Richness characterized many early fourth-century buildings in sanctuaries, such as the tholos at Delphi (probably c. 380, possibly earlier); its function, like that of most tholoi other than that of the Athenian agora, is much disputed. The Delphi example, Doric on the outside, combined an interior Corinthian colonnade (occasionally claimed as earlier than Bassai) with a profusion of decorative carvings and dark stone to offset white marble. The architect may have been Argive, as was more probably the designer of the larger tholos of the Asklepios sanctuary at Epidauros, similar but still more ornate. It was begun c. 370, around the time the deity’s temple was completed, small but again featuring an elaborate interior with a gold and ivory cult statue. The sculpture of both pediments depicts Trojan War fighting and furnishes one of the last major examples of Rich Style clinging and billowing drapery; one mounted Amazon recalls Dexileos. Something new, however, is the raw pathos of several heads, notably that of Priam at the moment of his murder, and the emotional effect is heightened by the contorted spiral poses of several figures.
A reaction away from Rich Style sculpture is well represented by two obviously popular versions of the healing cult’s chief divinities: the Asklepios Giustini (c. 380) and the Hope Hygieia (c. 360s). The dense drapery of the former, especially, has an architectural, almost abstract quality that has sometimes suggested fifth-century dating; Hygieia combines a like formality with greater naturalism. Both are commonly attributed to Peloponnesian artists - perhaps more resistant to the Rich Style than Athenians and lonians - but occasionally to the Athenian Kephisodotos. To commemorate peace with Sparta, probably in 371 (slightly earlier and later dates are also argued), he was commissioned to make a bronze group for the Athenian agora: Eirene (Peace) holding the infant Ploutos (Wealth); the old motif of nurturer with child was given new allegorical meaning. The figures, known from copies, form an ensemble of great compositional subtlety, more three-dimensional than usually supposed. Eirene’s drapery is a derivation from the style of Pheidias’ successors simplified to complement a pose with increased complexity and tension, at the same time enlivened by small naturalistic folds suggesting the actual behavior of cloth.
Painting also seems to have turned away from the flamboyant and exquisite toward a quieter and more solid naturalism. The point of Euphranor’s gibe about Parrhasios’ Theseus was to contrast his own version of the hero as beef-fed. Probably Athenian and apparently active toward the middle of the fourth century, Euphranor was eminent as both sculptor and painter; his famous representation of the 362 battle of Mantineia conflated history by, impossibly, depicting Xenophon’s cavalryman-son Gryllos killing Epameinondas. In vase painting, Athenian contemporaries of the Meidias painter perpetuated a more sober style that continued as the fourth-century mainstream; the red figure schools of south Italy, which began as a mid-fifth-century offshoot of Attic painting and never embraced the Rich Style, now produced some of the best work of the early fourth century.
The art of the period sometimes called Late Classical (c. 370-330) is particularly difficult to sum up. The instability of these years encouraged a search for order that resulted in more introspective and consciously intellectual art than the Rich Style. Artists sought to express reality through individualization, naturalism, and illusionism - approaches emphatically rejected by Plato, the greatest fourth-century seeker of order. There is, however, something Platonic in the proliferation of personifications in early fourth-century art, especially when they convey allegorical meaning. Personifications are prevalent on document reliefs, an institution that began in Periklean Athens (with Persian antecedents) and during the fourth century spread to other Greek states. Since these artifacts are dated and also do not pretend to great originality, they have been used for refining the chronology of major sculpture (e. g., Eirene with Ploutos), although with inconclusive results.
Ploutos reaches toward Eirene; she looks past him, her expression of gentle melancholy typically fourth-century. The overall effect, surely intentional, makes the allegory poignant; lasting peace was elusive at a time when Theban military successes were changing the face of the Peloponnese. The Arkadian federal capital Megalopolis, founded c. 370, soon lived up to its name with the construction of a theater accommodating about 20,000 spectators, very symmetrical and possibly the first with a round configuration. By the end of the century almost all Greek cities and major sanctuaries had permanent theaters - the most beautiful at Epidauros toward 300. Many had skenai with forward-projecting wings, probably influenced by the configuration of the Stoa of Zeus, built c. 430 in the Athenian agora. In the 330s, the Theater of Dionysos received the earliest stone auditorium. Megalopolis remained the largest theater yet was essentially an annex to the roofed council house called (after the man who funded it) the Thersileion, which featured concentric rectangles of interior supports arranged so as to offer the clearest possible view of the speakers’ platform. Undoubtedly influenced by several Athenian meeting places, it surpassed them in size (length 66 m) and probably refinement; its destruction by King Kleo-menes III of Sparta in 223 leaves most details uncertain.
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