Paestum was a significant metropolis of Historic Greece. In the present day, its well-known ruins – together with the Tomb of the Diver – lie within the province of Salerno, within the South of Italy.
The tomb was constructed with 5 giant stone slabs, every internet hosting a fresco. They depict a symposium, a banquet and male {couples}. Nevertheless, the fresco on the ceiling has turn out to be probably the most studied creative works of antiquity – and maybe essentially the most disturbing.
The dazzling scene reveals a unadorned boy diving from a tower right into a physique of water. It’s nonetheless unclear what this scene represents – vitality, sensuality? – and it’s nearly an inappropriate picture for a funerary context.
It’s also unknown who was buried within the tomb, past the probability that the person was male and younger. There aren’t any inscriptions; solely easy objects, akin to a tortoise shell and piece of a lyre, have been buried with the physique. Any bones that would have been analyzed have been misplaced way back.
The tomb, constructed round 480 BC, was found by Marco Napoli, an Italian archaeologist, in 1968. Since then, it has been topic to debates about which cultural custom it hails from: maybe it got here from Greek civilization, or from the even older Etruscan civilization. The determine of the diver, in the meantime, has been linked to non secular traditions, or has been interpreted as a metaphorical illustration of life as an interval between two nothings: beginning being the leap, loss of life being the water. The depiction of suicide can be a possiblity.
In 2009, French filmmaker Claude Lanzmann, greatest recognized for guiding the Holocaust documentary Shoah (1985), wrote a passionate essay devoted to the swimmer of Paestum. He visited the ruins of the Historic Greek metropolis within the Fifties alongside Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, however solely noticed the fresco a long time later:
“I might by no means have imagined being touched in the course of my coronary heart, upset within the deepest a part of myself, as I used to be the day he (the diver) appeared to me, an ideal arc, as if endlessly plunging into the house between life and loss of life.”
Tonio Hölscher, Professor Emeritus of Classical Archeology at Heidelberg College, Germany, is a specialist within the state monuments of Greece and Rome. He studied Greek mythological imagery and historical city-planning whereas working on the German Archaeological Institute in Rome.
On the finish of 2021, Hölscher, 82, printed a slender ebook titled The swimmer of Paestum, wherein he disassociates the fresco from symbolism. Somewhat, he proposes that the picture merely depicts an actual scene: a younger man leaping into water.
“It’s a ebook that’s partly educational, but in addition designed for a large viewers, with consideration to the emotion that work can arouse,” explains Hölscher in a phone dialog with EL PAÍS.
The scholar emphasizes that the swimmer from Paestum should be positioned in a uniquely Greek context:
“Younger individuals have been [seen as] the hope of society… within the universe of historical Greece, magnificence [was] not solely a bodily trait, but in addition a non secular and moral one; the wholesome and robust physique is gorgeous and an instrument of human excellence.” On this context, he proposes that the swimmer from Paestum is a practical illustration, “which doesn’t suggest a trivial one. It’s fairly vital.”
“The frequent opinion – till now – was that the younger man didn’t merely leap into the ocean, however made a transition from life to loss of life. The ocean was eternity, etcetera, etcetera. There was a normal consensus surrounding that interpretation. To say that this picture was merely [depicting] a leap has taken time to realize floor [as a legitimate interpretation], however has slowly satisfied extra students.”
For a very long time, a well-liked declare in academia has been that the Historic Greeks had a troublesome relationship with the ocean. Hölscher challenges this: “It was a really intense relationship, there was concern and fascination…. however after all, regardless of some students nonetheless denying it, the Greeks swam and favored to take action. In truth, there’s a Greek proverb that equates not understanding methods to swim to not understanding methods to learn.”
Hölscher additionally rejects the concept the picture of the Paestum swimmer has a Christian origin or symbolism. He insists that the leap “portrays a younger man – in transition to maturity – demonstrating his athletic capability and braveness by launching himself into the water, earlier than the eyes of grownup males who felt erotic attraction to the boys. The leap is, subsequently, a part of a ceremony of passage… nevertheless it’s not a metaphor, it’s an actual picture of a social exercise.” He notes that, even at present, within the area of Italy the place the ruins lie, younger individuals compete in cliff-jumping competitions.
Hölscher stresses that the tanned swimmer’s leap reveals nice approach and is the results of a lot follow. “The one unrealistic facet is the top, which is held excessive and never protected by the arms… however displaying the face is vital in Greek artwork.” The scholar additionally writes in regards to the centrality of intercourse within the picture: “The scene has a homoerotic element. And the small member isn’t infantilization: the Greeks most popular a small [penis] – to characterize an enormous one was seen to be in unhealthy style.”
He additionally describes the great thing about the scene: “There’s a fantastic concord within the portray, with bushes that appear to increase their naked branches in the direction of the jumper. The ocean is represented in a really delicate means.” The platform from which the diver jumps “is a thriller… I don’t have a definitive opinion on what that construction is. It seems to be like some type of stone tower, however we haven’t discovered something comparable in archaeology.”
It has not been confirmed that there have been cliffs from which the younger individuals jumped into the water, however Hölscher considers it logical to assume that they existed and that, sooner or later, they are going to be positioned.
On the identification of the swimmer from Paestum, Hölscher thinks that he should have been “a member of the town’s elite – culturally Greek. It could possibly be somebody who died younger. The Greeks made essentially the most stunning tombs and funerary monuments for individuals who died younger… it was one thing that moved them loads.”
