Lampades Explained

In Greek mythology, the Lampads or Lampades (grc|Λαμπάδες, from grc|λαμπάς|lampás|torch)^[1] are torch-bearing nymphs who follow the goddess Hecate.

Sources

According to a scholium on Homer's Iliad, the Lampades are among the types of nymphs mentioned by the lyric poet Alcman (fl. seventh century BC); the scholiast describes them as the nymphs "who carry torches and lights with Hecate",^[2] a description which Timothy Gantz claims was probably a creation of the scholiast, rather than of Alcman or another writer.^[3] According to Claude Calame, the scholium's connection of these nymphs with Hecate is likely related to the common association of the goddess with torches.^[4]

In Greek hexameters from Selinus dating to the fourth century BC, there is mention of "goddesses, bright with torches",^[5] which Sarah Iles Johnston interprets as referring to the Lampades, pointing to their attestation as torch-carrying goddesses, and their association with Hecate, who is mentioned immediately after these figures in the text.^[6]

References

• Calame, Claude, Alcman: Introduction, texte critique, témoignages, traduction et commentaire, Rome, Edizioni dell'Ateneo, 1983. Internet Archive.
• Campbell, David A., Greek Lyric, Volume II: Anacreon, Anacreontea, Choral Lyric from Olympus to Alcman, Loeb Classical Library No. 143, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1988. . Online version at Harvard University Press. Internet Archive.
• Gantz, Timothy, Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, Two volumes: (Vol. 1), (Vol. 2).
• Johnston, Sarah Iles, "Goddesses with Torches in the Getty Hexameters and Alcman fr. 94", in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, Vol. 191 (2014), pp. 32–35. Internet Archive.
• Jordan, David R., and Roy D. Kotansky, "Ritual Hexameters in the Getty Museum: Preliminary Edition", in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, Vol. 178 (2011), pp. 54–62. .
• Liddell, Henry George, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, revised and augmented throughout by Sir Henry Stuart Jones with the assistance of Roderick McKenzie, Clarendon Press Oxford, 1940. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
• Page, Denys Lionel, Sir, Poetae Melici Graeci, Oxford University Press, 1962. .
• Serafini, Nicola, "La Dea Ecate, le Torce e le Ninfe Lampadi: Un Frammento di Alcmane da Rivalutare (Fr. 63 Davies)", in Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica, Vol. 104, No. 2 (2013), pp. 11–22. .

Notes and References

1. Serafini, p. 14. On lampás, see LSJ λαμπάς.
2. Scholia minora on Homer's Iliad, 6.21 [= [[Alcman]], fr. 63 Campbell, pp. 438, 439 = fr. 63 PMG (Page, p. 53)].
3. Gantz, p. 141.
4. Calame, p. 486. For a more detailed discussion of the Alcman fragment in the context of Hecate's association with torches, see Serafini, pp. 13 - 5.
5. Johnston, pp. 32; Jordan and Kotansky, p. 57. Jordan and Kotansky render the last word of the phrase as [λ]αμπάδας.
6. Johnston, pp. 32 - 3. Other scholars have provided differing interpretations: Jan Bremmer suggests identification with Demeter and Persephone, while Richard Janko points to Hecate and Persephone as possible candidates.