Dēmos · Classical Athenian Democracy · a Stoa Publication
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Adikia and Dike (Injustice and Justice).
Basileia (Kingdom, Sovereignty, or Monarchy).
→ Harmonia (Harmony).
(Agathe) Tyche (Good Fortune).
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Athenian Political Art from the Fifth and Fourth Centuries BCE: Images of Political Personifications
Amy C. Smith, edition of January 18 2003
page 16 of 26
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Hesiod (Hes. Theog.).
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Thebes (in text as “Theban”).
Attica (in text as “Attic”).
Peloponnese.
Discussion: The myth of Theban Harmonia, the wife of Kadmos, goes back to the epics: in Hesiod’s Theogony, she is the daughter of Ares and Aphrodite (Hes. Theog. 937). In this myth she is already a personification, as she represents the noun for which she is named, being the product of the union of antithetical forces (war and love, the respective spheres of her parents). It is likely, therefore, that the mythological heroine and personification are the same character, as Alan Shapiro has argued (Shapiro 1993, 95). The myth of Kadmos and Harmonia is illustrated in the Archaic period in Attic art, and on monuments from the Peloponnese. The scene of the meeting of Kadmos and Harmonia, at the spring guarded by the dragon, becomes more popular in the
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Aeschylus (Aesch. Supp.).
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Athens.
Harmonia retained her connection with Aphrodite at Athens, and was commonly shown in her circle, in illustrations on painted vases, seemingly as a personification of marital as well as civic Harmony. Already in the
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Aeschylus (Aesch. PB).
The role of the personification, Harmonia, was not limited to marriage in fifth century Athens. Like Peitho she bridges the private world of the bride and the public world of the polis. In the sixth century, the concept harmonia, whether or not personified, is considered by the presocratic philosophers as a force of union, close in meaning to philia (friendship). Herakleitos discusses her as a force of equilibrium between contrary tensions (DK, 22 B 51), while Empedokles discusses it as a force that coheres natural elements (DK, 31 B 27.3, 96.4, 122.2). In the fifth century harmonia, h( a(rmoni/a, pertained to order and stability in the polis. In Aischylos’ Prometheus Bound, for example, harmonia is a covenant set by Zeus (Aesch. PB 550-51). Here the meaning of harmonia is akin to eunomia (good laws): personifications of these two concepts are represented together on several late fifth century vases [3-4]. On these vases, and perhaps also on [5], Harmonia is joined by other political personifications; Peitho [5] and Eukleia [3], in non-narrative scenes that advertise virtues that may be useful to the polis. Harmonia is particularly suitable as an advertisement of civic virtues on vases that may have been used as wedding gifts, as she, like the gift itself, bridges the realms of public and private, and represents marriage as well as civic harmony.
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Euripides (Eur. Med.).
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Athens.
New York.
Attica (in text as “Attic”).
Eleusis (in text as “Eleusinian”).
Another mythological aspect of Harmonia, as the mother of the Muses, suits her third role as a personification of musical Harmony. In an ode in praise of Athens in Medea (produced in
Examples (all examples are certain unless otherwise noted):
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