The Art of

GREECE and ROME

SECOND EDITION '

ik

neral
>rary
Boston Public Library
Boston, MA 02116
 THE ART OF
GREECE AND ROME
Second Edition

In The Art of Greece and Rome, Susan Woodford lucidly traces the
development of ancient art, capturing the excitement that inspired
artists whose works have influenced all later Western art.

The Greeks challenged time-honoured styles, experimented, cre-

ated problems and finally produced solutions considered classics ever
since. The Romans adapted Greek achievements, added a talent for
organisation on a large scale and soon produced impressive original

works themselves.
Time, war and the hand of man have destroyed countless cele-

brated creations. But study of surviving architecture, sculpture, paint-

ing and mosaics combined with evidence from ancient literature pro-
vides brilliant glimpses of 'the glory that was Greece and the grandeur

that was Rome'.

This edition includes a new chapter on art throughout the Roman
empire and an Appendix dealing with aspects of art historical method,
plus new illustrations and maps and an updated bibliography.

Dr Susan Woodford teaches Greek and Roman art for the University
of London and is engaged in research in the British Museum. She has
written extensively for learned journals and is the author of several
books, including The Parthenon, An Introduction to Greek Art, The
TrojanWar in Ancient Art, Images ofMyths in Classical Antiquity and
one book dealing with later art history, looking at Pictures.
 THE ART OF
GREECE AND ROME
Second Edition

Susan Woodford

CAMBRIDGE
UNIVERSITY PRESS
PUBLISHED BY THE PRESS SYNDICATE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge, United Kingdom

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 2ru, UK
40 West 20th Street, New York, ny 10011-4211, USA
477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, vie 3207, Australia
Ruiz de Alarcon 13, 28014 Madrid, Spain
Dock House, The Waterfront, Cape Town 8001, South Africa

http://www.cambridge.org

© Susan Woodford 1982, 2004

This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception

and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,

no reproduction of any part may take place without
the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 1982

Second edition 2004

Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge

Typefaces Trajan, Weiss, and Adobe Garamond 11. 25/13. 5 pt. System r5TpX2 £ [tb]

A catalogue recordfor this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Woodford, Susan
The Art of Greece and Rome / Susan Woodford. - 2nd ed.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

isbn 0-521-83280-2 - isbn 0-521-54037-2 (pb.)

1. Art, Classical. I. Title.

N5610.W6 2004
709'. 38 - dc22 2OO3069663

isbn o 521 83280 2 hardback

isbn o 521 54037 2 paperback
For eo
Lei

.-...
 CONTENTS

ListofIllustrations page xi
Acknowledgements xvii
Maps xix

Introduction i

PART I. THE ARCHAIC AND CLASSICAL

PERIODS: PROGRESS AND PROBLEMS 4

1 Free-Standing Statues 4
The Greeks 4
Greeks and Egyptians: style and technique 7
The perils of progress: archaic kouroi 650-490 bc 9
New medium, new style: bronze-casting
in the early 5th century bc 12

Greater boldness, more problems: early classical

statues 15

The classic solution: the Spear-bearer of Polykleitos 18

Style and taste: draped female figures 20

Trends and developments in archaic and
classical statuary 22

2 Greek Temples and Their Decoration 23

Four popular plans 23
Two basic elevations: the Doric and Ionic orders 24
Spaces and shapes to decorate 27
Pediments and their problems 27
Metopes: few but telling figures 32
Friezes: difficulties of design 35
The early and high classical styles contrasted 36

VII
CONTENTS

3 Painting and Painted Pottery 38

Painting on walls and panels 38
Painting on pottery: the beginning 39
How Greek pottery was used 41
New interests in the 7th century bc 42
Vividness in storytelling: the black-figure technique 44
The search for new effects: the red-figure technique 47
Advances in wall painting: Polygnotos 52
The illusion of space 54
Written sources of information on the arts 56

PART II. THE FOURTH CENTURY BC AND

THE HELLENISTIC PERIOD: INNOVATION
AND RENOVATION 59

4 Sculpture 59
The decline of the classical poleis and the rise of the
Hellenistic kingdoms 59
New trends in sculpture in the 4th century bc 61
The female nude: a new theme in Greek art 62
New problems in the Hellenistic period: figures in

space 64
Hellenistic variety: new subjects - foreigners and
groups 66
New drama in old compositions 68
Uses and abuses of the past 69
The Hellenistic contribution 71

5 Painting 72
Sources of information and their value 72
The 4th century bc and its legacy 72
Hellenistic achievements: new themes and
settings 76

6 Architecture and Planning 81

The house: new luxury in private life 81

The theatre: the actor becomes the principal 82

The sanctuary: unification of architectural complexes 85

VIII
 CONTENTS

PART III. THE ROMAN WORLD:

ADOPTION AND TRANSFORMATION
OF THE GREEK LEGACY 89

7 Roman Statues and Reliefs 89

The emergence of the Roman empire 89
Portraiture: specificity of person 90
Roman portraits and Greek forms 92
Historical reliefs: specificity of event 93
Reliefs for private individuals: sarcophagi 98

8 Roman Painting 101

Greek inspiration Roman painting
for 101
An example of a thoroughly Roman painting 102
Roman settings: the four Pompeian 'styles' 103

9 Roman Architecture: Adaptation and Evolution 109

Houses and temples: dwellings for men and gods 109
From theatre to amphitheatre 116
Imperial thermae; the 'palaces of the people' 119

10 World Rulers 123

World architecture for world rulers 123
Unity and diversity 126
Non-Roman ethnic traditions under Roman rule 130
Art outside the classical tradition 133

Epilogue 138

Appendix: How We Know What We Think

We Know 139
How Greek and Roman works of art and architecture
can be dated 139
How works can be attributed to artists known
from literature 141

How we think marble statues in complex poses may

have been made 141

How we think the Romans made copies (or variants)

of Greek statues 143

IX
CONTENTS

How we think the Romans used copies of Greek

paintings 144

Glossary 146
Further Reading 152
Index 155
 ILLUSTRATIONS

I Kouros, New York 6

2 Bakenref 6
3 King Meryankhre Mentuhotep VI 6
4 Diagram of stone carving 7
5 Analysis of patterns on the New York kouros 8

6 Anavyssos kouros, front 10

7 Anavyssos kouros, back 11

8 New York kouros, back 11

9 Aristodikos 11

IO Kritios boy 11

ii New York kouros, side 12

12 Aristodikos, side 12

13 Kritios boy, left side 12

14 Kritios boy, right side 12

15 Diagram of bronze-casting 13

16 Kritios boy, head 14

17 Zeus of Artemisium, head 14
18 Zeus of Artemisium, front 15

19 Zeus of Artemisium, side 16

20 Roman copy of Discus-thrower by Myron 17
21 Pompeian painting of a statue in a garden 17
22 Cartoon showing expectations aroused by the
Discus-thrower 17
*3 Diagram of the composition of the Discus-thrower 18

24 Discus-thrower, side 18

^5 Roman copy of the Spear-bearer by Polykleitos 19

26 Stele showing side view of the Spear-bearer 19

27 Spear-bearer, right side 20

28 Spear-bearer, left side 20
29 Goddess, Berlin 21

30 Kore, Acropolis Museum 21

3i Roman copy of a goddess 21

32 Roman copy of 'Venus Genetrix' 21

XI
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

33 Plan of a simple Greek temple with porch in front 23

34 Plan of a Greek temple with porches in front and back 23

35 Plan of a Greek temple with a peristyle 23

36 Plan of a Greek temple with a double peristyle 24
37 Plan of a typical Greek peripteral temple 24
38 Hephaisteion, Athens 25

39 The Doric order 26

40 The Ionic order 26
41 Base and bottom of the shaft of an Ionic column 27
42 Bottom of the shaft of a Doric column 27
43 Corinthian capital 27
44 Reconstruction drawing of the Corfu pediment 28

45 Reconstruction drawing of the east pediment at

Aegina 29
46 Reconstruction drawing of the east pediment of the
Temple of Zeus at Olympia 29
47 Drawing of the west pediment of the Parthenon 30, 31

48 Cattle-stealing metope from the Treasury of the

Sicyonians 33

49 Atlas metope from the Temple of Zeus at Olympia 33

50 Bull metope from the Temple of Zeus at Olympia 34

51 Lapith and centaur, metope from the Parthenon 34
52 Lapith and centaur, metope on the Parthenon 35

53 Procession from the frieze of the Parthenon 36

54 Procession from the frieze of the Parthenon 36
55 River god from the east pediment of the Temple of
Zeus at Olympia 37
56 River god from the west pediment of the Parthenon 37
57 Perseusmetope from Thermon 38

58 Copy of painted wooden panel from Pitsa 39

59 Amphora showing mourners around a bier 40
60 Shapes of Greek vases 42, 43
61 Krater by Aristonothos 44
62 Black-figure krater handle by Kleitias showing Ajax
with the body of Achilles 45
63 Ajax with the body of Achilles without incision 46
64 Black-figure amphora by Exekias showing Ajax and
Achilles playing 47

XII
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

65 Black- figure amphora showing Ajax and Achilles

playing 48
66 Red-figure amphora showing Ajax and Achilles
playing 49
67 Red-figure amphora by Euthymides showing revellers 50
68 Red-figure hydria shoulder showing the fall of Troy 52, 53

69 Red-figure krater showing Orpheus 54

70 Red-figure krater showing the influence of Polygnotos 55

7i White-ground lekythos showing the influence of

Parrhasios 55
72 Roman copy of the Knidian Aphrodite by Praxiteles 62
73 Drawing by Raphael, copy of 'Leda' by Leonardo
da Vinci 63

74 Aphrodite of Capua 64
75 Dancing faun 65
76 Dancing faun, drawing showing the twist of the body 65

77 Gaul killing his wife and himself 67

78 Zeus and Athena fighting giants, Pergamon altar 68, 69
79 Aphrodite from Melos 70
80 Orestes and Electra 71
81 Alexander mosaic 74
82 Pluto abducting Persephone, Macedonian
royal tombs 75
83 Mosaic showing a scene from a comedy 77
84 Mosaic showing doves drinking 77
85 Roman wall painting from Boscoreale 79
86 Roman wall painting showing scenes from the
Odyssey 79
87 Plans of Greek houses from the classical and
Hellenistic periods 82
The theatre at Epidauros 83

89 Reconstruction drawing of the theatre at Priene 84

90 Reconstruction drawing of the sanctuary of Asclepius
on Kos 85
9i Reconstruction drawing of the acropolis at Athens 86
92 Reconstruction drawing of the Sanctuary of Fortuna
at Praeneste 87
93 Augustus from Prima Porta 91

XIII
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

94 Titus 92
95 Sabina as Venus 92
96 Commodus as Hercules 93
97 Procession from the Ara Pacis frieze 94
98 Procession from the Parthenon frieze 94
99 Spoils from Jerusalem, Arch of Titus 95
100 Siege scene,Column of Trajan 96
101 Victory writing on a shield, Column of Trajan 97
102 Massacre, Column of Marcus Aurelius 97
103 Achilles and Penthesilea, sarcophagus 99
104 Perseus and Andromeda, Roman wall painting 101

105 Perseus and Andromeda, Roman wall painting 101

106 Riot in the amphitheatre, Roman wall painting 102

107 Second Style room from Boscoreale, Roman
wall painting 104
108 Villa of the Mysteries, Roman wall painting 104
109 Third Style wall from Boscotrecase, Roman wall
painting 106
no Detail of 109 106
in Fourth Style room from the House of the Vettii,

Roman wall paintings 106

112 Fourth Style room from the House of the Vettii,

Roman wall paintings 107

113 Fourth Style decoration from Herculaneum, Roman
wall painting 108
114 Plan of a Roman atrium house 109
115 Plan of a Roman atrium house with peristyle 109
116 View of the House of the Menander no
117 Reconstruction drawing of an Etruscan-early Roman
type of temple ill

118 Maison Carree, three-quarter view 112

119 Plan of the Maison Carree 112

120 Maison Carree, front view 113

121 The Pantheon, interior 114

122 Theatre of Marcellus, model 116

123 Theatre at Orange, interior 117

124 Roman coin showing the Colosseum 117
125 Colosseum, exterior 118

xrv
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

126 Drawing of Colosseum without the veneer of orders 119

127 Plan of the Baths of Caracalla 120

128 Reconstruction drawing of the frigidarium of the
Baths of Caracalla 121

129 Roman aqueduct, Segovia 122

130 Theatre at Aspendos, interior 123

131 Amphitheatre at El Djem (Thysdrus), exterior 124

132 Plan of the Imperial Baths at Trier 125

133 Mosaic showing the discovery of Achilles, Pompeii 127

134 Mosaic showing the discovery of Achilles, Tunisia 128

135 Mosaic showing the discovery of Achilles, Zeugma 129

136 Egyptian mummy portrait 130

137 Sardis menorah (and reconstruction) 131

138 Grave stone of Philus from Cirencester

(and drawing) 132, 133

139 Battle scene from Adamklissi (and drawing) 134, 135

140 Trumpeters from Adamklissi (and drawing) 136, 137

141 Diagram of carving a statue from a model 142, 143

xv
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

For permission to reproduce illustrations, the author and the pub-

lisher wish to thank the institutions mentioned in the captions. The
following are also gratefully acknowledged:

12, 13, 14, 18, 19, 21, 24, 26, 27, 28, 41, 42, 58, 129, 130, 139, 140 Susan
Woodford; 3, 51, 52, 53, 54, 56, 136 reproduced by courtesy of the
Trustees of the British Museum; 4, 15, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 39, 40, 114,
115, 119, 126 drawn by Susan Bird, courtesy of the British Museum;
6, 9, 10, 29, 30, 48, 49, 50, 55, 71, 88, 98 Alison Frantz; 16, 38, 59,

44, 46, 62, 68, 70 Hirmer Fotoarchiv; 20, 25, 31, 32, 75, 77, 79,

93, 94, 96, 97, 99, 100, 103, 112, 122, 125 The Mansell Collection;
22 The Strange World of Mr. Mum by Phillips: copyright Hall
Syndicate: Courtesy of Field Newspaper Syndicate; 43 Deutsches
Archaeologisches Institut, Athens; 60 from G. M. A. Richter and
L. F. Hall, Attic Red-Figured Vases (Yale University Press 1958); 65,
66 Photograph copyright 2003 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; 81,

83, 84, 104, in, 113 Fotografie della Societa Scala, Florence; 67 C.
H. Kriiger-Moessner; 73 reproduced by gracious permission of Her
Majesty Queen Elizabeth II; 74, 101, 102, 133 Deutsches Archae-
ologisches Institut, Rome; j6 Brian Lewis; 82 The Archaeological
Society at Athens; 87a Professor J. Travlos; 87c from W. B. Dins-
moor, The Architecture of Ancient Greece (Batsford 1953); 89 from
M. Schede Ruinen von Priene (Berlin 1934); 91 by Gorham Stevens,
courtesy of Agora Excavations, American School of Classical Stud-
ies, Athens; 92 from H. Kahler, Das Fortunaheiligtum von Palestrina
Praeneste (Saarbrucken 1958); 95 Leonard von Matt; 105 Editions
d'Art Albert Skira; 106 Werner Forman Archive; 116 (F.U. 13040F);

124, 128 (F.U.4267 F) Fototeca Unione, American Academy in

Rome; 117 Professor Frank Brown from Memoirs of the Ameri-
can Academy in Rome, 26 (i960); 118, 120 Copyright Arch. Phot.
Paris/SPADEM; from G. M. A. Richter, Kouroi, i960; 57 from
7, 8

G. M. A. Richter Greek Art The Phaidon Picture Archive; 90 from

J. Durm, Handbuch der
Architektur (Leipzig 1910); 131 Roger

XVII
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Wood/CORBIS; 134 from Katherine M. D. Dunbabin The Mo-

saics of Roman North Africa (Oxford University Press 1978);

135 A Turizm Yayinlari, Istanbul; 137 Archaeological Exploration of

Sardis/Harvard University; 138 Copyright Gloucester City Museum
and Art Gallery; 127, 132, 138-40, 141, Maps 2, 3 Susan Bird;Map 1
Susan Bird (after Susan Woodford An Introduction to Greek Art
Duckworth and Cornell University Press 1986); 64 Musei Vaticani.

XVIII
 MAPS

MEDITERRANEAN SEA

Map i: Greece and the

West Coast of Asia Minor.

XIX
MAPS

Map 2: The Hellenistic

World.

XX
 MAPS

500 miles
=1

Map 3: The Roman

Empire.

XXI
 NTRODUCTION

Helen, thy beauty is to me

Like those Nicean barks of yore,
That gently o'er a perfumed sea,

The weary, wayworn wanderer bore

To his own native shore.

On desperate seas long wont to roam,

Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,
Thy Naiad airs have brought me home
To the glory that was Greece
And the grandeur that was Rome.

Ode to Helen
Edgar Allan Poe

Poe's ode is addressed to the legendary beauty who, though mar-

ried to King Menelaos of Sparta, was carried off by the Trojan
prince, Paris. Menelaos thereupon summoned his allies and, hav-

ing assembled a mighty army under the command of his brother

Agamemnon, king of Mycenae, sailed to Troy and fought there for
ten years until the city was sacked and Helen was recovered. This is

a famous story and one that has often inspired poets, but its con-
nection with the glory of Greece and the grandeur of Rome may
not be immediately obvious.
The myth of Helen and the Trojan War seems to have had
historical roots in the period around 1250 bc. People speaking an
early form of Greek were then already living in Greece and had pro-
duced a flourishing civilisation that we call Mycenaean, naming it

after the richest and most powerful of its centres. By the end of the
12th century bc, for reasons that are still obscure, this civilisation
lay in ruins. Populous sites had become deserted, trade had ceased,
skills were lost and crafts declined. A once wealthy civilisation had
NTRODUCTION

become poor, a literate one illiterate. Meanwhile, new tribes of

Greek-speaking people, the Dorians, began to move into Greece,
and some of the earlier ones migrated eastward to the islands of the
Aegean and the west coast of Asia Minor (Map i). Hardly more
than a memory survived of the desolation that followed the col-
lapse of Mycenaean civilisation, but out of that memory legends
were shaped, tales told and new poems created.
By the 8th century bc, the ///Wand the Odyssey had been com-
posed. These two Homeric epics developed the story of the Trojan
War and made it something essential for all later cultural develop-

ments. These poems were among the earliest manifestations of a

new civilisation, the Hellenic, which had arisen out of the ashes of
the old; the people who produced this civilisation, the successors

of the Mycenaeans, were the ones who created 'the glory that was
Greece'. Throughout their history they greatly valued the poetry of
Homer; children learned his works by heart, and adults used them
as models of behaviour.
In the four centuries from the time of Homer to that of
Alexander the Great (356-323 bc), the Greeks evolved a culture that
was to be immensely influential throughout the Western World.
The conquests of Alexander carried Greek ideas to people far be-
yond the traditional centres in which Greeks had lived (Map 2).

Such geographical extension drastically modified the character of

Greek civilisation, and so this later phase is called Hellenistic rather

than Hellenic. From the 3rd to the 1st century bc, Hellenistic cul-
ture was admired and imitated from the western borders of India
to the southern slopes of the Alps.

The 'grandeur that was Rome' came into being rather differ-
ently. Rome was founded in the 8th century bc, a small settle-
ment on the banks of the Tiber with no memories of a glorious
past. As the city grew in power, the Romans encountered more
civilised peoples and began to take an interest in art and literature,

which hitherto had been of little importance to them. At first the

Romans learned from the neighbouring Etruscans (who were mas-
ters of Rome for a time and left a lasting imprint on Roman religion
and attitudes), but from the 3rd century bc they turned increasingly
to the Hellenistic Greeks for instruction and inspiration. By adapt-
ing elements of Hellenistic culture and combining them with their
 INTRODUCTION

own well-developed organisational and military skills, the Romans

were able to produce a magnificent culture of their own.
By the time Rome had reached its zenith, Greece had become
a mere Roman province. But even then the myth of Helen and
the Trojan War continued to play a vital part in Greek culture.
The Romans, when they began to appreciate Greek values, sought
to attach Greek legends to their own traditions by tracing their
descent from those very Trojans whom the Greeks, in their art and
literature, had depicted as noble and worthy adversaries.
The Roman empire gradually expanded, embracing virtually all

the territory that had once been part of the Hellenistic world and
many lands to the north and the west (Map 3). Roman values,
also

Roman building practices and Roman styles followed the Roman

armies, and though some native traditions persisted, most people
were attracted to the comfort and elegance that came with Roman
civilisation.

Eventually the Roman empire fell into decline. The cities and
sanctuaries of Greece, too, became little more than neglected ruins.

Nevertheless, the art of Greece and Rome, though much of what has
survived is only fragmentary, bears vivid testimony to the erstwhile
greatness of these two cultures. The object of this book is to re-
capture the feeling of the time when the art was created and to
explain its lasting power to enthral men's minds and captivate their

imaginations.
PART THE ARCHAIC AND CLASSICAL
I.

PERIODS: PROGRESS AND PROBLEMS

I: FREE-STANDING STATUES

THE GREEKS

The beginnings of Greek civilisation after the decline of the

Mycenaeans were not very glorious. By about iooo bc, people
speaking various Greek dialects were living around the Aegean Sea.
Principal among them were the Dorians, who lived mostly on main-
land Greece, and the Ionians, who populated many of the islands
and the west coast of Asia Minor (Map i). They gathered together
in small, widely separated communities, many of which eventu-
ally developed into poleis ('city-states', as they are often, somewhat
imprecisely, called; singular polls).
The earliest communities were poor, illiterate, and isolated from
one another as well as from the rest of the world. Slowly they began
to prosper and develop. By the middle of the 8th century bc, when
the Homeric poems were being composed, craftsmen could already
produce huge funerary monuments of pottery covered with precise
and elegant decoration (Fig. 59). Soon an increase in population
encouraged the now overcrowded Greeks to send out colonies, east
to the area around the Black Sea and west to Sicily and southern
Italy. The poleis eventually also began to trade more widely and
so came into contact with the peoples and the cultures of Egypt
and the Near East. These ancient, literate and brilliant civilisations,
with their rich and accomplished art forms, awed and astonished the
Greeks. Thoroughly impressed and eager to learn, many had by the
middle of the 7th century bc acquired the two skills which enabled
them to produce the literature and sculpture that later made them
famous: they learned how to write and how to carve stone.
Each polis was fiercely independent and each developed a char-
acter of its own. Corinth, on the isthmus, was rich and luxuri-

ous, a great trading centre; Sparta became renowned for its military
prowess; Argos produced a succession of outstanding bronze-casters;
Athens, an Ionian polis on the predominantly Dorian mainland, en-
couraged individual achievements and attracted gifted foreigners,
 FREE-STANDING STATUES

so that eventually the finest poetry, drama and art were created
there.

These independent poleis were linked by a shared language and a

common religion. At the famous panhellenic (all-Greek) sanctuaries
like Delphi and Olympia, the Greeks from different poleis would
congregate to hold competitions in athletics, poetry and music in
honour of the gods. Most of their other encounters were acrimo-
nious. The poleis were constantly at war with one another.
It took a great threat to unite them, even temporarily. That
threat came in the early 5th century bc with the Persian Wars. The
Persian empire had gradually absorbed the Greek poleis on the coast
of Asia Minor during the course of the 6th century bc. In 499 bc,
these poleis unsuccessfully rebelled against their Persian overlords
and drew Greek poleis from the mainland into their rebellion. The
Persians quelled the revolt and sent out a punitive mission. When,
in 490 bc, this came to grief on the plains of Marathon, defeated
primarily by the Athenian army, the Persian king resolved on a war
of total conquest.
The Greeks united to face the common enemy. The Athenians,
though their city was sacked, took to their ships and fought bravely
in the naval battle at Salamis in 480 bc, and the Spartans distin-

guished themselves in the final battle on Greek soil at Plataea in

479 bc. The great Persian invasion had been defeated.

Athens had been an important and cultured polis before the

Persian Wars, but it was after their conclusion that it reached its

height. The fifty or so years between the end of the Persian Wars
(479 bc) and the beginning of the Peloponnesian War (431 bc)

were for Athens a golden age of art, literature and political power. It

continued to produce great works right up to the end of the century,

but the Peloponnesian War, in which it and its empire fought against
the Spartans and their allies, eventually sapped most of its strength
and almost all of its creativity. Athens was defeated by the Spartans
in 404 bc, but the works it created during the 5th century bc were so
extraordinary in their beauty that they have been considered classics
ever since.
 ,

from left to right

i. Kouros, late 7th century

bc, height 184 cm,
Metropolitan Museum of
Art, New York, Fletcher Archaic is the name given to the period from about the middle of
Fund, 1032. the 7th century bc (around 650), when the Greeks were developing
techniques and ideas stimulated by contact with the older civilisa-
2. Bakenref (Egyptian)
tions of Egypt and the Near East, until the time of the Persian Wars
mid-7th century bc,
height 50 cm, courtesy
in the early part of the 5th century bc (490-479). Classical is the
Museum of Fine Arts, name given to the period from the Persian Wars till the end of the
Boston, William E. Peloponnesian War (404 bc).
Nickerson Fund.
The term classical'is commonly used in two further senses. It of-

ten simply denotes excellence, so that something is called 'a classic'

3. King Meryankhre
Mentuhotep VI (Egyptian), if it is an outstanding example of its type; or the term is used histori-
mid 17th century bc, cally, so that the Greek and Roman civilisations together are known
height 23 cm, British
collectively as 'classical antiquity' in order to distinguish them from
Museum, London.
the remoter antiquity of the civilisations of Egypt and the Near East.
In this book 'classical' is used restrictively to describe the artistic style

developed in the 5th century bc.

The archaic and classical periods were for the Greeks immensely
exciting times to live in; thinkers and practical men were constantly
discovering and inventing new things. It was also a critical time for
the development of art, as we shall see.

GREEKS AND EGYPTIANS: STYLE AND

TECHNIQUE

Sometime after the middle of the 7th century bc, the Greeks began
to carve large-scale figures of men out of marble (Fig. 1). They must
have been impressed by statues made in other hard stones that they
saw in Egypt, since the inspiration for the type of standing figure they
made clearly comes from Egypt (compare Fig. 1 with Figs. 2 and 3).

There was also something else, more important than inspiration,

which came from Egypt: technique.
Carving a life-size figure out of stone is not a simple matter,
and any unsystematic attempt quickly The Greeks
leads to disaster.
must have been aware of this, knew that the Egyp-
but they also
tians, many centuries earlier, had devised a method for carving stone
figures. The Egyptians would draw the outlines of the figures they
wanted on three (or four) faces of a stone block — front view on
the front, profile on the sides. Then they would chip away inwards
gradually from the front and the sides, removing more and more
stone until they reached the depth that corresponded to the figure
that had been drawn (Fig. 4). The drawings had to be made ac-

cording to a fixed scheme of proportions (for instance, one unit up

to the ankle, six units up to the knee and so on) so that when the
work was finished the front and side views would agree with one
another.
The Greeks adopted the Egyptian method of working and, to a
large extent, also the Egyptian system of proportions. That is why
early Greek statues look so much like Egyptian ones (Figs. 1-3).

The similarities in pose and technique are obvious; the differ-

ences in style and function are more subtle, but extremely impor-
tant. The Egyptian sculptor made a rather convincingly naturalistic
figure of a man; the Greek statue is more abstract. Evidently, the
4. Diagram showing the
Greeks believed that a statue of this kind should not only look like archaic Greek method of
a man but should also be a beautiful object in itself. They made stone carving.

it into a thing of beauty by imposing three elements of design on

THE ARCHAIC AND CLASSICAL PERIODS

the representation of the human form: symmetry, exact repetition

of shapes, and use of some shapes on different scales.

The Greek sculptor, like his Egyptian counterpart, appreciated

the natural symmetry of the human body with its pairs of eyes,
ears, arms and legs, and stressed the symmetry by keeping the figure
upright, facing straight forward, standing with its weight equally
distributed on its two legs. He avoided any pose containing twists,

turns or bends since these would have spoiled the symmetry.

Symmetry about a vertical axis was thus easily achieved. But
symmetry about a horizontal axis was quite another matter. The
human form, with a single head at one end and a pair of legs at
5. Kouros (same as Fig. 1). the other, must have seemed unpromising material to organise in
Analysis of the sculptor's
this way. Nevertheless, the Greek artist dealt with the problem by
efforts at pattern making.
inventing his own, rather limited, horizontal axes. He imagined a
horizontal axis running across the body at the level of the navel and
then produced a symmetrical design on either side of it (Fig. 5, red)
- the upright V of the heavily accented muscle separating the torso
from the legs and the balancing inverted V of the lower boundary of
the thorax. He imagined another horizontal line midway between
the collar-bones and the pectoral muscles. He then balanced the
shallow W of the pectorals below it with the inverted shallow W
of the collar-bones above (Fig. 5, blue). (The symmetry is easier to

perceive if you turn the book sideways.)

The sculptor repeated certain shapes exactly, in order to produce
a decorative pattern. He made the line of the eyebrows follow the
line of the upper lids (Fig. 5, brown) and composed the hair of
bead-like knobs, each of which is the same as its neighbours (Fig. 5,

brown). This is particularly effective from the back, where the play
of light and shadow on the richly carved hair contrasts with the
smooth surface of the body (Fig. 8).

Use of the same shape on different scales is a third aesthetic

device employed by the sculptor. Notice how the shallow W of the
pectorals is echoed on a smaller scale in the shallow Ws over the
knee-caps (Fig. 5, yellow) and how the protruding V of the torso-
leg division is echoed in the smaller, recessed Vs of the elbows (Fig.

5, green).
A great deal of thought about design has obviously gone into
the making of a figure that at first glance might appear rather more
 FREE-STANDING STATUES

primitive than a contemporary Egyptian statue (Fig. 2). The Greek

sculptor has sacrificed the smooth naturalism of his Egyptian model

for the sake of creating a more aesthetically satisfying work. Greek
artists were always concerned with striking a balance between beauti-
ful designs and natural appearances, though sometimes the balance
was tipped toward the abstract and formal, as here, and at other
times toward the convincingly real.

The Greek statue we have been looking at (Fig. 1) was made near
the end of the 7th century bc. It is one of the earliest examples of
a type made throughout the archaic period (from about 650 to 490
bc). This type of statue - a nude male figure standing facing front
with the weight evenly distributed on both legs - is called a kouros
(plural: kouroi), meaning 'young man.

THE PERILS OF PROGRESS: ARCHAIC KOUROI

650-490 bc

The Greeks made kouroi to serve one of three functions. A kouros

could be the representation of a god; it could serve as a beautiful

object offered as a dedication to a god; or it could be a memorial

of a man, sometimes placed upon his tomb. There was nothing in
any of these three functions that dictated the form of the statue and
nothing to prevent artists from changing that form as they saw fit.

This was very different from the practice in Egypt, where statues
were often carved to serve a quasi-magical function, for instance,
to be available as alternative homes for the ka (the spirit of a man)
should his mummified body be accidentally destroyed. Magic is by
its nature conservative and resistant to change. That is one of the
reasons why a statue made around the middle of the 7th century
bc in Egypt (Fig. 2) looks so much like a statue made more than a
thousand years earlier (Fig. 3) around 1650 bc.
Change for its own sake, or progress', seems to us the natural or-
der of things, but in antiquity it seemed daring, usually undesirable
and often downright dangerous. Exact repetition of a model as-
sured the sculptor of the successful outcome of his work. Changing
even one element could lead to unlooked-for and often unfortunate
consequences.
 The Greeks, who were adventurous and willing to take risks,

found all this out for themselves.

There were, of course, technical limitations on how much they
could change at any one time, since the marble still had to be cut
from the block in the same way, and any statue had to be designed
so that it would not fall over or break. Within these limits, however,
Greek sculptors started to make changes and to produce, little by
little, increasingly naturalistic kouroi.
Within a hundred years, the kouros found at Anavyssos (near
Athens) had been created (Fig. 6). This grave marker is a splendid
figure, full of vibrant life, and shows a tremendous advance in the
direction of naturalism. It is even more natural in appearance than
the Egyptian statues (Figs. 2 and 3).

But the new realism of the Anavyssos kouros proved a mixed

blessing. It was achieved by modifying the proportions of the figure

and giving a more rounded treatment to the lines that had simply
been engraved into the surface before. However, the hair - always
difficult to render convincingly in stone - is carved not very differ-
ently from the hair of the early kouros. Here is a good example of the
6. Kouros from Anavyssos, sort of problem that emerges once artists start making changes. The
c. 530 bc, height 194 cm,
stylised, decorative, bead-like hair looked appropriate on the early
National Archaeological
Museum, Athens. kouros (Fig. 8) because it fitted in with the whole stylised decorative
character of the statue. Not so on the later kouros (Fig. 7). There
the swelling, natural forms of the body clash with the artificial, stiff,

bead-like hair.
This clash of styles was not one that could be foreseen by the
sculptor. It simply emerged when he altered some of the traditional

elements. How such unanticipated problems could take a sculptor

by surprise can be seen from a third kouros (Fig. 9) made around
500 bc, that is, about a generation later than the statue in Figure 6.

The statue representing Aristodikos - it also served as a grave

marker - is still more naturalistic. It is so natural that it almost

makes the Anavyssos kouros (Fig. 6) look like an inflated bal-
loon by contrast. The problem with the hair has been solved by
a new fashion; the hair is tied up in plaits (or braids) wound round
the head rather than flowing loose down the back. And yet, de-
spite the convincing anatomical forms — or perhaps just because of
them - there seems something wrong with the statue of Aristodikos.

10
 from left to right

7. Kouros from Anavyssos

(same as Fig. 6), back.

Why, one wonders, does he stand so unnaturally? Why is he so

8. Kouros (same as Fig. 1),
stiff?
back.
The pose is, of course, merely the consequence of the Greeks'
having learned how to make statues from the Egyptians; this was the 9. Kouros (Aristodikos), c.

500 bc, height 195 cm,

pose that the drawings on the block produced. The outlines used
National Archaeological
for this latest of the kouroi were not basically different from those
Museum, Athens.
used for the earliest (Figs, i, 6 and 9 for front views, Figs. 7 and
8 for back views, and Figs. 11 and 12 for side views). In the earlier 10. Kritios boy, c. 480 bc,
height 86 cm, Acropolis
kouroi, the pose presented no problem; it is only when the figure
Museum, Athens.
has otherwise become so natural that we begin to question it. A gain
in one direction entailed a loss in another.
The pattern that we recognise when we look at the three kouroi -
change, emergence of a problem, solution of that problem and emer-
gence of another — is a fundamental one for the whole development
of Greek art. And the failures are as important to notice as the
successes if we are to appreciate the daring of the Greek artists.
They could have endlessly repeated the same proven formulae, as
the Egyptians did, and run no risks; but their restlessness and sense
of adventure spurred them on from one problem to another. Each
problem led to a solution on a higher level of complexity until fi-

nally the Greeks produced solutions that carried such conviction

that they left an impression on all later western art and eventually
reached the far corners of the world.

II
from left to right

ii. Kouros (same as Fig. i),

side.
NEW MEDIUM, NEW BRONZE-CASTING STYLE:
IN THE EARLY 5TH CENTURY bc
12. Kouros (Aristodikos)
(same as Fig. 9), side.

The new problem emerging from the accomplished naturalism of

13. Kritios boy (same as the Aristodikos, the last of the kouroi (Fig. 9), namely, that the pose
Fig. 10), left side.
began to look stiff and rigid, could be solved in only one way: by
changing the pose. The sculptor of the statue called the 'Kritios boy'
14. Kritios boy (same as

Fig. 10), right side. (Fig. 10), made shortly before the Persian sack of Athens in 480 bc,
has done j ust that. Instead of looking straight ahead, the boy turns his
head slightly. Instead of standing evenly on both legs, he has shifted
his weight onto his back leg, slightly raising the hip on that side.
The physical .changes are actually rather small, but the conse-
quences are enormous. The statue has come to life.

The technical challenge was great. The outlines drawn on the

block for the earliest and the latest of the kouroi (see Figs. 1, 6-9, and

11 and 12) were not fundamentally different, and sculptors could use
the same basic scheme, modifying only the proportions and details

of finish, for more than a century. The sculptor of the Kritios boy,
by contrast, had to make four radically new drawings (Figs. 10, 13

and 14).

Nobody had ever carved a statue in stone like this before.

How could the sculptor be sure that the outlines would fit to-

gether properly in such a new and complex pose? How could he

12
know that the statue would look right when it was finished? Exper-
imenting with a new pose was risky in the extreme. So much could
go wrong.
It would, however, have been considerably easier to experiment
with a new pose if the statue were to be cast in bronze rather than
carved out of marble. To make a bronze statue, the artist would
first make a model in clay (Fig. 15, black). He could walk round
the model as he worked and change it as he went along, adding
curves and adjusting contours in a way that would be impossi-
ble for a sculptor using marble. When the model was complete,
the artist would cover it with a thin, even coating of wax (Fig. 15,

yellow). The surface of the wax showed what the finished surface
of the bronze statue would look like. Next, the artist surrounded
the model with a mould (Fig. 15, blue), made mostly out of clay,

thick and strong enough to withstand the pressure of molten metal.

It fitted neatly around the wax and was held in place by iron rods
that ran through to the core of the clay model. The wax was then
melted out, leaving a gap between the clay model core and the
outer mould (Fig. 15, white). Molten bronze (an alloy of copper
and tin) was poured into the gap to fill the space originally oc-
cupied by the wax (Fig. 15, orange). After the bronze had cooled
and solidified, the mould was chipped away and the completed
bronze figure was smoothed and finished. (The 'lost wax' method
of bronze-casting is often a great deal more complicated than this,

as air vents are necessary and statues are seldom cast all in one piece,

but this description and the diagram convey the essence of the
process.)

Marble is a heavy material, with little tensile strength, that easily

breaks under its own weight if extended unsupported over too great a
span (for instance, the extended arms in Figure 18 would be in danger
of breaking off if the statue were made of marble). A sculptor has to
be extremely careful that all parts of a marble statue have adequate 15. Diagram showing the
'lost wax' method of
supports. Quite a different range of poses is therefore possible in
bronze-casting used by
bronze.
archaic and classical Greek
The Kritios boy (Figs. 10, 13 and 14) had been made in Athens bronze-casters.

a little before 480 bc, a critical year for the Athenians, since it was
in 480 bc that the Persians sacked their city. This was one of the
last episodes in the war between the Greeks and the Persians, for

13
16. Kritios boy (same as the next year the Greeks finally defeated their common enemy and
Fig. 10), head (marble).
drove the Persians out of Greece.
The Athenians then returned to their city and began to rebuild
above right
it. Most of their sculptures were beyond repair; the pieces were either
vj. Zeus of Artemisium
(same as Fig. 18), head used as building materials or simply piously buried. The Kritios boy
(bronze). was buried, only to be rediscovered, the head and the body separated,
in the 19th century by archaeologists digging on the acropolis of
Athens. Bronze statues had been either carried off or melted down.
The stone base for one such lost bronze statue shows that it must
have stood with the weight on one leg and the other relaxed, like the

Kritios boy. Thus we know that a bronze statue in the new relaxed
pose existed at about the time the Kritios boy was made.
It is easy enough to see how a statue like the Kritios boy might
have been created in bronze, but why should a sculptor try something
sonew and difficult in marble? Perhaps he was struck by the liveliness
of a bronze statue in the new relaxed pose. Would he not have felt
disappointed when he returned to work on a kouros, even one as
fine as the Aristodikos (Figs. 9 and 12), so very life-like and yet
lacking the breath of life? Every careful new detail served only to
make the statue look stiffen Nothing but a change of pose could
help. He decided to risk it, to make new drawings on all four sides
of his block. It would take almost a year of hard work before he
would know if his attempt had succeeded. Perhaps he actually took
the bronze statue as a model and as a guide for his drawings. Details
from the Kritios boy's head (Fig. 16) suggest that the sculptor had
been looking at a bronze statue. The hair is represented by means
of shallow scratched lines. Notice especially the wisps on the neck.
This treatment is characteristic of bronze technique (see Fig. 17), for

14
 i8. Zeus of Artemisium,
second quarter of the 5th
century bc, height
209 cm, National
Archaeological Museum,
Athens.

even slight scratches show up clearly on the smooth, shiny surface of

a bronze. Marble does not reflect light so sharply; on the contrary,
it absorbs it, much bolder carving is required to throw a
so that
shadow That is of course why archaic sculptors represented hair by
means of deeply cut, bead-like knobs. The use of inset eyes is also
typical of bronze work (see Fig. 17); eyes on marble statues were
usually painted.
In the end, as we can see, this sculptor's attempt did succeed; we
do not know how many others failed.

GREATER BOLDNESS, MORE PROBLEMS: EARLY

CLASSICAL STATUES

The Greeks had created, then, an entirely new kind of life-like

statue. Nothing like it had ever been seen It made people
before.
look at statues in quite a new way, apply new standards and ask new
questions, like 'What is this statue doing? Is he moving or is he still?'

Such questions probably never occurred to most sculptors mak-

ing kouroi during the archaic period, but for artists working in the

early classical period (the second quarter of the 5th century bc), they
were vital issues.

The answer for the Kritios boy was clear; he stood unambigu-
ously at Other sculptors sought to explore the opposite extreme:
rest.

emphatic movement. That is what the sculptor of the bronze Zeus

(or Poseidon) found in the sea off Cape Artemisium did (Fig. 18).

*5
 The god is portrayed in the midst of vigorous action, at the very
moment of hurling a thunderbolt (or trident) at an unseen enemy.
This fine bronze gives us a good idea of the extremely high
quality that bronze sculptors could achieve at this time. The free,

open pose also illustrates why the greatest sculptors of the 5th century
bc preferred working in bronze to working in marble.
Questions of character or age were not asked when archaic sculp-
tors carved kouroi; in these respects, their statues all looked much
the same. By contrast, artists in the early classical period were deeply
concerned about the characterisation of the men or gods they repre-
sented and used every device in their power to differentiate them in
terms of age and personality. One has only to compare the youthful,
tender, almost shy head of the Kritios boy (Fig. 16) with the magnif-
icent mature and forceful head of the Zeus of Artemisium (Fig. 17)

to appreciate this. It is not just a matter of adding a beard - archaic

artists would sometimes do that to indicate an older man - but
rather a profound and thoughtful distinction that is drawn between
early adolescence and full maturity. (Both, of course, looked very
much more convincing when they still had their coloured, inset eyes
19. Zeus of Artemisium in place.)
(same as Fig. 18), side. w/e nave seen tnat d i n g something new can easily unbalance the
coherence of a work of art and that unforeseen problems are likely to
emerge. This has happened with the Zeus of Artemisium. A novel
sense ofmovement has been brilliantly captured, but at the same
time two new problems have appeared, neither of which is solved.

First, though the torso should be dramatically affected by the

vigorous activity of the limbs, it is as still as it would have been in

a quietly standing figure like the Kritios boy. Second, though the
Zeus of Artemisium is splendid from the front and the back, it is

pathetically unintelligible from the sides (Fig. 19), which was not
the case with the Kritios boy (Figs. 13 and 14) or even the kouroi
(Figs. 11 and 12).

Made at the same time as the Zeus of Artemisium, in the second

quarter of the 5th century bc, but very much more celebrated, was
the Discus-thrower by the bronze-caster Myron. So famous was it

that centuries later the Romans ordered copies to be made (Fig. 20).
Instead of having expensive bronzes cast, the Romans chose to have
copies made in marble, which was much cheaper.

16
 above left

20. Roman copy of the

Such a delicately poised statue in marble could not stand up
Discus-thrower by Myron,
without supports, and so a marble tree-trunk behind the athlete original made c. 450 bc,
was used to help hold up the top-heavy mass of stone and to keep it height 125 cm, Palazzo

from cracking at the ankles. This might not originally have looked Massimo alle Terme
(Museo Nazionale
as disfiguring as it does now, since all marble statues were painted
Romano), Rome.
(Fig. 21), and the supporting tree-trunk would have been painted
above right
in so discreet a colour that it would hardly be noticeable. Pupils of
21. Pompeian painting of a
the eyes were painted, too, which made the statues look lively and statue in a garden, c. ad
responsive - the blank stares we meet in museums are the result of 70, height of pedestal and
the disappearance of the paint with time. Hair was also painted, lips figure c. 210 cm, House of
the Marine Venus,
were tinted, clothing was decorated. We can get some impression
Pompeii.
of an ancient marble statue with its original paint intact from a
below
Pompeian painting of a statue in a garden (Fig. 21). 22. Cartoon showing the
The original bronze Discus-thrower by Myron has disappeared psychological expectations
aroused by the
(most ancient bronzes were melted down at some time, either by
Discus-thrower.
accident or on purpose), so we are lucky to have the Roman copies,
for, although they do not convey the full beauty of the original, they
give some important clues about its design.
The moment represented was chosen with genius. The Discus-
thrower is caught at the top of his backswing, just before he unwinds
to throw the discus. It is an instant of stillness, and yet in our
minds we are impelled to complete the action, as a 20th-century
cartoonist suggests (Fig. 22). But though the pose is momentary,
there is nothing unstable about it.

17
 The Greeks were concerned not only to make their statues re-
semble men but also to make them objects of aesthetic delight. In
the archaic period, symmetry and repetition of shapes were used to
produce beautiful effects (Fig. 5). These were now out of fashion. In
fact, they were systematically rejected in the design of the Discus-
thrower (Fig. 23). Notice how consistently symmetry is avoided.
The right side of the statue is dominated by the sweep of a con-
tinuous, almost unbroken curve (Fig. 23, solid white), the left by a
jagged zigzag (Fig. 23, broken white); the right side is closed, the

left open; the right side is smooth, the left angular. The simplicity
23. Roman copy of the of the main forms, the great arc and the four straight lines meeting
Discus-thrower by Myron almost at right angles, bring harmony to the agitated figure. One
(same as Fig. 20). Analysis
sees the torso from the front and the legs from the side so that the
of design.
most characteristic features of each are presented simultaneously.

Both representation and design are marvellously clear.

But what of the problems that emerged from the active pose of

the Zeus of Artemisium? Alas, they are still there, perhaps even in ag-
gravated form. The torso is so little expressive of the actual action of
the limbs that in the 18th century another copy of the Discus-thrower

24. Roman copy of the torso was taken to be part of a dying warrior and restored as such; and
Discus-thrower by Myron the side view, showing chest and legs each in their least characteristic
(same as Fig. 20), side. aspects, is almost unrecognisable as a human figure (Fig. 24).

It was up to artists of the next generation, in the high classical

period (about 450-420 bc), to try to solve these problems.

THE CLASSIC SOLUTION THE SPEAR-BEARER

OF POLYKLEITOS

The classic solution was formulated by Polykleitos, an Argive

bronze-caster. He made a statue of a man carrying a spear and wrote
a book (now lost) explaining the principles on which it was based.
He was much admired for having embodied the rules of art within a
work of art. The work, unfortunately, no longer exists. Once again
we have to try to deduce from Roman copies in marble what made
it so celebrated (Figs. 25, 27 and 28).

The Spear-bearer is shown in the midst of a step; a momentary

pause combines stability with the sense of potential movement. The

18
action is far less vigorous than that of Myron's Discus-thrower, but
the torso is eloquently responsive to it. The Spear-bearer held the
spear in his left hand (to our right); his left shoulder is therefore
tensed and slightly raised. His left leg bears no weight and the hip
drops; the torso on this side is extended. The Spear-bearer's right
arm hangs relaxed; the shoulder is dropped. His right leg supports
his weight; the hip is raised. The torso between hip and armpit is

contracted.
The contrast of contracted torso on one side and extended torso
on the other gives the body a look of dynamic equilibrium, very
different from the static symmetry of the kouroi, whose right and
left sides are essentially mirror-images of each other. The alternation
of tensed and relaxed limbs, combined with the responsive torso,
is called contrapposto. It is a device that is used over and over again
throughout the history of art, so effective is it in imparting a sense

of vitality to figures made of stone or bronze or paint.

The turn of the Spear-bearer's head to his right gives the final

touch to the statue; it describes a gentle reversed S curve, one that 25. Roman copy of the

was much appreciated in the Gothic period and used to give grace Spear-bearer by
Polykleitos, original made
to statues of the Madonna. The turn of the head to the right adds
c. 440 bc, height 199 cm,
interest to the side view, a point that was appreciated by a later
Museo Nazionale, Naples.
sculptor making a relief (Fig. 26), who adopted the side view of the
Spear-bearer for his own purposes.

26. Stele found at Argos

showing a side view of the
Spear-bearer, 4th century

bc, height 61 cm, National

Archaeological Museum,
Athens.

19
 The two side views have very different qualities, but each is

harmonious and lucid in itself. The right side (Fig. 27) is tranquil,
with the verticality of the straight weight-bearing leg continued
in the vertical relaxed arm. The left side, by contrast (Fig. 28), is

angular, the sharp elbow of the bent arm responding to the sharp

bend of the relaxed left leg.

A great deal of art has gone into the making of a statue that looks
artless. The perfect harmony that was attained in this work brought
no new and unanticipated problems in its wake. This was the classic

solution, one that was to be appreciated down through the ages.

STYLE AND TASTE: DRAPED FEMALE FIGURES

tj. Roman copy of the
Spear-bearer by
Though the Greeks in the archaic and classical periods liked to
Polykleitos (same as

Fig. 25), right side.

portray men in the nude, they preferred sculpted women to be
clothed. The clothing actually worn by Greek women was loose
and could be draped in a number of ways according to the wearer's
choice. The artists also had considerable freedom in choosing how
they would depict drapery. Drapery in all periods has provided
much scope for expression, enabling artists to suggest calm serenity
or agitated movement in accordance with the mood of the scene
portrayed and the taste of their times.
Changes in taste often seem to have an inner rhythm of their
own, almost independent of other factors. At one time simplicity
is highly valued; at another, richness and elaboration are preferred.
There is often a sharp reaction from one to the other. We see such
changes of taste at work in modern fashions. They also influenced

ancient art.

Although a statue of a clothed woman is entirely made of stone,

some parts of it are supposed to look like a living person and other
parts to look like inanimate but pliable fabric. A sculptor in the
second quarter of the 6th century bc (575-550) was able to impart a
life-like quality to the face, arms and feet of his figure (Fig. 29), but

he left the clothing as a sort of dead area, with nothing more than
28. Roman copy of the
Spear-bearer by
its orderly appearance to recommend it. The many parallel vertical

Polykleitos (same as folds carved into the stone neither portray the soft natural fall of
Fig. 25), left side. cloth nor suggest the presence of a living woman's body beneath it.

20
 .

from left to right

29. Goddess, c. 575-550

Artists had made great progress by the last quarter of the 6th
bc, height 193 cm,
century bc (around 525). They could now suggest the existence of a Antikensammlung,
pair of swelling breasts, a slim waist and well-rounded thigh beneath Staatliche Museen zu
an elaborate play of folds (Fig. 30). Two different kinds of cloth are Berlin, Preussischer

Kulturbesitz, Berlin.
even distinguished: a soft, thin, crinkly undergarment (painted a
dark colour) and a heavy woollen cloak that is draped diagonally
30. Maiden (Kore 675), c.

By the first half of the 5th century bc (around 460), a sculptor 530-515 bc, height 56 cm,
was able to make a statue look like a woman wearing clothing. Acropolis Museum,
Even Roman copy (Fig. 31) shows how well body and drapery are Athens.
a
integrated and how naturally they are both treated. Although little
31. Goddess, Roman copy
can be seen of the body, the irregular fall of the vertical folds of the of an original from
skirt and the slight displacement of the material over the bosom 470—460 bc, height 190

convincingly suggest a body beneath. cm, Museo Capitolini,

Centrale Montemartini,
The who created the so-called Venus Genetrix (known
artist
Rome.
only through Roman copies) in the late 5th century bc has made
the drapery so thin and clinging that the goddess's body is revealed 32. 'Venus Genetrix',

almost as completely as it would be in a nude representation (Fig. 32) Roman copy of an original

from c. 430-400 bc,

One breast, in fact, is bare.
Louvre, Paris.
In less than two centuries, then, sculptors had developed tech-
niques and formulae that enabled them to show draped female
figures as living women wearing garments made of soft cloth. The
progress of naturalistic representational skill is very marked.

21
THE ARCHAIC AND CLASSICAL PERIODS

So too are the changes in taste. In the first half of the 6th century

bc, drapery is austerely simple (Fig. 29). By the end of the century,
it is usually shown as complicated and ornate, with strong diagonal
accents, a multitude of folds going in different directions and a
vivid suggestion of the body beneath (Fig. 30). In the early 5th

century bc, there is a reaction and a return to a more severe style

of drapery, one that covers and conceals and falls in heavy vertical

folds (Fig. 31). By the end of the century, however, something more
complex and decorative is once more in demand (Fig. 32). A strong
diagonal accent is again introduced in the drapery that slips off the
shoulder - in terms of design, it is much like that of the cloth draped
under the breast in Figure 30 - and several lively folds counteract

the naturally simple vertical fall of the cloth; now too the body is

again revealed. These swings in taste are virtually independent of

the continuous progress in naturalistic representation.

TRENDS AND DEVELOPMENTS IN ARCHAIC

AND CLASSICAL STATUARY

Within a period of about two hundred years we have seen a remark-

able development in Greek sculpture from the earliest kouroi (Fig. 1)

to the classical perfection of the Spear-bearer (Fig. 25). Acquiring

the ability to imitate natural appearances was but one element in

this complex evolution. Artists also had to find solutions to the un-
expected problems that emerged and to create works that embodied
certain formal principles of design - through careful symmetrical

patterning in the archaic period or by means of dynamic contrasts

in the classical period. Finally, artists had to appreciate changes in

taste: the way in which periods of delight in or rejection of the

elaborate treatment of drapery alternated with one another.

Nature, design, fashion - all made demands on the sculptor. The
factors that influenced the development of Greek art are many and

complex. It would be unfair to the artistsand to their achievements

to simplify the situation in which they found themselves and the
multitude of conditions they struggled so valiantly to satisfy.

22
 2: GREEK TEMPLES AND THEIR
DECORATION

FOUR POPULAR PLANS

The temple seems to us the most characteristic of all Greek

buildings, and it would be natural to conclude that the Greeks
regarded such buildings as requirements for the worship of their
gods and goddesses. In fact, nothing more than an open-air altar

was really necessary. However, once the Greeks began to make statues 33. Plan of a simple temple
consisting of just naos and
of their deities, they had to provide a shelter to protect them, and it
pronaos.
was to serve this function that a temple was constructed. It was not
built to accommodate a congregation, since religious ceremonies
and rituals still took place at an altar outside the front (usually the m~w~m~m
east end)

room in which
Romans called
of the temple, and few people ever went inside.
A temple, whether made of wood or stone, could be very simple.
A single room entered through a porch would suffice
the statue of the
it a cella, and this
god was kept was
term is
(Fig. 33). The
called a naos (the

sometimes also used of

n » •

34. Plan of a temple with

Greek temples). The porch was called a pronaos (literally 'in front
porches in front and at the
of the naos'). back.

When a temple could easily be seen from more than one side, the
Greeks disliked having the front and the back look different, so they
• • * •
added another porch at the rear (Fig. 34). There was usually no way
• •
into the temple from the back porch (called the opisthodomos);
l

its

only purpose was to give the temple a more symmetrical appearance.

This was how smaller temples were designed. Larger temples
were built to stand free in a clear space so that they would be visible

from many points of view, and the Greeks tried to make all four sides
of such temples look equally impressive by surrounding the core of
the temple with a colonnade (Figs. 35, 37 and 38). This encircling
colonnade was called a peristyle (from the Greek words peri 'around'
and stylos 'column'), and itwould usually surround the naos along
• • • •
with its pronaos in front and the balancing opisthodomos behind
(Fig- 37)- 35. Plan of a temple with a
peristyle.

23
 • •••••••
«••••••
•
•
•

•
9
•

•
1
—• •
f
*
•

•
*
•
®!
• • • •

!• m • •;
The temple was generally built on a platform consisting of three
• • • • steps. The top step was called the stylo bate, and on it stood the
• • • • columns of the peristyle and the walls of the naos (Fig. 38). Since a
m m • •
temple was part of a sanctuary, the entrance to the sanctuary would
9 9 m |p • •
• • • • usually determine the angle from which the temple would first be
9 9 i • • F • • seen. In most cases, the approach gave on to a corner of the temple
m 9 m ® m m m ®( (see Fig. 91). From this angle (Fig. 38), the temple could immedi-
9 9 9 * 9 • • ®j|
ately be perceived as a three-dimensional volume rather than as a

36. Plan of a temple with a flat facade, and its principal dimensions (length, width and height)
double p eristyle (d ipteral). could all be taken in at a glance. In its clarity, its independence and
its four equally satisfactory views, the peristyle temple is a charac-

teristically Greek invention.

Some very rich poleis ostentatiously built temples with two sets

of colonnades surrounding them. Such huge and costly structures

must have looked very magnificent (Fig. 36).

The Greeks varied and modified their four fundamental plans

for temples, making alterations in the proportions and the spacing
of the elements from the time when they started building temples
until the time when, with the triumph of Christianity, they stopped.
Yet they kept the basic forms as constant as the pose of the kouros
was kept throughout the archaic period. The Greeks liked to develop
37. Plan of a typical
periptetal temple.
their ideas within a stable framework.

• •#•••
TWO BASIC ELEVATIONS: THE DORIC
• • 1
#
AND IONIC ORDERS
opistho-
domos A
T Greek temples were constructed on the simple post-and-lintel prin-
ciple. Vertical posts (or columns or walls) supported horizontal lin-

tels (or entablatures or ceilings). The earliest temples were built

naos
# of wood and mud-brick on stone foundations. By the end of the
7th century bc, stone, which was both more expensive and more
— «. durable, began to be the preferred material for the building itself.

pronaos
The only temples of which substantial remains survive are those that
were built of stone. In these, wall blocks were laid dry without any
• 1 • • 1 1 •
mortar. Coarse limestones were regularly coated with plaster to give
them the appearance of an even surface. Marble was smoothed
• ••••• and so meticulously finished that the joins between one block and
finely

M
 38. View of a peripteral

Greek temple from the

corner, third quarter of the
another are barely perceptible. Adjacent blocks were held in posi-
5th century bc,
tion chiefly by gravity, but some iron clamps sheathed in lead were
Hephaisteion, Athens.
also used to keep them in place. These would not have been visible
once the temple was completed. Columns were erected similarly,
with wooden pins used to help centre one drum upon another, and
the joins were either so finely finished that they became virtually
invisible or the whole was covered with a thin layer of plaster. In
the final stages of building, the columns were fluted, that is, vertical
channels were carved in the shafts.
The columns supported a horizontal entablature comprising an
architrave (a band of rectangular blocks laid directly above the
columns) surmounted by a frieze and topped by a cornice. Both
columns and entablatures were designed so that they belonged to
either the Doric or to the Ionic order. In each order, the proportions
of all the elements and the scheme of decoration were co-ordinated
with one another; mixing the two was rare before the Hellenistic
period.
The Doric order (Fig. 39) was strong, simple and massive. The
column shafts were sturdy (their height was only four to six times
their lower diameters) and rested directly on the stylobate (Figs. 38
and 42). The capitals surmounting the shafts were simple, cushion-
like swellings topped by an undecorated square abacus, which
supported a plain, undivided architrave. This in turn supported
the frieze, which was divided into alternating triglyphs (vertically
grooved rectangles whose appearance was reminiscent of beam ends)
and metopes (rectangles which could be plain, painted or sculpted in

relief). There was one triglyph over each column and one between
each pair of columns so that the measured rhythm of the columns
was exactly doubled in the rhythm of the frieze above (Fig. 38).

*5
above
39. The Doric order.

The Ionic order (Fig. 40) was more delicate and ornate. The
above right
column shafts were slender (ranging in height from eight to ten times
40. The Ionic order.
their lower diameters) and rested on elaborate bases that consisted
of at least two convex parts and one concave (Figs. 40 and 41). Ionic
capitals curve over to the right and left and end in volutes and are

surmounted by a thin, carved abacus, on which rests the architrave,

often divided into three horizontal bands. The triple division subtly
reflects the three steps on which the temple usually stands. The frieze
above is undivided and may sometimes be decorated by a continuous
band of relief carvings. The cornice at the top is normally richer than
the Doric cornice and may carry several bands of pattern cut in relief.
The basic forms of the two orders were constant, but within
limits the elements and the proportions could be modified. The
Ionic order was generally treated more freely than the Doric. For
instance, in the Ionic order as it first developed in the eastern Aegean
and the coast of Asia Minor - and often later as well - dentils (small

26
tooth-like carvings) were used at frieze level instead of a continuous
frieze. And yet each order always preserved a special character of
its own, so pervasive that it can be perceived even in details. Thus
Figure 42 conveys the strength and simplicity of the Doric order,
4i. Base and bottom of the
while Figure 41 reveals the grace and delicacy of the Ionic. (Both shaft of an Ionic column,
show the very bottom of a column — the shaft of the Doric and the late 5th century bc,

- where Erechtheion, Athens.

base of the Ionic it rests on the stylobate.)

At the end of the 5th century bc, the Corinthian capital was
invented (Fig. 43). It soon became popular and was much used in
the Roman period as an alternative to the Ionic capital within a
somewhat enriched version of the Ionic order.

All temples were covered by a pitched roof, which left triangular

gables at the front and back; these are called pediments (Fig. 38).
Decorative acroteria, which, unfortunately, have seldom survived,
a
graced the three angles of the gables and softened the severe geometry
of the temple's roof.

SPACES AND SHAPES TO DECORATE

42. Bottom of the shaft of
Three areas on Greek temples invited sculpted (or painted) decora- a Doric column, mid 5th
tion: the triangular pediments on temples of either order (although century bc, Propylaea,

those in the Ionic order were only seldom filled), the rectangular Athens.

metopes on Doric temples, and the long, narrow, continuous friezes

on Ionic temples.
None of these would have presented any problems if the Greeks

had been content to fill them with floral or abstract patterns, as

was sometimes done by the Romans and 18th-century neo-

later

classical decorators. But the Greeks were not satisfied with anything
so simple. They wished instead to represent people, or monsters,
and if possible to represent them enacting a story. Consider the
problems that then arose.

PEDIMENTS AND THEIR PROBLEMS

43. Corinthian capital, 4th
A pediment is a long, low triangle. It is not easy to arrange figures cen tury bc, Epidauros

within it so that they will fill it harmoniously, tell a story and tell it Museum.

27
44- Reconstruction
drawing of the west
pediment of the Temple coherently. This is obvious from the difficulties encountered by the
of Artemis on Corfu, first
artist who carved huge figures in relief to decorate the pediment of
quarter of the 6th century
bc
the Temple of Artemis in Corfu in the early years of the 6th century
(c. 580).
bc (around 580) (Fig. 44). The high centre of the triangle is filled by a
huge Gorgon, whose terrifying features would have been considered
effective in warding off evil spirits from the temple. But her role was
more than that of a mere guardian. The Gorgon was Medusa, whose
fate was to be decapitated by the hero Perseus. At the moment of
her death, she gave birth to two children, Pegasus the winged horse
and Chrysaor the hero, who sprang from her neck as her head was
severed from it. Medusa, is meant to be
in her bent-knee pose,

shown running away from unhappy outcome of her

Perseus; the
flight is suggested by the presence of her two children, Pegasus on

the left, Chrysaor on the right.

The Gorgon is flanked on either side by crouching panthers.
They do not have her double function of simultaneously protecting
the temple and suggesting a story; they are just guardians of the
temple whose reclining posture enables them to fit comfortably
into the awkward shape of the pediment.
Tucked into the corners are several tiny figures. These are purely
narrative. Those on the left come from the story of the fall of Troy:

King Priam, seated, is about to be killed by the Greek attacking

him, a dead Trojan lies behind him. The figures on the right are
participants in the battle of the gods and giants. The great god
Zeus, wielding his thunderbolt, has brought a giant to his knees.
Another giant lies supine in the corner.
Decoratively the pediment is superb; narratively it is incoherent.
Three completely unrelated stories are told, and they are told on to-

tally unrelated scales. This may not have been disturbing to someone
looking at the pediment at the time it was made. He might have

been pleased simply to recognise the three stories and to enjoy each

one in itself. He probably would not have thought of the pediment

space as a single field in which a unified image of reality ought to
appear. But demand for convincing and coherent representations,

28
 top

45. Reconstruction
drawing of the east
even within such an awkward triangular frame, did eventually arise.
pediment of the Temple of
This happened as a result of the way the Greeks looked at art and of Aphaia on Aegina, first

their notion, revolutionary at the time, that art should be the mirror quarter of the 5th century
BC (c. 49O-480).
of nature.
We have seen that when the Greeks looked at the statue of a below
man, they (unlike earlier peoples) thought of it more as a man than 46. Reconstruction

They therefore demanded that it should resemble a man,

as a statue. drawing of the east

pediment of the Temple of

and it was to meet this demand that increasingly naturalistic images
Z^us at Olympia, second
were produced. The Greeks thought about pediments similarly. At
quarter of the 5th century
first they were satisfied with a pleasant design and a multitude of BC (c. 465-457).
stories, but in time they came to think of the pediment shelf as a

sort of stage on which a plausible vision of a real situation should

appear. Thus they desired artists to fill the space of a pediment with
a single story, intelligibly told by figures all conceived on a single

scale. This presented a difficult problem, but within a century a

satisfactory solution had been devised.

The designer of the east pediment at Aegina, carved around 490

bc, chose to depict a mythological battle (Fig. 45). It was a good
choice. The mighty goddess Athena stands in the centre, her head
reaching to the apex of the pediment. On either side mortal heroes,
who are naturally smaller than she, fight and fall, the incidents of

war being so arranged that those nearest the middle stand while
those further away stagger, lunge, crouch or lie in conformity with

the slope of the pediment. The same scale was used for all the figures

(now carved fully in the round); the violent theme gives plausibility

to their different heights.

The next generation saw a tour de force in pedimental design:
the east pediment of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia (465-457 bc)
(Fig. 46). There is no violent action, and yet within a quiet scene a

29
 '

~ .

47. Seventeenth-century
drawing of the west
pediment of the story is compellingly told with figures of uniform scale, the whole
Parthenon in Athens, third
pediment being harmoniously filled.
quarter of the 5th century
bc (438-432), drawing in
In the centre stands Zeus, again a god who is taller than mere
the Bibliotheque men. On his right (our left) stands Oinomaos, king of Elis. He is

Nationale, Paris. offering his daughter as bride to any man who can carry her off
in his chariot and reach the Isthmus of Corinth before Oinomaos
overtakes and kills him. Oinomaos has divine horses, and twelve
suitors have already perished. A young man, modest in demeanour,
stands to the right listening. He is Pelops, destined to defeat the
old king and marry the girl. The prospective bride and her mother
flank the men. Next come the chariot teams; the horses' heads, since
they are higher than their rumps, are symmetrically turned towards
the centre. Behind them on one side squats a charioteer holding
the reins of the chariot, and on the other a seer, dismayed, is seated
peering into the future, where he witnesses the terrible disaster in
store for Oinomaos. Servants and other subordinate characters sit

near the corners, which are neatly filled with reclining river gods,

their legs extending into the furthest angles (Fig. 55).

The scene is tense, unified and effective. The subtle difference

in the characterisations of the arrogant Oinomaos and the mod-
est Pelops, the intense involvement of the principal characters and
the detachment of the servants - one boy passing the time absent-
mindedly playing with his toes - are all part of the early classical
exploration of personality and mood which we also saw in the Kri-

tios boy (Figs. 10 and 16) and the Zeus of Artemisium (Figs. 17

and 18).

30
 The pediments of the Parthenon in Athens (Fig. 47), carved a
generation later (438-432 bc), are even more ambitious. The temple
was unusually broad and so the pediments had to be extraordinarily
wide, a change in scale that intensified the problems inherent in ped-
iment design. While the pediments at Olympia were comfortably
filled with about fifteen figures, well over twenty were required to
fill each pediment of the Parthenon. Since these were placed higher
up from the ground than usual, they were deeply carved so that
they would catch the light and remain intelligible at a distance.

Though they are boldly designed, these figures are finished with
great refinement (Fig. 56), and even the backs, which would not
have been visible once they were in place, have been completed
with scrupulous care.

The west pediment showed the contest of the goddess Athena

and the god Poseidon for the patronage of Athens (Fig. 47). The
two huge deities occupied the centre, pulling away from each other.
Teams of horses probably reared up on either side. We have to rely
on a 17th-century drawing for our information about the design, as
most of the sculpture still visible then has since been destroyed. From
the violent thrusts and counterthrusts in the middle of the pediment,
waves of excitement eddy out, finally coming to rest in the calm and
unconcerned reclining figures of the river gods at the corners.

The river god (Fig. 56) that once occupied the left corner of the
west pediment and can now be found in the British Museum illus-

trates the combination of grandeur and subtlety that distinguishes

the pedimental sculpture of the Parthenon. Muscles flex, flow and

V
THE ARCHAIC AND CLASSICAL PERIODS

ripple, while the relaxed belly gently sags forward. Anatomy is por-
trayed naturalistically but without finicky detail. The softness of

flesh, the strength of muscle, the hardness of bone are all suggested
but not exhaustively explored.
The sense of drama and excitement in this pediment is marvel-
lously conveyed (Fig. 47), but beyond the striking central compo-
sition, things seem to fall to pieces almost as they did in the Corfu
pediment (Fig. 44). The gods and goddesses at the sides witnessing
the spectacular event taking place in their midst are very shrunken
in scale. Notice how tiny the river god in the corner is compared
with Poseidon in the centre. As far as design is concerned, the artist

has overreached himself and has tried to accommodate too many

figures. The dazzling brilliance of the carving of the few surviving
figures has, however, tended to divert attention from the imperfec-
tions of the composition.

METOPES: FEW BUT TELLING FIGURES

Metopes, being nearly square, are easier to decorate and fill than
pediments. If, however, the artist wants the story presented in a
metope to be intelligible at a distance, he must carefully choose
the moment to be illustrated and use no more than three or four
figures.

The sculptor of a metope on the Treasury of the Sicyonians at

Delphi, carved around 560 bc, has produced a fine piece of decora-
tion (Fig. 48). (A treasury was a small building erected in a panhel-

lenic sanctuary to hold the dedications and offerings made by the

polis that built The metope now shows three heroes - originally
it.)

there was one more - marching off to the right, proudly accompa-
nying the oxen they have stolen in a heroic cattle raid. They occupy
the full height of the metope, a triad of parallel vertical figures. They
hold their sloping spears at the same angle and walk in step with the
cattle, whose legs, meticulously aligned, recede into the background
of the relief. A fine pattern emerges, elegantly composed of repeated
shapes in the archaic manner (cf. Fig. 5).

The metopes on the outside of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia

(465-457 bc) were left plain, but the twelve metopes over the

32
 above left

48. Cattle-stealing metope

porches, six over the front porch and six over the back, were carved from the Treasury of the
Sicyonians, c. 560-550 bc,
in relief. They illustrated the twelve labours of Herakles, one labour
height 58 cm, Delphi
to each metope.
Museum.
One labour required Herakles to fetch the apples of immortal-
ity from the garden of the Hesperides. Herakles persuaded Atlas to above right

bring the apples to him while he held up the heavens in Atlas' place 49. Atlas bringing
Herakles the apples of the
(Fig. 49). The metope shows Atlas, rejoicing in his unusual freedom
Hesperides, metope from
of movement, striding to the left holding the apples in his out-
the Temple of Zeus at
stretched hands. Herakles faces him, oppressed by the burden that Olympia, c. 460 bc,
rests heavily on his shoulders. The goddess Athena, his patroness, height 160 cm, Olympia
stands on the far left, one hand raised in an easy gesture of aid to the Museum.

hero.
Something subtler than the parallel lines and repeated patterns
on the metope from the Sicyonian treasury (Fig. 48) relates the
three figures on the Olympia metope (Fig. 49). Atlas, the only figure
shown in action, moves in from the right. His chest is shown in three-
quarter front view; his extended forearms make a strong horizontal
contrast with the predominant verticals of the design and draw
our attention to the apples in his hands. Profile to profile he faces
Herakles, who
shown in side view. Athena, fully frontal, majestic
is

and still, movement to an end. Athena's sympathy with

brings the
Herakles is delicately indicated not only by her upraised hand but
also by the turn of her head - in profile, like Herakles, confronting

Atlas.

The master of the Olympia metopes could also portray conflict

superbly. He showed Herakles fighting the monstrous Cretan bull

33
above
50. Herakles and the
Cretan bull, metope from (Fig. 50) as a composition based on two crossing diagonals, so that
the Temple of Zeus at
both figures could appear especially large in relation to those on
Olympia, c. 460 bc, height
the other metopes. In a splendid invention designed to convey the
160 cm, Louvre, Paris.

intensity of the struggle, he makes the hero wrench the head of the
above right gigantic bull round him face to face.
to confront
Lapith and centaur,
51.
The dynamism of this explosive composition was much appreci-
metope from the
ated in later times. The same structure underlies the conflict of the
Parthenon in Athens,
447-442 bc, height 134 central figures in the west pediment of the Parthenon (Fig. 47), and
cm, British Museum, it is also used for one of the most striking metopes on the Parthenon
London. (Kg. 51)-

The Parthenon was exceptionally richly decorated with archi-

tectural sculpture. Not only were the unusually wide pediments

crammed with figures, but all ninety- two of the metopes on the out-
side of the temple were carved (447-442 bc). Those on the south,
almost the only ones reasonably well preserved, represented the con-
flict of the Lapiths (mythical people supposedly living in the north
of Greece) with the centaurs (monsters that were part man and part
horse). In one metope (Fig. 51), man and monster pull energetically
away from each other; the tense struggle is visually accentuated by
the play of light and shadow on the deep folds of the cloak that falls
behind the Lapith and over his arms. The Lapith's body is rendered
by such a subtle wealth of anatomical detail and by transitions of so

great a delicacy and softness as to make the Olympia metopes, with

their grand simplifications, look by contrast ruggedly severe.

The metope at the western end of the south side of the Parthenon
is magnificent (Fig. 52). It shows a centaur rearing up to strike a

34
 52. Lapith and centaur,
metope at the western end
of the south side of the
Parthenon (from a cast),

447-442 bc, height 134

Lapith, who counters the attack by thrusting a spit (or some other
implement which was originally added in bronze and is now lost)

into the centaur's flank. The designer took special care to suit the
composition of this metope to its position on the building, for it was
the last on the left of a series. The vigorous curve of the Lapith's body
is thus not only a response to the action within the metope but also
provides a splendid termination for the entire sequence of scenes.
From the schematic, handsomely patterned design of the archaic
metope on the Treasury of the Sicyonians (Fig. 48), the Greeks grad-
ually evolved the dynamic, classical balance of the finest metopes of
the Parthenon (Figs. 51 and 52).

FRIEZES: DIFFICULTIES OF DESIGN

more problems of design than metopes. A frieze

Friezes presented

was an immensely long, narrow ribbon for which it was not easy
to find a satisfactory subject. The elaborate decoration of the
Parthenon included a frieze, which was an unusual Ionic feature in

this predominantly Doric temple. It was carved between 442 and 438
bc (Figs. 53, 54 and 98). The theme chosen was a procession in hon-

our of the goddess Athena. It is designed so that the participants in

the sculpted frieze appear to accompany the observer walking along

beside the temple in the same direction. On each of three sides, the

procession moves in one direction for the whole length of the side

(Fig. 53). At the front, the two branches of the procession converge

35
above
53. Part of the procession

on the Parthenon frieze,

442-438 bc, height 106

cm, British Museum,
London.

right

54. Part of the procession

on the Parthenon frieze,

442-438 bc, height 106

cm, British Museum,
London.

towards the centre, producing a natural point of rest for the eye.

The flow of the figures is unified but not monotonous. Sometimes

the procession is dense and the figures move along quickly (Fig. 53),

at other times the pace is measured (Fig. 54) or even stately (Fig. 98).

THE EARLY AND HIGH CLASSICAL STYLES

CONTRASTED
The exquisite carving of the frieze of the Parthenon is revealed by a
detail of some youths bringing a heifer to sacrifice (Fig. 54). The aus-
tere simplicity of the Olympia metope (Fig. 50) looks almost harsh
in comparison with the richly expressive carving on the Parthenon

36
 55- River god from the
corner of the east
pediment of the Temple of
Zeus at Olympia, c. 460
bc, length 230 cm,

Olympia Museum.

56. River god from the

west pediment of the
Parthenon in Athens,
438-432 bc, length 156 cm,
British Museum, London.

frieze. Notice how differently the heifer is rendered from the Cretan
bull. The same contrast can be seen in a comparison between a river
god from the east pediment at Olympia (Fig. 55) and a river god
from the west pediment of the Parthenon (Fig. 56).

An observer living in ancient times who could have compared

the original early-classical Discus-thrower (Fig. 20) with the original
high-classical Spear-bearer (Fig. 25) would have noticed a similar
contrast. The two works must have differed not only in design
but also in style and treatment of surface. The severe simplicity of
Myron's conception affected every aspect of his statue; the delicate
balance of forms in the stance of the Spear-bearer was symptomatic
of the method of working used by Polykleitos, who was particularly
celebrated for the refinement of his finish. If we combine in our
minds the design of the Discus-thrower with the austere vitality of
the Olympia sculptures, and the poise of the Spear-bearer with the
delicacy of surface of the Parthenon sculptures, we will come close

to appreciating why the achievements of the early-classical and the

high-classical periods are so much admired.

37
y. PAINTING AND PAINTED POTTERY

PAINTING ON WALLS AND PANELS

The Greeks, like us, thought of painting primarily in terms of paint-

ings on walls and panels. Large paintings on flat surfaces were often
used to decorate architecture; metopes, for instance, would some-
times be painted rather than carved in relief. Figure 57 shows a
7th-century bc example. The metope is about a metre square and
depicts the hero Perseus, who, having beheaded the fierce Gorgon
and put her terrifying head in a bag (the eyes can be seen peering
out), runs off to the right. The pin-wheel form of the figure in flight
is well conceived to fill the whole surface of the metope in a decora-

tive and lively way. The metope is made of terracotta and painted in
shades of black, purplish-red and orange, colours that were suitable
for firing. There is no effort to show the figure realistically in space;
this is just a fine pattern, recognisable as a running man, arranged
to make a handsome decoration.
This is practically the only well-preserved example we have of
large-scale painting from this period.

57. Perseus fleeing with the

Gorgon's head, painted
metope from the Temple
of Apollo at Thermon,
second half of the 7th
century bc, watercolour
reconstruction (original in
the National
Archaeological Museum,
Athens).

38
 58. Painted wooden panel
from Pitsa near Corinth,

second half of the 6th

century bc, height 14.5 cm
(copy), original in the

National Archaeological
Museum, Athens.

The Greeks also painted on wooden panels. In Figure 58, several

women are shown chatting, their delicate profiles outlined in red.

Reds and blues are freely used for their clothing. This is an exquisite
piece of drawing. It is still very flat, but the overlapping of one
figure on top of another suggests the existence of the figures in
space. The panel was painted in the later 6th century bc. Wood
decays in the Greek climate, and this panel and the others found
with it near Corinth are virtually the only Greek paintings on wood
to survive to the present day.

If we had to learn about Greek painting from examples such as

these, we would have very little to go on. Fortunately we have an-

other source of information: pottery. In most civilisations, pottery
decoration is a minor art, sometimes attractive but usually unim-
portant. Not so with the Greeks - at least not until the dawn of the
classical period.

PAINTING ON POTTERY: THE BEGINNING

Decorating a pot is a very different matter from painting a picture

on a flat surface. The outer surfaces of the pot are rounded, and parts
curve away from the viewer. The profile can be strangely irregular;

39
59- Amphora showing
mourners around a bier,

mid 8th century bc,

height 155 cm, National
Archaeological Museum,
Athens.

40
 PAINTING AND PAINTED POTTERY

the outline of a pot (for instance, Fig. 59) can sometimes even look
like an inverted keyhole. This would make an oddly shaped frame for
an ordinary picture. Of course, the Greeks did not use the contour
of a pot as a frame for a picture but skilfully adjusted their designs

to the vessels they were ornamenting.

Even as early as the 8th century bc, while the Homeric epics were
being formulated, grand and impressive pieces of pottery could be
created. Though the pot shown in Figure 59 is huge, about a metre
and a half high, the elements that decorate it are small. They cover
the entire surface with a network of light and dark, subtly varied
to emphasise the different structural parts of the vessel: offset lip,

cylindrical neck, expanding shoulder, wide belly and tapering foot.

Strong triads of horizontal lines divide the surface into bands. All
the patterns within the bands (except for the three that are decorated
with living creatures, namely, the grazing deer and reclining goats on
the neck and the men on the belly) are designed to be either vertical
or horizontal. In this way the decoration is made to enhance the
stable and monumental appearance of the vessel and to contrast

piquantly with its curving contour.

Human figures appear only in one small but important section:

the panel between the two handles. They are slim, elegant stick
figures painted in flat silhouette. The scene represents mourners
around a bier. The whole gigantic piece of pottery was used as a
grave marker, and the sombre, controlled, meticulous decoration
accords well with this function.
Pottery had been briefly elevated to the status of a monumental
art, but from the end of the 7th century bc, stone slabs (stelai,

singular: stele), either painted or carved in relief- or even statues

in the round, like kouroi - were used as grave markers, and pottery
went back to functioning as the useful craft it had always been.

HOW GREEK POTTERY WAS USED

The Greeks made pots with painted decoration to serve four main
purposes (Fig. 60):

1. As containers and storage jars of ample capacity in which wine,

water, olive oil or dry goods were kept. A pot with two handles is called

4'
 .

6o. Shapes of Greek vases.

an amphora, one with three handles (two at the sides for lifting and
one at the back for pouring) used for water is called a hydria.
2. As equipmentfor drinkingparties. The Greeks drank their wine
diluted with water; they therefore needed a wide-mouthed mixing
amphora
bowl called a krater into which they could pour the two liquids and
a jug called an oinochoe to dip it out so that it could be poured into
a delicate cup {kylix) or a more humble mug (skyphos)

3. As vessels used in connection with personal adornment. Olive oil

was very important in Greek life, not only for cooking, but also
for lighting, for cleaning the body and as a base for perfumes. A
lekythos could hold as much as a litre or two of olive oil and had
a narrow neck to restrict the flow. An alabastron was a small flask
with a very constricted neck from which a lady could shake a few
hydria
drops of perfume. Still smaller and rather rounder was an aryhallos,
a vessel equipped with a thong for carrying or hanging, which held
the olive oil men used to rub down with after exercise.

4. As special vessels for use in rituals. For instance, the loutrophoros

was used to carry the water for a bride's ritual bath before her wed-
ding. Sometimes a stone model of a loutrophoros was placed on
the grave of an unmarried person. Olive oil was often presented to
the dead in a lekythos covered with a white slip and fugitive paint
krater
added after firing, which would have been unsuitably delicate for

everyday use. Such white-ground lekythoi were occasionally made

with false necks so that only a small part at the top had to be filled

to give the impression that the whole vessel was full, a clever bit of
economising.
In the 18th century, when the modern study of ancient pottery
oinochoe
began, all these vessels were called 'vases'. This conventional desig-
nation has persisted ever since, despite the fact that Greek pottery
was clearly made to serve purely utilitarian functions, was only in-

cidentally used as decoration and almost never held cut flowers.

kylix

NEW INTERESTS IN THE 7TH CENTURY bc

By the 7th century bc, human figures and their activities had be-
skyphos come the most important part of vase painting for artists in several

4^
 6o. continued

areas of Greece. Homer's poems were by then very popular, and the
vase painter longed to follow the poet's example and himself be-
come a storyteller (Fig. 61). He therefore simplified the traditional lekythos

patterned decoration and banished most of it to the bottom of the

vase, thus clearing the principal area of his krater for the presen-

tation of an exciting tale. From this time on, vase painters, like

the artists
men
who later carved architectural sculptures, strove to show
(and monsters) in action. Greek mythology was rich in
- Homer recounted some of them
tales of
O
aryballos alabastron
adventure in the Iliad and the
Odyssey - and they provided an unending source of inspiration for
artists.

The story represented on p. 44 is taken from Book IX of the

Odyssey, which described how Odysseus and his men were trapped
in the cave of the terrible man-eating one-eyed Cyclops. The Cyclops
closed the mouth of the cave with an enormous boulder, too large
for the men to move. Even if they had succeeded in killing the
Cyclops, they would have perished, trapped in the cave. Ingenious
Odysseus realised this and so devised a way to blind the monster,

get the Cyclops to move the boulder himself, and then slip out of
the cave with his men undetected.
The painted scene shows Odysseus and his men, after having
made the Cyclops drunk, driving a great stake into his single eye.
The men are drawn in flat silhouette, except for their faces which
loutrophoros
are drawn in outline. The Cyclops, who looks a bit small for a giant,

sits on the ground to the right.

The artist had to try to satisfy two rather contradictory condi-

tions: to decorate his vase with an effective pattern and to make his

story clearly intelligible. He has succeeded in telling the story with

great liveliness and has, at the same time, made the repeated forms
of the men working in unison into a pleasing pattern. And yet this

bold decoration seems less perfectly suited to the shape of the vessel

than that used on the monumental vase (Fig. 59).

earlier

We happen to know who made this vase (Fig. 61), for Aristo-
nothos was one of the first potters to put his name on his work. From
now on potters and painters somewhat irregularly signed their work.
Many of the best artists, however, never signed, and even good artists
with known signatures often left their finest work unsigned.

43
6i. Krater by Aristonothos
showing Odysseus and his

friends blinding the

Cyclops, mid 7th century

bc, height 36 cm, Museo
dei Conservatory Rome.

VIVIDNESS IN STORYTELLING: THE

BLACK-FIGURE TECHNIQUE

Storytelling eventually came to be the overwhelming concern of the

painters who decorated vases. It captivated and enthralled them;
other considerations became largely subordinate. It provided a pow-
erful impetus toward naturalism, for painters were constantly look-
ing for ways to make their stories livelier and more convincing. They
felt that the vividness of Homeric poetry was a challenge to them
and tried to rival it; they, too, wished to make stories come alive for

their audiences.

It was difficult for painters to achieve this new goal while work-
ing just with silhouettes. Most stories required figures to interact

and overlap, but the overlapping of silhouettes could only lead to

confusion. Some painters, therefore, briefly experimented with out-
lining their figures. Unfortunately, the outlines looked disappoint-
ingly thin on the burnished curving surface of a pot. The conflicting
demands of persuasive narration and effective decoration stimulated
the search for a better solution.
The solution came with the invention of the black-figure tech-
nique. The artist painted his figures in silhouette as before, so that
they would look bold and telling, and then he incised their con-

tours and inner markings with a sharp instrument that removed the
paint along the line of incision and left the outlines clear. He also

44
 6i. Black-figure painting

by Kleitias of Ajax
carrying the body of
Achilles on the handle of a
krater (the 'Francois vase'),

c. 570-560 bc, Museo

Archeologico, Florence.

added touches of white and purplish-red, so that the scenes became

more colourful. Since the added white and purplish-red proved less

durable than the black paint and the basic orange of the background,
on many black-figure vases little trace of them remains.
The vase painter Kleitias obtained wonderful effects with the
black-figure technique around 570-560 bc (Fig. 62). The picture of
Ajax carrying the body of Achilles is part of the decoration on the
handle of a particularly richly painted krater (the so-called Francois
vase). An extremely moving image has been created. The great hero
Ajax rises with difficulty under the burden of the even greater hero
whom he lifts. The body of Achilles is draped limply over the shoul-
ders of his friend. The arms drop lifelessly, the hair hangs heavily.
Notice the closed eye of the dead Achilles and how it contrasts
with the wide-open, sorrowful eye of Ajax. Achilles was a fast run-
ner (Homer calls him 'swift-footed Achilles'), but death has extin-
guished his speed. Kleitias recalls what Achilles was in life; look how
carefully he has drawn the kneecaps and how he has indicated the
strong muscles in the legs. Figure 63 reveals how unintelligible this

picture would be if attempted in silhouette alone. The incised lines

that articulate the image are obviously essential.

A generation later, in the third quarter of the 6th century bc,

there lived the greatest of all black-figure masters: Exekias. A good

45
 H

V* ' W«JV* , ^
®i ^^0
Jisij1 /'

**.
ij

1 ^
1 '
1
m
w

6}. Drawing of Fig. 62

without the incision. 4ifc~
ip ^^^^i

inn II II
^

III
L.
^^f -

''"***.*
^^^

iW*^ 'm™* 'w III

It^KI^H
B Kg | 1k 1
^K'j
1
^J^l^r

Wl

example of the exquisite refinement of his style is the image painted

on an amphora (Fig. 64) showing Ajax and Achilles playing a game,
the same two heroes we saw painted by Kleitias but here in a hap-
pier moment. The heroes' finely embroidered cloaks are rendered by
means of the most delicate incision. The serene composition cap-
tures the tranquillity of the scene and the absorption of the heroes.

As they bend towards the gaming board, the curve of their backs
echoes the curve of the amphora. Exekias shows that he was very
much aware that he was decorating a vase. Not only does he make
the outlines of the heroes follow the outline of the vessel, but he also
places the spears so that they lead the eye up to the top of the handles
and arranges the shields behind the heroes so that they continue the
vertical line formed by the lower part of the handles.
The stature of Exekias becomes very clear if one compares his

amphora with one done by a lesser artist (Fig. 65) who has taken over
the theme, and to a large extent also the composition, from Exekias.
The differences are marked. Only the shield of the left-hand hero
relates to the shape of the vessel, the embroidery on the cloaks is

simpler; neither hero wears a helmet and the composition conse-

quently lacks unity and tends to fall apart into two virtually sym-
metrical halves. Still, this is a good artist; it is only that his painting
lacks the genius that makes Exekias' work so outstanding.

46
 64. Black-figure amphora
made and painted by
Exekias showing Ajax and
Achilles playing a game,

c. 540-530 bc, height

61 cm, Vatican Museums,
Rome.

THE SEARCH FOR NEW EFFECTS: THE

RED-FIGURE TECHNIQUE

While few vase painters could attain Exekias' standard, most who
were active in the next generation continued to use the black-
figure technique. One of the more imaginative, however, decided to

47
6$. Black-figure scene on
an amphora showing Ajax
and Achilles playing a
game, c. 530-520 bc,
height 55 cm, H. L. Pierce
Fund, 01.8037,
photograph ©2003
Museum of Fine Arts,
Boston.

experiment and try something different (Fig. 66). What he did was
simply reverse the traditional colour scheme: instead of painting
black figures on an orange-red ground, he left the figures in the
natural colour of the clay and painted the background black. For
painters this new red-figure technique had many advantages. It pre-
served the strong decorative contrast of the colours unchanged but
it gave greater scope for drawing, since a supple brush could be used

48
 66. Red-figure scene on an
amphora showing Ajax
and Achilles playing a
game (the other side of

Fig. 65). Photograph

© 2003 Museum of Fine
Arts, Boston.

instead of a harsh engraving tool. Anatomy became livelier, cloth

softer, and the figures more vibrant with life.

The was invented around 530 bc and was

red-figure technique
quickly taken up by the best and most ambitious painters, although
mediocre painters continued working in black-figure until the mid-
dle of the 5th century bc. The older technique was used for spe-
cial purposes right up until the 2nd century bc, but it had lost its

fascination.

49
6y. Red-figure amphora
painted by Euthymides
showing revellers, c.

510-500 bc, height 60 cm,

Staatliche

Antikensammlungen und
Glyptothek, Munich.

Euthymides, working in the last decade of the 6th century bc,

was delighted with the facility that red-figure gave him. Like artists

carving reliefs at that time and also those doing free painting (as

we learn from ancient writers), Euthymides was much concerned

with the problems of three-dimensional representation, that is, with
showing full, round figures convincingly rendered by means of

50
 PAINTING AND PAINTED POTTERY

foreshortening (Fig. 67). To explore these effects he hardly needed

to illustrate a story; scenes from everyday life were just as good.
These had formed only a minor current in black-figure painting.
On the amphora shown in Figure 6y, he depicts three drunken
revellers carousing. The central one is most striking. He is drawn
from the back, a novel point of view. Euthymides was so pleased
with this work that he wrote on the vase 'Euphronios [a rival vase
painter] never did anything so good': a proud boast, for works by
Euphronios that we know are powerful indeed. The remark gives
us a vivid insight into the lively competition between artists that

spurred them on to face and overcome ever new problems.

No one at the time could have challenged the inventiveness and
excellence of Euthymides' drawing, nor could anyone have failed
to marvel at the way he suggested the massiveness and volume of
his figures. The surface of the amphora has been transformed into
a field for the exhibition of advances in foreshortening; for the best
artists there could now be no turning back. And yet, was it appro-
priate to decorate the curving surface of a vase in this way? Are not
plain silhouettes, or even the highly elaborated silhouettes of Exekias
(Fig. 64), more suitable? Regarded purely as applied decoration, is

not the geometric vase (Fig. 59) the most satisfying? Perhaps, as we
have seen before, progress in one direction (naturalistic drawing)
has produced problems in another (decorative effectiveness).
By the beginning of the 5th century bc, the red-figure technique
had been thoroughly mastered. Now it could be used expressively,
as is shown in a painting on a hydria that depicts the mythological
sack of Troy (Fig. 68). The old king, Priam, sits on an altar. This
ought to have assured him of divine protection, but an arrogant
young warrior grasps him by the shoulder to steady the old man as

he prepares, heartlessly, to deliver the death blow. King Priam puts

his hands to his head. It is a gesture less of self-protection than of
despair. His grandson, brutally murdered, lies on his lap, the child's

body gashed with horriblewounds. How different this scene of the

death of Priam is from the crude and simple image on the Corfu
pediment (Fig. 44)!

Another part of the painting shows a Greek warrior harshly

pulling a woman away from the statue of a goddess to which she
clings for protection. Notice the eloquence of the pleading hand

5i
above and opposite
68. Red-figure hydria

shoulder showing the fall

of Troy, c. 490-480 bc, she extends towards him. Old men, children, defenceless women -
total height 42 cm, Museo these are the ones who suffer in war. The artist knew it well; he was
Nazionale, Naples.
an Athenian living at the time of the Persian Wars.

ADVANCES IN WALL PAINTING: POLYGNOTOS

The most famous artist in the quarter-century following the Persian

Wars, the early classical period (about 475-450 bc), was the painter
Polygnotos. He was a mural painter, and none of his works survive,

but from what ancient writers tell us and from imitations and adap-
tations of his and his contemporaries' work in sculpture and vase
painting, we can get some idea of what his revolutionary paintings
must have been like.

Polygnotos was most interested in the delineation of human

character, and this he did through quiet and intense scenes. The
still, tense, expressive group of figures in the east pediment of the
Temple of Zeus at Olympia (Fig. 46), with their sensitively rendered,

5*
contrasting personalities, show profound influence from Polygno-
tos. Something of his special quality can also be seen echoed in
a painting on a krater which shows Orpheus, the legendary mu-
sician who could charm animals and stones and even the gods of
the Underworld with his songs, playing to four Thracian listen-
ers (Fig. 69). The characters of the four and their attitudes toward
the spellbinding music are all finely differentiated. The youth to
the left of the singer has yielded entirely. He closes his eyes and
listens enraptured. His companion (far left) leans on his shoul-

der and gazes dreamily at the singer. The two men at the right
seem less well disposed towards music. The one closest to Orpheus
stares intently at him, angrily trying to fathom the power of his art.

The one on the far right is thoroughly disapproving and turns to

leave (notice his feet), but he looks back; he cannot break the spell.
Orpheus himself, absorbed in his song, belongs to a wholly different
realm.
Such a static scene works well in a small panel on a vase, but
Polygnotos decorated great walls with huge compositions filled with

53
69. Red-figure krater

showing Orpheus playing

to the Thracians, c. 440
bc, height 51 cm,
Antikensammlung,
Staatliche Museen zu
Berlin, Preussischer

Kulturbesitz, Berlin.

a large number of figures. Depictions of actions make for exciting ar-

rangements, but since Polygnotos wished to reveal character through
quiet, motionless figures, he had to devise a different way of making
his compositions lively. What he did was to distribute his figures
up and down the wall at different levels so as to cover the surface

with interesting groups. A possibly unexpected consequence of this

innovation was that the figures higher up looked as if they were fur-

ther away; that is, the figures appeared to be receding behind each
other, and the wall itself ceased to appear entirely flat but began to
suggest an indefinite space.
We do not know whether Polygnotos was pleased with the il-

lusion of depth created by his novel distribution of the figures or

was disappointed that the pattern he had carefully composed on
the surface of his painting had been disrupted by the suggestion
of space. In any case, what his paintings threatened to do was to
pierce a hole in the wall they decorated, and that must have been a
startling, even alarming, idea when it first arose.

A few vase painters tried to copy Polygnotan compositions

(Fig. 70). It was a mistake. The shiny black background negates
the suggestion of space, and the scatter of figures looks odd and
purposeless. Now, for the first time, vase painting and free painting

go their separate ways.

THE ILLUSION OF SPACE

We take it for granted that three-dimensional objects and three-

dimensional space can be represented on a flat surface; illusionistic

54
 70. Red-figure krater
showing the influence of
Polygnotan painting, c.

450 bc, height 54 cm,

Louvre, Paris.

71. White-ground lekythos

perhaps showing the
influence of Parrhasios,
end of the 5th century bc,

height 30 cm, National

Archaeological Museum,
Athens.

pictures are part of our everyday experience. Before the Greeks, they
did not exist. The Greeks invented them.
Euthymides (Fig. 6j) and his contemporaries in the late 6th
century bc began using foreshortening in their drawing of indi-
vidual figures in order to give them the appearance of being three-
dimensional. By the end of the 5th century bc, the painter Parrhasios
was supposed to have been able to draw outlines so suggestive that
they seemed to reveal even what was concealed. This he seems to have
done without the aid of internal markings or shading. Something
of his achievement may be reflected in a white-ground lekythos that
was used as a funeral offering (Fig. 71): it shows striking economy of
line and spareness of internal marking combined with an impressive
suggestion of volume.
Zeuxis, a contemporary of Parrhasios, was also concerned with
making his figures appear to have mass. He chose to indicate mass
not through suggestive outline but through the clever use of shading.
His was the approach that captured the imagination of later painters.
Parrhasios'immense skill in drawing was much valued, and examples
of his work were treasured for centuries, but it was Zeuxis' more
painterly method of indicating volume by means of modelling that
was developed further. Still later, painters began to study the effects

of highlights and reflected light.

Massive bodies seem to exist in their own space. When they are
shown overlapping, the space is deepened, and when some are shown

55
THE ARCHAIC AND CLASSICAL PERIODS

higher than others, as in Polygnotos' paintings, there is some hint of

the existence of space itself and of the fact that figures are set into it.

The idea of creating a sense of space in its own right seems to

have been explored in the later 5th century bc by Agatharchos, who
painted stage sets. His experiments with vanishing points (receding
lines in architectural drawings that converge at a point) apparently
stimulated contemporary philosophers (Democritus and Anaxago-
ras) to make a theoretical study of perspective. Such, at any rate,

is the testimony of Vitruvius, one of the writers from whose works

we derive much of our information about classical painting.

WRITTEN SOURCES OF INFORMATION

ON THE ARTS
Vitruvius lived in the time of the Roman emperor Augustus
(31 bc-ad 14) and wrote a book about the theory and practice of
architecture. From time to time, almost in asides, he says some-
thing about painting. Other authors, such as Plutarch (who wrote
biographies), Aristotle (who wrote criticism of poetry), Cicero (the
Roman orator who also wrote philosophical treatises) and Lucian
(who composed witty satires), also mention Greek painters and
painting. From these incidental remarks we can learn a great deal.
Two ancient writers, however, stand apart from the rest, for they
give us more than just snatches of information.
The first is Pliny the Elder. He was a Roman polymath, inter-
ested in everything. (The breadth of his intellectual curiosity finally
killed him, for he died while investigating the cataclysmic eruption
of Vesuvius in ad 79.) He wrote an encyclopaedic book, Natural
History, which was a descriptive work divided into sections on ani-

mals, vegetablesand minerals. In part of the section about minerals,

he dealt with the stones and metals used by sculptors and some of
the pigments used by painters that are made from minerals, and
this led him to give a short history of sculpture and painting. Pliny
discussed the development of the arts, the contributions of different
artists and some celebrated individual works.
The second major source of information is Pausanias. He was a

Greek traveller who lived in the 2nd century ad and wrote a guide to

56
 PAINTING AND PAINTED POTTERY

Greece addressed to the tourists of his time. He walked through the

most important cities and sanctuaries in mainland Greece, noting
things of interest and describing the famous works of art that he
saw. He devoted long passages to paintings by Polygnotos, and it

was from studying his detailed descriptions that modern scholars

realised that Polygnotos set some figures higher than others and were
able to recognise that kraters like the one shown in Figure 70 were
reflections of his work.
Such authors also tell us a great deal about sculpture. Much of the
information they set down comes from Greek sources dating from
the 4th century bc or earlier. By then the Greeks had realised that in
their art they had created something entirely new and noteworthy
and were eager to comment upon it. Even as far back as the 6th
century bc, some architects had written books about their work,
and we know that the sculptor Polykleitos in the 5th century bc
wrote a treatise explaining the principles on which he made his

Spear-bearer (Fig. 25). Actual histories of art were written in the

4th century bc, and many anecdotes were recorded about artists.

Unfortunately, most of this material is lost, but the fragments that

are preserved, embedded in the works of Pliny, Pausanias and other
authors, give us valuable insights we could not obtain elsewhere.
Even so, we learn disappointingly little about the lives and per-
sonalities of archaic and classical artists. Myron was famous in his

time, but Pliny {Natural History 34.57-8) only tells us where he was
born and who his teacher was, enumerates his best-known works and
makes some general remarks on his style. Lucian's detailed descrip-

tion of Myron's Discus-thrower, 'who is bent over in the throwing

position, is turned toward the hand that holds the discus and has the
opposite knee gently flexed, like one who will straighten up after the
throw' {Philopseudesi%), enables us to recognise Roman copies of this
work (Fig. 20). But other masterpieces, like the Zeus of Artemisium
(Fig. 18), cannot with certainty be ascribed to any artist we know
of, while many of the names recorded in ancient texts cannot be
related to any works that survive, either in the original or in copies.

The fragments of information that we can glean from literary

sources are sometimes contradictory. Some of the stories about
Pheidias, one of the most celebrated of ancient artists, exemplify
this.

57
THE ARCHAIC AND CLASSICAL PERIODS

Pheidias, Plutarch tells us {Life ofPericles 13), was put in charge of

all the public works constructed at the time of Pericles' ascendancy in
Athens. Pericles was the statesman who guided the Athenian democ-
racy at the peak of its political and creative power. The Parthenon
and the Propylaea on the Acropolis (Fig. 91) were erected under his

influence. His friend Pheidias, as general overseer, must have guided

and supervised the execution of the architectural sculpture of the
Parthenon (Figs. 51-54, 56 and 98), though he did not do any work
with his own hand. He was much too busy at the time creating
the great chryselephantine (gold and ivory) statue of Athena that was
to go inside the temple. Pheidias was most renowned for his huge
chryselephantine statues of gods - he made another one, of Zeus,
for Olympia - though he also worked in bronze and marble.
Because of his friendship with Pericles, we hear more of Pheidias
than of most artists of the archaic and classical periods. Plutarch
{Life of Pericles 31) writes that political enemies of Pericles tried to
attack the statesman through the artist he favoured. They accused
Pheidias of having embezzled some of the gold intended for the
statue of Athena, and when the charge was convincingly disproved,
they accused him of impiously representing himself and Pericles
on the shield of the statue, for which supposed indiscretion he was
taken off to prison, where he died. Plutarch implies that these events
took place shortly after the statue of Athena was completed, but
archaeologists have established that Pheidias went on to Olympia
to make his Zeus after he had finished his work for the Parthenon.
Since, furthermore, Pausanias (5.14.5) tells us that descendants of
Pheidias continued to hold a special position at Olympia for many
generations, the story that the great sculptor ended his life in an
Athenian prison seems unlikely to be true.

We must, obviously, be cautious in our use of literary sources. If,

however, we use them carefully, we can occasionally attach a name
and a reputation to an original statue or a Roman copy. One can
enjoy the art of Greece and Rome by just looking at it, but for an
understanding of its history and development, the context in which
great works were created and the influence they exerted, the written
sources are essential.

58
 THE FOURTH CENTURY bc AND
PART II.

THE HELLENISTIC PERIOD: INNOVATION

AND RENOVATION
4: SCULPTURE

THE DECLINE OF THE CLASSICAL POLEIS AND

THE RISE OF THE HELLENISTIC KINGDOMS

The Peloponnesian War took a heavy toll. Powerful Athens had

been defeated, but mighty Spatta had also been weakened. For
a little while in the 4th century bc, Thebes gained ascendancy, but
it was limited in time and influence. No force seemed able to unite
or subjugate the Greek poleis permanently. By the end of the 1st

century bc all this had changed. Dominated first by Macedonia and

then by Rome, the poleis were never again to have anything more
than nominal independence.
Though the Macedonians were Greek-speaking people, they dif-
fered profoundly from the citizens of the Greek poleis. They were
ruled by kings and lived more or less on the fringes of Greek civilisa-
tion. Philip II, who ruled from about the middle of the 4th century
bc, nevertheless appreciated what was best in Greek culture. He en-
ticed to his court one of the most renowned Greek philosophers of
the day - Aristotle - to act as tutor for his son and also, perhaps, one
of the greatest Greek painters, whose name is lost to us, to decorate

the royal tombs (Fig. 82). Philip dreamed of leading the Greeks in

an expedition against the Persians to avenge the Persian invasion

of the early 5th century bc. Through keen political shrewdness and
aptly deployed military might, by 338 bc he had conquered or made
allies of all the Greek poleis on the mainland. But before he could
turn his dream into reality, he was murdered.
His twenty-year-old son Alexander, known to later ages as 'the

Great', succeeded to Philip's throne and to his plans. The recently

subjugated Greek poleis took the first available opportunity to rebel

against Macedonian domination. Alexander's response was swift

and characteristic. To serve as an example he had the entire city
of Thebes razed to the ground - except for the house owned in the

59
THE FOURTH CENTURY BC AND THE HELLENISTIC PERIOD

previous century by the celebrated poet Pindar. The rebellion was

quelled. Henceforth the Greeks, like the Macedonians, followed
quietly where Alexander led, until his mighty armies had advanced
right into India. Then the soldiers refused to go on. Alexander,
obliged to turn back, died in Babylon in 323 bc at the age of 32. He
had conquered all the lands from the Ionian Sea to the Punjab and
from the Caucasus to the borders of Ethiopia. He left no adult heir.
Alexander's huge empire fell apart. His generals, able and gifted
men, remained in control of several parts of the empire but were
constantly at odds with one another. Their rivalries were inherited
by their descendants along with the lands they ruled. The empire
split into vast kingdoms: Egypt ruled by the family of the Ptolemies;
western Asia governed by the Seleucids; Greece dominated by and
Macedonia ruled by the Antigonids. From the early 3rd century bc
to the later 2nd, the enterprising and cultured dynasty of the Attalids
carved out a domain for themselves in Asia Minor, centred on their
capital at Pergamon. There were also some smaller kingdoms, and
some venerable Greek cities were nominally free. In the meantime,
little appreciated by anybody but the Attalids, the power of Rome

was growing. By 31 bc the entire Hellenistic world had been absorbed

into the Roman empire.
The kingdoms of the Hellenistic world (Map 2) were very dif-
ferent from the poleis of the Hellenic world (Map 1). 'Hellenic'
is an adjective that the Greeks in ancient times used to describe
themselves. 'Hellenistic' is a modern adjective used to describe the
period between the death of Alexander and the final conquest of
the Greek-speaking world by Rome (323-31 bc). It means 'resem-
bling the original Hellenes' and is related to 'Hellenic' as 'realistic'

is related to 'real'.

The Hellenistic kingdoms were ruled by Greco-Macedonian dy-

nasties, the successors of Alexander. Cities on the Greek model had
been founded along Alexander's path of conquest and settled by his

Greek and Macedonian soldiers. These cities differed from those of

the mother country both in size and in political structure; they were
often vast metropolises like Alexandria or Antioch, and they were
not free in anything but name.
The intimacy and independence of the Hellenic poleis were gone
forever. Men, being no longer citizens of a polis but rather subjects

60
 SCULPTURE

of huge kingdoms, felt they no longer belonged to a group but

only to themselves. Public buildings had dominated the old cities

in Greece and private houses had been extremely modest. Private

houses in Hellenistic cities, by contrast, ranged from comfortable
to luxurious, for they were the domain of the individual. Public
monuments were also grand, but they were built by monarchs, not
the people. The temper of the times had radically changed.
The cities were dominated by Greeks - many new settlers had
migrated to them from the homeland - but the surrounding peo-
ples were quickly attracted to these centres of higher civilisation.

They tried to absorb Greek culture, but inevitably they broadened,

distorted and vulgarised it.

The new tendencies that developed in Hellenistic art can already

be discerned in the 4th century bc.

NEW TRENDS IN SCULPTURE IN THE 4TH

CENTURY bc

Three new trends distinguish sculpture in the 4th century bc from

that of the second half of the 5th. First, there was a vigorous new
push towards naturalism and with it a revival of interest in differ-
entiation. Human beings were characterised not only in terms of
age and personality, as they had been in the first half of the 5th
century, but now also in terms of emotion and mood. Second, there
was increasing specialisation, even among artists, some of whom
became adept in the rendering of passion and others in portraying

more lyrical moods and gentler emotions. Third, new concepts —

often even abstract ideas - became subjects for art. These could be
conveyed by means of personifications, that is, representations in
human form of concepts (like Peace) or states of mind (like Mad-
ness). Modern personifications such as the figure of Britannia on

the old British penny or the Statue of Liberty in New York harbour
are derived from this Greek tradition.

All three trends were exploited by the citizens of Megara, near

Athens, when they commissioned five new statues for their Temple
of Aphrodite. They had an old ivory image of Aphrodite, the goddess
of love, but towards the middle of the 4th century bc they decided to

61
THE FOURTH CENTURY BC AND THE HELLENISTIC PERIOD

amplify the meaning of the sanctuary in almost philosophical terms.

The Megarians asked Skopas, a sculptor who was distinguished for
his representations of passion, to create statues representing Love,
Desire and Yearning, and Praxiteles, noted for his rendering of the
tenderer emotions, to sculpt the gentler figures of Persuasion and
Consolation.
Thus the Megarians encouraged sculptors to produce images of
emotions and moods hitherto little explored in the visual arts; they
took advantage of the specialities of famous artists, and, finally, they
made explicit five different aspects of the goddess Aphrodite. Giving
concepts a visible and human form was an artistic response to con-
temporary philosophical thought, which was engaged in clarifying
similar analytic ideas.
In the first half of the 5th century bc (500-450), Greek artists
had tried to capture in stone or bronze the subtle qualities that
72. Knidian Aphrodite by
Praxiteles, Roman copy of
distinguish men of different ages and temperaments. The sensitivity
the original made c. 370 of these characterisations had given a breadth of humanity to Greek
BC, height 204 cm, art that made it outdistance anything that had been seen before. In
Vatican Museums, Rome. the second half of the century (450-400 bc), however, there had
been a shift away from the exploration of diversity and towards
the consolidation of a more universal ideal. The impetus for this

shift derived chiefly from the influence and prestige of the two
greatest sculptors of the age: Pheidias, the director of works on the
Parthenon, who was praised for his sublime portrayal of the gods,
and Polykleitos, the bronze-caster who created unsurpassed images
of men. Both had died by the early years of the 4th century bc,
and with their passing there came a revival of interest in naturalism,
diversity and characterisation. These tendencies, which gave the art

of the 4th century its special character, continued to be explored

and elaborated in the succeeding Hellenistic period.

THE FEMALE NUDE: A NEW THEME

IN GREEK ART

Praxiteles was renowned for statues that conveyed lyrical emotions.

His most famous creation was a nude Aphrodite which was bought
by the citizens of Knidos. The statue was extravagantly praised for its

62
 SCULPTURE

beauty, the melting glance of the eyes, the tadiance and joyousness
of the exptession. Poems wete written to celebrate it - in one, the

goddess herself is supposed to have exclaimed 'Wherever did Prax-

iteles see me naked?' Men fell in love with it, and an enthusiastic
collector, Nikomedes, the Hellenistic king of Bithynia, was so smit-
ten by it that he offered to cancel the whole of the Knidian public
debt (which was enormous) in exchange for it. But the Knidians
wisely declined, for the statue made their city famous.
The statue is now lost. From uninspired Roman copies (Fig. 72)
it is difficult to see what all the fuss was about. The colouring of

the original must have made a great difference, giving a soft blush
to the cheeks and a wonderful melting glance to the eyes. Praxiteles
himself, when asked which of his statues he considered the finest,

replied 'Those Nikias has painted.' Nikias was also a famous painter
of pictures, but he apparently did not feel that painting Praxiteles'
statues was beneath his dignity.
Even through the clumsy Roman copy, one can grasp something 73. Raphael drawing, copy
of 'Leda' by Leonardo da
of the beautiful ease and self-containment of the original pose. Prax-
Vinci, showing the use of
iteles has cleverly applied the Polykleitan invention of contrapposto
contrapposto, early 16th
to the female form. Notice the contracted side of the body (to our century, 30.8 x 19.2 cm,
left), where the hip rises and the shoulder drops. On the other side, Windsor Castle.

the hip of the relaxed leg is lowered and the shoulder of the arm
holding the drapery rises so that the line of the torso is extended.
The inner harmony, the balance of a living organism, the sense of
freedom and of repose which made Polykleitos' Spear-bearer a clas-

sic work (Figs. 25-28) are just as effective here, but a new dimension
has been gained by the application of Polykleitan principles to the
rounded forms of the female nude: sensuousness.
This is easier to appreciate in a Renaissance drawing by Raphael
(Fig. 73). The contrapposto is the same, but more obvious and clearer
to the eye; the Praxitelean invention has been sensitively adapted.
Like the Roman copy (Fig. 72), this drawing is not an original. The
figure was created by Leonardo da Vinci, but like Praxiteles' work
it is lost, and Raphael's drawing is merely a copy - a copy, however,

by a great artist.
Though the male nude had long been accepted as a challenging

subject for artists, Praxiteles was revolutionary when he created a

major statue representing a nude female figure. She is shown with

63
THE FOURTH CENTURY BC AND THE HELLENISTIC PERIOD

the naturalism to be expected in the 4th century bc, naturalism

not only of form and detail but also of action, for she holds her
clothes quite simply, having just taken them off to prepare for a
bath. The bath water is ready in the jar to her left (the combination
of clothing and jar supplying the necessary support for the marble
arm of the original). The inert fall of the drapery and the rigidity
of the hydria contrast piquantly with the soft living forms of the
body. The goddess holds her right hand in front of her genitals.
This might be interpreted as a gesture of modesty, but it is more
likely that, since this is an image of Aphrodite, the goddess is here
indicating the source of her power, just as the bath she is about
to take is a ritual bath, not just an everyday affair. The graceful
integration of natural appearance and religious significance is one
of the great achievements of Praxiteles.
If we try to imagine Praxiteles' statue of Aphrodite as it origi-

nally was, radiantly poised, gracious and beautiful, it is not difficult

74. Aphrodite of Capua,
to understand that once a female nude had been portrayed in this
Roman copy of an original

of the mid 4th century bc, expressive pose, the pose was copied, varied and developed through-
height 210 cm, Museo out antiquity and from the time of the Renaissance rediscovery of
Nazionale, Naples.
antiquity up to modern times. The female body only came to be ap-

preciated in art in the 4th century bc; its success thereafter became
so great that eventually it almost eclipsed the male.
Besides the wholly nude Aphrodite, the 4th century bc also pro-

duced a half-draped type (Fig. 74). We do not know the name of the
artist who created the original of which the Aphrodite of Capua is

a Roman copy. It portrayed the goddess with her whole sensuous

torso revealed, holding a shield to her left and in its reflection ad-

miring her own beauty. The shield (now lost) kept the drapery of
the legs in place to produce a work which, through hints and partial
concealment, was as erotic as any nude. The invention was much

appreciated and was copied, with variations, for centuries.

NEW PROBLEMS IN THE HELLENISTIC PERIOD:

FIGURES IN SPACE

The Spear-bearer of Polykleitos (Figs. 25-28) embodied the classic

solution to the problem of presenting a figure in motion that was

64
 75- Two views of the
dancing faun, Roman
copy of an original of the

3rd century bc, height 71

cm, Museo Nazionale,

Naples.

effective and handsome from all four principal views. By the begin-
ning of the 3rd century bc, this solution was no longer considered
satisfactory - or rather the problems it solved were no longer suffi-
ciently stimulating. Sculptors, particularly those working in bronze,

now wished to create figures that looked beautiful from all points of 76. Diagram showing the
view and that in fact led the eye (and the observer) round them. As rotation of the body of the
dancing faun (Fig. 75).
if this were not difficult enough, the demands of the new naturalism
insisted that the resulting pose should be rationally motivated, not

just some arbitrary distortion for artistic purposes.

A work which satisfied both these conditions is the dancing
faun (Fig. 75) found in Pompeii, a fine bronze statue that may have
been an expensive Roman copy of a Greek original of the early 3rd
century bc. The joyous movement of the dance into which this half-
wild creature whole-heartedly throws himself naturally produces a
dramatically twisted pose. Figure 76 shows what would happen if
a rectangle of cardboard, white on one side and hatched on the
other, were placed on the planes of the shoulders, the chest and the

abdomen and then progressively on the planes connecting the knees,

the calves and the feet; the consequent rotation of the cardboard
along with the body is clearly apparent.

Two views are enough to show how satisfactory the design is

when seen from different angles. At the same time, the figure looks
perfectly natural. Not only is the movement natural, but so is the

anatomy- far more than in the works of the 5th century bc. Compare
the head, with its combination of wind-blown hair, bony structure

65
right and far right

78. Part of the frieze of the

Pergamon altar showing
Zeus and Athena fighting
giants, first half of the 2nd
century bc {c. 180-160),
height 230 cm,
Antikensammlung,
Staatliche Museen zu
Berlin, Preussischer

Kulturbesitz, Berlin.

NEW DRAMA IN OLD COMPOSITIONS

The sculptural group of the Gaul and his wife was the centrepiece of
a monument erected in the second half of the 3rd century bc, shortly
after a Pergamene defeat of the invading Gauls. Haifa century later,
probably between 180 and 160 bc, a still more elaborate monument
was set up in Pergamon. It took the form of a huge altar to the chief

of the gods, Zeus, the base of which was decorated with a dramatic
portrayal of the battle of the gods and giants (Fig. 78).
The relief is extremely high, and the figures almost burst out
of the background. Bulging muscles and swirling drapery convey
a tremendous sense of explosive energy. A key episode on the east

side, the first a visitor would encounter, showed Zeus (to the left),

his powerful body revealed as his drapery slips from his shoulder,

simultaneously fighting three giants, while Athena (to the right)

turns back to dispose of another. The giants, who are getting the

worst of it, are depicted with snake legs, or winged, or in ordinary

human form. One falls to the left of Zeus and is shown in profile;

another, smitten, collapses on his knees to the right, his body in a

three-quarter view reflecting the three-quarter view of Zeus; a third

(further right) rises on his snake legs to fight on and is shown in back
view. The careful arrangement and variation of the positions of the
figures is not immediately obvious, but it contributes to the effect of
the whole. Actually, the arrangement is based on a 5th-century bc

68
Athenian relief and is not the only classical reminiscence in the
work, as we shall see.

Athena, striding vigorously away from Zeus, seizes her adversary

by the hair (Fig. 78). His wings fill the upper part of the relief. He
looks up at her with anguished eyes - this is a further development of
that expression of pathos and drama for which Skopas was famous
in the 4th century bc (p. 62). To the right of Athena, the goddess
Earth, mother of the giants, rises up from her own element and
with painfully drawn brows begs Athena to spare the life of her son.
Athena is unmoved, and a winged Victory, knowing the outcome,
flies over Earth's head to crown Athena.
The dominant motif of Zeus and Athena, powerful god and
goddess, moving in opposite directions but turning back to look at

each other, is the very composition (though reversed) used in the

centre of the west pediment of the Parthenon (Fig. 47). The visual

quotation would have been obvious to any observer in antiquity

and would have underlined the claim of the Pergamene kings to be

the cultural heirs of the 5th-century Athenians. It is a splendid and

creative adaptation of a great work of the past.

USES AND ABUSES OF THE PAST

In time, adaptations of works of the past became less creative, as if

some of the fire had gone out of Greek artists. A characteristic work

69
 of the second half of the 2nd century bc (150-100) is the celebrated
Aphrodite from Melos (Venus de Milo) (Fig. 79). A half-draped
figure of the goddess, she obviously combines the partial nudity
and the pose of the Aphrodite of Capua (Fig. 74) with the con-
trapposto and facial type of Praxiteles' Knidian Aphrodite (Fig. 72).
The amalgam is successful, and the statue is justly famous, but it is
much more obviously derivative than the Zeus and Athena on the
Pergamon altar.

The dependence of artists on the past grew heavier with time.

Imitations of older works became less creative. An example from
the 1st century bc illustrates the sorry degeneration (Fig. 80). Two
figures are combined to produce the group of Orestes and Electra,

mythological brother and sister. Orestes is modelled on an early

5th-century bc type of youth, and Electra is practically a copy of
79. Aphrodite from Melos the late 5th-century bc Venus Genetrix (Fig. 32), with only slight
('Venus de Milo'), second variations - for instance, the right arm has been moved to rest across
half of the 2nd century bc,
height 204 cm, Louvre,
±e
,
^T
snou i derS5 and the drapery has been adjusted
.
,
. . .
,
for greater
r
p • modesty. It is a dry work, an unattractive pasting together or two
unrelated older statues that makes the Aphrodite of Melos (Fig. 79)

look fresh and original by comparison.

The group is not worked out in terms of space and depth; the
two figures are just strung out along a single plane. The front and
back views are satisfactory, but the side views are virtually worthless.
There was now a vogue, which continued with the Romans (or may
have actually been promoted by them), for displaying statues against
a wall, so that many groups (and even single figures) were designed
for one view only.

It is but a short step from unimaginative adaptations like the

Orestes and Electra group (Fig. 80) to the production of exact copies
of older masterpieces. This had begun by the later 1st century bc and
was greatly stimulated by demand from the Romans. The Romans
by then ruled Greece, but they had come under the sway of Greek art.
They needed copies for decoration and display. The production of
copies began at this time to play a significant role in the economics
and technique of Greek sculpture; the Romans, as patrons, now
called the tune.

70
 8o. Orestes and Electra, ist

century bc, height 139 cm,

Museo Nazionale, Naples.

THE HELLENISTIC CONTRIBUTION

A great deal of sculpture was made during the Hellenistic period;

we have touched on only a few characteristic examples. The most
significant trends were a widening of subject matter (to include

female nudes as well as male, foreigners as well as Greeks, extremes

of babyhood and old age as well as the ideal of youthful maturity); a
deepening of emotional characterisations (with special emphasis on
the portrayal of suffering and pain, dramatically conveyed through
facial expression, turbulent drapery and expressive pose of the body);
and formal innovations (including the invention of the many-sided,
twisting figure and complex free-standing groups).
Sculptors travelled widely during the Hellenistic period and
worked more for private patrons than for the political commu-
nities or sanctuaries of the gods they had served in the The
past.

taste and preferences of individual patrons increasingly directed the

development of sculptural style.

By the middle of the 2nd century bc, admiration for the art of the
past began to influence the design of sculptures, at first through cre-

ative adaptations and visual allusions but eventually through increas-

ingly lifeless imitations. Exact copies, which began to be made with
mechanical aids at the very end of the Hellenistic period, though
totally lacking in creative input, nevertheless were an improvement
over the poor stuff that preceded them.

7i
y. PAINTING

SOURCES OF INFORMATION AND THEIR VALUE

Although we know that many masterpieces were painted in the

4th century bc and the Hellenistic period, hardly anything has

survived. In order to get some idea of what painting was like at that
time, we have to rely on three sources of information: pictures on
pottery, copies of paintings made for the Romans and descriptions
by ancient authors. None of these is entirely satisfactory.

Vase painters never copied wall paintings exactly, but they some-
times made use of new ideas about the treatment of space, perspec-
tive and the handling of light that are so alien to the technique of
vase painting that we can deduce that they must have been inspired
by developments in free painting. After the 5th century bc, vase

painting became a minor art and could only dimly reflect the great
achievements taking place elsewhere. By the end of the 4th century
bc, it had virtually died out.

Copies of Greek paintings made for the Romans, though closer

to the sources of their inspiration than paintings on pottery, are

not as accurate as the more mechanically produced Roman copies

of statues. Sometimes, when we can compare several copies of the
same original, it becomes obvious that the Roman painters freely

adapted and modified their models (Figs. 104 and 105, p. 101).

Descriptions by ancient writers, though often vivid and enter-

taining, can never bring lost works before our eyes. From the time
of the Renaissance on, they have stimulated artists to produce splen-
did and original works in an effort to re-create Greek paintings, but
these works tell us only about the painters who made them, not the
paintings the ancient authors saw.

THE 4TH CENTURY bcAND ITS LEGACY

It is a great pity we have so little evidence about the painting of

the 4th century bc, for it was clearly full of exciting novelty and

72
 HELLENISTIC PAINTING

invention. The painters, Pliny tells us, were lively petsonalities and
great technical innovators.
By the end of the 4th century bc, foreshortening of the body
(both human and horse) had been brought to perfection, modelling
in terms of light and shadow had been mastered, the effects of high-
lights and even of reflected light had been studied, the expression
of emotion had been explored, and some rudimentary work on
perspective had been done.
A summary of the achievements of the painters of the 4th century
bc can be seen in a Roman mosaic that is a copy of a painting
probably made at the beginning of the 3rd century bc (Fig. 81).
A mosaic is made up of tiny squares of stones of different colours
assembled to make a pattern or look like a picture. The Greeks had
become technically accomplished in the making of mosaics in the

course of the 3rd century bc. When this mosaic was made for a
Pompeian client in the 1st century bc, mosaicists were able to use
such minute pieces of stone and such a wide range of colours that
they were able to reproduce even very elaborate and subtle paintings.
This example, known as the Alexander mosaic, is such a copy. The
painting glorified and dramatised Alexander the Great's victory over
the Persian king Darius III.

Although parts of the mosaic have been destroyed, we can still

see how vividly it conveys a sense of the melee of battle while at the
same time keeping prominent the chief characters in this historical

drama.
Alexander, helmetless, his hair blowing in the wind, rides for-
ward energetically from the left. His head is clearly silhouetted

against the sky. He has thrust his spear through one of Darius'
devoted servants, who was just clambering off his fallen horse when
Alexander's spear pierced his side. To the right, another Persian no-
bleman has dismounted and holds the head of his restive horse.

This chestnut horse is seen from the rear, superbly foreshortened,

with effective highlights glancing off its rump and rather more ten-

tative shadows cast by its legs. Meanwhile, Darius looks back from
his chariot and reaches out a compassionate hand toward the fol-

lower who is ready to die for him - a portrayal showing charac-

teristic Greek respect for the enemy. Darius' head and his helpless

extended arm are silhouetted against the sky. He is the counterpart

73
 mssmsmmmmmsmmmm

81. Alexander mosaic

showing the battle of
Alexander the Great and
Darius III, Roman copy of
of Alexander; the two kings oppose each other above the heads of
an original of the early 3rd the other figures. But there is not a moment's doubt who the victor
century bc, height 217 cm, will be.
Museo Nazionale, Naples.
Darius' charioteer, slightly to the right of the king, furiously
whips the horses on to make a greater effort, careless that they
may run down the fallen warrior whose back is to us but whose
face is reflected in his polished shield. The black horses of Darius'
chariot gallop forward and to the right: once again the skilful use

of highlights and foreshortening makes the complex arrangement

clear.

It is amazing that such subtlety of modelling and such evoca-

tive colour gradations can be caught in the relatively crude mosaic
technique. The colour range is restricted — there are no greens or
blues - but this was probably a characteristic of the original painting,
not its translation into mosaic, for Pliny tells us that some painters
restricted their palette to just four colours: red, yellow, black and
white (and, of course, mixtures of these).
While the technical achievements of the painters up to the end
of the 4th century bc are splendidly revealed by this mosaic, so are
their limitations. The whole drama is acted out on a narrow stage,
the depth of which is defined only by the foreshortening of the

74
 82. Painting from the
Macedonian royal tombs
showing Pluto abducting
figures and their overlappings. The setting, too, has received short
Persephone, second half of
shrift. A few rocks on the ground and a single dead tree do for a
the 4th century bc,
landscape. Vergina, Greece.
The Alexander mosaic is very impressive. The creation of a great
artist has been transmitted with only slight loss of effect through
the skill of the mosaic copyist. Nevertheless, it does not have the
stunning impact of a direct encounter with an outstanding work of
art.

In contrast, the paintings discovered in 1977 that decorated the

royal tombs at Vergina in Macedonia - though much damaged -
are truly staggering. One scene that is better preserved than most
shows the god of the Underworld, Pluto, abducting the corn maiden
Persephone. The girl was picking flowers with her friends when the
god emerged from the earth, seized her and carried her off in his
chariot. A detail (Fig. 82) shows the urgent god, his hair blowing
wildly as he grasps the tender body of the girl, her eyes anxious and
arms helplessly extended. The freedom and power of the brush-
strokes, the certainty of the effects, the intensity of emotion - all

reveal the hand of a truly great artist, one having the calibre and
flair of a Rubens. Such stature is seldom apparent in the paintings

that have come down to us from antiquity.

75
THE FOURTH CENTURY BC AND THE HELLENISTIC PERIOD

HELLENISTIC ACHIEVEMENTS: NEW THEMES

AND SETTINGS
The paintings on the royal tombs at Vergina give us a glimpse of the
quality of the work that must have been produced by the greatest
Greek painters of the 4th century bc. But it is a solitary glimpse. In
order to learn more about how Hellenistic painting developed, we
must rely on literary sources and the evidence of Roman copies.
The Hellenistic period was one of great expansion for the Greeks,
not only geographically but also artistically and intellectually. Paint-

ing, like sculpture, showed not only considerable technical advances

but also a widening of themes. Before the Hellenistic period paint-
ings had dealt chiefly with mythological subjects and occasionally,
as in the Alexander mosaic, with historical events. Now, with artists'

greater interest in ordinary people, their everyday life and every-

day things, the range of subjects considered appropriate for paint-

ing broadened. For instance, Pliny records that a certain Peiraikos

painted barbers' shops, cobblers' stalls, asses, eatables and similar
subjects, earning himself the name of 'painter of odds and ends'.
Such a selection of themes, quite lacking in moral uplift, would
hardly have appealed to Polygnotos. This broadening of accept-
able themes meant that many unheroic subjects entered painters'
repertoire - vignettes of daily life, still lifes, flower paintings and
representations of animals and birds - as well as the more usual
men and gods.
By the end of the 3rd century bc, considerable advances had
been made in creating the illusion of reality on a flat surface. A fine
mosaic (Fig. 83), which is a copy of a 3rd-century bc painting, shows
a scene from a comedy that includes a group of street musicians (all

of whom are wearing masks) and an unmasked boy, who may have
played a mute part or is just an onlooker. The modelling of the
figures is fully convincing, and the play of light is handled with
consummate skill. Notice the accurate rendering of the cast shadow
of the tambourine player as it falls on the pavement and then climbs
up the wall, and notice also the bright highlights and deep shadows
in the shiny clothes of the musicians. The space above the players
and to the side is generous, but depth is still restricted to a narrow
shelf on which the action takes place.

76
83. Mosaic showing a
scene from a comedy,
Roman copy of an original

of the 3rd century bc,

height 43.7 cm, Museo
Nazionale, Naples.

84. Mosaic showing doves

drinking, Roman copy of
an original by Sosos of
Pergamon made in the 2nd
century bc, height 85 cm,
Museo Capitolino, Rome.

11
THE FOURTH CENTURY BC AND THE HELLENISTIC PERIOD

The most famous mosaicist in antiquity was Sosos, who lived in

Pergamon in the 2nd century bc. Among his celebrated works was
one that represented doves drinking. A Roman copy of this work
(appropriately, in mosaic) (Fig. 84) gives some hint of the serenity of
the subject and the dignity that can be imparted even to birds. The
copy, nevertheless, lacks one feature that was particularly praised in
the original: the shadow in the water of the dove that has its head
inclined into the bowl to drink. A subtle effect indeed this must
have been!
Probably around the middle of the 2nd century bc, artists became
seriously interested in the representation of space in its own right,

not just as the ambience in which people and things exist. Painted
scenery for tragedies had already in the 5th century bc stimulated
an interest in perspective. The painter Agatharchos is supposed to
have painted a perspective setting for a play by Aeschylus (proba-
bly a revival) and to have inspired contemporary philosophers to

undertake a theoretical study of the subject (p. 56). One suspects

that the system of perspective was still rather haphazard, but by the
1st century bc, when Roman painters copied and adapted Greek
perspective settings (Fig. 85), much progress had been made.
There was a vogue for painting architectural vistas in Rome
during the 1st century bc (Fig. 107). Since these vistas, whether thev
represent cities, palaces or sanctuaries, contain no figures, we may
assume that they were inspired by stage sets, which in the theatre
would have been populated by actors.
A cityscape found at Boscoreale near Pompeii provides a charm-
ing example (Fig. 85). A firmly shut door within a wall defines the
front plane of this architectural painting. Above the wall one catches
delightful glimpses of the city- a balcony jutting out to the right, an
enclosed tower rising to the left, two houses between, with a ladder

reaching to an upstairs window. In the distance, long colonnades

stretch off to the right. Skilfully applied shadows within the wide
tonal range of warm reds, glowing yellows, clear whites and tranquil
blues help to give a sense of depth and distance, but it is the reced-
ing lines of the buildings themselves that do most to suggest space.
The perspective, however, is neither unified nor consistent. Each
element is foreshortened more or less independently, without any
regard to the whole. Such a piecemeal perspective scheme suggests

78
85. Wall painting from
Boscoreale showing a city,

Roman copy of a Greek

painting of the 2nd
century bc, height 244
cm, Metropolitan
Museum of Art, New
York, Rogers Fund, 1903.

(03.14.13) Photograph by
Schecter Lee. Photograph

©1986 The Metropolitan

Museum of Art.

below
86. Wall painting of scenes
from the Odyssey, one
shown in its entirety and
part of another to the
right. Odysseus in the

Underworld, Roman copy

of a Greek painting of the
2nd or 1st century bc,
preserved height 150 cm,
Vatican Museums, Rome.

79
THE FOURTH CENTURY BC AND THE HELLENISTIC PERIOD

that however evocative the Greeks made their architectural vistas,

they never fully developed a single-point perspective system such

as was later formulated in the Renaissance. This is the opinion
of many scholars, but others disagree. They cite Roman archi-
tectural paintings in which no fewer than forty orthogonals (re-
ceding lines) meet at a single point, and argue that this could
hardly have happened by chance. They believe that the Greeks
had in fact mastered single-point perspective but that the Ro-
man copyists did not always transmit their achievements accurately.
While depth in architecture can be indicated by means of re-

ceding lines, depth in landscape can be suggested only by means of

subtle changes in colour with distance and the blurring of the fur-

thest features. This is exactly what we see in the so-called Odyssey

landscapes (Fig. 86). These are Roman copies of late Hellenistic
originals that illustrate episodes in the Odyssey, but they are very

different from the 7th-century bc krater showing a scene from the

Odyssey (Fig. 61), in which the figures are everything. In the Odyssey
landscapes, by contrast, the figures are virtually lost in the breadth
of the view. Odysseus' ship rides at anchor to the left, while the
hero himself strides with a few friends through the eerie cavern
that is the opening of the Underworld. The shadowy dead - small,

wispy figures - emerge into the strange light to meet him. In the
foreground, a river god (compare Figs. 55 and 56) reclines beside his
element. But it is the landscape itself- rocks, caverns, sea and sky, all

finally mastered by the painter's brush - that dominates the scene.

Painting was now as versatile as sculpture, as fully in command of

all the resources of the medium. Hellenistic painters had learned
how to represent space and light, and they had introduced new
subjects. Still life, landscape, portraiture, genre painting - anything

from lofty allegories to homely objects - all could now be ren-

dered in paint. It was this richness in the range of themes and
mastery of technique that the Greeks bequeathed to the Romans.

80
 6: ARCHITECTURE AND PLANNING

Several of the most important tendencies in the development of

Hellenistic architecture can be grasped if we look at just three

types of buildings: houses, theatres and sanctuaries.

THE HOUSE: NEW LUXURY IN PRIVATE LIFE

During the Hellenistic period, when people lived as part of huge

kingdoms governed by remote rulers, they could no longer identify
so immediately with their communities and began to feel isolated
and alone. Their interest became focused on themselves at a time
when emphasis, both emotional and economic, withdrew from the
group and shifted on to the individual. People thought increasingly
about their private lives and tried to make the intimate world around
them more attractive and agreeable. They began to build more elab-
orateand comfortable houses for themselves; rulers, too, touched
by the same sense of isolation, began to build palaces.

Fifth-century bc houses in Athens had been very modest (Fig.

87a) They usually consisted of two storeys and were built of unbaked
.

brick on a low stone base. The entrance was somewhere along one
side and led, sometimes rather indirectly, to a central courtyard. The

courtyard was a simple affair, a source of light and air for the rooms
that opened off it. A blank wall faced on the street, pierced only by
smallwindows whose height above the street ensured privacy.
By the 4th century bc, such humble dwellings had, whenever
possible, been improved upon. A contemporary orator noticed the
distinctions that were then appearing between the rich and the poor
and lamented the passing of the good old days when only public
buildings caught the eye with their magnificence.
Houses built in the 4th century bc in Priene, a city on the west
coast of Asia Minor (see Map 2), were squared up instead of being
irregular and fitted neatly into the newly laid out rectangular grid
plan of streets (Fig. 87b). Most rooms still opened off an inner

81
 entrance

c Five Hellenistic houses on Delos

street

i r 5 10 metres

87. Plans of Greek houses

from the 5th to 2nd
centuries bc. courtyard, but this had become grander and sometimes had a row
of columns along one side or even around all four sides (an internal
peristyle).

By the Hellenistic period, the courtyards of most houses were

adorned with gracious peristyles (Fig. 87c). Many walls were now
decorated to simulate marble inlays, and handsome mosaics were
laid on the floors; this was the period in which Sosos worked
(Fig. 84). Notice how varied the designs of houses built in Delos
in the Hellenistic period were (Fig. 87c). The arrangement of the
rooms, their size and relationship, and even the placement of the
entrance were left to the individual. This freedom and lack of regi-
mentation is characteristically Greek.

THE THEATRE: THE ACTOR BECOMES

THE PRINCIPAL

The interest in the individual that led to the development of the

spacious, attractive peristyle house also manifested itself in the

82
 88. The theatre at

Epidauros, 4th century bc.

development of the theatre. In drama, emphasis came

as in life,

to be placed ever more on the individual rather than the group. In

drama, this meant on the actors rather than the chorus.
Greek plays were performed as part of the celebrations in hon-
our of the god Dionysus. In the earliest plays most of the action
was provided by the chorus, and the role of the individual actors
was very limited. During the course of the 5th century bc, the ac-
tors became increasingly important and by the time of the latest

surviving comedy by Aristophanes, written in the first quarter of

the 4th century bc (388), the chorus had virtually disappeared. It

took a little while for staging and architecture to catch up with these
developments.
In the 5th and 4th centuries bc, theatres had been designed
with primary emphasis on the orchestra, the circular dancing place
where the chorus performed and interacted with the actors. The
cavea (theatron), carved out of the side of a hill, had grown as a

watching place around the orchestra, a sort of natural grandstand

that eventually was given architectural form.
The beautiful 4th-century bc theatre at Epidauros (Fig. 88) gives

a good idea of what a classical theatre looked like. It consists of

three independent parts: the round orchestra in the centre, the stage

buildings on one and on the other the cavea, consisting of tier

side,

upon tier of seats sweeping round in something over a semicircle.

83
89. Reconstruction
drawing of the 2nd-century
bc renovation of the
theatre at Priene.
A splendid view of the countryside is to be had from the seats in

the theatre. Since Greek dramas were always performed in daylight,

this must have presented quite a challenge to playwrights, who had to
make their plays gripping enough to prevent the audience's attention
from wandering off into the landscape.
As actors became more and more important for the actionand
the chorus dropped out, theatres were redesigned to accommodate
the new style of performance better. In the 5th- and 4th-century bc
theatres the stage building had been used for storing props and sets.

In front of it there might be a single-storeyed facade, the proskenion,

against which the stage sets were placed. The roof of the proskenion
could be used occasionally for the appearance of gods, when such
was required by the play. Otherwise all the action took place in the
orchestra.
By the 2nd century bc, the theatre at Priene had been remodelled
(Fig. 89) so that the actors could be isolated and elevated and thus
accorded the prominence that their parts demanded. This was done
by turning the roof of the proskenion into a stage. Great openings
were cut into the wall of the stage building behind the roof of the
proskenion. Stage sets and backdrops could be placed in these gaps.

The illusion of space that could eventually be conveyed by such

painted sets is suggested by the Roman paintings they inspired (Fig.
85). The orchestra and its backdrop now became less important,

84
 90. Reconstruction
drawing of the sanctuary
of Asclepius on Kos, built
and the elevation of the actors on to a high stage brings us closer to from the 4th to the 2nd
modern theatre practice. centuries bc.

When the proskenion roof became the acting stage, the proske-
nion itself was moved forward at the expense of the orchestra, which
now ceased to be a full circle (Fig. 89). As a consequence, instead
of consisting of three fully independent parts, the theatre began to
look more unified: cavea bonded to orchestra, orchestra attached to
the scene building. These tendencies were carried even further by
the Romans (Figs. 122, 123 and 130).

THE SANCTUARY: UNIFICATION OF

ARCHITECTURAL COMPLEXES

As theatre design developed, became less interested in pre-

architects

serving the independence of each individual part and more inclined

to bring the parts together. So, too, architects working on larger
complexes tried to unify spaces and relate buildings to one another.
A single example will clarify the principle, which applies no less to

city planning and civic centres than to sanctuaries.

The sanctuary of the god Asclepius on the island of Kos was
built over two centuries (from about 360 to 160 bc) and on three
different levels, yet the whole complex emerges as a unit (Fig. 90).
The three-sided, colonnaded stoas at the top and the bottom bind

85
9i. Reconstruction
drawing of the acropolis at

Athens showing the

placement of the major
5th-century bc buildings.

the elements together, while the central flights of steps give a sense
of unity, accent and climax.
The impression is very different from that given by the layout of
the temples and shrines on the Athenian acropolis (Fig. 91). These
were all built within a single half-century(447-406 bc), yet each
building seems to have been thought out separately, and there ap-
pears to have been little effort to organise the space as a whole. The
large complex of structures towards the bottom of the drawing is

the Propylaea, the entrance gate to the acropolis and its attached
buildings. It has roughly the same orientation as the Parthenon, the
large temple to the upper right, but there is no axial connection
between the two. Emerging from the Propylaea, one does not see

the Parthenon from the front but from one corner. On the opposite

86
 92. Reconstruction

drawing of the sanctuary

of Fortuna at Praeneste,

Roman, ist century bc.

side of the acropolis (to the left of the drawing) is the small and
elaborate Erechtheum, which contrasts markedly with the severe
grandeur of the Parthenon. Other smaller buildings, offerings and
shrines are scattered freely about the precinct.
Although the impression of the sanctuary of Asclepius on Kos
(Fig. 90) is one of unity and balance, many parts have retained their

independence. Notice, for instance, the way the altar on the middle
terrace is 'balanced' by a small temple. Nevertheless, both the design
and the placement of individual elements are controlled by a sense
for organisational coherence that was far less pronounced when the

87
THE FOURTH CENTURY BC AND THE HELLENISTIC PERIOD

classical acropolis was built (Fig. 91), but there was still a long way to
go before architects could create the splendid order that the Romans
imposed on an entire hillside at Praeneste in the 1st century bc
(Fig. 92).

The arrangement at Praeneste is strictly symmetrical. A strongly

accentuated axis leads the eye straight up the centre of the complex.
The small paired hemicycles on terrace IV herald the grand theatre-
like hemicycle that crowns the sanctuary. Rigorous axial symmetry
is combined with a most imaginative play of curved and rectangular
forms to produce a climactic ascent to the apex. By contrast with
this wonderful Roman discipline, the sanctuary at Kos preserves
that touch of independence and freedom which is so characteristic
of Greek art.
 PART THE ROMAN WORLD: ADOPTION
III.

AND TRANSFORMATION OF THE GREEK

LEGACY
7: ROMAN STATUES AND RELIEFS

THE EMERGENCE OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE

We have already met the Romans several times in this book.

We know they were great admirers of Greek art and ordered
copies of sculptures and paintings which, in some cases, give us the

only information we have about celebrated Greek originals (Figs.

20, 25, 31 and 32; 72, 74, 75 and 77; 81, 83-86; 104 and 105).
The city of Rome had begun in a small way in the 8th century bc.
By the 4th century bc it had already established a republican form
of government and begun the inexorable growth that was eventually
to make it the centre of a vast empire.
Encounters with the Greeks began in earnest in the 3rd century
bc in southern Italy and Sicily, where Greeks had long established
colonies. Roman admiration for the Greeks was soon tempered by
irritation as rival Hellenistic powers began to call on Rome to assist
them in their struggles, for the Hellenistic kings were as frequently

at war with one another as the classical poleis had been. The Romans
were militarily better organised than the Greeks and politically more
efficient. When their patience ran out with the endlessly squabbling
Greeks, they began to subjugate the Hellenistic kingdoms one by
one. The last to fall was Egypt, conquered by Augustus in 31 bc.

At the same time, the republic vanished, leaving only a handful

of traditional forms. Augustus, having finally eliminated all his ri-

vals, became emperor, and the Roman republic, though Augustus

claimed to have restored it in 27 bc, became the Roman empire.
The huge empire flourished for well over two centuries, bringing
peace and prosperity along with its domination, but it fell upon hard
times during the 3rd century ad. In ad 284 the emperor Diocletian
came power and stemmed the decline by astutely reorganising
to
the empire; in ad 330 the emperor Constantine moved the imperial
residence to Constantinople. Rome's days of grandeur were over.
THE ROMAN WORLD

Though the Romans dominated the Greeks politically and mil-

itarily, they submitted to their superiority in art and culture. The
Roman poet Horace put it succinctly: 'Captive Greece led her rude
captor captive.'
The Romans were fascinated not only by Greek art but also
by Greek poetry, rhetoric and philosophy. This was a great boon
to Greek intellectuals and craftsmen - teachers, scholars, thinkers,
sculptors and painters - for it was the enthusiastic Romans who
gave them employment.
An immense amount of sculpture was carved both before and
during the period of the Roman empire (31 bc-ad 330); most of
it consisted of copies, adaptations or variations of Greek proto-
types. This provided business for many hundreds of skilled sculp-
tors throughout the empire who knew their materials and how
to work them. These craftsmen were available, trained and ready
when, occasionally, the Romans asked them to produce original
works.

PORTRAITURE: SPECIFICITY OF PERSON

By temperament and by tradition, the Romans were very different

from the Greeks. While the Greeks enjoyed abstraction and general-
isation in thought and art, the Romans, down to earth and practical

as they were, preferred the specific and the factual.

Greek portraits were almost exclusively of famous men and
women: people who had won their reputations as athletes, poets,

philosophers, rulers and orators. Something typical always clung

to their representations to help define in what category they had
won their fame. Roman portraits could be of anybodywho had the
money, family connections or distinction to order them. What the
Romans wanted from a portrait was the accurate image of a par-
ticular person. Under the influence of Greek art, sculptors working

for the Romans often modified their style of portraiture and made

their subjects look more beautiful or more powerful than they really
were, but the sculptors never sacrificed their unique characteristics,
the specificity so highly valued by the Romans.

90
 ROMAN STATUES AND RELIEFS

An impressive portrait of the first emperor, Augustus (31 bc-ad

14), illustrates the sort of compromise that a Greek sculptor working
to the order of a Roman patron could achieve (Fig. 93).

Polykleitos' Spear-bearer (Fig. 25) was the acme of classical sculp-

ture, and the Romans deeply appreciated the air of serenity and
dignity conferred on the figure by the carefully constructed pose. It

was therefore chosen to provide the framework for a representation

of Augustus that was meant to convey to his subjects both respect
for his authority and admiration for his grace and control. But the
Greek statue could hardly be taken over as a model just as it was,
since it had several features that offended Roman taste.

First of all, the Spear-bearer was an ideal figure - perhaps an

imagined representation of the Homeric hero Achilles but certainly
not the image of any real person. This had to be changed, and so
the head of the Spear-bearer was modified as much as was necessary
to capture the actual features of Augustus, which were, nevertheless,
made just smooth enough to reflect the Spear-bearer's purity of form.
93. Augustus from Prima
Second, the Spear-bearer was nude. This was, of course, natural
Porta, c. 19 bc, height 204
for a heroic Greek statue and furthermore essential to reveal the cm, Vatican Museums,
harmonious contrapposto. But it might have seemed improper for Rome.
a Roman, especially one like Augustus, who posed as the guardian of
ancient traditions of propriety and sobriety. So the sculptor dressed
his imperial subject in armour and even gave him a cloak. The
armour was, however, made so form-fitting that, while decency was
preserved, the modelling of the torso still remained clearly visible.

Third, the Spear-bearer lacked focus and direction. It was not

felt right that the Roman emperor should stroll so dreamily through
space. On the contrary, he should address his subjects directly and
dominate the spectators who stood before him. Only slight modi-
fications of the pose of the Spear-bearer were needed to bring this

about: the head lifted and turned a little to look forward and out-
ward, and the right arm raised as if to issue a command. Thus Au-
gustus, by gaze and gesture, as if through the force of his personality,

controls the space in front of him.

The statue was placed against a wall, as was often the case with
Roman sculpture, and so all the emphasis is concentrated on the
front view. The sides are less carefully thought out than in the

91
 Spear-bearer, and the back is not even finished. Perhaps this is why
the accomplished sculptor who carved this statue did not mind
destroying Polykleitos' contrapposto by raising the shoulder on the
same side as the raised hip. The balance of the torso is somewhat
obscured anyway by the armour and the cloak, and in the front view
the curve of the raised arm responds handsomely to the curve of
the relaxed leg on the opposite side. The internal balance and self-

contained rhythm of the classical statue have been lost, but a new
rhythm, one which captured the authority of the imperial subject,
was created.
Thus the Spear-bearer was transformed into Augustus, the clas-
94- Titus, c. ad 80, height sical structure Romanised. Enough of Polykleitos' invention is pre-
196 cm, Vatican Museums, served to give the image an air of naturalism, dignity and apparent
Rome.
inevitability, while the modifications have turned it into a fitting
image of the first emperor. This was an inspired compromise, one
that was very characteristic of the achievements of Roman art.

95. Sabina (wife of the

emperor Hadrian) as
ROMAN PORTRAITS AND GREEK FORMS
Venus, c. ad 130, height

180 cm, Museo Ostiense, A portrait of the later emperor Titus (ad 79-81) seems more em-
Ostia.
phatically Roman (Fig. 94). Titus is shown wearing the traditional
Roman toga, a huge more or less oval garment that fell in a mul-
titude of voluminous folds and required considerable skill to be
draped properly. The specificity of the characterisation is marked.
No idealised Greek beauty tempers the crude features of the em-
peror who, we may be surprised to find out, was considered the
darling of mankind and praised for his good looks!

Yet the lessons learned from classical Greek art have not been
forgotten or neglected. The technique of carving so as to reveal the
pose of the body through the way the folds of the drapery fall was
invented by the sculptors of the 5th century bc (compare Figs. 32, 54

and 98); its application to the portrait of the emperor is the Roman
contribution.
A further example of the persistence of Greek ideas and forms
is the portrait of Sabina (Fig. 95), wife of the emperor Hadrian (ad
117-138). The body of the statue is simply a copy of the famous
5th-century bc Venus Genetrix (Fig. 32), but Roman modesty has

92
made the sculptor cover the left breast. The statue, with the portrait
head of Sabina set on top of the classical image of Venus, is a visual
allegory. In Roman legend, the goddess Venus was supposed to be
the mother of Aeneas, ancestor of the Roman people. This portrait
of Sabina suggested that she had the same maternal relationship to
the Roman populace of the time as the goddess had in the mythical
past.

Allegory is also an element in the brilliantly carved portrait of

the disagreeable emperor Commodus (ad 180-192) (Fig. 96). Corn-
modus is draped in the lion skin of Hercules (the Latin name for 96. Commodus as

Herakles) and carries the hero's club in one hand and the apples of Hercules, last quarter of
the 2nd century ad, height
immortality in the other (compare the Atlas metope from Olympia,
141 cm, Museo dei
Fig. 49). Alexander the Great had been portrayed in the guise of Conservatory Rome.
Herakles, whom he claimed as founder of his line, and some Hel-
lenistic kings had followed his example. Here, at a distance of half
a millennium, a Roman emperor is doing the same.
The smooth surfaces of Commodus' skin are polished till they
gleam, contrasting with the rich play of light and shadow in the
hair and beard. Heavy-lidded, immaculately groomed, with an air

of incontestable superiority, the emperor gazes out from beneath

his Herculean disguise. This brutal ruler acted out the hero's role in

hideous parody. Having collected all the legless inhabitants of Rome,

he fitted these unfortunates with serpent-like trappings attached to
the stumps of their limbs, gave them sponges instead of rocks and
slew them mercilessly, declaring that he was Hercules punishing
the obstreperous giants. This insightful portrait, while preserving
the official dignity of the emperor's image, still manages to hint

at the character of the perverted sadist who occupied the position.

HISTORICAL RELIEFS: SPECIFICITY OF EVENT

The craving for specificity that we see in Roman portraits is

also apparent in Roman reliefs. The most characteristic of these
are the historical reliefs that were carved to decorate monuments
erected to commemorate particular events (altars, arches, columns).
Greek architectural sculpture (see Chap. 2) usually depicted time-

less myths; even the Parthenon frieze, which was in its own way

93
97- Part of the procession
from the Ara Pacis, 13-9

bc, height 155 cm, Rome.

98. Part of the frieze from

the Parthenon, 442-438
bc, height 106 cm,
Louvre, Paris.

commemorative, lacks the explicitness and specificity of person and

event that was apparently necessary and meaningful to the Romans.
The Altar of Peace (Ara Pacis) erected by Augustus (31 bc-ad
14) demonstrates the Roman attitude. As was typical of Augustan
art (see the Augustus of Prima Porta, Fig. 93), Greek models were
used to impart dignity and grace to the subject, but Roman ideas

pervade the whole.

The altar enclosure was richly decorated with reliefs. Some of
them showed a procession (Fig. 97) which called to mind the pro-
cession carved on the Parthenon frieze (Fig. 98). The beautiful play
of light on the folds, the clear articulation of the bodies under the
drapery, the wonderful sense of rhythmic progress - all these owe
much to the forms of the Parthenon frieze. But whereas on the
Parthenon individuals cannot be identified (see Fig. 53 for several

well-preserved heads), nor the exact moment determined, on the

Ara Pacis recognisable portraits are carved, and the procession itself

94
 99. Triumphal procession,
spoils from Jerusalem,
c. ad 81, height 200 cm,

can be dated to the day (4 July though the carving was finished Arch of Titus, Rome.
13 bc,

only four years later).

The uniqueness of the participants and of the event - it was
the inauguration of the altar itself- is stressed. The priests in front

wear their special spiked hats, a man with veiled head follows them
carrying the axe to kill the sacrificial animals, then comes the tall

general Agrippa, to whose robes a timid child clings - all this is very
different from the non-specific representations of classical art.

The decoration on the Arch of Titus (Fig. 99), like the por-
trait of Titus (Fig. 94), seems less dependent on classical prototypes
than do the reliefs and portraits carved for Augustus. The panel
showing Titus' soldiers carrying the spoils from Jerusalem is par-
ticularly vivid. Since Roman sculpture and relief, like Greek, was
always coloured, the carvings representing the golden objects looted
from the Temple would have been gilded. Imagine how convincing
this procession would have been when the soldiers' tunics were still
brightly painted and the golden menorah (seven-branched lamp
holder) glittered against a painted dark blue sky. Much space has
been left uncarved above the heads of the figures, and this gives the

impression that they have much greater freedom of movement in

a more natural setting than the members of the procession on the

Ara Pacis, most of whose heads touch the confining top of the frieze

(Fig- 97)-

95
ioo. Romans attacked by
barbarians, ad 113, height
of frieze c. 100 cm,
Column of Trajan, Rome.

A very different approach is used in the delicate low reliefs that

decorate the great column celebrating the victories of the emperor
Trajan (ad 98-117) over the Dacians (Fig. 100). Quite another sort
of realism is used here, not the vivid visual realism of the Arch
of Titus but instead a sort of documentary, diagrammatic real-

ism, conceptual truth being preferred to the truth that the eye
sees.

The Romans are confined within their well-built camp, beat-

ing off the attack of the barbarian Dacians. Light-armed Dacian
troops carrying bows and arrows and camp from
slings threaten the

the front and the right. Helmeted Romans within the camp hurl
missiles down on the besiegers from the top of the wall. Though

perfectly intelligible, the whole scene lacks visual logic. The Dacians
are seen straight on, but the camp from above. The walls of the camp

have been made ridiculously low so that the artist could focus at-
tention on the interesting combatants. Had he tried to keep all the
elements in the scene in correct proportion, he would have had to
devote most of the space to the depiction of immense dull stretches
of wall and would have had to make the men tiny.

The conceptual (as opposed to the visual) approach used on the

reliefs on the Column of Trajan enables the artist to show complex

action clearly by means of a certain amount of schematisation. This

96
 above left

101. Victory writing on a

shield, ad 113, height of
frieze c. ioo cm, Column
seems very different from anything we have seen in Greek art, which of Trajan, Rome.
insists on visual logic and consistency of presentation. And yet, even
within the brilliantly original carving of the Column of Trajan, above right
102. Massacre of
tribute is paid to the fame and authority of Greek art. The interlude
barbarians, ad 180—193,
between the two campaigns that made up the Dacian wars is marked
height of frieze c. 130 cm,
on the column by the figure of Victory (Fig. 101) inscribing Trajan's Column of Marcus
triumph on a shield. Does she look familiar? She is none other than Aurelius, Rome.
the much loved Aphrodite of Capua (Fig. 74) dressed up for the

part and equipped with wings.

column decorated with reliefs was
Less than a century after the
erected to glorify Trajan, another column was erected and carved
in honour of Marcus Aurelius (ad 161-180). Work on it continued

throughout the reign of Marcus Aurelius' son Commodus (ad 180-

192). Like the portrait of Commodus (Fig. 96), the sculpture on this

column is revealing; it is both more emotional and more expressive

than the carvings on the Column of Trajan.
A characteristic relief (Fig. 102) shows a massacre of barbarians. A
harsh and brutal contrast made between the armed and aggressive
is

Romans at the top stabbing down mercilessly on their unarmed

foes and the helpless, pleading barbarians, fallen or dead. The man
slightly to the right of centre who throws back his arms and screams
in horror captures the mood of the scene.

97
THE ROMAN WORLD

The relief is much more deeply cut than on the Column of Trajan
(Figs, ioo and 101) and is as deficient in subtlety of modelling as it is

lacking in correctness of drawing (notice how unnaturally long are

the legs and body of the Roman at the left). The carving, though
highly expressive, has none of the smooth skill that was mustered
Commodus (Fig. 96). Troubled times that were
for the portrait of

now overwhelming the empire have affected the spirit of the people
and the sculptors working on the column. The work here heralds
the breakdown of style and decline in skill that were characteristic
of most sculpture (with the exception of portrait sculpture) during
the 3rd century ad.

RELIEFS FOR PRIVATE INDIVIDUALS:

SARCOPHAGI

Little official sculpture was produced for the State after the first

quarter of the 3rd century; the government had other things to worry
about than the erection of commemorative monuments. Between
and 284 some twenty-six emperors reigned, constantly
the years 235
threatened by usurpers. Only one died a natural death. Civil war
plagued the empire, while at the same time the barbarians were
hammering on the frontiers.
Many people hoped for better times in the life to come, and those
who could afford it ordered elaborate carved coffins {sarcophagi) in
which to have their bodies entombed. The fashion for burial in sar-

cophagi had begun somewhat before the middle of the 2nd century
and grew considerably in the difficult period of the 3rd century.
Sarcophagi and portraits were almost the only kind of sculpture
produced then.
Sarcophagi were decorated in several different ways. Sometimes
the relief carvings on them illustrated Greek myths, sometimes
Roman battles, sometimes typical incidents from the life of the
deceased; sometimes they were ornamented with representations of
the seasons, scenes of Bacchic delight or just lush hanging garlands.
Only a few of these sarcophagi are artistic masterpieces. They
are, however, very important for the history of art, for many of
them survived from antiquity and were rediscovered during the
 103. Sarcophagus showing
Achilles and Penthesilea,

mid 3rd century ad,

Renaissance, when they were extravagantly admired and proved a
height 117 cm, Vatican
great source of inspiration to artists. Museums, Rome.
A mid-3rd-century sarcophagus (Fig. 103) that was much ap-
preciated during the Renaissance depicts on its front the story of
Achilles and Penthesilea. Penthesilea was queen of the Amazons,
a legendary band of warrior women. According to the myth, the

Amazons were allies of the Trojans and came to fight beside them
when the Greeks were attacking Troy. Achilles, the champion of the
Greeks, fought the Amazon queen in single combat and killed her.

His triumph, however, was hollow, for as she expired he realised that
he had fallen in love with her.

The sarcophagus shows Achilles prominently in the centre hold-

ing the lifeless body of Penthesilea. Around them the battle contin-
ues to rage. Warriors, male and female, and their horses fill the entire
height of the sarcophagus. Some of the figures are tiny; others are

as large as Achilles. At either side a large Amazon flees but turns her
head to look back. The two are mirror images of each other. Their
formal symmetry, so at odds with the disorder of the battle, gives a

clue to the principle of design used in the carving of the sarcoph-

agus: it is meant to be decorative. The artist thought that enough

99
THE ROMAN WORLD

of the story was conveyed by the central group. He used the other
figures as fillers, shrunken in size or enlarged as necessary, in order

to make the entire panel a rippling surface of light and shadow. He

was interested neither in composing a plausibly naturalistic scene
nor in telling a story convincingly. What the artist was searching for
was an overall decorative pattern not too different in aesthetic aim
from the geometric vase painted by a Greek artist a thousand years
before (Fig. 59).

Roman sculpture, then, lay under heavy debt to Greek sculpture.

Original Roman contributions were stimulated by characteristically
Roman demands for representations of particular people and events,
and led to new creations in portraiture and the carving of documen-
tary commemorative reliefs. But from the end of the 2nd century
ad, an increasing interest in expression and decoration began to
draw the Romans away from the rationality and restraint that had
always been a part of Greek sculpture.

100
 8: ROMAN PAINTING

GREEK INSPIRATION FOR ROMAN PAINTING

The Romans admired Greek painting as much as they admired

below
Greek sculpture and encouraged the artists they employed to left

104. Roman wall painting

make copies of particularly famous or popular Greek works for them
showing Perseus freeing
(Figs. 104 and 105). Single figures, groups and entire panel paintings Andromeda, copy of a
were reproduced, adapted, spoiled or beautified according to the Greek original, ist century

ability of the painters and the demands of the patrons. ad, height 122 cm, Museo
Nazionale, Naples.
While Greek painting has been largely lost, a great deal of

Roman painting has survived. Most of what we have comes from the below
walls of private houses and public buildings in Pompeii and Her- 105. Roman wall painting

culaneum, two provincial but fashionable towns that were buried showing Perseus freeing

when Vesuvius erupted in ad 79. A few other paintings have also Andromeda, copy of the
same Greek original as
been found in Rome and elsewhere. It appears that the Romans
Fig. 104, ist century ad,
height 38 cm, Museo
Nazionale, Naples.

S^.

^iL> !

IOI
io6. Roman wall painting
from Pompeii showing the
riot in and around the
decorated their walls with mural paintings much more frequently

amphitheatre in ad 59,
than did the Greeks.
third quarter of the 1st The impression given by this abundant material is generally
century ad, height 170 cm,
attractive, occasionally beautiful, but taken as a whole second-rate
Museo Nazionale, Naples.
and derivative.

AN EXAMPLE OF A THOROUGHLY ROMAN

PAINTING

Some paintings seem untouched by the pervasive Greek influence.

One such is a lively portrayal of a riot in the amphitheatre in Pom-
peii (Fig. 106). This was a real event: a fight broke out between the
Pompeians and visitors from nearby Nocera in ad 59, and the distur-
bance was so great that the emperor ordered the amphitheatre closed
for ten years after the fray. The choice of subject is very Roman, as

is the visually illogical but intellectually lucid way in which the riot

is portrayed.
The oval interior of the amphitheatre is seen from a bird's-eye
view; the figures within it are seen head-on and are overlarge. The

102
 ROMAN PAINTING

exterior is drawn in a frontal view. The great triangle in front is the

support for flights of stairs that led up the outside of the amphithe-
atre and over the top to the seating inside. The artist has helpfully
turned the staircases outwards so that the steps can be seen. Actually,
of course, they would not have been visible from the angle at which
the rest of the exterior is shown. The whole picture reminds us of
parts of the decoration on the Column of Trajan (Fig. ioo).

The paintings that are copies of Greek originals (compare Figs.

85, 86, 104 and 105) look a great deal less naive than this Roman
provincial scene.

ROMAN SETTINGS: THE FOUR POMPEIAN

STYLES'

The Romans devoted great care to the painted settings in which

they placed their copies of Greek paintings, and the complex and
changing organisation of their painted walls makes an absorbing
study.

Scholars have divided the decoration of Pompeian walls into

four 'styles'. The First Style, one that was common throughout the
Mediterranean world during the 2nd century bc, was hardly a matter
of painting at all. It consisted simply of covering the wall with plaster
painted and shaped to look like different kinds of marble slabs. It

was supposed to make the whole wall appear as if veneered with

expensive foreign marbles, which is presumably the way palaces
were decorated.
About the beginning of the 1st century bc, some Roman painters
discovered that they did not have to make the plaster protrude
physically to give the impression of three-dimensional blocks; they
could paint the wall illusionistically to give the same effect.

Once the idea of illusion had dawned, a radical change took

place in the style. If one could paint the illusion of protruding
blocks, why not paint the illusion of open windows and distant
landscapes, people, animals, birds and gardens?
Thus was born the Second Style. It was an original Roman cre-

ation. Second Style walls were painted to suggest either that the
confines of a room had been pushed back or that they had been

103
107. Second Style room
from Boscoreale, Roman
wall paintings off. 40 bc,
dimensions of the room
436 x 656 cm,
Metropolitan Museum of
Art, New York, Rogers
Fund, 1903. (03.14.13)

Photograph by Schecter
Lee. Photograph ©1986

The Metropolitan
Museum of Art.

108. Second Style room

from the Villa of the
Mysteries, mid 1st century
bc, height (of figures)

c. 150 cm, Pompeii.

totally removed. Sometimes a parapet was painted upon which fig-

ures stood or sat (Fig. 108); sometimes a colonnade was painted

through which one could see distant views (Fig. 107); sometimes
the whole space above the parapet was illusionistically opened up

104
 ROMAN PAINTING

and the walls of the room were made to look like a charming garden.
The illusions are always rational and naturalistic, giving a plausible

extension of the space, but they are deliciously varied.

A little room from a villa at Boscoreale (near Pompeii) was
painted in the Second Style with views mostly of architectural vistas
(Fig. 107). The lowest part of the wall, the dado, is decorated rather
simply with stripes and imitation flat marble panels. This is the part
of the wall that might easily be obscured by furniture or damaged
in cleaning. Above it there is on which some red
a painted ledge

columns appear to stand. Between the columns there is a view of

city streets on either side of an enclosed sanctuary. It is as if one
looked out of a small room onto a spacious scene beyond.
The furthest section of the room is separated by tall white pi-
lasters which extend all the way Above the dado on the
to the floor.

back wall there is an idyllic landscape and, on either side, views of

shrines. Despite much formal symmetry, the vistas seem perfectly
possible, even though we know that most (if not all) the scenes are
probably copies of Greek prototypes (Fig. 85).

Sometimes the illusionistic extension of the room does not pen-

etrate so far. In the celebrated Villa of the Mysteries at Pompeii, the
bottom section of the wall is treated the same way as in the little

room at Boscoreale, but on the platform, instead of columns which

give onto a distant vista, there are large figures performing the ritual
associated with a cult of Dionysus in front of a flat crimson wall
(Fig. 108).

This visually logical and plausible style began to pall by the

last decade or so of the 1st century bc, and artists and patrons
began to look for something new. This led to the invention of
the Third Style, which emphasised the flat confining nature of the
walls, delighted in delicate and sophisticated details and outspokenly
denied all appearance of rationality and logic.

An enchanting example of the Third Style comes from a villa

at Boscotrecase (near Pompeii) that was owned by members of the

imperial family, and presumably shows what must have been the
most up-to-date and elegant fashions. The whole wall (except for
the dado) is painted black (Fig. 109). Above the dado there is an
extremely narrow, illusionistically painted ledge on which two pairs
of impossibly thin columns stand. The outer, sturdier columns hold

105
 from
Boscotrecase, Roman wall

painting from the late ist

century bc, dimensions of

the the room 470 x 540
cm (preserved height 238
cm), Metropolitan
Museum of Art, New
York, Rogers Fund, 1920.

above
no. Detail of Third Style
wall from Boscotrecase
(Fig. 109), floating

landscape.

in. Fourth Style room in

the house of the Vettii,

Roman wall paintings
from the third quarter of
the ist century ad,
Pompeii (see Fig. 112 for a

view of the whole of the

back wall).

IO6
 in. Fourth Style room in

the house of the Yettii.

Roman wall paintings

from the third quarter of

the ist century ad,
Pompeii (see Fig. in for a
detail in colour).

up a delicate gable from which pearls and gems seem to dangle. It is a

sort of jeweller's architecture, rich, fanciful and exquisite. The inner
columns support a frieze that looks like an embroidered ribbon.
In the centre of the flat, black, spaceless wall there is a little

landscape (Fig. no). It is convincingly three-dimensional - the deft

treatment of light gives a vivid impression of depth - but it floats

in midair in a most unlikely manner. The black background can be

interpreted either as flat and spaceless or as deep and spacious. The

illuminated landscape accentuates this ambiguity and playfully foils

any attempts at rational analysis.

By ad 62, when Pompeii was shaken by an earthquake and manv

houses had to be redecorated, most people had tired of the Third
Style. Once again they wanted paintings that created the illusion of
space and appeared to open out the confining walls of their often very
small rooms. In the Fourth Style they tried to create a new synthesis
between Second Style spaciousness and Third Style elegance.
A room in the Pompeian 'house of the Vettii' gives a good ex-

ample of Fourth Style decoration (Figs, in and 112). In the centre of

each wall there is a flat, red panel framing a square painting (usually
a copy of a Greek work). On either side of and above this red panel,
the wall appears to be opened up to allow for a view into the dis-

tance. The expansive views are distinctly theatrical and in this differ
from the everyday views of the Second Style. The side walls are

treated the same way as the back wall, but as they are longer, there
is space for an additional white panel. This panel is painted in the
Third Style, with a delicate border and a pair of figures floating in
an unlikely manner in the middle of the white nothingness, which
can be interpreted either as airy space or flat wall (Fig. 112).

This rather vulgarly painted room gives an idea of the general

level of painting at Pompeii: cheerful but rather crude. The central

107
ii3- Fragment of Fourth
Style decoration from
Herculaneum, Roman
wall painting from the
third quarter of the ist

century ad, height 195 cm,

Museo Nazionale, Naples.

pictures are fashionable but usually insensitive copies of Greek

models, and some rather flashy effects are sought in the theatrical
views. A fragment of a far finer painting comes from another house
(Fig. 113). It must have been placed fairly high on the left-hand side
of a wall-scheme like that in the house of the Vettii (Figs, in and 112),
judging from the angle suggested by the perspective. The delicacy
of the painting, the sureness of tonal range and the bravura make
this theatrical vista the equal of any of the masterpieces of baroque
decorative painting sixteen centuries later.

108
 —
9: ROMAN ARCHITECTURE: ADAPTATION
AND EVOLUTION

HOUSES AND TEMPLES: DWELLINGS FOR MEN dining-

a I

AND GODS room

Itabhnuml

atrium

The Romans built houses and temples long before they came
— nn
1
1

into contact with the Greeks, and they had strong, old and
— 1

LU
sanctified traditions as to

The traditional
how these should be constructed.
Roman house, unlike the Greek house, was built
—L 1

-1 * r
I

according to a strict and invariable plan (Fig. 114). It was entered

through a door placed in the centre of the short side, giving it from
114. Plan of a traditional
the outset a strong sense of central axis that was totally lacking in Roman atrium house.
the more casual Greek houses (Fig. 87 a-c). The entrance (fauces)
led into the atrium, 2. great central space with a rectangular opening
in the roof which let in light and air (rain, too, which was collected
in a basin, the impluvium, connected to a subterranean cistern). On
a direct line with the fauces, on the opposite side of the atrium,
was the tablinum, the main room in which the master of the house 115. Plan of a Roman
presided. The rest of the rooms opened off the atrium in an arrange- house with the traditional
atrium in front and a
ment that was less rigorously prescribed, though always basically
peristyle added at the
symmetrical. back.
When the Romans encountered the Greeks during the Hellenis-
tic period and fell under the spell of their superior culture, they dining-
room
could not fail to admire the charm and flexibility of Greek houses.
1

They were particularly impressed by the gracious peristyles that were • I

1

then a feature of the courtyards of many Greek houses

I
(Fig. 87c). • •
1

The Romans had great respect for tradition and were unwilling side door

to alter the traditional layout of the rooms in their houses, as it dining- 1

blinun
room
was associated with important functions within their society, yet •IL.
atrium
they wished to incorporate some of the qualities they admired in
£
Greek houses. The solution they arrived at is so simple that it is >
3 1

a
almost mechanical (Fig. 115). They continued to build the front 1 E 1

1 1

part of their houses in the traditional manner, but added onto the 1 1

back - the more private part of the house - a Greek type of peristyle 111
with rooms casually arranged around it.

109
n6. View from the fauces
through the atrium into
the peristyle of a house
(the House of the
Menander) in Pompeii,

ist century bc.

On paper the plan of this new type of Roman house may not
look very exciting, but in fact the play of light and shadow and the
contrast of illuminated atrium, dark tablinum and light-filled peri-

style beyond, make for a very beautiful and striking effect (Fig. 116).

Notice, too, the sense of order, the axial build-up to a climax, which
much resembles the principles of planning that underlay the sanc-
tuary of Fortuna at Praeneste (Fig. 92).
Tradition also dictated the form of the Roman temple. Following
Etruscan precedent, temples were normally built on a high podium,
by a flight of steps in front (Fig. 117). The cella
accessible only (the

main room of the temple, which might be single or divided into

no
 ii7- Reconstruction
drawing of a traditional
Etruscan-early Roman
type of temple.

three parts) covered the full width of the podium and also reached
all the way to the back. The only part of the podium not covered
by the cella was the front, where a deep porch led from the top of
the flight of steps into the cella. Both the plan and the elevation of
a Roman temple were different from the Greek (Figs. 33-38).

A Greek temple was normally not set very high; it was usually
supported all round on just three steps; by contrast, a Roman temple
on its high podium towered above everyone approaching it (Fig. 117).

A Greek temple generally looked much the same from all four sides
(Figs. 37 and 38); not so a Roman temple. The front, which was
accentuated by the flight of steps and the porch, looked strikingly
different from the sides, which were of little importance, and the
back, which was negligible. The back, in fact, was so unimportant
that it was often built against a wall. Thus the Roman temple could
become attached (like a relief) rather than remaining a free-standing
building.
When the Romans became acquainted with the Greeks, they
began to improve the appearance of their temples along Greek
lines, but, as in the matter of their houses, they did not violate
traditional usages. Once again a compromise solution was found,
and it is well illustrated in the Augustan temple built at Nimes in

southern France (Fig. 118).

The Romans were struck more by the external peristyles of Greek

temples than by any other feature, so it was this handsome embel-
lishment that they tried to apply to their traditional type of temple.

in
n8. The Maison Carree, a
Roman temple with From the plan (Fig. 119) it is obvious that the characteristic form
partially attached
of the Roman temple has been preserved - the temple is set on a
peristyle, late ist century
bc, Nimes, France.
high podium accessible only by steps at the front and that the cella,

preceded by a deep porch, extends all the way across and to the
above right back of the podium. The great innovation was the extension of the
119. Plan of the Maison porch colonnade all round the temple so that it appears to be encir-
Carree (Fig. 118).
cled by a peristyle. The full round columns of the porch had to be
squashed into attached half-columns (engaged columns) when they
were forced to share the edge of the podium with the outer walls of
the cella (Fig. Compromises are seldom perfect; still, this was
118).

a good one, made in much the same spirit as the statue of Augustus
from Prima Porta (Fig. 93), with which it is contemporary.
A Greek temple was best appreciated from one corner (Fig. 38),
for this approach immediately reveals the principal dimensions of
the temple and establishes its independence as a free-standing build-

ing. Gateways in Greek sanctuaries were generally arranged so that

the worshippers' first view of a Greek temple was from this angle

(Fig. 91). For the Roman temple, however, this view is less satisfy-

ing (Fig. 117). The abrupt change from free-standing colonnade to

attached half-columns where the walls of the cella intrude on the
illusion of a peristyle is disturbing.
Consequently, the layout of Roman sanctuaries and precincts
usually obliged visitors to take up a position directly opposite the
front of a temple. There is a feeling of inevitable Tightness once one
stands facing the temple at Nimes directly (Fig. 120). The flight
of steps invites one to mount (while the high podium approached

112
 no. The Maison Carree
(same as Fig. 118) seen
from the correct angle.

from any other angle discourages further advance), and the shady
porch draws one in. The tall facade, looming up with strong vertical
emphasis, dominates the space in front of it, just as the statue of
Augustus from Prima Porta (Fig. 93), with its powerfully raised arm,
dominates the space before it.

Not all Roman Roman

temples show this compromise between
tradition and Greek trappings. Some were remarkably original. One
of the most amazing is the Pantheon, built in Rome in the time of
the emperor Hadrian (ad 117-138) and fortunately still extremely
well preserved (Fig. 121).
The architect of the Pantheon (who may have been the emperor
himself) draws on old Roman traditions, techniques and materials to
create something dazzlingly new. Circular as well as rectangular

temples had been built in Rome from ancient times. Inside, circular

temples were cramped cylinders. The vast uncluttered interior of the

Pantheon (Fig. 121), breathtaking in its serenity and grandeur, was
quite novel. The height of the dome is equal to the diameter of

113
in. Interior of the
Pantheon, a 2nd-century
ad Roman round temple,
painted by Pannini in the
18th century, National

Gallery of Art,
Washington, DC, Samuel
H. Kress Collection.

the base, so that the great hemisphere tranquilly resting upon the
ample drum seems to shape a sphere of space. The circular opening
at the centre of the dome floods the building with light and throws
a moving circle of sunshine on the walls. An 18th-century painting
shows the rich inlays of marble that lined the interior. (Possibly it

was effects of this sort that wall painters in the first Pompeian style

were striving to capture.)

Only a dome could roof the great central space of the Pantheon
without requiring intermediate supports. By the 2nd century ad,
the Romans had amassed considerable experience in building arches,
vaults and domes. They used them in numerous works of practi-
cal and ornamental architecture. An arch is built of wedge-shaped

114
 ROMAN ARCHITECTURE: ADAPTATION AND EVOLUTION

stones (voussoirs) which become self-supporting once the keystone

is in place. Until then it has to be built on a framework (centring) of

wood. An arch extended in length becomes a barrel vault; an arch

that is rotated becomes a dome. The structural principles are the
same for all three forms.
The dome of the Pantheon does not require a keystone because it
is built of concrete, which, once set, is self-supporting. Knowledge of
how to build arches and vaults was necessary for its construction, as
was also a huge wooden centring, but the final form was possible only
because of the Romans' experience and skill in the use of concrete.
The Romans began to use concrete in the 2nd century bc. It was
cheap, strong and malleable and could be used for huge projects
such as the sanctuary of Fortuna at Praeneste (Fig. 92), where the
whole side of a hill was transformed into an architectural complex.
Buildings of concrete were constructed as follows. Two low walls
were built (if below ground, of wooden shutters; if above ground,
of mortared bricks). The space between the walls was filled with
broken stones {aggregate). Next, mortar- the best quality, composed
of lime and a local volcanic sand (pozzolana) mixed with water -
was poured in. It flowed around the pieces of stone that made up
the aggregate and then hardened. As soon as it was hard enough,
the containing walls were built to a higher more aggregate was
level,

laid between them and a new batch of mortar was poured in. As the

building rose, the nature of the aggregate was altered. Heavy stones
were used at the bottom, lighter ones as the walls grew higher. Very
light materials, like pumice, would be used in the aggregate of a
dome, for which a wooden centring would have to be employed.
The shape of the final concrete building was defined by the
shape of the containing walls between which the aggregate was laid.

Since the Romans usually used bricks or, alternatively, carpented

wood to construct these walls, they could be flexibly and imag-
inatively curved. Furthermore, concrete could take the shape of

anything that was pressed against it before it dried. Thus, wooden

moulds were used to make the coffers of the dome of the Pantheon
(Fig. 121). Once the concrete had set, the moulds were removed but
the shape remained. The coffers make a great aesthetic contribution
to the appearance of the dome, for they make its sphericity apparent,

defining the curve and the recession by means of light and shadow

"5
122. Model of the theatre

of Marcellus, Rome, late

ist century bc.

and subtly used perspective. A smooth dome, evenly flooded with

light, as the dome of the Pantheon is, would just look flat. Notice
how undefined the central portion of the Pantheon's dome is, where
there is no coffering to catch the light and throw shadows.

FROM THEATRE TO AMPHITHEATRE

Engineering experience in the use of arches and vaults and practical
experience in the use of concrete enabled the Romans to create build-
ings in shapes and on a scale that could never have been dreamed
of by the Greeks. Such techniques also enabled them to transform
the Greek theatre. Greek theatres were built into hillsides (Fig. 88);
they were not free-standing buildings. The Romans ingeniously
used tiers of arches made of cut stone and concrete to construct the
equivalent of a hillside on which to rest the seats of the auditorium.
Thus they were able to build theatres anywhere, even in the flattest
stretches of desert, for the theatres they built were free-standing and
independent (Fig. 122).

The Romans gave their theatres an appearance of unity and co-

herence by erecting a scene building {scaenae from: plural scaenarum
frontes) that was as tall as the top of the auditorium and connected
laterally with it (Fig. 122). Thus the semicircular area of the theatre
was completely enclosed, and the three originally distinct parts of

the Greek theatre (Fig. 88) were welded into a single unit (Fig. 123).
Spectacles in the theatre were addressed to the audience. Actors
would stand with their backs to the scaenae frons and direct their

speeches to the crowds that only partially encircled them. Other

116
 123. Roman theatre, ist

century ad, Orange,

France.

entertainments that the Romans enjoyed did not have any such
built-in, necessary sense of direction. The bloody fights of gladiators,

or men against wild beasts, or wild beasts against each other, like
modern bullfights or football games, did not have to be viewed from
any one direction. In fact, they were better viewed from all round.
The Romans created an architectural form to fit the need. The
invention has the simplicity of genius: two theatres were constructed
back to back but with the intervening walls of the scaenarum frontes
omitted. What resulted was an oval arena encased in an oval of
tiered seats; not a theatre but an arnphi theatre. The coin in Figure
124, which shows most famous of all am-
a representation of the
phitheatres, the Colosseum Rome, conveys in a single glance the
in

essentials of the structure. Like the painting of the riot in the am- 124. The Colosseum as

phitheatre in Pompeii (Fig. 106) and some of the carvings on the shown on a coin minted

Column of Trajan (Fig. 100), visual realism has been sacrificed for ad 238-244.

the sake of diagrammatic clarity. Thus one sees the interior of the
amphitheatre and, at the same time, the exterior, which was built

on superimposed tiers of arches. A combination of cut stone and

concrete was used to construct this giant arena (Fig. 125), the ded-
ication of which was one of the principal events in the short reign

of the emperor Titus (ad 79-81). It was not the first amphitheatre -
the one in Pompeii was earlier — but it was probably the finest. The
arcades of the exterior were filled with sculptures. These have long
been lost, but the fact that they once existed gives an indication of

H7
125. Exterior of the
Colosseum (the Flavian

amphitheatre),
inaugurated ad 80, Rome.

what an immense quantity of sculpture was produced during the

period of the Roman empire.
Greek theatres (from which the Colosseum is derived at two
removes), having been built into the sides of hills, had no exteriors.
The Colosseum, by contrast, had a gigantic one. Much thought was
given to its decoration (Fig. 125). In addition to the statues placed
within the arches, a veneer of Greek orders was superimposed on
the arcades. On the lowest register, attached Doric half-columns
support an attached architrave; on the second register, there are

attached Ionic half-columns; on the third, attached Corinthian half-

columns; and at the top, which was added later, attached Corinthian
pilasters. These orders support nothing. They are not structural but

ornamental. This does not mean they were unimportant.

The application of these orders served two functions. First, they
clearly alluded to Greek architecture. This was the way the Romans
showed their appreciation of Greek culture. Adding Greek orders to
the exterior of a theatre or an amphitheatre was rather like adding a
Greek peristyle to a Roman temple (Figs. 118-120), a touch of Greek
elegance that did not affect the basic Roman structure underneath.
Second, the application of the orders gave the impression of scal-
ing down the building, making it more accessible to human beings
without diminishing its tremendous size. The naked, unarticulated
structure of the Colosseum (Fig. 126) is gigantic, dwarfing any peo-
ple who might approach it. The Roman architects wanted Roman

118
 D D
D
D

odqqQQQQQQ
r\

oqdqdQQQQQQ
r^ /^ /^ ^ r^\
126. Drawing of the
Colosseum showing the
structure without the

QQQOQ #-
addition of the applied
orders.

citizens to appreciate the grandeur of their creations, but they also

wanted them to feel that they shared in that grandeur, not that
they were tiny and insignificant. Faced with the great mass of the
building, an individual might have been daunted; however, since
the orders have been applied, one does not have to relate to the
whole building but merely to a single bay. Notice in Figure 126 how
small a person is in relation to the entire structure but how much
larger he seems (Fig. 125) when measured only against the rectangle
described by the columns and architrave that frame a single arch.
Because of the addition of the orders, a Roman citizen could feel

himself a significant part of the huge building and the huge empire
that it represented.

IMPERIAL THERMAE THE PALACES

OF THE PEOPLE'

A much prized leisure activity among the Romans was an afternoon

visit to the baths. The fee, if there was one, was so small that even
the poorest could afford to pay, and what they received in return

was far more than just a wash. Even the most elementary bathing
establishments (some 800 of these existed in Rome at the height of
the empire) included cold, warm and hot rooms, while the grandiose

119
 n

127- Plan of the Baths of

in iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiniiiiiiuiiiiiiiiiiiiii
Caracalla, ad 216.

bath establishments (thermae) built by the emperors were something

quite spectacular.
The huge Baths of Caracalla (Figs. 127 and 128), completed in ad
216, covered an area as great as might be occupied by a small town
and included a vast range of amenities. The actual bath building
was enclosed in ample grounds that provided viewing stands for

watching foot races (S), promenades for strolling, and libraries (L)

for intellectual stimulation - all within elegant, enormously spacious

surroundings (400 by 300 metres).
The bath building itself was large enough to accommodate 1,600
bathers at a time.The brilliant symmetrical plan (Fig. 127) was de-
signed to conserve heat and to promote the easy flow of bathers, who
could complete (or vary) the circuit without having to retrace their
steps. The climactic circular room for hot baths (caldarium C), at the
end of the short axis, faced south-west in order to catch the afternoon
sun and was almost as large as the Pantheon (Fig. 121). Opposite it,

at the other end of the short axis, was an unroofed swimming pool
(natatio N). In between there was a huge hall (frigidarium F), the

scale of which may be imagined from the reconstruction drawing

(Fig. 128). Providing the transition between the hot and the cold
baths was a warm room (tepidarium T).

120
 n8. Reconstruction
drawing of the frigidarium
(Great Hall) of the Baths
of Caracalla. Fototeca
Unione.

Along the long axis there were catefully contrived vistas punc-
tuated by colonnades, fountains and sculptures leading to open-air
exercise grounds (palaestras PAL).
Rooms of different sizes were roofed in different ways, some
vaulted, others domed, and still others had flat roofs or no roofs
at all, producing a play of light and shadow comparable to that
in the atrium house (Fig. 116) but on a much grander scale. The
bather progressed through a series of differently shaped volumes,
large or small, rectangular or rounded, enclosed or open, to meet
with a sequence of architectural surprises. And, in addition, the

whole complex was elaborately (perhaps even gaudily) decorated

with marble facings or mosaics on the walls, floors and ceilings and
gigantic statues or statuary groups - a veritable museum combined
with a playground, which all together accommodated ball games,

121
129- Aqueduct at Segovia,

ist century ad.

athletic exercises, massages, ablutions, swimming, snacking or just

amiable gatherings of friends. Such thermae, providing something

like palaces for the people, were among the most seductive features of
the Roman empire, as attractive in the provinces as in the city itself.

A good supply of water was essential to serve the baths, whether

they were modest private enterprises or the magnificent gifts of
emperors. The Romans, always first-rate organisers and engineers,
found this no problem: throughout the empire they ensured abun-
dant water supplies by means of aqueducts. Whenever possible,
these were led along the ground, but when necessary, water could

be carried along the top of lofty structures supported by arches that

sometimes stretched for miles (Fig. 129). After surveying the impres-
sive provisions made for the city of Rome, Frontinus (who wrote
about the water supply in the late istand early 2nd centuries ad)
invited his readers to compare what had been achieved with 'the idle

pyramids or all the useless, though famous, works of the Greeks!'

{DeAquis Urbis Romae 1, 16).

Rome itself had several magnificent aqueducts, but the provinces

were not neglected, and to this day one is awed by the towering
construction still functioning in Segovia in Spain (Fig. 129).

122
 IO: WORLD RULERS

WORLD ARCHITECTURE FOR WORLD RULERS

The Romans were- great organisers and great builders. Wher-

ever they went and they went all over the western part of
the civilised world (Map 3) - they established colonies and built

cities. These cities were then graced with the amenities that made
Roman civilisation attractive to conquered people. To house such
amenities, the same types of buildings as had been created in Rome
were erected outside the city in the newly acquired domains, al-

though local methods and materials often had to be used to construct

them.
130. Theatre at Aspendos,
2nd century ad.

123
131. El Djem
(amphitheatre), mid 3rd
century ad. © Roger We have already seen how a theatre in the Roman style was
Wood/CORBIS.
built at Orange in southern France (Fig. 123). Similar theatres can
be found throughout the Roman empire. The best preserved is at

Aspendos in Asia Minor (Fig. 130). As at Orange, the scaenae frons

still stands up to its full height and is linked to the top of the cavea.
The audience was, therefore, contained within an enclosed space,
isolated from the outside world; this was very different from the
open aspect of the Greek theatre at Epidauros (Fig. 88).
The scaenae frons was, in its original state, a glamorous affair.

Statues stood in niches framed by columns, each pair of columns

topped by its own entablature. This lively decorative scheme was
on two levels, supported by the outcroppings still protruding from
the back wall of the scaenae frons. On the upper level, the pairs
of columns were further enriched by alternating triangular and
rounded pediments. In the centre, an enlarged triangular pediment,
just perceptible in Figure 130 above the large central door, embraced
a pair of niches. A splendid and rich effect must have been produced
by the rows of paired columns with their elaborate entablatures, sim-
ilar to, or even more complex than, the scaenae frons reconstructed

124
 132. Plan of the Imperial
Baths at Trier, early 4th
century ad.

on the model of the theatte of Marcellus (Fig. 122). The scale of the
building can be appreciated when one sees how small the people
visiting it are.

Amphitheatres, too, proliferated, built to accommodate the

gruesome entertainments that had become popular, particularly in
the western part of the empire. The remains of a huge amphithe-
atre can still be seen at El Djem in North Africa (Fig. 131). Even

in this remote provincial location, care was taken to produce work

worthy of the dignity of the Roman empire, and the exterior was
decorated with a veneer of classical orders, attached columns and
entablatures, similar to those adorning the Colosseum (Fig. 125).

Though partially ruined, the amphitheatre still towers over the hum-
ble dwellings that surround it, a reminder that it stood at a cross-
roads of traffic between the coast and the interior and reflected the

125
THE ROMAN WORLD

prosperity of the olive-growing communities that flourished in the

area.

The most seductively attractive of Roman amenities, bath build-

ings, were constructed wherever the Romans went. The majority

were very modest, consisting simply of the basic hot, warm and
cold rooms, but some were constructed in a style and on a scale that

rivalled the grandeur of the imperial city itself.

The Imperial Baths at Trier were the second large public thermae
to be built in the city and were never completed (Fig. 132). Covering
a vast area (260 by 150 metres), their elegant and efficient design

resembles that of the Baths of Caracalla (Fig. 127). As in the Baths of

Caracalla, the layout is symmetrical, with the actual bathing rooms
(caldarium C, tepidarium T and frigidarium F) on the central axis,
flanked by dressing rooms, latrines and other facilities. Here, too, the
hot room (caldarium C) is orientated towards the south in order to
make maximum use of the warmth of the sun. The exercise grounds
(Pal), however, are just attached to the north of the main building
block and not integrated into it, unlike the Baths of Caracalla, which
were considerably larger and set within a huge garden precinct.
This handful of examples drawn from as far east as Turkey
(Aspendos), as far south as Tunisia (El Djem) and as far north as
Germany (Trier) may suffice to suggest the pervasive influence of
Roman customs throughout the sprawling empire.

UNITY AND DIVERSITY

Building forms and the way of life that they accommodated were
not the only things to travel from one end of the empire to the
other; ideas - and even myths - travelled too.
Greek myths, along with other aspects of Greek civilisation, had
been absorbed into Roman culture well before the beginning of the
imperial period and long continued to be illustrated in paintings
(Figs. 104 and 105), on sarcophagi (Fig. 103) or in mosaics wherever
cultivated Romans lived.

One such myth, perhaps surprisingly popular, was the story of

the discovery of Achilles among the daughters of Lycomedes.

126
 133. Mosaic, Discovery of
Achilles among the
daughters of Lycomedes,
According to this tale, when the hero Achilles was still a young 1st century ad, Pompeii.
boy, his mother, anxious that he should not be conscripted into DAIRome.
the fighting against Troy, hid him among the fifty daughters of
Lycomedes. The Greeks, collecting forces to fight against Troy in
order to recover Helen, knew that Achilles was concealed there and
also knew that he was destined to be a great warrior. They were,
therefore, anxious to recruit him. The problem was how to detect
the beardless youth among the girls - without giving undue offence.
Clever Odysseus devised the following plan. He and a fellow
Greek came to the court of Lycomedes disguised as merchants. In
this role they offered a range of feminine articles and also a spear,
shield and sword, equipment fit only for a warrior.
The girls came and viewed the goods, Achilles, prettily dressed,
unrecognisable among them. Odysseus then did the thing that gave
him his reputation for superior intelligence: he had a trumpeter
sound the alarm. The girls responded with terror, but Achilles,
his true nature rushing irrepressibly to the surface, immediately

127
134- Mosaic, Discovery of
Achilles among the
daughters of Lycomedes,
early 4th century ad,
seized the arms and so revealed himself- with no embarrassment to
Algiers Museum.
anyone.
This scene of the discovery of Achilles among the daughters
of Lycomedes greatly appealed to the Romans. It was frequently
painted on walls or used to decorate sarcophagi, and also appears in
about a dozen surviving mosaics. Some show characteristics derived
from the same model, but others display individual variants.

A mosaic found in Pompeii (Fig. 133) depicts Achilles, still

clothed in his feminine attire, in the centre, grasping a shield

with one hand and a sword with the other. Odysseus, who laid

the trap, approaches from the right, while Achilles turns to look
at the astonished girl at the left, whose agitated gesture has dis-
placed her clothing. She was not actually surprised to discover that
Achilles was a man, for she was already pregnant with his son,

but she was horrified at the consequences sure to follow upon this

revelation. The Roman artist may well have found the juxtaposi-
tion of the nude woman and the male figure in drag pleasantly
titillating.

Another mosaic (Fig. 134), this one from Tipasa in Algeria, is both
more crowded and less well preserved. Achilles is still recognisable
in the centre, holding a shield in one hand and a spear in the other.
In this image he has shed his feminine garb and is fully revealed as

male, with only a cloak loosely draped over one arm. Puzzled girls

are shown to the right, while Odysseus steps forward from the left

to take hold of Achilles, and the trumpeter, whose action was so

critical in distinguishing the youth from the girls, appears at the far
left.

128
 135- Mosaic, Discovery of
Achilles among the
daughters of Lycomedes,
.
first half of the 3rd century
A third mosaic (big. 135), uncovered in Zeugma on the huphrates AD Zeugma, Turkey.
in eastern Turkey in 2000, shows the three major figures, all almost Courtesy A Turizm
fully clothed, in a palatial architectural setting. Achilles is again Yayinlari, Istanbul.

central, still wearing female clothing, but clothing that has now
become sufficiently disordered to reveal an unmistakably masculine
chest. He holds a spear in his right hand, his sword is at his side

and he has already fitted the shield to his left arm, so that he seems
ready for battle. Odysseus, to the right, cowers away from the raised
shield, while Achilles' lover, heavily draped, reaches out for him.
Minor figures in the background complete the scene.

129
 This Greek myth had become an accepted part of Roman culture;
its main lines are recognisable in all three mosaics. Nevertheless each
artist has illustrated the story in a slightly different way.

NON-ROMAN ETHNIC TRADITIONS UNDER

ROMAN RULE
Although Roman culture pervaded the empire, a variety of ethnic
traditions were occasionally combined with Roman forms to pro-
duce something new. Such are the mummy portraits painted in

Egypt during the Roman period. These solemn and beautiful im-
ages representing the deceased were placed over the faces of the dead
once they had been mummified. Mummification was, of course,
136. Portrait of a woman, from remote
practised by the Egyptians antiquity, and the prac-
encaustic on limewood
tice was continued even after Egypt had been conquered, first by
with added gold leaf,

about ad 160-170, Alexander the Great and then by the Romans. Invaders married
44.3 x 20.4 cm, British native women; populations became mixed - and so, too, did their
Museum, London. © The art.
British Museum.
The extraordinary vividness of many of these images is due to
the accomplished naturalism that had been developed over many
centuries. In the portrait shown in Figure 136, for example, the
clever touches of white to highlight the eyes, nostril and the lower
lip, the shading of the side of the nose and under the chin, and
the subtle modelling of face and neck suggest a three-dimensional
figure bathed in light.

This portrait was painted on wood using the encaustic tech-

nique, in which warmed (or emulsified) beeswax was employed as

themedium to bind the pigments. The effects produced could be

much like those of oil painting.
Most panel paintings created during classical antiquity were
painted on wood and were lost when, in wet climates, the wood
disintegrated. Since the dry climate of Egypt prevents wood from
decaying, numerous mummy portraits have survived. Images like

this one, with its engaging presence and subtle colour harmonies,
are precious evidence of the heights Roman portrait painting could
attain, even though this portrait was produced for a very un-Roman
purpose.

130
137- Marble menorah
(seven-branched lamp
holder), first half of 4th
century ad, preserved
height 56.5 cm, from the
synagogue in Sardis.

(c) Archaeological
Exploration of
Sardis/Harvard University.

131
 Among the large and diverse peoples included in the Roman empire
were some who had traditional practices that were markedly at vari-

ance with the prevailing culture. As long as these did not interfere
with the efficient running of the empire, the Romans could be re-

markably tolerant and even willing to make concessions to ancestral

customs.
By the time the Romans came to power, Jews were no longer con-
centrated only in the area around Jerusalem but had been scattered
throughout the Mediterranean area and to the east in Mesopotamia,
beyond the boundaries of the Roman empire (see Map 3). In some
places the Jewish population constituted a distinctive and occasion-
ally resented minority group. When conflicts erupted and Roman
mediation was invoked, provided there was no real threat to Ro-
man authority, the Romans would usually protect the Jews' right to
preserve their religious rites and even excused them from sacrificing

directly to the emperor, allowing them instead to make sacrifices in

the Temple in Jerusalem on behalf of the emperor.

Local problems were dealt with locally, so that Roman tolerance
toward the Jews dispersed around the empire persisted even after the

great Jewish revolt was finally quashed with the sack of Jerusalem
and the destruction of the Temple in ad 70 (see Fig. 99), and after

above and opposite two further bloody uprisings in the 2nd century ad had claimed
138. Grave stele of Philus hundreds of thousands of lives.
from Cirencester, about By this time a sizeable Jewish community had been living peace-
the middle of the 1st
ably in Sardis (western Turkey) for hundreds of years. Not having
century ad, height 216 cm.
(c) Gloucester City
been drawn into the rebellions against Roman authority, it con-
Museum and Art Gallery. tinued to flourish virtually undisturbed. The Jews of Sardis were,
therefore, able to build a large and impressive synagogue, the scale

of which came as a surprise to 20th-century excavators. Many pros-

perous Jews made dedications to maintain the upkeep of the syn-
agogue, expressing themselves more often in Greek (the local lan-
guage in this part of the empire) than in Hebrew. In the 4th century
ad, a certain Socrates dedicated a large marble menorah (Fig. 137).
A fragment of his offering, with its outstanding virtuoso open-
work carving of a floral design between the branches, has survived.
(The reconstruction drawing suggests how complex and elaborate
it originally was.) This finely executed but characteristically Jewish

-31
object (compare Fig. 99, which shows the golden menorah looted
from the Temple in Jerusalem) is just one illustration of how the
same techniques as were used to produce the elegant stone carv-
ings that graced so many pagan monuments were also employed
by the various minority sects that made up the huge heterogeneous
empire.

ART OUTSIDE THE CLASSICAL TRADITION

PHTLVSCA
The slow but brilliant progress of the Greeks in discovering ways
SSAVIELU
to represent human figures in a life-like manner and to fill spaces,
however awkward their shape, with harmonious designs has been
JWNMXW
H-S-E
traced in Chapters 1-5. These achievements were passed on to the

Romans and used in their most urbane works (Chaps. 7 and 8).
But not all artists were trained to meet such high standards. Even

in Rome itself naive compositions and ill-proportioned figures were

sometimes created, and in the provinces many stone carvers who
could manage to carve inscriptions extremely well were quite hope-
less when it came to more sophisticated demands.
A tombstone from Cirencester in England displays well-cut
Roman lettering and an architectural frame with fluted pilasters
crowned with Corinthian capitals topped by a triangular pediment
(Fig. 138). Within this frame is the image of the deceased, Philus by
name, wearing a hooded cloak in local style.

The heavy garment does not simply obscure his body; he seems
to have no discernible body under it at all! His head emerges at the

top and two lower legs and feet at the bottom, but as there is no hint
of underlying anatomy, his legs might as well be hanging directly
from his shoulders. Drapery, even rather heavy drapery (see Athena
49 or the procession on the Ara Pacis in Fig. 97), can be made
in Fig.

wonderfully revealing of the body beneath - but it takes great skill

and training to make it do so, and the naive artist here, who has got
a good grasp only of the trimmings of Roman art, was clearly at a

losswhen it came to depicting a human figure.

The tombstone for Philus was made for a private individual, but
another example of work made outside the classical tradition comes

133
right, and opposite
139. Panel adorning the
Trajanic monument i > «k

(Tropaium Traiani), ad
107-108, 105 x 102 cm,
National Museum of
Romania, Adamklissi.

from a public monument: the large triumphal monument erected

in the time of Trajan at Adamklissi (Romania). Here a huge mound
supporting a gigantic stone trophy was encircled near the bottom
by a series of metope-like rectangles. The rectangles were filled

with figured subjects: military combats, anxious civilians, groups

of trumpet-players or corps of standard-bearers. In one poorly pre-
served scene (Fig. 139), two barbarians are attacking the Roman
between them, while a dead body is stuffed in horizontally at the
top left. The craftsman carver here had little grasp of how to convey
anatomy correctly, how to make action convincing or how to create

134
a satisfying composition with figures all on the same scale. The skill

and training which enabled Greek artists to fill metopes with bold
and handsome designs (Figs. 48-52) were simply not available to
him.
The most aesthetically pleasing of these rather crude works are

those in which a decorative effect is produced through repetition

(Fig. 140). The curved trumpets carried by the men marching (more
or less) in step make for a handsome design, and the drill holes that
have been used to suggest their chain-mail armour create a lively

pattern of light and dark. This unambitious composition relies on

135
right, and opposite
140. Panel showing
Ikft
trumpeters from the same
monument as Figure 139. m*m
repeated forms to create an attractive pattern, the method used by
the Greeks in the archaic period (compare Fig. 48).
The carvings at Adamklissi, virtually contemporary with the
Column of Trajan (Fig. 100), provide an example of sculpture in
and for the Roman empire untouched by the classical style so la-
boriously developed by the Greeks and enthusiastically espoused by
the more sophisticated Romans. These awkward carvings, the prod-
uct of workmen innocent of the hard-won achievements of classical
artists, dramatically reveal how unusual, refined and astonishing was
the classical style evolved by the Greeks.

The huge geographic expanse of the Roman empire was matched by

the diversity of the people and the traditions it encompassed. Within

136
 i^WW«%?fr

it, Roman forms and ideals were often eagerly adopted, sometimes
subtly modified, occasionally drastically transformed or even totally
ignored.
In time, after the fall of the empire, mighty buildings began
to decay, marble veneers were stripped from walls, and roofs fell

in; statues were looted and burned to produce lime or melted

down for their metal; paintings disintegrated and turned to dust.

Yet, even in ruins, the massive remains and pathetic fragments of

what the Romans had built still astound the visitor and stir the
imagination.

137
EPILOGUE

Time, war and vandalism have all contributed to the destruction

of the art of Greece and Rome. Mere fragments have survived,
and yet these have often proved inspiration enough for later ages.

Even as early as the Carolingian period (8th-9th centuries), artists

and thinkers began to look back to pagan antiquity for models of
humanity and culture in art and literature. But it was only in the

Renaissance (beginning in the 15th century) that the art of Rome

came to be fully appreciated in its own right. From that time on it has
been ceaselessly studied, copied, admired and analysed. During the
neo-classical period (the 18th century) people became increasingly
aware of the differences between Greek art and Roman art instead of
lumping them together as classical antiquity', and this distinction

has been further refined as Greek art has come to be increasingly

well understood.
The newly emerging urban societies of the Renaissance were
immensely impressed by what they learned of the urban societies of
antiquity. For centuries the revival of antiquity seemed the highest
possible goal for civilised man. Even plaster casts and humble Latin
texts were enthusiastically used to open receptive eyes and minds to
the glories of the past.
The 21st century has other concerns. The intensity of passion
once felt for the art of Greece and Rome has faded, but the beauty
and power of the creations themselves remain, mute but eloquent
testimony to the glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was
Rome.

138
 APPENDIX: HOW WE KNOW WHAT
WE THINK WE KNOW

Confronting what is left of Greek and Roman art is like en-

tering a hopelessly chaotic museum where most of the ex-

hibits have no labels and such labels as exist have all been thrown
helter-skelter intosome barely sorted piles. We have the actual re-
mains of works of art — buildings, sculptures, paintings, vases, mo-
saics and suchlike — but seldom with any information attached to

them that indicates when they were made, by whom, or for what
purpose.
Fortunately, apart from these physical objects, we have some
written sources of information (see Chap. 3, pp. 56-58): histories,
biographies and inscribed stones. The literary works lack illustra-

tions, and the inscribed stones - often naming the dedicator and the
artist - are usually only bases that once supported statuesnow lost.
An important task in trying to understand Greek and Roman art is
to attach what has survived in written records to what has survived
physically.

A few examples follow of how the history of Greek and Roman

art has been built up into a deceptively clear account.

HOW GREEK AND ROMAN WORKS OF ART AND

ARCHITECTURE CAN BE DATED

Plutarch, who lived in the 1st and 2nd centuries ad, wrote a biog-

raphy of the Athenian statesman Pericles in which he mentioned

the buildings erected under Pericles' influence. Among them is the
Parthenon (Plutarch Life of Pericles 13, 31). Other sources give us
dates for Pericles. In addition, fragmentary inscriptions on stone,

which are dated, detail the expenditure on some of the sculpture

adorning the temple. From these pieces of evidence, we can be con-
fident of the dates of Figs. 47, 51-54, 56 and 98.

Such fixed points are rare, but highly useful. Works that in style
seem earlier can be placed earlier; those that look more developed,

139
APPENDIX: HOW WE KNOW WHAT WE THINK WE KNOW

later; but where there is no further confirmation, this chronology

cannot be considered conclusive.
From the time of Homer in the 8th century bc through most of
the 6th century bc, speculation and the logic of stylistic development
are practically all we have. The apparently logical sequence of kouroi
(Figs, i, 6 and 9) derives largely from the assumption that there was
a desire among the sculptors to produce increasingly naturalistic
images. This assumption is probably basically correct, despite the
somewhat circular reasoning.

Dating Roman monuments is easier and usually surer. Liter-

ary sources often attribute certain creations to particular emperors,

whose dates are documented. Quite often the monuments them-
selves bear inscriptions that indicate when they were made, for
instance Trajan's column (Fig. 100). Occasionally, the date of a
building will be supplied by the stamps impressed on the bricks
used: through them it was discovered that the Pantheon (Fig. 121)

was actually constructed in the time of Hadrian - despite the fact

that an inscription on the facade attributes its erection to Augustus'
general Agrippa.
The images of most of the emperors (Figs. 93, 94 and 96) and
the hairstyles of their wives (Fig. 95) have been identified (often
with the help of portraits on coins), and the fashion for imitating
the styles used by the imperial family can provide a clue to dating
images of ordinary people. For instance, Penthesilea as depicted on
the sarcophagus in Fig. 103 is actually the portrait of a lady wearing
the most up-to-date imperial hairstyle, one that helps to date the

sarcophagus.
In some instances we have a date post quern (after which) cer-

tain works must be dated. Thus the great altar to Zeus in Perg-
amon (Fig. 78) must have been created after Pergamon began to

flourish as a centre of Hellenistic art in the 3rd century bc. At

other timeswe have a date ante quern (before which) certain works
must be dated. Thus all the works in Pompeii, Herculaneum and
other near-by Campanian centres (for example, Boscoreale and
Boscotrecase) must have been created before the eruption of Vesu-
vius in ad 79 that buried them. Within these very general guide-
lines, refinements can be introduced, sometimes on the basis of

140
 APPENDIX: HOW WE KNOW WHAT WE THINK WE KNOW

firm archaeological evidence (objects found during excavations at

a deeper level are normally earlier than those found at a higher
level), at other times based on little more than an assessment of
the development of style as generally agreed among a number of
scholars.

HOW WORKS CAN BE ATTRIBUTED TO ARTISTS

KNOWN FROM LITERATURE

Pliny the Elder, who lived in the ist century ad, listed many artists

and the subjects of works that they made. Often these subjects
are very vaguely defined: a discus-thrower, a man carrying a spear,
an image of Athena, a heifer. Attributing specific works to artists

mentioned in literary sources, therefore, also has its speculative as-

pects, but an attribution becomes increasingly likely when more
than one source describes the work of an artist. For instance,
Pliny the Elder states that Myron made, among other things, a
discus-thrower {Natural History 34, 57-58). Lucian (who lived in the
2nd century ad) describes Myron's Discus-thrower in some detail

(Philopseudes 18), specifying the unusual moment chosen for repre-

sentation (see Chap. 3, p. 57). This information, combined with the
numerous Roman copies and adaptations of the sculpture shown
in Figure 20 that survive, make the attribution to Myron pretty
secure.

Other attributions are more questionable.

HOW WE THINK MARBLE STATUES IN COMPLEX

POSES MAY HAVE BEEN MADE
It appears that during the archaic period marble statues were gener-
ally carved in the Egyptian manner, with the sculptor being guided
by the drawings on a grid on the four sides of the block (Fig. 4), but
method could hardly have been used to produce the immensely
this

more complicated and asymmetrical poses created in the classical

period.

141
 The evidence we have for the method used to carve these more
complex statues is mostly derived from works that were left unfin-
ished. It seems probable that initially the sculptor made a figure in
clay, which he could then use as a guide when he began carving his
marble. He could have employed some sort of 'pointing' process to
measure how much marble he had to cut away in order to capture
the shape of his clay figure. He may have set up a system of three
axes, x, y and z Any point in space could be related to these three
.

axes - that is, a point could be defined as being so many units along
on the x axis, so many units down on the y axis and so many units
inwards on the z axis (Fig. 141).

Identical systems could be used for the clay model and the piece
of marble to be carved. Measurements on the three axes could be
above, below and opposite taken on the clay model to determine the exact location of a promi-
141. Diagrams showing nent point - say, the nose, breast or knee of a figure. Then the
how a marble statue may same measurements would be made on the piece of marble, and
have been carved with the
aid of a clay model.
the sculptor would remove as much stone as necessary to arrive at
the same point.
The sculptor could repeatedly measure points on the clay model
and then cut the marble away until he had reached them. He might
well have worked from the front to the back, first establishing the
most salient points and then carving away to define other points
further back.
Once a sufficient number of major points had been determined
to define the general outlines of the figure, an experienced sculptor
could carve more freely, using callipers to measure distances within
the marble statue itself. (Little knobs used as measuring points - for

instance, on chins and foreheads - have occasionally been left by

careless workmen that suggest this was the way sculptors worked.)
The final product would correspond more or less closely to the
original model depending on the skill, care and accuracy of the
sculptor.

The same method was probably used both to make original

sculptures in marble (for instance, Figs. 79, 93, 94 and 96) and to
make copies for the Romans. In the case of Roman copies, casts
made of a famous original Greek figure would be used and points
measured from the casts.

142
HOW WE THINK THE ROMANS MADE COPIES
(OR VARIANTS) OF GREEK STATUES

Although an immense quantity of sculpture was produced by the

Romans, only a small part of it consisted of portraits (Figs. 93-96)
or historical reliefs (Figs. 97, 99-102). Many statues of single figures
(or occasionally groups), some cast in bronze, more carved out of
marble, have been thought to be copies or adaptations of Greek
works.
If a bronze statue has been copied in marble, certain adjustments
have had to be made. Bronze statues, thanks to the tensile strength
of bronze, can stand unsupported on their own two feet (Figs. 18

and 75); marble statues require supports. Tree-trunks reinforcing

slender legs (Figs. 20 and 25) and critically placed struts (Fig. 77)
sometimes indicate that a bronze prototype has been translated into
a marble statue. It should be remembered, however, that all statues

made in marble (originals or copies) require suitable supports, so

that even an archaic statue like the late kouros Aristodikos (Fig. 9)
was provided with struts at the hips intended to help secure the
hands - which nevertheless were broken off. Plaster casts, a few of
which survive, were apparently used in some workshops that made
copies of celebrated Greek statues.

But not all Roman statues that have a classical look were nec-
essarily copied from Greek originals. The Romans required a huge
number of statues to decorate their private houses and villas and
to adorn public buildings like baths, theatres and amphitheatres.
Scholars now increasingly believe that the Romans, rather than al-
ways slavishly copying Greek statues, invented original new types of
figures (gods, heroes, personifications) for their own purposes and
produced them in abundance to suit theirown needs.
We have already seen how the Romans used modifications and
elaborations of Greek statues to create portraits whose impact was
greater than could be produced by merely recording the subject's

appearance. Thus the statue of Augustus from Prima Porta (Fig. 93)
stands in a pose much like that of the classical bronze Spear-bearer
(Fig. 25) in order to capture the sense of ease and authority con-
veyed by Polykleitos' statue. The marble statue of Augustus, like

143
APPENDIX: HOW WE KNOW WHAT WE THINK WE KNOW

any marble statue, naturally required adequate support. While the

marble copy of the similarly poised Spear-bearer has the custom-
ary tree-trunk to help support the subject's right leg, the sculptor
who carved the Augustus supplied a much more imaginative sup-
port: Cupid riding on a dolphin. The god Cupid was the son of
the goddess Venus, as was also the hero Aeneas, the ancestor of the
Romans. The little Cupid (who may have borne the features of one

of Augustus' grandsons) therefore alludes to the divine ancestry of

Augustus and the Roman people.

HOW WE THINK THE ROMANS USED

COPIES OF GREEK PAINTINGS

Quintilian, who lived in Rome in the ist century ad, mentions

painters 'who study only to learn how to copy pictures by means
of measurements and [plumb?] lines' {Institutio Oratorio, 10.2.6).

This suggests that some paintings were copied as exactly as possible,

though it is impossible to verify examples of such work.

We know that the Romans admired Greek paintings. Sometimes
very similar compositions appear in two or more different paintings
(Figs. 104 and 105), and this has been thought to indicate that these
paintings were derived from the same source. When the style of the
figures is also what we would expect to find in a Greek painting,
it seems possible that such works could be copies (often rather free

ones) of Greek paintings. The fact, however, that compositions are

seldom identical and that figures and groups are varied, apparently
to suit particular contexts in Roman houses or public buildings,
makes it doubtful that many paintings are faithful copies of Greek
prototypes.
Speculation that the largely architectural Second Style paintings
from Boscoreale (Fig. 107) are adaptations of theatrical stage sets rests
on a remark by Vitruvius, who wrote his book about architecture
in the ist century bc. He described three kinds of theatrical sets:

Tragic sets are represented with columns and gables and statues and
other trappings of royalty. Comic sets look like private buildings
with balconies, and the views from their windows are designed, in

144
 APPENDIX: HOW WE KNOW WHAT WE THINK WE KNOW

on the principles of private buildings. Satyric sets are orna-

imitation,
mented with trees, caves, mountains, and all the other rustic features,
fashioned to have the appearance of landscape. {De Architectura 5.6.8,

trans. Ingrid D. Rowland)

As some of the Second Style paintings appear to be of three

kinds - scenes with the trappings of royalty; cityscapes with private

houses, including balconies; or idyllic landscapes — they are some-
times thought to correspond to the three types of stage sets that

Vitruvius describes. Furthermore, stage sets would not include the

depiction of any figures, as the actors performing in front of them
would provide the figures. The absence of figures in this type of wall

painting further suggests that it might be derived from stage sets.

145
GLOSSARY

ABACUS the topmost part of the capital: plain in Doric capitals, moulded
in Ionic and Corinthian.
ACROTERIA (singular: acroterion) decorative ornaments placed above
the three angles of the pediment on the front and back of a building.
AGGREGATE roughly cut stones placed between the brick (or stone) walls
in a concrete structure and over which the mortar was poured.
ALABASTRON ovoid, narrow-necked perfume container (Fig. 60).
AMPHITHEATRE oval Roman building with seating facing inwards onto a
central area for gladiatorial or other similar spectacles (Figs. 106, 124, 125

and 131).

AMPHORA capacious storage jar with two handles (Fig. 60).

AQUEDUCT Roman construction designed to carry water from a distant
source to a desired location (Fig. 129).
ARCH semicircular masonry construction spanning an opening.
ARCHAIC term referring to the early period of Greek art from about 650
to490 BC.
ARCHITRAVE a lintel or beam carried from the top of one column to the

top of another (also called an epistyle).

ARYBALLOS small round container used by athletes to carry the oil they
rubbed down with after exercise (Fig. 60).

ATRIUM central hall of a Roman house of the traditional type (Figs. 114—
116).

BASE lowest member of a column (Fig. 41) (not used in the Doric order).
BLACK-FIGURE technique of vase painting in which the figures are drawn
in black silhouette, details and internal markings are incised and touches
of white and purplish-red are added. (The technique was invented by the
Corinthians in the 7th century bc and widely used throughout Greece
in the 6th century bc. It continued to be used for special purposes as

late as the 2nd century bc.)

CALDARIUM hot room in a Roman bath building (Figs. 127 and 132).

CAPITAL top part of a column, crowning the shaft and supporting the
architrave.
CAVEA the place for spectators in a Greek or Roman theatre (the audito-
rium).
CELLA the inner part of a Roman temple in which the image of the god was
kept. Some temples which honoured three gods (the Capitoline Triad)
had three cellas.

146
 GLOSSARY

CENTRING a temporary (normally wooden) framework for supporting a

masonry arch or vault during construction before the structure is able
to stand by itself.

CHRYSELEPHANTINE statues that were plated with gold (for clothing) and
ivory (for the flesh parts), probably constructed on a framework of wood.
CLASSICAL term referring to the period in Greek art from 480 to 404 bc.
See also early classical and high classical. 'Late classical' (399-323 bc) is

not used in this book.

COLUMN cylindrical support that consists of a shaft and capital (and some-
times, as in the Ionic and Corinthian orders, a base).
CONTRAPPOSTO balanced pose of a human figure in which the weight is

unevenly distributed and the axis of the shoulders slopes in the opposite
direction from the axis of the hips (see Figs. 25, 72 and 73 for examples).
CORINTHIAN CAPITAL a capital decorated with acanthus leaves and small
volutes (Fig. 43). The Romans developed a Corinthian order making
use of the Corinthian capital and based on the Ionic order, but with

considerably greater elaboration of the cornice (Figs. 118 and 120).

CORNICE the topmost member of an entablature.
DENTILS small carved tooth-like features used instead of a continuous
frieze in the Ionic order and in addition to it in the Corinthian.

DORIANS people speaking the Dorian dialect of Greek and living chiefly
on the mainland of Greece (the Peloponnese), the southern islands of
the Aegean (including Crete and Rhodes) and the southern part of the
west coast of Asia Minor.
DORIC ORDER an architectural system controlling the design of column
and entablature (Fig. 39).

EARLY CLASSICAL the period from the end of the Persian Wars (479 bc) to

about the middle of the 5th century bc, during which the bronze-caster
Myron and the mural painter Polygnotos were active and the sculptures
of the temple of Zeus at Olympia were produced.
ENCAUSTIC painting technique in which warmed (or emulsified) wax was
used as the medium to bind coloured pigments, producing an effect

much like oil painting (Fig. 136).

ENGAGED COLUMN OR HALF-COLUMN a column (or, more usually, a half-

column, semicircular in plan) that is not free-standing but attached to a

wall.

ENTABLATURE the superstructure that is supported by the columns, con-

sisting of architrave (which rests directly on the columns), frieze (above
the architrave) and projecting cornice (including the gutter at the top).

ETRUSCANS a people who lived to the north and south of Rome, who spoke
a non-Indo-European language and who had an important political,

religious and cultural influence on the early Romans.

147
GLOSSARY

FAUCES entrance passage in a traditional Roman house leading to the

atrium (Figs. 114-116).

FLUTES vertical channels carved in the shafts of columns; Doric columns

normally have twenty flutes that meet in sharp arrises; Ionic normally
have twenty-four, each separated from its neighbour by a fillet (flattened

arris) (Figs. 41 and 42).

FORESHORTENING the apparent shortening of the form of objects in re-
lation to the angle from which they are observed; perspective applied

to single objects or forms. For example, a horse seen from the rear will

appear foreshortened (Fig. 81).

FRIEZE the horizontal band of stones resting on top of the architrave.

Doric friezes are divided into triglyphs and metopes; Ionic friezes are

continuous.
FRIGIDARIUM cold room in a Roman bath complex.
GENRE PAINTING representations of everyday life (as opposed to mytho-
logical or historical pictures).

HELLENIC adjective used to describe Greek civilisation from the time of

the fall of the Mycenaeans (end of the 12th century bc) until the time of
Alexander the Great (356-323 bc), derived from Hellene, the name by
which the Greeks called themselves.
HELLENISTIC the modern adjective used for the period between the death
of Alexander the Great (323 bc) and the final Roman conquest of all the
lands ruled by his successors (31 bc). Hellenistic tradition (and the Greek
language) remained strong in the eastern part of the Roman empire even
after political independence had been lost.

HIGH CLASSICAL period from about the middle to the end of the 5th
century bc, during which Pheidias and Polykleitos were active and the
Parthenon was being built.

HYDRIA water jar with three handles, two horizontal ones at the sides for

lifting and a vertical one at the back for pouring (Fig. 60).

IMPLUVIUM shallow pool leading to a cistern in the atrium of a Roman

house in which rainwater was collected.
IONIANS people speaking the Ionian dialect of Greek and living chiefly on
the islands of the Aegean, on the west coast of Asia Minor and in Athens.

IONIC ORDER an architectural system controlling the design of column

and entablature (Fig. 40).

KORE (plural: korai) archaic statue of a draped female figure standing with
the weight evenly distributed on the two legs, made from the mid 7th
century bc until the beginning of the 5th century bc (Figs. 29 and 30).
KOUROS (plural: kouroi) archaic statue of a nude young man standing
with one foot advanced and the weight evenly distributed between the

148
 GLOSSARY

two legs; made from the late 7th century bc until the beginning of the
5th century bc (Figs. 1, 5-9, 11 and 12).

KRATER wide-mouthed bowl used for mixing wine and water (Fig. 60).

KYLIX drinking cup (Fig. 60).

LEKYTHOS narrow-necked container used to contain oil (Fig. 60).

LOUTROPHOROS vessel used to carry the water for the ritual bath of brides
(Fig. 60); the shape was sometimes used for funerary monuments on the
graves of unwed persons.
MENORAH seven-branched lamp-holder; a golden one was looted from
the Temple in Jerusalem (Fig. 99), a marble one was found at Sardis

(Fig. 137)-

METOPES stone or terracotta panels alternating with triglyphs in the Doric

order.

MODELLING (in painting) technique for rendering the illusion of volume

on a two-dimensional surface by means of shading.
MOSAIC technique for making a picture or design out of small pieces of
stone or glass of different colours. Stones are usually cut to be four-sided
(for tessellated mosaics); glass is used sparingly for floor mosaics but
much more abundantly for wall and ceiling mosaics.
MYCENAEAN the modern name given to the spectacularly flourishing pe-
riod of the civilisation of a people who spoke an early form of Greek and
lived in Greece during the Bronze Age.
NAOS the central, inner part of a Greek temple, where the statue of the
god was kept (literally: the dwelling of the god).
OINOCHOE jug (Fig. 60).

OPISTHODOMOS porch at the back of the naos of a temple.

ORCHESTRA place of action for the chorus (and probably also the actors,
until the Hellenistic period) in a Greek theatre (literally: dancing place).

PALAESTRA exercise or wrestling ground attached to Roman thermae.

PANHELLENIC 'all Greek' - a term used for festivals or sanctuaries that
were common to all Greeks irrespective of whether they were Dorian or
Ionian and of the polis they came from.
PEDIMENT triangular end of a gabled roof, which could be filled with
sculpture either carved in relief or free-standing.
PERISTYLE a continuous colonnade surrounding either a building or a
space; thus, an external peristyle is the colonnade that surrounds the
core of a Greek temple (Figs. 37 and 38), and an internal peristyle is the
colonnade enclosing the space inside a courtyard, as in many Hellenistic
and later Roman houses (Figs. 87c and 115).

PERSPECTIVE a technique for painting three-dimensional scenes on a two-

dimensional surface to give the illusion of objects existing in space.

49
GLOSSARY

PILASTER a shallow rectangular feature projecting from a wall and having

a capital and base, rather like an engaged half-column, but rectangular
in section.

PODIUM the platform on which a Roman temple was built, accessible by

steps from the front only.

POLIS (plural: poleis) independent communities usually comprising an

urban centre together with the surrounding countryside; the political

unit favoured by the Greeks during the archaic and classical periods.

POST-AND-LINTEL structural system by which vertical posts (columns or

walls) support horizontal lintels (architraves or ceilings).

POZZOLANA volcanic earth from the area of Pozzuoli, near Naples, which
sets hard like cement after it is mixed with water; it is the active ingredient
in Roman concrete.
PRONAOS porch in front of the naos of a temple.
PROSKENION colonnade (probably with backdrop) between the orchestra
and the scene building in a Greek theatre.

RED-FIGURE technique of vase painting in which the figures are left in the
natural colour of the vase and the background and details are painted

black. The technique appears to have been invented in Athens around

530 bc and was very popular during the 5th and 4th centuries bc; it was
used, often with the addition of much white and gold, in Sicily and
southern Italy during the 4th century bc.
RELIEF sculpture which remains attached to the background, either very
deeply carved (high relief) or shallowly carved (low relief).
SARCOPHAGUS (plural: sarcophagi) carved marble coffin (Fig. 103).

SCAENAE FRONS (plural: scaenarum frontes) the facade of the stage

building of a Roman theatre that formed the backdrop for the stage

and was as high as the top seats of the auditorium.

SHAFT main body of a column, between the base (if there is one) and the
capital.

SIGNATURE (on vases) signatures appear sporadically on Greek vases; those

accompanied by the word egrapsen (drew it) are presumably those of
painters; those accompanied by the word epoiesen (made it) are presum-
ably those of the potters. Some artists sign both egrapsen and epoiesen

and therefore probably both made and painted the vase in question.
SKYPHOS mug used for drinking (Fig. 60).
STELE (plural: stelai) an upright stone slab, bearing a design or an inscrip-
tion, serving as a monument, document or marker.
STOA a building with its roof partially supported by one or more rows of
columns parallel to a rear wall.

STYLOBATE top step of a temple, the platform on which the columns and
walls rest.

150
 GLOSSARY

TABLINUM room at the far end of the atrium in a traditional Roman house
(Figs. 114 and 115).

TEPIDARIUM the warm room in a Roman bath complex.

THERMAE imperial Roman bath complex (Figs. 127 and 132).
TORSO what is left of the human body when the head and limbs have been
removed.
TREASURY a small building usually erected in a panhellenic sanctuary by a
polis as a repository for its offerings to the god of the sanctuary.
TRIGLYPH vertically grooved member of the Doric frieze (Fig. 39).
VASE conventional term used for Greek vessels made of pottery.
VOLUTES spiral scrolls curving to the right and left decorating the front
and back of Ionic capitals (Fig. 40).

VOUSSOIR wedge-shaped stone forming one of the units in an arch.

WHITE-GROUND LEKYTHOS lekythos covered with a white slip (a thin coat-
ing of primary clay with little or no admixture of iron) on which, from
around the middle of the 5th century bc, the decoration was sometimes
drawn in fugitive colours (mauves, blues and greens) which were applied
after firing and so did not have the durability of the more usual, rather

restricted range of ceramic colours. Such vessels, which were too delicate

for everyday use, were used to hold olive oil offered to the dead (Fig. 71).

151
FURTHER READING

GREEKART

B. Ashmole, Architect and Sculptor in Classical Greece (Phaidon, 1972).

Architecture and architectural sculpture in the 5th and 4th centuries bc.

J. Boardman, Greek Art (Thames and Hudson, 1996), paperback. General

introduction, with short text and numerous illustrations.

J. Boardman, The History of Greek Vases (Thames and Hudson, 2001).

Authoritative, wide-ranging survey of various aspects of the production
and study of Greek vases.

W B. Dinsmoor, The Architecture of Ancient Greece (Batsford, 1975). Detailed

standard reference book.
R. Martin, Living Architecture: Greek (Oldbourne, 1967). Illuminating brief
introduction.

J. J. Pollitt, Art and Experience in Classical Greece (Cambridge University

Press, 1972), paperback. Sculpture, painting and architecture, primarily
in the 5th century bc.

J. J. Pollitt, Art in the Hellenistic Age (Cambridge University Press, 1986),

paperback. Survey of all the arts during the Hellenistic period.

G. M. A. Richter, Handbook ofGreek Art (Phaidon, 9th ed. 2003), paperback.
General introduction covering many topics, including major and minor
arts.

M. Robertson, A History of Greek Art (Cambridge University Press, 1975).

Sensitive survey from the Geometric through the Hellenistic peri-

ods, excluding architecture; also available in a shortened version,

A Shorter History of Greek Art (Cambridge University Press, 1981),
paperback.
R. R. R. Smith, Hellenistic Sculpture (Thames and Hudson, 1991), paperback.
Well-illustrated, brief, intelligent survey of sculpture only.
B. A. Sparkes, Greek Pottery: An Introduction (Manchester University Press,
1991), paperback. Clear exposition including archaeological and techni-
cal aspects of Greek vases not usually covered.
A. Stewart, Greek Sculpture (Yale University Press, 1990), paperback. Com-
prehensive survey of Greek sculpture, including literary sources; lavishly
illustrated.

D. Williams, Greek Vases (British Museum Publications, 1999), paperback.

Elegant survey concentrating on the collection of the British Museum.

152.
 FURTHER READING

S. Woodford, The Parthenon (Cambridge University Press, 1981), paperback.

Brief survey of sculpture, architecture, building procedures, early and
later history.

S. Woodford, An Introduction to Greek Art (Duckworth and Cornell Univer-

sity Press, 1986), paperback. Generously illustrated discussion of sculp-
ture and vase painting from the 8th to the 4th century bc.

ROMAN ART

A. Boethius and J. D. Ward-Perkins, Etruscan and Roman Architecture

(Pelican, 1970). Detailed standard work.
K. M. Dunbabin, Mosaics ofthe Greek and Roman World (Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 1999), paperback. Authoritative survey of mosaics in classical
antiquity.

E. K. Gazda, ed. The Ancient Art of Emulation (Memoirs of the American

Academy in Rome, suppl. vol. 1, University of Michigan Press, 2002).
Multi-author critical review of traditional attitudes toward Roman sculp-
ture and painting.
M. Grant, Art in the Roman Empire (Routledge, 1995). Brief, sparsely illus-

trated but intelligent study of the relationship of art in the provinces and
in the centre.

M. W Jones, The Principles of Roman Architecture (Yale University Press,

2000). Interesting analysis of Roman building procedures.
D. E. E. Kleiner, Roman Sculpture (Yale University Press, 1992). Detailed
survey from the foundation of Rome through Constantine.
R. Ling, Roman Painting (Cambridge University Press, 1991), paperback.
Comprehensive survey of the development of Roman painting, with
numerous illustrations.

W I. MacDonald, The Architecture of the Roman Empire: An Introductory

Study (Yale University Press, 1992), paperback. Stimulating detailed ex-
amination of important imperial buildings.
P. MacKendrick, The Mute Stones Speak (Norton, 1983), paperback. Gen-
eral introduction to Roman art through the history of archaeological
discoveries.

N. H. Ramage and A. Ramage, Roman Art (4th ed., Laurence King Publish-
ing and Prentice Hall, 2004), paperback. Excellent, clear, well-illustrated

introduction to Roman architecture, sculpture and painting.

I. S. Ryberg, The Rites of the Roman State Religion in Art (Memoirs of the
American Academy in Rome, vol. 12, 1955). Copiously illustrated, illu-

minating analysis of numerous Roman reliefs.

153
FURTHER READING

D. Roman Imperial Sculpture (Tiranti, 1961). Brief introductory

E. Strong,
Roman reliefs.
analysis of
M. Thorpe, Roman Architecture (Duckworth, 1995), paperback. Excellent
short introduction to Roman architecture.

J. M. C. Toynbee, The Art of the Romans (Thames and Hudson, 1965).

Systematic handbook covering many topics, excluding architecture.

LITERARY SOURCES

Pausanias, Guide to Greece, 2 vols. (Penguin, 1971), paperback. English trans-

lation.

Pliny, Pliny the Elders Chapters on the History ofArt, ed. K. Jex-Blake and
E. Sellers (Argonaut, 1968). Introduction plus text in Latin and English,
carefully annotated.

J. J. Pollitt, The Art of Greece: Sources and Documents (Cambridge University

Press, 1990); The Art of Rome 755 BC—337AD (Prentice Hall, Sources and
Documents, 1966), both paperback. Briefly annotated translations of
intelligently selected passages from many different ancient authors.

154
 INDEX

Abacus 25-26, 146 Antigonids 60

Acanthus 147 Antioch 60
Achilles 91 Aphrodite 61 see also Venus
on mosaics 126-129 from Capua 64, 70, 97
on a sarcophagus 99 from Melos 70
on vases 45-49 by Praxiteles at Knidos 62-4, 70
Acropolis 14, 58, 86-88 Apples of the Hesperides 33, 93
Acroteria 27, 146 Aqueduct 122, 146
Actor(s) 78, 83-85, 116, 145, 149 Ara Pacis 94-95, 133

Adamklissi 134-137 Arcades 11 7-1 18

Adaptation (s) 52, 69-72, 78, 90 109, Arch of Titus 95

141, 143-144 Arches 93, 95-96, 114-119, 122, 146-147,
Aegean 2, 4, 26, 147, 148 151

Aegina (pediment of temple) 29 Archaeologists 14, 58

Aeneas 93, 144 Archaic 4-52, 57, 58, 136, 141, 143, 146,

Aeschylus 78 148, 150

Africa 125 Architect(s), 57, 85, 88, 113, 118

Africans 67 Architectural
Agamemnon 1 complexes 85, 115

Agatharchos 56, 78 paintings 78, 80, 105, 144, 145

Aggregate 115, 146 sculpture 27-37, 43> 5^> 93
Agrippa 95, 140 Architecture 23-27, 38, 56, 80-88, 107,
Ajax (and Achilles) 45-49 109-126, 139, 144
Alabastron 42, 146 Architrave 25-26, 118-119, 146-148,
Alexander mosaic 73-75 150
Alexander the Great 2, 59-60, 73-76, Arena 117

93, 130, 148 Argive 18

Alexandria 60 Argos 4
Algeria 128 Aristodikos (kouros) 10, 12, 14, 143

Allegory 80, 93 Aristonothos 43-44

Alloy 13 Aristophanes 83
Alps 2 Aristotle 56, 59

Altar(s) 23, 51, 68, 70, 87, 93-95, 140 Arris 148
of Peace 94-95, 133 Artemis 28
Amazon 99 Artemisium (Zeus of) 15-16, 18, 30,57

Amphitheatres 102-103, 116-118, 125, Aryballos 42, 146

I43> 146 Asclepius 85, 87
Amphora 40, 42-47, 51, 146 Asia Minor 2, 4, 5, 26, 60, 66, 81, 124,

Anavyssos kouros 10 i47> 148

Anaxagoras 56 Aspendos (theatre) 123-124, 126

155
NDEX

Athena 29, 31, 33, 35, 58, 68-70, 133, 141 Bullfights 117

Athenian(s) 5, 13-14, 52, 58, 66,69, 86,

139 Caldarium 120, 126, 146

Athens 4-5, 10, 12-14, 3 J > 58—59, 61, 81, Callipers 142

148, 150 Campanian 140

Atlas (metope from Olympia) 33, 93 Capitals(s) 25-27, 133, 146-147, 150

Atrium 109-110, 121, 146, 148, 151 Capitoline Triad 146

Attalids 60 Caracalla 120, 126
Attribute 140 Carolingian 138
Attribution 141 Casts 138, 142, 143
Auditorium 116, 146, 150 see also Cavea Caucasus 60
Augustan 94, in Cavea 83-85, 124, 146 see also

Augustus 56, 89, 91-92, 94-95, 112-113, Auditorium

140, 143-144 Cella 23, 110-112, 146
statue of 91-92 Cement 150
Axis (axial) 8, 86, 88, 109-110, 120-121, Centaur (s) (Parthenon metopes) 34, 35

126, 142, 147 Centring 115, 147

Characterisation(s) 16, 30, 62, 71, 92
Babylon 60 Chariot 30, 73-75
Backdrop 84, 150 Charioteer 30, 74
Barbarians 67, 96-98, 134 Chorus 83-84, 149
Baroque 108 Christianity 24
Barrel vault 115 Chronology 140
Base(s) 14, 26-27, 4 2 68, 81, 114, 139,
> Chrysaor 28
146-147, 150 Chryselephantine 58, 147
Baths (Roman) 146, 148, 151 see also Cicero 56
Thermae Cirencester 132-133
of Caracalla 119-22 Cistern 109, 148
at Trier 125-126 City-states 4
Battle Cityscape 78, 145
of Alexander the Great and Darius 73 Clamps 25
of Gods and giants 28, 68 Clay 13, 48, 142, 151
of Greeks and amazons 99 Club (of Hercules) 93
of Salamis 5 Coffering 115-116
Beam 25, 146 Coffin (sarcophagus) 98-99, 150
Beeswax 130 Coin 117, 140
Biographies 56, 139 Colonies 4, 89, 123
Bithynia, 63 Colonnade 23-24, 78, 85, 104, 112, 121,
Black-figure 44-49, 51, 146 149-150
Boscoreale 78-79, 104-105, 140, 144 Colosseum 117-119, 125
Boscotrecase 105-106, 140 Colour
Bowl 42, 78, 149 in (wall) painting 74, 80, 130
Brick(s) 81, 115, 140, 146 on sculpture 16-17, 21, 63, 95
Bronze 12-19, 35» 58, 62, 65-66, 143, 149 Colours
Bronze-caster(s) 4, 16, 18, 62, 147 in mosaics 73-74
Bull (metope at Olympia) 33, 34, 37 on pottery 38, 44-45, 149

156
 NDEX

Column(s) 23-27, 82, 93, 96-98, 103, Democracy 58

105, 107, 112, 117, 136, 140, 144, Democritus 56

146-148, 150 Dentils 26, 147
of Marcus Aurelius 97—98 Descriptions 57, 72
of Trajan 96-8 Diagrammatic (visually illogical)

Comedy 76, 83 representations 96, 102, 117

Commodus 93, 97-98 Dialects 4, 147-148
Composition 32, 34-35, 46, 53-54, Diocletian 89
68-69, 133, I35> 144 Dionysus 83, 105

Concrete 115-117, 146, 150 Discus-thrower 16-19, 37> 57> H 1

Constantine 89 Dome 113-116, 121

Constantinople 89 Dorian 2, 4, 147, 149

Contrapposto 19, 63, 70, 91-92, 147 Doric order 24-27, 118, 146-149, 151

Copies, Roman Doves drinking (mosaic) 77-78

of sculpture 16-18, 21, 57-58, 62-65, Drama 5, 32, 66, 68-69, 73' 74' 83, 84
67, 70-71, 89-90, 92, 141-144 Drapery 20-22, 63-64, 68-71, 92, 94,
of painting 72-74, 76-78, 80, 101, 133

103, 105, 107, 144-145 Drum (of column) 25, 114

Copies, later, of Roman art 138

Copy Earth 69, 75, 150

of Discus-thrower (18th century) 18 Earthquake 107

of Polygnotan composition 54 Egrapsen 150
of Leonardo da Vinci by Raphael 63 Egypt (Egyptian) 4, 6-11, 60, 89, 130,
Copper 13 141

Corfu 28, 32, 51 El Djem (amphitheatre) 125, 126

Corinth 4, 30, 39 Electra 70-71
Corinthian Elevation 24, 85, in
capital 27, 133, 147 Elis 30
half-columns 118 Emperors (Roman) 56, 89, 91-93, 96,

Corn-maiden 75 98, 102, 113, 117, 120, 122, 132,

Cornice 25-26, 147 140

Courtyard 81-82, 109, 149 Empire
Cretan 33, 37, 147 Athenian 5

Cup 42, 149 of Alexander the Great 60

Cupid 144 Roman 3, 89-90, 98, 118-119, 122,
Cyclops 43-44 124-126, 130, 132-133, 136-137,
148
Dacian 96, 97 Encaustic 130, 147
Dado 105 England 133

Daily life 76 Entablature 24-25, 124-125, 147, 148

Darius III (Persian king) 73-74 Epidauros 83, 124
Dating 57, 95, 139-140 Epistyle 146

Dedication 9, 32, 117, 132, 139 Epoiesen 150

Deities 23, 31 Erechtheum 86-87
Delos 82 Ethiopia 60
Delphi 5, 32 Etruscan(s) 2, no, 147

-57
INDEX

Euphrates 129 Groups (sculptural) 61, 66-68, 70-71

Euphronios 51 Gutter 147
Euthymides 50-51, 55
Evidence 72, 76, 139, 141 Hadrian 92, 113, 140
Excavations 132, 141 Half-column(s) 112, 118, 147, 150
Exekias 45-47, 51 Handles 41-42, 45-46, 146, 148
Exterior (of amphitheatres) 117-118, 125 Hebrew 133

Hector 67
Facade 24, 84, 113, 140, 150 Heifer (on the Parthenon frieze) 36-37
Fauces 109, 148 by Myron 141

Faun, dancing 65 Helen 1, 3, 127

Female nude 20-21, 62-64, 7 1 Hellene(s), Hellenic 2, 60, 148
First Style 103, 114 Hellenistic 2-3, 25, 59-61, 64-88, 89,
Floors 82, 105, 121, 149 93, 109, 140, 148-149
Flutes (fluting) 25, 133, 148 Hephaisteion 25
Foreign (foreigners) 4, 66-67, 7 1 io 3
* Herakles 33, 93
Foreshortening 51, 55, 73-74, 78, 148 Herculaneum 101, 108, 140
Fortuna (sanctuary of) 87, no, 115 Hercules 93
Fountains 121 Hero(es) 28-29, 32.-34, 38, 45-46, 80,
Fourth Style 106-108 91, 93, 127, I43-H4
Fragment(s) 3, 57, 108, 133, 137-139 Heroic 32, 66, 91

Francois vase 45 Hesperides (apples of) 33

France in, 124 Homer (Homeric epics) 2, 4, 41, 43-45,

Free-standing 4, 66, 71, 111-112, 116, 66, 91, 140

147, 149 Horace 90
Frieze 147-148, 151 Horse(s) 28, 30-31, 34, 73-74, 99, 148
architectural 25-27 House(s) 148-149, 151

of the Parthenon 35-37, 94 Greek 81-82, 109

of the Ara Pacis 93-95 Hellenistic 61, 82
Frigidarium 120-121, 126, 148 in Athens 81-82
Frontinus 122 on Delos 82
Fugitive colours 42, 151 of Pindar 59-60
in Priene 81-82
Gable(s) 27, 107, 144, 149 Roman 109— no
Gaul(s) 66-68 of the Menander no
Genre painting 80, 148 of the Vettii 106-8
Germany 126 painted walls in 101-108
Giant(s) 28, 43, 68-69, 93> n7 Herculaneum 101, 108

Gladiators 117, 146 Pompeii 101-108

Glass (in mosaics) 149 statues for 143-144
Gorgon 28, 38 Hydria 42, 51-53, 64, 148
Grave
marker 10, 41-42, 149 Idyllic 105, 145
offering 42 Iliad 2, 43, 67
Greco-Macedonian 60 Illusion (illusionistic) 54, 76, 84,
Grid (for carving marble) 7, 141-3 103-105, 107, 112, 149

158
 INDEX

Imitation(s) 52, 70-71, 105, 140, 145 Lekythos 42, 55, 149, 151
Imperial (Roman) 89, 91-92, 105, 119, Leonardo da Vinci 63
126, 140, 151 Lettering 133
Impluvium 109, 148 Liberty, Statue of 61

Incised (incision) 44-46, 146 Libraries 120

India 2, 60 Lime 115, 137
Inlays (marble) 82, 114 Limestones 24
Inscription(s) 97, 133, 139-140, 150 Lintel(s) 24, 146, 150

Inset eyes 15, 16 Lion-skin of Hercules 93

Ionian(s) 4, 60, 148-149 Literary sources 56-58, 72, 76, 139, 141
Ionic order 24-27, 35, 118, 146-149, 151 Loot 95, 133, 137, 149
Italy 4, 89, 150 Loutrophoros 42, 149
Ivory 58, 61, 147 Lucian 56-57, 141
Lycomedes 126-129
Jerusalem 95, 132—133, 149

Jews 132 Macedonia 59-60, 75

Jug 42, 149 Mainland Greece 4, 5, 57, 59, 147
Maison Carree 111-113

Key-stone, 115 Marathon (battle of) 5

King(s) Marble, 7, 10, 13-18, 24, 58, 64, 82, 103,

Agamemnon 1 105, 114, 121, 133, 137, 141-144,

Hellenistic 59-61, 89, 93 149-150

Oinomaos 30 Marcellus (theatre of) 125
Persian 5, 73-74 Marcus Aurelius 97
Priam 28, 51 Mediterranean Sea 67, 103, 132

Pergamene 69 Medusa 28
Kingdoms (Hellenistic) 59-61, 81, 89 Megara 61-62
Kleitias 45, 46 Menelaos 1

Knidians 63 Menorah 95, 131-133, 149

Knidos 62 Mesopotamia 132
Kore (korai) 20-21, 148 Metope(s) 25, 27, 32-36, 38, 93, 135,

Kos 85, 87-88 148-149

Kouros (kouroi) 9-12, 14-16, 19, 22, 24, Milo, Venus de 70
41, 140, 143, 148 Monster(s) 27, 34, 43
Krater(s) 4^~45> 53~55> 57> 80, 149 Monument(s) 4, 61, 68, 93, 98, 133-134,

Kritios boy 12-16, 30 140, 149-150

Kylix 42, 149 Mortar 24, 115, 146
Mosaic(s) 73-76, 78, 82, 121, 126-130,
Lamp-holder (menorah) 95, 131-132, 149 i39> H9
Landscape(s) 75, 80, 84, 103-107, 145 Motif 69
Lapith(s) (Parthenon metopes) 34-35 Mud-brick 24
Large-scale sculpture 7, 38 Mug 42, 150
Latin 93, 138 Mummy portrait 130
Latrines 126 Mural painting 52, 102, 147
Leda 63 Music 76
5, 53,

Legend(s) 1-3, 53, 93, 99 Mycenae (Mycenaeans) 1-2, 149

159
NDEX

Myron 16-17, 19, 37, 57, 141, 147 Parrhasios 55

Mysteries (Villa of the) 105 Parthenon 58, 62, 69, 86-87, 93 - 94-
Myth(s) 1, 3, 28-35, 43~49> 51-53- 139, 148

68-70, 93, 98-99, 126-130 pediment 30-32, 37

metopes 34-35
Nimes m-112 frieze 35-36
Naos 23-24, 149, 150 Patronage 31, 33, 70-71, 91, 101, 105

Naples 150 Pausanias 56, 57, 58

Natatio 120 Pavement 76
Neo-classical 27, 138 Pediment 27-32, 34, 37, 51-52, 66, 69,
Niches 124 124, 133, 146, 149

Nikias 63 Pegasus 28
Nikomedes 63 Peiraikos j6
Nocera 102 Peloponnese 147
Non-Indo-European 147 Peloponnesian War 5-6, 59
Non-Roman 130 Pelops 30
Nude Penthesilea 99, 140
female figures 21, 62-64, 67, 71, 128 Pergamene(s) 66, 68, 69
male figures 9, 6j Pergamon 60, 66, 68, 70, 78, 140
Pericles 58, 139

Odysseus 43, 79-80, 127-129 Peristyle

Odyssey 2, 43, 79-80 external, around temples 23-25, 82,

Oinochoe 42, 149 m-112, 118, 149

Oinomaos 30 internal, within houses 82, 109-110,

Olive oil 41-42, 146-147, 149, 151 149

Olympia 5, 29-34, 36-37- 5*> 58, 93- H7 Persephone 75
Opisthodomos, 23, 149 Perseus 28, 38
Orange (Roman theatre) 117, 124 Persian(s) 5-6, 12-14, 5 2» 59- 66, 73, 147
Orchestra 83-85, 149, 150 Personifications 61, 143
Orders (architectural) 24-26, 118-119, Perspective, 56, 72-73, 78, 80, 108, 116,

125, 147-148 148-149

Orestes 70-71 Pheidias 57-58, 62, 148
Orpheus 53-54 Philip II of Macedon 59
Orthogonals 80 Philosophers 56, 59, 78, 90
Oxen (metope from the Sicyonian Philus 132-133
treasury) 32-33 Pigments 56, 130, 147
Pilaster(s) 105, 118, 133, 150

Pagan 133, 138 Pindar 60

Palaces 78, 81, 103, 119, 122 Plan(s) 23-24, 81-82, 109-112, 120, 125,
Palaestra(s) 121, 149 147
Panel(s) 38-39, 41, 53, 95, 100-101, 105, Plaster 24-25, 103, 138, 143

107, 130, 149 Plataea 5

Panhellenic 5, 32, 149, 151 Platform 24, 105, 150

Pantheon 113-116, 120, 140 Playwrights 84
Panthers 28 Pliny 56-57, 73-74, 16, 141
Paris 1 Plutarch 56, 58, 139

160
 INDEX

Pluto 75 Red-figure 47-55, 150

Podium 110-112, 150 Relief
Pointing 142 definition of 150
Polis, 4-5, 24, 32, 59-60, 89, 149-151 on Argos stele 19

Polygnotos 52-54, 56-57, 76, 147 Reliefs, Greek

Polykleitos 18, 37, 57, 62-64, 91-92, 143, on temples 27-28, 32-36
148 on metopes 32-36
Pompeii (Pompeian) 17, 65, 73, 78, on friezes 35-36, 68-69
101-107, 114, 117, 128, 140 Reliefs, Roman
Porch(es), of a temple 23, 33, in-113, historical 93-98
I49> 150 on sarcophagi 98-100
Prima Porta, Augustus of 91-92, 94, provincial 132-137
112-113, 143 Renaissance, 63-64, 72, 80, 99, 138
Portrait 90-95, 97-98, 130, 140, 143 Republic 89
Portraiture 80, 90, 100 Revival 61-62, 78, 138
Poseidon 15, 31-32 Revolt 5, 132
Post-and-lintel 24, 150 Rhetoric 90
Pot 39, 41, 44 Rhodes 147
Potters 43, 150 Riot (in the amphitheatre) 102, 117
Pottery 4, 38-42, 72, 151 River gods 30-32, 37, 80
Pozzolana 115, 150 Roman emperors see Emperors
Pozzuoli 150 Romania 134
Praeneste 87-88, no, 115 Rubens 75
Praxiteles 62-64, 70
Precinct(s) 87, 112, 126 Sabina 92-93
Priam 28, 51 Salamis 5

Priene 81, 84 Sanctuary of Fortuna at Praeneste 87,

Priests 95 no, 115

Procession 35-36, 94-95, 133 Sanctuaries 24, 62, 85-88, 112

Pronaos 23, 150 panhellenic 5, 32, 149

Proportion(s) 7, 10, 12, 24-26, 96 Sand 115

Propylaea 58, 86 Sarcophagus 98-99, 126, 128, 140, 150

Proskenion 84-85, 150 Sardis 131-132, 149

Prototypes 90, 95, 105, 143, 144 Scaenae frons 116, 124, 150

Province(s) 3, 122, 133 Scaenarum frontes 116-117, 150

Provincial 101, 103, 125 Scenery 78

Ptolemies 60 Scholars 57, 80, 90, 103, 141, 143
Pumice 115 Sculptors, named 57-58
Punjab 60 Sculpture
Pyramids 122 Greek 6-22, 61-71, 141-142
provincial 132-137
Quintilian 144 Roman 90-100, 141-142
Scythians 6j
Raphael 63 Second Style 103-105, 107

Realism 10, 38, 60, 96, 117 Sects 133

Rebellion 5, 60, 132 Seer 30

161
INDEX

Segovia 122 Tepidarium 120, 126, 151

Seleucids 60 Terracotta 38, 149

Self-supporting 115 Tessellated mosaic 149

Seven-branched lamp holder (menorah) Theatres

95, 131-133 Greek 82-85,

Shading 55, 130, 149 Roman 116-118, 123-125, 149, 150

Shaft (of a column) 25-27, 146-148, Theatron 83

150 Thebes 59
Shrines 86-87, io 5 Thermae 119-122, 125-126, 146, 148,
Sicily 4, 89, 150 149, 151
Sicyonian treasury 33 Third Style 105-107
Sicyonians 32, 35 Thracian(s) 53, 54
Signatures 43, 150 Three-dimensional 24, 50, 54-55, 103,

Silhouette 41, 43-45, 51, 146 107, 130, 149

Single-point perspective 80 Tiber 2
Shapes of Greek vases 42-43 Tin 13

Skopas 62, 69 Tipasa 128

Skyphos 42, 150 Titus 92, 95-96, 117
Socrates 133 Toga 92
Sosos 77-78, 82 Tombstone 133
Sources of information Torso, 8, 16, 18-19, 63-64, 91-92,
on Greek art 56-58, y6 151

literary 56-58, 72, j6, 139, 141 Trajan 96-98, 103, 117, 134, 136

Spain 122 Trajan's Column 96—97, 140

Sparta 1, 4, 5, 59 Treasury(ies) 32-33, 35, 151
Spear-bearer 18-20, 22, 37, 57, 63-64, Tree-trunk 17, 143-144
66, 91-92, 143-144 Trier 125-126
Stage (sets) 29, 56, 74, 78, 83-85, 144, Triglyph 25-26, 148-149, 151

145, 150 Trojan 1-3, 28, 67, 99

Stele 41, 150 Troy 1, 28, 51, 67, 99, 127

Still-life 76, 80 Trumpeters 127-128, 134-137

Stoa(s) 85, 150 Tunisia 126
Struts 143-144 Turkey 126, 129, 132
Stylobate 24-27, 150
Superstructure 147 Unbaked bricks 81
Supports for marble statues 17, 64, Underworld 53, 75, 80
143-144
Swimming pool 120, 122 Vandalism, 138
Synagogue 131— 133 Vanishing point, 56
Variation(s) 64, 68, 70, 90
Tablinum 109— no, 151 Vase painting 39-56, 100, 146,
Temple(s) 150-151
Greek 23-36, 61, 86-87, x 49 Vault(s), vaulting 114-116, 121, 147
at Jerusalem 95, 132 Venus 144
Roman 110-116, 146, 150 de Milo 70
Tensile strength 13, 143 Genetrix 21, 92-93

162
 NDEX

Vergina 75-76 Wax 13, 147

Vesuvius 56, 101, 140 White-ground 42, 55, 151

Vettii (House of the) 106-108 Wine 41-42, 149

Victory Wood 23-25, 39, 115, 130, 147
image of 69, 97 Workshops 143
of Alexander over Darius 73 Worship 23
of Greeks over Persians 6
of Pergamenes over Gauls 66 York 61
of Spartans over Athenians 6
Villa of the Mysteries 104-105 Zeugma 129
Vitruvius 56, 144-145 Zeus 15-16, 18, 28-30, 32, 52, 57-58,

Volutes 26, 147, 151 68-70, 140, 147

Voussoir(s) 115, 151 Zeuxis 55

[63
 BOSTON PUBUC LIBRARY

3 9999 04947 864 5

?.'sfSnysr tfte property of the
Boston Public Library.
Sale of this material benefited the Library

/
In The Art of Greece and Rome Susan Woodford i

minates the great achievements of classical art i

architecture and conveys a sense of the excitem

that fired the creative artists of the ancient world.

The Greek were quick to challenge time-hono

styles and, stimulated by the problems that soi
times emerged from their daring innovations, they
vented solutions that have been considered clas:

The Romans recognized the Greek achie

ever since.
ment and built on it, adding a talent for organizati
and flair for architectural construction on a hi
scale to create an impressive art of their own.

Examining all aspects of Greek and Roman visual ai

this edition includes a new chapter on Roman arc
tecture, as well as new illustrations, and updated b
liography and glossary.

Dr. Susan Woodford teaches Greek and Roman art

the University of London and is engaged in research
in the British Museum. She is the author of several
books, including The Parthenon, The Trojan War in
Ancient Art, and Images of Myth in Classical Antiq-
uity, which was awarded the prestigious Criticos Pr

for 2003.

REVIEWS OF THE FIRST EDITION:

the terse summations truly brilliant ... an intelligent, challenging, informative introduction
to the classical arts.' - George M. A. Hanfmann, Professor of Archaeology, Harvard University

'The brevity of treatment is more than compensated for by the authors stimulating
presentation'. - Mark Morford, The Classical Outlook

\ . . the author has infused new blood into the old veins The choice and arrangement
of the pictures serves the text perfectly A must for the school library where it is likely to
be a popular choice for borrowing.' - Brian Sparkes, Greece and Rome

Cover illustrations:
Front: Section from the north wall of a cubiculum (Bedroom 15) from an imperial villa at
Boscotrecase, 1st Century B.C., ca. ll-l B.C. Frescoon lime plaster, black ground. Detail
CAMBRIDGE
of center, landscape vignette. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund J 920. UNIVERSITY PRESS
(20.192.1). Photograph ©1987 The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
'

'www.cambridge.org
Bach Section from the north wall of cubiculum (Bedroom 15) from an imperial villa at
Boscotrecase, 1st Century B.C., ca. 11-1 B.C. Fresco on lime plaster, black ground. The
ISBN 0-521-54037-2
Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund, 1920. (20.192.1 ). Photograph © 1987 The Met-
ropolitan Museum of Art.
Cover design by Holly Johnson