Le statue di Demetra e Kore-Persephone nel teatro di Hierapolis

Abstract

The statues of female draped figures today on display again in the theatre of Hierapolis are both high-quality specimens of imperial-period sculpture from Asia Minor. Although the two sculptures have received little attention in archaeological literature, they are considered to be very original revivals of earlier prototypes, which were reused as prestigious decor elements in the Severan-period rebuilding of the scaenae frons. The sculpture in the south aedicula can be identified as an early imperial copy of a late Hellenistic creation on formal and stylistic grounds. On the basis of comparison with two further unusual specimens from Miletus (2nd cent. BC) and Aphrodisias (Severan period) which Andreas Linfert has recognized as replicas of a known type, the Hierapolis specimen, which is the best preserved, can be traced back to a common prototype from Pergamene art production. The original can be linked via precise iconographic correspondences with a series from Smyrna (the so-called priestesses of Demeter) and hence traced back convincingly to a known Pergamene cult statue of Demeter.
The richly sculpted, high-quality figure in the north aedicula displays at first sight several structural similarities with the known type of Fortuna Braccio Nuovo, i.e. an imperial-period revival of a late classical prototype which in almost all replicas is reproduced as a personification of Fortuna/Tyche with cornucopia and rudder. The sole exceptions are the specimen from Hierapolis (Trajanic-Hadrianic) and its replica from Hadrian’s Villa (possibly displayed as an evocation of the famous Charoneia of the Maeander valley), whose gestures and attributes are especially conspicuous: the covered head with fringed veil, the gesture of anakalypsis, the presence of the torch; only in the case of the Hierapolis statue is the representation of the infulae recognizable as a sacred attribute. Iconographic analysis along with the new discoveries relating to the cult of Pluto and Kore at the Ploutonion of Hierapolis permit the joint identification of the draped statues from Hierapolis and Tivoli as Kore-Persephone. It may be said that the decision to display the venerable, tradition-rich statues of the deities Demeter and Kore-Persephone in the new scaenae frons was intended to accentuate the religious and cultural memory of the Holy City.