Appropriating Traditions

Roman Corinth was also able to capitalize on the mythological traditions evoked by the fountain's name, particularly those with a local reference point. Princess Glauke was the daughter of Creon, king of Corinth.

Through the nature of her death, however, she was tragically linked with the infamous Medea. Medea traditions manifest a variation and complexity throughout the art and literature of the Greek and Roman periods, and a full treatment is beyond the scope of this paper (see Clauss and Johnston 1997; Dyck 1989).^[304] Relevant for our purpose is Medea's arrival at Corinth in the company of Jason. The hero's betrothal to the land's princess enraged his companion, who proceeded to engineer the would- be bride's death (Euripides, Med. 1159-1199; Apollodorus, Bibl. 1.9.28; Seneca, Med. 740-843). Early popularizes of the story such as Euripides neglected to name the princess, leaving it to later writers such as Apollodorus (Bibl. 1.9.28) and Pausanias (Descr. 2.3.6) to identify the victim as Glauke (Robinson 2005, 133).^[305] The christening of the fountain “Glauke” dovetailed with this emerging identification of Medea's victim. But why memorialize Medea's quest for revenge, and particularly the gruesome end it spelled for Glauke, Creon the king, and even Medea's own children?

Several benefits derived from the fountain's allusion to the Medea and Glauke episode. At the most basic level, it allowed the population of the Roman colony to showcase its knowledge of the widespread mythical story. The Roman context of this expression is made more intelligible by the growing popularity of Medea's Corinthian exploits in art and literature of the Roman period.^[306] By naming and embracing the fountain the planners at Corinth capitalized on this wider trend in their local context, appropriating the Greek traditions as part of their own cultural heritage.^[307]

But might there be yet another, ideological benefit gained from recalling Glauke's death at Medea's hands? I contend that the secondary allusion to Medea in the fountain's naming represents a negative commentary on the type of figure she embodied in the Roman imagination.

True, the fountain's naming capitalized on a single, local episode in the Medea cycle. But the very nature of that episode—death by poisonous dress—would have activated other aspects of Medea's negative persona. Roman literature was replete with such portrayals of Medea. These include allusions to the figure's poisonous arts (Horace, Epod. 3, 5. Ovid, Metam. 7.179-293; Seneca, Med. 670-840) and (barbaric) Black Sea provenance (Horace, Epod. 5.20; Martial 10.35.5; Ovid, Metam. 7.296, 348). For example, writing of Medea's contemplated killing of her children, Ovid describes her as a “barbarian” with “crime in her eyes” (Tr. 526 [Wheeler, LCL]). Apuleius tags her as a witch who “obtained of King Creon but one day's respite before her departure” and then “did burn in the flames of the bride's garland all his house, him and his daughter [Glauke/Creusa]” (Metam. 1.10 [Gaselee, LCL]). In these two passages Medea's offenses in Corinth are intertwined with her distant origins and her sorceress's craft, respectively. So, too, the Fountain of Glauke was likely to have reminded Corinthian colonists of Medea the foreign witch.

But the fountain's allusion to Medea is not left dangling. It raises her specter only to domesticate it within the new context of Roman Corinth. Such framing was far from an isolated phenomenon in Roman-era architecture and city planning. For example, the sculptured reliefs spanning Aphrodisias's Sebasteion projected images of the imperial family paired with, among other subjects, female personifications of foreign territories. The emperor Claudius subdues Britannia in one, while Nero brings Armenia to her knees in yet another (Smith 1987; 1988; Bradley 2004, 313). From a later period, Trajan's column in Rome with its friezes conveyed a similar ideology—mastery over foreign peoples—through its depiction of conquered Dacians (Zanker 2012, 79, 84-86). While Corinth's Fountain of Glauke lacked the narrative reliefs, and thus specificity, characterizing these other architectural landmarks, it nevertheless communicated a similar sentiment about the proper ordering of the imperial world. Part of its embedded message concerned Rome's mastery of barbarian peoples, with the princess's murderer, Medea, serving as proxy for the negative other—“uncivilized” peoples and territories such as Colchis. Of course, the fountain's ability to appropriate mythological traditions in the ways suggested depended on its spatial context.

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Source: Blakely S. (ed.). Gods, Objects, and Ritual Practice. Lockwood Press,2017. — 371 p.. 2017

Appropriating Traditions

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