The Muses at the Museum

Gabriellebirchak/ August 9, 2019/ Ancient History, Post Classical

Dur­ing my vis­it to the Get­ty Vil­la, in Mal­ibu, Cal­i­for­nia, I dis­cov­ered this stun­ning sculp­ture! This is a Roman sculp­ture of three of the nine mus­es. It dates back to the mid-third cen­tu­ry BCE and was part of a large sar­coph­a­gus. The sculp­ture shows four indi­vid­u­als. The orig­i­nal sculp­ture held eight indi­vid­u­als, which includ­ed two more mus­es and two men. Its medi­um con­sists of Thasian mar­ble and crys­talline white. The dimen­sions are about 1.37 meters by 2.24 meters (4.5 feet by 7.3 feet).

The Muses…

Ded­i­ca­tion to the mus­es meant a com­mit­ment to inspi­ra­tion. These god­dess­es rep­re­sent­ed com­po­nents of cre­ativ­i­ty that exist­ed in the arts, lit­er­a­ture, and sci­ence. The Nine Mus­es were the per­son­i­fi­ca­tion of all knowl­edge, insight, and creation. 

In mythol­o­gy, the nine mus­es lived on Mount Olym­pus where they enter­tained the Olympic gods. Even­tu­al­ly, the mythol­o­gy evolved such that the mus­es orig­i­nat­ed from Mount Heli­con or Mount Parnassus. 

The myth tells the sto­ry of nine daugh­ters of Zeus, the king of gods, and of Titaness Mnemosyne, the god­dess of mem­o­ry. In their orig­i­na­tion sto­ry, Zeus and Mnemosyne slept togeth­er for nine con­sec­u­tive nights, there­by con­ceiv­ing nine mus­es, who were born on Mount Olym­pus nine months later. 

Five hun­dred years after the sto­ry of the mus­es sur­faced, writ­ers and poets gave the mus­es attrib­ut­es that allowed each muse to serve a func­tion. So, in a sense, these mus­es were like the pre­cur­sor of the saints that the Catholic Church rep­re­sents. Instead of pray­ing to Saint Gen­e­sius, who was the saint of com­e­dy, Greeks would hon­or Muse Thalia who was the Muse of comedy. 

So, who are these nine mus­es? Who are these nine, beau­ti­ful mytho­log­i­cal women who con­nect­ed the meta­phys­i­cal world to the phys­i­cal world through all that is cre­ative, spurring on the devel­op­ment of sci­ence, lit­er­a­ture, art, music, and dance? 

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The sculp­ture not­ed above was part of a sar­coph­a­gus. His­to­ri­ans and cura­tors believe that the seat­ed per­son is not a god­dess, but rather a sculp­ture of the deceased. She is wear­ing the tra­di­tion­al Greek cloth­ing, which includes a chi­ton cov­ered by a cloak, also known as a hima­tion. Terp­si­chore stands next to her as the deceased is reach­ing out to touch the strings of Terp­si­chore’s lyre. As this is such an elab­o­rate sculp­ture of a sar­coph­a­gus, the deceased was most like­ly afflu­ent or pos­si­bly roy­al­ty, and a patron of the arts. 

Thalia stands next to Terp­si­chore. She wears a net­ted gar­ment and a shawl wrapped around her waist. She wears a Roman bul­la around her neck, which was part of Roman fash­ion in the fourth cen­tu­ry CE. Bul­lae were made of lead. If the bul­la was cov­ered with gold, then it was a sta­tus of wealth. The bul­la served to ward off evil forces. Thalia holds a com­ic mask in her right hand and a lagob­olon (a hunter’s stick) in her left hand, which she con­ceals in her cloak. On the far right, Euterpe stands next to Thalia. Euterpe holds a flute with both hands. Her attire is a sleeved chi­ton trimmed with tas­sels at the bottom. 

…at the museum

The word muse­um derives from the word mou­seion, which means “the seat of the mus­es.” In Alexan­dria, Egypt, the Mou­seion was a uni­ver­si­ty where aca­d­e­mics gath­ered, taught, and dis­cussed math­e­mat­ics, sci­ence, astron­o­my, phi­los­o­phy, lit­er­a­ture, rhetoric, and even sports. It was not a muse­um nor a library, as many would consider. 

Alexan­dri­a’s Mou­seion was indeed a ded­i­ca­tion to the mus­es and the gods of aca­d­e­m­ic inspi­ra­tion. Greek archi­tects ide­al­ly sit­u­at­ed the Mou­seion with­in the Roy­al Quar­ters of Alexan­dria, where it was walk­ing dis­tance from Alexan­dri­a’s Library, the Tomb of Alexan­der, and the Ser­apeum.[i] Over 100 schol­ars lived in the vicin­i­ty where they wrote, researched, lec­tured, trans­lat­ed, and pre­served valu­able scrolls. These schol­ars then stocked the scrolls in the main Roy­al Library and the Ser­apeum, which was a sec­ondary pub­lic library, estab­lished by Ptole­my III Euer­getes around 285 CE.

Alexan­dri­a’s rulers, from Greek to Roman rule, fund­ed and endowed the Mou­seion. Alexan­der the Great was the founder of Alexan­dria. Alexan­der was also a stu­dent of Aris­to­tle and under­stood the val­ue of intel­lect. As a result, the Mou­seion was pos­si­bly the vision of Aris­to­tle and might have even looked like Aris­totle’s Lyceum in Athens. And so, to make Alexan­dria the cor­ner­stone of intel­lec­tu­al­ism, Ptolomy I endeav­ored to see Alexan­der’s vision come to fruition. In addi­tion to Athens, Alexan­dria was the cen­ter of edu­ca­tion and cul­ture. As such, the Mou­seion was the epi­cen­ter of Alexan­dri­a’s enlightenment.

The Mou­seion was built adja­cent to Ptole­my So’ter’s palace. Com­mis­sioned dur­ing the reign of Ptole­my I So’ter, the con­struc­tion car­ried over to Ptole­my II Philadel­phus. It was dur­ing Ptolomy II’s reign that the Mou­seion was fin­ished and became the heart and soul that pulsed human­ism and phi­los­o­phy through­out Alexan­dria. No doubt, the Mou­seion spurred on acad­e­mia and the time-hon­ored tra­di­tion of paideia. 

Stra­bo, the Greek geo­g­ra­ph­er, his­to­ri­an, and philoso­pher, described it as follows:

“The Mou­seion is also part of the palaces, pos­sess­ing a peri­patos (cov­ered walk) and exe­dra (cir­cu­lar open­ing with stone bench­es) and large oikos (house or build­ing), in which the com­mon table of the philol­o­goi (stu­dent and schol­ars), men who are mem­bers of the Mou­seion, is locat­ed. This syn­o­dos (coun­cil) has prop­er­ty in com­mon and a priest in charge of the Mou­seion, for­mer­ly appoint­ed by the kings, but now by Cae­sar.”[ii]

- Stra­bo

In 48 BCE, Julius Cae­sar inad­ver­tent­ly set fire to the Mou­seion and the Roy­al Library. This infor­ma­tion gave aca­d­e­mics insight into the loca­tion of this grand insti­tu­tion, pos­si­bly plac­ing the Mou­seion along the riv­er and close to the ports.

The Galvanizing of Inspiration

The Nine Mus­es, mytho­log­i­cal in nature, act­ed as a bridge between the tan­gi­ble and the intan­gi­ble. From their mytho­log­i­cal incep­tion in 700 BCE to today, they inspire ideas and awak­en the cre­ation of those thoughts. The genius that emerged out of Hel­lenis­tic Alexan­dria served as a trib­ute to these nine god­dess­es, who enthused and gal­va­nized the Greek intel­lect. The mus­es’ rep­re­sen­ta­tion of poet­ry, his­to­ry, music, dance, com­e­dy, and astron­o­my encour­aged bril­liance and changed the future of aca­d­e­mics. Togeth­er, the mus­es served as an inge­nious enti­ty. Indi­vid­u­al­ly, each muse cat­e­go­rized thought. The Nine Mus­es are a beau­ti­ful reminder that all facets of cre­ativ­i­ty are worth vis­it­ing in qui­et moments and are worth hon­or­ing with unbri­dled imagination.

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[i] Macken­zie, Judith. The Archi­tec­ture of Alexan­dria and Egypt. Pg. 244

[ii] Stra­bo, Stra­bo, Geog­ra­phy, BOOK XVII, Perseus Dig­i­tal Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0239%3Abook%3D17