The Temple of Apollo at Bassae

“Comparatively unknown, [the Temple of Apollo at Bassae] still holds within its ordinary columnar shell more fantastic problems than any other building, I think we may say, of the Greek world.  Isolated among the difficult Arcadian mountains, nearly four thousand feet above sea level and far from human habitation, it was mentioned by only one ancient traveler, Pausanias….  And in this oldest description lies the first of our problems; for Pausanias reports that the temple was designed by the architect of the Parthenon at Athens, Iktinos, and that it was dedicated to Apollo [Epikourios, i.e., Apollo the Helper], and from these two facts he conjectures that it was erected at the time of the great plague in Athens (430-427 BC).  Some modern writers have denied both architect and date….”  Thus the great William B. Dinsmoor in his article “The Temple of Apollo at Bassae,” Metropolitan Museum Studies, 4/2 (1933), 204-227.

Its remoteness explains why the temple was not rediscovered until 1765.  Dinsmoor’s account of what happened next reads like an adventure novel, with murder by bandits, bribery, a storm at sea—a reminder that the early days of “archaeology” were anything but scientific.  Things were lost.  On the other hand, that the temple lay undisturbed for so many centuries was a plus.  Contrast the state of preservation of this temple with that of the Temple of Apollo at Corinth, for example!

Pausanias reports that the temple was built by the people of Phigalia, a small city in southwestern Arcadia, in honor of Apollo Epikourios, and that its architect was Iktinos, the designer of the Parthenon together with Callicrates.  It was a small temple with a Doric exterior, 6 by 15 columns, with two columns in antis in the pronaos and the slightly smaller opisthodomos.  It was built out of the local limestone, with a frieze and some details in marble.

The temple presents several oddities.  Its orientation is north-south, not east-west, like most Greek temples.  Its naos (cella) has engaged Ionic columns.  There is also second naos or adyton (shrine), with a side door on the eastern side.  Separating the adyton from the naos was not a wall but a single column with a different base and a Corinthian capital, the oldest known (marked as “a” on the plan and drawing of the interior).  So the temple featured all three orders.  Above the interior columns was an entablature that included a sculpted Ionic frieze running around all four sides of the naos.  Contrast the Parthenon’s frieze, which ran around the outside of the naos: one had to walk around the building to see it all.  In the temple at Bassae one could take it all in while standing in the middle of the naos. The subject of the frieze (now in the British Museum) was the Amazonomachy and the Centauromachy.

Some 80 years after Dinsmoor published his article, the problems and the controversies remain.  Was this building really designed by Iktinos?  When was this temple built?  Perhaps in the 420s.  But the sculptures seem to have been made later, c. 400-390 BC.  Why the adyton, with its curious side door?  Why the single Corinthian column?  What about the light needed to view the interior frieze?

Pausanias says that the Temple of Apollo at Bassae was second only the Temple of Athena Alea at Tegea.

The Ficoroni Cista

This is the most famous of well over a hundred cistae (a cista is a cylindrical box for a woman’s cosmetic articles and jewelry) found in the Columbella necropolis near Praeneste (modern Palestrina), a town located some 23 miles southeast of Rome.  It dates to c. 350-330 BC.  It bears an inscription on its handle: “'Dindia Macolnia gave me to her daughter.  Novios Plautius made me at Rome.”

The typical Praenestine cistae is made of sheet bronze, with attached solid cast feet and human figures as handles.  This one’s feet are in the form of lion’s paws set on frogs.  The mounts for the feet are engraved with groups of three figures.  The handle on the lid is a youthful Dionysus flanked by two satyrs.  The lid itself depicts a hunt in an outer ring and lions and griffins in an inner one.  On the body, in a continuous frieze featuring no less than nineteen figures, and framed below by a band of sphinxes and palmettes and above by lilies and palmettes, is depicted an episode from the story of the Argonauts: the binding of Amycus to a tree after his defeat at the hands of Polydeuces.

Amycus, king of the Bebrycians, used to force passers-by to box him—and invariably beat his opponents to death.  Then Jason showed up, looking for water from a nearby spring.  Among the Argonauts were the Dioscuri—consummate boxers—so when Amycus issued his challenge, Polydeuces took him on and defeated him.  The cista shows the aftermath: Polydeuces ties Amycus to a tree as Athena and Heracles look on.  The other Argonauts rest.  Castor, twin brother of Polydeuces, trains with a punching bag.

Silver Denarius of Octavian

COIN A

Shown here is a coin issued by Octavian before 31 BC, the time of the battle of Actium, the naval conflict in which Octavian defeated Antony and Cleopatra to become master of the Roman world under the new name of Augustus.  The coin was used to pay Octavian’s troops.  But it carried a powerful message, as we will see, for those troops and for anyone else who saw the coins.  And that’s just the thing: coins have a way of getting around.

The obverse (to the left) shows the head of Octavian in profile.  Thin neck, hint of an Adam’s apple, strong cheekbones, large pointed nose: these are the characteristics of the man.  His head is bare and there is no legend, no long titles of office that one finds around the whole circumference of so many other coins of the late Republic.  The result a cleaner, simpler, more beautiful coin.  And there was more room for the portrait.  No legend meant that Octavian’s head could be larger.  We are invited to consider his features.  His forehead hair was a conscious imitation of the wavy locks associated with those of Alexander the Great in his youthful portraits.

The reverse (to the right) shows the standing, half-dressed figure of the goddess Venus.  Leaning her left elbow against a column, she holds a transverse scepter in her left hand and a helmet in her right.  Behind the column is a shield bearing a star with eight rays.

Seen in isolation, the coin suggests a connection between Octavian and Venus—and Venus not only as goddess of love but also as sponsor of warfare.  Hence her half-nakedness on the one hand, and her contemplation of the weapons of Mars on the other.

Now, the gens Iulia, the house of Julius Caesar, claimed descent from the goddess Venus (as the mother of Aeneas, who in turn was the father of Iulus, who gave his name to the Julian gens).  So when the eighteen-year-old Gaius Octavius was named heir to the assassinated Julius Caesar in 44 BC, he became one of the Julii.  He even took the name Gaius Julius Caesar, omitting the cognomen Octavianus, to stress his connection to his adoptive father (we call him “Octavian” to keep the two men of the same name distinct).  After the appearance of a comet in the sky (the sidus Iulium) during the Ludi Victoriae Caesaris of 44 BC, it was proclaimed that Caesar had become a god: later, in 42 BC, he became part of the state religion and the worship of the new god divus Iulius, the deified Julius Caesar, was introduced into all the cities of Italy.  His deification allowed Octavian to style himself divi filius, “son of a deified one.”  And that is what we read on the coin we are examining: CAESAR DIVI F. (F = FILIUS): “Caesar, son of the deified one.”  Note, too, the eight-rayed star on the shield: that is a reference to the sidus Iulium.  Octavian had been using the star for years.  So people knew what it meant.

But there is more to say about the coin.  In what follows we will consider the (controversial) reading of the coin by Paul Zanker (Augustus and the Power of Images, chapter 2).  Our coin (let’s call it COIN A) was in fact one of three denarii issued in a series, so to understand it we must look at the other coins.

COIN B

Another coin (COIN B) also shows Octavian’s portrait on the obverse, but the goddess Pax (Peace) on the reverse.  She holds an olive branch in her left hand and a cornucopia in her right.

COIN C

The third coin (COIN C) in the series shows, again, Octavian’s portrait on the obverse, but the goddess Victoria (Victory) on the reverse.  She is standing on a globe and holds a wreath in her right hand, a palm branch in her left.

There is a second series of three denarii corresponding to the three we have already considered.  Here they are:

COIN D

COIN D: The obverse shows a portrait of Pax (Peace) wearing a crown, with a cornucopia to the left and an olive branch to the right.  The reverse shows Octavian advancing in military dress, his right hand raised in act of adlocutio (a general’s formal address of his troops), his left hand holding spear over his shoulder.

COIN E

COIN E: The obverse shows a portrait of Venus wearing a crown and a necklace.  On the reverse is Octavian in military dress, his cloak flying behind him, advancing to the left, his right arm extended, his left arm holding a transverse spear.

COIN F

COIN F: The obverse shows a portrait of Pax (Peace) wearing a crown, her wings spread behind her.  On the reverse, a naked male figure (Neptune?) stands facing to the left, his right foot on the globe, his right hand holding an aplustre (ornamented stern-post of a ship), his left hand a vertical scepter.

Now we may put the coins together in their proper sequence in order to grasp what they meant.  Before the battle of Actium, Octavian delivers an address (adlocutio) to his army: the goal of his war against Mark Antony is peace (coins A and D).  At Actium, he leads his men into battle under the protection of his special goddess, Venus Genetrix or Victrix (coins B and E).  After the battle, he celebrates his victory (coins C and F) as master of the Roman world.

In the first series (A, B, C) the portrait heads are always of Octavian, and the three goddesses are shown on the reverse.  In the second series (D, E, F) it is the other way around: the portrait heads are of the three goddesses, and the figures on the reverse are Octavian—or, in the case of COIN F, Octavian in the guise of Neptune.

To understand a single coin, it is often necessary to view it in a larger context.  The coin spoke the language of legitimacy: “I am the son of the deified Julius Caesar and the rightful heir to his legacy.”  But it also offered the fighting men a program of action for the final conflict with Antony and Cleopatra: “Our goal is an end to war; we have the support of the goddess of my gens; we will be victorious!”

It is tempting to imagine these two coin series as analogous to stamps or baseball cards in our day: the soldiers could collect the coins and puzzle out their proper sequence in order to grasp the message Octavian intended—and which he no doubt spelled out when he spoke to his troops.

Dionysiac Revel by the Kleophrades Painter

This stunning Athenian red-figure amphora was decorated c. 490 by an artist known as the Kleophrades Painter—we do not know his real name.  He is named after Kleophrades the potter whose signature appears on another vase that he decorated (remember that potter and painter were usually two different artists).  Over one hundred vases have been attributed to him, in various shapes—amphora, pelike, kalyx krater, stamnos, psykter, hydria, kalpis...  The (incomplete) list shows that he preferred large surfaces for his grandiose compositions (bold relief-lines, large heads, and massive figures).

His career began c. 505 and ended c. 475—turbulent and yeasty years in the history of Athens.  These were the last two decades of the Archaic period in art history generally, but in the history of vase painting the Kleophrades Painter stood near the beginning of the new red-figure technique.  He was pupil of the Pioneers in that new technique, painters such as Euphronios and Euthymides.  (You know Euphronios as the painter of the famous kalyx krater depicting the fallen Sarpedon carried from battle by Hypnos and Thanatos.)  The Pioneers had explored new poses, new views of the body in motion.  The Kleophrades Painter, like his contemporary and rival the Berlin Painter, were the next generation, not so much daring experimenters as exploiters of the discoveries of their teachers, the Pioneers.

The pot that is the focus of this post is a pointed amphora, a shape usually meant for storage rather than display.  Undecorated, it is common; decorated, it is rare.  The ground line is a maeander interrupted by a cross in black squares, a rare motif.  Above it is a stock scene of a Dionysiac revel that goes all around the vase.

A bearded Dionysus is in the middle with an ivy wreath in his hair.  He holds a vine in his left hand and in his right a kantharos (a deep drinking cup with high vertical handles).  Over a broad chiton (long, lightweight garment, belted and with buttoned sleeve) and himation (mantle or cloak) he wears a panther pelt.  To his right and left are maenads, who defend themselves against lusty satyrs (under the handle and on the other side) with the thyrsus (pinecone-tipped staff).  The maenad on the left holds a snake.  Note the outlines of the legs beneath the diaphanous drapery.  The use of color throughout is striking—the dilute brown glaze for the panther skin, the snake, and the kantharos; the purple for the wreaths, the vine leaves, parts of the snake and the dots on the god’s ivy wreath.

The neck shows three young athletes: the one on the right carries a discus in his right hand, the one on the left holds two javelins, and the one in the middle is about to cast a javelin.  On the ground are another discus and a pickax.

“One of the greatest figures in the history of Athenian vase painting is the so-called Kleophrades Painter, who lived through the momentous days of the Persian danger, the Persian war, and the Persian defeat. His work reflects the strenuous and exalted spirit of his time. It shows that rare combination—an almost vehement joy of life and a quiet aloofness heralding the spirit of the Olympia sculptures.”  So Gisela Richter (“The Kleophrades Painter,” American Journal of Archaeology, 40/1 [1936] 100).

The Niobid Sarcophagus

This sarcophagus was discovered in a tomb built c. AD 135 outside the Porta Viminalis in Rome.  If you read our previous post on sarcophagus types, you will be able to identify this one as Western.  It has a continuous frieze, but only on three sides; the back is plain because the sarcophagus was set against the tomb wall.  Its lid slopes back toward the rear, as the side view shows (see below).  The front has a blank panel in the center (probably for an inscription) but is decorated with archer figures at each end, behind whom, at the corners, are masks.

The subject of the frieze is drawn from myth: the killing of the children of Niobe.  Niobe boasted of her fertility (Ovid reports that she had seven sons and seven daughters), going so far as to say that she had outdone the goddess Leto, who had produced only two children.  The goddess punished Niobe by sending her children, Apollo and Artemis, to kill all those of Niobe.  On the front of the lid we see Apollo and Artemis aiming their arrows.  In the frieze below the composition is framed by Niobe’s husband Amphion at the extreme left, raising his shield in a futile attempt to protect his dying son, and Niobe herself at the extreme right, who attempts to protect her youngest children.  Between the parents there is terror and carnage.  In the center is a rearing horse, whose unseated rider has been slung down before the animal.  Everywhere else are children either shot or fleeing, their pedagogues or nurses unable to save them.

This is the right side of the Niobid sarcophagus.  It shows Amphion and Niobe in mourning at their children’s tomb.  Note how the lid slopes back toward the rear.

An arrogant mother causes the death of her children.  Why would anyone choose to put such a myth on a sarcophagus?  That is a great question.  Several sarcophagi with this theme have survived.  And other sarcophagi depict similar horrors: Orestes’ murder of his mother or Medea’s slaying of her own children.  The question has often been raised of late, as scholars have begun to turn their attention away from artistic technique toward the meaning of art within its cultural context.

The Lefkandi Centaur

When the Mycenaean world suddenly came to an end c. 1200, the palaces, literacy, and the whole tradition of monumental art and architecture all went up in smoke.  Yet pottery continued to be made, though of much lower quality.  Indeed, in the period that followed, called the Dark Age (ca. 1200-900), pottery is the only constant in the archaeological record.  This period of cultural impoverishment, the Dark Age, in which there was really nothing in the way of representational art, lasted for three centuries.  Then an amazing thing happened.  Starting around 900 BC, Greek culture underwent a rebirth, a renaissance.  The pottery improved, with Athens as a major center of production.  A faster potter’s wheel, the compass, and the multiple brush were among the technical innovations. The resulting “Geometric” style is characterized by the use of triangles and rectangles, by circles and semicircles drawn with the new compass and multiple brush in dark paint on a light background.  Human figures reappear on vases.

Foreshadowing this renaissance is the famous centaur found in Lefkandi, Euboea, in 1969.  The excavators considered their find to be “the most remarkable work of Greek sculpture yet known from that Dark Age that followed the collapse of the Mycenaean civilization and that preceded the artistic revival of the eighth and seventh centuries BC” (V. R. Desborough, R. V. Nicholls, and M. Popham, “A Euboean Centaur,” The Annual of the British School at Athens, 65 (1970) 24).  Made of terracotta, it is about fourteen inches tall.  The artist used the potter’s wheel to make the hollow, cylindrical body but formed the human torso and the legs by hand.  The hole in front is one of two vents to insure proper firing in the kiln. 

Despite its large ears, the face has a human look.  There are holes the ears and nostrils.  The holes for the eyes may have held inlays of bone or stone.  His missing left hand may have held a branch or a tree over his left shoulder (note that there was an attachment there)—this is suggested by later representations of centaurs.  Tree branches are their weapons of choice.  There is a deep incision below his left knee.  As for the paint on his body, “the necklet-like bands at the neck, the panel of lattice-hatching on the chest and the mitra-like striped reserved area on the human abdomen, along with the zigzags, dog-tooth triangles and reserved lozenges on the animal body, are all probably to be seen as more decorative than representational in function” [Desborough et al. 25]).  The decoration recalls the patterns used in late Protogeometric and early Geometric pottery.

Was this a figure from myth?  Can we call it a centaur?  If so, was it a generic centaur?  Or was it perhaps Chiron, tutor to numerous heroes?  Jeffrey Hurwit thought so (The Art and Culture of Early Greece, 1100-480 BC [1985] 61.  The gash below the knee, he argued, could be an allusion to the story, preserved by Apollodorus (Library 2.5.4), that Heracles once gave Chiron an unhealable wound in the knee with one of his poisoned arrows (it was to end his suffering from this wound that Chiron ended up giving away his immortality).  In any case, the Lefkandi Centaur “is not only the first masterpiece of early Greek sculpture, it is also the first indication that the Greeks, who always told heroic tales, would eventually become obsessed by the urge to illustrate them and superintend a revolutionary change in the meaning of images.”

Types of Roman Sarcophagi

A sarcophagus is a coffin (the word means “flesh-eater”).  They were generally made of stone, sometimes of clay, and rarely of wood.  The Etruscans made sculptured sarcophagi of stone or clay from the sixth century BC; these were usually covered with a gabled lid or a reclining effigy of the deceased.  In the Roman world cremation was the normal burial practice (in cineraria or ash urns) until the beginning of the second century AD, when a dramatic reversal in their burial practice took place.  Inhumation in sarcophagi, once rare, was becoming the norm.  By the middle of the century, the use of sarcophagi was widespread.  The preferred material was marble.

Here we consider neither the reasons for this shift from cremation to inhumation (this is controversial) nor the subjects depicted on the sarcophagi and what they meant for those who made and visited them (also controversial).  Instead, we are going to look at the three basic types of second- and third-century sarcophagi, which correspond to the three main centers of their production in Rome, Greece, and Asia Minor.  The next time you see a sarcophagus from that period, you should be able to make an educated guess about its place of manufacture.

Marble sarcophagi of the second and third centuries were generally made from a single piece of marble.  And of course they had a lid.

First, the Western (Italian) type.  On Western sarcophagi only the front and short ends were carved (usually in lower relief than the front).  The back was left plain, because it was generally meant to be set against the wall of a tomb.  The lid usually had a front rising above the lid, which sloped back to the rear or was flat.  This front was decorated and often included a panel with an inscription.   There was often a mask at either end of the front.  Shown to the right is a sarcophagus carved in Rome c. 190, showing the triumphal march of Bacchus through India, representing the triumph of the deceased over death.  Note the decorated front and the masks at each end.

Second, the Attic (mainland Greek) type—made in Athens or elsewhere in mainland Greece.  The Attic type was carved on all four sides in a continuous frieze and in equally high relief, because it was not intended to be set against a wall.  Its lid was usually in the form of a gabled roof.  A sub-type features a lid in the shape of a funerary couch (kline), with a reclining effigy of the deceased on top (recalling the older Etruscan sarcophagi).  This sub-type is known as a kline sarcophagus.  Shown to the left is an Attic kline sarcophagus dating to c. 180: a married couple reclines on a lid in the form of a couch, and the frieze shows Greeks fighting Amazons.

Third, the Asiatic type.  This type resembles the Attic, except that the decorative carving on its sides does not form a continuous frieze but is divided into frames by columns.  Sometimes the figures seem to be standing in their own niches.  Asiatic sarcophagi were usually large, ornate, and in high relief.  Shown to the right is an Asiatic kline sarcophagus dating to c. 170.  The deceased woman reclines above gods and heroes in architectural frames.

Hermes & the Infant Dionysus

Hermes & the Infant Dionysus is often attributed to Praxiteles, who was a famous sculptor who worked during the 4th century B.C. It is made from Parian marble. This sculpture was found in the ruins of the Temple of Hera in Olympia, Greece.

It has a natural contrapposto, which is an Italian term for the stance in which most of the figure's weight is on one leg, its hips are twisted, and its shoulders are leaning the opposite way. It is a common stance for sculptures in the Late Greek Classical period in the 4th century B.C.

In this sculpture, Hermes is the larger than life-size figure with the contrapposto, and he his depicted holding Dionysus when he was a baby.

Even though the left arm is broken off, many suspect that he was once holding a bunch of grapes in his hand since Dionysus is the god of wine. Dionysus' arm is also broken, but it is assumed that he was reaching out for the grapes.

Tomb of Eurysaces

In a previous post on the pyramidal Tomb of Cestius, we had occasion to note that tombs could take a great variety of forms.  The Tomb of Eurysaces, built c. 20 BC, is another case in point.  Like Cestius’ tomb, it seems to have been built to attract attention.  Located just outside Rome at the intersection of two roads, the Via Labicana and the Via Praenestina, it was hard to miss.  Later it was somewhat easier to miss, dwarfed as it was by the grandiose double gateway built by Claudius c. AD 50, known today as the Porta Maggiore.

The tomb had a number of unusual features.  It had a trapezoidal footprint to fit into the angle between the roads.  Its profile was odd, too.  On a high base and within two wide corner pillars stood pairs of cylinders separated by a narrow central post.  Dividing this lower register was a horizontal member bearing an inscription.  Above it was the upper register, with three rows of large circular cavities framed by wide pilasters.  Above that, below the cornice, a frieze.  Then a roof of some sort.

The monument was made of concrete faced with travertine.  The eastern faςade has not been preserved, but a full-length marble portrait of a couple found nearby is thought to belong to the tomb.  A reconstruction is shown to the right.  Below the relief of the couple is an epitaph of Atistia, Eurysaces’ wife: “Atistia was my wife.  She was a wonderful woman, and the remains of her body are in this breadbasket."

The tomb becomes a bit less puzzling when one reads the other inscriptions and looks at the frieze.  “This is the tomb of Marcus Vergilius Eurysaces, baker, contractor—it’s obvious (apparet)!”  Why was it obvious?  For one thing, the frieze makes it clear that Eurysaces was running a large baking operation: it shows in detail the whole process: workers are depicted milling grain, sifting flour, mixing and kneading dough, forming loaves, putting the loaves into the oven, stacking the baked loaves in baskets, and weighing them in the presence of state officials.  And the cylinders in the lower register?  Kneading machines.  And the large round cavities in upper register?  Again, kneading machines, this time lying on their side, so that one could see the wooden paddles mounted on metal shafts (traces of rust in square holes attest to the presence of the metal mounts—we have evidence for such machines from Pompeii).  So Eurysaces created a monument that incorporated the tools of his trade and celebrated his success as the head of a major baking enterprise.  He calls himself a redemptor—a contractor—and this must mean that he was somehow working for the state, perhaps in connection with the annona or grain dole (i.e., distributions of food to the Roman people), or in connection with the Roman army.

Finally, a couple of caveats.  A good number of controversies surround this monument.  What was Eurysaces’ place in the social hierarchy?  Was he an ex-slave, as many contend?  Should his tomb be understood as an example of “freedman’s art?”  Lauren Hackforth Petersen questions that long-standing assumption and argues against the elite/subelite dichotomy in art history generally.  For her, Eurysaces  presents himself first and foremost as “a baker who fed Rome and as a Roman citizen himself.”  See Lauren Hackworth Petersen, “The Baker, His Tomb, His Wife, and Her Breadbasket: The Monument of Eurysaces in Rome,” The Art Bulletin 85/2 (2003) 230-257.  Another point: not everyone agrees that “apparet” in the central inscription means “It’s obvious.”  But if it does, we may begin to see Eurysaces as a bit of a jokester.  When he says that Atistia’s remains are in “this breadbasket,” the breadbasket (panarium) could refer to an urn in the shape of a panarium, or it could be a witty reference to the whole tomb.  Indeed, the whole monument has been seen as an architectural witticism.

Achilles and Penthesilea

On this black-figure Athenian amphora dating to c. 540-530 BC is depicted an episode from the Trojan War: Achilles killing Penthesilea, the queen of the Amazons who came to aid of the Trojans in their great war against the Greeks.  The figures are identified by inscriptions.  But what if there were no inscriptions?  Then we would have to look closely at the figures for distinguishing features, attributes.  The female figure is armed and wears a leopard skin—clues that she is an Amazon.  But what would allow us to guess that the undistinctive male warrior is Achilles?  And that the Amazon is Penthesilea?  The telling detail.  There was a tradition according to which—as preposterous as it may seem—Achilles and Penthesilea looked into each other’s eyes and fell in love at the very moment when he plunged his weapon into her chest!

Consider this rendition of the same scene on this Attic red-figure kylix dating to c. 470-460 BC.  The figures are usually identified as Achilles and Penthesilea because they are looking into each other’s eyes—the telling, identifying detail.  Note that there are no inscriptions to help the viewer this time.  Their absence means that the Greeks didn’t need them, either.

Peplos Kore

This is the Peplos Kore from the Greek Archaic period. The clues that let you know it's Archaic are the patterned hair in an elaborate hairstyle that looks similar to braids, the essential Archaic smile that appears on sculptures throughout the 6th and 7th centuries B.C., and the stiff stance with one foot in front of the other to suggest walking.

The Archaic period was the first period of sculpture that seemed to introduce realism. The details in the hair, the emotion in the smile, and the movement from the suggested walking all represent a form of realism that had never appeared in sculpture for the Greeks prior to this period. This is known as the Attic style which emerged during the Archaic period.

The kore is the feminine form of a kouros, and it differs because all females are clothed whereas most males are standing nude. The garment that the kore typically wears is called a chiton, a lightweight, single-piece garment, usually of linen, with buttoned sleeves and belted.  The chiton was was worn by both men and women at the time.  This kore is called the Peplos Kore because over her chiton she is wearing a peplos (a sleeveless single-piece garment, usually of wool, fixed at the shoulders with pins and belted).

The Peplos Kore was dedicated to the goddess Athena on the Acropolis at Athens in circa 530 B.C. It is made from marble and is slightly under life-size. This particular kore has small traces of blue paint pigments on parts of the garments it is wearing, and that tells us that at one point the entire sculpture was painted. Several modern replicas have been made with suggestions as to what the painted details may have looked like.

The Chigi Vase

The end of the 8^th century (ca. 700 BC) saw a change that has been called the “Orientalizing Revolution”: material prosperity led to population growth, which led to trading and colonization, which led to a new openness to influences from other cultures (especially those to the east of Greece), which led to borrowing and emulation in the arts.  The great pioneer in this revolution was not Athens, but Corinth, which became the center of pottery production.  The Corinthians used motifs borrowed from the Near East; they invented the black-figure technique, characterized by the use of dark figures against a light background.  The figures are painted in a slip (a mixture of refined clay and water) and details are incised, that is, carved into the clay with a very sharp instrument.  Red, yellow, and white paint are used for other details.  Shown here is a Protocorinthian olpe or wine jug, the Chigi vase.

There are three registers.  In the lowest we see men, dogs, and hares; in the middle register, a procession and a lion hunt on one side, and a myth, the Judgment of Paris, on the other; in the upper register, armed warriors, led by a pipes-player, meeting in battle.  The warriors are heavily armed footsoldiers (hoplites).  They wear crested helmets with cheek plates, bronze cuirasses (breastplates), and greaves (shin guards).  They carry spears and emblazoned shields. 

This vase is justly famous for its technical virtuosity.  But historians regard it as the earliest evidence for hoplite warfare.  “Each side forms a hoplite phalanx, pure and unadulterated; every article of hoplite equipment is plainly represented and nothing alien to it, and the tactics—hand-to-hand fighting with the spear—are purely hoplite. Of the ranks on the point of engaging each man holds his spear above his head, nearly horizontal but with a slight downward tilt, poised ready, not for a throw, but for a thrust at the exposed throat of an opponent” (H. L. Lorimer, “The Hoplite Phalanx,” The Annual of the British School at Athens, 42 (1947) 82-83).  Oswyn Murray once called it "the most successful portrayal of hoplite tactics which has survived" (Early Greece [1980] 125).

Alexander the Great Confronts Darius III at Issus

This is a tile mosaic of Alexander the Great in battle with Darius III of Persia. Alexander is able to defeat Darius' army and even attempts to capture Darius at the Battle of Issus. The Roman floor mosaic dates from approximately 100 B.C., but it is believed to be a Roman copy of a painting from the Hellenistic period in the third century B.C. It was discovered among the ruins at Pompeii.


The mosaic is made from millions of tiny colored mosaic tiles known as tesserae. Even though this mosaic is damaged, it is easy to make out the two figures. Off to the very left of the mosaic, you can see a portrait of Alexander on horseback participating in battle. Upon Alexander's breast plate is a depiction of Medusa. The tallest figure towards the center of the mosaic is Darius in his chariot wearing his helmet.

It is simply a scene from the middle of the heat of this feisty battle that includes all the details of the armor, the men, and the horses*. This is uncommon for a work of art for a private residence. The patron of this mosaic was probably someone of the upper class living in Pompeii.

*A.P. Art History teacher Dr. Michael Bieze said referring the to horse in the center, "That's the best horse's rear in art history."

The Abduction of Helen

This Attic red-figure skyphos (two-handled drinking cup) from Suessula in southern Italy is one of the earliest certain depictions of the abduction of Helen by Paris.  Its date is c. 480.  The vase is signed by Makron as painter and Hieron as potter.  Paris, preceded by Aeneas, grasps Helen by the wrist and leads her away.  Peitho, the goddess of persuasion, crowns Helen with the encouragement of Aphrodite.  The small winged figure between Paris and Helen is Eros.  All the figures are identified with inscriptions. 

A note on Eros.  On Greek vases Eros or Erotes (plural) can appear with, say, Atalanta, or at the Judgment of Paris, or, as here, with Paris and Helen—all stories in which he has a powerful impact as the personification of love.  At first he is depicted as a wingless boy.  Later, from about 500 BC, he is shown with wings (often as a tiny, adult-like figure, aka homunculus), as on Makron’s vase.  He becomes quite popular, especially on red-figure vases, where he pursues other figures (sometimes with a whip) or carries a hare, which is the token of love, or a torch.  It is not until the 4^th century that he is regularly shown with a bow and becomes the chubby kid that we recognize from the Roman tradition (in which he becomes Cupid or Amor).

Temple of Apollo at Corinth

This Doric temple was built around the middle of the sixth century BC at Corinth.  It is largely destroyed and only seven of its columns are now standing, but it is possible to restore its plan (see the drawing) with some certainty.  The columns are of limestone and they are monolithic (they were carved from a single block, then covered with marble stucco).  The temple is peristyle (with a colonnade surrounding the whole building).  And it is hexastyle (with 6 columns on the eastern and western faςades), with 15 columns per side, for a total of 38 columns in all.  Approaching it from the east, one entered the front porch or pronaos by passing two columns in antis, i.e., positioned between the antae (an anta was the broadened end of a wall).  From there one entered the main cella (the room where the cult statue was placed), which had two rows of four interior columns each to support the ceiling.  From the west side one entered the back porch or opisthodomos, again passing two columns in antis, and from there went into a second, smaller cella with four supporting columns.  Why two cellae?  This is a puzzle.  Dörpfeld, the first excavator, thought that he was looking at a double temple in which two different gods were worshipped.  But Pausanias, who wrote a Description of Greece in the second century AD, says that the structure was sacred to only one god—Apollo.

The temple shows some refinements that anticipate those found in later buildings such as the Parthenon.  First, the monolithic limestone columns (they were carved from a single block, then covered with marble stucco) have a slight cigar-like swelling known as entasis.  Second, the stylobate (the course of masonry on which the columns stand) is slightly curved.  Third, the corner columns are inclined inward—again, only slightly.  And again, the reason for all these refinements is to defeat optical illusions that result from the human eye’s misperception of perfectly straight lines.  For example, the human eye tends to perceive a straight columnar line as concave, so making that line slightly convex (entasis) corrects that false perception.

These refinements are all the more remarkable because they made the work of designer and mason much more complicated.  Heliodorus of Larisa, writing in the first century AD, explained: “The aim of the architect is to give his work a semblance of being well-proportioned and to devise means of protection against optical illusions so far as possible, with the objective, not of factual, but of apparent equality of measurements and proportion.”

“Tiberius Cup” from Boscoreale

This is a silver scyphus (a two-handled drinking cup), one of a pair discovered in a villa at Boscoreale (near Pompeii, and so also buried by Vesuvius in AD 79) and bearing historical reliefs from the Julio-Claudian age.  The two cups are thought to be small-scale copies of reliefs from some major monument that has not survived.  They each have two panels and it has been argued that together the four panels form a sequence.  Here we are looking at one panel on the cup known as the “Tiberius Cup.”  It shows the future emperor riding in a triumphal quadriga (four-horse chariot).  Dressed in a toga, he holds a laurel branch and a scepter with an eagle—Jupiter’s bird—at its tip.  Behind him, a slave is placing a victory wreath over his head.  It is tempting to imagine the slave whispering into Tiberius’ ear to remind him that he is only a mortal, not a god…  (This element of the triumphal procession has recently been challenged as fanciful by Mary Beard in her book The Roman Triumph (2007) 85-92.)  A later stage of the same event is shown on the other side of the cup.  There Tiberius is shown presiding over the sacrifice of a bull in front of the Temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline hill, where the triumphal parade ended.  The triumph to which this cup refers may be that one that Tiberius celebrated in 7 BC after his German campaigns, or else the one he celebrated in AD 12 after his subjection of Illyria.

Achilles & Ajax Playing a Game

Exekias was a famous potter and vase painter. Not only did he mold several vases, but he also painted them and even included inscriptions. This vase is a black-figure amphora by Exekias. An amphora

was typically used for storing and transporting oils and wine. You can tell that it's black-figure ware

because the background is a red/orange color, and the figures are black. This style was popular on vases during the Archaic period. The figures are the Trojan War heroes Achilles and Ajax.  They are playing a game, probably dice. This vase dates to around 540-530 B.C.

If you look closer at the figures, you'll notice that there are words near each of them. Exekias included these inscriptions almost to function as captions for the scene he depicted on the vase. He clearly labels Achilles on the left and Ajax on the right. Near each of their mouths, Exekias also included words that each character is saying. Achilles calls out tes[s]era which means "four," and Ajax calls out tria which means "three." They are each calling out the numbers on the dice.

Off to the left of the scene, Exekias proudly added  his signature, stating "Exekias made me." This was rarely if ever seen on vases before Exekias. On the right, he includes a kalos inscription, which dedicates his work to someone stating "... is beautiful."

This work is a breakthrough piece because it is one of the first paintings to include text functioning as a signature, captions, quotations, and dedications. 

Temple of Zeus at Olympia, Stymphalian Birds

Heracles’ 6th labor was to drive away the birds that lived in the thickly wooded shores of the Stymphalian Lake in northeastern Arcadia.  He made a lot of noise with a bronze noisemaker, and as the birds took flight, he shot them down with his arrows.  Or, in another version, he simply let them migrate to another spot.  The myth appears on Attic black-figure vases from the end of the sixth century, where Heracles is shown shooting the birds with his arrows, pelting them with his slingshot, or striking them with his club.

When the labors of Heracles were represented on one of the metopes of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia (c. 460 BC) a different, post-climactic “narrative moment” was chosen.  The birds have already been killed or driven away.  What we see is Heracles handing over several dead birds (which are missing from the metope) to Athena, who sits barefoot on a rock.  Why Athena?  She appears four times as his assistant on the metopes, and according to one tradition it was she who gave him the bronze noisemaker.  He has returned to her to show her that her bird-scarer did the trick.  A strong demand was placed upon the viewer of this metope, who had to infer all the actions leading up to the moment chosen for direct representation.  And this choice of narrative moment invited the viewer to contemplate consequences and emotional effects.  “His mood is calm, hers gentle,” says Pedley (Greek Art and Archaeology [2002] 217).  Her turning posture suggests that Heracles has surprised her from behind; she had been looking in the other direction, none too concerned for his welfare in this labor, one of his easiest.  The whole composition is notable for the demands it places upon the viewer.  Contrast the black-figure vase paintings, which depict the climactic moment: they are visually stunning, but they do not evoke the hero’s easy relationship with the goddess.

Pyramid of Cestius

It’s a tomb in the form of a pyramid, built around AD 15.  Why?  Because that’s what C. Cestius wanted.  And tombs offered lots of room for creativity: a tomb could take any form the builder wanted it to take.  The wealthy baker Eurysaces built a tomb in the shape of…well, nobody really knows what it was supposed to be.  More on Eurysaces’ tomb in a later post.  Others built tombs that looked likes houses or temples.  And Augustus chose to be buried in a huge tumulus—a burial mound covered with evergreen trees and a colossal bronze statue of himself.  But Cestius went for a pyramid.  There was a craze for all things Egyptian at the time—especially since Egypt was conquered by Octavian in 30 BC and then became the emperor’s personal province.  Had Cestius served in Egypt and seen firsthand pyramids large and small?  Perhaps.  The pyramid’s steep sides

recall the pyramid-tombs built for private individuals in Upper Egypt and in Nubia.  But what do we really know about Cestius?  Nothing, beyond the tomb’s inscription, which tells us that he had been a praetor, a tribunus plebis, and one of the epulones or ten state priests who organized public banquets in honor of Jupiter and other gods.  So he was a man of some distinction.  And it’s a fair guess that he wanted passers-by to notice his tomb.  He got his wish: they are still doing so today.

The tomb was located on the Via Ostiensis.  It was built of concrete faced with blocks of luna marble.  Inside was a barrel vault leading to a funerary chamber with wall paintings in the Third Style—which, curiously, bear no Egyptian motifs.  So much for the tomb of Cestius, which has been called “the most famous pyramid in Italy.”

Tondo Portrait of the Severan Family

In a previous post we looked at a dynastic portrait on a gem (the Gemma Claudia).  Here we have another dynastic portrait—not a relief carved in stone but a painting on wood (circular in shape, hence called a roundel or tondo).  The paint used was tempera, pigments mixed into egg yolk.  You may recall that some of the Fayum mummy portraits (see the previous post) were made with tempera on wood, although most were painted in encaustic.  And like the Fayum portraits, this tondo was made in Egypt.  What sets it apart is that its subject is the imperial family.  To date it is the only painted imperial portrait to have come down to us.  Unlike the Fayum portraits, its provenance is unknown.  We can only guess how it was displayed. 

Another contrast with the Julio-Claudian group portraits: this portrait is from a later age, that of the Severans.  The dynasty began with Septimius Severus (emperor from AD 193 to his death in 211), shown here with his wife Julia Domna and two sons Geta and Caracalla.  Geta is on the left, and his face has been erased in what was called a damnatio memoriae.  His brother Caracalla had Geta murdered and ordered that his memory be damned, that is, that all of his public images and inscriptions be destroyed.

We can see big changes in the iconography since the period of the Julio-Claudians.  You remember that the Gemma Claudia showed the imperial figures in profile.  Not so in the Severan tondo.  The figures are frontal, with larger-than-life eyes.  They wear the attributes of their elevated rank: scepters, diadems, fancy garments with gold borders.  Julia Domna wears a pearl necklace and pearl earrings.  We are far away from the iconography of the Julio-Claudians: the focus is on imperial majesty, not on the civic virtues that bring bounty to the empire.  Indeed, as Steven Tuck (A History of Roman Art [2015] 276) notes, “the elements of imperial portraiture that would become standard in the fourth century CE are already here at the beginning of the third.”

Gemma Claudia

This is a cameo—a relief carved out of stone with layers of different colors.  The stone used is sardonyx, an onyx that has parallel layers of sard.  The subject is a dynastic group portrait.  Portraits of family members had been shown in public during the Republic.  But from the time of Augustus dynastic groups appear regularly in the archaeological record—in statuary groups and on coins.  This cameo shows two couples facing each other.  Who are they?  Everyone agrees that the man on the left is Claudius—his facial features are distinctive.  We may suppose that the female figure behind him is his wife Agrippina the Younger.  As for the two to the right, there are various opinions.  One is that they are Germanicus (Claudius’ brother) and his wife Agrippina the Elder (the mother of Claudius’ wife Agrippina the Younger).  Another is that they are Tiberius and Livia (but they are son and daughter, not husband and wife).

The male portrait heads emerge out of cornucopiae, horns of plenty, which rest upon heaps of captured weapons.  Both Claudius and Germanicus wear the corona civica, the crown of oak leaves awarded to a Roman who had saved the life of a fellow Roman in battle (from the time of Augustus, this crown became part of the emperor’s iconography).  Between them, Jupiter’s eagle looks up at Claudius.  What does all this mean?  The empire is the fruit, as it were, of the military exploits of these men, the “saviors” of their fellow Romans and guarantors of their continuing prosperity.  And the eagle serves to confirm the emperor’s authority.

What about the women?  On the right, Agrippina the Elder wears a helmet encircled by a laurel wreath, the attribute of Dea Roma, the personification of the city of Rome.  Her daughter wears a crown in the form of a turreted wall, a veil, and a garland of ears of wheat: she may represent Oikoumene, the personification of the inhabited world.

There is room for different interpretations here, to be sure.  But the general import of this dynastic portrait is clear enough: through military action, and with the full approval of the gods, the imperial family maintains the welfare of Rome and the Roman world.  It should be compared with the other great gems that have come down to us from the Julio-Claudian period, the Gemma Augustea and the Grand Camée de France.  The Gemma Claudia is thought to have been a wedding gift to Claudius and Agrippina the Younger.