Right: Attic Black-figure Siana cup (c. 580-570 BCE). J. Paul Getty Museum 86.AE.154.
"Hunters and dogs swarm around a massive boar on one side of this Athenian black-figure Siana cup. Although the depiction on this cup lacks the inscriptions that usually identify the mythological heroes, the size of the boar--almost as tall as a man--argues against this being an ordinary boar hunt." (J. Paul Getty Museum)
Structuring the stories of Atalanta, Meleager, and the Kalydonian boar hunt is a difficult task. They are intrinsically related to each other to the extent that major parts of each story requires knowledge of the others’ stories. The sources for the stories vary quite a bit as well. Atalanta, Meleager, and the boar are summarized in both Apollodorus in Greek (1st century BCE – 3rd century CE) and Hyginus in Latin (also 1st century BCE – 3rd century CE). The possible dates of composition for Apollodorus and Hyginus are frustratingly vague, but they are mythographers rather than poets, so their information is often reliant on earlier popular works (sometimes named). The most famous version of Meleager’s story (involving both the boar hunt and Atalanta) is recounted in Book 9 of the Iliad, making it one of the earliest surviving references to heroic action in Greek myth. Finally, Ovid, in the Metamorphoses, tells separate stories of Meleager and the Kalydoinian boar, and Atalanta’s life after the boar hunt. Surviving sculptural and vase painting sources for the interrelated stories is fairly sparse, but there are at least two stock scenes dating into the Archaic period regarding the three stories: boar hunt scenes depicting both Meleager and Atalanta, and a wrestling competition between Atalanta and Peleus.
Detail of the lip of an Attic black-figure volute krater by Kleitias (c. 570 BCE). Photo: Saiko (Wikimedia).
The Greek heroes assembled by Oineus and led by his
son, Meleager, fight the oversize Kalydonian boar. Note the dead hunting dog
and warrior beneath the boar. Kleitias meticulously named every figure (including
the dogs) in the painting. This is the earliest and most complete narrative art
of the boar hunt, but a number of other vase paintings survive that are thought
to represent the boar hunt (names are not provided).
François vase. Depiction of the Kalydonian boar hunt is on the lip of the vase (near the top). Photo:Steven Zucker. (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
The Homeric version of the Kalydonian boar hunt is relayed by Phoenix in Book 9 of the Iliad. He tells the story as a basis of comparison between the position Achilles finds himself in, i.e., refusing to fight for his community, and that which Meleager, an Aetolian prince, found himself in a generation earlier. According to Phoenix, Artemis was angry with Oeneus, the king of Aetolia, because he neglected to offer her the honor of "first fruits" from his orchard.[1] Meanwhile, Oeneus remembered to honor the other Olympians with various sacrifices. This enraged the goddess, so she sent forth "a savage boar" to "destroy Oeneus' orchard." The boar was killed with great effort by Meleager and a group of heroes from the Greek world.
This collection of heroes is akin to the stories of Jason and the Argonauts and the Seven Against Thebes. In all three cases, a chosen hero recruits the great heroes of his day. They band together to accomplish a given task, whether it be slaying a savage boar (Kalydonian boar hunt), retrieving a mythical artifact (Jason), or to sack a city (the seven heroes who marched against Thebes).
Homer's description of the boar hunt is very general because its presence in the Iliad is concerned with the fallout of the hunt, that is the enmity between Meleager, his mother, and his community. However, the tale itself is recounted in greater detail elsewhere. Apollodorus' account is largely identical to Homer's, but the details of the hunt itself are greater as his focus is retelling the event as a story in its own right:
When the annual crop had come to the countryside, Oineus sacrificed the first-fruits to all the gods but completely forgot about Artemis. She grew wroth and sent a boar, greater than any other in size and strength, which caused the land to remain fallow and destroyed the livestock and any people who met with it. Oineus called together all the heroes of [Greece] to go after this boar and promised to give the hide as a prize of valor to the man who killed the beast.
Those who came to hunt the boar were: from Kalydon, Meleagros son of Oineus, and Dryas son of Ares; from Messene, Idas and Lynceus, the sons of Aphareus; from Lacedaimon, Castor and Polydeuces, the sons of Zeus and Leda; from Athens, Theseus son of Aigeus; from Pherai, Admetos son of Pheres; from Arcadia, Ancaios and Cepheus, the sons of Lycourgos; from Iolcos, Jason son of Aison; from Thebes, Iphicles son of Amphitryon [Herakles' step-brother], from Larissa, Peirithous son of Ixion; from Phthia, Peleus son of Aiacos; from Salamis, Telamon son of Aiacos; from Phtha, Eurytion son of Actor, from Arcadia, Atalante daughter of Schoineus; and from Argos, Amphiaraos son of Oicles. The sons of Thestios also joined them. [2]
Many of the heroes who joined with Meleager on this hunt also sailed with Jason on the quest for the golden fleece: Jason, Peleus (future father of Achilles), and Telamon (future father of Ajax) being the most prominent. Note, also, the threat that the boar posed to the people of Aetolia and its size and ferocity are both described with greater import than the brief gloss of the beast by Homer. The threat of the boar to human civilization and the fact that it quite literally murdered or chased off human beings attempting to cultivate the land is emphasized. Thus, we have another form of the monster slaying quest, similar to the exploits of Theseus, Herakles, and Perseus, in which the hero must defeat a savage adversary that threatens human civilizaiton.
Left: Attic Black-figure Siana cup (c. 580-570 BCE).
The heroes and hounds of the Calydonian boar hunt battle the beast sent by the goddess Artemis to ravage the lands of King Oeneus. (Getty 86.AE.154)
Right: Roman sarcophagus from Tivoli (1st half of 1st century CE).
The Kalydonian boar hunt is depicted. Meleager spears the beast. Atalanta is shown reaching for an arrow from the quiver over her back. Other heroes and hunting dogs surround them.
Photo:Egisto Sani. (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Further surviving iconography surrounding the Kalydonian boar hunt is listed below. The time period spans early 6th century Corinthian to 1st Century CE from Roman Pompeii. There is even a cinerary urn from Etruria. This is the quintessential boar hunt in Greek myth. However, there are numerous boar hunts, and sometimes they are attributed to the Kalydonian boar when the subject is uncertain (e.g., Louvre E 670).
Louvre E 670: The tondo of a Laconian black-figure kylix by the Hunt Painter (c. 555 BCE). The exterior is undecorated.
Apulian red-figure amphora by The Lycurgus Painter (c. 360-350 BCE).
Fresco from Pompeii (c. 1st century BCE to 1st century CE).
British Museum 1772,0320.6: Corinthian black-figure column krater attributed to The Andromeda Group (c. 575-550 BCE).
British Museum 2010,5008.3: Etruscan tufa cinerary urn (c. 300-100 BCE).
According to Apollodorus, Atalanta was exposed by her father, Iasos the son of Lycourgos. Exposure is a means of getting rid of or denying paternity of a child. In the Greek world generally, children were not simply born into a house. A week or so after a child was born, the head of the household (father) would formally accept the child as his own (or adopt it). While exposure was rare in everyday life, it was a popular practice in mythology. Some of the most famous stories begin with acts of exposure: Oedipous and Perseus. Thus, Apollodorus tells us, Iasos exposed Atalanta because "he wanted male children." Atalanta was spared the horrific death of starvation, freezing, or predation, however. She was instead nursed by a bear in the woods "until some hunter found and raised her among themselves." Her story continues:
Atalante kept herself a virgin and spent her time armed, hunting in the wilderness. The Centaurs Rhoicos and Hylaios tried to rape her, but they were shot down by her and died. She also accompanied the heroes to hunt the Calydonian boar, and, at the games held in Pelias' honor, she wrestled Peleus and beat him. Later on, she found her parnets. But when her father urged her to marry, she went off to a place where races were held and stuck a three-cubit-high stake into the ground at the halfway point. She would giver her suitors a head start from this point, and she herself wold run wearing armor. Any man she caught up to earned his death right there; the man she did not catch earned marriage. [3]
Atalanta is depicted as something of a mortal Athena-like figure. She engaged in activities traditionally reserved for men. Unlike Athena, however, this behavior was both desired (insofar as she would make good breeding stock for athletic male children) and frowned upon because it violated the very strick gender norms and expectations of Greek society. See the inset regarding her wrestling match with Peleus.
Attic black-figure neck-amphora (c. 500-490 BCE).
Munich 1541. Photo: MatthiasKabel.
Atalanta and Peleus wrestle during the funeral games for Pelias. Note that female flesh is painted white to further distinguish Atalanta from any generic male youth. She’s also (partially) clothed, which is noteworthy because wrestling was an activity performed in the nude. Presumably, she remains clothed for propriety’s sake. In a slightly earlier Chalcidian version of this event, she is fully clothed in contrast to her nude male opponent (see inset below).
Atalanta became a savage metaphor: raised in the wild without parents, she engaged in unnatural activities for women, violated courting practices, and would eventually abandon human civilization forever:
Many men had already died when Melanion fell in ove with her and came to race, bringing golden apples he had gotten from Aphrodite. As she chased him, he would throw these. Because she picked up what he threw, she lost the race. So Melanion married her, and it is said that once when they werer out hunting, they went into the sanctuary of Zeus, and because they had sex there, they were turned into lions. [4]
Being godfearing is a quality of civilization in Greek myths. Civilized humans are depicted as fearing and respecting the gods from Homeric epic down through 5th Century tragedy and into the Roman period. To disrespect the patriarch of the gods, then, by having sex wherever it pleased them - dare we say, like animals - the pair were turned into savage beasts, and the "problem" of Iasos' wild, untamed girl was finally resolved. She went from being figuratively portrayed as a savage who ignore the norms and mores of civilization into an actual savage beast.
Ovid tells of a similar transformation. In his version, it is Hippomenes who wins Atalanta's hand in marriage by way of the foot race, and he does so thanks to the intervention of Venus (Aphrodite). In the beginning, Atalanta allowed him to lead her for she was smitten with him. As the race went on, Venus gave Hippomenes the aforementioned golden apples. Venus narrates the rest of Ovid's version in a cautionary tale to Adonis:
'When [Hippomenes] prayed, "Be with me now, Goddess,
Who gave me ths gift," and threw the shining apple
Hard and sideways into the field. It would take longer
For her to get it back, and the girl hesitated.
But I made her go get it and made the fruit heavier,
Slowing her down with both the detour and weight.
But my story is getting longer than the race itelf.
The virgin was passed; the winner led away his prize.
Now, Adonis, did I deserve to be thanked,
Have incense offered? He didn't think to thank me
Or offer me incense. I was hurt by his contempt
And flew into a rage. To forestall future slights
I decided to make an example of them both.
They were passing a temple deep in the woods,
A temple of Cybele [Rhea], the Mother of the Gods.
Great Echion had built it in days gone by,
Fulfilling a vow. They had journeyed far
And wanted to rest. My divine power
Instiled in Hippomenes an untimely desire
To make love. There was a dim, shallow cave
Close to the temple, roofed with natural pumice,
A sanctuary of the old religion, where priests
Had installed wooden figures of the ancient gods.
They went in and desecrated that holy place
With forbidden intercourse. The sacred images
Averted their gaze, and the Great Mother,
With her turreted crown, was about to plunge
The guilty couple into the waters of Styx,
But the punishment did not seem severe enought.
Instead, tawyn manes covered their once smooth necks,
Tehir fingers curved into claws, their arms changed to legs,
Tehir weight shifted to their chests, and they swept
The sandy ground with tails. Their faces were angry,
Tehir words were growls. Instead of bedrooms
They now haunt the wilds. Terrifying to others,
Their teeth champ the bit of Cybele as lions.
These and all other wild beasts like them
That don't run away but attack head on,
Please, my dearest, for my sake, avoide,
Or your manly courage might undo us both.' [5]
In Ovid's version, then, Atalanta and her lover fail to be godfearing twice over. First, Hippomenes does not properly give thanks to Venus for the boon she gave him in his victory over/courtship of Atalanta. Second, the pair desecrate the sanctuary of Cybele, the mother of the Olympian gods (rather than Zeus directly).
Atalanta's participation in the Kalydonian boar hunt will be discussed in the Meleager section (below).
Attic red-figure white-ground lekythos attributed to Douris (c. 500-470 BCE). Cleveland Museum 1966.114.
"Atalanta, the virgin huntress renowned for both her speed and her opposition to marriage, races to the right while looking back at Eros, the winged god of love; both figures are named. This Eros, bounding forward, tries to crown her, while two additional Erotes (also named) further hem her in. Love will win." (Cleveland Museum)
Roman 1st century CE copy of Greek bronze original. Altes
Museum, Berlin.
Photo: Gary
Todd.
The hero, Meleager, stands in repose with his spear resting
point up against his shoulder and his hunting dog seated, looking up to its
master at attention for a task. Meleager is generally portrayed in surviving
statuary as an idealized youthful hunter, either as we see here or in similar
pose with the boar’s hide at hand. The spear, dog, and boar seem to serve more
as attributes in portraiture than narrative devices.
The struts between the hip and wrist; calves;
and shin and spear, as well as the tree
stump against which the hero’s right leg leans would have been absent in the
original hollow bronze. Marble sculpture, however, is solid and therefore much
heavier. Hence the need for numerous supports to accommodate articulated figures
in contrapposto.
We begin the discussion of Meleager with the story told in Apollodorus. Meleager was the child of Oineus and Althaia. Oineus was the king of Kalydon, and Althaia was the daughter of Thestios, king of the neighboring Curetes. In other words, the marriage of Oineus and Althaia was typical of royal diplomacy in human civilization. Naturally, when it came time to slay the Kalydonian boar, the heroes of the Curetes joined the hunt, which included Althaia's own brothers (Meleager's uncles): Iphiclos, Euippos, Plexippos, and Eurypylos.
Apollodorus' account picks up the night before the heroes set out on the boar hunt:
After [the heroes] had assembled, Oineus entertained them as his guests for nine days, but on the tenth, Cepheus, Ancaios, and some of the others decided t ws beneath them to go out hunting with a woman. Although Meleagros had a wif (Cleopatra, the daughter of Idas and Marpessa), he also wanted to have a chld by Atalante. So he forced them to go out hunting with her. When they had surrounded the boar, Hyleus and Ancaios were killed by the beast, and Peleus accidentally killed Eurytion with a javelin. Atalante was the first to shoot the boar with her bow hitting it in the back. Amphiaraos was the second, hitting it in the eye. But Leeagros killed it with a blow to the flank. When he received the hide, he gave it to Atalante. [6]
The presence of Atalanta, a woman amongst men, was an issue before the hunt even began. As we noted earlier, Atalanta lived her life on the "wrong" side of Greek gender roles or expectations, and she was quite a capable warrior, wrestling and outrunning men, hunting for herself, etc. Nevertheless, her presence was an affront to the gendered social order. Her presence is all the more problematic in that Meleager was either in love with her or, at the very least, wished to have a child by her (eugenics?). In any case, Atalanta did have a thin claim to the hide over the other heroes because she was the first to hit it with any weapon, but there was no dispute that the hide belonged to Meleager above all for having actually slain the beast. The story continues:
The sons of Thestios thought it disgraceful that a woman would get the prize for valor when there were men arond and took it from her, saying that if Meleagros preferred not to take it, it belonged to them because they were his uncles. Meleagros grew angry, killed the sons of Thestios, and gave the hide to Atalante. [7]
We have, in this tale, a dispute over honor that threatens to destroy the amicable relationship of a group of united Greek heroes on a mission to conquer a savage beast. This dispute drives the Greeks toward savagery themselves as the fight amongst each other, going so far as Meleager slaying his uncles, all over the distribution of a valuable prize (the boar's hide). Ironically, a girl (woman?) is involved as well, perhaps a blend between Helen and Briseis? It is no wonder this story makes its way into the Iliad. It is almost a carbon copy of the relationship between Achilles, Agamemnon, and the rest of the Greeks for the first 16 books of the Iliad.
Apollodorus relays two different versions of the story at this point. In one, Althaia, in her rage that Meleager has slain her brothers, burns a magic log that is tied to Meleager's life, and the hero dies instantly. The other version is much closer to that of Homer, but it is also reminiscent of something Ovid would compose in the Metamorphoses. In brief, rather than slaying his uncles outright for stealing the boar's hide, "when the sons of Thestios laid claim to the skin, alleging that Iphiclos had struck the first blow, war erupted between the Curetes and the Kaldydonians. When Meleagros went out and killed some of the sons of Thestios, Althaia called down a curse upon him. He was angry and would not leave his house." At this point, Apollodorus' narrative might as well be the same as Homers. Let us then to turn to the Homeric account:
The Curetes were fightig the Aetolians
In a bloody war around Calydon town.
The Aetolians werer defennding their city
And the Curetes meant to burn it down.
[the story of the Kalydonian boar is relayed]
But the goddess cause da bitter argument
About the boar's head and shaggy hide
Between the Curetes and Aetolians.
They went to war. Whie Meleager still fought
The Curetes had the worst of it
And could not remain outside Calydon's wall.
But when wrath swelled Meleager's heart,
As it swells even the hearts of the wise,
And his anger rose against Althea his mother,
He lay in bed with is wife, Cleopatra,
[Cleopatra's ancestry is traced]
Meleager nursed his anger at Cleopatra's side,
Furious because his mother had cursed him,
Cursed him to the gods for murdering his uncle,
Her brother, that is, and she beat the earth,
The nurturing earth, with her hands, and called
Uppn Hades and Persephone the dread,
As she knelt and wet her bosom with tears,
To bring death to her son. And the Fury
Who walks in darkenss heard her
From the pit of Erebus, and her heart was iron. [8]
The dynamics of the relationship between Althaia, Meleager, and the sons of Thestios are interesting. The strife between Meleager and Althaia highlights the inherent tension in Greek (and Western?) marriage practice. There are shades of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter here in the way in which Althaia's loyalty is torn between the house of her father (Thestios and her brothers, the Curetes) and her new house (Oineus and Meleager). Societal expectations are that Althaia has left her father's house and is now part of Oineus'; her loyalty should be to Oineus and, more so, to her child with Oineus, Meleager. Thus, for her to levy such curses on her son is itself a transgression. Homer did well to craft this version of the Meleager tale. It is a very close parallel indeed to that of the strife between Agamemnon (Althaia?) and Achilles (Meleager).
Meleager was the Aetolians' (Kalydonians') great hope against the Curetes, and the people of the city begged him to fight, for he had shut himself in his home, wounded by his mother's curse upon him - refusing to fight as he stews in the betrayal of his mother, who should love him most? The citizens and priests of the Aetolians begged and pleaded with Meleager to come out and fight for them, offering numerous gifts of honor" He refuse dthem all, and refused his friends / His ery best friends and boon companions. / No one could move his heart or persuade him / UUntil the Curetes, having scaled the walls / Were buring the city and beating down / His bedroom door" (Iliad 9.601-607). Only after the walls were destroyed and half the city alight with fire did Meleager storm out and drive the Curetes away. He received no gifts nor thanks for his bravery, only hate and anger for the lives of friends and countrymen who would not have died had Meleager not held back in his anger with Althaia. Nothing is said of the Meleager's fate. Homer's interest in the story is limited to its parallels with Achilles and his relationship to both Agamemnon and Achilles friends and comrades (the Greek army at Troy). Apollodorus does offer some resolution to Meleager's fate in this alternate version of the story, however:
[Meleager] was angry and would not leave his house. But then when the enemy came near the walls of the city and when his fellow citizens, with the olive branches of suppliants in the hands, prayed for him to help, he was with difficuulty persuaded y his wife to go out. After he killed the remaining sons of Thestios, he died while fighting. After Meleagros died, Althaia and Cleopatra hanged themselves, and the women who mourned over his corpse were turned into birds. [9]
The Latin mythographer Hyginus relays a similar story to the first of Apollodorus in which Althaia kills Meleager by throwing a log that held his lifestring into a fire, and the hero died immediately. Like the ending of the second story, however, there is a transformation: "So in [Althaia's] desire to aenge the wrongs done to her brothers she killed her son. As for her sisters, the gods willed all of themexcept for Gorge and Deianira to be transformed while they wept into birds clled meleagrides {"guuinea hens"}. As for Meleager's wife, Alcyone, she died from mourning and grief." [10]
Apulian red-figure amphora by The Lycurgus Painter (c. 360-350 BCE). Photo: Egisto Sani. (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
The Kalydonian boar hunt. The characters fighting against the wild beast, which is about to be pierced by Meleager' spear, are his cousins the Dioscuri, and Anceus wounded on the ground. Note Atalanta drawing her bow on the far right. She is depicted wearing a Persian archer outfit. This is typical of how Greek and Roman artists portrayed Amazons and others from the Near East. Atalanta, however, is from the Greek mainland. It is possible that the artist did not know how to treat a woman engaged in masculine pursuits without relying on the Amazon template.
[1] "First fruits" is the practice of reserving the first fruit, grain, or product of a season's harvest that is then given or dedicated to a god, lord, king, etc. The point is to honor the person or god who receives this long-awaited boon of the new year.
[2] Trzaskoma, Stephen M.; Smith, R. Scott. Apollodorus' Library and Hyginus' Fabulae: Two Handbooks of Greek Mythology (Hackett Classics) . Hackett Publishing. Kindle Edition.
[3] ibid.
[4] ibid.
[5] Ovid. Metamorphoses (Hackett Classics) . Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.. Kindle Edition.
[6] Trzaskoma, Stephen M.; Smith, R. Scott. Apollodorus' Library and Hyginus' Fabulae: Two Handbooks of Greek Mythology (Hackett Classics) . Hackett Publishing. Kindle Edition.
[7] ibid.
[8] Homer. The Essential Homer (Hackett Classics) (pp. 102-103). Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.. Kindle Edition.
[9] Trzaskoma, Stephen M.; Smith, R. Scott. Apollodorus' Library and Hyginus' Fabulae: Two Handbooks of Greek Mythology (Hackett Classics) . Hackett Publishing. Kindle Edition
[10] ibid.
