Ethnicity and Representation 371vast, including those who dispute culture’s relevance to ethnicity (see Jones 1997). In
representation, the problem becomes acute: we struggle to know when and why cues,
such as costume, are ethnically specific or how style and iconography may be used to
forge realities or to work against the norm, even subversively. The Hellenization concept
exacerbates the issue, framing contact in terms so tortured that it results in an identity
that is “common” and fundamentally, but not purely, Hellenic. The “cultural content”
of ethnicity, regardless of the source (text, art, archaeological record), is as likely to
fluctuate as the idea of ethnicity itself (Jones 2007: 50–1).
There is also the problem of self/emic versus external/etic definition. The archer
(Figure 24.1) is an Athenian construct, in all likelihood unrelated to any actual ethnicity
(Ivantchik 2006). Like the archer, thePseudo-Athlete(Figure 24.9) makes identity
its subject, but it is an example of self-definition. TheSlipper-Slapper(Figure 24.8)
does not represent a person, but it may also be understood in terms of self-fashioning.
TheSlipper-Slapperhas multiple models. It imitates theKnidia, represents Aphrodite,
and denotes “ancestral gods.” Its fidelity to its many models should be considered: in
the physical sense, theKnidiaand her sources (see, e.g., Athenaios 13.590), and in
the sociocultural sense, the traditions of theKnidia, Aphrodite, Aphrodite-as-Astarte,
orKnidia-as-Astarte (Havelock 1995; cf. Pasztory 1989). To what extent does the
Slipper-Slapperimitate or appropriate theKnidia/Aphrodite? The artist is remaking the
Knidia, her potential eroticism now more literal, even cheeky. The patron may have
enjoyed the parody of theKnidiaand theSlipper-Slapper’s bawdy “Asianism” (Stewart
1990: 227). To what extent does theSlipper-Slapperconvey beliefs about theKnidia
and Aphrodite, or denote Astarte? Hellenization suggests that Dionysios is using the
work to put forward a claim, to actively create an identity in common with Hellenes and
to express his refinement. Put another way, the weaker of two parties in contact—here,
as usual, the Phoenician—improves his status through Hellenism (it doesn’t matter if
the claim is spurious; see Pasztory 1989: 35–6).
It is equally likely that Dionysios is not strategizing at all, that he saw no qualitative
difference between Aphrodite and Astarte. The fluidity of Aphrodite–Astarte as “ances-
tral god” suggests another reading. In a twist unanticipated by Hellenization, Dionysios
may have understood Aphrodite as an imitation of Astarte. If the model for Aphrodite
was Astarte, Aphrodite is simply Astarte Hellenized. Astarte’s greater antiquity implies
that she and her patron have greater claim to some of the very qualities that comprise
Hellenism.
TheSlipper-Slapperis an image with varied emic meanings that are confused (deliber-
ately or not), mixed, or indistinguishable. That others fail to understand its subversive
potential may be an advantage for the patron, if he is actively negotiating ethnic identi-
ties. It may also simply be irrelevant. Perhaps theSlipper-Slapperis not a representation of
different ethnic expressions that converge on the same model in order to claim common
descent. Instead, the image’s simultaneous, divergent models tell entirely different sto-
ries, which are only masquerading, because of the work’s resemblance to theKnidia,as
one (cf. Deleuze 1983: 51). TheSlipper-Slapperrepresents theKnidian Aphroditewhile
upsetting the very idea of the external, primordial model—the real object—to which the
image refers. In this way, the image challenges us to move beyond classification of the