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Attic Sculptors in the Peloponnesian War

Among the numerous sculptors active in or based upon Athens in the later fifth century, the sources explicitly name four as pupils of Pheidias and agalmatopoioi (makers of divinities) par excellence: Alkamenes, Agorakritos, Kolotes, and Theokosmas. By common consent (cf. T 3) the greatest of these was Alkamenes:


Alkamenes of Athens/Lemnos

Alkamenes

The Souda (q.v.) calls Alkamenes a Lemnian, so he was perhaps born or (more likely) raised in the Athenian colony (cleruchy) established on the island around 450. The sources often mention him in the same breath with Pheidias (cf. T 3, 4), which may account for the somewhat early floruit of 448-445 assigned him by T 1. At any rate, he was still active in or after 403, when he made a colossal relief to celebrate the expulsion of the pro-Spartan puppet oligarchy from Athens (no. 9, below). His Hephaistos at Athens (work no. 6), if identical with that exhibited in the Hephaisteion and apparently recorded in IG 13 nos. 370-1, can be dated by the archons named on the stone to 421/20 -416/5. His early career is obscure, but he presumably served his apprenticeship either on the Parthenon or on the Zeus; if the former, he may have followed Pheidias to Olympia in 438/7 or stayed to complete the pediments.

Like Pheidias, Alkamenes worked in chryselephantine, bronze, and marble, and tackled a similar range of subjects:

  • Aphrodite in the Gardens outside Athens, of marble (T 58
  • Hera, in a temple between Athens and Phaleron
  • Triple-bodied Hekate Epipyrgidia, on the Akropolis
  • Ares, in his temple in the Agora (moved by Augustus, perhaps from Acharnai)
  • Dionysos Eleuthereus, in his temple near the theater at Athens, in chryselephantine
  • Hephaistos, perhaps grouped with Athena, probably in the Hephaisteion at Athens, in bronze (T 74
  • Hermes Propylaios at Athens, in marble (T 73
  • Asklepios in Mantinea (T 94
  • Athena and Herakles on a colossal relief of Pentelic marble, dedicated by Thrasyboulos and the democrats of 403 in the Herakleion at Thebes
  • West pediment (probably in fact the western akroteria) of the temple of Zeus at Olympia (T 39
  • Pentathlete in bronze
In addition, Pliny (T 76) records a victory over Agorakritos, gained because the Athenians preferred a citizen to a foreigner; the subject was supposedly an Aphrodite (cf. no. 1). A second such competition, between him and Pheidias, is recorded in Byzantine sources (Tzetzes, Chiliades 340-369), but seems purely anecdotal. Finally:

“[On the Athenian Akropolis] there is Prokne too, who has already made up her mind about the boy, and Itys too, a group dedicated by Alkamenes.

This is usually identified with a marble group found on the Akropolis: Athens, Acropolis 1358; Stewart 1990, fig. 399. Prokne's head, however, does not join the body break-on-break, and may not belong.

Despite Alkamenes' high reputation, modern scholarship has encountered problems with every one of the types regularly attributed to him in copy. Thus the two archaistic works (3 and 7) each survive in two versions; while the Hekate (3: Paus. 2.30.2) may be represented most faithfully by a headless statuette in the British School at Athens, the Hermes is attested by inscribed replicas from Pergamon (Istanbul, Archaeological Museum 527; Stewart 1990, fig. 400) and Ephesos that both claim to be authentic but nevertheless differ markedly from each other:

“Here you see Alkamenes' most beautiful image,
The Hermes before the Gates; Pergamios dedicated it.

I'm not just anyone's work; my form,
If you'll look closely, was wrought by Alkamenes.

JdI 82: 40
Recent scholarship (e.g. Willers 1967) has tended to regard the Pergamene type as a classicizing variant. Less unanimity exists concerning his most famous creation, the Aphrodite in the Gardens (1), mentioned by both Pliny and Pausanias (Pliny 36.16; Paus. 1.19.2) but only described by Lucian (T 58). Even before Delivorrias' publication of the version from Daphni (Delivorrias 1968) most identified her with the so-called Leaning Aphrodite type, but once more the statue exists in several recensions, both veiled and unveiled. The debate continues.

As for the male cult-images, the Ares (4) is often recognized in the so-called Borghese Ares, though Bruneau 1982 exposes the attribution as totally gratuitous; fragments of a high-relief frieze found around the temple are often ascribed to the base of this cult statue, and at times indeed resemble the Prokne in style, though both their original location and subject-matter remain unclear. The Hephaistos (6) is described by Cicero, de natura Deorum 1.30, 83 and, more fully, by Valerius Maximus:

“Visitors at Athens are impressed by the Vulcan made by the hands of Alkamenes; besides the other conspicuous signs of his supreme art, there is one thing in particular that they admire — the god's lameness is masked. He stands there displaying a trace of it unobtrusively beneath his garment, so that this is no blemish that could be censured, but a definite and personal characteristic of the god, becomingly represented.

Valerius Maximus 8.11 ext. 3
Since Athens boasted only one cult image of Hephaistos, the following passage of Pausanias is usually taken to refer to the same statue, and the temple in question is identified with the so-called "Theseion" in the Agora.

“Above the Kerameikos and the so-called Royal Stoa is a temple of Hephaistos. I was not surprised that a statue of Athena stands beside him because I knew the story about Erichthonios. But when I saw that the image of Athena had blue eyes I found out that the legend about them is Libyan. For they have a saying that she is the daughter of Poseidon and Lake Tritonis, and so has blue eyes like Poseidon.

A marble torso in Athens and a head in the Vatican, both copies, were associated with this statue by Karouzou 1954/5, working from representations on Roman-period lamps; since IG 13 nos. 370-1, probably the accounts for the group, also mentions an anthemon or "floral", she also resurrected the nineteenth-century identification of an Athena from Cherchel, which has a floral against her left leg, as the Athena Hephaistia.

Against this, E.B. Harrison 1977a has argued that so much metal was budgeted for the anthemon that it had to be enormous, that Neo-Attic reliefs (stylistically related to the "Ares" frieze and the Prokne) showing Erichthonios's birth (T 75) demanded a high, wide base, and that the "Cherchel" Athena type is early fourth century. For it she substitutes the colossal "Velletri" type and hangs the Rondanini Medusa (Munich 252; cf. Belson 1980 and Stewart 1990, fig. 783) on the anthemon . Since this whole ensemble is too large for the "Theseion", she prefers to call this building the temple of Artemis Eukleia and identifies the "real" Hephaisteion with the large Hellenistic foundation to the North on the same hill.

This thesis has met with considerable skepticism, not least because the Velletri Athena does not resemble the Prokne, and the "Theseion" is roughly where Pausanias tells us that the Hephaisteion should be, while he places Artemis Eukleia at the opposite corner of the Agora (Paus. 1.14.4-5); but see now Mansfield 1985, 361-65 for additional arguments against the traditional view.

His archaistic work apart, then, Alkamenes remains an enigma, though this very aspect of this output, together with the later tendency to pair him with Pheidias (T 1, 3) has suggested to some a conservative sculptor, perhaps ministering to traditionalists among the wartime Athenians. The Prokne's style, so close to some sections of the Parthenon frieze, might support this if only we could be sure that he carved it, though the democrats' relief (no. 9) hints at an altogether less straightforward situation. Indeed, since both the political implications (if any) of stylistic choice and the artistic preferences (if any) of the ever-volatile demos remain obscure in the extreme (cf. T 76), such neat equations may hinder understanding rather than advance it.

Select bibliography: (A) General: Furtwängler 1895/1964, 73-95; Imhoof-Blumer 1887/1964, liii-iv, lxiii-iv, lxvi, lxviii-ix, 142-3; RE 1: 1507-08 (Robert, 1894); ThB 1: 293-96 (Amelung, 1907); Picard 1935-1971 (vol. 2): (Picard/Manuel) 551-86; Lippold 1950, 184-87; EAA 1: 255-60 (Becatti, 1958); EWA 1: 217-20 (Mustilli, 1958); Schlörb 1964, 17-33; Richter 1970d, 181-84; M. Robertson 1975, 284-87; Schuchhardt 1977; Ridgway 1981, 174-78; Donnay 1982; Boardman 1985a, 206; Stewart 1990, 28, 142, 164-65, 237-39, 253, 267-69, 317, 320.

(B) Sources: Overbeck 1868/1959, nos. 535, 808-828, 834; Stuart-Jones 1895/1966, 99-104, 138-42; Pollitt 1990, 65-66.

(C) Individual works and attributions: Karouzou 1954/5 (Hephaisteion); Freyer-Schauenburg 1962 (Ares); Willers 1967 (Propylaios); Delivorrias 1968 (Aphrodite); Travlos 1971, 104-111, 261-73 (Hephaisteion, Ares); Agora 14 (1972) 140-49, 162-65 (ditto); Himmelmann 1977, 78-79 (Parthenon); E.B. Harrison 1977a (Hephaisteion, Ares); Knell 1978 (Prokne); Vierneisel-Schlörb 1979, 49-57 (Propylaios), 112-14 (Aphrodite), 142-3 (Hephaisteion), 178-85 (Ares), 216-224 (Asklepios); Jeffery 1980a (Olympia); Belson 1980 (Medusa); Haskell 1981, 284-86 (Velletri Athena); Pemberton 1981 (relief); Bruneau 1982 (Ares); Mansfield 1985, 361-65 (Hephaisteion); Landwehr 1985, 76-88 nos. 42-52 (Athena casts); Fullerton 1986 (Hekate); Mattusch 1988, 189-90 (Hephaisteion); Fullerton 1990 (Hekate and Hermes).


Agorakritos of Paros

Agorakritos

No absolute dates are available for Agorakritos, but his career evidently coincided roughly with Alkamenes'. Furthermore, only three works of his are recorded in the sources, as follows:

  • Nemesis at Rhamnous in Attica, of Parian marble (T 76-8
  • Mother of the Gods, in the Metroon at Athens, of marble
  • Athena Itonia and Zeus/Hades at Koroneia in Boiotia, of bronze
Of these, the first two were regularly attributed to Pheidias. Pliny attempts to explain why:

“Another of [Phidias'] pupils was Agoracritus of Paros, who pleased him also because of his youth and beauty, so that Phidias is said to have allowed him to put his name to several of his, the master's, own works. In any case, the two pupils [Alcamenes and Agoracritus] competed with each other in making a Venus, and Alcamenes won the contest not through superior skill but through the votes of the citizenry, who favored one of their own against a foreigner. So Agoracritus is said to have sold his statue on condition that it should not remain in Athens, and that it should be named "Nemesis". It was set up at Rhamnus, a deme of Attica, and Marcus Varro preferred it above all other statues.

Pliny, N.H. 36.16-17
This passage is richer and more revealing of the strengths and weaknesses of Greek and Roman connoisseurship than first appears, though only with Despinis's' recent rediscovery of the statue's fragments (Despinis1971) has its full significance become clear. To help demonstrate this, two second-century A.D. accounts of the piece (much renowned in antiquity) must be quoted first:

“About 60 stades from Marathon as you go along the coast-road to Oropos is Rhamnous. The inhabitants live by the sea, but a little way inland is the sanctuary of Nemesis, the most implacable of the gods towards hybristai . It seems that the wrath of this goddess descended upon the barbarians who landed at Marathon [490]; for thinking in their pride that no obstacle stood in the way of their taking Athens, they brought a piece of Parian marble to make a trophy, as if their task were already finished. It was this stone that Pheidias made into a statue of Nemesis; on her head she wears a crown with deer and some small images of Nike; in her left hand she holds an apple branch, and in her right an offering dish, embellished with Ethiopians. [Pausanias now expresses puzzlement over their presence, noting that they dwell "near Ocean" at the ends of the earth, and remarks upon Ethiopian geography.] I must now resume. Neither this nor any of the old statues of Nemesis have wings, not even the holiest xoana of the Smyrnaeans, but later artists, maintaining that the goddess is wont to appear most of all after a love-affair, gave wings to Nemesis as they do to Eros. Now I will describe the scene on the base of the image, having made this preface for clarity's sake. The Greeks say that Nemesis was the mother of Helen, but that Leda suckled and nursed her; as to Helen's father, the Greeks like everyone else think it was Zeus, not Tyndareus. Having heard this legend Pheidias represented Helen being led to Nemesis by Leda, Tyndareus and his children, and a man called Hippeus standing by with a horse. There are Agamemnon, Menelaos, and Pyrrhos the son of Achilles and first husband of Helen's daughter Hermione. Orestes was omitted because of his crimes against his mother, yet Hermione stood by him through it all and even bore him a child. Next on the base is a man called Epochos and another youth; all I heard about them was that they were the brothers of Oinoe, from whom the name of the deme comes.

“The Nemesis at Rhamnous. In Rhamnous there stands an image of Nemesis, ten cubits [15 feet] in height, stone throughout, the work of Pheidias; she holds an apple branch in her hand. Antigonos of Karystos claims that a little tablet hangs from this, and is inscribed as follows: "Agorakritos of Paros made [me]." Yet this is no wonder, for many others have inscribed someone else's name upon their own work. It is likely that Pheidias conceded this to Agorakritos because he was his lover, and was generally much excited over boys.

Zenobios 5.82
Antigonos' careful epigraphical researches (T 78), accepted by Varro and then Pliny (T 76) must have been undertaken to counter the very tendency to give works by Pheidias' pupils to the master himself that surfaces in Pausanias (T 77) and a host of other writers besides: see above, "Pheidias" nos. 24-30. The fact that even the normally acute Pausanias made this mistake only reinforces one's suspicion about such attributions in general (T 4).

The feeble rebuttal of Antigonos' conclusions in the last sentence of T 78 may derive from the antiquary Polemon of Ilion, who wrote a six-book polemic against him around 130 B.C. The story that Pheidias was Agorakritos' lover was either invented by Polemon or (perhaps more likely) was already current, and he simply recognized its utility as ammunition for his feud. Typically, Varro's synthesis of the two authors was evidently accepted wholesale by the uncritical Pliny, who cites neither Antigonos nor Polemon in his source-list for book 36 (N.H. 1.36) but in T 76 repeats the gist of the rebuttal in his first sentence.

What then of the contest in T 76 and the claim that the Nemesis was originally an Aphrodite? To begin with the later point, Wilamowitz-Moellendorf 1881, 11 was the first to realize that this story was coined to explain the fact that Agorakritos' statue differed from the winged type in use by the Hellenistic period (cf. T 77, with an even wilder account of the statue's origins); indeed, not only did the sculptor employ the same generic schema used for Aphrodite, Kore, and other goddesses in the fifth century, but Nemesis' apple branch was also an attribute of Aphrodite. Antigonos, an iconographical specialist too (T 19, etc.) thereby becomes this anecdote's probable source as well.

As for the contest, though any such event would have involved maquettes (paradeigmata), not finished statues, Paionios' inscription on his Nike (T 81) certifies that sculptors' competitions were held in the fifth century. This leaves two possibilities: either that the contest is basically historical, and only its association with the supposed "Venus"/Nemesis was Antigonos' doing, or that he actually invented the entire affair, perhaps working up a tradition of rivalry between the two star pupils, in order to explain the statue's otherwise puzzling iconography. The first seems altogether more credible, for while Antigonos was certainly apt to rationalize, outright fabrication seems alien to his personality, at least as reconstructed by Wilamowitz and others (cf. Jex-Blake 1896, xxxvi-xlv).

Also accepting the story's basic historicity, Schlörb 1964, 14-15 further suggests that it reflects a supposed political (as well as stylistic) polarization among Pheidias' followers, whereby Alkamenes aligned himself with Athenian "conservatives" and Agorakritos with "radicals". Yet as argued concerning Alkamenes (see above) this not only oversimplifies the politics but also finds no clear support in the testimonia; indeed Pliny explicitly attributes Agorakritos' defeat to chauvinism, not to politics.

As to the Nemesis herself (Copenhagen, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek 304a; Stewart 1990, figs. 403-07), the base is not yet fully reconstructed (relief with figures excerpted from the base of the Nemesis: Stockholm, Nationalmuseum Sk 150), and new fragments are appearing occasionally in the excavations: fragment from right side of the chiton overfold of the Nemesis (Athens, NM), corresponding area of another reduced copy of the Nemesis (Athens, NM 3949). Preliminary reports (B. Petrakos 1981, V. Petrakos 1986) suggest that at the least, Pausanias' account is incomplete; see Shapiro-Lapatin 1992 for a thorough discussion and convincing reinterpretation of the iconography. Despinis 1971 dates the statue to ca. 430, the base ten years later, though the rather small discrepancies between them may reflect differences in quality rather than chronology. The drapery style is certainly novel, but Pausanias' acceptance of Pheidias as author (T 77) should be a further caution against labeling Agorakritos a "radical", rebelling against Pheidian and Alkamenean "orthodoxy".

As for his other works, (2) is represented by numerous statuettes presumably intended for private cult, while the recovery of the Nemesis has prompted Despinis to make other attributions: the Dresden Zeus and Hope Athena (3?), the so-called Borghese Hera (probably another Aphrodite), the Doria-Pamphili Aphrodite, the figures K, L, and M from the east pediment of the Parthenon (London 303; Parthenon East Pediment; Stewart 1990, figs. 350-52), the slabs of the Nike temple parapet attributed by Carpenter to Master A, and so on. Some are closer than others, but given the number of good sculptors active in Athens at the time, and the amount of cross-fertilization that evidently occurred (cf. Ridgway 1981, 176-7) such a search is unlikely ever to be conclusive.

Select bibliography: (A) General: Furtwängler 1895/1964, 85-88; RE 1: 882-83 (Robert, 1894); ThB 1: 124-26 (Amelung, 1907); Picard 1935-1971 (vol. 2): (Picard/Manuel) 531-43; Lacroix 1949, 287-91; Lippold 1950, 187-89; EAA 1: 146-48 (Marabini Moevs, 1958); EWA 2: 102, 104 (Richter, 1958); Schlörb 1964, 13-26, 34-44; Richter 1970d, 184-85; M. Robertson 1975, 285, 318, 351-55, 378; Ridgway 1981, 171-73, 196-97; Boardman 1985a, 207; Stewart 1990, 26, 28, 32, 165, 267, 269-70, 317, 320.

(B) Sources: Overbeck 1868/1959, nos. 808, 829-43; Wilamowitz-Moellendorf 1881, 10-14; Stuart-Jones 1895/1966, 104-08; Jex-Blake 1896, xxxix, 190-91; Pollitt 1974, 260-62: Pollitt 1990, 67-68.

(C) The Nemesis and attributions: Despinis 1971; Vierneisel-Schlorb 1979, 147-52, 166-71, 509-10; B. Petrakos 1981; E.B. Harrison 1984; Landwehr 1985, 88-94, no. 53 (Hera cast); V. Petrakos 1986; Shapiro-Lapatin 1992.


As for Pheidias' two other pupils, Kolotes collaborated on the Zeus (Pliny N.H. 34.87) and continued to work in Elis (see "Pheidias", no. 26) while Theokosmas is only notable for Pausanias' useful description of his Zeus at Megara, left unfinished in 431:

“After this when you have entered the precinct of Zeus called the Olympeion you see a noteworthy temple. But the image of Zeus was not finished, for the work was interrupted by the war of the Peloponnesians against the Athenians, in which the Athenians ravaged the land of the Megarians every year with a fleet and an army, damaging public revenues and pushing private families to dire distress. The face of the image of Zeus is of ivory and gold, but the rest is of clay and gypsum. The artist is said to have been Theokosmas, a native, helped by Pheidias. Above the head of Zeus are the Seasons and the Fates, and all may see that he is the only god obeyed by Destiny, and that he apportions the seasons as necessary. Behind the temple lie half-finished blocks of wood, which Theokosmas intended to overlay with ivory and gold in order to complete the image of Zeus.

By ca. 400, Theokosmas was working with the Polykleitan school on Lysander's great victory monument at Delphi: T 85.

Independents are more numerous, though few can have escaped some Pheidian influence: the texts name several non-Athenians, and the Erechtheion accounts add a mass of carvers almost completely overlooked in the literary tradition:

“Mynnion, living in Argile, [made] the horse and the man striking it, and later added the stele: 127 drs.; Soklos, living in Alopeke, the man holding the bridle: 60 drs.; Phyromachos of Kephisia, the man leaning on a staff beside the altar: 60 drs.; Iasos of Kollyte, the woman with the little girl leaning against her: 80 drs. Payments for sculpture, sum total, 3315 drs. Receipts, 4302 drs. 1 obol; expenditure: the same.

IG 13 no. 476, lines 169-83
Of these numerous lesser luminaries I select two: Paionios and Kallimachos.


Paionios of Mende (in Thrace)

Paionios

His Nike (Olympia Nike of Paionios; Olympia Museum 46-8; Stewart 1990, figs. 408-11) is securely attributed by both its dedicatory inscription and Pausanias's commentary:

“The Messenians and Naupaktians dedicated this to
Olympian Zeus as a tithe from their enemies.
Paionios of Mende made it and was victorious in making
the akroteria for the temple.

Olympia 5 no. 259

“The Dorian Messenians who at one time received Naupaktos from the Athenians dedicated at Olympia the image of Nike on a pillar. It is the work of Paionios of Mende, made from spoils taken from the enemy, I think from the war with the Akarnanians and the people of Oiniadai [452]. The Messenians themselves say than their dedication resulted from their exploit on the island of Sphakteria along with the Athenians [425], and that they did not inscribe the name of the enemy through fear of the Spartans, whereas they had no fear at all of the people of Oiniadai and Akarnania.

The consensus of modern scholarship is that the Messenian account of the circumstances is right, Pausanias's wrong. On the akroteria for the temple of Zeus, cf. T 39; attributions to Paionios include the Bassae frieze (Amazonomachy London 531, Amazonomachy London 535, Centauromachy London 524, Centauromachy London 527, Centauromachy London 521) and (rather more plausibly) the work of Master B from the Nike temple parapet (Nikai and bull: Athens, Acropolis 972; Stewart 1990, figs. 421, 423, 449-53).

Select Bibliography: (A) General: ThB 26: 149-50 (Bieber, 1932); Picard 1935-1971 (vol. 2): (Picard/Manuel) 586-98; RE 18: 2412-13 (Lippold, 1942); Lippold 1950, 205; EWA 3: 659 (Langlotz, 1958); 11: 164 (Paribeni, 1958); EAA 5: 844-48 (Hofkes-Brukker, 1963); Richter 1970d, 186-88; M. Robertson 1975, 284, 287-89, 349-50; Stewart 1990, 28, 39, 81, 89-92, 142-43, 165, 170, 215, 253, 270-71, 317, 320.

(B) Sources: Overbeck 1868/1959, nos. 851-52; Löwy 1885/1976 no. 49; Stuart-Jones 1895/1966, 138-42; Jeffery 1980a; Donnay 1982, 171-75; Pollitt 1990, 71.

(C) The Nike and attributions: Carpenter 1929, 35, 78; Hofkes-Brukker 1967; Carpenter 1971, 149; Borbein 1973, 165-73; T. Hölscher 1974; Hofkes-Brukker & Mallwitz; Ridgway 1981, 108-11; E.B. Harrison 1982b, 53-65; Stewart 1990, 89-92.


Kallimachos

Callimachus

Kallimachos

His nationality and patronymic are unrecorded; his known works are:

  • "Bridal" Hera at Plataia
  • "Laconian Dancers", in bronze (T 83
  • Golden lamp with a bronze chimney in the shape of a palm-tree for the Erechtheion at Athens (T 84
  • The first Corinthian capital, at Corinth, in marble
The temple of Hera at Plataia (1) was built just after 427 (Thuc. 3.68; cf. Paus. 9.2.7), and (3) cannot have been made before the Erechtheion received its roof and interior fittings in ca. 409-406; so he was an exact contemporary of Alkamenes and Agorakritos.

A virtuoso carver and metal-smith, he was notorious in antiquity for his extremely finicky technique:

“Of all sculptors, though, Callimachus is the most remarkable for his surname: he always deprecated his own work, and made no end of attention to detail, so that he was called the Niggler (katatexitechnos), a memorable example of the need to limit meticulousness. He made the Laconian Women Dancing, a flawless work, but one in which meticulousness has taken away all charm. He is said also to have been a painter.

Pliny, N.H. 34.92
The meaning of katatexitechnos , though generally clear from the text, is secured by Dionysios of Halikarnassos, Demosthenes 51, where sculptors and painters obsessed with petty details are said to "fritter away" (katatekein) their art. The charge is repeated by Vitruvius 4.1.10 and garbled by Pausanias:

“Kallimachos made the golden lamp for the goddess [Athena in the Erechtheion on the Akropolis] . . . and though he was inferior to the foremost practitioners of the art, he was nevertheless cleverer than all, so that he became the first to drill stone and so named himself katatexitechnos , unless others did so and he adopted it for his own.

For Kallimachos' innovations with the drill see Stewart 1975. In T 61, however, Dionysios strikes a more positive note, in words remarkably similar to Vitruvius': since the two were contemporaries, they presumably drew on a common (Hellenistic?) source that valued such refinement and took it as support for similar trends in rhetoric: cf. Pollitt 1974, 364-65.

What little we know of his style broadly supports the testimonia: though the Hera is lost, and the lamp and prototype Corinthian capital (Vitruvius 4.1.10) are only vaguely to be imagined from later developments in these genres, his "Laconian Dancers" (2) have been recognized in a series of Neo-Attic reliefs. Extremely refined in both posture and drapery, they seem typical of late fifth century Attic mannerism. The stylistic judgments of Dionysios (T 61), Pliny (T 83) and the rest have also prompted further attributions, including the work of Master "A" from the Nike temple parapet (Athens, Acropolis 973). Others prefer Master "E", the "Genetrix" Aphrodite (Louvre MA 525), and the Neo-Attic Maenad reliefs (Rome, Palazzo dei Conservatori 1094; Madrid, Prado 42; Stewart 1990, figs. 420, 426, 436-37). This relatively compact group may indeed originate in the same workshop, though its extreme purity of line distances it somewhat both from the crosscut, finicky treatment of the Dancers and maybe also from Pliny's criticisms.

Select bibliography: (A) General: RE 10: 1645-47 (Lippold, 1919); ThB 19: 475 (Rumpf, 1926); Picard 1935-1971 (vol. 2): (Picard/Manuel) 615-36; Lippold 1950, 222-23; EW 2: 102, 104, 116 (Paribeni, 1958); EAA 4: 298-300 (Guerrini, 1961); Schlörb 1964, 45-53; Richter 1970d, 185-86; M. Robertson 1975, 359, 405-07; Stewart 1975; Boardman 1985a, 207; Stewart 1990, 39, 166, 168, 171, 263, 271-72, 324.

(B) Sources: Overbeck 1868/1959, nos. 531-32, 795, 893-96, 1950; Stuart-Jones 1895/1966, 118-20; Pollitt, 85-86, 122, 223; Pollitt 1974, 194-96, 300, 364-65, 444; Pollitt 1990, 73-74, 193-94.

(C) Individual works: Carpenter 1929, 21, 61; W. Fuchs 1959, 72-96; Karouzou 1974; Ridgway 1981, 200, 210-213; Tiverios 1981; Palagia 1984a.

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