Greek Slavery by Deborah Kamen

Author:Deborah Kamen
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: De Gruyter
Published: 2023-06-19T13:05:21.592000+00:00

8.2

Representations in art

Let us turn now to representations of enslaved people in Greek art.32 One strain of scholarship on this topic has explored the identifying features of enslaved people in Greek art. Of course, as the Old Oligarch grumbled, it was difficult (at least in Athens) to identify enslaved people simply on the basis of their appearance ([Xen.] Ath. Pol. 1.10), which presents a challenge for the modern scholar trying to determine whether a given figure depicted in Greek art is enslaved.33 Nonetheless, some features have been categorized as typical representations of servility, including small body size; “barbarian” features (e.g., light-colored or reddish hair, non-Greek ethnic features, dark skin, tattoos); simple clothing or nudity (the latter as a marker primarily when there is a contrast to others who are dressed); short hair on women; twisted or deformed bodies; and the performance of certain kinds of labor.34 However, not all scholars think that enslaved people can be so easily identified: Osborne, for one, has argued that the most reliable criterion of servility is what an individual is depicted doing or how they are treated, not their physical features.35 The difficulties of identification have also been discussed by scholars in the context of how representations of (potentially) enslaved people are — and should be — labeled in museums.36

Most of the work on the ideology of slave representation in art has been done, once again, by Wrenhaven, whose work I focus on here. In Reconstructing the Slave, she demonstrates that both positive and negative artistic representations of enslaved people served in various ways to naturalize and justify slavery.37 For example, she argues that representations of well-behaved and attractive enslaved people in Greek art served as demonstrations of affection between owners and their “good slaves” — thus justifying slavery as mutually beneficial — while also displaying the owner’s wealth and prestige.38 John Oakley, similarly, has argued that positive representations of the relationship between women and their female slaves on Athenian vases and grave stelai served to promote an image of “familial harmony.”39 By contrast, representations of enslaved people as “ugly” or engaged in degrading manual labor naturalized the inferiority of slaves.40 Such representations do not necessarily reflect reality but instead what Weiler calls “inverted kalokagathia,” a physiognomic concept associating a negative character (i.e., the opposite of the citizen’s kalokagathia, goodness/ nobility) with a negative physical appearance.41

Another area that Wrenhaven has explored is the artistic representations of enslaved characters on the comic stage, specifically terracotta sculptures and vase paintings. She argues that these depictions reflect real-life costumes, with the specific details — padded bellies and rear ends, oversized phalluses, and masks with exaggerated features — designed to represent slavish traits like lustfulness, lack of self-control, and a tendency to gossip.42 In yet other work, Wrenhaven looks at how attendants at symposia, war captives, and enslaved laborers are sexualized in classical Greek art, with enslaved women depicted as sexual objects and enslaved men as points of contrast to free male beauty.43 Other scholarship on the depiction

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