Eunomia or ‘make love not war’?: meidian personifications reconsidered

This chapter argues that a 'close reading' of single pictures will prove that their meanings are much more sophisticated then the first group of scholars will allow, and much less austere then the second permits. It considers the personifications divine beings or conscious creations by the artist, and that the 'ontology' of the figures was indeed quite unimportant in antiquity. Eunomia can be conceived as propagating moderation in the enjoyment of sensual pleasures and thus is more or less equivalent to the concept of sophrosyne so central in fourth-century philosophical thought. Eukleia is both a demand for and a result of moderation in erotic passion and also contributes to the honourableness of the erotic relationship itself. Salvation from this sort of accusation may be sought in the claim that the personifications actually were not 'simple creations of the artist's fantasy' but divine beings.