(p. 337a) Notable already during the Late Classical fourth century, and increasingly pronounced for the Hellenistic era, is a relaxation of the outwardly egalitarian "polis" ethos of domestic housing
This observation was already a feature of the classic study of Greek city plans and housing by Hoepfner and Schwandner (1986), who noted the trend from Late Classical into Hellenistic times for the gradual abandonment of the house as a visible sign of the democratic principle of isonomia (the political and social equality) of citizens. Houses were built on visibly different scales, or wealthy owners expanded their property by buying up adjacent house-plots and merging them. More luxury appeared in house-furnishings, most obviously in increasingly elaborate and often multiple mosaic floors.
(p. 337b) The Vergina-Aigai royal palace
Stewart (2006) identifies some 15 dining-rooms in the main palace, and suggests that on the lost second floor lay guest apartments and perhaps, as an alternative to the standard view, also royal apartments (rather than in the minor adjacent palace).
(p. 337c) The succeeding capital of Pella
The location, as noted in Ch. 13, is now many kilometers inland as a result of sea-level fluctuations and massive alluvial infill by the great rivers which feed the Plain (Bintliff 1976).
(p. 337d) A central feature of the Macedonian power structure was provision for large-scale formal banqueting where relations between the dynasts and their upper-class retinue were regularly affirmed and negotiated
Ancient sources for the Macedonian kingdom tell us that feasts accompanied all major events, such as the reception of embassies, marriages, funerals, and the regular bonding of royalty with regional aristocrats based at the court - the Companions. Alexander the Great was claimed to have consumed vast sums to entertain 60-70 of his Companions on a daily basis (Etienne et al. 2000).
(p. 337e) In the town of Pella excavated late fourth-century house-blocks (insulae) incorporate spacious mansions for the wealthy and powerful
Under Philip II Pella was elaborated into one of the most spacious and grandiose of Greek towns (Tomlinson 1995, Etienne et al. 2000) (Figure 13.3). The gridplan was articulated by main streets 14 m wide and standard streets 6 m wide, all with regular drainage arrangements. The elite housing area that has been excavated is remarkable for the grand courtyard houses, which are some 11 times larger than those typical at Olynthus, a late fifth-century town in the nearby Chalkidike peninsula. The city was centered on a giant, 180 m square agora, while the palace complex of the royal dynasty occupied a low acropolis above the town. Although the elaborate mansions dug south of the agora attract most attention, excavations have also uncovered smaller houses on more traditional lines with a veranda rather than peristyle (Siganidou and Lilimpaki-Akamati 2003). The leading artist of the time, Zeuxis, was brought to decorate the royal palace complex. Symptomatic of the elevated claims of the Macedonian elite is the signing of a mosaic of a deer hunt in a private mansion by Gnosis, clearly also a leading artist.
(p. 338a) Macedonian elite homes represent small-scale imitations of palaces: porticoed courts, often more than one, are surrounded by rooms with decorated mosaics or murals (Plate 14.1a) for the reception or dining of guests, the whole ornamented in terracotta and sculpture. These changes were both copied throughout the Greek world but were independently occurring in other states with the widespread decline of the city-state ethos.
As noted in Chapters 11 and 12, wealth differences had never disappeared in Classical city-states, but were often disguised by self-imposed restrictions on the size of town houses, or neutralized through the compulsory gift of money to support state events (euergetism). In the Classical countryside, where either estate centers were less in the public eye, or size differentials more tolerated, houses show more variability, although none so far match the scale and lavish ornamentation which became common in Hellenistic elite homes.
(p. 338b) The enhanced display function shows that the homes of wealthier individuals are no longer secluded private residences where the front door led directly into family space. Judging by the multiplication of ornamental courts and entertainment rooms in Late Classical-Hellenistic houses of middle to large scale, the house has become a semi-public zone
An interesting parallel to social change between the Classical and Hellenistic eras is formed by fifteenth - to sixteenth-century Northern Italy, where urban palaces multiplied and became foci of prestigious display, marking the consolidation of an urban elite after various experiments in wider popular participation in the city-states of the earlier Renaissance era (Goldthwaite 1995).
(p. 338c) From the Late Classical era on through the Hellenistic, mosaics primarily for house ornament become increasingly popular and technically sophisticated
Mosaics may have been independently invented in Phoenician and Greek culture. Early examples within the lands of North Africa dominated by Carthage, of fourth - to third-century BC date, set crushed terracotta into mortar for simple designs, while in Greece around the same period pebble mosaics began to rise in popularity within the home. In fourth-century Olynthus some 10 percent of houses excavated had andra (symposium rooms) with such mosaics. Macedonia has the commonest early use in its town mansions, where innovative developments can be observed such as the deployment of different-colored pebbles touched up with lead strips to emphasize the details of imaginative figure designs (see Plate 14.1a). From the third century onward stone chips and glass cubes joined the materials in use. Mosaics were essentially a symbol of personal domestic luxury, and some 80 percent of Hellenistic examples come from houses (and almost all from the andron dining-rooms: Westgate 2000). Figured designs, in particular, depict images of the god Dionysos, who is associated with the enjoyment of wine, pleasure, and fertility, all in a context of relaxed private dining. Mosaics may initially have imitated carpets but their mature complexity imitated contemporary paintings. On a more practical level, as well as displaying the wealth of house-owners, such floors were easy to clean and hard-wearing (Guimier-Sorbets 2004, Stewart 2006).
(p. 339a) The often multiple dining-rooms may indicate sensitivity to different statuses of guests, while contrasts in the art of small, versus large, reception rooms are interpreted as designed to impress visitors of greater or lesser sophistication
As noted already, Chapters 13 and 14 deal with both Hellenistic and Early Roman Greece, on the basis that the major changes in power at the Aegean and city level which occur in the first era are further developed in the second. The continuities, especially between the Late Hellenistic period and the following Early Imperial era are manifold, but we may note in the present context of house decoration that when the Roman general Sulla sacked Athens in 86 BC the debris excavated by archaeologists includes wall-plaster comparable to that known in the houses of Italian Pompeii destroyed by a volcano in AD 79 (Tomlinson 1995).
(p. 339b) Contemporary texts inform us that dinner-parties were important for integrative networking ("social reproduction")
In Hellenistic and Roman times urban elites extended the social-networking function of dining into the practice of personal gifts of food or wine to the public in the context of festivals, which had earlier been funded by religious institutions or the state (Murray 1994). It is misleading to imagine that urban elites in Roman times gained office through mass voting by their clients; it was rather such public dispensations by the rich to fund food handouts, games, public monuments, and even straight cash gifts to citizens that had most influence in enrolling public support for the wealthy when they stood for important offices (Millar 1995).
(pp. 339-340a) As for citizen homes below the rich, they also seem to exhibit minor differences reflecting their means
As Haagsma (2003) concludes on the admittedly rather limited evidence of seven excavated houses from New Halos, occupied in the early third century BC.
(p. 340b) There is evidence that upper rooms were becoming more decorated
Westgate (2010), in the admittedly late context of late second - to early first-century BC Delos, claims that the best mosaics and wall-paintings were now on the upper floors.
(p. 340c) Time-scheduling probably removed the inconvenience of losing traditional family space to display areas, allowing domestic activities to spread into reception areas when guests were absent
In Italian Pompeii texts and house-plans have also led to a view of distinct functions for room spaces in typical wealthier residences (Wallace-Hadrill and Laurence 1997), with an outer courted complex for the reception of inferior clients and storage and an inner peristyle leisure zone with ornate decoration for higher-status visitors. Penelope Allison's (2004) work on the distribution of artifacts, however, has shown that this division is blurred by a much wider spread of domestic household life throughout the house. As with the debate on gendered space in the Classical Greek home, it is probable that rooms and courts had multiple functions and changed appearance and role according to circumstances and time of day. Westgate (2010) finds a confusing picture when we try to read gender politics into the new multiple courts or single display court of the Hellenistic house. Were women banished to the plain traditional court in the first case or back rooms in the second? She finally sees this as less likely, and time-scheduling as usual may allow us to see that women might have had the free run of such houses unless stranger males were invited in.
(p. 340d) The easier circulation created into and around the house may well indicate that everyone was socialized with little restriction
On Delos the dining-rooms become more accessible in comparison to Classical androns: broad rooms open on their long sides from the peristyle court and can have more than one entrance through doors on their short sides. Rotroff (2006) suggests a less intimate dinner-party, associated with shifts in dining ceramics to more personalized sets, while some dining-rooms lack clear bench spaces which might point to more flexible, less formal seating arrangements.
(p. 341a) In Delos especially the house display courts had wall-paintings, architectural features, reliefs, statues, and barriers
Marble sculpture is plentiful in excavated houses from Delos, in contrast to its rarity in Classical homes at Olynthus or earlier Hellenistic Pella (Stewart 2006). Westgate (2010) also argues that Delos was a remarkable mix of social classes and ethnic groups, with a strong focus on achieved wealth rather than traditional class. Hence she notes that the 100 or so houses excavated so far give unparalleled evidence for social competition in creating lavish homes to receive business partners. Almost half of all Hellenistic tessellated mosaics come from Delos. Over time, houses tended to become ever more elaborately decorated, although the desire to impress usually went beyond the means of the owners. Westgate states that the quality of the mosaics is generally not high.
(p. 341b) By Middle Imperial times, Roman entrance hallways, or atria, appear: typically clients of lower status were received here as opposed to one's social equals who were invited further into the house
For the social meaning of different spaces in the Roman house see Wallace-Hadrill and Laurence (1997). However, see our earlier cautionary remarks in a note to page 340 relating to Pompeii on the limitations of this scenario.
(p. 341c) The more elaborate reception and dining rooms were situated around an inner court or garden (as at Sparta)
In Sparta, large and impressive mansions have been excavated in the south of the ancient city from Roman Imperial times, the most luxurious with gardens, private baths, and mosaics from a local workshop (Raftopoulou 1998).
(p. 341d) The kingdom of Macedon, always a highly stratified society, had never experienced a democratic ethos, so as its Aegean power grew it combined lavish burial for leading families with Classical art forms adopted from the South Aegean states
In fact Macedonia had been deriving artistic inspiration from its city-state Southern neighbors since later Archaic times.
A good parallel, also of mid-fourth-century BC date, is the famous burial monument of the Persian governor of Caria in Southwestern Turkey, Mausolus (hence our word "mausoleum"), where a native ruler adopted elements of Greek Classical architectural and sculptural forms to adorn his astonishingly pretentious tomb at the city of Halicarnassos (Spivey 1997).
(p. 341e) At the original capital of Aegai a series of traditional tumuli, complex built stone tombs with fabulously rich gifts and elaborate painted decoration
The first Macedonian-style tomb was actually discovered at Vergina by Heuzey in 1861, and he also located part of the palace but did not realize its importance. Andronikos commenced excavations there in 1952 and between 1977 and 1980 made the most important royal burial discoveries, especially a series of five different graves under the Great Tumulus, one being controversially identified as that of Philip II (Milona 2007). There was even a minor controversy as to whether Andronikos was correct in identifying modern Vergina with ancient Aegai (Faklaris 1994), but accumulating evidence has now led the majority of scholars to accept the claim.
(p. 341f) The next step was to claim divine status for the Macedonian dynasty
Semi-divinity was commonly claimed in the Geometric to Archaic eras for the object of hero cults, key figures in elite genealogies, and the founders of towns (see Chapters 8 and 9), but merging mortals with godhead was rare in the Classical states of Southern Greece and the Aegean islands.
(p. 341g) Philip II erected a circular shrine to himself and his family at the Panhellenic sanctuary of Olympia
This monument, or Tholos, at Olympia contained five statues, of Philip, Alexander, and other family members, made of gold and ivory in clear imitation of temple statues to the Olympian gods (Zeus in Olympia, Athena in the Parthenon) (Etienne et al. 2000). In a similar vein, shortly before his assassination, images of the 12 Olympian gods accompanied Philip's own in a public display. In addition we can note that when he had conquered the city of Krenides, Philip renamed it Philippi after himself (Bosworth 2006).
(p. 341h) The emergence of supernatural associations for rulers of unparalleled and awesome power in the Hellenistic world would ultimately not have seemed unimaginable to the Greek mind
As noted in Chapter 12, there are isolated cases in the Classical era where cities elevated living men to heroic status and established cult practices in their honor. The larger-than-life Olympic victor Euthymos of Locri was so elevated in the early fifth century, and at the end of the same century the Spartan general Lysander was given similar honors. As Greek cities became more and more powerless before the Hellenistic kings and competing generals this practice became commoner, to thank benefactors or elicit future favor (Currie 2002). Retrospectively projecting one's own semidivine power back in history also became commoner: on Delos in the third century BC King Antigonus Donatas erected a portico to Apollo but placed 21 bronze statues in front of it representing his ancestors (Etienne et al. 2000).
(p. 341i) Hellenistic dynasts: their cults reflected gratitude, fear, and respect toward new powers
Specific associations with dynastic power could be "protection against foreign enemies, economic prosperity, food, and personal safety" (Mikalson 2006: 215). Frits Naerebout (pers. comm.) points out that Greek heroes were also believed to have begun as mortals who then later became immortalized.
(p. 342a) Many scholars accept one tomb as that of the founder of Macedon's hegemony, Philip II
If it is Philip's tomb, one image could be identified as the young Alexander, which leads to further inferences, since it seems to show him already in his later propagandistic ideal form. A fresco on the pediment over the entrance porch of the tomb shows a hunting scene in which two individuals may represent Philip and Alexander on horseback. Inside the burial vault the male prince was a cremation-burial placed in a golden casket in the main, rear chamber. In the antechamber a second, female cremation similarly deposited but with the bones wrapped in purple and gold cloth is argued by some scholars to be one of Philip's wives (Andronikos 1989, Cartledge 1998).
(p. 342b) The objects selected for Macedonian burials and accompanying murals were carefully chosen to symbolize central aspects of elite society
There is active debate on the importance in Macedonian elite society of contact with Persian Imperial court culture, since Macedonia was under strong influence from this source from the late sixth century BC. This concerns the emphasis on ceremony, as well as specific dress codes and a luxurious appearance for royalty and other members of the Macedonian court. The importance of hunting as a form of male elite display is also unusually strong in this society, whether from indigenous tradition or also Near Eastern influence: ancient sources stress the large-scale group pursuit of dangerous animals as well as traditional herbivores such as deer, while murals and mosaics match this focus (see Plate 14.1a). Xenophon states that noble Macedonian youths had to kill a boar before becoming accepted into adult society, and another source records that the general Cassander had to wait till he was 30 to be given a formal couch at banquets, when he finally achieved this goal (Etienne et al. 2000). The links between masculinity, hunting, and war as suitable images for the Macedonian elite from Philip II into the Early Hellenistic era in the art of the kingdom of Macedon are explored in the recent monograph by Cohen (2010). She notes that such scenes, for example the "Deer Hunt" mosaic in Pella, express a form of theatrical self-consciousness to the viewer which is typical for the court style of the "Theater State."
(p. 342c) Alexander carefully selected the artists who would bring his desired appearance and qualities to the great world he had conquered
Key artists on the payroll were the sculptor Lysippos and the painter Apelles.
(p. 342d) The "Baroque" style, favored by dynasts and other members of the Hellenistic elite, was named from its similarity to a post-Renaissance artistic tradition of exaggerated expressionism
The Baroque Hellenistic style was pioneered in the Greek foundation of Alexandria in Egypt and Pergamon, with anticipations in the art of the Macedonian Royal Tombs in Vergina. The underlying concept was to create an emotional effect by distorting Classical forms and to surprise the viewer with drama. The style continued to flourish alongside others in Imperial Rome and its rediscovery in the Late Renaissance was an influence which helped to stimulate the true Baroque style of art and architecture in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries AD. (Stewart 2006).
Muller (2002) argues that modern appreciation of the representation of Gauls in Pergamese art has misunderstood ancient readings. The Athens monument and the group of Dying Gauls dedicated by Attalos I ca. 230 BC in the Athena sanctuary in Pergamon were not intended to evoke the sympathy they seem to arouse today, but through their strange physical appearance and exaggerated gestures simply demonstrated the just destruction of barbarians threatening civilization. It is of course difficult to capture the ancient viewer's emotional response in the absence of ekphrasis, or contemporary textual accounts of art's impact, but one has to say that certain of these figures still seem, despite our different cultural background, to evoke empathy.
(p. 343a) Power statements of the all-controlling elite at the royal and city level, with exaggeratedly ideal sculptural representations of the Great and the Good
An exception to this emphasis on advertising the Hellenistic elite in Aegean cities is the sculptural work which was commissioned from the famous local sculptor Damophon by the city of Messene around 200 BC. To celebrate the recently founded city, the new Asklepion complex was designed to create a sense of tradition for the town by portrayals of its real fourth-century BC founder Epaminondas, but also of the mythical royal house of Messenia (Themelis 2003). Interestingly, in reality, there may never have been a coherent Messenian identity until the region was free from Spartan control (Luraghi 2002), and symbolism such as the Asklepion was designed to fabricate a sense of continuing identity.
(p. 343b) Realism: a boxer was no longer the "Adonis" athlete of the Classical sculptor Praxiteles, but a punch-drunk, broken-nosed bruiser
In this first-century BC bronze boxer, copper was inset into the wounds to represent blood (Fullerton 2000).
(p. 343c) Athens in the final century BC and first century AD experienced considerable popularity for this "verismo" style
From the late second century BC in Athens a conservative ruling group was displaced by a movement of radical change, spearheaded by men who were growing wealthy on international commerce, especially through Athens' colony at Delos. They were strongly pro-Roman. The verist style ideally suited their cosmopolitan self-made iconoclasm (rejection of artistic tradition) (Stewart 1979). However, realist "types" could become "genre" models themselves, rather than actual portrayals of an individual. In Greco-Roman public statues, for example, leading citizens who possessed several honorific images of themselves dotted around the townscape might choose to see themselves represented in various flattering guises, adopting such different genres as philosopher, warrior, king, or athlete (Smith 1998).
(p. 344a) The individual and polis reconstituted their relations through the central medium of the portrait, where private virtue and public need and advantage coincided
A fascinating occurrence from the furthest reaches of Alexander's short-lived Asian empire is worthy of mention in this regard, showing as well the link between such humble hero cults, those of minor elites, and the widespread officially sponsored cults of the god-like dynastic kings: in modern Afghanistan at the site of Ai Khanum a Macedonian urban foundation honored its founder, a Thessalian officer, with posthumous rites as a hero (Bosworth 2006).
(p. 344b) Already in the Hellenistic era (and regionally earlier), both public and private patrons could select a sculpture style or genre from a wide range to suit varied contexts
This choice of styles, as Fullerton (2000) points out, is known to have developed already in Classical times in more peripheral areas of Greece such as Macedonia, where a type of eclecticism mixing Archaic, Early, and Late Classical artistic traditions contrasts with the more linear traditions of Athens, and anticipates the cosmopolitan variety of expression which dominates Hellenistic art and then its offspring Roman art. (See also Ridgway 1994, Beard and Henderson 2001.)
(pp. 344-345a) The famous Venus de Milo once standing in the gymnasium of Melos clearly representing a sensuous female nude
Kousser (2005) suggests that male gymnasium culture offered an alternative focus to the declining sphere of civic politics, and here young men might note such a statue as advertising the more homely attractions of marriage and sensuality, and perhaps also romantic love.
(p. 345b) An enhanced female profile of women. If powerful families now held control in Greek cities then women, being central to such groups, could find new scope for involvement in both affairs of state and urban affairs
Hellenistic queens could offer dowries to poor girls in their kingdoms, and many were powerful diplomats, even though notionally they always had to have a royal male consort (Thompson 2006).
(p. 345c) Middle - and upper-class burials possess plentiful gifts, including precious metal, as well as wall-paintings and architectural settings
In the late 1980s and early 1990s two remarkable Macedonian tombs were excavated in Macedonia, at Phinikas and Aghios Thomas near Thessaloniki (Tsimbidou-Avloniti 2005). Their impressive wall-paintings indicate that the tombs are those of the aristocracy, with scenes of armed men, cavalry, and elite open-air banqueting (perhaps on an estate).
Once the display of wealth was no longer disapproved of, with the rapid decline of citizen equality, or isonomia, personal luxury jewelry in the Aegean world also underwent a great revival. Unsurprisingly this was a feature of Macedonian tombs from back in the Archaic era (Ginouves 1994) but in Hellenistic times such items experienced a general rise in popularity in the Aegean. Precious materials were combined to make eye-catching diadems, bracelets, and necklets, and in the Late Hellenistic period the cameo was adopted, at the same time as emeralds and pearls began to flow westward for Aegean wealthy consumers from trade networks in the Hellenistic Middle East (Stewart 2006).
(p. 346a) New perceptions of women as primarily attractive, desirable persons beyond their earlier chief role as wives or mothers
Frits Naerebout (pers. comm.) points out that of course women could be seen as attractive in Classical times, even if this was not an acceptable matter for public discussion, but in Hellenistic times romantic concepts of relations between the sexes were a novel theme for public discourse.
(p. 346b) Terracotta figures become an important minor art form in Late Classical and Early Hellenistic times in Greece, especially well known from cemeteries at the Boeotian city of Tanagra
When tomb-robbing on an industrial scale began to remove large numbers of figurines from the cemeteries of ancient Tanagra in the late nineteenth century AD, the European cultural world was enthralled by these small but evocative terracottas, or "Tanagras." They even influenced women's fashionable dress (Higgins 1986). For recent studies on the terracottas and the city itself see Jeammet (2003).
(p. 346c) Tanagra figurines: flourishing from the later Classical era till around 200 BC
A good case can be made that Roman interventions in the Aegean from the third century BC onward led to the impoverishment of many cities. Is it, for example, a coincidence that at Tanagra, according to Higgins (1986), figurines seem to stop being deposited in graves around 200 BC, when the Romans intervened in Central Greece in very dramatic ways?
(p. 346d) Usurping the dominance of gods and goddesses in Archaic to Classical figurines, the genre is mostly reserved for contemporary ordinary folk
The everyday folk style of terracotta seems to have developed in Athens during the fourth century BC under the influence of contemporary sculpture. The figurines are rather fragile for frequent handling and are unlikely to have been made as toys. Found in graves, sanctuaries, and houses, they probably represent more than one category of meaning, bringing to the viewer's mind divinities or demigods, real if attractive people, idealized children, young people, or mature individuals (van Boekel and Mulder 2003).
(p. 346e) The presence of Romans and other Italians in Greece became noticeable from the late third century BC. Actual annexation was the formalization of a process begun long before
The political and military takeover of the Romans by the Greeks was to await the fourth century AD, as we shall see in the next chapter.
(p. 346f) The sack of rich ancient towns such as Corinth and Athens provided rich booty, while large-scale tomb-robbing increased the haul
The first recorded large-scale looting of artworks from a Greek city for Roman reuse is that of Syracuse in 211 BC when the victorious general Marcellus put them on display in Rome as "embellishments of the city" (Spivey 1997).
(p. 346g) Culture-hungry Italians commissioned new works of art by Greek artists or in a Greek style
Surely a highly significant sign of remarkable change in the Aegean economy is the fact that wealthy Romans set up workshops themselves in Greece, employing imported craftsmen from Italy, in order to produce appropriate works of art for the booming market in conspicuous cultural consumption (Rizakis 2001).
(p. 346h) Italians had new needs for art, retaining sufficient sense of a separate identity to inspire a merger of the fine art traditions of Classical Greece with a self-perceived rugged individuality
Our word "Greeks" neglects the people's own term, "Hellenes," in favor of the Roman equivalent "Graeci," yet at this period Romans widely conceived of the defeated "has beens" of the Aegean as "Graeculi" - a term associating contemporary Greeks with inferiority, effeteness, and weakness.
(p. 347a) On Delos private houses of Italians and Athenians could possess portrait-busts or statues of their owners or patrons
It had long been traditional for wealthier Roman houses to possess portraits of household gods and ancestors in the atrium, or public entrance area, the latter favoring a semi-realist style. With the escalation of luxury due to the expansion of Roman economic and military power, and Italian experience of Hellenistic domestic display homes, such households aspired to fill their mansions with Greek-style sculpture, mosaics and wall-paintings, and architectural elaborations. The merging of Roman realism with Classical Greek idealism was often the surprising result when personal portraits were commissioned by these cosmopolitan Italians (Fullerton 2000).
(p. 347b) Replacing a pale imitation of the Classical style, a more open society favored sculptures projecting strong, self-made personalities
The parallels drawn by Stewart (1979) with the art of the rampant middle classes in Renaissance Italy and the Dutch Golden Age bring the phenomenon into a broader cross-cultural framework. Geagan (1992) surprises us by noting that the last two centuries BC, when Athens was heavily under Roman influence, produced the largest number of inscriptions with personal names on them compared to all other periods of the city's history, but this self-advertisement clearly suits the spirit of competitive individualism of the age.
(p. 347c) The success of this neo-Classical semi-reproduction industry may, it now appears, have led to chronological confusions among previous generations of Classical art historians
Since the art of Classical freestanding sculpture was centered on bronzes, which almost never survive, marble copies made in Roman times have formed a key source in reconstructing lost works, and hence in writing the stylistic history of pre-Roman Greek art. It now seems possible that many works formerly deemed mere copies, are more inventive objects in their own right. Roman Classicizing sculpture may be a new work in an ancient style(s), or a version of an earlier original, modified for new tastes. Even remarkable finds such as the two statues discovered in a shipwreck off the Italian coast, the Riace bronzes, which are widely believed to represent exceptions to the rule that Greek Classical bronzes have not survived, are under some scrutiny as perhaps later, Roman, "retro" products of consumer demand for objects in a Classicizing style. Pioneer art historians of the
Classical world such as Winckelmann were led astray in their search for the best of ancient art, which they considered to be always Classical Greek rather than Hellenistic or Roman, into elevating stone or bronze sculpture found in Italy into masterpieces of fifth - to fourth-century BC Greece. The Apollo Belvedere and the Laocoon, for example, are now believed to be, respectively, a Roman work and a Roman or later Hellenistic-Early Roman sculptural group (Fullerton 2000, Stewart 2003).
(p. 347d) In the Roman Aegean leading families aimed to dominate the "city of images" through multiple statues and public monuments advertising their achievements and generosity
At Corinth, by the Roman forum a new basilica of the first century AD was adorned with a group of statues representing the Imperial family, probably commissioned around AD 1-2 by the prominent Spartan family of the Euryclids. The ensemble seems to have been a local imitation of the Forum of Augustus at Rome. In fact, the Corinthians, as Italian colonists, sought during the Early Empire to create a miniature Rome in their town in several ways (Vanderpool 2003).
(p. 347e) Augustus had favored public images in a rather severe form of Athenian Classical imagery, alongside that of military virtue
The classic study of Augustus' use of art to repackage himself and trademark the new Imperial Age is that of Zanker (1988).
(p. 347f) In the second century AD several emperors cultivated a more Hellenistic, intellectual appearance
An enhanced craze for Greek art and style may have been stimulated by the emperor Hadrian (AD 117-138) and his cultural foundation the Panhellenion (see Chapter 13), but it lasted through the subsequent Antonine dynasty and further into the third century AD (Etienne et al. 2000).
(p. 347g) In Greece emperors inserted their personal mythology into Greek traditions, as with Hadrian's sculptural program in his restoration of the Theater of Dionysos in Athens
According to Karivieri (2002), the elaborate sculptures decorating the stage show Hadrian alongside Theseus, the first founder of Athens, as its second founder (see earlier discussion in Ch. 13, p. 325). He appears in the guise of Dionysos, while Ariadne, abandoned by Theseus only to be picked up by Dionysos, represents Hadrian's wife, underlining the second-founder symbolism.
(p. 347h) In the Hellenistic era the showplaces for the great kings were primarily the Panhellenic sanctuaries and then certain cities significant for their diplomacy
In Chapter 13 we illustrated the most visible example today of Hellenistic kings obtaining advertising space in a key location, with the Stoa of Attalos in the Athenian Agora. The latter, which owes its reconstruction to wealthy American patrons of the American School of Classical Studies in Athens, is now the showpiece of Athens' ancient town center. This serves to remind us that euergetism is alive and well in the United States.
(pp. 347-348a) With the total domination of Rome every city competes to show enthusiasm for the imperial family and provincial officials
Hojte (2002) has documented statues to Hellenistic kings in 14 locations in Greece, mostly third to second century BC in date. Thirty-one localities have recorded statues to Romans in the succeeding era up to the reign of Augustus. The number of towns or sanctuaries with honorific statues to Romans rose to 59 in the Early Imperial period. In the troubled and dangerous times for Greek cities of the Late Republic, keeping in favor with Roman generals and other elite members was especially vital. This explains why there is so far recorded a minimum of some 250 statues of Romans in Greece during this phase. The desire by local elites and whole cities to express loyalty to Rome and to seek imperial favor accounts for the 600 or so statues which survive of the imperial family for the first 200 years of the empire.
(p. 348b) Many cities had weak finances and we find older honorific statues to Hellenistic kings rededicated to influential Roman patrons
After all, the Greeks would have argued, these kings could do nothing now for them now that all the power was in the hands of the Romans. Oropus on the Athenian border, for example, has a series of such third - to second-century BC statues which were in the following century reassigned to the generals and magistrates of the Late Republic (Hojte 2002).
(p. 348c) A notable feature of the Hellenistic era is the widespread revival of the display of wealth and status in burials
With some exceptions, as we have seen for example at Athens, which suffered restrictions in wealth display to prevent assertive leading families from fomenting unrest against the Hellenistic kings.
(p. 348d) Macedonian tombs were copied elsewhere in Greece
At Sparta, for example, in the Hellenistic cemetery there are monumental tombs with marble doors imitating the facades of Macedonian tombs (Raftopoulou 1998).
(p. 348e) Messene: in the Early Empire the Heroon or monumental family tomb to the important local family the Saithidai, was placed at one end of the stadium and on the city wall
Luraghi (2008) favors a second-century AD date for this burial monument and associates it with a well-known member of the dynasty, Tiberius Saethida Caelianus, over the excavator's suggestion of a first-century BC chronology (Themelis 2003). Luraghi suggests that the placing of the Heroon on the city wall was a deliberate reminder of the heroic death of an early member of the clan, when he defended the town against a Macedonian force in the third century BC. It is notable that construction of the Heroon actually required partial demolition of the city wall at this point.
(p. 348f) Athens: the tomb of Philopappos
Philopappos was a descendant of the Hellenistic kings of the small state of Commagene, and had a distinguished career as a Roman consul and archon of the city of Athens. His monument (AD 114116), to outward appearances a theatrical two-story architectural facade filled with large statues of himself and his ancestors, is actually his tomb (but this is hidden, accessible from the rear). The lowest story has a notable frieze showing Philopappos' inauguration as a consul. The modern and ancient viewer can hardly avoid noticing this great personal advertisement dominating the skyline of the Hill of the Muses immediately south of the Acropolis, and naturally the decorated side faces the Acropolis (Etienne et al. 2000).
(p. 348g) A new production of male and female grave reliefs arises, often reflecting a nostalgia for Athenian Classicism
Thus gravestone pictures of seated matrons or nude young males are direct historicizing copies of fifth - to fourth-century BC patterns.
(p. 349) Thus in Athens some citizens advertise their "Roman-ness" by commissioning gravestones imitating current styles of honorary portraits of "the great and the good"
As we noted in the context of house-plans in Roman Greece (p. 340), Roman practice to give more freedoms to women can also be seen reflected to a certain extent in their sculptural representation (Dillon 2010). Although Dillon shows that in some parts of the Roman East women continued to be depicted in sculpture in a generalizing Hellenistic style, emphasizing "female beauty, good breeding, dignity, and personal modesty" (2010: 160), other examples show the impact of Roman tradition to give an individual appearance to elite women in honorary statues.
World History
