Download organic chem chapter 6 and more Quizzes Organic Chemistry in PDF only on Docsity!
CHAPTER 3: THE ARCHAIC MEDETERANIAN
Temples, sanctuaries, and votives
The tremendous benefit from contact with the east is most evident in the Archaic period ( c. 600–480 BC). The newly acquired knowledge that enabled Greeks to construct large-scale stone architecture and sculpture radically transformed the landscape in the sixth century: stone temples sprang up all over the Greek world, and large-scale stone statues were placed on elite private graves and populated sanctuaries, particularly Panhellenic ones, which flourished in the sixth century. These developments were accompanied by a cultural richness in many realms: literature, philosophy, lyric, epic, drama (a relatively late phenomenon), and vase painting, as well as new forms of government and polis interaction. Aristocrats continued to hold the most power in governing Greek poleis, whatever the official form of rule, and this remained true even with the creation of a radically new type of government, democracy, in late sixth-century Athens. Aristocratic culture, which was defined by agonistic displays of wealth, physical prowess, courage, intelligence, and wit, dominated warfare, athletics, symposia, poetry, and philosophy, and aristocrats were the usual patrons of sculpture.
A new medium of economic exchange also emerged in the Archaic period: coins. Coins evolved from earlier weight standards in Lydia (in present-day Turkey) in the early sixth century BC, where they were made of electrum, an alloy of silver and gold. Greek cities soon began to mint coins in silver using their own weight standards and dies with standardized symbols, for example, owls for Athens, turtles for Aigina, the winged horse Pegasos for Corinth, and Medusa’s frightening visage for Neapolis in Thrace.
Archaic temples: Doric
Like the temple of Poseidon at Isthmia of nearly a century earlier (see Fig. 2.20a–b), the “Heraion” at Olympia of c. 600 BC was originally constructed of mixed materials and is among the earliest Doric constructions in Greece (Figs. 3.2– 3 , see also 5.18). It was the first major construction at Olympia, and seems to have originated as a temple to Zeus, being then given over to Hera or to Hera and Zeus when a new temple was built to Zeus in the fifth century BC (see Chapter 4). Two steps capped the stone foundations (three steps became canonical c. 550 BC), and a peristyle of wooden columns framed the sekos. The walls were of limestone to about 1m in height, then continued upward in mudbrick. The original superstructure was probably of wood with a wooden roof (long since vanished), with terracotta roof tiles. A pronaos and slightly deeper opisthodomos, both with two columns in antis, framed the cella. Within it, two parallel rows of eight columns placed close to the walls, together with small spur walls attached to alternate columns, supported the roof. The cult statue once stood on the limestone base at the cella’s west end. Already in the mid-sixth century BC, shortly after the temple was finished, the wooden columns began to be replaced by stone counterparts in the Doric order; this was a huge enterprise as the architecture above the columns had to be removed temporarily in order to do this. In c. AD 160, the travel writer Pausanias visited Olympia and reported that one wooden column still remained standing (Paus. 5.16.1).
The Olympia Heraion’s 6 × 16 peristyle produced a long, narrow structure, which typifies sixth-century Doric temples (they eventually grew shorter in proportion to their width). No attempt was made at uniformity of the stone columns, which is not so surprising since their Doric capitals have varying echinus profiles, indicative of their production at different times. The columns varied in circumference and number of flutes (sixteen or twenty; sixteen was the earlier practice, twenty the later, although exceptions sometimes occurred); two columns are monolithic stone shafts, others are composed of stacked drums. The columns are not regularly spaced but closer together on the long sides of the temple, presumably to give greater support to the structure, or conversely, more widely placed on the short ends to facilitate access to the cella. Corner contraction, a narrowing of the space between the three columns turning the corners, was deployed in order to terminate the ends of each Doric frieze with a triglyph (triglyphs should be centered over columns and regularly spaced, but at the corners they must be off-center so as to avoid ending the frieze with a half-metope) while not simultaneously lengthening the adjacent metopes. This knotty problem is the “Doric corner conflict,” which afflicted all Doric quadrilateral structures; ancient architects struggled with it for centuries and eventually essentially abandoned the effort and built in the Ionic and Corinthian orders instead.
Greek temples of a short time later were entirely of stone from their inception; some of the best surviving examples are in southern Italy and Sicily (Magna Graecia), where Greeks established colonies in the eighth century. The so-called “Basilica” at Paestum was probably dedicated to Hera, who was worshipped at many temples in Magna Graecia.
This well-preserved 9 × 18 peripteros (peristyle building) was constructed of local limestone (marble was not plentiful in Magna Graecia) with the exception of a horizontal band of sandstone dividing the architrave from the frieze. The columns stand atop three steps, a normal arrangement by this time, and offer good examples of entasis – the swelling of column shafts that then taper toward their capitals. The size of the columns was uniform, an unusual feature at this time (cf. Fig. 3.2). The architrave survives, but nearly everything above has been lost (if this area were of wood, this would vitiate the claim made above about all-stone construction). The echinus takes the form of a bulging disc protruding beyond the abacus, which itself projects beyond the architrave (Fig. 3.4b); this profile marks these capitals as early (the echinus narrows, tapers, and grows steeper over time). A vegetal pattern was incised and painted on the underside of some echinoi. The Basilica’s pteron is much wider than that at the Olympia Heraion (Fig. 3.3) and provides a more capacious and impressive framing device for the building’s central core (Fig. 3.5). The pronaos’ three columns in antis align with the peristyle columns and with the temple’s central row of columns, which bisects the cella and supports the roof (cf. Fig. 2.14a). Two doorways permit communication between pronaos and cella. Rather than an opisthodomos opening to the rear of the building, the “Basilica” possesses a back room accessible only from the cella; this adyton became a common feature in western Doric temples. The adyton’s function is not known, but it may have served as a treasury.
The Greek temple
The sixth-century BC groundplan of a Greek temple consists of standard elements: a peristyle (a ring of columns) surrounds the core of the building, which consists of a pronaos (porch) with columns in antis (columns between the walls), which communicates with the main room, the naos or cella (Box 3.1 Fig. 1). Many temples, usually Doric temples, have an opisthodomos (back porch), also with two columns in antis. A walkway or pteron between the peristyle and cella allows circulation around the interior core of the structure. An adyton , an extra room behind the cella is an occasional addition with or without an opisthodomos.
Like verbal language, Greek architecture has a “grammar” that is malleable, as is poetry, but has fundamental rules. Within these simple parameters, Greek architects created hundreds of variations by manipulating the characteristics of Greek architecture. These include, for example, the placement of the peristyle with respect to the cella – how far distant they are from each other – which affects the depth of the pteron and the sense of spaciousness; the relationship of pronaos, opisthodomos, and cella columns with regard to the peristyle on both the short and long ends – when the columns are aligned, the building’s layout is almost entirely comprehensible from the exterior of the structure; the number of flutes on a column (usually twenty, but sometimes as few as sixteen) – fewer flutes means greater width of flutes and an illusion of less height; the ratio of the number of columns on the short and long ends of the temple, which affects the temple’s proportions; the distance between columns of the peristyle, which also impacts the perception of spaciousness; the shape and profile of the echinus, which ranges from large and squat to tapered and small, thus contributing to the building’s aesthetics – the profiles also can be used to date the structure when organized in a typological sequence; the treatment of metopes and triglyphs at the corners of the building, which was a special, ever-persistent problem in the Doric order; the proportions of one element to another and to those of the whole building; the number and placement of columns in the pronaos, cella, and opisthodomos; and the proportions of the inner core rooms with respect to each other. By experimenting with, and varying, these elements, architects explored the full range of possibilities in the Doric order. As well as addressing technical issues of stone construction, i.e., how to keep the stone structure together and standing, architects could create buildings that seemed spacious or closed, immediately clear or mystifying, long, tall, short, narrow, round, inviting or forbidding, integral to, or dominating, their landscape.
Ionic temple design also has numerous variations: the number of peristyles surrounding the central core, the number of columns in antis in the pronaos, the treatment of the opisthodomos with respect to the pronaos, the ratio of columns on the long and short sides, size and density of the columns, treatment of bases and capitals. Like the developed Doric temple, Ionic temples usually stood on a platform of three steps but this, too, could vary.
Archaic architectural sculpture
appearance (and also were painted), and in sixth-century Asia Minor, they were of gargantuan stature – far larger than Doric counterparts in the west. Variations in general features together with vast size often produced awe-inspiring, intimidating buildings inviting solemn reverence toward a mysterious deity. The temple of Artemis at Ephesos (the Artemision) and the Rhoikos temple of Hera (III) on Samos were the first truly Ionic temples. Both had earlier predecessors (see Figs. 2.14a–b), but their sixth-century iterations were markedly more grandiose. The Artemision at Ephesos exhibits developed Ionic features, including volute capitals terminating in a spiral (Fig. 3.9a–b, Dipteros 1 on the plan), and was the largest temple ever constructed when it was built. Most of its columns were financed by King Kroisos of Lydia in Asia Minor as known from the ancient historian Herodotos (1.92) and fragmentary dedicatory inscriptions. Kroisos was renowned in the ancient world for his astounding wealth and precious gifts of gold and silver to the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi, where he sought advice from the oracle. His patronage at Ephesos testifies to the important regard in which the building was held in antiquity. The temple stood on two steps and possessed a double peristyle, perhaps 8 × 20, ringing the central core (thus the temple is described as dipteral ): the number of lateral columns is uncertain, and there may have been an additional column on the back side of the structure. Its walls were of limestone sheathed with marble, all columns were completely marble, and, on some columns, a frieze of figural relief sculpture surrounded the shaft, at either the top or bottom (this is disputed, though the bottom seems more likely); thus, the visitor would pass through a tall forest of richly decorated columns of fine material, whose number of flutes varies between forty and forty-eight. The dense hall of columns was probably influenced by Egyptian temple architecture, where hypostyle halls commonly appeared on the interiors of walled structures; here the Greek architects inverted the Egyptian plan by placing the columns on the exterior, while the interior of the Artemision was left open to the sky ( hypaethral ). The interaxial spacing (the space between the centers of columns) of the peripteral columns and the column diameters diminished from the central members outwards on the temple’s short ends; the effect was to create a greater space between the two central columns to emphasize the entry point and provide easy access to the cella. Little remains of Rhoikos’ Ionic Heraion on Samos (III) due to overbuilding by later temples, but its plan is clear
- a dipteral structure with a deep pronaos leading to a cella (Fig. 3.10); note the absence of an opisthodomos or adyton, features that occur in Doric structures. Parallel colonnades run through the pronaos and cella and align with the façade peristyle columns, where adjustments were made to the spacing to emphasize the entry point to the structure, as was the case in the Artemision at Ephesos. The temple possessed stone column shafts and bases; no capitals survive but these, like the entablature, were probably of wood.
Building in stone The elaborate construction technique of Greek stone architecture is well attested through archaeological remains: the buildings, the blocks and the marks upon them, clamps, dowels, and representations of architecture in other media. Stone blocks destined for placement against other blocks (e.g., a row of blocks) had the joining ends specially treated so as to minimize the surface area in direct contact to create the tightest join (Box 3.2 Figs. 1– 2 ). This special treatment, anathyrosis , involved trimming back the central area and smoothing the edges of the block. Dressed blocks were hoisted into place using ropes placed into grooves or holes carved into blocks or around projecting bosses, or by metal clamps attached to ropes (Box 3.2 Fig. 3). Blocks were wedged as close as possible to each other using metal bars, then secured by clamps (Box 3.2 Fig. 4).
Sanctuaries and contests
Athletic, dramatic, and/or musical contests often constituted part of the worship of a deity or hero, and were an expression of the agonistic character detectable in almost every aspect of ancient Greek culture. Large sanctuaries, which attracted visitors, patronage, and building projects, flourished and grew in the sixth century BC with the establishment and expansion of Panhellenic athletic competitions. The Olympic games in honor of Zeus were celebrated at Olympia every four years, and their cycle provided a means of dating in antiquity; that is, one would date by Olympiads (see Chapter 2). The Olympic competitions consisted of footraces, wrestling, boxing, chariot races, the pentathlon (footrace, wrestling, discus throw, long jump, and javelin throw), horseracing, and the pankration, an extreme type of wrestling in which only biting and gouging were prohibited (Philostratos, Im. 2.6). By the later sixth century BC, three other Panhellenic games, in addition to Olympia, had been established: the Pythian games for Apollo at Delphi, the Isthmian games for Poseidon at Isthmia, and the Nemean games for Zeus at Nemea. Because the sole tangible prize in the four games was a vegetal crown bestowed on the first-place winner (no other status was recognized), they were referred to as “crown games.” Each set of games occurred once every four years, with a staggered schedule so that crown games took place at one of these four locations annually. Heralds
from the Panhellenic sites were sent out all over the Hellenic world to announce the competitions and call for participation. Unlike local games in which only residents usually could compete, the Panhellenic games were open to all Greeks, at least in theory: while we might expect such a call for participation to attract all those with athletic talent, regardless of social class, the reality was that most athletes were drawn from the elite class until the end of the fifth century BC or so. Who else would have had the leisure to train for such events? For an athlete to win in all four Panhellenic games in one four-year cycle ( peridionike ) was the “grand slam” of the crown games. Female athletics were rare in ancient Greece; ancient authors describe with horror the spectacle of Spartan girls and women exercising in the nude in public (!). But in addition to the Olympic games for males of various age classes, there was a footrace at Olympia for girls, the Heraia, performed in honor of Hera, goddess of marriage. Women also could sponsor chariot races in the Olympic games and therefore achieve an Olympic win (since the owner, not the charioteer, has the victory), but they could not actually serve as charioteers. Many visitors traveled to Panhellenic sanctuaries for the athletic games, but one should not overlook the religious importance of these activities, which were held in honor of the chief deity worshipped at each site. For example, the Pythian games were well–known but the centerpiece of the sanctuary at Delphi was the powerful and influential Pythian oracle, which attracted thousands of visitors from all over the Mediterranean, who consulted on political, military, religious, and personal matters. This potent force made Delphi the center of information in the Greek world and beyond, and produced a local group of experts on international affairs. In addition to perishable sacrifices, worshippers, both individuals and poleis, could make more permanent gifts of thankofferings or propitiatory offerings to a full array of deities and heroes. These votives ranged from relatively modest items, such as metal pins, textiles, and terracotta figurines, to colossal marble or bronze statues, silver or gold objects, stone monuments, and buildings. Such images were not only pious dedications but, in the case of more sumptuous gifts, were intended as persuasive means to win the favor of the god and also to display the status, wealth, and/or power of the donor, whether individual or polis, to the ancient viewer(s). Because of their high visibility, Panhellenic sanctuaries, especially Olympia and Delphi, saw an extraordinary amount of votive activity, at both small and large scale, as polis vied with polis using strategically placed, extravagant public gifts (Fig. 3.11). The Siphnian Treasury at Delphi, a votive from the island polis of Siphnos, is an example of this kind of self-aggrandizing, pious display (Fig. 3.12). At the time of its construction, it was the most elaborate structure in the sanctuary, which was already dotted with numerous treasuries and monuments near its centerpiece, the temple to Apollo (Fig. 3.13, nos. 7, 14). Moreover, the treasury was placed to attract maximum attention because of its location close to the start of the Sacred Way. Sculpture and architectural moldings embellished this small one-room Ionic structure, which was made of marble atop a limestone foundation. A shallow porch was supported by caryatids
- figural supports in place of columns – here, essentially archaic korai. A sculpted Ionic frieze circled the entire structure, sculpture filled the east pediment, and akroteria, surviving in fragments, crowned the roof. The sculpture was carved from Parian marble, embellished with bronze attachments for details, such as horses’ reins and weapons, while the ornate moldings were of island marble; as usual, the stone elements were painted. The combined effect was that of an ornate jewelbox. Herodotos (3.57–58) tells us that the building was funded with profits from Siphnos’ silver mines before the island was attacked by Samos, an event that external evidence confirms occurred around 525 BC. This date is no small matter because the Siphnian Treasury is the only monument in the Archaic period that can be assigned a fixed date (even if the date is imprecise) – that is, before c. 525 – and consequently, the treasury serves as a benchmark for all other works of archaic art, which are dated on the basis of stylistic comparison with the treasury’s sculptures. The Gigantomachy, the fight between gods and Giants, depicted on the well-preserved north frieze, demonstrates the complexities of archaic relief sculpture at its finest, but also exhibits features that presage the Classical style, which “officially” begins, according to modern scholars, after the Persian Wars, c. 480–479 BC (Fig. 3.14). The gods generally advance from the left, as is common for victors in archaic Greek sculpture, and are identifiable by attribute, by attendant figures, or by dipinti (painted labels), which are now faded, but still discernible with ultra-violet light. The Giants, who are armed as hoplites (heavily armed infantry), were also labeled. From left to right, Themis mounts a chariot drawn by two lions, while Dionysos, wearing a panther skin and identified by inscription, fights an advancing Giant behind Themis and her chariot. Two lions attack a frontally placed Giant – one of the only figures not shown in profile – while Apollo and Artemis, equipped as archers, move forward to meet oncoming Giants wielding shields. Inscribed on the edge of one shield is the signature of the sculptor, a rare occurrence on architectural sculpture. Figures overlap one another to suggest depth: this is especially effective with the Giants’ three shields and the fourth shield behind them, seen from inside, and by means of the Giant lying beneath them and entwined among their legs. The patterned, flame-like locks of the lion’s mane and face, along with the regular, precise drapery of Apollo and Artemis, and patterned musculature everywhere, typify the archaic style in relief sculpture.
Sex usually determines attire: most kouroi, except a small, distinct group of mantled kouroi, are nude save for an occasional fillet worn in the hair or a choker around the neck, while females are fully clothed (Figs. 3.23– 24 ). The artistic convention of (usually) nude males and clothed females reflects contemporary aesthetics and cultural standards, which celebrated the youthful, athletic, nude, male form, and required women to be modestly dressed. Regional distinctions are evident in the garments worn by korai (Figs. 3.23– 24 ), and in bodily proportions, treatment of hair, muscularity, and faces for both korai and kouroi. For example, east Greek korai tend to have small, elongated eyes, thin-lipped, wide mouths, and delicately articulated eyebrows (Fig. 3.25). Attic korai, by contrast, have longer faces, less malleable features, smaller mouths with broader lips, more rounded bulbous eyes, more sharply defined brows (Fig. 3.23; see also Fig. 3.27). These are general traits, and within these categories there is much variation. Earlier Attic and Cycladic korai wear a heavy, woolen peplos, girt at the waist, which conceals the body (Fig. 3.27; cf. Fig. 2.34). Later Attic and Cycladic korai tend to be clad in a chiton , a light, cotton, pleated garment that adheres to, and reveals, the form beneath; a himation , a shawl-like garment, worn over one shoulder and falling diagonally across the torso, complements the chiton (Fig. 3.23). Attic korai usually grasp their garments with their left hands, thus creating a parabola of folds in thin chitons that consequently adhere tightly to the lower body (Fig. 3.17). With their right arms extended forward, they appear to make or receive an offering (they sometimes carry objects in their upraised hands, such as fruits, flowers, and small animals). In the east Aegean – on Samos, for instance – the kore stands with her legs pressed together tightly, and her right arm is by her side. Her right hand grasps the epiblema worn over the back of her himation, under which she wears a chiton cinched at the waist (Fig. 3.24). The carefully differentiated garments cover most of her body although her toes peer out from her chiton, which flares in a circle, echoing the rounded base. The general impression is of a closed tapering cylinder, yet the rounded belly, the drapery modeling breasts beneath, and the soft imprint left by her thumb in the epiblema relieve her severe appearance. Like other korai, this one may have held a small animal – bird or rabbit – in her raised left hand, either an offering or an attribute. This dedication, one of a pair, from the Heraion on Samos bears a votive inscription carved on the edge of the himation, which records that she is an offering of Cheramyes, who dedicated a group of six marble sculptures at the sanctuary, including this one. Cheramyes’ dedication demonstrates his piety and also his wealth: the large votive was placed near the entry to the sanctuary, immediately next to, and facing, the main pathway leading to the temple. The largest group of votive korai yet recovered – more than seventy – comes from the Athenian Akropolis. Whom the korai represent has been the subject of great debate; most are dedicated by men so they are not portraits of their donors, but it is possible that the offering was made to Athena for some service rendered or desired for a daughter or wife, who may be portrayed by the statue, or the korai may represent Athena herself. In addition to their use as votive dedications, aristocrats also employed kouroi as funerary markers. The Anavysos kouros (Fig. 3.22a–b) commemorated a warrior, who died in battle: the inscription on the base believed to belong to the kouros names the fallen as Kroisos and exhorts the viewer to, “Stay and mourn at the tomb of dead Kroisos, whom raging Ares destroyed one day, fighting in the foremost ranks” (trans. A. F. Stewart). The Anavysos kouros is not a portrait or likeness of the individual Kroisos but a type meant to signify Kroisos (i.e., Kroisos’ actual appearance is unknown). No armor appears (though his cap suggests the helmet he once wore above it), no physical wounds attest to Kroisos’ battle injuries, no blood mars his physical beauty. When the ancient viewer read the inscription – and read it aloud, as the Greeks did – s/he mourned the image of eternal youthful athletic beauty. The size, the use of Parian marble, and the quality of carving indicate a wealthy Attic family grieving for one of their own. Less extravagant, though still costly, means were also available to commemorate warriors who died in battle (Fig. 3.26). orai statues also occasionally served as gravemarkers. Phrasikleia was honored in this manner, as stated in the inscription on the matching base (Fig. 3.27). She maintains the stiff frontal stance typical of korai but it is her right hand now that draws her belted peplos, richly decorated with incision and paint, to the side. Her left fingers clasp a blossom close to her breasts, and a floral crown, necklace, bracelets, and sandals contribute to her ornate appearance. Her hair – a series of wavy tresses drawn back behind her ears with a ribbon, then falling in pellet-like locks down her back and on her breasts – is a study in symmetry and abstraction, and her face with its bulbous eyes and doll-like archaic smile, is consistent with the archaic style. Aside from her extraordinary state of preservation, one of the most interesting aspects of Phraskleia is the inscription on the accompanying base. It names the artist, Aristion of Paros, and goes on to declare that this is the marker of Phrasikleia, who will always be called “kore” because the gods gave her this name instead of marriage. While the term “kore” simply means girl, it is also one of the names for the goddess Persephone, the daughter of Demeter. Hades, god of the Underworld, abducted young Persephone from earth and took her to the Underworld to be his wife. Read metaphorically, this myth describes the death of a young maiden, who becomes queen of the
Underworld. Thus, Phraskleia’s epitaph implies that she, who was unwedded when she died, was also regarded as a bride of Hades, a trope well–known from ancient Greek literature. This also would explain her garment and jewelry, which are unusually elaborate: she is arrayed in her wedding finery. A painted stone sarcophagus found at Gümüs¸çay near Troy in modern Turkey offers a mythological variant of this same idea (Fig. 3.28a–b). The sarcophagus, dated by stylistic comparison to contemporary mainland Greek works, such as the Siphnian Treasury at Delphi, was produced by a Greek artist(s) working for a patron in this Persian-controlled area, inhabited by Greeks. On one long side and one short are relief scenes of the sacrifice of Polyxena by Neoptolemos, son of Achilles, at the tomb of Achilles as men and women mourn nearby. The shade of Achilles had demanded that Polyxena be sacrificed to him to be his bride after death. On the reverse and the other short side, we see funeral rites, probably for the deceased. Although the bones of an adult man were found in the sarcophagus, it is plausible that this was an unplanned use for this sarcophagus, which was probably a special commission to judge from its quality and decoration. It is likely that the commission was intended for a young, unmarried, female occupant, that is, an actual counterpart to Polyxena, but perhaps a delay in its completion or unexpected circumstances forced a change in plans. Like the statue of Phrasikleia, allusion is made to the idea of the bride-of-death but using a different myth to make the point.
Attic pottery
Patrons and pottery As discussed above, athletes, sponsors of dramatic and musical contests, donors of large votives, and sometimes donors of sacrificial animals in the sixth century BC usually were aristocrats. This elite group also set the social standards: their choice activities – hunt, warfare, and the symposion – were emulated by non-elites and, together with Homeric mythology, constituted primary subjects for archaic vase painters. Many such vases were used at the symposion, an activity that scholars usually argue derives from the Near East, where monarchs and their royal courtiers reclined, dined, and ate together, enjoying the entertainment of music and dancers. Recently, however, this viewpoint has been challenged by a number of scholars, who argue instead for an eighth-century (or earlier) Aegean origin for the symposion and discount its reliance on eastern traditions. Wherever it derived, sixth-century Greek aristocrats took up this convivial practice, concentrating particularly on witty and intellectual conversation, poetry, wine, music, and the sexual allure of female courtesans ( hetairai ) and handsome boys, who sometimes acted as wine pourers. Aristocrats imitated Homeric heroes and regarded them as their ancestors and models, which explains the popularity of such themes on symposion vases (Fig. 3.29, groups A, C, D, E). Among the earliest Attic black-figure vases to demonstrate this trend is the “François Vase,” a volute krater (Fig. 3.30a–c) from an Etruscan grave in Chiusi. The krater also exhibits the technical possibilities of early Attic black-figure, and reveals the influence of Corinthian vase painting on it. Kleitias painted the vase and Ergotimos potted it, as we learn from their signatures, which appear twice on the krater. Indeed, with more than 200 mythological figures and over 100 identifying inscriptions, this large vessel serves as a virtual mythological encyclopedia of the Athenians. The vessel’s decoration is divided into superimposed horizontal bands filled with miniature figures, both legacies of Corinthian vase painting, and depict various myths on each of its two sides. Side A themes focus on Achilles, the great Achaian warrior in the Trojan War (from top to bottom): the Kalydonian boar hunt includes his father, Peleus, in this illustrious event in which numerous heroes participated; the funeral games for Patroklos, organized by Achilles after the death of his companion at Troy; the wedding of Achilles’ parents, Peleus and the goddess Thetis – this is the only theme to completely encircle the vase; and Achilles’ ambush at the fountain house of the Trojan prince Troilos, whose death was a necessity in order for the Achaians to win the Trojan War (Fig. 3.30a). Side B includes Theseus and the Athenian survivors of the Minotaur as they arrive on Delos; the Centauromachy, fought by Theseus and the Lapith Greek men against the unruly Centaurs (Fig. 3.30b); and the return of Hephaistos, which does not concern heroes but the restoration of order among the Olympian gods. Both handles have the same theme painted on their exterior: the goddess Artemis in the top panel, and Ajax carrying the dead Achilles from the Trojan battlefield below (Fig. 3.30c). If the krater was designed to be used in the symposium – and this is a matter of debate because of its elaborate decoration and the painting’s extraordinarily high quality – it would have provided symposiasts with much to stimulate conversation, poetic recitations, and philosophical reflections. The same is true for the fragmentary dinos signed by the Attic painter Sophilos, which depicts the games for Patroklos as indicated by the painted caption, a rarity in the history of Greek vase painting (Fig. 3.31). The
because of its high content of impurities, including micas, quartz, and feldspar. The slip derived from it produces a black gloss (alkaline, water, clay) when fired. Depending upon how much of the mineral illite is in the clay, the finished surface covered with slip can take on a glittering, silver cast or a lustrous velvet black sheen. In contrast to Protoattic vases (see Chapter 2), which tend to be large vessels with a single narrative or decoration that fills the vertical field of the body, early archaic Attic black-figure painting betrays its heavy reliance on Corinthian models: small figures, sometimes parades of animals, arranged in horizontal superimposed friezes with precise incision work borrowed from Near Eastern metalworking. In the Archaic period, we find an increasing number of painters’ and potters’ signatures although, relatively speaking, these are still unusual in the great corpus of Greek vases. The practice of writing across vase surfaces, whether identifying labels or signatures, reinforces the impermeability of the picture surface. One must bear in mind that vase painting is the art of painting on a curving, three-dimensional object, which requires or invites adjustments to compositional elements. It is important to note that most of the vases produced in Attika were not found there or even in Greece, but in Etruria in Italy, where they were imported and used as grave gifts, which often explains their high degree of preservation. The Etruscans were rivals of the Romans, who finally conquered the Etruscans. Their origin is unknown with certainty, but by c. 700, Etruscan culture was firmly established and the first texts written in the Etruscan language date to the eighth century BC (their alphabet was borrowed from Pithekoussai and Cumae, see Chapter 2). It is noteworthy that this language is non-Indo-European, although it is written in an adaptation of Greek script. We have only inscriptions from the Etruscans (some of the oldest examples appear on imported Early Corinthian pottery), no literature, so what we know about them derives from archaeology and from Greek and Roman written sources. Although we know of some Etruscan sanctuaries, most Etruscan objects and monuments that survive are funerary in nature – hundreds of tombs adorned with wall paintings, gold, silver, pottery, including Near Eastern and Greek imports, particularly after c. 700. The Greek vases found in Etruria demonstrate familiarity with Greek myth and religion, which the Etruscans adopted and adapted to their needs. Scholars debate whether the tens of thousands of Attic vases found in Etruscan graves were made for that foreign market – this is certainly the case for some special shapes found only in Etruria – or if they were exported to Etruria in a secondary market. In either case, it is certain that Attic vases were made using visual language and traditions familiar to Greeks, as we can judge from the same themes depicted by architectural sculpture in Greece.
Connoisseurship in Greek vase painting studies Greek vases were signed by painters, by potters, or both using different verbs to distinguish their tasks. In some instances, the same person potted and painted a given vase and signed accordingly. But the most common scenario is that there are no signatures at all on the vase. John Beazley attributed many unsigned vases to the hands of known painters based on stylistic affinities between signed and unsigned vases (and for unknown individuals, he invented names, sometimes borrowed from the potter’s signature, e.g., Amasis Painter; from a characteristic way of rendering something, e.g., Elbows Out Painter; or from the city in which the best example is housed, e.g., Berlin Painter), and was also able to distinguish artistic personalities among unsigned vases to whom he assigned other vessels. According to this thinking, it is in the mundane details – ear lobes, feet, ankle bones, clavicles, etc. – that an artist reveals his “signature” or identity. This scholarly practice of stylistic attribution is “connoisseurship” and, using the Renaissance workshop model, produces attributions to the master, workshop, followers, and so on. In fact, it is not known how Greek vase painters organized themselves, but attribution is one way to organize the many tens of thousands of extant Greek vases for further study.
Experimentation and competition
Ancient Greek society was nothing if not competitive. The invention around 530–525 BC of the Attic red-figure vase-painting technique may have resulted from this competitive spirit and, in any case, certainly inspired further rivalry. In the new technique, black slip was no longer used to paint the figures themselves, but to paint the area around them; the figures were left in the natural color of the fired clay – hence, red-figure, although orange is a more accurate description – then covered with a clear slip (Fig. 3.35b). Rather than black silhouettes, the figures and decoration were spotlighted against a black background. Incision no longer articulated details, and instead, details were applied with a brush and slip, both of which could vary in thickness. This new technique opened the way for experimentation and variation and quickly superseded Attic black-figure for all but a handful of vessels, such as Panathenaic amphorae (see Fig. 3.50a–b). By the 470s or so, red-figure was the dominant form of vase painting. The Andokides Painter may have instigated the new technique since his works constitute the earliest extant Attic red-figure examples. His bilingual amphora (an amphora with black-figure technique on one side, red-figure on the other) demonstrates the possibilities afforded by red-figure (Figs. 3.35a–b). The composition of Herakles
banqueting on a kline (couch) fills a single panel on both sides, but a comparison of the two sides reveals the different effects created by Attic black-figure and Attic red-figure. The incision work of the black-figure image is extraordinary, particularly in the depiction of Herakles’ hair, Athena’s aegis, and the anatomical details of the boy standing near the dinos, which are enhanced by the light lines against a dark background. Since the figures are painted with black slip, the painter can easily estimate how much space is needed, for example, between the wings of Hermes’ boots and the adjacent grapevine. The red-figure technique, on the other hand, encouraged the painter to enlarge, and reduce the number of, his figures, and to paint broadly around them so as to allow ample space for figures, objects, and details. However, black-figure was retained for salient details on the red-figure side: two symposion vessels, a realistic touch because simple black-slip was the everyday symposia ware, and for the floral and zigzag panel borders – the use of black-figure for subsidiary decoration is common in Attic red-figure painting, particularly in its early years. Details of garments, anatomy, and ornament were added in black slip, which varies from thick slip for the dots and folds of Herakles’ garment to the much more dilute slip for Herakles’ clavicles. It is also noteworthy that Herakles’ garment is – and can be – transparent because of the use of red-figure technique; had it been rendered in black-figure, transparency could not have been convincingly conveyed. The thick black lines are often so thick that they stand off the surface of the vessel (best viewed at an oblique angle) and are therefore called “relief lines.” The light-on-dark composition makes the figures pop out from the dark background. Vase painters quickly began exploring and exploiting the possibilities of Attic red-figure. Foremost among them were the Pioneer Painters of c. 520–505 BC, a group whose modern sobriquet was awarded for their intense interest in depicting details of human anatomy, exploring the effect of movement on the human figure, and rendering the human body in motion in two dimensions. The obverse of a kalyx krater signed by Euphronios depicts the death of the warrior Sarpedon in the Trojan War (Fig. 3.36a); men arm themselves, perhaps preparing for the same fate, on the reverse (Fig. 3.36b). The winged figures of Hypnos (Sleep) and Thanatos (Death) carry the large, heavy corpse of Sarpedon off the battlefield. Hermes, in his role as leader of souls to the Underworld ( Psychopompos ), stands behind Sarpedon. With the exception of two soldiers, like sentinels, standing at the sides, all figures are named, and the symmetrical disposition of figures around Sarpedon typifies the archaic style. Euphronios lavished tremendous detail on Sarpedon’s muscular, nude body (Fig. 3.36b); abdominal divisions, arm muscles, even the eyelashes, sideburns, nipples, genitals, and teeth, are painted in a variety of ways, from thick relief lines to thin washes. Especially dazzling are the carefully patterned wings of Hypnos, Thanatos, and Hermes, and Thanatos’ cuirass (Fig. 3.36d). Thanatos and Hypnos struggle to steady Sarpedon’s body as it twists and falls forward toward the viewer – this is evident in the position of Sarpedon’s right arm and foreshortened left calf. Unlike earlier painters or sculptors who used the simpler methods of overlapping figures or three-quarter views to suggest depth, Euphronios aims for the illusion of depth by foreshortening figures moving or twisting in space. His contemporary, Euthymides, shared his interests in portraying figures in motion and in anatomical detail, and was intent on surpassing his rival Euphronios. Euthymides signed a red-figure amphora that depicts three revelers – one holding a kylix or drinking cup – in a variety of views: profile, three-quarter back, and three-quarter front (Fig. 3.37a). All figures are named – none is mythological – and another inscription runs down along the left border: “as never Euphronios,” presumably “as never Euphronios did” or “as never Euphronios could” (Fig. 3.37b). Whether this refers to the dancing or painting is unclear, although this author favors the latter interpretation. Such a taunt is rare and revealing evidence for the society of vase painters and their competitive spirit: ancient authors do not discuss vase painters or the organization of their labor. Contemporary sculptors shared the interests of the Pioneer Painters. A marble kouros base is carved in relief with nude athletes shown from a variety of perspectives – back view, frontal, profile, three-quarter – with foreshortened bodies where required, recalling the work of Euthymides (Fig. 3.38a–b). The sculptor’s keen interest in complex modeling of anatomy, such as the upper back of the figure seen from behind, is evident. Presumably, the kouros that once stood on this base adhered to the traditional kouros format, which may have seemed oddly stiff compared with the acrobatic figures depicted on the base. In this respect, vase painters and relief sculptors led the way in rendering anatomy and movement more naturalistically, a change that did not occur in (extant) Greek free-standing sculpture for another generation.
Archaic Athens
Athens: tyranny to democracy Aristocrats continued to govern everywhere in Greece throughout most of the sixth century, although tyrannies replaced aristocratic oligarchies in some poleis. The tyrants were of the aristocratic class and can be defined simply
In addition, the Peisistratids resumed construction of a structure whose foundations had been laid earlier near the Ilissos River southeast of the Athenian Akropolis: the Peisistratids intended it as an Ionic limestone dipteral temple to Olympian Zeus (the Olympieion), the largest temple (107.7m × 42.9m) ever planned (Fig. 3.48). The Peisistratid period construction began toward the end of the sixth century BC, but was brought to a halt with the expulsion of Hippias in 510 BC (some of the remaining architectural members were reused in the later city fortification wall of c. 479/478 BC, the “Themistoklean” wall; see Chapter 4). Work resumed on this building in the late fourth century BC, as we shall see, but the new Pentelic marble building was not completed until the second century AD under the Roman emperor Hadrian. While Peisistratos was still trying to gain a foothold in Athens, the Panathenaic festival was reorganized and embellished with a series of athletic and musical competitions. From 566 BC on in Athens, for example, the Panathenaic festival was celebrated annually in honor of Athena and her role in the Gigantomachy, but every four years, a more elaborate celebration occurred, which included athletic and musical contests, beauty contests, and contests linked to handling military weapons. The Panathenaic games took place every four years beginning in c. 566/565 BC and were open only to Athenians save for a few events. The athletic contests expanded over time and by the fourth century included the stadion (footrace), pentathlon, wrestling, boxing, hoplitodromos (armed race), and equestrian events; in addition, there were musical and tribal contests (restricted to Athenians), such as the pyrrhic dance (armed dance) competition. The prize awarded for athletic events was a large quantity of olive oil specially pressed from olives grown in the sacred grove of Athena, the city’s patron goddess. Based upon a description of preparations for the Pan-athenaia in a fourth-century BC text, scholars have assumed that the olive oil was presented in special amphorae made solely for this purpose: Panathenaic amphorae (Fig. 3.49a–b). These large, lidded vessels always feature an image of Athena, together with an inscription, “from the games of Athens,” on the obverse and an image of the event for which the prize was awarded on the reverse. While the shape and size of these amphorae changed over centuries, as did the manner of depicting Athena, the basic format remained the same into the Roman period, and even more surprisingly, the vases were always rendered in black-figure even when this technique was no longer used for any other kind of pottery. The idea that the amphorae contained the prize oil, however, has recently been challenged: a study of Panathenaic amphorae from the Athenian Kerameikos cemetery, where the amphorae were deposited as grave gifts, reveals that none of the amphorae ever contained oil. But the Kerameikos amphorae are a limited sample of all Panathenaics, and some scholars already have offered counter-arguments to the new challenge. The amphorae may have been connected with the games, but it is not clear that they were oil containers!
Athenian democracy and myth-making
What happened with the political situation in Athens immediately after the ouster of Hippias in c. 510 is unclear, although literary sources suggest a jockeying for power among aristocrats. In c. 508/507, an Athenian citizen, Kleisthenes, successfully introduced a series of reforms, which produced a democracy (literally, power of the demos ; Attika was physically and governmentally divided into demes), the first democracy. He changed the number of tribes into which Attika was divided from the four established by Solon in 594 BC to ten, which were constructed in such a way as to represent a diversity of interests: people of the coast, the city, and those inland, according to a fourth-century BC written source ( Athenaion Politeia 21.4). Each tribe was assigned an eponymous hero. All Athenian citizens were now eligible to meet, debate, and vote on legislation proposed by a group of five hundred citizens, the Boule or Council, composed of fifty members from each of the ten tribes. This was the first time that the entire citizen body in Athens or anywhere else had direct participation in their government. Compared with modern notions of democracy, this first democracy is wanting: its definition of “citizen” was limited to Attic freeborn males over the age of eighteen, i.e., no women, no slaves (like most ancient cultures, this was a slave society), no resident aliens ( metics ). But such a comparison is anachronistic; instead, one might think of all other contemporary and preceding governments, which were monarchies, tyrannies, aristocracies, and oligarchies. In this view, the new democracy in Athens was truly radical. Although Harmodios and Aristogeiton did not kill Hippias and take down the tyranny, they soon were regarded by Athenians as instigating its demise and were honored, then heroized, for this achievement. Lauded as “Tyrannicides,” their images were crafted by the Athenian sculptor Antenor and erected in the Athenian Agora – whether the archaic or Classical Agora, we do not know – in c. 510 BC and their descendants were fed in the Prytaneion at public expense for the duration of their lives. These were truly extraordinary privileges – the first time that contemporary (but deceased) citizens were honored by public statuary – and the public underwriting of lifetime meals was an award usually accorded to Olympic athletic victors or individuals of that exalted stature. The original Tyrannicides sculptural group was taken by the Persians when they sacked Athens in 480 BC (see below). In c. 477 BC, the Athenians replaced the original group with another by the sculptors Kritios and Nesiotes (Fig. 3.50; see Chapter 4) and erected it in the Classical Agora, where the fragmentary inscribed base has been found. Whether the
original group looked anything like the replacement cannot be determined; based on most free-standing statuary of the late sixth century, one might expect two kouroi figures for the first group, but the replacement group, which we know from Roman copies and vase painting, comprised two dramatically positioned figures lunging forward to plunge their weapons into their quarry. These dynamic poses of the Tyrannicides are more akin to those of the sculpted Gigantomachies filling the west pediment of c. 510 BC at the temple of Apollo at Delphi, and – closer to Athens and closer in composition – the contemporary pedimental group from the temple of Athena on the Athenian Akropolis (see Fig. 3.44). In fact, the Athena from the Akropolis group lunges forward with her left arm outstretched similar to the pose of one of the Tyrannicides, although the latter exhibits more torsion, drama, and verve. Considering that free-standing sculpture with dramatic poses, that is, stances unlike those of kouroi, existed already at the time of the original Tyrannicides group, it may be that the original group possessed the dynamic poses of the later, replacement group familiar to us.
The adulation afforded the Tyrannicides is not the only instance of new democracy myth-making: Theseus, the legendary king of Athens, who was believed to have reigned in a far distant past, had been credited already in the Archaic period with synoikismos (unification) of the Attic demes. The democracy embellished this achievement by claiming that synoikismos was the first step in creating the Solonic tribes, which led to the Kleisthenic tribes. In other words, according to the new democracy, Theseus was the instigator of democracy. The new democracy suspended construction on the Peisistratid Olympieion (Fig. 3.48), and instead began to focus its energies on construction in the new Agora north of the Akropolis and on the Akropolis. New accommodations were needed for the democracy’s various constituencies, and these were erected along the west side of the new Agora (Fig. 3.46). The Boule or Council of 500 met in the Old Bouleuterion of the early fifth century BC (possibly the Old Metroon, which also served as an official archive). The Archon Basileus, the leading state official elected annually, had his office in the Royal Stoa (Stoa Basileios) of the same date, where the laws were publicly displayed. On the Akropolis, work began on a huge marble temple, the Pre-Parthenon, overlying the cella of the earlier Hekatompedon (if the Hekatompedon was, indeed, on this site and not on the Dörpfeld foundations; Figs. 3.39, 3.51). The Pre-Parthenon, like all other structures and statues on the Akropolis, was burnt and destroyed by the Persian invasion in 480 BC. From the Pre-Parthenon’s remains, which still lie on the Akropolis – part of the poros limestone foundations, 78m long, and blocks of the marble superstructure (Fig. 3.52) – we deduce that the building had been completed as high as three column drums at the time of its destruction and was intended as a peripteral 6 × 16 temple. Some of the blocks of the superstructure were scorched and calcined from the Persian destruction, vivid reminders of this catastrophe. It is time to look at these events more closely.
The Persian Wars
In 499 BC, the Greek cities in Ionia revolted against the Persian king, whose vast empire then included this area. These Greek cities were required to pay taxes to the king, who restricted their trade and required the inhabitants to perform military service. The rebellious cities requested help from Greek cities elsewhere and were refused by all but two poleis, Athens and Eretria on Euboia, which sent aid in 494 BC. When the Persian king and his army crushed the Ionian revolt, Athens and Eretria had a new, very powerful enemy. In 490, the Persian king and army invaded Greece with the specific aims of punishing Athens and Eretria and subjugating all of Hellas to Persian rule. The Persians were repulsed at Marathon where a Greek force, led by and composed primarily of Athenians, routed the Persian army. When the battle ended, thousands of Persians lay dead, but the Athenians suffered only 192 casualties, according to the fifth-century BC historian, Herodotos ( c. 485–424 BC). This stunning victory filled the Greeks, particularly the Athenians, with pride and self-confidence, and inspired a series of monuments commemorating their achievement. Among these was the Athenian Treasury at Delphi (Fig. 3.53), prominently located just around the bend of the Sacred Way from the Siphnian Treasury discussed above (Figs. 3.12 no. 9, 3.13– 16 ). The Parian marble building follows the same one-room plan as the Siphnian Treasury, but the Athenian Treasury is constructed in the Doric order and uses columnar supports rather than the ornate caryatids of the early Ionic building. The Athenian Treasury’s sculpted metopes depict the labors of Herakles and the deeds of Theseus, the first (and not the last) juxtaposition of these two heroes on the same Athenian monument. With this iconography, the Athenians proclaimed their greatness through their local hero Theseus, while also asserting a claim to the Panhellenic hero, Herakles, whose adventures take him all over the Mediterranean and beyond. It was a subtle but unmistakable claim to leadership of the Greek world, which was clearly visible and intelligible to every Greek visitor to Delphi.
contemporary vase painting trend toward reducing the number of figures and their action, offering still, quiet compositions. The Berlin Painter is known for precisely this compositional format (though he also employed multi-figure compositions) and even reduces or entirely eliminates the borders beneath and around figures to spotlight them more effectively against their black backgrounds. On one side of a lidded amphora, he paints Athena with an oinochoe (wine pitcher) in her extended right hand; she pours wine into a kantharos (long-handled drinking cup) held by Herakles on the other side so that the images on the two sides of the same vase work together to create a narrative (Fig. 3.58a–d). The figures stand on a thin border, which truncates just beyond the maximum width of each figure, as if they were standing on individual ground lines. The glossy black background, almost velvety in texture, makes the bright figures leap out, although misfiring on the Herakles side has left a brownish patch on the background. The crisp, precisely rendered relief lines and details, such as Athena’s aegis and shield, her chiton, and the lionskin worn by Herakles, are typical of this painter’s superlative skill. Athena’s heavy chin departs from the more delicate visages of late archaic vase painting and, together with the gravity and monumentality of the figures, exhibits the somber expressions characteristic of the Severe Style ( c. 480–450 BC) of the early Classical period. Works of art created around the time of the Persian Wars are notoriously difficult to date without external evidence. The destruction level on the Athenian Akropolis should provide some help since the trash dumps containing the material destroyed by the Persians – the “Perserschutt” – should indicate what sculpture looked like before 480 BC. As an example, we can cite the “Kritios Boy,” a Parian marble votive statue found on the Athenian Akropolis (Fig. 3.59a–b). Although he is youthful, male, and nude, like an archaic kouros, everything else about him sharply departs from what preceded him in three-dimensional sculpture. He stands in contrapposto, one leg bearing his weight, the other flexed, which produces a natural, relaxed pose. His slight shift in weight affects the entire body, and the sculptor has recorded it: his hips are not parallel to the ground but uneven (the hip of the weight-bearing leg is higher than the other). Anatomy is now fully modeled in a subtle and naturalistic way, rather than that of the beefier, somewhat inflated Anavysos kouros, whose abdominal area is a series of sharp divisions (see Fig. 3.22a). The Kritios Boy’s slightly turned and lowered head breaks the central axis common to archaic kouroi, and the archaic smile is replaced by a somber expression with downturned lips and a heavy chin, both typical of the Severe Style. Instead of long, bead-like braids, narrow strands of hair radiate out from the crown of the head and wrap around a metal ring worn around the head; wispy tendrils of hair are visible on the back of his neck. His eyes were once inlaid with dark stones set in white paste. What is the date of the Kritios Boy? This figure is among a group of sculptures that betoken the Classical style. The latest study of the Perserschutt indicates that the Kritios Boy post-dates the Persian sack. But in some respects, whether he dates before or after the sack is immaterial unless one wishes to posit that the Persian Wars somehow caused or inspired the new style. But we have seen that stylistic changes were already occurring in late archaic art considerably earlier than 490 BC. What came after the wars was new but not without a long evolution.
CHAPTER 4: THE CLASSICAL PERIOD: 5TH CENTURY BC
Scholars usually point to the end of the Persian Wars in 480/479 BC as the event that marks the start of the Classical period in the history of Greece because of profound political changes that occurred in Greece as a result of the conflict and Greek victory. The Greeks, of course, did not know that the Persians would not soon return, as they had for the past decade, and did not have the hindsight that we possess to declare that a new period had begun. Having already experienced the sack of several cities, including Athens in 480 BC, Greek poleis understandably remained nervous. The Athenian leadership displayed in several battles including the Greek victories at Marathon in 490, Salamis in 480, and at Plataia in 479 shifted the balance of power in Athens’ favor. Athens organized and led the Delian League, formed as a defensive alliance to which various Greek poleis and islands contributed ships and money against possible future Persian attacks. By the time that the league funds were removed from Delos to the Athenian Akropolis in 454, Athens’ leadership in this maritime empire was indisputable though it was periodically challenged and questioned. Athens provides the most plentiful information about social history, politics, religion, and art for the fifth century, but innovation and new developments happened throughout the Greek world. This is especially true in the first half of the fifth century.
Defining Classical
The pedimental sculpture of the temple of Aphaia on the island of Aigina demonstrates some of the stylistic changes that took place in the first decades of the fifth century BC (Fig. 4.1). An archaic temple to Aphaia, about whom we
know little, had stood on the site, as we know from the architectural remains and an inscription; extant votives suggest that she was worshipped as kourotrophos (nurse) by both men and women. Recent study demonstrates that construction on the new temple took place after the Persian Wars, in the 470s BC, as indicated by the pottery found beneath it (this is in contrast to earlier scholars, who had placed the temple anywhere from c. 500 to 480 BC). The Doric limestone structure, 13.77m × 28.81m with 6 × 12 columns, was coated with plaster to imitate marble and partially painted. Its cella was divided by two rows of columns, and a limestone base was found near the door to the opisthodomos; the base once supported an old, wooden cult image of Aphaia. The two Parian marble pedimental compositions, bearing substantial traces of once brilliant paint, depict battles overseen by a centrally placed Athena (Figs. 4.2– 3 ). Scholars disagree about which battles are depicted, but it is likely that we are witnessing two battles of the Trojan War in which mythological Aiginetan warriors and the hero Ajax were instrumental. These warriors included the sons of the Aiginetan king Aiakos, who himself was the offspring of Zeus and the nymph Aigina. The three-quarter-lifesize figures are mostly nude save for occasional helmets, shields, and distinctive garb: a lion-skin cap for Herakles (Fig. 4.4a–b) in the east and a full bodysuit for an eastern or Skythian archer (Fig. 4.5a–b) in the west. They fight, tumble, and fall in a variety of positions; it is as if the metope sculptures from the Athenian Treasury at Delphi were freed from their backgrounds (see Figs. 3.54– 55 ). Some body positions are more naturalistic than others, as can be seen by comparing the archer and Herakles. The alignment of Herakles’ eye with his hand, his upright posture, and weight firmly resting on his back leg strike one as closer to the necessities for an actual archer than do the Skythian’s lowered arm, forward position, and awkward balance. Scholars conventionally have dated the west pediment a decade earlier than the east based on style, but in fact, figures in both pediments exhibit features of archaic sculpture, such as the archaic smile, while others display the contrapposto, idealization, more natural movement (e.g., Herakles drawing his bow), somber expression, or body posture regarded as hallmarks of the early Classical Severe Style ( c. 480–450 BC). Moreover, the backs of the sculptures betray no stylistic difference. Together, these observations indicate no clear division in terms of chronology (as opposed to individual workmanship) between east and west; instead, the sculptures display the experimentation that marks the period of stylistic change from archaic to Classical style. The celebration of Aiginetan heroes on the temple of Aphaia on Aigina may have been a response to Aigina’s perpetual and recent troubles with nearby Athens, as well as an effort to trumpet the island’s own lengthy, stellar legendary past. Some scholars have suggested that the choice of themes also refers to the political differences between Aigina’s aristocracy, who modeled themselves on the Homeric heroes, and Athens’ democracy, which championed the hero Theseus, but we would be wrong to think that Athenian aristocrats were invisible in democratic Athens or that Athenian aristocrats did not emulate Homeric heroes. Conflict between the two poleis concluded when the Athenians seized Aigina in c. 431, evicted the inhabitants, settled Athenians on the island, and at some point installed a new image, perhaps of Athena, in the cella of the Aphaia temple.
Civic spaces and civic heroes in Athens
The development of the Classical Agora, particularly its west side, after the foundation of Athens’ democracy in 508/507 was discussed in Chapter 3 (Fig. 3.45). While most civic buildings pertaining to governance were located here, the Athenian assembly of citizens met on the nearby Hill of the Muses in the Pnyx, a massive structure cut nto the hillside, which was surrounded by large houses arranged haphazardly, as recognized from cuttings in the bedrock and plaster-lined wells (Figs. 4.6– 7 ). The number of buildings in the Agora continued to grow after the Persian Wars. Many scholars identify a stoa of c. 475–460 BC excavated at the north side of the Agora as the Stoa Poikile, although others prefer to view the structure as the Stoa of the Herms, also mentioned in ancient written accounts, because of the many herms recovered here (Fig. 3.46). The Painted Stoa takes it name from its interior paintings – either on the wall or on portable panels – of mythological events and the Battle of Marathon. Ancient written sources attest that the Stoa was used as a display place for military trophies, as a meeting place for philosophers and their pupils (hence the school of Stoic philosophy), as a public space for fishmongers, beggars, and performers, as a space for legal proceedings, and as the gathering place for those wishing to be initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries, one of the most important religious rites in ancient Greece, which took place in nearby Eleusis. The clustering of structures along the west side of the Agora, the Stoa Poikile and Altar of the Twelve Gods in the north, and the fountain house in the southeast left the rest of the Agora largely open except for a dromos, which bifurcated the open space nearly vertically, and the Panathenaic Way, which ran from the north diagonally to the southeast. Clues from written evidence suggest that the prominent “Tyrannicides” sculptural group was located along the dromos (see Fig. 3.51). When Alexander the Great conquered Persia in the 330s BC, he retrieved the
With the exception of Zeus’ central position demanded by his scale, the placement of the other four figures is highly controversial, resulting in more than seventy reconstructions to date. For the purposes of this study, the precise ordering of central figures is less important than the theme and the overall composition of the central group flanked by chariots, seated figures, including two seers (figures L and N), and reclining river personifications in the corners. Both protagonists wear armor; this seems strange equipment for a chariot race but is entirely appropriate for Olympia, where military thankofferings comprising armor, tropaia , were abundant; it is also noteworthy that contemporary and later writers indicate that the ancient Greeks regarded athletics as the ideal preparation for warfare. Pelops’ success brought him not only Hippodameia but also the kingdom of Oinomaos, and we may posit a mythological analogy for the recent historical defeat of Pisa (Oinomaos) by Elis (Pelops, the local hero of Elis). Study of the sculptures’ painted details in ultraviolet light has revealed that Zeus held a tainia (ribbon) stretched between his two hands, prepared to award this to the victor of this race, which was believed to be the founding event of the Olympic games. Thus, the choice of myth is well suited to the site, and it was in the fifth century that the hippic events became most popular at Olympia. The temple’s twelve metopes, distributed equally above the pronaos and opisthodomos, were carved with the labors of Herakles (Fig. 4.17). Over the course of his adventures, from his first task of killing the Nemean lion to his last, when he fetched the apples of the Hesperides, Herakles ages from a weary, beardless youth to a weathered, mature, bearded man (Fig. 4.18). The labors on the Olympia metopes represent those accomplished in distant places, as well as those that took place in the Peloponnese. At least one of these labors, the cleaning of the Augean stables, which occurred near Olympia, is new to the repertoire of Herakles’ adventures and seems to be a deliberate invention suited to the geographical situation, perhaps inspired by the actual diversion of the Kladeos River some centuries before (Fig. 4.19). Taken as a whole, the Olympia sculptures demonstrate a coherent thematic program suited to their site and designed to encourage athletes to aspire to the deeds and achievements of heroes, such as Herakles, Theseus, Perithoos, and Pelops. Athletic victors at Olympia were permitted to erect (or have erected for them) statues within the Altis, which was an extraordinary honor: while victors’ statues (or their extant bases) have been found at other Panhellenic sanctuaries, they are nowhere near as numerous as at Olympia, which had hundreds. Inscribed bases and written sources indicate the sculptors who created these athletic votives were sometimes prominent craftsmen – Myron, Polykleitos of Argos (see below), Lysippos of Sikyon (see Chapter 5), and Silanion of Athens, to name but a few – an indication of the importance of such statuary and the money invested in it. In addition to altars dedicated to heroes and gods and the temples, sculpted military and athletic victory monuments also dotted the sanctuary. A marble winged Nike gives some idea of the prominent and costly victory monuments that once adorned Olympia (Fig. 4.20). She touches down on a triangular marble base, which towered about 12m high when complete. The inscribed base indicates that the monument, which stood just next to the entrance of the temple of Zeus, was a thankoffering from the Messenians for a military victory probably in 425 BC, and that the sculpture was the work of Paionios of Mende. Other such monuments liken the victors to mythological heroes, especially Herakles in the case of athletes and Trojan heroes for military victories. Thus, the fifth-century Altis should be envisioned as a competitive ground for monuments – athletic, military, and, of course, religious. When an Olympic victor erected a statue at Olympia (or was honored by a statue erected by someone else), he joined an elite group of athletic and military victors, mythological heroes, and gods. Only parts of a few of the many bronze athletic statues that once adorned Olympia have survived, but a well-preserved example at Delphi, which has produced far fewer athletic victory statues, gives some idea of the splendor of these images. The Charioteer of Delphi commemorates a chariot victory in Delphi’s Pythian games (Fig. 4.21a–b). The over-lifesize bronze charioteer depicts not the patron, who financed the team and “possesses” the victory, but the charioteer, who was hired to participate in the actual event. The patron commemorated his triumph with a large bronze group of a charioteer in a quadriga drawn by horses. Only the charioteer survives as more than fragments and is one of the few monumental bronze sculptures extant from the Classical period. His inlaid eyes, separately attached bronze eyelashes, and copper-covered lips are still present, and his heavy chin and thick eyelids are characteristic of the Severe Style. He stands quietly, his face an image of poised concentration. With his arms outstretched to hold the reins and the turn of his head and upper torso slightly to his right, he appears alert and attentive. The superb quality of the detailed workmanship of the fillet worn round his head, and of his hair and drapery, as well as the quantity of bronze, point to a costly commission – and we must remember that he was only one figure of several! As discussed in Chapter 3, votives and monuments, such as the charioteer, were designed to impress the thousands of visitors at Delphi, who came for the Pythian games and also to consult the Delphic oracle. Scholars usually assign the Delphi charioteer to the Sicilian tyrant Polyzalos of Gela (in Sicily), as a commemoration of his chariot race victory in either 478 or 474 BC Recently, however, this view has been
challenged and the statue dissociated from the base inscribed with Polyzalos’ name, so that the statue’s date now can only be fixed c. 470–450 BC on the basis of style.
Copies of Greek sculpture Greek sculpture was already being copied by Greeks in the sixth century BC (such as the korai from the Heraion on Samos, figures of the Geneleos group; see Fig. 3.24), but most of the free-standing Classical Greek sculptures seen in museums and elsewhere today are Roman copies; this is especially true for marble, but Roman copies were made in bronze, as well. The Roman copying industry, sometimes employing Greek sculptors, thrived beginning in the first century BC because of the demand for “Greek” sculpture by wealthy Romans eager to display their erudition. Copies, both Greek and Roman, were made by measuring the original, whose precise measurements were then transferred on to the copy as work progressed. This procedure involved repeated measuring of numerous places on both original and copy from a fixed point or points in the form of a triangle; the evidence of these fixed points can still be seen in the form of small marble knobs or measuring points (with a hole in the center) on sculpture (Box 4. Fig. 1). While exact copies could be, and frequently were, taken, Roman sculptors often used the original or casts of the original as a starting point for an adaptation or new type (see, e.g., Fig. 4.8).
Developments in the west
Numerous objects, monuments, and ancient literary sources attest to the wealth enjoyed by rulers and colonies in fifth-century Magna Graecia. The generally good state of preservation of many of the temples here provides evidence for developments in architecture and architectural sculpture in the first half of the fifth century outside mainland Greece. The peripteral Doric temple of Hera II, the largest of the temples at Paestum, is constructed of stucco-coated limestone (Figs. 4.22– 23 ). The temple’s sekos is raised on a step with a small staircase leading from the pronaos to the slightly higher cella. The building’s longer proportions (6 × 14) and shorter columns, which have entasis, more closely resemble proportions of archaic, rather than Classical, temples. But the latter archaism is offset by the use of a larger number of vertical flutes in the columns than the norm (24 rather than 20), which gives an illusion of greater height to the structure. In spite of some old-fashioned traits here, architectural refinements – deviations from the norm – include stylobate and entablature curvature, corner contraction, and inclination of the corner columns. Such refinements (cf. p. 228), perhaps used to counteract optical illusions of sagging floors and ceilings and splayed columns, are widespread on the mainland but uncommon in Magna Graecia, suggesting that the architects at Paestum were taking note of developments further afield. While there is no evidence of sculptural decoration on the temple of Hera II at Paestum, architectural sculpture is not unusual elsewhere in Magna Graecia. At 1.62m high, the metopes of Temple E, dedicated to Hera, at Selinus, Sicily offer extraordinarily large fields for relief sculpture (Fig. 4.24). These metopes were decorated in the akrolithic technique, which combines several materials: Artemis’ flesh – her serene face, neck, arms, and feet – is rendered in marble, while the rest of the metope is of stuccoed limestone. She wears a Severe-Style peplos, and looks on as dogs attack the hunter Aktaion, who struggles to defend himself though his face is calm (he had offended the goddess; therefore, she maddened his dogs, who turned against him). Both figures exhibit contrapposto, and Aktaion’s pose is borrowed from the Tyrannicides (Fig. 3.50) while his hairstyle recalls that of the “Kritios Boy” (Fig. 3.59a–b). The technical rendering may be less refined or sophisticated than that of the Olympian metopes (Figs. 4.18– 19 ), but Aktaion’s open stance, his focused attention on the dogs attacking his right side, and the threatening poses of the snarling dogs – one is suspended in Aktaion’s hand and supports its hindquarters on the hunter’s hip – lend energetic animation to the scene. Terracotta offered another medium for sculpture – architectural and votive, relief and free-standing, ranging from tiny to well over lifesize. At Locri in southern Italy, hundreds of small terracotta plaques depicting various scenes, including wedding imagery, non-mythological abduction scenes, the abduction of Persephone by Hades, and Hades and Persephone enthroned, were deposited in a sanctuary to Persephone (Fig. 4.25). The pinakes (or painted plaques) are modest products that follow iconographical types also seen on Attic vase painting, and are usually pierced with holes for hanging in the sanctuary. It has been suggested that these votive offerings were made by brides-to-be in the hope of obtaining a happy marriage. While Persephone is usually worshipped together with her mother, Demeter, on the mainland, she is worshipped at Locri with her husband, Hades, where this pair was regarded as the ideal couple, enjoying a marriage to which mortals might aspire. This is a sharp contrast to the mainland perception of Persephone as a pitiable victim of Hades, trapped against her will in a deadly marriage (cf. discussion of Fig. 3.27), and where brides-to-be traditionally make offerings to Artemis, Aphrodite, and Hera.
