The Classical World (106 page)

10
. The upper half of one of the ‘Riace bronzes’, Warrior A, displayed since recovery in 1980, in Reggio di Calabria. Certainly a hero, he survived with his teeth and original eye balls, a masterpiece. On one view, he and Warrior B were two of the ten heroes, eponyms of the Athenian democracy’s tribes, made by the great Pheidias and dedicated at Delphi
c
. 460
BC
. Others champion an artist from Argos, citing the (inconclusive) evidence of the type of earth used in the statue’s filling. Many others remain safelyagnostic. But he is a great work, plundered from Greece and shipped west before being wrecked (and saved on the seabed) near Locri in S. Italy (Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Reggio Calabria)

11
. Fine marble Attic funerary-relief, perhaps of 431/0
BC
, showing a dismounted
Athenian cavalryman, holding his horse’s reins in one hand and raising his sword in the other to kill his fallen enemy. The victim and the killer gaze at each other in a ‘frozen’ classic moment, of great power. The left of the relief shows hilly landscape, perhaps in Attica itself. The encounter may, then, belong in the first battle, a cavalry one, of the Peloponnesian War, described in Thucydides 2.22.2. If so, the victim may be a Theban and the Athenian cavalryman commemorated here will have been one of the beneficiaries of Pericles’ Funeral Oration, the defining classical speech (Villa Albani, Rome. Photo: Hirmer Verlag)

12
. Attic black-figure tondo, painted inside a drinking-cup and showing a slave, contemptibly ugly, with ankles chained: he puts stones into a basket. As the drinker emptied the wine, he would see this contemptible figure at the bottom of his cup, and be amused. Attic black-figure tondo,
c
. 490–80
BC
(Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, Leiden)

13
. Attic red-figure cup by the Cage painter, showing a youth, wreathed, so perhaps not a slave, filling his
kylix
, or drinking cup, with watered wine from the mixing bowl at a symposium,
c
. 490
BC
(Musée du Louvre, Paris)

14
. White-ground
lekythos
, or oil-flask showing a lady musician, with the caption ‘Helicon’, mountain of the Muses. She plays to a second lady, round the flask, who appears to gesture to the music. The implication, perhaps, is that the dead Athenian ladyhonoured bythis flask is ‘like a Muse’: certainly, well-born Athenian women learned music. Achilles Painter,
c.
440
BC
(Antikensammlungen, Munich)

15
. Marble relief showing a pensive Athena in front of what is probably a grave monument, rather than a boundarymarker. It might be inscribed with the names of Athenian casualties, recently dead in war,
c
. 460
BC
(Acropolis Museum, Athens)

16
. Grave monument of Sosias and Kephisodorus whose names are inscribed above, from the left to beyond centre. It seems, then, that these two are the two left-hand figures, the left one wearing a priestly robe, the other hoplite armour and a pointed helmet, shaking hands with a third hoplite on the right. Are they the only dead men, one of whom takes a fond farewell of a fellow hoplite? Or, less plausibly, are all three dead? They fell in the Peloponnesian War:
c
. 410
BC
(Antikensammlungen, Berlin)

17
. Attic red-figure jug, or
pelike
, showing a baby learning to crawl,
c
. 430–520
BC
(British Museum, London)

18
. Copy of the portrait-statue by Polyeuctus of the great Athenian orator and democrat Demosthenes, which was set up by admiring democrats in Athens in 280–79
BC
, forty years after his death. It stood in the Agora near
the Altar of the Twelve Gods. In the original, his hands were clasped simply, without a scroll. The style is admirably classical, in a ‘severe’ style, and the face and the position of the hands are apt for the expression of grief: the great Demosthenes, then, is mourning the city’s loss of freedom to King Philip, and was put up in 280 on the proposal of his nephew Demochares at a time of renewed patriotic and democratic fervour against Macedon. The last great classical Greek statue, looking back to a classical hero, but made in a post-classical age (Ny Carlsberg Glyptothek)

19
. Byzantine wall painting from the church of St Thomas at Kastoria in the north-west of Alexander’s Macedon, showing the great king with King Porus of India, whose elephants he conquered but whose person he greatly honoured, King Cyrus, founder of the Persian Empire and King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, each of them two centuries older than Alexander. Great Alexander and the kings of these three Eastern empires meet here for the Last Judgement. Late Byzantine, fourteenth century
BC
(Photo: J. L. Lightfoot)

20
. Grave stele of Thraseas and Euandria, husband and wife. She sits while he fondly clasps her hand and the head of a girl, surelya slave, looks on, pensively. A married Athenian scene, with a domestic onlooker, but we do not know which of the two had died. Athens,
c
. 350
BC
(Antikensammlungen, Berlin)

21
. Modern drawing to reconstruct a major Macedonian hunting scene, known in a mosaic copy, perhaps
c
. 150
BC
, which survives in the Piazza Vittoria, Palermo. The original painting showed a hunt in Asia, confirmed by the vegetation on the right side: perhaps it is a famous hunt in Syria, in 332/1
BC
. The mounted huntsman, rescuing the fallen warrior from a lion, replicates the pose of the figure to be identified as Alexander in figure 20.1. The fallen warrior was, arguably, identified with Lysimachus, one of Alexander’s Bodyguards and an eventual Successor in western Asia. To the right, a participant in Oriental dress runs away from a hunted boar: he chickens out symptomatically, so unlike the brave Macedonian ‘lion kings’. The original is similar to parts of the Vergina hunt painting and probably comes from the same circle, or artist, at an uncertain date, but surely in Alexander’s own lifetime, close to the memorable lion-hunting of 332/1
BC
(Reconstruction, drawing and photo by William Wootton)

22
. Ptolemy I, silver tetradrachm,
c
. 310–305
BC
. Head of Alexander (Heberden Coin Room, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford)

23
. Indo-Greek silver tetradrachm,
c
. 170–145
BC
. Bust of Eucratides (Heberden Coin Room, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford)

24
. Indo-Greek silver tetradrachm, 160–145
BC
. Bust of Menander (Heberden Coin Room, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford)

25. Silver tetradrachm from Sardis,
c
. 213–190
BC
. Head of Antiochus III (Heberden Coin Room, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford)

26
. Cast of a Roman bronze portrait bust of Seleucus I, commander of Alexander’s Royal Shield-bearers, then a Successor King in Asia (he wears the royal diadem here) and founder of the Seleucid dynasty to which Antiochus III in figure 11.4 belonged. From the Villa of the Papyri, Herculaneum, Roman copy
c
. 50
BC
of a lost marble original. Cast from Copenhagen Glyptotek (Photo: Professor Marianne Bergmann)

27
. Big Corinthian column-capitals excavated at Ai Khanum, the Greek city on the Oxus and Kokcha rivers in northern Afghanistan, probably an Alexandria, subsequentlyenlarged. Reused as the main city-site was pillaged and ruined during the wars of the 1980s and 1990s: they now support the roof of a nearbymodern tea-house (Photo: Délégation Archélogique Française en Afghanistan: R. Besenval)

28
. Cast of a Roman copy of a contemporary marble portrait of Demetrius the Besieger, the most handsome and most flamboyant of Alexander’s Successors. Born in 336
BC
, year of Alexander’s accession, he was son of Anti-gonus the one-eyed and is sculpted here with small bull’s horns in his hair, attributes of the god Dionysus with whom he liked to be compared. He also wears a narrow diadem, symbol of royalty for Alexander’s Successors since 306/5
BC
. Cast, from Copenhagen Glyptotek. (Photo: Professor Marianne Bergmann).

29
. South façade of the court of Tomb I in Moustapha Pasha necropolis, Alexandria, Egypt, with a reconstructed altar in front and traces of fine painting, including Macedonian cavalrymen pouring libations with one hand and ladies standing between. Probably
c
. 280–260
BC
, Alexandria (Photo: Professor Marianne Bergmann)

30
. The most remote Ionic Greek column-capital yet known: locally carved for the big temple-portico of the largely Asiatic-style temple to the river Oxus at Takht-i-Sangin where the Oxus and Waksh rivers meet. The capital recalls details of late fourth–third century
BC
Ionic capitals back in Ionia, but the site is on the Oxus’s northern bank, in Tadjikistan. After Alexander, perhaps
c
. 300–280
BC
under Seleucus (Photo: Délégation Archélogique Francaise en Afghanistan: R. Besenval)

31
. Foot of a colossal Greek acrolith statue, surely of a god,
c
. 250–150
BC
, from the Greek city at Ai Khanum, Afghanistan (Délégation Archélogique Francaise en Afghanistan, courtesy of Prof. Paul Bernard)

32
. Imperial Roman copy of a marble portrait head of Pompey, combining the realism of small eyes and expression with a hairstyle recalling the great
Alexander with whom Pompey was at times, optimistically, compared (Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen)

33
. Portrait head of Julius Caesar, probablyposthumous:
c
. 40–30
BC
(Vatican Museum, Rome)

34
. Marble portrait generally assumed to represent Cicero. 30s
BC
(Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence)

35
. The Portland Vase, brilliantly crafted blue and white cameo-glass. The uncaptioned figures have attracted many interpretations, of which the mythological ones are most likely. In our left-hand picture, the seated lady, holding a sea-monster, may be Thetis, goddess of the sea, watched pensively by the sea-god Poseidon, shown in a famous pose based on his statue by Lysippus, Alexander’s favoured sculptor. She draws fondly to her the nearly naked Peleus whom she will marry. A ‘Cupid’ with a flaming torch leads him on. The tree above may be a myrtle, although it has been compared with a budding peach, erotically more apt. Our right-hand picture is more disputed. I suggest a (slightly) regretful Aeneas, looking to the distressed Dido whom he has ‘reluctantly’ abandoned. She sits on a heap of marble plaques, possibly symbolizing a ‘broken home’, and her torch of ‘love’ is lowered. She will kill herself on a bonfire, perhaps implied here. To the far right, Venus, Aeneas’ mother, looks on with a sceptre. The tree is probably a fig tree, symbolizing barrenness. On the one side, then, the vase shows love leading to marriage, and to the future child Achilles. On the other side, love is abandoned and instead Aeneas will found a new home in Italy. As the supposed ancestors of Julius Caesar, Venus (and Aeneas) were Octavian’s ancestors. So, there may be a hint of Octavian-Augustus in the choice of themes. There is now a theory that on the left, the figures are Mark Antony, a seated Cleopatra, and Anton (a Heracles-figure and a supposed ancestor of Antony). On the right, Octavian is suggested as looking at his poor sister Octavia, Antony’s abandoned wife, while Venus and her sceptre assure him all will be well. The problems here are that Cleopatra is not naturally associated with a sea-monster (although she came by ship to meet Antony) nor with Poseidon, certainly the figure to her right. A half-naked pose for Octavia would also be surprising. The figures are surely mythological, not historical. Any reference to Octavian-Augustus is partial, and indirect, although the vase was made between
c
. 35 and 10
BC
(British Museum, London)

36
. Amphitheatre mosaic from a house floor at Smirat in Tunisia (north of ancient Thysdrus): it is antiquity’s supreme combination of text and image. A company of professional animal-hunters called the ‘Telegonii’ are shown fighting under the patronage of Dionysus, with Diana, goddess of the hunt, also in the mosaic. Each is captioned with their tough professional name (‘the
Mamertine’) and each has just killed one of four leopards, individually named too (‘the Roman’ and ‘Luxurious’): these two of the leopards are garlanded with ivy, Dionysus’ plant. The inscription is a classic, recording how the herald in the arena called on ‘my Lords’, the local big-wigs, to pay 500 denarii to each hunter as the reward for each dead leopard. The crowd then started a chanted acclamation, to encourage a possible donor. ‘By your example, may future donors learn how to give a show! Let past donors hear! From where has such a show ever come? When has there been one like this? (
Quando tale
). You will be giving a show like the quaestors at Rome… The day will be yours…’ Then, the great moment occurred… ‘Magerius is donating! This is what it means to have money! This is what it is to be powerful! This is it – here and now! Night is here! By your gift, they’ve taken their leave with bags of money.’ The mosaic shows four moneybags but specifies each one was of 1000 denarii: Magerius doubled the huntsmen’s reward. Above all, Magerius had the scene, the verywords of the herald and the crowd, the moneybags, the names (of the leopards, the hunters and his own) laid out in mosaic, naturally in his own house for future visitors’ instruction. It is the pearl of all hunt-mosaics, though later than Hadrian, perhaps
c
.
AD 260
–80: Magerius’ like, however, existed earlier, and still does (Sousse Museum, Tunisia)

37
. Modern colour reconstruction of the so-called ‘Peplos Kor
ē
’, or ‘Maiden in a Robe’, one of several such statues dedicated in Athenian dress for upper-class Athenian women, perhaps often to commemorate their role as a ‘priestess’ in an important cult. She may have held a pomegranate, symbol of fertility in other contexts, in her outstretched hand. Most Greek marble statues were brightly painted in this way, refuting their ‘austere’ or ‘marmoreal’ reputation. Original
c
. 530
BC
, from Athens (Photo and reconstruction: Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge)