as
Plutarch tells that Aeschylus writes a play that is now lost, Psychostasia, which deals
with Zeus weighing the souls of Memnon and Achilles in an identical manner as in the
Iliad.The trilogy [of Aeschylus] consisted of The Memnn, Psychostasia, and The
Weighing of Souls... In the Psychostasia Zeus was represented as holding aloft the
balance, in the scales of which were the souls of Achilles and Memnon... Comparing
the passage in the Iliad, in which Zeus weighs the fates of Achilles and Hector,
Plutarch (How a Young Man ought to hear Poems 2. p. 17A) says that Aeschylus

7Aristophanes

presents a comical take on Zeus' weighing in 405 BCE with his Frogs. In the underworld, the
poets Aeschylus and Euripides compete to see who is the better tragedian. Dionysus, the judge in this
stasis scene, brings out a balance and places their lines on each of the platforms. The poet with the
weightier lines wins the competition (Aristophanes 601-2).

12

accommodated a whole play to this fable (Smyth, Aeschylus). Though the Greek
word for soul, psyche8, is used instead of the word for fate, keres, each come from the
Iliad and have the same significance within the tex. Both kerostasia and the nearly
identical psychostasia are illustrated on several vases, which bear a striking
resemblance to the erotostasia images under consideration. The earliest visual example
illustrating of a scene illustrating one of the battles from the Iliad can be found on
Figure 9 (Hermes Psychostasia and Memnon Lekythos, From the Archaic Period, the
British Museum, London), which is a white-ground lethykos depicting Hermes, the
messenger and often the personal representative of Zeus, holding a balance with two
small, black figures in the pans. Hermes is identified as he holds the caduceus, wears a
traveling cloak, and has winged sandals. The presence of Hermes in Figure 9, Figure
10 ( Detail from Athenian Red-Figure Clay Vase, 460 BCE, Musee du Louvre, Paris),
and Figure 11 (The Syracuse Painter, Psychostasia of Memnon. 490-480 BCE, the
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston) account for the identification of the male characters in
Figures 3 and 4 as the same messenger god, curiously painted without his attributes in
erotostasia. These images of kerostasia or psychostasia feature the central figure
holding a balance with tiny representations of people on the pans. These small male
figures do not have wings, but are meticulously detailed as warriors with armor. We
can determine that the concept or deity being weighed in Figures 9-11 are not the same
as those in Figures 1-4, but must represent a different scenario than that Aphrodite

8Cunliffe

424

13

governs. Although erotostasia has never been written about as another iteration of this
prominent textual and artistic subject, the similarities between the stasia cannot longer
be ignored. An interesting avenue, to which this comparison brings me, is the
significance of Aphrodite, a female deity, being depicted in such an authoritative
position. If the male figure on Figures 3 and 4 is indeed Hermes, then Aphrodite
conducting the weighing with the observing messenger of Zeus implies that
Aphrodite's action is completely her own, not done on Zeus' bidding, but
independently. On Figures 1 and 2, the sole focus of Aphrodite in her realm as arbiter
of matters related to love only more strongly implies the singular authority that the
scene gives her.
In kerostasia Zeus conducts the weighing, and in psychostasia he sends his
messenger Hermes to do the action while he oversees. His judgment over these types
of contests, in image and strongly explored in text, represents the aspect of his divinity
that also makes him the primary deity responsible for observing oaths, guest-host
relations, and other binding social or religious contracts.9 Hesiod details Zeus' place as
the orchestrator of the universe in the Theogony; Zeus' actions in cementing the divine
balance between the Titans, their parents, and their children in the Titonomachy echo

Homer repeatedly invokes Zeus throughout the Odyssey when hosts do not behave in an appropriate
manner to their guests (Lombardo, Introduction to the Odyssey). Pausainius V 24, 9-10 also provides an
example: [Zeus] is called the guardian of the oaths and carries a thunderbolt in each hand. It is a habit
for the athletes...and also their trainers to swear at this statue...that they will commit no offense to the
Olympic games. Moreover the adult athletes swear that they have applied themselves to training for ten
months without interruption. Also the judges who examine the boys and foals swear that they will judge
according to the law and without receiving bribes and that they will keep secret everything about the
candidate, admitted or not (Clarysse, The Olympic Oath).

14

his position as the authoritative judge over the scales (Hesiod 61, 85). What we may
glean from comparing kerostasia to erotostasia is significance that would have been
known to Greeks in later periods observing or making artistic works that featured the
weighing vignette. Aphrodite, rather than Zeus, is the central deity raising the balance
in the scene of erotostasia. Her position, observing and judging the outcome of a
contest of love, is one that is common in other textual and painterly works. In Fig. 5 by
the Apollonia Painter, Aphrodite presides over a game of knucklebones and Eros
awards the winner a laurel wreath. In textual sources Aphrodite also presides over
judgments of love. When Sappho repeatedly questions the fairness of a romantic
situation, she calls on Aphrodite to observe her woes (Sappho Fragment 1). The scene
of erotostasia makes sense in direct parallel with kerostasia or psychostasia, here the
deity who presides over marriages, relationships, and other such romantic oaths and
contracts acts as Zeus does in his role as guardian of oaths. We can imagine that in
erotostasia Aphrodite determines the validity of similar concepts as in the Iliad, either
the merit of two romantic destinies, in the more broad sense, or perhaps the worthiness
of two individuals as Zeus does when weighing fates or souls.
Erotostasia and its Image of Aphrodite in a Larger Context
The examination of erotostasia scenes and their roots in the writings of
Homer and paintings from several periods of Greek history bring us to the question of
why Aphrodite is depicted in this scene and how it relates to the overall discourse
surrounding Aphrodite, Eros, and important symbolic scenes of weighing. Homer's

15

works feature as their main thematic material issues concerning the public realm, the
state, and the patriarchal system of heroic honor. The symbol of Zeus weighing the
fates of two armies, or two heroes vying to be victor in a contest of heroic manliness,
can encapsulate some of the overall concerns of the Iliad and the Odyssey. The Trojan
War was in part conducted in order to right the spurned honor of Menelaus, who was
cuckolded when Paris took Helen to Ilium to bring balance back to the public, male
world. The war, then, is symbolically represented elegantly in the image of Zeus,
observer of oaths and the patriarchal system of bonds, taking the fates of the armies
into his scales to judge. When the Greeks win the war, they are also putting the order of
heroic honor back into place, righting the wrong that threw their universe into disarray.
A microcosm of this same theme has been observed in the central conflict detailed in
the Iliad, when Achilles' honor is bruised by Agamemnon taking his favorite prize, the
female Brycheus, and Achilles' withdrawl from the battle seems to spell defeat for the
Acheans. Only when Achilles honor is balanced again does the war continue and the
public realm of male interaction functions normally. The recurrent image of Zeus'
weighing is a motif that is symbolically related to these instances of an imbalanced
heroic world and the attempts to determine what fate intends. Standing opposite these
treaties on the male realm of oaths, bonds, and balance in the world of the state, we can
understand erotostasia to be related to the kerostasia image, but separated from it in
another sphere of concerns. The tradition of the private sphere, concerned with
domesticity and romantic love, critiquing or playing with the prominence of the heroic

16

epics is well established. As examples of Ibycus and Anacreon have already shown in
this paper, lyric poets featured Eros and Aphrodite as by far their most common topics.
However, the place of romantic poetry is not mutually exclusive from the Homeric
realm of the state and warfare. Where the modern audience may detect this dual
concern, the presence of love and war, in Greek culture is in lyric poetry, spanning
earliest from Sappho's use of Homeric allusions beginning in the seventh century BCE.
One of the most evocative examples of the mixture of love and war, the Homeric
coming into conflict with the erotic, can be found in Sappho 1, which reads:
Some say an army of horsemen, others hoplites, and still others say warships
are the most beautiful thing on the black earth: but I say it is whatever you
love. This is entirely easy to prove to everyone, just look at Helen; her most
honored husband, surpassing by far the other men, she left him. Having
sailed across the sea, she stepped into Troy and did not remember either her
child or dear parents. She was lead astray... Now I am reminded of
Anaktoria, who is not here. I wish to see her bright face and lovely step more
than all the weapons of the Lydians and the hoplites fighting on land.
(Campbell 43, trans. mine)

Sappho here plays the differences between the larger Greek patriarchal concerns,
which are paramount in the Homeric epic, against the more individual concerns of a
person in love. Sappho and other lyric poets write of this subject often, with Sappho 1
asking Aphrodite to be my ally in the war of love (Campbell 40, trans. Mine). John
Winkler writes an extensive appraisal of this interchange between epic and lyric in
Double Consciousness in Sappho's Lyrics. He states about Sappho 1: A woman
listening to the Iliad must cross over a gap which does not exist in the same way for

17

male listeners (Winkler 169). He argues that the appropriation of Homeric symbols
and exchanges needs to be adapted by a female voice, and placed into the realm of
Aphrodite and Eros. He charts the ways that women and the romantic realm are
denigrated within the Iliad, such as when Diomedes stabs Aphrodite, drives her from
the battlefield, and declares she is weak in Il.5.331, 428. Winkler then states: Poem 1
employs a metaphorical use of the Iliad (transferring the language for the experience of
soldiers to the experience of women in love) and a familiarization of the alien poem (so
that it now makes better sense to women readers) (Winkler 170). While Winkler takes
Sappho's appropriation of Homeric themes and situations as defiant or subversive, I
would argue they can also be viewed as an attempt to humorize the seriousness of
Homer, as even Aristophanes does in the weighing scene in Frogs (601-02). Winkler
finally states, in reference to several of Sappho's works, Sappho appropriates an alien
text, the very one which states the exclusion of 'weak' women from men's territory...she
restores the fullness of Homer's text by isolating and alienating its deliberate exclusion
of the feminine and erotic (Winkler 175). This statement could be readily assigned to
the imagery of erotostasia as well. As I have analyzed, the iconographic similarities
between Zeus' presiding over kerostasia and Aphrodite's over the erotostasia scene is
so similar we must consider it to be a play, comment, or challenge of the traditional
material.
The evidence for Zeus and Aphrodite being in similar positions of power in
their respective realms is also traditional in Greek mythology, and lends to the idea that

18

the meaning behind erotostasia relates to the Greek fascination with the similar
authorities the male and female deities possessed as they are in the same position
holding the scales in the weighing scenes. In the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, the
poet writes that [Aphrodite] even led astray the mind of Zeus, the one who delights in
the thunder, the one who is the very greatest and the one who has the most honor to his
share. But even his well-formed minds are deceived by her, whenever she wants, as she
mates Zeus with mortal women with the greatest of ease (lines 36-40). The subject of
the hymn is the struggle of power that results when Zeus realizes that Aphrodite
possesses authority that he does not. To get even, Zeus concocts a scheme: But even
upon her [Aphrodite] Zeus put sweet desire in her heart desire to make love to a
mortal man, so that not even she may go without mortal lovemaking and get a chance
to gloat at all the other gods (lines 45-48). The tradition in lyric poetry and this hymn
is evidence for the textual interplay between the authority of Zeus and Aphrodite, and
in extension the different priorities of the public and private spheres. Zeus here seeks to
upend Aphrodite's authority over the erotic; however, as many scholars have argued,
his attempts appear to be fruitless as Aphrodite has the last laugh. Erotostasia is yet
another example of Aphrodite's place as the supreme authority in matters of love and
eros.
Conclusion
Scenes of erotostasia are scarce, appearing on only four objects from the
fourth and fifth centuries BCE. However, their exclusion from literature relating to larger

19

themes connected to Aphrodite, Eros, and weighing scenes is a mistake. The analysis of
Aphrodite weighing Eros opens possibilities for interpretation that relate to vast amounts
of textual and material sources that enrich our understanding of the Greek world, their
values, and how poets and artists interpreted these in antiquity. The visual and textual
connects we can draw between erotostasia and other weighing scenes lead us to
conclusions that evince this important, recurrent image in Greek art. The interplay
between Aphrodite and Zeus is obvious when looking at the iconographic similarities
between kerotostasia, psychostasia, and erotostasia. The challenges and humor that
results from the tensions between Aphrodite and Zeus are revealed when we see
Aphrodite's image on Figures 1-4 either usurping, mocking, or merely echoing Zeus'
position as supreme judge of the universe and seer of fate. This paper has attempted to
open discourse surrounding the topic, and the ways that erotostasia plays into the
discourse in the future will be an area of scholarly interest that is sure to grow and
develop with more attention.

APPENDIX: FIGURES

20

Figure 1. Aphrodite Weighing Love, 350 BCE, the J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu.

Figure 2. Erotostasia: Aphrodite Weighing Two Erotes, ca. 450-400 BCE, the Museum of
Fine Arts, Boston.

21

Figure 3. The Erotostasia Painter, Erotostasia, 340-330 BCE, the National

Archaeological Museum, Athens.

Figure 4. Weighing Scene, 350 BCE, the British Museum, London.

22

Figure 5. The Apollonia Painter. Red-Figure "Kerch"-Style Lekythos, ca. 360-340 BC,
the British Museum, London.

Figure 6. The Meidias Painter. Reg-figure squat lekythos, side A; Aphrodite seated with
Eros, 400-450 BCE, the British Museum, London.
23

Figure 7. Close-up. Meidias Painter. Reg-figure squat lekythos, side A; Aphrodite seated
with Eros, 400-450 BCE, the British Museum, London.

Figure 8. Attic Red-figure Hydria with Aphrodite and Phaon, late 5th-early 4th century
BCE, the British Museum, London
24

Figure 9. Hermes Psychostasia and Memnon Lekythos, From the Archaic Period, the
British Museum, London.

Figure 10. Detail from Athenian Red-Figure Clay Vase, 460 BCE, Musee du Louvre,
Paris.

25

Figure 11. The Syracuse Painter, Psychostasia of Memnon. 490-480 BCE, the Museum of
Fine Arts, Boston.

26

References
Annis, William S. "Poetic Texts." Aoidoi.org. 2012. Web. 1 June 2012.
aoidoi.org/poets/>.

<http://

Aphrodite Weighing Love. 2012. Photograph. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu. Web. 4
June 2012. <http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artObjectDetails?artobj=13007>.
The Apollonia Painter. Red-Figure "Kerch"-Style Lekythos. 2012. Photograph. ARTstor.
Web 2 May 2012. <http://library.artstor.org.ezproxy.lib.utah.edu/library/
iv2.html?
parent=true#>.
Aristophanes. Aristophanes, The Complete Plays. trans. and ed. Paul Roche. New York:
New American Library, 2005. 601-02. Print.
Attic Red-figure Hydria with Aphrodite and Phaon. 2012. Photograph. ARTstor. Web. 3
April 2012. <http://library.artstor.org.ezproxy.lib.utah.edu/library/
iv2.html?
parent=true#>.
Beazley, J.D. Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters. 2nd. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1963. Print.
Boardman, John. Athenian Red Figure Vases: The Classical Period. 3rd. London:
Thames & Hudson, 1989. Print.
Breitenberger, Barbara. Aphrodite & Eros: The Development of Erotic Mythology in
Early Greek Poetry and Cult. 2nd. London: Routledge, 2007. Print.
Campbell, David A., ed. Greek Lyric Poetry. London: Bristol Classical Press, 2009. 69.
Print.
Clarysse, Willy. "The Olympic Oath." Ancient Olympics. June 2012. Web. 3 July 2012.
<http://ancientolympics.arts.kuleuven.be/eng/tb017en.html>.
Cunliffe, Richard. A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect. Oklahoma City: The University of
Oklahoma Press, 1963. 202-04, 372. Print.

27

Detail from Athenian Red-Figure Clay Vase. 2012. Photograph. The Beazley Art Archive
at Oxford University. Web. 03 June 2012. <http://www.beazley.ox.ac.uk/
dictionary/Dict/ASP/dictionarybody.asp?
name=Psychostasia>.
Hadzisteliou, Theodora. "Double and Multiple Representations in Greek Art and
Religious Thought." The Journal of Hellenic Studies. vol. 91. The Society for the
Promotion of Hellenic Studies, 1971. Web. 7 June 2012. <http://www.jstor.org/
stable/631369 >.
"Hellenistic Gems: Standing Figures." The Classical Research Center and Beazley
Archive. University of Oxford, 2012. Web. 3 July 2012.
Hesiod. Works & Days, Theogony. trans. Stanley Lombardo. 1st. Indianapolis: Hackett
Publishing Company, 1997. 61, 64-5, 85 . Print.
Homer. Iliad. Trans. Stanley Lombardo. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company,
1997. Print.
Homer. Iliad I-XII. Ed. M.M. Willcock. London: Bristol Classical Press, 1978. ix-xxx, 5.
Print.
Lombardo, Stanley. Introduction. Sappho, Poems and Fragments. By Sappho.
Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2007. xiv-xv. Print.
The Meidias Painter. Reg-figure squat lekythos, side A; Aphrodite seated with Eros. 2012.
Photograph. ARTstor. Web. 2 May 2012.
<http://
library.artstor.org.ezproxy.lib.utah.edu/library/iv2.html?parent=true >.
Paul, Aaron J. "A New Vase by the Dinos Painter: Eros and an Erotic Image of Women in
Greek Vase Painting." Harvard University Art Museums Bulletin. Vol. 3, No. 2. 1994.
Web. 1 June 2012. < http://www.jstor.org/stable/4301510>.
Rosenmeyer, T.J. "Eros: Erotes." Pheonix. Vol.5 No.1 (1951): 11-22. Web. 10 April.
2011. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/1086604>.
The Sappho Painter. Hermes Psychostasia and Memnon Lekythos. 2012. Photograph.
Theoi Greek Mythology. Web. 9 June 2012. <http://www.theoi.com/Gallery/
K11.14.html>.

28

Smyth, Herbert. Aeschylus. Theoi Greek Mythology. 2012. Web. 02 June 2012. <http://
www.theoi.com/Text/AeschylusFragments2.html >.
The Syracuse Painter. Psychostasia of Memnon. 2012. Photograph. Theoi Greek
Mythology. Web. 10 June 2012. <http://www.theoi.com/Gallery/T19.9.html>.

Weighing Scene. 2012. Photograph. The Beazley Archive of Art at Oxford University.
Web. 04 May 2012. <https://www.beazley.ox.ac.uk/dictionary/Dict/ASP/
dictionaryBody.asp? name=Eros.htm>.
Willcock, M.M. Introduction. Iliad I-XII. By Homer. London: Bristol Classical Press,
1978. ix-xxx, 5. Print.
Winkler, John. Double Consciousness in Sappho's Lyrics. Constraints of Desire.
London: Routlege, 1989. Print.

29

Name of Candidate:

Hannah Lisbeth Jones

Birth Date:

November 22, 1989

Birth Place:

Salt Lake City, Utah

Address:

712 Anderson Ave.

Murray, Utah 84123

30