THE ANATOMY OF KASSANDRA'S RAPE: FEMALE NUDITY COMES OF AGE IN GREEK ART

Abstract

Male nudity was a major topos of Greek art beginning in the Geometric period (c. 750 B.C.). Female nudity, on the other hand, although a prehistoric convention, was regularly suppressed by the early his torical Greeks.1 In the Archaic period, fe male nudity for mortal women was gener ally a sign of vulnerability to physical vi olence.2 This motif appears most often in scenes of the rape of Kassandra by Ajax, son of Oileus, during the rout of Troy. I will review sixth-century-B.C. representa tions of Kassandra's rape and contrast them with Late Archaic Attic red-figure vase paintings. This contrast will show that a change occurred in the typology of the Trojan princess, enabling mature female nudity to enter an aristocratic mythological context in Greek art.