Marisia - Maros Megyei Múzeum Évkönyve 31/1. (2011)
Articles
162 M.-C. Nicolae It has been suggested that the origin of these representations resides in Greek art (Will 1955,78-79). Nevertheless, a characteristic of the Greek divine imagery is the almost total absence of equestrian divinities. During Archaic, and as well Classical period, the Greeks did not convey their gods mounted, the chariot being the vehicle for transport. Two deities, Poseidon and Athena, together served as protectors of horses and patrons of horsemanship and equestrian activities. Athena, Patron Goddess of Athens, was credited with the invention of the bridle and the use of chariots. Nevertheless, the first images which depict horses discovered in continental Greece are the ones discovered on the stelae from Mycenae, where the horse is depicted with the chariot and not the rider, the scene not implying the presence of a deity. The horse was a symbol of prestige, wealth and high status. Social rank has often been defined by the ability to own and maintain a horse. The Aristocratic families that ruled Athens during the 6th century BC often took pride in their nobility by starting or ending their name with the word hippos, horse (Bouzek 1986, 21-22). The rider achieved a divine status in Greek imagery only beginning with the Hellenistic period, and only under the influence of Alexander the Great and the art that he promoted (Mackintosh 1995, 3). The idea of Near Eastern hunting as an aristocratic or royal activity had an impact on archaic Greece, but by beginning of the 5th century BC, the original Near Eastern association were muted, and thus the ideological image of the hunt was used not by kings or local rulers, but by aristocrats in a metaphorical way to express aristocratic ideology (Barringer 2001, 175). As J. Barringer (2001, 9) put it, “one must travel to Ionia or Lycia to see actual hunting scenes in the fourth century, where they adorn tombs and sarcophagi, or to Macedonia, where hunting appears in such places as the Vergina tomb paintings”. In Macedonia, even before Alexander the Great, horses had a privileged position among local population, being an item of prestige. The horse and the rider appear on Macedonian coins even from the 5th century BC, as prove of the position this animal had in society (Mackintosh 1995,4). The Lycian tendency to combine Near Eastern royal hunting with Greek myths as a means to heroize, points to the way the new developments in hunting imagery developed in the latter part of the 4th century BC, when hunting becomes more mythological and less metaphorical. Alexander the Great and his followers adopted Eastern royal tradition including royal hunting, sometimes with mythological imagery, in order to fashion themselves as living heroes in the Eastern tradition (Ghedini 1992, 74). Once the Persian military campaigns began in the Balkan area, their impact upon the local elites was to be felt, Achaemenid presence in the area being probably the original impetus for the Thracian aristocrats to emulate a similar code of royal status representations (Vassilieva 2010, 37). Thus, it is less likely that the theme of the mounted hero, represented as a hunter or warrior, could be a direct influence of the Greek world. The image of the mounted hero is a current theme in funerary and as well votive art from Roman times in the Danubian territories, theme which did not appear ex nihilo. As S. Nemeti (2003, 204, note 1) observed, the popularity of this motive in the Danubian area in votive and funerary area suggest that they might be the illustration of particular local conceptions regarding the underworld. The entire territory inhabited by the Thracian population is influenced, on the one hand, by the Scythians and the Celts and, on the other hand, by the Greek colonies from the Black Sea Shore. J. Bouzek identified two main areas within Thracian toreutics: the Odrysian Kingdom, where the Greek influence is more pregnant, and the area of the northern Thracians, where the Greek influences are less obvious, unlike the Scythian and the Persian ones (Bouzek-Ondrejová 1987, 86-87). The most popular subjects within northern Thracian art have been represented by
