The Running Maiden from Eleusis and the Early Classical Image of Hekate

Abstract

The so-called Running Maiden from Eleusis, one of the important works of the Early Classical period, is usually interpreted as coming from a pedimental group representing the Rape of Persephone. She would then be the goddess herself or one of her attendants who flees before Hades' violent attack. The downward glance of the figure plus broken bits of marble on her right thigh and on the drapery billowing up from her left leg suggest she represents Hekate, carrying two torches as she lights Persephone's return from the Underworld. This interpretation is supported by vase paintings. Depictions of the return of Persephone including Hekate begin with the Berlin Painter's fragmentary bell krater in Athens from the decade 490-480, the time from which our statue must date. A multi-figured depiction of the Rape of Persephone is not found in Attic vase painting until ca. 430. Although at present we cannot be sure from which building the Running Maiden came, we can envision the pedimental group along the lines of the bell krater by the Persephone Painter in New York.Hekate's dress, an open ungirt peplos, is characteristic of young girls. Vase paintings show that in the Early Classical period, and particularly in an Eleusinian context, this image of Hekate was standard. We find her on the East Pediment of the Parthenon in the running figure G. Here, Artemis-Hekate, wearing the open, ungirt peplos and approaching Demeter and Kore, is the culmination of the tradition going back to the Running Maiden. Afterwards, the three-bodied statue created by Alkamenes supplanted the older image in the imagination of the Athenians.