middle helladic to the late helladic i shaft graves 26 страница

36 cm.

2006, 220). There are several other graves in the Pantanello cemetery whose grave goods indicate their inhabitants were also Lucanians rather than Greeks. The grave goods, then, are a hybridization of customs and objects. The mixture of Greeks and non-Greeks in the same cemetery suggests to Carter that ethnicity could be fluid and that differing groups could share common beliefs and prac­tices. For the Lucanian man in Tomb 106, his grave goods include artifacts of both cultures and his place in them.

One of those shared beliefs or customs may have been religious. The Pantanello cemetery has a number of graves whose goods indicate that many of the deceased were Orphic-Pythagorean- Dionysiac initiates. This religious movement is associated with the philosopher and mathematician Pythagoras, who moved to the Greek colony Croton in southern Italy about 530 все and died about 495 in Metapontum/Metaponto. He established a doctrine on the transmigration of the soul and practice of vegetarianism; his interest in the afterlife merged under his followers with ideas taken from Orphism and Dionysiac cults. We have already seen one aspect of this interest with the afterlife in the Derveni krater and tombs, and its practice spread throughout the Greek world (see Figure 12.15, page 304). At Metapontum/Metaponto, this often shows up in grave goods through the inclusion of mirrors and lyres, and the lyre in the Tomb of the Diver in Poseidonia/Paestum may indicate that its inhabitant was an initiate (see Figure 10.20, page 255). In Tomb 106, the pelike, attributed to the Amykos Painter who worked in Metapontum/Metaponto, shows Eros with a mirror standing before a woman, making an indirect reference to the religion, like the offerings shown on the Apulian loutrophoros with a grave naiskos (see Figure 12.19, page 308). At first the subject - Eros, mirror, and a woman - may seem irrelevant to the man buried in the tomb, but since burials happened quickly, this may have been the best available means both for providing wine in the afterlife and for marking his status as an initiate. The back side of the vase shows two youths in conversation, so in some ways the pelike’s subject matter is quite universal and usable in a number of circumstances.

If we consider the goods collectively, we can see that the identity of the man in Tomb 106 is a complex mixture. He identifies with activities associated with males in terms of his gender, but whether this included involvement with pederasty is not apparent, nor is his sexuality. The bronze belt suggests an elite class identity since such ceremonial objects are expensive and limited among Lucanian tombs. The goods signal a mixed ethnic identity of Lucanian and Greek and suggests a religious identity as an Orphic-Pythagorean-Dionsyiac initiate. This religion was one in which women were active participants, so that his religious beliefs may have made his gender identification and his interaction with women more nuanced in practice. It is entirely possible that the deceased had no hand at all in the selection of grave goods if he had died unexpectedly, but their choice by those who included them in the grave still shows how his identity was perceived by others. In either case, we can see how art marks, expresses, and models the range of identities for the ancient Greeks and their neighbors.

references

Carter, J. 2006. Discovering the Greek Countryside at Metaponto. Jerome Lectures, 23. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Cole, S. E. 2013. “A Possible Egyptian Broad Collar on a Yale Kylix.” Yale University Art Gallery Bulletin 2013, 126-129.

Fantham, E., H. P. Foley, N. B. Kampen, S. B. Pomeroy, and H. A. Shapiro. 1994. Women in the Classical World: Image and Text. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Langdon, S. 2008. Art and Identity in Dark Age Greece, 1100-700 B.C.E. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press.

Lear, A. and E. Cantarella. 2008. Images of Ancient Greek Pederasty: Boys Were Their Gods. London/New York: Routledge.

Lewis, S. 2002. The Athenian Woman: An Iconographic Handbook. London/New York: Routledge.

Nevett, L. C. 1999. The House and Society in the Ancient Greek World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

further reading

Antonaccio, C. 2010. “(Re)Defining Ethnicity: Culture, Material Culture, and Identity.” In S. Halles and T. Hodos, eds. Material Culture and Social Identities in the Ancient World, 32-53. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press.

Blundell, S. 1995. Women in Ancient Greece. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Connelly, J. B. 2007. Portrait of a Priestess: Women and Ritual in Ancient Greece. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Dillon, S. 2010. The Female Portrait Statue in the Greek World. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press.

Fantham, E., H. P. Foley, N. B. Kampen, S. B. Pomeroy, and H. A. Shapiro. 1994. Women in the Classical World: Image and Text. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Ferrari, G. 2002. Figures of Speech: Men and Maidens in Ancient Greece. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Gruen, E S., ed. 2011. Cultural Identity in the Ancient Mediterranean. Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute.

Hall, J. M. 1997. Ethnic Identity in Greek Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Langdon, S. 2008. Art and Identity in Dark Age Greece, 1100-700 B.C.E. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press.

Lear, A. and E. Cantarella. 2008. Images of Ancient Greek Pederasty: Boys Were Their Gods. London/New York: Routledge.

Lewis, S. 2002. The Athenian Woman: An Iconographic Handbook. London/New York: Routledge.

Llewellyn-Jones, L. 2003. Aphrodite’s Tortoise: The Veiled Woman of Ancient Greece. Swansea: Classical Press of Wales.

Malkin, I. 2011. A Small Greek World: Networks in the Ancient Mediterranean. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Neils, J. and J. H. Oakley. 2003. Coming of Age in Ancient Greece: Images of Childhood from the Classical Past. New Haven/London: Yale University Press.

Nevett, L. C. 1999. The House and Society in the Ancient Greek World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Oakley, J. H. and R. H. Sinos. 1993. The Wedding in Ancient Athens. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.

the Hellenistic period

c. 330-30 bce

Timeline

Characteristics of the Hellenistic Period Cities and Architecture Sculptural Styles and Dating Theatricism and Narrative Representations and Portrayal Painting

The Private and Personal Realm

Textbox: The Riace Warriors as Hellenistic Sculpture

References Further Reading

A History of Greek Art, First Edition. Mark D. Stansbury-O’Donnell.

© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2015 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

timeline

s we saw in Chapter 12, the fourth century witnessed the rise of Macedonia and its conquest of Greece under Philip II. Whether or not it is the tomb of Philip, the painted frieze from Tomb II at Vergina was an expression of royal prerogative, using hunting scenes to demonstrate the bravery and skill of the king and his retinue, particularly the two riders attacking the lion on the right side of the landscape (see Figure 12.24, page 314). The triumphant rider was a staple motif of Greek art, whether in the hunt or in battle, like the stele of Dexileos (see Figure 12.12, page 301), but the emphasis was now on the elite status of the king and royal family. The hunt had long been associated with royalty in Persia, Mesopotamia, and the Levant, and the use of the theme at Vergina proclaimed the Macedonian rulers as equals of the Persian kings. Indeed, Philip had been planning an invasion of the Persian empire before his assassination in 336 bce, a task that his son Alexander the Great undertook after reasserting Macedonian control over Greece. Alexander crossed into Asia Minor in 334 and by 333 had control of the Levant and Egypt. He invaded Mesopotamia in 331 and had completely defeated the Persian king Darius by 330. Pushing eastward, he reached the Indus River and Indian Ocean by 325, when he turned back toward Mesopotamia. At his death in 323 the political geography of the Greek world had changed, and in the subsequent division of Alexander’s empire among his generals, the cultural geography was similarly transformed.

The Alexander Sarcophagus is an example of this changed environment for Greek culture and art. The monumental marble coffin essentially forms a miniature treasury for its occupant and, like the Siphnian and Athenian treasuries at Delphi, has painted sculptural friezes on all four sides. On one end and the adjacent long side is a series of three hunts: riders attacking a lion from both sides, a group of hunters attacking a stag, and another group striking a panther on the short end. The other long side and end show battles between Persians (recognizable by their trousers, tunics, and soft caps) and Greeks (in armor or heroic nudity) (Figure 14.1). There are Greek riders at either end of the long side whose rearing pose and raised hands that once held bronze weapons recall the schema of Dexileos, except that their opponents are Persian riders who collapse under the assault. In the center are two more riders: a helmeted Greek rider on the left, who turns around to attack a kneeling Persian, and to the right a Persian rider who strikes at a nude Greek warrior on foot. Although one might expect someone like Alexander to be the central figure of the composition, he is actually the figure charging from the left side, wearing a lion-skin helmet. This motif, which is an attribute of Herakles, reflects not only the claim of the royal family to be descended from that hero, and hence descendants of Zeus, but also signifies the divinity of Alexander himself, who was declared a god by the oracle at Siwa in Egypt around 325 bce. While the battle in the center of the sarcophagus shows continuing Persian resistance, the left side of the frieze shows the collapse of the Persians under Alexander’s assault. There has been debate about whether the frieze represents an actual battle, such as the battles at Granikos (334) or Issos (333), during which Alexander personally led the flanking cavalry charges that defeated the Persians. Given the use of heroic nudity in the frieze, we should regard the composition as an epitome of Alexander’s victories.

The style and proportions of the figures recall classical works like the stele of Dexileos or the riders on the Parthenon frieze (see Figure 1.1, page 2). Whereas the overlapping figures in the center create a dense composition, placing Alexander on the left isolates him visually and makes him a focal point, an effect that was heightened by the colored paint, traces of which are still visible. Given the style and subject matter, one might expect that the sarcophagus was made by a Greek sculptor for a Greek patron, and certainly the nickname for the work, the Alexander Sarcophagus, reinforces the expectation that it is a work for a Greek leader. In fact, the sarcophagus was found in the last of seven chambers in the royal tombs in Sidon in modern Lebanon. While there is no inscription, it is generally accepted that the sarcophagus was made for the last king of Sidon, Abdalonymos, whom Alexander had installed in 332 bce as ruler following the defeat of the Persians in the Battle of Issos. Abdalonymos thus owed his power to Alexander’s patronage. He managed to maintain his throne after Alexander’s death in 323, until he was defeated in battle and died in 311, during the period when Alexander’s generals fought over the division of the empire.

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14.1 Alexander Sarcophagus from Sidon, c. 325-311 все. Istanbul, Archaeological Museum. 6 ft 34 in (1.95 m); height of frieze 2734e in (69 cm). Battle scene with Alexander the Great. Photo: © Vanni Archive/Art Resource, NY.

In contrast with the long side, the battle scene on the short end of the sarcophagus shows a Persian rider triumphing over a Greek warrior, and this is thought to be a portrait of Abdalonymos himself, perhaps during the period after his patron’s death. Even though he had been installed on his throne by a Greek king, Abdalonymos had to fight the Greek successors of Alexander to maintain his kingdom. It is interesting, then, that Abdalonymos, if it is him, would choose to represent himself as a Persian, asserting his non-Greek identity. This is not to say that his identity is so simple as Greek or non-Greek, since in the long hunt scene on the other side of the coffin we see Abdalonymos attacking the lion personally, with Alexander riding in support behind him. The sarcophagus was likely made during the king’s lifetime, and it therefore reflects both his identification with Alexander and his struggles with the new Greek rulers of the Levant and Egypt following Alexander’s death.

Another representation of Alexander shows his nearly universal appeal during the Hellenistic period (Figure 14.2). A floor mosaic with an extraordinarily large central picture was found in an exedra in the House of the Faun in Pompeii, one of the most lavish houses in that city. Now mounted on a wall in the National Archaeological Museum in Naples, the mosaic is dated to the late second or early first century все and probably copies an early Hellenistic painting showing Alexander battling Darius. The opus vermiculatum mosaic uses small colored tesserae about 2-3 mm in size, meaning that it took over a million tesserae to compose the picture. While it is damaged in some areas, the durability of mosaic and the small sized “pixels” used here preserve much of the color and detail missing in paintings like the Tomb II fresco at Vergina.

The figures, about half-life-size, are set in a landscape space, with the Greeks charging from the left. Alexander is again on horseback, but is now wearing armor that shines with reflections of light off of its metal surface. His spear runs through a falling Persian rider wearing a gold tunic near the center of the panel. The use of such small tesserae allows for shading or chiaroscuro that makes the horses and figures solidly three-dimensional, an effect that is strengthened by the use of foreshortening and skenographia. The head of the Persian rider’s horse is set pointing obliquely toward the front of the picture and the viewer, while to the right we see the highlighted rump of another horse running straight back into the picture. Behind that horse is Darius in his chariot car, elevated above the battle fray as his charioteer whips his horses to escape from Alexander’s threat. Darius’s outstretched right arm expresses dismay, not necessarily in fear for his own life, but perhaps in anguish over the loss of his soldiers, particularly the figure in the gold tunic. The battle is at a turning point, with Alexander sweeping in a new regime. Like the Alexander Sarcophagus, this is more likely an epitome of the battles Alexander fought against Darius, portraying him as an irresistible and charismatic warrior and leader.

The model for the mosaic was likely a painting done near the end of the fourth century все, but the mosaic itself was made for a wealthy patron in Pompeii, an area ruled by Rome but still inhabited mostly by the Samnites, a non-Roman Italic people. The Samnites occasionally fought against the Romans until they were finally defeated by the general Sulla in 80 все, after which a colony of Roman veterans was established in Pompeii. One might ask what the appeal of a Greek king would be in this environment, especially considering the huge cost of the mosaic. From a Roman perspec­tive, as Cohen has discussed (1997), Alexander would have been a worthy model for the growth of the Roman empire during the Hellenistic period. If the mosaic were commissioned by a Roman after the defeat of the Samnites, one could see it as an assertion of the new power of Rome as equivalent to that of Alexander. If commissioned by a Samnite before that, Alexander could be a metaphor for the victory of a smaller kingdom over a huge empire, whether Persian or Roman, making it potentially an image of resistance. In either case, one can see that the narrative of Alexander could and did have appeal throughout the Mediterranean world for both Greek and non-Greek peoples.

The Alexander Mosaic in Pompeii serves to remind us of the changing political and military situation during the Hellenistic period. By the time of its creation, Rome’s empire included most of the Mediterranean and by the end of the first century would control all of its shores. The Romans began to establish control over the Greek cities of southern Italy and Sicily during the third century,

14.2 Alexander Mosaic from the House of the Faun, Pompeii, late 2nd-early 1st cent. все. Height of figure panel: 8 ft 10^u/i6 in (2.71 m). Naples, Museo Nazionale Archeologico 10020. Battle between Alexander the Great and Darius. Photo: Scala/Ministero per i Beni e le Attivita culturali/Art Resource, NY.

at the same time as they were fighting the Punic Wars with Carthage. During the late third century, the Romans conquered the Greek cities of Sicily, who were allied with the Carthaginians. Syracuse/ Siracusa, the leading city of the Sicilian Greek poleis, was captured in 211 bce, and in the subsequent sack of the city, the Romans brought many works of Greek art to Rome as trophies and booty. In 209, Rome sacked Taras/Taranto. After Rome destroyed Carthage itself in 202, it turned its attention to the Greek mainland. In Macedonia in northern Greece, Rome fought the successors of Alexander during the first half of the second century; this series of battles ended with the defeat of the Macedonian king Perseus at the Battle of Pydna in 168, bringing an end to the Macedonian kingdom. In southern Greece, many poleis had joined together in the Achaian League, a confederation that began in the early third century in the region of Achaia in the northern Peloponnesos, but expanded later to include most of the peninsula, including Corinth and Argos. The Romans defeated the Achaian League at the Battle of Corinth in 146, essentially completing their conquest of mainland Greece.

Alexander’s conquest of Persia, the establishment of Greek kingdoms in the Near East and Egypt, and Rome’s conquest first of the western Greek cities, then those of the mainland and Aegean, changed the geopolitical as well as cultural landscape in significant ways. Rather than a decentralized and shifting network of Greek cities and their neighbors, there were now kingdoms with more cen­tralized control and patronage. Some of these trends are already apparent in the fourth century, but the scale and extent of the change are striking during the last three centuries of the millennium.

characteristics of the Hellenistic period

As we shall see in the discussion of Hellenistic sculpture below, it is difficult to divide the 300 years of the Hellenistic period into stylistic phases in order to illuminate its artistic developments. Multiple and diverse styles exist simultaneously, so that we cannot use style as reliably as a chronological marker and need to consider a work’s expressive appeal. To approach the period, one needs to con­sider first what characteristics are common across styles, media, and geography that make Hellenistic art distinct from earlier periods of Greek art. As J. J. Pollitt has argued, there are five qualities that we should consider as fundamental to Hellenistic culture and its art (Pollitt 1986, 1-16).

Looking at the Alexander Sarcophagus and Alexander Mosaic as exemplars, one quality is the cosmopolitan character of Hellenistic culture. There were many new cities founded by the Greek rulers of the period, particularly in areas of Asia and Egypt where there had not been sizable Greek populations beforehand. While Greeks had founded many colonies starting in the eighth century bce, the number of new sites was small during the classical period. In the Hellenistic period there was not only an increase in the number of new cities, there was also a substantial movement of people into the new cities. Some of these, like Alexandria in Egypt and Antioch in Asia Minor, were vastly larger than older major Greek cities like Athens or Syracuse/Siracusa. Just as Alexander had incorporated Persians and other nationalities into his court, the new cities had large and diverse populations of non-Greek residents, making them multicultural in their character.

As we saw in Chapter 12, fourth-century philosophy emphasized more universal characteristics of humanity, breaking down the identification with particular groups or the polis. The proclamation of Diogenes, the fourth-century Cynic philosopher, that he was a kosmopolites, or citizen of the world, becomes even more relevant in the time of Alexander and afterward. That Abdalonymos on his sarcophagus uses classicizing images of Alexander to proclaim his legitimacy as the ruler of Sidon is emblematic of this more multicultural outlook.

Along with cosmopolitanism, the Hellenistic age emphasized individuality. This, too, had its origins in fourth-century philosophers like Diogenes, but it was further developed by philosophical movements

such as the Cynics, Stoics, and Epicureans, a new school founded by Epicurus (341-270 все). He argued that personal happiness was the object of life and that the individual should seek pleasure as a means for procuring happiness. Unlike modern notions of “Epicurean” indulgences in food and drink, his recommendations were actually for a more austere and ascetic lifestyle. In Hellenistic art one sees a greater range of emotions and behaviors being represented, and an interest in personalities like Alexander. The portrait becomes a more common subject for Hellenistic art as well.

Concurrent with individualism was a mental attitude that Pollitt has called an obsession with Tyche, the Greek personification of fortune (Fortuna in Latin). Writers and thinkers of the period emphasized how quickly the lives of humans could change, regardless of their virtue and accomplishments. Alexander is perhaps the ultimate individual favored by Tyche, as we see in the Alexander Mosaic, but more common were the examples of mighty figures, like Darius, who fell dramatically to defeat, disgrace, or death. Tyche spared none, and one can see that individuals would be concerned with trying to safeguard their own fate and would seek comfort in mystery cults that promoted the idea of a tranquil afterlife.

Hellenistic culture was also more academic than its predecessors, what Pollitt has termed a scholarly mentality. The libraries founded in Alexandria and Pergamon systematically collected the literature of the past and worked to restore literary masterpieces like the Iliad and Odyssey to their original state, free of corruptions in transmission, and to explain obscure language and characters. Philosophical schools collected the texts of their founders and sought to establish canonical views and interpretations. In art, we see the first real histories of art being compiled during this time (as we saw with Cicero’s mini-history in Chapter 1), as well as an eclectic range of styles, some new and some old, that could exist side by side. As we shall see, Hellenistic artists produced works in a variety of older styles, including the archaic, Severe, classical, and Egyptian. The subject matter and purpose of a work of art served to determine the appropriate style to be used. It is during the Hellenistic period, too, that we find the production of systematic copies of works of art for elite patrons, like the Alexander Mosaic as a copy of an earlier painting.

Finally, we can also look at the increased importance of theatricism in Hellenistic art. We have already seen in classical art a theatrical element in the interaction of the viewer with an artwork, like the Tyrannicides, but the elements of staging and timing in subject matter and an emphasis upon dynamic movement and strong emotion greatly expand the dramatic as well as comic elements of Hellenistic art. Hellenistic art almost demands a viewer’s direct response in a way that the Doryphoros never did. The world is now a stage in which art, architecture, and viewer interact more extensively and emotionally than they had in the past. Standing before the Alexander Mosaic, one can observe the thunderous charge of Alexander from the left side of the stage, sweeping everything before him, not just the speared figure, but Darius and the entire Persian army. In its original setting on the floor, one would have been standing on the plain where history was turning.