EOS AND THE YOUTH: A CASE OF INVERTED ROLES IN RAPE

Abstract

This article examines scenes of Eos pursuing/abducting youths on 5th‐century Athe‐ nian vases. Eos, the personification of Dawn, is the only woman assuming the role of a pursuer in rape. The theme strangely becomes very popular with vase painters to a de‐ gree comparable to ephebes pursuing a woman. The iconography of the scenes is sys‐ tematically analysed and evaluated. All theories explaining the popularity of the theme from its presumable use as a parable for death are considered. Eos is moreover com‐ pared to other winged figures in pursuit that are popular in the same period, especially Sphinx and Eros. Conversely, it is illustrated how Eos’ pursuits of youths are thor‐ oughly coined on the same model as ephebe rape scenes. These may have been so popu‐ lar because they expressed prevalent social notions about how women, like animals, would need subduing/taming by the ephebe, future citizen hunters, before they could assume their appropriate place in society. With Eos the hunter becomes the prey of a wild woman, who has transgressed the control limits set by the social system. Eos is promoted as the ultimate model of what a woman should not be.