The Greek world in the fourth century was more prosperous (with many exceptions), more commercial and urban than in the fifth (Hammond 1986: 521-32); it was also less purely Greek, more international. Maussollos, satrap of Karia, commenced the urbanization of his capital at Halikarnassos around the time Megalopolis was built but made his own future tomb the focal point; construction of the Maussolleion (as it was eventually called) probably began before his death in 353 and continued under his successors. The artists and architects employed were Greek, but the monument’s main features recall non-Greek tombs from Asia Minor, especially Lykia: an Ionic colonnade stood on a high podium, both lavishly adorned with free-standing and relief sculpture, surmounted by a stepped pyramid (reflecting both local tradition and Egyptian influence?) with a chariot on top. It is commonly supposed that Maussollos was depicted in the chariot, and as commonly and reasonably agreed that this figure has not survived. The ruler, however, could have been portrayed more than once among the hundreds of statues and is the probable subject of a colossal (height 3 m) statue of an individualized mortal; he has an imposing countenance, set off by un-Hellenic facial hair and swept-back locks, and a burly body whose authoritative stance is made the more dramatic by dense, deeply carved drapery. ‘‘Maussollos’’ foreshadows mid-Hellenistic baroque and has occasionally been re-dated to that era. The free-standing sculpture shows a wide range of styles, as do the three pictorial friezes: a chariot race, an Amazonomachy, a centauromachy. The latter two are not likely to perpetuate triumph-over-barbarism symbolism (nor to have been chosen as conventional decor); rather, all three motifs had probably taken on funerary significance.
Whether or not the artists came to the Maussolleion already famous, their work there apparently advanced their careers. Pytheos, a sculptor-architect, went subsequently to his small native city of Priene and designed the Temple of Athena Polias, which has strong affinities with the Maussolleion in both architectural and sculptural details. Pytheos eschewed the previous expansiveness of Ionic buildings (including the Maussolleion) in favor of compactness, purity, and careful proportions; in all this, he was probably influenced by Doric practice - although he was known as a chauvinistic detractor of the Doric order. He was rewarded by posterity’s recognition of Athena Polias as the canonical Ionic temple. Priene is notable for many well-preserved fourth-century and Hellenistic public buildings, also houses; their front porch-forecourt arrangement differs from the plan at Olynthos and elsewhere and appears to be a specialty of this part of Asia Minor extending back into the Archaic period and perhaps the Bronze Age.
Skopas of Paros, a more famous sculptor than Pytheos, worked with him on the Maussolleion; we know that on one later occasion he was a notable architect, since
Pausanias says that he designed the temple of Athena Alea at Tegea. Despite its size (only slightly smaller than the temple of Zeus at Olympia), this was the first Peloponnesian temple entirely of marble. The interior orders were purely decorative, engaged Corinthian half-columns supporting a second tier of small Ionic half-columns; this influential innovation, combined with rich moldings, gave the cella intricately articulated walls without encroaching on its spaciousness. The style of the pedimental sculptures was unusual, to judge from the heads; massive proportions, hard-breathing mouths, and large, upward-rolling eyes combine to produce an effect of powerful passion. Probably Skopas made the designs and assistants were responsible for the uneven execution. We can at least cite the Tegea heads as exemplars (along with descriptions of lost paintings) of passion in fourth-century art, forerunners of such Hellenistic works as the Altar of Pergamon.
The Athenian Praxiteles, younger kinsman (son?) of Kephisodotos, probably did not work on the Maussolleion (Vitruvius De Architectura 7 praef. 12-13 states this possibility), but his most remarkable statue was made for East Greek Knidos nearby - and can only be explained in terms of its location. Aphrodite came to the Greeks from the Near East, and Knidian proximity to cults emphasizing her fertility and sexuality resulted in the commission of Praxiteles’ statue c. 340, the earliest fully nude female (except for the dying Niobid, an architectural figure) in large-scale Greek sculpture. Her Asian affinities explain not only her nudity but the motif: Aphrodite, preparing for her bath, holds her hand over her genitals, to draw attention to them while shielding the mortal onlooker from their full power. The statue’s fame and popularity in copies and variants appear to date only from the late Hellenistic period (paradoxically, the lovely oval face was immediately influential), along with anachronistic bashful-bather interpretations. Praxiteles’ Aphrodite was a great goddess, not a startled and embarrassed woman. Since she survives only in copies, ideas about Praxiteles’ work have also been much influenced by a supposed original, the Hermes with infant Dionysos. But despite its similarity to the Eirene (see above), this superlative group displays too many stylistic and technical anomalies for a sure connection with Praxiteles, and attributions based on it have become suspect. It nevertheless appears, as before, that Praxiteles favored female and youthful male subjects and epitomized the quiet and intimate side of fourth-century art.
The Marsyas Painter’s vase depicting Peleus’ conquest of Thetis among the Nereids is contemporary with Praxitelean sculpture and often understandably cited as comparable. The mood recalls the Meidias Painter (see above), but the figures are larger and given more individual attention; both drapery and female nudity are attractive, naturalistic, and three-dimensional. It must nevertheless be admitted that such Athenian work is usually less lively than West Greek painting, which draws much inspiration from the theater (most explicitly in a crude but vigorous school of comic painting at Poseidonia). The Dareios Painter’s name vase (330s) has a remarkable multi-figure scene inscribed ‘‘Persai’’; it probably refers to a lost tragedy (contemporary or revived from the early fifth century?) in which the King receives news of Marathon.
The vase may also allude to the Asian exploits of Alexander, whose death in 323 conventionally begins the Hellenistic age in both art and history; since so many of his policies continued those of his father, one might also mark the transition by Philip’s overwhelming victory at Chaironeia in 338. The crucial point is that any date for the beginning of Hellenistic art will be based - far more completely than in the case of the transition to Early Classical - on historical events. Rather than stylistic revolution, there is continuity of most trends beginning before 350; not a few sculptures have been dated to the fourth century but also the third and even second.
The artist epitomizing the long, gradual transition is Lysippos of Sikyon. He was evidently an established sculptor by the 360s; in maturity, he excelled at portraying Alexander as well as Alexander’s ancestor and role model, Herakles; he outlived his royal patron to work for the Diadochoi close to 300; many eminent pupils (including three sons) further developed such Lysippan specialties as unprecedented naturalism and complex poses of both action and repose whose three-dimensionality demanded multiple viewing angles. Lysippos’ famous Apoxyomenos (athlete cleaning himself with strigil), generally recognized in a plodding Roman copy, shows what he himself had achieved c. 320.
Alexander also extensively patronized Apelles of (probably) Kos, most admired of Greek painters, renowned on a par with Pheidias. Like Lysippos a skilled portraitist with allegorical interests, he added the sensuousness of Praxiteles, painting nude not only Aphrodite but Alexander’s favorite (subsequently his own) mistress. Scholars’ inevitable wishes to find pictorial traces of his work have occasionally linked Apelles with the Alexander Mosaic. This Pompeian pavement somehow captures in the intractable medium of tessellation the compositional subtlety and powerful atmosphere of a lost painting showcasing the opposing Macedonian and Persian kings. Philoxenos is more commonly and plausibly credited with the original, but this remains speculative, as does the usual identification as Issos; it may be that battle, freely varied (witness Euphranor’s Mantineia! - see above), or it may be generic.
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