The royal tombs at Vergina
Although the Classical polis-world knew visible displays of wealth in burials, expressed in elaborately carved monumental tombstones, such minor infringements of citizen egalitarianism pale into insignificance when we enter the Hellenistic era. 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. Most spectacular are the monumental burials associated with the royal family at the original capital of Aegai (modern Vergina). Andronikos’ excavations (1989) revealed, within a series of traditional tumuli, complex stone-built tombs with fabulously rich gifts and elaborate painted decoration (see following Text Box).
Repackaging the Macedonian kingdom, often considered “barbarian” by the Aegean city-states, into a heroized state with mythical Greek roots, began in the early fifth century BC with King Alexander I: an imaginary history of the royal house traced it back to Hercules via the Peloponnesian city ofArgos. The next step was to claim divine status for the dynasty. Already during Philip II’s reign, he erected a circular shrine to himself and his family at the Panhellenic sanctuary of Olympia, and here and also in a surviving sculpted head from Athens the portrayal of his son Alexander is already that of the propaganda ideal that the latter would promote around the Mediterranean and Near East. The autocrat as a god (on death, and even when alive), was easily accepted in most regions of the Near East where a comparable concept had been common for millennia (particularly in Egypt), but in Greece it represented a stronger break with Classical tradition. However, since Olympian gods and mythical heroes were conceived as ideal mortals, 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. Yet one did not offer prayers or dedications to Hellenistic dynasts or expect supernatural miracles from them, and it appears rather that their cults reflected gratitude, fear, and respect toward new powers who wielded an influence on ordinary people previously associated with divinities (Mikalson 2006).
The Alexander cult
If Philip II was nonetheless considered by contemporaries in the city-states as an upstart dictator, fighting his way to controlling Classical Aegean civilization
Macedonian Royal Tombs
Many scholars accept one tomb (Color Plate 14.1b) as that of the founder of Macedon’s hegemony, Philip II, based on the finds-chronology and physical details uncovered by facial reconstruction of the skull, although just as many prefer another member of the dynasty and dispute the same evidence. In any case, this tomb has armor and crowns emphasizing political and military power and contains 20 miniature ivory images which are probably portraits of family members. The objects selected for Macedonian burials and accompanying murals were carefully chosen to symbolize central aspects of elite society (Etienne et al. 2000): purple cloth and crowns for royalty, military paraphernalia to represent an ethos of conquest, hunting scenes representing aristocratic manliness and companionship, banquet couches and luxury tableware recalling the central role of large-scale social dining, and bath implements to symbolize Greekness through gymnasium culture.
This elaborate funerary presentation of Macedonian royalty builds on the older Southern Greek tradition of hero cults, where mythical associations were created to suggest semi-divine status for the elite. Moreover, the merging of imported architectural elements derived from South Aegean public buildings, with the regional tumulus-burial tradition, created a novel monument of enhanced prestige: the “Macedonian Tomb.” Its fayade resembles a Greek temple, behind which a barrel vault roofs one or more chambers containing the burials and gifts of the elite, all enclosed by a traditional Macedonian earth tumulus. Such tombs, the palace-towns at Aegai and Pella, and an iconography of dynastic power, sustain what anthropologists have called the “Theatre State” (Geertz 1980, Spivey 1997), where pomp and pageantry are deployed to reinforce the power of ruling elites. The two-story monumental fayade ofthe Aegai palace, later adopted for Hellenistic stoas in agoras and temple complexes, likewise offered “grandstanding” as well as theatrical backdrops for public events in an age where spectacle might replace substance (Stewart 2006).
From a peripheral “barbarian” kingdom, his son rapidly shifted everyone’s perceptions through his remarkable success in carrying Greek arms to the ultimate borders of the vast empire of that traditional enemy, the Persians. During his lifetime he encouraged the act of prostration before himself for formal reception, an Oriental custom, and consciously cultivated divine status through stage-managed visits to foci of mythical and religious associations. Although not demanded of Aegean cities, he ordered his colonial foundations in Asia to establish cults for his worship (Spivey 1997). As befitted a self-created god, Alexander carefully controlled the propagation of his ideal image in sculpture, painting, gems, and coins, selecting the artists who would bring his desired appearance and qualities to the great world he had conquered. The battle-scene where Alexander charges toward a terrified King Darius, copied in a mosaic from Pompeii two centuries later, is probably based on a lost contemporary
Painting, and if so, already gives the audience a reworked propaganda image of the great hero rather than a taste of realism.
Hellenistic sculptural traditions
Attalos I, king of the small state of Pergamon in Northwest Asia Minor (Color Plate 13.1b), achieved spectacular military victory in 237 BC over invading tribes of Gauls (“Galatians”). His propaganda machine portrayed this as a new episode in the Greeks’ defeat of threatening Barbarians, a topos (literary cliche) traceable back to the Sack of Troy by way of the two successful defeats of the invading Persians in the early Classical era. His son and successor Eumenes II achieved further victories over the Gauls, and these dynasts were also able to defeat the Macedonian and Seleucid states. In part to celebrate this ostentatiously, Eumenes commissioned the “Baroque” giant sculptural frieze at the Great Altar in Pergamon, full of symbolism of the mythical roots of the Pergamene state and its superhuman victories. This 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. Contorted bodies and gestures, grandiose poses, offer a populist “comic strip” iconography, suitable for emphasizing “the Other,” whether Barbarians or the extraordinarily powerful Hellenistic dynasts themselves. “Barbarians” could also however be identified in a contemporary Greek form. In 200 BC, when Philip V of Macedon threatened Athens, Attalos I seized his chance to protect this now minor state on which he was modeling his own. Although his reaction was more diplomacy than armed protection, so that Athens suffered considerable death and destruction before Philip withdrew, the city was duly grateful, with Attalos receiving public honors and a hero cult.
To permanently commemorate this intervention, making its symbolism timeless, Attalos presented a series of sculptures, mounted on a discontinuous plinth over 100 meters long, to be displayed on the Athenian Acropolis (Stewart 2004). The themes were: (1) a battle of Gods and Giants; (2) a battle of Athenians and Amazons; (3) Athenians fighting the Persians; and (4) the Pergamon warriors fighting the Galatians. All four themes represent the forces of (Greek) civilization defeating the (Barbaric) “Other,” while the ensemble cleverly evokes the Attalids’ claim to be the modern defenders of Greek life and values. Even the tortuous twists of the various enemies’ bodies and their manic glances show their “abnormal” non-Greek emotions (Figure 14.3). Their manufacture in bronze with details picked out in metal, glass, and stone inlay increased their high visibility, but their placing, near the Parthenon with closely-related themes on its external sculpted metope-panels, was an unmistaken cross-reference to Athenian Classical propaganda.
Alongside such power-statements of the allcontrolling elite at the royal and city level, with exaggeratedly ideal sculptural representations of the Great and the Good borrowed from the Classical tradition of merging gods with men, a quite contrasting style of human representation developed. This is a very different reaction to the violent discontinuity that was occurring in the way of life of all Greeks, being a turn to realism and the individual. The Hellenistic era brought an end almost everywhere to the democratic world of the Classical polis, relegating the ordinary citizen from any major role in the vital political decisions concerning the state he belonged to, unless he happened to be rich and powerful. This resulted in a refocusing on “the basics”: making the most of one’s profession, high or low, and taking a closer look at the remaining arenas of social life, the neighbors, the craftsmen or entertainers. A world formerly centered on participation in popular politics and the citizen-to-citizen bonding of army service, has become reoriented toward individualism and the search for wealth and status, where attention turns to smaller-scale networking. Artistic concerns reflect these trends, portraying the unique features of the people, or of a common “type,” one encountered within more confined social networks.
Parallel to the godlike transformation style for elites, then, another genre arose, the “warts and all” confrontation with a real person, or a generic character that was set apart from other human types or lifestyles. The democratic orator Demosthenes, portrayed ca. 280 BC, could represent a “people’s politician.” A boxer was no longer the “Adonis” athlete of the Classical sculptor Praxiteles, but a punch-drunk, broken-nosed bruiser, although inspiring empathy. In another genre, the theater, the same shift is striking: Classical Old Comedy with its political references and Athenian master-playwrights, was replaced by the New Comedy, often composed by writers from diverse cities, in which stock characters of the town played out domestic comedies (Walton and Arnott 2001). Even rulers sometimes deploy this style to suggest to their enemies that they are tough and pragmatic opponents. In a more negative sense, Athens in the final century BC and first century AD experienced considerable popularity for this “verismo” style, since its unflattering and cynical reflection of the world symbolized a city which had been taken over by a new class of nouveaux riches businessmen (Stewart 1979). The turn to the individual can also be linked with the rise in popularity of the cults of Dionysus, Asklepios, and Isis, offering their devotees personal health, security, and the good life now and after death (Mikalson 2006).
Figure 14.3 The Baroque: defeated Barbarians from the Attalid dedication on the Parthenon.
Left: National Archaeological Museum of Venice. Right: © 2011. DeAgostini Picture Library/Scala, Florence.
Within the more personal, realist tradition such as the subgenre of‘worthy citizen, orator or philosopher” seen in the serious, Classical derivative Demosthenes statue, Stewart (1979), focusing on Hellenistic and Republican Roman-era sculpture in Athens and Delos, observes a sociological sea-change which portraits have undergone since Classical times. Athens till the fourth century honored its rich and powerful office-holders and benefactors with citizenship, tax-breaks or votes of thanks. Now a portrait commission became common. The weakened Aegean poleis had grown increasingly dependent on leading individuals within or outside their citizen-communities. Fifth-century portraits were usually created posthumously, now they represented living heroes, the more elevated of whom received divine honors and formal worship.
As well as flattering patrons who might continue to act for a city, portraits could offer compensation for a feeling of impotence on the ‘world stage,” substituting a “local hero” statement to elevate activities on a lesser scale. As Stewart remarks, this shows how a minor notable, a provincial but prominent person, was “asserting his own individual worth and significance by literally carving himself a niche in history.” The individual and polis reconstituted their relations through the central medium of the portrait, where private virtue and public need and advantage coincided.
Traditionally Greek art studies have adopted an evolutionary sequence based on formal styles, essentially focusing from Archaic times onwards on Athens. But already in the Hellenistic era (and regionally earlier), both public and private patrons could select a sculptural style or genre from a wide range to suit varied contexts (Fullerton 2000). Thus earlier scholars could be misled into taking LH-ER sculpture as copies of Classical-early Hellenistic originals. The famous Venus de Milo, for example, now appears to be a pseudo-Classical statue of Aphrodite ca. 150—50 BC, once standing in the gymnasium of Melos, but modified with some baroque stylistic features and betraying its lateness by clearly representing a sensuous female nude (Kousser 2005).
Hellenistic figured vases, funerary art, and society
Radical changes in Hellenistic private life are also reflected in vase scenes and family portrayals on tombstones. From the fourth century onwards, baby goddesses appear more frequently on vase-painting, tied to the increased role of the home, wives, and children (Beaumont 1998). On tombstones, late Classical scenes increasingly show family groups (Leader 1997), whilst some evidence a further symbolic novelty when portraying a husband and wife bidding a forced farewell imposed by death (Stears 1995). Whilst Classical husbands were shown taking physical “possession” over a new bride, through grasping her wrist, now at times an equal handshake appears, or even the roles in reverse with the wife’s grip dominant. Family life as an enhanced focus of attention in an era of declining public commitment seems to explain the development of“hero” cults even for non-elite families, centered on small shrines with statues of family ancestors (for example on Thera) (Thompson 2006).
An enhanced female profile of women in the more home-centered Hellenistic world could expand outwards into the polis. If powerful families now held control in Greek cities, in alliance with elite clans ruling the dynastic states above them, then women, being central to such groups, could find new scope for involvement in both affairs of state and urban affairs. As noted earlier, it thus became acceptable for wealthy, powerful women to contribute to polis monuments or infrastructure, thereby receiving civic honors and statue dedications (van Bremen 1996).
Athens, which till now has formed the main focus of study for grave monuments (the corpus of fourth-century decorated graves alone registers 1800), provides an impoverished record for Hellenistic times. However, the puppet-ruler Demetrios of Phaleron (installed in Athens by Cassander) had authorized a decree in 317 BC banning all but simple monuments and brief inscriptions (Stears 2000). This reacted against a growing trend for ever larger funerary monuments with a theatrical relief style, part of wider tendencies seen in houses and sculpture toward the relaxation of democratic ideals in favor of a greater display of individuality and wealth. Presumably this law would squash any opportunity for local elites to assert undue power in cities within the sphere of Hellenistic kings and generals. Tombstones became limited to a small column or table. Unsurprisingly these restrictions remained under successive external powers till the second century BC. Intriguingly a more hidden aspect of burial ritual alters likewise to a simpler form in Hellenistic times, since finely-painted lekythoi were replaced as standard grave goods in Athens by cruder oil-flasks (unguentaria). Nonetheless, even where expensive burials were banned, those elites favored by the great kings were still able to exhibit their status publicly through dedicating civic monuments and being awarded statues in public places. This kind of greater visibility was easier to control by the dominant powers.
However the Athenian bias in Greek archaeology has been rectified for the Hellenistic era by well-published excavations in Macedonia. Here a society which throughout Greco-Roman times was very hierarchical gives evidence for rich elite burials from Archaic times onwards, and in particular the Hellenistic era provides an equivalent range of burial wealth and elaboration of tombs to parallel the varied statuses amongst the living (Ginouves 1994). Beyond the spectacular royal tombs of Aegai, other centers such as Pella (Siganidou and Lilimpaki-Akamati 2003) possess cemeteries which range from simple cist and earth tombs for ordinary citizens, through larger, vaulted chamber tombs for middle-class family use, up to “Macedonian Tombs” for the elite, imitating on a smaller scale the mounded chambers of royalty. The middle - and upper-class burials possess plentiful gifts, including precious metal, as well as wall-paintings and architectural settings.
Insights into personal representation and gender roles can also be gained from changes in grave goods. Till the end of the fifth century BC strigils (metal scrapers for cleansing the body with oil, traditionally linked with males) and mirrors are rare, but in Hellenistic times they increase ten-fold, and now both appear in women’s burials. Heightened body-care may reflect the rise of individualism and the participation of women can be linked to new perceptions of women as primarily attractive, desirable persons beyond their earlier chief role as wives or mothers (Naerebout 2001—2002, Rotroff 2006).
Terracottas
Terracotta figures become an important minor art form in late Classical and Early Hellenistic times in Greece, especially known from cemeteries at the Boeotian city of Tanagra (Higgins 1986). Flourishing from the later Classical era till around 200 BC, they contrast with the traditional grand art of Greece in temples and grave-monuments through focusing on everyday life, and recognizable individuals, in highly detailed miniature human or animal figurines. Usurping the dominance of gods and goddesses in Archaic to Classical figurines, the genre includes numerous representations of contemporary ordinary folk. This more personalized and sensitive art once more spotlights the particularities of real persons at a local, neighborhood scale, as the affairs of the polis retreat into the hands of the rich and powerful few. Figurines of divinities do of course continue to be made, and here it is noteworthy that statues of a nude Aphrodite become common, illustrating a more blatant interest in female sexuality in Hellenistic times, if not female power. This suggestion agrees with other figurines of clothed contemporary women who are attractive, but lacking obvious signs of motherhood or housewifery (Rotroff 2006).
World History
