Houston
37-19
Attic Black-Figure Plate
Collection of The Museum of Fine Arts,
Houston, the Annette Finnigan Collection (37-19)
Assigned to the Segment Class [H. Hoffmann]
Ca. 520-510 B.C.
Diameter: 23.5 cm. Athena battling the
giant Enkelados.
The scene is an excerpt from the Battle of Gods and Giants, one of
the most popular mythological scenes in Archaic Greek art. The Giants, children
of Ge, Mother Earth, tried to storm Mount Olympos, but were repulsed by the
combined effort of all the Olympian gods and goddesses, with the help of
Herakles. By convention certain gods battle certain giants, and when Athena's
opponent is named by inscription, he is Enkelados. Otherwise Enkelados has no
distinguishing traits or attributes.
Athena wears a belted
chiton,
himation, and a high-crested Attic helmet. Her aegis is draped over her
extended left arm, serving as a shield, and in her right hand, obscured by the
drapery, she wields a spear. Enkelados, who has fallen to one knee, tries to
protect himself with a shield whose device is a satyr's head. He wears a
corselet over a short
chiton, which has short
sleeves and a patterned skirt. His helmet is of the Corinthian type, which is
meant to be pulled down over nose and cheeks, but has been knocked askew and
almost off by the force of Athena's blow. The Giant too holds a spear but is
powerless to use it. In Archaic art, the Giants are not represented as
monstrous, or even of great stature, but instead look no different from heavily
armed Greek hoplites. Only in later art, as on the Pergamon Altar, do they
sometimes take on a grotesque appearance, as the poet Hesiod imagined them.
Attic plates were not functional, but were rather plaques, made for
dedicatory purposes. The Houston example has two suspension holes near the top,
which suggests that it was perhaps intended to be hung up in a sanctuary. Quite
possibly it was dedicated to the city goddess, Athena, on the Acropolis.
Certainly the subject is appropriate for such a purpose and is one which occurs
on a number of vases and fragments excavated on the Acropolis. The Gigantomachy,
including the Athena-Enkelados group, was the subject of several large-scale
architectural sculptures in the sixth and fifth centuries. One of the most
notable of these is a marble pediment which decorated the Old Temple of Athena
on the north side of the Acropolis, also called Doerpfeld's Temple or the
Peisistratid Temple, because it was probably built in the time of Hippias and
Hipparchos, sons of the Tyrant Peisistratos (ca. 527-510). The splendid striding
Athena from that composition is well preserved, and her pose and dress are
similar to those of the Athena on this plate. The traditional date for this
pediment, about 520, has recently been questioned by some scholars who would
push it toward the end of the Peisistratid tyranny, about 510, or even later,
regarding it as a product of the young Athenian democracy after 510. If the
earlier date is correct, however, it would be reasonable to ask whether the
Houston plate could have been inspired by the central group of the pediment and
have hung not far from it in Athena's sanctuary on the Acropolis.
The decoration of this plate is akin to that of the Segment Class, a
group of stemless cups in which the picture fills the whole interior and there
is often an exergue below the principal scene. Here two leaping dolphins occupy
the exergue.
Bibliography
Hoffmann 1971b, 386-87.
On the Gigantomachy:
Vian 1952. On
the Peisistratid pediment:
Ridgway 1977,
205-206. Segment Class:
ABV,
212-214.
