109-133

• Dipla, Anthi

This article examines scenes of Eos pursuing/abducting youths on 5th‐century Athenianvases. Eos, the personification of Dawn, is the only woman assuming the role of apursuer in rape. The theme strangely becomes very popular with vase painters to a degreecomparable to ephebes pursuing a woman. The iconography of the scenes is systematicallyanalysed and evaluated. All theories explaining the popularity of the themefrom its presumable use as a parable for death are considered. Eos is moreover comparedto other winged figures in pursuit that are popular in the same period, especiallySphinx and Eros. Conversely, it is illustrated how Eos’ pursuits of youths are thoroughlycoined on the same model as ephebe rape scenes. These may have been so popularbecause they expressed prevalent social notions about how women, like animals,would need subduing/taming by the ephebe, future citizen hunters, before they couldassume their appropriate place in society. With Eos the hunter becomes the prey of awild woman, who has transgressed the control limits set by the social system. Eos ispromoted as the ultimate model of what a woman should not be.

• History and Archaeology

• Αρχαιολογία

Rape, pursuit, hunting, ephebes, bestial, role inversion, transgression

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