At the major Archaic sanctuary to Hera on the island of Samos a private dedication ca. 580 of a marble kouros was so large it was taller than the temple, but, interestingly, it may have been painted brick-red following the Egyptian practice for male statues (Hurwit 2007).
(p. 252b) The idealized nude young males (kouroi), and richly clothed young women (korai) are found at sanctuaries and cemeteries, although other poses are represented (seated figures, horsemen)
Natascha Sojc (pers. comm.) points out that there are regional differences in style, although some scholars suggest this may also contain a chronological element.
(p. 252c) Kouroi and korai: few have inscriptions and context is ambiguous, since temple or cemetery locations do not pinpoint any one of these possible interpretations
Context can sometimes actually clarify the intentions of the dedicators. Neer (2007) provides two good examples. The Ptoon sanctuary in Boeotia, Central Greece, had two distinct areas. One, sacred to the god Apollo, was especially patronized by elite families and was filled with a large collection of at least 120 kouros statues, while the other, the seat of an oracle associated with the local demigod-hero Ptoos, received dedications from cities, especially bronze tripods. The aristocrats were competing in public with each other with such prestigious displays of "beautiful things" which probably merged concepts of Apollo with the idealization of elite male qualities. At the Panhellenic festival center of Olympia, a quite different context is evidenced: athletic victors were allowed to erect commemorative statues of themselves, although their form in wood and bronze means that virtually nothing survives of this accumulating army of idealized males.
(p. 252d) Because the Greeks conceived of their divinities as beautiful humans, and perfect humans to be physically godlike, such ambivalence in the humanity or divinity of statues served its purpose
Kouroi were initially considered by scholars to be Apollos, and korai major female divinities. But their occurrence in temples to other gods limits the scope of such a theory. Rather the statue is a representation of a perfect and youthful person of either sex, suitable for the anthropomorphic (human-like) divinities of the Greeks and the idealized personification of elite or wealthy families. Beauty had moral and political connotations, even in the High Classical democracy of Athens, and is encapsulated in the expression "kalos k'agathos" or "beauty and goodness" (Spivey 1997). As to the clear evidence of increasing naturalism over time in the sculpting of statues, Spivey considers it likely to be due to competition between artists to achieve more remarkable images for their clients, although this does not explain why other contemporary cultures preferred idealization and schematization. Perhaps the acknowledged trend toward more meritocratic polis societies and the rise of money and commerce in the sixth century favored the increasing importance of individuals as opposed to classes, an argument frequently used in the Renaissance for the impact of capitalism on a more individualizing portraiture (Paoletti and Radke 1997).
Elsner (2006) has a fascinating set of insights into the contrast characterized as the "Greek Revolution" in art that occurred in the first decades of the fifth century BC, when the Archaic sculptural style of "directness and abstraction" typical of kouroi and korai was replaced by a form of naturalism where the subject looks askance and self-absorbed, marked in the famous early piece called the Kritios Youth. He sees a loss of communication, since the Archaic figures with their frontal gaze appear to establish a relationship with the viewer, whereas with Classical figures we become voyeurs of the sculpture's world. If anything then this is a loss of emphasis on individualism, and in fact Elsner sees a temporal and logical parallel with the contemporary shift in Athenian theater, from a single actor or chorus leader directly addressing the audience to the introduction of a second, then third, actor who then proceed to address each other. He associates this wider trend with an increased centrality of communal civic mass life in the assembly, lawcourts, and gymnasia. This fits well with our own observations of the decline of the clan and home-based politics of the Archaic city toward the arena of public life, with the contrast between oikos and polis. He admits, however, that Athenian theater and the new semi-naturalism were equally popular in oligarchic Classical states and in the Hellenistic world, with limited democratic activity, without quite explaining the apparent contradiction. With our concept of the polis as a "corporate community" which does not have to be truly autonomous from other more powerful states, however, we can rather emphasize the fact that most city-states had a broad participation in public affairs by the upper and middle classes (hoplite constitutions) and this in itself provides appropriate conditions for Elsner's shift toward the civic mentality of indirect observation as against individual relationships.
(p. 252e) Prestigious sculpture commissioning was the privilege of rich aristocrats, but sometimes a commoner might muster the considerable cost
Indeed the largest Archaic kore found on the Athenian Acropolis was given by Nearchos, who appears to have been the owner of a thriving pottery business (Hurwit 2007). Holloway (1992) prefers to stress the significant presence among the Athenian Acropolis korai and kouroi of nonaristocratic dedications according to associated inscriptions. The rising middle-class bourgeoisie in his view are adopting the artistic symbols of the elite, encouraged by the social and economic policies of Solon and Peisistratos who stimulated a more meritocratic society of achieved rather than traditional inherited wealth. Scholl (2006) offers a more nuanced view, not least through a detailed argument in which seventh-century dedications on the Acropolis are now given greater prominence compared to those long attributed to the sixth century: whereas the earlier Archaic gifts represent a dominant elite society, the sixth-century gifts mark the radical shift toward the middle class in Athens through their increasing role in dedications, including statues. Spivey (1997) focuses on one of the earliest known statues, the kore dedicated by Nikandre ca. 650-660 BC on Delos, almost 2 m high. Dedicated to Artemis, and probably portraying the goddess, this work was very expensive to have carved and then transported from Nikandre's home on the island of Naxos. The inscription mentions her father, brother, and husband, and it may have been a gift to mark her leaving a role as priestess, perhaps on her marriage (Hurwit 2007). At this early stage of monumental art, the dominance of the traditional elite should be assumed.
(p. 253a) Imposing statues reminded local communities of status differences
This shift in the way the elite displayed their wealth clearly replaces a dominance of tripod cauldrons, which had reflected the world of aristocratic feasting, with more prominent human figures to mark aristocratic burial monuments and form eye-catching dedications to communal sanctuaries and treasuries. Scholl (2006) disagrees with Kyrielies, who has argued that the rise of a monetary economy reduced the value of such practical status items as cauldrons, making it more impressive for the elite to exhibit their wealth in a fashion that enhanced their personal status - the kouros and kore. For Scholl this will not work, since the beginning of the statue series predates the wide use of coinage. More insightful, given the close links of the new art form to Near Eastern figures, is to see the rise of these statues as part of a process of competitive emulation: imitations of exotic sculptures displayed the elite's idealization of its men and women, and thus provided ideal vehicles for public statements of aristocratic values. In the early sixth century a new form of burial monument appeared: the first monumental carved stone grave stelae (stone pillars) with relief figures, showing many parallels to the representational repertoire of the freestanding statues, although dominated by images of male aristocrats (Stears 1995). If human figures in these statue or stelae contexts merge idealized elites with gods and heroes, one might wonder if the slight variations visible in form, pose, and facial detail were meant to convey something of real individuals. Stieber (2004, 2005-6) believes so; others, for example Osborne (2004), remained unconvinced. Spivey (1997) notes that some 20,000 kouroi may have been created by the end of the Archaic era.
One of the best-known finds, a double pairing of a kouros and kore from Merenda has been much discussed, most recently by Hurwit (2007). The find at Merenda in rural Attica shows the deliberate burial in a pit of tomb memorials probably from a nearby cemetery. It is suggested that they belonged to graves of the powerful Alcmaeonid aristocratic clan of Athens, who were exiled by the Peisistratid tyrants. Ancient sources tell us that the Peisistratids vandalized Alcmaeonid burial sites and these statues may have been concealed to protect them. The kore has an associated inscription telling us that a maiden called Phrasikleia is being memorialized. She was given to the gods and will always remain a maiden, or "kore." These beautiful and highly dressed girls, whose statues were known as an agalma, or a delightful thing, remind us that the aristocratic women who formed the models for korai were a form of exchangeable social wealth among the intermarrying elite clans of Archaic cities. Natascha Sojc (pers. comm.) also notes that the elaborate korai clothing reminds the viewer of the power and wealth of the leading families.
A topic returned to in Chapter 12 is the additional decoration applied to Archaic and Classical sculpture and temple architecture. Here we may note that apart from the lavish painting of parts or even all of such surfaces, recent research has added knowledge that often additions were placed in bronze or precious metal to sculpture (Schafer et al. 2003). In particular, aristocratic values were being underlined through a bronze helmet (to mark valor, or arete), bronze beard (elite style), and even bronze pubic hair and penis (sexual power). Analyzed examples include well-known pieces such as the late sixth-century BC grave stele of Aristion and the ca. 500 BC rural grave-marking Aristodikos kouros.
(p. 253b) The male hero, at first clothed or naked, will become typically naked
Stieber (2005-6) emphasizes that the kouros is a spectacular presentation of naked male beauty, in contrast to the kore where the jewelry, headgear, and clothes are the focus of display alongside the famous, enigmatic "Archaic smile" (perhaps to reflect the "delight" the statue should bring to viewer and the gods). Fullerton (2000) adds that Archaic korai were given pale body color (to emphasize the desired sheltered world of the house-dwelling elite woman), and their secure clothing signifies they are protected property.
(p. 254) Proto-Corinthian vases are covered with images largely derived from the Near East, even if the bands of design reflect local Geometric traditions
The invention of polychrome figured wares, though rapidly absorbed into seventh-century Corinthian ceramic production, seems to have originated in the Cyclades and the Western Mediterranean colonies rather than from direct imitation of Near Eastern ceramics (Coulie 2005).
(p. 255a) The great debt that early historic Greece owed in religion, myth, and artistic production to the Near East
West (1997) went so far as to state: "Greece is part of Asia; Greek literature is a Near Eastern literature" (quoted by Ian Morris 2000). Sarah Morris (1992) presented Greek art from the later Bronze Age to the Archaic era as part of an Eastern Mediterranean cultural sphere or koine. Ian Morris (2000) and Crielaard (2009) elaborate on the attractions of general Near Eastern and specific Lydian culture for the Archaic elite. This includes the popularity of perfumes (for which Corinthian aryballos and alabastron vases were primarily created). Fullerton (2000) notes that Easternemulating Greeks first copied Oriental customs regarding perfumed bodies, then exported the lifestyle through Corinthian containers around the West and Central Mediterranean, as well as reexporting it back to the Near East. Then came body ornaments and dress, followed by the importation of dining-couches and other house-furnishings. West (1997) and other authors add weights and measures, religious equipment, and lawcodes. Lopez-Ruiz (2010), however, feels that the view of Archaic Greece as a mere appendage to the civilizations of the Near East commits "reverse Orientalism" and prefers to envisage an "Eastern Mediterranean" koine where Greece has a share in the movement of ideas and artistic forms, reminiscent of the Late Bronze Age shared culture currently in favor for the same macro-region.
(p. 255b) Archaic elites emulated more complex societies to the East and their lifestyles _ partly to dissociate themselves from the culture of their own clients and peasantry
Kurke (2007) contrasts the world of the Archaic agora (city marketplace and assembly square), where more communal values were increasingly coming to the fore in political and economic activity - Ian Morris' (2000) "middling" and polis-focused ethos, with the world of the private drinking-party or symposium, where Morris' "elitist" and internationalist ethos was prominent. She cites de Vries on the notable fact that in some 50 figured vases of the Late Archaic-Early Classical period (530-470 BC) there are male symposiasts with Eastern hairstyles and dress, probably copying Lydian appearance. As noted in Chapter 9, an emphasis on "Greeks versus barbarians" is largely a Classical, fifth-century BC creation, spurred on by military confrontation with Phoenicians and Persians. In Archaic times aristocrats found more in common with elites in such cultures than with their own lower classes. They entered into guest-friendships with their social equals in non-Greek societies and conducted marriages with them (Hall 1997) (ancient sources mention in this respect the famous Alcmaeonid clan of Athens and the family of the famous Athenian politicians Themistocles and Kimon). As for Egypt, although local Egyptian elites probably classed both their own peasants and the Greek merchants and mercenaries they encountered in the Archaic era as below their own gentlemanly status, if not less than fully human (Ray 1996), they still considered it worthwhile to cultivate the aristocratic class in Greek society through expensive dedications at Greek sanctuaries.
In return there arose not only the clear Egyptian influences in sculpture and architecture in Archaic Greek art, but also a respect within Greece for Egyptian religion, philosophy, and science.
(p. 255c) Aegean trade partners were a peripheral market for Phoenician and other Near Eastern merchants
The primary products Early Iron Age Greece could offer Near Eastern traders would have been agricultural surpluses, but it is now claimed that local metal ores were also sought after (see Chapter 8).
(p. 256a) Similar Black-Figure wares were then produced in other city-states during the Late Archaic era of the sixth century, notably in Athens, where the boom in urban and rural population, including many resident aliens specializing in trade and craft production _
Papadopoulos (2009) agrees with Dunbabin that there was a significant migration of Corinthian potters to Athens, already from the late eighth century, and this increased in the sixth century perhaps as a result of Solon's supposed offer of Athenian citizenship to immigrants with a trade (if not, as noted, later that century under the sponsorship of the Peisistratid tyranny). For a full overview of BF wares from Athens and Attica see Alexandridou (2011), which includes an intriguing case for production of such wares not just in the well-known potters' quarters in the Athenian suburbs but also in rural districts such as Vari.
(p. 256b) Red-Figure ceramics: black gloss paint is background for the representations, which are left in the natural red-brown clay color, but with details outlined with black and other fine paint lines
This matches the contemporary development of relief sculpture where figures were also usually painted in lighter shades against a darker background.
(p. 256c) Red-Figure pottery: individual examples of a particular artist's or workshop's output have been recognized
Hurwit (2007) describes Late Geometric figured vase-painting, most clearly represented by the Dipylon series from Athens, as an ideal mosaic of an unchanging world. He contrasts this with Red-Figure painting where more momentary and individualized actions were sought for and were more achievable through the subtlety of the new techniques.
(p. 256d) Although Red-Figure wares are widely produced, Athens in the Classical centuries dominates the extra-Aegean market and also supplies a significant minority of RF wares to other Aegean states
As will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 12, there is a vigorous debate on the Red-Figure pot trade. It does seem clear, summarizing points especially relevant in the context of this chapter, that even the finest vases were not particularly expensive, although some potters did become wealthy.
On the other hand, prices for giant storage pithoi (storage jars) and roof tiles were expensive, and a successful ceramics manufacturer could just as well be accumulating wealth from such mundane functional items. Yet the vast output of Attic RF has to mean that much money did accumulate in Athenian workshops, and since Athens was not in itself a major commercial shipping state, its popularity implies that the wares were appreciated in their own right abroad, rather than being merely space-fillers in Athenian vessels loaded with other products. On the other hand, it seems likely on the accumulated evidence from shipwrecks and historic sources, that products of one Greek state were transported by boats from many other states (Kreuzer 1994), and here the cheapish but much in demand Attic RF pots could still be considered as a little money-spinner to fill numerous spaces in ships loaded with bulkier and more valuable goods as their primary cargoes.
As Arafat and Morgan noted (1989), although the export trade in fine ware gradually shifted from a Corinthian primacy to Athens, Corinthian exports continued through the fifth century BC into Italy and there was also a flourishing market in the wider Aegean for Corinthian (and Aeginetan) cooking-ware.
If Corinthian and then Attica BF and RF exports dominated the Western and Eastern colonial and Etruscan fine-ware market in Archaic and early Classical times, by Late Classical into Early Hellenistic times migrant Athenian potters to these regions and strong local demand led to rising production in Italy itself of RF and plain Black Glaze wares (bucchero nero), which gradually supplanted Aegean imports and developed their own styles and technology to suit indigenous and colonial tastes (Gallois 2004). Similar events occurred in Western Turkey, Northern Greece, and the Peloponnese (MacDonald 1981). By the fourth century BC Athenian products had declined in quality and in the share of the Mediterranean market.
(p. 256e) White-background wares now appear
A particular form associated with white ware is the lekythos, and this tall vase was often used at the graveside for the annual visitation of the dead, the Gennesia, when offerings of wine, water, honey, or milk were made in the deceased's memory. Typically scenes of tombstones and female mourners and visitors were painted on such vases (Kamen 2007).
(p. 256f) From figural representations on Archaic vases disarmament develops slowly
Hall (2007) notes that the fifth-century BC historian Thucydides states that the practice of carrying arms in public, once widespread in Greece, was in his day confined to barbarians and those regions "settled according to the old fashion" such as Locris, Aetolia, and Acarnania. The contemporary playwright Aristophanes ridiculed the idea of weapons appearing in the agora among the vegetables (van Wees 1998). The oldest surviving lawcode, from Cretan Dreros, from the second half of the seventh century, prohibits the carrying of arms in the civic assembly or state parliament (Holkeskamp 1995 [1992]). The widespread disappearance during the Archaic era of warrior burials and of the deposition of weapons in graves in the polis-states also seems to reflect a major shift in male identity. This was replaced by an emphasis on the importance for the middle and upper citizen classes of one's "civic" suit of armor, which it seems was often displayed in the home (van Wees 1998), and when taken from the city's enemies would become an appropriate dedication in a temple.
(p. 256g) Carrying the staff makes plain that the owner is no artisan but a man about town
On the Parthenon frieze 10 men leaning on staffs seem to represent the tribal heroes of the mythical origins for the Athenian state, a striking example of the decline of the warrior ethos (van Wees 1998). Natascha Sojc (pers. comm.) points out that similar representations are extremely common too on grave reliefs from the Late Archaic period onward.
(p. 257a) Tripods: formed a focus for elite feasts, gift exchange, and prestige dedications in Late Geometric-Early Archaic times
Strikingly, the "heroic" elite clan buried inside the Early Archaic city of Eretria had gifts of prestigious bronze cauldrons for both men and women, illustrating the importance of both sexes in this society and their role in hospitality and display (Crielaard 1998). Crielaard (pers. comm.) has stressed the archaeologically attested movement of cauldrons around the Late Geometric-Archaic Aegean, which agrees with Homeric references to their use as inter-elite gifts, while the evidence of repairs and modifications to particular examples underlines their value.
(p. 257b) In the shadow of the Athenian Acropolis, a tripod monument has survived, the fourth-century BC choregic victory column of Lysicrates
Also at other cities, tripods were used well into Hellenistic times for the leading families to publicly announce their status: at the Boeotian city of Orchomenus for example, third-century BC monuments to victors in musical contests with the prize tripods mounted on them belong to the elite families of the town (Papalexandrou 2005). Nonetheless, Archaic elites progressively shifted their display investment to show their status toward the new kouros-kore statues and to dedications for the treasuries in sacred enclosures. Scholl (2006) sees this as a move toward the public advertisement of aristocratic virtues and religiosity. He does not accept Kyrielies' alternative theory, that there were just too many dedicated cauldrons for elites to make a new impression. Papalexandrou (2005), however, agrees that the piling up of bronze cauldrons in temples might have made it difficult for individual donor families to make a public impression, unless a clear inscription reminded the viewer: he proposes that the moment of dedication might have been accompanied by poems and dance to draw attention to an individual donor.
(p. 257c) The distinctively Oriental contribution to the Symposium is for guests to recline on bedlike benches
Dickinson (2006) reminds us that Homer's diners do not recline at table, which he takes to relate to the Late Geometric era, while the first iconography (artistic representation) of reclining is found at the end of the seventh century.
(p. 257d) Men-only was already becoming the norm for the symposium guests
Natascha Sojc (pers. comm.) notes that the Archaic symposium scene with Heracles includes what appears to be a female family member, which reminds us of the higher social status and freedoms in the clan-focused elite societies of that era, which will lead to the exclusion of respectable women from such events with the rise of moderate democracies.
(p. 257e) By Classical times a symposium space, the andron, was commonly created in the standard Greek middle-class home
This fact raises doubts about the strong association of the symposium with anti-democratic values. Murray (1990) and Morris (2000) feel that this formal drinking-party in a specially furnished room represented the "elitist" focus versus the "middling" values of the ordinary citizen in the polis (Morris 2000), but it is hard to explain why the custom was then so widely adopted by ordinary citizens in states with a moderate to extreme democracy, such as Athens. One answer might well be that of Jameson (1990), who argues that the nature of these drinking-parties and their aims could be very different between classes during such male gatherings (see Chapter 12).
(p. 257f) In the transformation of this private monument into a communal temple
Although it is normally argued that Early-Middle Geometric great houses were elite residences (Mazarakis-Ainian 1997, Morris 2000), forming the model for the early Greek temples which begin to appear at many settlements during the Late Geometric era, some question if some of the former were rather already the earliest temples (Dickinson 2006). I consider it still likely that the inspiration for the "house of the god" lay in the mansions of the Early Iron Age aristocrats, especially since the design owes nothing to Bronze Age shrine-plans (cf. Jameson 1990).
(p. 258a) The successful merging of the local great house, with its organic architecture and admired Egyptian and Levantine architecture, culminate in the characteristic Greek temple design
Although it seems likely that the greatest early development of monumental temples, the use of sculptured side panels (metopes), and the type of roofing system later typical for Classical temples, took place in the Greek colonies of Southern Italy (Tsetskhladze 2006), this does not make Eastern Mediterranean influence on the building less likely. Rather, it underlines the extremely competitive exhibitionism of city-states throughout the Greek urban world, where novelties would be rapidly diffused and copied from city to city. The important visual display of the ring of stone columns bordering Greek temples (peristyle) is usually attributed in particular to Egyptian architecture (Fullerton 2000), a country Aegean Greeks were beginning to know well from mercenary and merchant service there from the beginning of the Archaic era.
(p. 258b) Temples: a reorientation of city-state society toward a new symbol of civic identity, the patron deity's sanctuary, for all citizens regardless of class
Significantly, dedications to the new city temples include not only the prestigious luxury gifts of the aristocrats - cauldrons and armor, but simple terracotta offerings from ordinary citizens (Hall 2007).
(p. 258c) Competition between poleis for land, trade opportunities, and prestige encouraged a rivalry in the size and ornamentation of temples
In his concept of "peer-polity interaction" Renfrew (in Renfrew and Cherry 1986) insightfully describes how interstate competition as well as intra-elite competition can create homogeneous cultural spheres of prestigious display, as a common language of self-promotion allows each
Participant to rival or outdo the others. The examples given by Renfrew and Snodgrass in the same volume (Renfrew and Cherry 1986) devoted to explorations of this theory, suggest that the relative uniformity and wide distribution of similar temple designs and elite representations such as the kouros and kore statues during Archaic times can be very plausibly explained through such a process.
(p. 259a) Panhellenic sanctuaries: "theaters" for chauvinistic competition and iconographic aggression.
As noted in Chapter 9 in the context of aristocratic rivalry at the Panhellenic Games, such intercity competitiveness can be described following Spivey (2004) as "war minus the fighting."
(p. 259b) Small temple state treasuries in temple form at the major interstate sanctuaries publicly displayed their sophistication and wealth, but also armor and weapons taken from campaigns against other Greek states
Olympia in particular, from the Late Geometric onward, received countless military dedications of helmets, spears, body-armor, and shields (Lehmann 2007). Perhaps the most outrageous piece of war propaganda was the dedication by the Spartans in 457 BC of a victory monument on the roof of the chief temple, that to Zeus, at Olympia, to remind visitors of its defeat of Athens at Tanagra (Neer 2001). Other packages of symbolism could be embodied in state treasuries. The remarkably expensive and beautiful treasury of the small island of Siphnos reflects its temporary wealth from gold and silver mines rather than political or military pretensions on the Aegean stage, but its complex iconography is, according to Neer (2001) a discourse on the tense nature of Siphnian social relations.
Confirmation of the continuing propaganda role of Panhellenic monuments is the fact that, since Ancient Athens has successfully persuaded subsequent societies that it was the iconic center of Greek civilization, at Delphi its modern successor has appropriately reserved restoration only to its predecessor's treasury. For an interesting if perhaps over-elaborate reading of the iconography of the Athenian treasury see Neer (2004). Argument continues over the date and context of this treasury, but recently von den Hoff (in Schultz and von den Hoff 2009) has argued that the building was erected after the Kleisthenic democratic revolution in Athens as a gesture by the reformed state to assert its international prestige.
(p. 259c) Tyrants embellished their towns with showpiece shrines and other public works
Polycrates on the island of Samos is the best known of many tyrants credited with a major aqueduct project to improve the water supply of the burgeoning towns of the Archaic Aegean (Shapiro 2007).
(p. 259d) In Athens Peisistratos had a long, probably benevolent rule, possibly residing on the Acropolis
Actually it is increasingly doubted if Peisistratos occupied a mansion on the Acropolis (Spivey 1997).
(p. 259e) On the Acropolis a temple pediment may show Peisistratos uniting three regional power factions in Attica
If Greek Acropolis specialists are correct, however, the first great temple to Athena was built earlier under a wider aristocratic rule (cf. Scholl 2006 and Chapter 9 of this volume).
(p. 259f) The Peisistratid Acropolis building program may represent several sacred buildings, but the central structure was one (or more) Athena temples
For a detailed review of early temples and other constructions on the Acropolis see now Scholl (2006). Natascha Sojc (pers. comm.) points out that current scholarship finds it difficult to link the various Archaic-era structures only to the activity of the Peisistratids (cf. Hurwit 1999).
(p. 259g) This dynasty is linked to the formal layout of a new public square or Agora, with facilities for drainage, water supply, and road construction. Traditionally, the formal presentation of plays in the Agora belongs to the same period
Peisistratos founded the four-yearly Greater Panathenaic Games to bring admiring visitors to the growing city, while the drainage of the new Agora was in part to prepare the formal route taken by the Panathenaic procession from the town boundary to the Acropolis (Ammerman 1996, Shapiro 2007). The first attested chorus leader for the Athenian dramatic festival, Thespis, is recorded for 534 BC (Spivey 1997).
(p. 259h) It is remarkable how little we actually know about ancient Greek cities
In dealing with the early development of any particular Classical town, even less can be said, as the literary sources thin out and the archaeology of the Geometric-Archaic-era occupation is usually buried under more extensive later building.
(p. 259i) The typical city plan, perhaps precociously seen in Archaic Old Smyrna
Old Smyrna in the sixth-century form in which it is reconstructed in the familiar illustration is a compact town with some 160 buildings and even fewer domestic homes (although the excavator Cook believed there were 1000 households) (Crielaard 2009), with a regular grid of streets and public buildings round the agora. It may have been the model for Homer's colonial foundation of Scheria, and some even suggest it was indeed Homer's home.
(p. 259j) A single Geometric-Early Archaic settlement can explode into a much larger walled nucleation, or a community comprising several close hamlet-villages can coalesce. Athens and Corinth conform to the second model
Although the model was illustrated through surface survey on two abandoned ancient towns - respectively Haliartos and Thespiai in Central Greece, the scheme appears to fit excavated towns as well. The regular layout of some early Greek colonies in Italy has been seen as a major source of inspiration for the gradual diffusion of more regular street and block planning in the Aegean, but also here in the West some Archaic towns appear to have several foci, perhaps marking several subcommunities as in the homeland (Antonaccio 2007).
Crielaard (2009) adds to this dispersed town group Megara, Eretria, and Miletos and Ephesos on the west coast of modern Turkey.
In the context of this discussion, Sparta forms an intriguing and surely misunderstood city. It was described by Athenian writers as remaining in "the old style" of dispersed villages, four in fact, with an additional village a few kilometers to the south at Amyclai. The area over which the four villages were spread was a plateau of some 300 ha, mostly under the modern town (Hall 2007). But since the same sources indicate that the majority of Spartan citizens and their families were accommodated in these villages, from a total of some 40,000, on any calculation of housing density the core plateau of Sparta must have been heavily built up. In fact the urban density is comparable to "normal" nucleated towns such as Athens. (For a detailed study see De Jong 2009.)
(p. 261a) The rights of citizens and their involvement in public affairs are materialized through the building of conspicuously placed lawcourts and assembly halls, for example at Athens, the focus from the final Archaic period onward of the most advanced experiments in democracy
However, our understanding of the slow development in Late Archaic times of public buildings in the Classical Agora of Athens, northwest of the Acropolis, has recently been clouded by the suggestion of a displacement of the town's main Agora, over the Archaic period, from an original location northeast of the Acropolis (Ammerman 1996, Etienne et al. 2000).
(p. 261b) Athens: assemblies were also held in its rural settlements (in the theater of Thorikos, while Sounion has several agoras). Yet these were probably provincial towns in their own right, thus functioning as mini-poleis
In my earlier-cited analysis of Attic settlement patterns (1994) I have also observed that Attica, equivalent in size to its neighbor Boeotia, was large enough to allow the evolution of a series of market towns and population foci, as well as one giant city (Athens), comparable to the 14 or so largely independent towns and one giant city (Thebes) in Boeotia (Figure 8.3). The fact that the early creation of an effective territorial state of Athens-Attica demoted all its rural settlements to the same status as "demes" obscures for us the continuing hierarchy of rural settlement from "villages" lacking even a nucleated center (such as Atene deme in Southeastern Attica), through small or large villages, and up to towns whose several thousand inhabitants would normally have acted as a polis elsewhere in Southern Greece. The scale of these provincial Attic towns and their likely early history as autonomous centers, plus their distance from daily contact with the metropolis, continued to sustain their own political and economic life. In many respects this must have been comparable to that of poleis elsewhere, with the exception of larger political decisions which were made by these towns' representatives and their peers in the Athenian assembly (Whitehead 1986, Lohmann 1992). In fact it was necessary for any larger poleis in the Greek world to have secondary centers for servicing rural populations when distances grew. In any case, since these larger states had invariably developed through absorbing such other foci (synoecism), the latter will usually have continued to exist and function (Jameson 1990), sometimes retaining "polis" institutions and terminology in their texts.
(p. 261c) A less common form of public architecture was required in states with "Dorian" forms of communal male dining
Haggis et al.'s (2007) significant excavations at the Cretan town of Azoria have begun to give material substance to the particular adaptations that "Dorian" states required for their specialized class system and the custom of male citizen communal eating-houses. In later Archaic times at
Azoria two separate areas on the South Acropolis, the supposed Andreion complex, and the Monumental Civic Building, have shown evidence on excavation for public food consumption.
(p. 261d) The development of choruses and actors in the sixth century is associated with the city-state form of government
Rhodes (2003) is at pains to dissociate Greek drama from its commonly asserted tie to democracy, as it was also popular in oligarchic states and kingdoms. On the other hand, Athenian drama in the Classical fifth century was unique in its exploration of political themes, and this must be a consequence of the high degree of democracy in its constitution.
(p. 261e) Over the Archaic period the "city as structure" crystallized into an integrated set of meaningful topographies: the religious, power, and public built environment was complementary to that of private life
Holkeskamp in several articles (e. g., 2004) supports the view of Holscher, that the "emergent complexity" of polis life was expressed in material terms through increasingly formalized demarcations of space and function in the city. A similar view has been developed by architectural theorists regarding the elaboration of separate spaces within private homes as an expression of increasingly complex social organization, and this applies well to the contemporary development of the typical Greek "courtyard house" across the Archaic centuries and into earliest Classical times (Jameson 1990) (see main text further on).
(p. 262a) More elaborate houses develop _ rectilinear rather than oval-apsidal forms
On Crete and the Cyclades, however, even through the Early Iron Age, houses had remained rectilinear (Crielaard 2009), in part due to the greater use of stone than organic materials and the common preference for flat rather than shelving roofs.
(p. 262b) The illuminating approach of "space syntax"
Updated and extensively elaborated in Hillier (1996).
(p. 262c) In the "Dorian" serf-states the emphasis on male-citizen communal eating might be expected to reduce the focus on elaborating the citizen family house, and indeed excavated Cretan homes largely confirm this
Westgate's (2007) important study shows that Cretan houses retained much of the linear, simple-access character of Early Iron Age homes in the Aegean (see Chapter 12). In Sparta it seems that the decline of the Laconian Black-Figure vase production may be associated with a growing decline in ostentation and emphasis on simpler communal dining wares (Powell and Hodkinson 2010).
(p. 262d) The Archaic state is most commonly run by a class of aristocratic families
If tempered by variable forms of power-sharing with the middle class.
(p. 262e) We would need Archaic town quarters dug with extensive horizontal excavation to demonstrate a cross-section of social classes
Alongside size differences and variable location into favored and less favored sites in the city, we might expect to see differences in the debris from house decoration and consumption practices within associated rubbish deposits; these are all approaches that have proved successful in the medieval-postmedieval historical archaeology of Western Europe and North America.
(p. 262f) some putative Archaic town mansions exist, such as Building F in the periphery of the Athenian Agora
Shear actually suggested that the large houses near the Athenian Agora, numbered F, C, and D were the palace of the sixth-century Peisistratid dynasty (Morris 1999). The plan of these houses does bear some resemblance to attempted reconstructions of the palace of Odysseus as described by Homer (Jameson 1990).
(p. 262g) Zagora has distinct areas with larger and smaller homes perhaps denoting class differences
One particular complex in the higher part of the settlement has been identified by some as the residence of a leading family, and does possess extra food storage rooms (with an enhanced number of great storage containers), and a separate dining-room, creating a more elaborate social and economic facility compared to the other homes (Ebbinghaus 2005).
(p. 262h) City-states in the Eastern Aegean have evidenced elite rural mansions
These include towered mansions and defended quarters enclosing both the wealthy and their client families (Crielaard 2009).
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