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The reward for choosing the
way of ‘Virtue’? Herakles driven, perhaps to
Olympos, by Athena. Attic Red Figure Pelike attributed to the Kadmos Painter, c. 410 BCE (Munich 230). Further details here |
During 2019, I am not going
to set Hercules aside. However, while continuing to develop the Hercules activities,
I shall be starting to develop a second set of activities.
I have thought long and hard
over what the topic might be for these activities. Possibilities I’ve been
jugging include:
- Pandora: a female mythological figure who, like Hercules, makes a choice
- Medusa/Perseus: a topic that would return to the idea I mooted when I began this blog coming up to a decade ago.
But, for now, I am
considering a third possibility. I shall say briefly now how this has come
about.
In May of this year, the
next in the series of the Our Mythical Childhood conferences takes place. Its
theme has been one that I’ve been concerned about. It is an excellent theme,
but one that doesn’t perhaps have the immediate relevance to my autism project
as our previous events have, not least 'Our Mythical Hope' in 2017.
The topic for this year will
be ‘Our Mythical History’. Here, we will explore how the history of ancient
Greece and Rome is represented in children’s and Young Adult culture ‘in all
possible approaches’ to quote a recent email from our Principal Investigator
Katarzyna Marciniak. This email message came
during the Christmas break. In the time between receiving it and the return to
work, I was struck that the following topic could not only be relevant to the
conference theme, but also to my autism work. And, indeed it could, even, form
the basis of my second set of activities.
I have until the end of
February 2019 (today is the 4th of January) to write my abstract for
this conference. Over the next few weeks, I am going to build up to writing
this abstract, while also working though what the activities will involve and
working through what it is about them that might be relevant for autistic children.
In these activities, I am
not going to be leaving myth behind. In fact, I am going to be working in the borderlands
between myth and history. I shall be again focusing on an episode. It will be
one that is narrated as history: as something that a historical person did and
a particular point in time. But it is one that is tangled up in myth. It might
be ‘a myth’ (I mean this in a various sense of the word – including myth as
something fabricated and myth as a moment – more on this in the future). In any
case, the ride of Peisistratos with ‘Athena’ engages with myth, to exploit it, or
perhaps to represent it.
As well as not leaving myth behind,
I won’t be leaving Hercules being either. The switch will be to the Greek name,
Herakles, and the move will be back in time from my previous focus. The first
set of activities focused on an eighteenth-century CE artwork. The second set
will be concerned with a much earlier period where Herakles was, also,
much-represented. This was the sixth century BCE.
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The sixth century BCE was a
time when, on ancient Athenian vase paintings, such as the one depicted above, Herakles
was depicted making a chariot ride, with Athena. This was a time when Athens
was dominated by Peisistratos and then his sons. Peisistratos also made a
chariot ride, and he also did so with someone who was taken to be Athena.
This ride might have
inspired the Herakles ride. Or the ride of Peisistratos might be drawing on
what Herakles was depicted as doing. It is hard to tell which – and perhaps impossible
to tell which. Indeed, if we focus on which came first, we might be asking the wrong
questions.
In the next posting, I shall
start to address what it is about the historical episode that is relevant for
my autism project.
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