Mythological Paradigms

Abstract In this section I want to explore how aspects of human childhood whose depiction I have charted are also represented on these sarcophagi by mythological equivalents.1 In looking at images which commemorate the dead child I have already noted the use of mythological figures combined with human portraits (Sect. 14), and something of the same desire to exalt or dignify human life through reference to these well-known heroic tales must underlie the use of many of these mythological scenes. Others may have been chosen primarily as narratives of childhood and youth. Yet others served to comment on the human condition in moral or eschatological terms which, as Blome (1978) and Wood (1993) show, even came to affect the composition of scenes on certain sarcophagi. Such a motive might explain the changed layout of scenes on 2.19 to give greater prominence to the mourners, or the non-chronological arrangement of episodes in the Cleobis and Biton relief (A.14), so it will be useful to look further at the material for other comparable examples. Discussing the problem of unfinished portraits on children’s sarcophagi Andreae (1984a: 126 n. 12) asked if it were likely that workshops would keep in stock sarcophagi for children which were decorated with scenes whose potential allegory could only be understood in terms of adult experience. One answer to this is that a surprisingly large number of the ‘adult’ mythological scenes used on these sarcophagi can be interpreted as paradigms for aspects of the life and death of the child, as this synchronic survey will suggest.