Macedon

Greek artists worked for Macedonian patrons as early as the end of the fifth century, when King Archelaos engaged Zeuxis, Parrhasios’ great rival, to decorate his palace at Pella. As partial compensation for the loss of his paintings, adjacent villas preserve pebble mosaics made about a century later, including a stag hunt by the greatest ancient mosaicist, the first to sign his name: Gnosis. Hunting, a Macedonian and especially royal passion, is also the theme of a painting decorating the facade of the ‘‘Tomb of Philip II’’ at Vergina; similarities to the Alexander Mosaic (there are major differences also) have prompted some scholars to assign it to Philoxenos. Inside another Vergina tomb is depicted Hades abducting Persephone, a masterly painting sometimes attributed to Philoxenos’ teacher Nikomachos.

Study of the rich material from Macedon shows how many specifics of the transition to Hellenistic art are uncertain. Most notably, many believe ‘‘Philip’s’’ tomb misidentified, dating it about two decades after his death (even the identification of Vergina as ancient Aigai has been challenged) (Faklaris 1994). The barrel-vaulted construction may postdate Alexander’s eastern conquests (it was almost certainly Macedonians who in the 320s built a stadium at Nemea with a barrel-vaulted entranceway), and some grave furnishings also seem closer to 300 than 336. The association with Philip still has defenders, some claiming that reconstruction of the male occupant’s skull (drawing on forensic medical technology) shows a traumatic

Figure 22.6 Grave stele found near Ilissos River, Athens. National Archaeological Museum, Athens. © Alinari/Art Resource, NY.

Right-eye injury such as Philip received in 354. The right eyebrow of a miniature ivory head from the tomb bears a scar; the identification as Philip - and of several other heads as Alexander - is probable but not universally accepted.

Macedonians may have been not only patrons but makers of early Hellenistic art. This possibility is most readily conceded for metal work, such as the spectacular finds from the Derveni tombs in which Attic and Italiot as well as ‘‘northern’’ elements have been detected. As for painting, the decoration of tombs presumably had parallels above the ground, since some of its characteristics appear in later Italian wall painting; and we know that Macedonians employed famous Greek painters. The tomb painters, however, worked in close coordination with the architects, and of a distinctively Macedonian architecture there is little doubt.

The non-Hellenic practice of building tomb chambers with magnificent decoration and furnishings resulted in the preservation of notable Hellenic (or Macedonian) art. Ironically, around the same time (probably 317) a Macedonian-appointed ruler of Athens decisively legislated against elaborate funerary practices, including sculpted monuments. Demetrios of Phaleron’s decree may have been immediately prompted by the erection of the Kallithea Monument just outside Athens; recently discovered and only preliminarily published, this huge structure combines statuary and architecture in the manner of the Maussolleion. So ended an interesting, often moving genre of Athenian art capable of producing an occasional masterpiece. The Ilissos Stele of the 330s (Figure 22.6), commemorating a youth mourned by an elderly man and a child, sensitively groups perfectly executed figures in illusionistic space; this is as beautiful and emotionally powerful as any Greek work that has come down to us.

Further reading

Boedeker, D., & K. A. Raaflaub (eds) (1998) Democracy, empire, and the arts in fifth-century Athens (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press) (Center for Hellenic Studies Colloquia 2) Castriota, D. (1992) Myth, ethos, and actuality: official art in fifth-century b. c. Athens (Madison WI: University of Wisconsin Press) (Wisconsin Studies in Classics)

Cohen, B. (ed.) (2000) Not the classical ideal: Athens and the construction of the other in Greek art (Leiden: Brill)

Havelock, C. M. (1995) The Aphrodite of Knidos and her successors: a historical review of the female nude in Greek art (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press)

Hurwit, J. M. (1999) The Athenian acropolis: history, mythology, and archaeology from the Neolithic era to the present (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)

Miller, M. C. (1997) Athens and Persia in the fifth century bc: a study in cultural receptivity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)

Pugliese Carratelli, G. (ed.) (1996) The Greek world: art and civilization in Sicily and Magna Graecia (trans. A. Ellis et al.) (New York: Rizzoli)

Ridgway, B. S. (1999) Prayers in stone: Greek architectural sculpture ca. 600-100 b. c.e..

(Berkeley: University of California Press) (Sather Classical Lectures 63)

Robertson, M. (1975) A history of Greek art, 2 vols (London: Cambridge University Press)

Bibliography

Barron, J. P. (1984) ‘‘Alkamenes at Olympia’’ in: Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies of the University of London 31: 199-211

Bell, M., III (1995) ‘‘The Motya charioteer and Pindar’s Isthmian 2’’ in: Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome 40: 1-42

Carpenter, R. (1973) Review of Pollitt 1972 in: American Journal of Archeology 77: 349

Faklaris, P. B. (1994) ‘‘Aegae: determining the site of the first capital of the Macedonians” in: American Journal of Archeology 98: 609-16

Fehr, B. (1979) ‘‘Zur religionspolitischen Funktion der Athena Parthenos im Rahmen des delisch-attischen Seebundes, I’’ in: Hephaistos 1: 71-91

Fehr, B. (1980) ‘‘Zur religionspolitischen Funktion der Athena Parthenos im Rahmen des delisch-attischen Seebundes, II’’ in: Hephaistos 2: 113-25 Fehr, B. (1981) ‘‘Zur religionspolitischen Funktion der Athena Parthenos im Rahmen des delisch-attischen Seebundes, III’’ in: Hephaistos 3: 55-93 Hallett, C. H. (1986) ‘‘The origins of the classical style in sculpture’’ in: JHS 106: 71-84 Hammond, N. G. L. (1986) A history of Greece to 322 B. C. (Oxford: Clarendon 31986)

Klein, N. L. (1998) ‘‘Evidence for west Greek influence on mainland Greek roof construction and the creation of the truss in the archaic period’’ in: Hesperia 67: 335-74 0stby, E. (1988) ‘‘The sculptural program of temple E at Selinus’’ in: Praktika tou XII Dienthnous Synedriou Klasikes Archaiologias, Athena, 4-IQ Septemvriou 1983, vol. 3 (Athens: Hypourgeion Politismou kai Epistemon 1988) 200-8 Papadopoulos, J. (1996) ‘‘The original kerameikos of Athens and the siting of the classical agora’’ in: GRBS 37: 107-28

Pollitt, J. J. (1972) Art and experience in classical Greece (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)

Raubitschek, A. E. (1949) Dedications from the Athenian Akropolis: a catalogue of the inscriptions of the sixth and fifth centuries b. c. (with the collaboration of L. H. Jeffery) (Cambridge MA: Archaeological Institute of America)

Stewart, A. (1993) Greek sculpture: exploration (new ed.) (New Haven: Yale University Press) Walsh, J. (1986) ‘‘The date of the Athenian stoa at Delphi’’ in: American Journal of Archeology 90: 319-36

Younger, J. G. (1997) ‘‘Gender and sexuality in the Parthenon frieze’’ in: Koloski-Ostrow, A. O., & C. L. Lyons (eds) (1997) Naked truths: women, sexuality, andgender in classical art and archaeology (London: Routledge) 120-53