Εμφανίζονται 100 (επί συνόλου 514) τίτλοι με αναζήτηση: Βιογραφίες στην ευρύτερη περιοχή: "ΝΟΜΑΡΧΙΑ ΑΘΗΝΩΝ Νομαρχία ΑΤΤΙΚΗ" .
ΑΘΗΝΑΙ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΕΛΛΑΔΑ
Callicrates. An architect, who, in conjunction with Ictinus, built the Parthenon at Athens, and who undertook also to complete the Long Walls termed skele. He appears to have flourished about B.C. 440.
Callicrates of Athens (fl. 5th century BC), Architect
Work
Cited by Pausanias and Plutarch. His major works are:
- The Parthenon: The famous temple on the Acropolis in Athens. Built in 447 - 438 BC in collaboration with Ictinus.
- The Temple of Athena Nike: Acropolis of Athens, 427-424 BC. This temple was offered to the city by Hipponicus, and was one of the first Ionic order temples built in continental Greece. Amphistylar, with 4 columns. The frieze and the marble parapet around the elevated base were added after the temple had been completed and inaugurated and the statue of Athena set in its place (around 420 BC). Callicrates also designed the altar.
- Repair and reinforcement of the walls of the Acropolis: The lower part is built of large blocks of stone and the upper of brick. The average thickness of these walls is 3.60 metres.
- The Temple of Artemis: Athens. 449 BC. On the eastern bank of the Ilisos, near the spring of Callirrhoe. Ionic order, with 4 columns on two sides. Base 14.60 x 7.8 metres. Sketched in 1762 by Stuart and Revett. Destroyed by the Turks in 1778. Fragments of the frieze are preserved in the "Museum of Pergamum" in Berlin.
- TheTemple of Apollo (of the Athenians): Delos 425-417 BC. Doric order, amphistylar, with 6 columns on each side.
- The Long Walls: 449-446 BC. The Long Walls were built to protect the road between Athens and Piraeus. They ran in parallel, 1 stade (160 metres) apart, for 6000 metres between the two cities, with the road between them. Thucydides described the fortifications, and the distances have been confirmed by I. Travlos. Pericles ordered the construction of the south wall; the north wall had been built during the time of Themistocles. Between the two was a temple to Theseus. The walls remained intact for 54 years; they were destroyed in 404 BC, when the Spartans occupied Athens, and rebuilt by Conon (393 BC), who strengthened them with towers and other fortifications. Sections of the walls remained standing until the 19th century. They were described by travellers Wheeler and Stuart in 1676, who recorded that the walls were built of large square blocks of stone on a solid rock foundation, the whole (foundations and superstructure) being 4 metres thick. The walls began at the city gate of Piraeus, and followed a line more or less corresponding to the present-day Piraeus Road. They rose to a height of 20 metres, and were punctuated at frequent intervals by towers. Three octagonal towers in the south wall were still standing at that time, the easternmost 10 metres tall and 5 metres wide, the other two somewhat smaller (8 x 5).
This text is based on the Greek book "Ancient Greek Scientists", Athens, 1995 and is cited Sep 2005 from The Technology Museum of Thessaloniki URL below.
Metagenes, An Athenian architect in the time of Pericles, was engaged with Coroebus and Ictinus and Xenocles in the erection of the great temple at Eleusis. (Plut. Peric. 13.)
Mnesicles, one of the great Athenian artists of the age of Pericles, was the architect of the Propylaea of the Acropolis, the building of which occupied five years, B. C. 437-433. It is said that, during the progress of the work, he fell from the summit of the building, and was supposed to be mortally injured, but was cured by an herb which Athena showed to Pericles in a dream. (Philoch. Frag.; Plut. Peric. 13.) Pliny relates the same story of a slave (verna) of Pericles, and mentions a celebrated statue of tile same slave by Stipax, which, from its attitude, was called Splanchnoptes. (Plin. H. N. xxii. 17.s. 20, xxxiv. 8. s. 19.21.)
Philon. A very eminent architect at Athens in the time of the immediate successors
of Alexander. He built for Demetrius Phalereus, about B. C. 318, the portico of
twelve Doric columns to the great temple at Eleusis. He also constructed for the
Athenians, under the administration of Lycurgus, an armoury (armamentarium) in
the Peiraeeus, containing arms for 1000 ships (Plin. H. N. vii. 37. s. 38). This
work, which excited the greatest admiration (Cic. de Orat. i. 14; Strab. ix.;
Val. Max. viii. 12. ext. 2), was destroyed in the taking of Athens by Sulla (Plut.
Sulla, 14). He wrote works on the architecture of temples, and on the naval basin
which he constructed in the Peiraeeus (Vitruv. vii. Praef. 12).
ΑΚΡΟΠΟΛΗ (Αρχαία ακρόπολη) ΑΘΗΝΑ
Ictinus (Iktinos). One of the most famous architects of Greece; he flourished
in the second half of the fifth century B.C., and was a contemporary of Pericles
and Phidias. His most famous works were the Parthenon on the Acropolis at Athens,
and the temple of Apollo at Bassae, near Phigalia in Arcadia. Of both these edifices
important remains are in existence. Most of the columns of the temple at Bassae
are still standing. In the judgment of the ancients, it was the most beautiful
temple in the Peloponnesus, after the temple of Athene at Tegea, which was the
work of Scopas (Pausan. viii. 41. 8).
This text is from: Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. Cited June 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
ΑΘΗΝΑΙ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΕΛΛΑΔΑ
Phileas. A Greek geographer of Athens, whose time cannot be determined with certaillty,
but who probably belonged to the older period of Athenian literature. He is not
only quoted by Dicaearchus (33); but that a still higher antiquity must be assigned
to him, would appear from the position in which his name occurs in Avienus (Or.
Mar. 42), who places him between Hellanicus and Scylax, and also front the words
of Macrobius (Sat. v. 20), who calls him a vetus scriptor with reference to Ephorus.
Phileas was the author of a Periplus, which is quoted several times by Stephanus
Byzantinus and other later writers, and which appears to have comprehended most
of the coasts known at the time at which he lived. It was divided into two parts,
one on Asia, and the other on Europe. From the fragments of it which have been
preserved, we learn that it treated of the following countries among others: of
the Thracian Bosporus (Suidas, s. v. bosporos ; Schol. ad Soph. Aj. 870); of the
Arganthonian promontory in the Propontis (Etymol. M. s. v. arganthon); of Assos,
Gargara, and Antandros (Macrob. l. c.); of Antheia, a Milesian colony on the Propontis
(Steph. Byz. s. v.); of Andria, a Macedonian town (Steph. Byz. s. v.) ; of Thermopylae
(Harpocrat. Phot. s. v.); of the Thesprotian Ambracia (Steph. Byz. s. v). Even
the coast of Italy was included in the work (Steph. Byz. s. v. Abudoi).
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited July 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Amphicrates, a Greek sculptor, probably of Athens, since he was the maker of a statue which the Athenians erected in honour of a courtezan, who having learnt from Ilarmodius and Aristogeiton their conspiracy against Hippias and Hipparchus, was tortured to death by the tyrants, without disclosing the secret. Her name was Leana (a lioness) : and the Athenians, unwilling openly to honour a courtezan, had the statue made in the form of a lioness ; and, to point out the act which it was meant to commemorate, the animal's tongue was omitted. We know nothing of the sculptor's age, unless we may infer from the narrative that the statue was made soon after the expulsion of the Peisistratidae. (B. C. 510.) In the passage of Pliny, which is our sole authority (xxxiv. 19.12), there is a manifest corruption of the text, and the reading Amphicratis is only a conjecture, though a most probable one, by Sillig. (Catalogus Artificum, s. v.)
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited July 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Antenor, the son of Euphranor, an Athenian sculptor, made the first bronze statues of Harmodius and Aristogeiton, which the Athenians set up in the Cerameicus (B. C. 509). These statues were carried off to Susa by Xerxes, and their place was supplied by others made either by Callias or by Praxiteles. After the conquest of Persia, Alexander the Great sent the statues back to Athens, where they were again set up in the Cerameicus. (Paus. i. 8.5; Arrian. Anab. iii. 16, vii. 19; Plin. xxxiv. 9; ib. 19.10). The return of the statues is ascribed by Pausanias (l. c.) to one of the Antiochi, by Valerius Maximus (ii. 10, ext.1) to Seleucus; but the account of Arrian, that they were returned by Alexander, is to be preferred.
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited July 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Apollonius. An Athenian sculptor, the son of Nestor, was the maker of the celebrated
torso of Hercules in the Belvedere, and on which is inscribed APOLLONIOS NESTOROS
ATHENAIOS EPOIEI. From the formation of the letters of the inscription, the age
of the sculptor may be fixed at about the birth of Christ. The work itself is
one of the most splendid remains of Grecian art. There is at Rome a statue of
Aesculapius by the same artist.
Bryaxis (Bruaxis), an Athenian statuary in stone and metal, cast a bronze statue
of Seleucus, king of Syria (Plin. H. N. xxxiv. 8. s. 19), and, together with Scopas,
Timotheus, and Leochares, adorned the Mausoleum with bas-reliefs (Plin. H. N.
xxxvi. 5. s. 4). He must have lived accordingly B. C. 372--312. Besides the two
works above mentioned, Bryaxis executed five colossal statues at Rhodes (Plin.
H. N. xxxiv. 7. s. 18), an Asclepios (H. N. xxxiv. 8. s. 19), a Liber, father
of Cnidus (H. N. xxxvi. 5), and a statue of Pasiphae (Tatian. ad Graec. 54). If
we believe Clemens Alexandrinus (Protr. p. 30, c.), Bryaxis attained so high a
degree of perfection, that two statues of his were ascribed by some to Phidias.
Bryaxis of Athens
After Fraser's work on the Sarapis cult (Fraser 1972, 246-76) it now seems quite
clear that two sculptors named Bryaxis were active between 370 and 270; this is
supported by Clement
of Alexandria (Protrepticus 4.43), which distinguishes an Athenian Bryaxis
-- presumably the sculptor of Vitruvius
7. Praef. 12-13 & Pliny,
N.H. 36.30-1, active ca. 353-351 -- from the maker of the Sarapis, installed
in the Alexandrian Serapeion around 286-278. This later Bryaxis was probably the
one responsible for the Apollo at Daphne around 300-281 (Libanios
60.8-12; Philostorgios,
Historia Ecclesiastica), and perhaps the portrait of Seleukos mentioned along
with an Asklepios by Pliny, N.H. 34.73. Not to separate the two in this way entails
that the Bryaxis born ca. 390 (for the Mausoleum was begun in the 360s) would
be almost a centenarian when hired by the Seleukids and Ptolemies. This leaves
precious little for Bryaxis I. For not only is it not clear which of the other
attested works (five colossal bronze divinities in Rhodes, a Zeus, Apollo and
lions at Patara in Lykia, a marble Dionysos at Knidos (Pliny
N.H. 36.20-22), an Asklepios at Megara, and a Pasiphae later in Rome) belong
to which sculptor, but the finds from the North side of the Mausoleum are too
heterogeneous to provide a firm base for attributions. Only a tripod-base from
Athens with three horsemen in relief, signed by Bryaxis in a mid fourth-century
script, can be securely attributed to him; its powerfully-built horses have (predictably)
been seized upon by those anxious to discover him in he extant slabs of the Amazon
frieze: most favored is B.M. 1019. Finally, a base from Rome, now lost, bore the
words "the work of Bryaxis" in Latin, clearly a renewal.
This extract is from: Andrew Stewart, One Hundred Greek Sculptors: Their Careers and Extant Works. Cited July 2005 from Perseus Project URL below, which contains extracts from the ancient literature, bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
Bryaxis (II)
This Bryaxis is almost certainly to be distinguished from the man who worked on
the Mausoleum ca. 360.
His authorship of the Apollo at Daphni, made between 300 and 281 is only mentioned by the Byzantine chronicler Kedrenos (Compendium Historiarium 306B ed. Paris); for a detailed description, however, one must turn to two other late writers, mourning its destruction by fire in A.D. 362:
Libanios 60.8-12: Did the fire begin at the top, and spread to the
rest -- his head, his face, his phiale, his kithara, his foot-length tunic? Citizens,
I direct my soul to the form of the god, and my mind sets his likeness before
my eyes, his face so gentle, his stone neck so soft, his girdle across his chest
that holds his tunic in place, so that some of it is drawn taut, other parts allowed
to billow out. Did not the whole composition soothe the spirit to rest? For he
seemed like one singing a melody, and one could hear him strumming, so they say,
at noon-tide. Ah, blessed ears that did so! For his song was in praise of our
country. And I see him as if pouring a libation from his golden bowl . . . and
as the fire spreads it destroys first the Apollo, almost touching as he does the
roof, then the other statues, the Muses fair, the portraits of the Founders, the
sparkling stones, the graceful columns.
Philostorgios, Historia Ecclesiastica: The image of Apollo was constructed
as follows: the body was made of wood of the vine, and fitted together with such
astonishing skill as to seem like a single, indivisible piece; it was draped in
a golden tunic that allowed the nude and ungilded parts of the body to shine forth
with inexpressible beauty. It stood with a kithara in one hand, in the attitude
of one leading the Muses. Its hair and crown of laurel, intertwined, were of gold
and shone with a grace that flashed like lightning into one's eyes. Two enormous
aquamarine (hyakinthos) stones filled the cavities of its eyes, alluding to Hyakinthos,
the boy of Amyklai; and the beauty and size of these stones completed the statue's
prodigious embellishment.
To this Ammianus (22.73.1) adds that the image was the size of the Zeus at Olympia.
For a coin-picture see Stewart 1990, fig. 629, and for other possible replicas,
Linfert 1983, though the colossal marble in Rome claimed by Herrmann 1973 as a
replica has now been shown by M. Fuchs 1982 to belong to a first-century Muses
group in mixed classical and Pergamene style, from Pompey's theater-complex. To
link Bryaxis' Seleukos (N.H. 34.73), the "Founder" of Libanios 60.8-12, and the
Herculaneum bust (Naples, Museo Nazionale 5590; Stewart 1990, fig. 630) is perhaps
equally unwarranted, for Lysippos and one Aristodemos both made portraits of him
too (IG 14.206; N.H. 34.86), but no less tempting for all that.
As for the Sarapis, Bryaxis' authorship was noted by a respected first- century historian from Tarsos, Athenodoros (FGH 746 F 3):
Clement of Alexandria, Protrepticus 4.43: Athenodoros son of Sandon
. . . says that Sesostris the Egyptian king, having conquered most of the nations
of Greece, brought back with him to Egypt a number of skilled craftsmen. He ordered
that a lavish statue of his own ancestor, Osiris, should be made, and the artist
Bryaxis did so -- not the Athenian, but another of the same name -- using a mixture
of variegated materials in its construction. He had filings of gold, silver, bronze,
iron, lead, and even tin; and not a single Egyptian stone was lacking, including
sapphire, hematite, emerald, and topaz also. He ground them all up, mixed them
together, and colored them dark blue, so that the statue is almost black, and
mingling this with the pigment left over from the funeral rites of Osiris and
Apis, he made Sarapis; the god's very name implies this connexion with the funeral
rites, and construction from material for burial, since Osirapis is a compound
from Osiris and Apis.
This problematic account has been perceptively analyzed by Hornbostel 1973, 36-58.
He remarks that since the name Bryaxis is rare and the sculptor was not ranked
among the great masters, the attribution is unlikely to be fabricated, for in
such cases antiquity invariably selected a virtuoso like Pheidias or Praxiteles.
Yet the ascription to Sesostris (Dyn. XII: 1971-1840 B.C.), invented by a tradition-hungry
priesthood, either entailed postulating an earlier namesake for the sculptor or
quietly consigning him to oblivion (as, e.g. Plutarch, Moralia 361-2; Tacitus,
Histories 4.83-4). Thus the sculptor must either be the 'Athenian' Bryaxis after
all, presumably the artist of Vitruvius
7. Praef. 12-13 & Pliny,
N.H. 36.30-1, or his son or grandson. Hornbostel opts for the former, updating
the Sarapis and overlooking the chronology of the Apollo (for Seleukos, the "founder"
of Libanios 60.8-12, acquired Syria only in 301, and founded Antioch
shortly after). Consequently, I prefer to ascribe the statue to a second Bryaxis,
following e.g. Bieber 1961b, 83-84.
As for the description of Bryaxis' method, this clearly conflates
the chryselephantine technique with the finishing touches of color. Other sources
(e.g. Rufinus, Hist. Eccl. 11.23) speak of a wooden core, and the use of gold
and precious stones parallels Philostorgios,
Historia Ecclesiastica. For the numerous replicas see Hornbostel 1973, 59-102;
cf. Stewart 1990, figs. 632-34: statuette of the Sarapis (Museo Ostiense 1125),
head of the Sarapis (Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum GR 15.1850); others give him
the Zeus from Otricoli on general stylistic grounds.
This extract is from: Andrew Stewart, One Hundred Greek Sculptors: Their Careers and Extant Works. Cited July 2005 from Perseus Project URL below, which contains extracts from the ancient literature, bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
Calamis (Kalamis). A Greek artist, who flourished at Athens about B.C. 470. He worked in marble and metal, as well as gold and ivory, and was master of sculpture in all its branches, from the chiselling of small silver vessels to the execution of colossal statues in bronze. His Apollo, at Apollonia in Pontus, was 120 feet high. This statue was carried away to Rome by Lucullus and set up on the Capitol. We hear of statues of the gods and heroic women from his hand, as well as of men on horseback and four-horsed chariots. His horses are said to have been unsurpassed. His female figures, if we may believe the ancient critics, were characterized by antique harshness and severity, but relieved by a touch of grace and delicacy.
This text is from: Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. Cited Oct 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Calamis (Kalamis), a statuary and embosser, whose birth-place and age are not mentioned by any of the ancient authors. It is certain, however, that he was a contemporary of Phidias, for he executed a statue of Apollo Alexicacos, who was believed to have stopped the plague at Athens (Paus. i. 3.3). Besides he worked at a chariot, which Dinomenes, the son of Hiero, caused to be made by Onatas in memory of his father's victory at Olympia (Paus. vi. 12.1, viii. 42.4). This chariot was consecrated by Dinomenes after Hiero's death (B, C. 467), and the plague at Athens ceased B. C. 429. The 38 years between these two dates may therefore safely be taken as the time in which Calamis flourished. Calamis was one of the most diligent artists of all antiquity. He wrought statues in bronze, stone, gold, and ivory, and was, moreover, a celebrated embosser (Plin. H. N. xxxiii. 12. s. 15, xxxvi. 4. s. 3). Besides the Apollo Alexicacos, which was of metal, there existed a marble statue of Apollo in the Servilian gardens in Rome (Plin. H. N. xxxvi. 4, 5), and a third bronze statue of Apollo, 30 cubits high, which Lucullus carried to Rome from the Illyrian town Apollonia (Strab. vii.). A beardless Asclepios in gold and ivory, a Nike, a Zeus Ammon (consecrated by Pindar at Thebes), a Dionysos, an Aphrodite, an Alcmene, and a Sosandra, are mentioned as works of Calamis. Besides the statues of gods and mortals he also represented animals, especially horses, for which he was very celebrated (Plin. H. N. xxxiv. 8. s. 19). Cicero gives the following opinion of the style of Calamis, which was probably borrowed from the Greek authors : " Quis enim eorum, qui haec minora animadvertunt, non intelligit, Canachi signa rigidiora esse, quam ut imitentur veritatem? Calamidis dura illa quidem, sed tamen molliora quam Canachi, nondum Myronis satis ad veritatem adducta." (Brut. 18; comp. Quintil xii. 10.)
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited July 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Kephisodotos I. of Athens
The names Kephisodotos and Praxiteles apparently alternated in this family (cf.
Pliny,
N.H. 35.49-52), suggesting that Kephisodotos I was indeed the father of the
great Praxiteles. Pliny,
N.H. 35.49-52 gives his floruit as 372-369; this coincides with the most likely
date for his most famous work, the Eirene (Munich GL 219; 5, below). According
to Plutarch, Phokion 19, his sister became the first wife of this Athenian statesman
(b. 402), which already bespeaks a certain standing for the family in Athenian
society. His recorded works are:
1. Hermes and the young Dionysos, in bronze
2. Athena (and Zeus?) at Piraeus, in bronze
3. Altar of Zeus Soter, in the same location
4. Muses on Mt. Helikon, with others by Strongylion, later taken to Constantinople
5. Eirene holding the infant Ploutos, in the Athenian Agora (T 92)
6. "Gesturing orator", in bronze
7. A dedication to Athena Pronaia at Delphi
Some recognize (1) in a Renaissance drawing and an (eclectic) statue in Madrid,
while Waywell 1971 connects (2) -- where the MSS of N.H. 34.74 actually read "Cephisodorus"
-- with the Piraeus Athena (Piraeus Museum; Stewart 1990, fig. 511), even though
the latter was buried out of sight long before Pausanias' visit (1.1.3); Palagia
1980 prefers an attribution to Euphranor. In fact only the Eirene (Munich 219;
Stewart 1990, figs. 485-87) can be identified with certainty, thanks to Pausanias'
note concerning a similar work in Thebes:
Pausanias
9.16.1-2: [At Thebes] is a sanctuary of Tyche [Fortune], who carries
the child Ploutos [Wealth]. According to the Thebans, the hands and face of the
image were made by Xenophon of Athens, and the rest by Kallistonikos, a native.
It was a clever idea of theirs, to place Ploutos in the arms of Tyche, and so
to suggest that she is his mother or nurse. Equally clever was the conception
of Kephisodotos, for he made the image of Eirene [Peace] for the Athenians with
Ploutos in her arms.
Pausanias
1.8.2: [In the Athenian Agora], after the statues of the Eponymous
heroes come images of the gods, Amphiaraos, and Eirene carrying the child Ploutos.
The Baiae finds include fragments of a cast of the Ploutos. Other attributions (e.g. Hill 1974) seem somewhat optimistic given the evidence at hand, though one can conjecture that Kephisodotos was a less radical figure than Demetrios, making cult statues in the Attic tradition yet cautiously experimenting with new subjects and modes of rendering.
Kephisodotos II. and Timarchos, sons of Praxiteles
As indicated above, these two were active around 345-290. Yet their mature work
must have fallen during the Lykourgan administration of 336-324, when they also
paid heavy naval liturgies (IG 22 nos. 1628, lines 57, 68, 74, 11; 1629, line
674; 1633, line 100; cf. J.K. Davies 1971 no. 8334; Stewart 1979, 106; Lauter
1980). So Pliny's floruit of 296-293 (Pliny,
N.H. 35.49-52) must originally have been calculated either by simple association
with their Peloponnesian counterparts, the pupils of Lysippos (for Lysippos' own
floruit in 328-325 naturally determined theirs, a generation later), or from the
death of Menander (no. 12, below) around 293/2. The latter is less likely, since
only Pausanias mentions the statue Paus.
1.21.1 but without naming its authors, who remained anonymous till the inscribed
base was found in 1862.
Kephisodotos was clearly the principal; his known works, including
those where Timarchos assisted, are as follows:
Divinities
1. Aphrodite of marble, later in Rome (Pliny
N.H. 36.24, cf. Pliny,
N.H.36.33-4)
2. Artemis of marble, ditto (Pliny
N.H. 36.24)
3. Asklepios of marble, ditto (Pliny
N.H. 36.24)
4. Enyo, in the temple of Ares at Athens (with Timarchos)
5. Leto of marble, later in Rome (Pliny
N.H. 36.24, cf. Pliny,
N.H. 36.32)
6. Zeus Soter (enthroned), flanked by Megalopolis and Artemis Soteria, in Pentelic
marble, at Megalopolis. In collaboration with Xenophon of Athens
Architectural sculpture
7. Embellishment of an Altar of Asklepios, probably at Kos (with Timarchos: Herondas,
Mimiambos 4)
8. The Altar of Athena at Thebes (with Timarchos)
Portraits
9. The poetess Anyte of Tegea in bronze, later in Rome (with Euthykrates of Sikyon?
Tatian,
Contra Graecos 33)
10. Dion and Diokleia, dedicated by their father Aristogeitos at Megara (with
Timarchos)
11. Lykourgos and his sons in wood, at Athens(?) (with Timarchos)
12. Menander, in the Theater of Dionysos at Athens (with Timarchos)
13. The poetess Myro of Byzantium in bronze, later in Rome (Tatian,
Contra Graecos 33)
14. Philylla, dedicated by her mother Philia to Demeter and Kore, in the Agora
15. A priestess of Athena in bronze, on the Akropolis (with Timarchos)
16. Statues of philosophers in bronze
Uncertain subject-matter
17. A dedication to Asklepios on the Akropolis
18. Dedication of Aischronides in bronze, on the Akropolis
19. Dedication of Kekropia to Demeter and Kore, Eleusis
20. Another dedication to Demeter and Kore, Eleusis
21. Another dedication [to Demeter and Kore], Eleusis
22. A statue at Chersonesos (in the Crimea)
23. A dedication of a priest to Apollo, Troezen
24. A 'symplegma' (erotic group) in marble, at Pergamon (Pliny
N.H. 36.24)
Almost half of these (10, 12, 14, 15, 17-23) are known only from their inscribed bases; in addition, a single signature of Timarchos was found at Rome in 1874.
Clearly, the brothers not only inherited their clientele from their father, but continued to work in his favorite genres and techniques: marble for divinities, bronze for portraits (on the continuing Eleusinian connection here see esp. Harward 1982a). As for the works themselves, Pliny provides a brief introduction:
Pliny N.H. 36.24: The son of Praxiteles, Cephisodotus, inherited
also his skill. His group of People Grappling (symplegma ) at Pergamon is much
praised, being notable for the way in which the fingers seem really to sink into
living flesh rather than marble. At Rome his works are a Leto in the Palatine
temple, a Venus in the collection of Asinius Pollio, and the Asclepius and Diana
in the shrine of Juno within the Porticus Octaviae.
The stress on realism with regard to (24) echoes the concerns of e.g. Quintilian
12.7-9 (see commentary to Pliny,
N.H. 35.153). This apart, Pliny obviously had no critical tradition to draw
on, only a bare list of Kephisodotos' works in Rome. Of these, (1) was not the
only Praxitelean piece in Pollio's collection (cf. Pliny,
N.H.36.33-4), while (5) is reproduced, with Timotheos' Artemis and Skopas'
Apollo, on a relief commemorating Augustus' dedication of the Palatine cult group:
cf. T 90. The cult complex for (6) dates these to after ca. 350. Whereas we have
no original fragments of these, or even copies in the round, the finds from (7)
do seem persuasively post-Praxitelean (Classical Quarterly cf. Stewart 1990, figs.
604-05). An early Hellenistic poet describes a visit to what appears to be this
complex (contra , somewhat speciously, I.A. Cunningham in Classical Quarterly
N.S. 16 [1966]: 115-17):
Herondas, Mimiambos 4:
KYNNO
Hail, Lord Paieon, ruler of Trikka, who dwells in sweet Kos and Epidauros too; hail Koronis too, who bore you, and Apollo, and Hygieia whom you touch with your right hand, and those whose honored altars are here too; hail to Panake, Epio, Ieso, and those who sacked house and walls of Leomedon, doctors of savage diseases, Podaleirios and Machaon, and all the gods and goddesses who inhabit your shrine, father Paieon. Come gracefully to accept this cock . . . .
KOKKALE
O Kynno dear, what fair statues! What craftsman, pray, made this stone, and who set it up?
KYNNO
The sons of Praxiteles: don't you see the letters on the base? And Euthies son of Prexon set it up.
KOKKALE
May Paieon be gracious with them and to Euthies for their fair works. [They then turn to admire other dedications before entering the temple with their offering].
No doubt most of the personages addressed by Kynno were figured on the altar.
The Olympia Hermes (Pausanias
5.17.3-4) is probably also a post-Praxitelean original, as is a splendid female
head from Chios (Boston 10.70; Stewart 1990, figs. 606-08). Typically, Pliny confines
his survey of Kephisodotean works at Rome to divinities; yet a second-century
Christian apologist reveals that portraits of his were also there, and Coarelli
1971-72 has shown that he is almost certainly speaking of a display in Pompey's
theater complex, dedicated in 55:
Tatian, Contra Graecos 33: Lysippos cast the bronze of Praxilla (who
said nothing useful in her poetry), Menestratos the Learchis, Silanion the hetaira
Sappho, Naukydes the Erinna from Lesbos, Boiskos the Myrtis, Kephisodotos the
Myro of Byzantion, Gomphos the Praxigoris, and Amphistratos the Kleito. But what
should I say about Anyte, Telesilla, and Mystis? The first is by Euthykrates and
Kephisodotos, the second by Nikeratos, the third by Aristodotos. Euthykrates made
for you the Mnesarchis of Ephesos, Silanion the Korinna, Euthykrates the Argive
Thalarchis, [. . . lacuna . . .], Praxiteles and Herodotos the hetaira Phryne,
and Euthykrates cast the Panteuchis made pregnant by a seducer. I set all this
forth not having learned it from another, but [as a result of my trip to Rome
where I saw the statues seized from you Greeks].
Unfortunately, nothing of this dazzling array survives, and no copies have so far come to light; indeed, among (9)-(24) only the Menander (12) is presently identified: inscribed bust of Meander (Malibu 72.AB.108), head of Meander (Dumbarton Oaks 46.2; see Stewart 1990, figs. 610, 613).
Like their father, the brothers inspired no Hellenistic critic to
consider their work in depth; even the epigrammatists apparently ignored them.
In this respect, Greek sculpture's long twilight truly begins with them.
This extract is from: Andrew Stewart, One Hundred Greek Sculptors: Their Careers and Extant Works. Cited July 2005 from Perseus Project URL below, which contains extracts from the ancient literature, bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
Cephisodotus. A celebrated Athenian sculptor, whose sister was the first wife
of Phocion (Plut. Phoc. 19). He is assigned by Pliny (xxxiv. 8. s. 19.1) to the
102nd Olympiad (B. C. 372), an epoch chosen probably by his authorities because
the general peace recommended by tile Persian king was then adopted by all the
Greek states except Thebes, which began to aspire to the first station in Greece.
Cephisodotus belonged to that younger school of Attic artists, who had abandoned
the stern and majestic beauty of Phidias and adopted a more animated and graceful
style. It is difficult to distinguish him from a younger Cephisodotus, whom Sillig,
without the slightest reason, considers to have been more celebrated. But some
works are expressly ascribed to the elder, others are probably his, and all prove
him to have been a worthy contemporary of Praxiteles. Most of his works which
are known to us were occasioned by public events, or at least dedicated in temples.
This was the case with a group which, in company with Xenophon of Athens, he executed
in Pentelian marble for the temple of Zeus Soter at Megalopolis, consisting of
a sitting statue of Zeus Soter, with Artemis Soteira on one side and the town
of Megalopolis on the other (Paus. viii. 30.5). Now, as it is evident that the
inhabitants of that town would erect a temple to the preserver of their new-built
city immediately after its foundation, Cephisodotus most likely finished his work
not long after B. C. 371. It seems that at the same time, after the congress of
Sparta, B. C. 371, he executed for the Athenians a statue of Peace, holding Plutus
the god of riches in her arms (Paus. i. 8.2, ix. 16.2). We ascribe this work to
the elder Cephisodotus, although a statue of Enyo is mentioned as a work of Praxiteles'
sons, because after 01. 120? we know of no peace which the Athenians might boast
of, and because in the latter passage Pausanias speaks of the plan of Cephisodotus
as equally good with the work of his contemporary and companion Xenophon, which
in the younger Cephisodotus would have been only an imitation. The most numerous
group of his workmanship were the nine Muses on mount Helicon, and three of another
group there, completed by Strongylion and Olympiosthenes (Paus. ix. 30. § 1.)
They were probably the works of the elder artist, because Strongylion seems to
have been a contemporary of Praxiteles, not of his sons.
Pliny mentions two other statues of Cephisodotus (xxxiv. 8. s. 19.27),
one a Mercury nursing the infant Bacchus, that is to say, holding him in his arms
in order to entrust him to the care of the Nymphs, a subject also known by Praxiteles'
statue (Paus. ix. 39.3), and by some bassorelievos, and an unknown orator lifting
his hand, which attitude of Hermes Logeos was adopted by his successors, for instance
in the celebrated statue of Cleomenes in the Louvre, and in a colossus at Vienna.It
is probable that the admirable statue of Athena and the altar of Zeus Soter in
the Peiraeeus (Plin. xxxiv. 8. s. 19.14) - perhaps the same which Demosthenes
decorated after his return from exile, B. C. 323 (Plut. Dem. c. 27, Vit. X Orat.)-
were likewise his works, because they must have been erected soon after the restoration
of the Peiraeeus by Conon, B. C. 393.
Cephisodotus. The younger Cephisodotus, likewise of Athens, a son of the great
Praxiteles, is mentioned by Pliny (xxxiv. 8.19) with five other sculptors in bronze
under the 120th Olympiad (B. C. 300), probably because the battle of Ipsus, B.
C. 301, gave to the chronographers a convenient pause to enumerate the artists
of distinction then alive; it is, therefore, not to be wondered at if we find
Cephisodotus engaged before and probably after that time. Heir to the art of his
father (Plin. xxxvi. 4.6), and therefore always a sculptor in bronze and marble,
never, as Sillig states, a painter, he was at first employed, together with his
brother Timarchus, at Athens and Thebes in some works of importance. First, they
executed wooden statues of the orator and statesman Lycurgus (who died B. C. 323),
and of his three sons, Abron, Lycurgus, and Lycophron, which were probably ordered
by the family of the Butadae, and dedicated in the temple of Erechtheus on the
Acropolis, as well as the pictures on tile walls placed there by Abron (Paus.
i. 26.6; Plut. Vit X Orat.). Sillig confounds by a strange mistake the picture
of Ismenias with the statues of Praxiteles' sons (pinax and eikones xulinai).
The marble basement of one of these statues has been discovered lately on the
Acropolis, together with another pedestal dedicated by Cephisodotus and Timarchus
to their uncle Theoxenides. It is very likely that the artists performed their
task so well, that the people, when they ordered a bronze statue to be erected
to their benefactor, B. C. 307 (Psephism. ap. Plut. l. c.; Paus. i. 8.2), committed
it to them. The vicinity at least of the temple of Mars, where the sons of Praxiteles
had wrought a statue of Enyo (Paus. l. c.5), supports this supposition. Another
work which they executed in common was the altar of the Cadmean Dionysus at Thebes
(Paus. ix. 12.3: Bomon is the genuine reading, not the vulgate kadmon), probably
erected soon after the restoration of Thebes by Cassander, B. C. 315, in which
the Athenians heartily concurred. This is the last work in which both artists
are named.
The latter part of the life of Cephisodotus is quite unknown. Whether
he remained at Athens or left the town after B. C. 303 in its disasters, for the
brilliant courts of the successors of Alexander, or whether, for instance, as
might be inferred from Pliny (xxxvi. 4.6), he was employed at Pergamus, cannot
be decided. It would seem, on account of Myros's portrait, that he had been at
Alexandria at any rate. Of his statues of divinities four--Latona, Diana, Aesculapius,
and Venus, were admired at Rome in various buildings (Plin. l. c). Cephisodotus
was also distinguished in portrait-sculpture, especially of philosophers (Plin.
xxxiv. 8. s. 19.27), under which general terms Pliny comprises perhaps all literary
people. According to the common opinion of antiquarians, he portrayed likewise
courtezans, for which they quote Tatian, and think probably of the well-known
similar works of Praxiteles. But Tatian in that chapter does not speak of courtezans,
but of poets and poetesses, whose endeavors were f no use to mankind; it is only
in c. 53 that lie speaks of dissipated men and women, and in c. 55 of all these
idle people together. In fact the two ladies whom Cephisodotus is there stated
to have represented, are very well known to us as poetesses, --Myro or Moero of
Byzantium, mother of the tragic poet Homer (who flourished B. C. 284; see Suidas,
s. v. Homeros), and Anyte.
All the works of Cephisodotus are lost. One only, but one of the noblest,
the Symplegma, praised by Pliny (xxxvi. 4.6) and visible at his time at Pergamus,
is considered by many antiquarians as still in existence in an imitation only,
but a very good one, the celebrated group of two wrestling youths at Florence
(Gall. di Firenze). Winckelmann seems to have changed his mind about its meaning,
for in one place lie refers it to the group of Niobe with which it was found,
and in another (ix. 3.19) he takes it to be a work either of Cephisodotus or of
Heliodorus; and to the former artist it is ascribed by Maffei. Now this opinion
is certainly more probable than the strange idea of Hirt, that we see in the Florentine
work an imitation of the wrestlers of Daedalus(Plin. xxxiv. 8. s. 19.15), which
were no group at all, but two isolated athletes. But still it is very far from
being true. There is no doubt that the Florentine statues do not belong to the
Niobids, although Wagner, in his able article respecting these master-works, has
tried to revive that old error of Winckelmann, and Krause admits it as possible.
But they have nothing to do with the work of Cephisodotus, because Pliny's words
point to a very different representation. He speaks of " digitis verius corpori,
quam marmori impressis", and in the group of Florence there is no impression
of fingers at all. This reason is advanced also by Zannoni, who, although he denies
that Cephisodotus invented the group, persists in considering it as a combat between
two athletes. The " alterum in terris symplegma nobile" (Plin. xxxvi.
4.10) by Heliodorus shewed " Pana et Olympum luctantes." Now as there were but
two famous symplegmata, one of which was certainly of an amorous description,
that of Cephisodotus could not be a different one, but represented an amorous
strife of two individuals. To this kind there belongs a group which is shewn by
its frequent repetitions to have been one of the most celebrated of ancient art,
namely, the beautiful though indecent contest of an old Satyr and a Hermaphrodite,
of which two fine copies are in the Dresden museum, the print and description
of which is contained in Bottiger's Adchaologie und Kunst. This seems to be the
work of our artist, where the position of the hands in particular agrees perfectly
with Pliny's description.
Cleomenes, a sculptor mentioned only by Pliny (xxxvi. 4.10) as the author of a
group of the Thespiades, or Muses, which was placed by Asinius Pollio in his buildings
at Rome, perhaps the library on the Palatine hill. This artist, who does not appear
to have enjoyed great celebrity with the ancients, is particularly interesting
to us, because one of the most exquisite statues, the Venus de Medici, bears his
name in the following inscription on the pedestal:
KLEOMENES AEOLLODOROU ATHENAIOS EEOESEN.
This inscription, which has been undeservedly considered as a modern imposition, especially by Florentine critics, who would fain have claimed a greater master for their admired statue, indicates both the father and the native town of Cleomenes; and the letter O gives likewise an external proof of what we should have guessed from the character of the work itself, that he was subsequent to B. C. 403. But we may arrive still nearer at his age. Mummius brought the above-mentioned group of the Muses from Thespiae to Rome; and Cleomenes must therefore have lived previously to B. C. 146, the date of the destruction of Corinth. The beautiful statue of Venus is evidently an imitation of the Cnidian statue of Praxiteles; and Muller's opinion is very probable, that Cleomenes tried to revive at Athens the style of this great artist. Our artist would, according to this supposition, have lived between B. C. 363 (the age of Praxiteles) and B. C. 146.
Now, there is another Cleomenes, the author of a much admired but
rather lifeless statue in the Louvre, which commonly bears the name of Germanicus,
though without the slightest foundation. It represents a Roman orator, with the
right hand lifted, and, as the attribute of a turtle at the foot shews, in the
habit of Mercury. There the artist calls himself:
KLEOMENES KLEOMENOUS ATHENAIOSE POIESEN.
He was therefore distinct from the son of Apollodorus, but probably his son; for the name of Cleomenes is so very rare at Athens, that we can hardly suppose another Cleomenes to have been his father; and nothing was more common with ancient artists than that the son followed the father's profession. But it is quite improbable that an Athenian sculptor should have made the statue of a Roman in the form of a god before the wars against Macedonia had brought the Roman armies into Greece. The younger Cleomenes must therefore have exercised his art subsequently to B. C. 200, probably subsequently to the battle of Cynoscephalae. We may therefore place the father about B. C. 220.
Another work is also inscribed with the name of Cleomenes, namely,
a basso-relievo at Florence, of very good workmanship, with the story of Alceste,
bearing the inscription KLEOMENES EPOIEI. But we are not able to decide whether
it is to be referred to the father, or to the son, or to a third and more recent
artist, whose name is published by Raoul-Rochette.
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited July 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Cresilas (Kresilas), an Athenian sculptor, a contemporary of Phidias and Polycletus
Pliny (H. N. xxxiv.19), in narrating a competition of five most distinguished
artists, and among them Phidias and Polycletus, as to who should make the best
Amazon for the temple at Ephesus, mentions Cresilas as the one who obtained the
third prize. But as this is an uncommon name, it has been changed by modern editors
into Ctesilas or Ctesilaus; and in the same chapter (§ 15) an artist, "Desilaus,"
whose wounded Amazon was a celebrated statue, has also had his name changed into
Ctesilaus, and consequently the beautiful statues of a wounded Amazon in the Capitol
and the Louvre are considered as an imitation of the work at Ephesus. Now this
is quite as unfounded a supposition as the one already rejected by Winckelmann,
by which the dying gladiator of the Capitol was considered to represent another
celebrated statue of Ctesilaus, who wrought "vulneratum deficientem, in quo possit
intelligi, quantum restet animae"; and it is the more improbable, because
Pliny enumerates the sculptors in an alphabetic order, and begins the letter D
by Desilaus. But there are no good reasons for the insertion of the name of Ctesilaus.
At some of the late excavations at Athens, there was discovered in the wall of
a cistern, before the western frontside of the Parthenon, the following inscription,
which is doubtless the identical basement of the expiring warrior:
EERMOLUKOS DIEITREPHOUS APARCHEN.
KRESILAS EPOESEN.
By this we learn, that the rival of Phidias was called Cresilas, as two manuscripts
of Pliny exhibit, and that the statue praised by Pliny is the same as that which
Pausanias (i. 23.2) describes at great length. It was an excellent work of bronze,
placed in the eastern portico within the Propylaea, and dedicated by Hermolycus
to the memory of his father, Diitrephes, who fell pierced with arrows, B. C. 413,
at the head of a body of Thracians, near Mycalessos in Boeotia (Thuc. vii. 29,
30). Besides these two celebrated works, Cresilas executed a statue of Pericles
the Olympian, from which, perhaps, the bust in the Vatican is a copy.
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited June 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Critias, a very celebrated Athenian artist, whose workmanship belongs to the more
ancient school, the description of which by Lucian (Rhetor. Praecept. c. 9) bears
an exact resemblance to the statues of Aegina. For this reason, and because the
common reading of Pliny (H. N. xxxiv. 19, in.), " Critias Nestocles," is manifestly
corrupt, and the correction of H. Junius, " Nesiotes," is borne out by the Bamberg
manuscript, Critias was considered by Mullerto have been a citizen of Aegina.
But as Pausanias (vi. 3.2) calls him Attikos, Thiersch (Epoch. p. 129) assigns
his origin to one of the little islands near the coast of Attica, and Muller to
the island of Lemnos, where the Athenians established a cleruchia. All these theories
were overthrown by two inscriptions found near the Acropolis, one of which belongs
to a statue of Epicharinus, who had won a prize running in arms, mentioned by
Pausanias (i. 23.11), and should probably be restored thus:
Epicharinos anetheken...
Kritios kai Nesiotes epoiesaten.
From this we learn, first, that the artist's name was Critios, not Critias; then that Nesiotes in Pliny's text is a proper name. This Nesiotes was probably so far the assistant of the greater master, that he superintended the execution in bronze of the models of Critios. The most celebrated of their works were, the statues of Hannodius and Aristogeiton on the Acropolis. These were erected B. C. 477. (Marm. Oxon. Epoch. lv.) Critias was, therefore, probably older than Phidias, but lived as late as B. C. 444, to see the greatness of his rival. (Plin. l. c.)
(Lucian, Philosoph. 18; Paus. i. 8.3)
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited July 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Nesiotes, a sculptor, appears to have been an assistant of the celebrated Athenian artist Critias, and not a surname of the latter, as some modern writers have conjectured.
Perseus Project - Andrew Stewart, One Hundred Greek Sculptors
Deinomenes, a statuary, whose statues of Io, the daughter of Inachus, and Callisto,
the daughter of Lycaon, stood in the Acropolis at Athens in the time of Pausanias
(Paus. i. 25.1). Pliny (xxxiv. 8. s. 19) mentions him among the artists who flourished
in the 95th Olympiad, B. C. 400, and adds, that he made statues of Protesilaus
and Pythodemus the wrestler. Tatian mentions a statue by him of Besantis, queen
of the Paeonians (Orat. ad Graec. 53, ). His name appears on a base, the statue
belonging to which is lost. (Bockh, Corp. Inscrip. i. No. 470.)
Endoeus (Endoios). An Athenian sculptor who flourished about the year B.C. 560, though tradition made him the student of Daedalus and to have fled with him from Crete. A statue of Athene by him was removed by Augustus Caesar from Tegea to Rome.
Endoeus (Endoios), an Athenian statuary, is called a disciple of Daedalus, whom he is said to have accompanied when he fled to Crete. This statement must be taken to express, not the time at which he lived, but the style of art which he practised. It is probable that he lived at the same period as Dipoenus and Scyllis, who are in the same way called disciples of Daedalus, namely, in the time of Peisistratus and his sons, about B. C. 560. His works were : 1. In the acropolis at Athens a sitting statue of Athena, in olive-wood, with an inscription to the effect that Callias dedicated it, and Endoeus made it. Hence his age is inferred, for the first Callias who is mentioned in history is the opponent of Peisistratus. (Herod. vi. 121.) 2. In the temple of Athena Polias at Erythrae in Ionia, a colossal wooden statue of the goddess, sitting on a throne, holding a distaff in each hand, and having a sun-dial (polos) on the head. 3. In connexion with this statue, there stood in the hypaethrum, before the visit of Pausanias to the temple, statues of the Graces and Hours, in white marble, also by Endoeus. 4. A statue of Athena Alea, in her temple at Tegea, made entirely of ivory, which was transported to Rome by Augustus, and set up in the entrance of his forum. (Paus. i. 26.5; vii. 5.4:viii.46.2)
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited June 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Endoios of Athens
Endoios' father remains unknown, though Pausanias describes his alleged origins:
Pausanias 1.26.4: Endoios was an Athenian by birth and a pupil of
Daidalos, who even followed Daidalos to Crete when he was exiled for the death
of Kalos; he made the seated image of Athena, with an inscription saying that
Kallias dedicated it, but Endoios made it. There is also the building called the
Erechtheion ...
Yet since the anecdote is clearly a fabrication, the ethnic may be too.
As for Kallias' Athena, the dedicator should be Peisistratos' opponent Kallias
son of Hipponikos, who lived around 570-520, unless (since the piece evidently
survived the sack of 480) Pausanias was looking at a rededication by Kallias II,
his grandson and a leading politician of the 460s: M. Robertson 1975, 107. The
Athena (Athens, Acropolis 625), found on the slope below the Erechtheion is commonly
identified with this statue because of its very weathered state; contra, Bundgaard
1974, 16: "The conclusion seems unwarranted. Kore 671, found built into the North
citadel wall, was heavily weathered on the right side which...was turned inside
the wall. In this case the weathering had obviously taken place before the wall
was built. On the other hand, if the figure comes from the [destruction debris]
in the corner, which seems likely, it may very well have lain exposed in the breach
for a long time before tumbling down."
The Athena being problematic, more recent studies have preferred to
start with Raubitschek's restoration of the signature on the potter relief, Athens,
Acropolis 1332, as En[doios epoies]en (Raubitschek 1949, no. 70; cf. Stewart 1990,
fig. 161), and Jeffery's independent observation that the stylistically-related
Ballplayer base Athens, NM 3476 (Stewart 1990, figs. 138-40) was possibly one
of a trio including a base originally bearing a painted scene and signed "and
Endoios made this too" (Jeffery 1962, 127); yet if so, the third base, carved
with hoplites and hockey-players, is by a different hand -- an apprentice? Also
a school-piece, if one accepts the Athena, is the little kore Athens, Acropolis
602, stylistically dependent upon it and thus often connected to the second of
Endoios' Akropolis signatures, on a column co-signed by (his pupil?) Philergos
(not "Philermos", as Raubitschek 1949, no. 7: cf. AM 84 [1969]: pl. 6).
These pieces, with the addition of the Rayet head (with possible body-fragments,
AM 84 [1969]: pls. 29-37), a little bronze jumper from the Akropolis, and the
Athena from the Gigantomachy pediment, are now generally accepted as constituting
the core of Endoios' oeuvre and immediate following (Stewart 1990, figs. 136-37,
205-06; cf. e.g. Deyhle 1969, 12-27; M. Robertson 1975, 106-8; Boardman 1978a,
82-83). They date between ca. 530 and 500.
The seated Athena is the only link -- and a weak one -- between this
group and the texts, which naturally concentrate upon the all-important genre
of cult images, listing the following statues:
Artemis at Ephesos; wood (type disputed)
"Old" Athena; olivewood
Seated Athena: same as that of Kallias?
Colossal Athena Polias at Erythrai (Ionia); wood
Graces and Seasons, in the forecourt of the temple
at Erythrai; white stone
Athena Alea at Tegea, taken to Rome by Augustus;
ivory
Of these, (6) may be echoed in Tegean small bronzes: BCH 99 (1975): 348-9, figs.
16-19; Rolley 1983/1986, 120 fig. 95; Stewart 1990, fig. 182. (1)-(3) are all
listed by the same source:
Athenagoras, Embassy for the Christians 17.3: Endoios, a pupil of
Daidalos, made the Artemis in Ephesos, the ancient olivewood statue of Athena
... and the seated Athena.
Pausanias 8.45 (selections): The ancient image of Alea Athena was
carried off by the Roman emperor Augustus, together with the tusks of the Kalydonian
boar, after he defeated Antony and his allies, among whom were all the Arcadians
except the Mantineans . . . . It is in the Forum of Augustus, right in the entrance,
. . . made throughout of ivory, the work of Endoios.
On Mucianus' authority, Pliny also attributes the Ephesian Artemis (1) to Endoios
(N.H. 16.213-15): cf. Stewart 1990, fig. 174. Perhaps the most widely-copied and
influential cult-image of antiquity, its material and original form are equally
uncertain, though its many "breasts" may be an ancient Anatolian feature. The
Ephesian temple was begun by 547/6 and still remained incomplete ca. 500: see
Romano 1980, 236-49 for a useful resume. As for (2) and (3), since Athenagoras
(writing in A.D. 177) was an Athenian he is surely referring to statues familiar
to him and his readers, namely, the olivewood Athena Polias of the Akropolis and
Kallias' dedication. The former's history has been brilliantly pieced together
by Kroll 1982, who identifies coin-pictures and shows that Endoios, like Smilis
was apparently responsible for "humanizing" the original plank-idol with face,
arms, and feet.
If one accepts the attributions, Endoios emerges as a strong and innovative
personality. He seems to bestride the ripe and late archaic, drawing strength
from the mature Attic style of the later sixth century but vigorously pursuing
new directions, and heavily influencing the early fifth century.
This extract is from: Andrew Stewart, One Hundred Greek Sculptors: Their Careers and Extant Works. Cited June 2005 from Perseus Project URL below, which contains extracts from the ancient literature, bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
Eucleides of Athens, a sculptor, made the statues of Pentelic marble, in the temples of Demeter, Aphrodite, and Dionysus, and Eileithuia at Bura in Achaia (Paus. vii. 25.5). This town, as seen by Pausanias, had been rebuilt after its destruction by an earthquake, in B. C. 373/2 (Paus. l. c., comp. 2). The artist probably flourished, therefore, soon after this date.
Glycon (Glukon). An Athenian sculptor, known to us by his magnificent colossal
marble statue of Heracles, which is commonly called the "Farnese Hercules." It
was found in the baths of Caracalla, and, after adorning the Farnese palace for
some time, it was removed, with the other works of art belonging to that palace,
to the royal museum at Naples: it represents the hero resting on his club, after
one of his labours. The swollen muscles admirably express repose after severe
exertion. The right hand, which holds the golden apples, is modern: the legs also
were restored by Gulielmo della Porta, but the original legs were discovered and
replaced in 1787. The name of the artist is carved on the rock, which forms the
main support of the statue; as follows:
GAUKON ATHENAIOX EPOIEI
Though no ancient writer mentions Glycon, there can be no doubt that he lived
in the period between Lysippus and the early Roman emperors. The form of the Omega,
in his name, which was not used in inscriptions till shortly before the Christian
era, fixes his age more definitely, for there is no reason to doubt the genuineness
of the inscription. The silence of Pliny suggests a doubt whether Glycon did not
live even later than the reign of Titus.
At all events, it seems clear that the original type of the "Hercules
Farnese " was the Heracles of Lysippus, of which there are several other imitations,
but none equal to the Farnese. One of the most remarkable is the Hercules of the
Pitti palace, inscribed AUSIPPOU ERGON, but this inscription is without doubt
a forgery, though probably an ancient one.
The only other remaining work of Glycon is a base in the Biscari museum
at Catania, inscribed:
GAUKON ATHENA IOS EPOIEI
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited July 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Hegesias (Egesias) and Hegias (Egias), two Greek statuaries, whom many scholars
identify with one another, and about whom, at all events, there are great difficulties.
It is therefore the best course to look at the statements respecting both of them
together. Pausanias (viii. 42.4) mentions Hegias of Athens as the contemporary
of Onatas and of Ageladas the Argive.
Lucian (Rhet. Praec. 9) mentions Hegesias, in connection with Critios
and Nesiotes, as belonging to the ancient school of art (tes pa laias ergasias),
the productions of which were constrained, stiff, harsh, and rigid, though accurate
in the outlines (apesphigmena kai neurode kai sklera kai akribos apotetamena tais
grammais). It seems necessary here to correct the mistake of the commentators,
who suppose that Lucian is speaking of the rhetorician Hegesias. Not only is the
kind of oratory which Lucian is describing not at all like that of Hegesias, but
also the word ergaasias, and the mention of Critios and Nesiotes (for the true
reading is amphi Krition kai Nesioten), sufficiently prove that this is one of
the many passages in which Lucian uses the fine arts to illustrate his immediate
subject, though, in this case, the transition from the subject to the illustration
is not very clearly marked. A similar illustration is employed by Quintilian (xii.
10.7), who says of Hegesias and Callon, that their works were harsh, and resembled
the Etruscan style : he adds, " jam minus rigida Calamis."
The testimony of Pliny is very important. After placing Phidias at
Ol. 84, he adds, " quo eodem tempore aemuli ejus fuere Alcamenes, Critias (i.
e. Critios), Nestocles (i. e. Nesiotes), Hegias " (xxxiv. 8. s. 19). Again (ibid.16,
17) : " Hegiae Minerva Pyrrhusque rex laudatur: et Celetizontes pueri, et Castor
et Pollux ante aedem Jovis Tonantis, Hegesiae. In Pario colonia Hercules Isidori.
Eleuthereus Lycius Myronis discipulus fuit". So stands the passage in Harduinus,
and most of the modern editions. There is, even at first sight, something suspicious
in the position of the names Hegesiae and Isidori at the end of the two sentences,
while all the other names, both before and after, are put at the beginning of
their sentences, as it is natural they should be, in an alphabetical list of artists;
and there is also something suspicious in the way in which the word Eleuthereus
(which is explained of Eleutherae) is inserted. This last word is an emendation
of Casaubon's. Most of the MSS. give Buthyreus, buthyres, or butires ; the Pintian
and Bamberg give bythytes. We have therefore no hesitation in accepting Sillig's
reading, " Hegiae, &c., pueri, et, &c. Tonantis: Hagesiae " (the MSS. vary greatly
in the spelling of this name) " in Pario colonia Hercules : Isidori buthytes"
(the last word meaning a person sacrificing an ox).
From the above testimonies, it follows that Hegias and Hegesias were
both artists of great celebrity, and that they flourished at about the same time,
namely, at the period immediately preceding that of Phidias. For Hegias was a
contemporary of Onatas and Ageladas, and also of Alcamenes, Critios, Nesiotes,
and Phidias; and Hegesias of Critios, Nesiotes, Callon, and Calamis. The interval
between the earliest and the latest of these artists is not too great to allow
those who lived in the meantime to have been contemporary, in part, with those
at both extremes, especially when it is observed how Pliny swells his lists of
rivals of the chief artists, by mentioning those who were contemporary with them
for ever so short a time. The age thus assigned to both these artists agrees with
the remarks of Lucian on the style of Hegesias ; for those remarks do not describe
a rude and imperfect style, but the very perfection of the old conventional style,
of which the only remaining fault was a certain stiffness, which Phidias was the
first to break through.
Hegias is expressly called an Athenian: the country of Hegesias is
not stated, but the above notices of him are quite consistent with the supposition
that he also was an Athenian.
There remains the question, whether Hegesias and Hegias were the same
or different persons, and also whether Agasias of Ephesus is to be identified
with them. Etymologically, there can be little doubt that Agesias, Hegesias, and
Hegias, are the same name, Agesias being the Doric and common form, and Hegesias
and Hegias respectively the fill and abbreviated Ionic and Attic form. Sillig
contends that Agasias is also a Doric form of the same name; but, as Muller has
pointed out, the Doric forms of names derived (like Hegesias) from egeomai, begin
with age, not aga (Agesandros, Agesarchos, Agesidamos, Agesilaos, &c.: Agesias
itself is found as a Doric name, Pind. Ol. ix. and elsewhere); and it is probable
that Agasias is a genuine Ionic name, derived from agamai, like Agasithea, Agasikles,
Agasisthenes. For these and other reasons, it seems that the identity of Hegesias
with Agasias cannot be made out, while that of Hegesias with Hegias is highly
probable. It is true that Pliny mentions them as different persons, but nothing
is more likely than that Pliny should have put together the statements of two
different Greek authors, of whom the one wrote the artist's full name, Hegesias,
while the other used the abbreviated form, Egias. Pliny is certainly wrong when,
in enumerating the works of Hegias, he says, " Minerva Pyrrhusque rex laudatur."
What is meant seems to have been a group, in which (not the king, but) the hero
Pyrrhus was represented as supported by Pallas. The statues of Castor and Pollux,
by Hegesias, are supposed by Winckelmann to be the same as those which now stand
on the stairs leading to the capitol; but this is very doubtful.
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited June 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Leochares, (Leochares). A Greek sculptor, of Athens, who (about B.C. 350) was engaged with Scopas in the adornment of the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus. One of his most famous works was the bronze group of Ganymede and the Eagle, a work remarkable for its ingenious composition, which boldly ventures to the verge of what is allowed by the laws of sculpture, and also for its charming treatment of the youthful form as it soars into the air. It is apparently imitated in a well-known marble group in the Vatican, half life-size.
This text is from: Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. Cited Nov 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Leochares. An Athenian statuary and sculptor, was one of the great artists of
the later Athenian school, at the head of which were Scopas and Praxiteles. He
is placed by Pliny (H. N. xxxiv. 8. s. 19) with Polycles I., Cephisodotus I.,
and Hypatodorus, at the 102d Olympiad (B. C. 372). We have several other indications
of his time. From the end of the 106th Olympiad (B. C. 352) and onwards he was
employed upon the tomb of Mausolus (Plin. xxxvi. 5. s. 4.9; Vitruv. vii. Praef.
13); and he was one of the artists employed by Philip to celebrate his victory
at Chaeroneia, B. C. 338. The statement, that he made a statue of Autolycus, who
conquered in the boys' pancration at the Panathenaea and whose victory was the
occasion of the Symposion of Xenophon (Plin. H. N. xxxiv. 8. s. 19.17), seems
at first sight to be inconsistent with the other dates; but the obvious explanation
is, that the statue was not a dedicatory one in honour of the victory, but a subject
chosen by the artist on account of the beauty of Autolycus, and of the same class
as his Ganymede, in connection with which it is mentioned by Pliny; and that,
therefore, it may have been made long after the victory of Autolycus. In one of
the Pseudo-Platonic epistles (13), Leochares is mentioned as a young and excellent
artist.
The masterpiece of Leochares seems to have been his statue of the
rape of Ganymede, in which, according to the description of Pliny (l. c.), the
eagle appeared to be sensible of what he was carrying, and to whom he was bearing
the treasure, taking care not to hurt the boy through his dress with his talons
(Comp. Tatian, Orat. ad Graec. 56). The original work was pretty certainly in
bronze; but it was frequently copied both in marble and on gems. Of the extant
copies in marble, the best is one, half the size of life, in the Museo Pio-Clementino.
Another, in the library of S. Mark at Venice, is larger and perhaps better executed,
but in a much worse state of preservation. Another, in alto-relievo, among the
ruins of Thessalonica. These copies, though evidently very imperfect, give some
idea of the mingled dignity and grace, and refined sensuality, which were the
characteristics of the later Athenian school. Winckelmann mentions a marble base
found in the Villa Medici at Rome, and now in the gallery at Florence, which bears
the inscription GANUMEDEX LEOCHAPOUX ATHENAIOU. Though, as Winckelmann shows,
this base is almost certainly of a much later date than the original statue, it
is useful as proving the fact, that Leochares was an Athenian. His name also appears
on an inscription recently discovered at Athens.
Of his other mythological works, Pausanias mentions Zeus and a personification
of the Athenian people (Zeus kai Lemos) in the long portico at the Peiraeus, and
another Zeus in the acropolis of Athens (i. 24.4), as well as an Apollo in the
Cerameicus, opposite to that of Calamis. Pliny (xxxiv. 8. s. 19.17) speaks of
his Jupiter tonans in the Capitol as "ante cuncta laudabilem," and of his Apollo
with a diadem; and Vitruvius (ii. 8.11) refers to his colossal statue of Mars,
in the acropolis of Halicarnassus, which some ascribed to Timotheus, and which
was an akrolithos.
Of his portrait-statues, the most celebrated were those of Philip,
Alexander, Amyntas, Olympias, and Eurydice, which were made of ivory and gold,
and were placed in the Philippeion, a circular building in the Altis at Olympia,
erected by Philip of Macedon in celebration of his victory at Chaeroneia (Paus.
v. 20. 5, 9-10). A bronze statue of Isocrates, by Leochares, was dedicated by
Timotheus, the son of Conon, at Eleusis (Pseud.-Plut. Vit. X. Orat.; Phot. Bibl.,
Cod. 260). His statue of Autolycus has been already mentioned.
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited July 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Leochares of Athens
Also an Athenian, Leochares is the best documented of this entire group except
for Skopas. Even though Pliny includes him not within his informative 'Xenokratic'
chapters but -like Bryaxis and Demetrios- in a dry alphabetical catalogue of uncertain
origin (Pliny
N.H. 34.79), others remark upon his work, and no fewer than 10 signed
bases survive. His attested output is as follows:
Divinities:
Zeus Brontaios in bronze, later in Rome (Pliny
N.H. 34.79)
Zeus Polieus on the Akropolis
Zeus and Demos in Piraeus
Apollo outside the temple of Apollo Patroos in the Agora (Pausanias
1.3.4 )
Apollo with a diadem, in bronze (Pliny
N.H. 34.79)
The eagle of Zeus abducting Ganymede, in bronze (Pliny
N.H. 34.79)
Portraits:
Alexander and family in the Philippeion at Olympia, in chryselephantine (Pausanias
5.17.3-4 , Pausanias
1.3.4 )
Alexander and Krateros hunting lions in the royal Persian park at Sidon, at Delphi,
in bronze (with Lysippos; Fouilles
de Delphes 3.4.2 no. 137; Pliny,
N.H. 34.61-5 )
The pankratiast Autolykos in bronze, in the Prytaneion at Athens (Pliny
N.H. 34.79)
Isokrates, dedicated at Eleusis by the Athenian general Timotheos
Lysippe, Pandaites, Myron, Pasikles, Timostrate, and Aristomache in b
ronze, dedicated on the Akropolis by Pandaites and Pasikles of Potamos (with Sthennis)
The priest Charmides, later in Rome
Uncertain subjects:
Dedication by a son of Amphilochos to Asklepios, in the Athenian Asklepieion
Dedication by Archeneos and 9 others, in the Agora
Dedication by a priest (?) in the Agora
Dedication by Hippiskos son of Aischylos, on the Akropolis
Dedication by a man from Oion, on the Akropolis
Dedication on the Akropolis
Dedication by Thrasylochos son of Kephisodoros, at Oropos
Architectural sculpture:
West side of the Mausoleum at Halikarnassos (Vitruvius
7. Praef. 12-13; Pliny,
N.H. 36.30-1)
Disputed and problematic works :
Two Apollos, allegedly bought by Plato for Dionysios II of Syracuse (Plato,
Epistle 13, 361A)
Ares at Halikarnassos, an akrolith (given by some to Timotheos)
The slave 'Lango' in bronze, probably by Lykiskos
Though with the partial exception of (20) none of these works survives in the
original, several of them can be dated and furnish unusually full information
as to Leochares' career. The first date is given by Pliny (Pliny,
N.H. 35.49-52 ), who places his floruit very early, in 372-369; some
try to connect this with (1), arguing on circumstantial grounds that it was perhaps
made for Megalopolis, founded after the Spartan defeat at Leuktra in 371. A remark
in a letter purportedly sent by Plato to Dionysios II of Syracuse in 365/4 also
stresses his youth, in connection with (21):
Plato,
Epistle 13, 361A: About the things you wrote asking me to send you,
I bought the Apollo and Leptines is bringing it; it is by a fine young artist
named Leochares. There was another work there by him that I thought very elegant,
so I bought it to give to your wife.
Yet philosophers dispute this letter's authenticity, and indeed the transaction
is hardly conceivable before the Hellenistic period. More securely, (10) must
predate Timotheos' exile in 356/5, while (20) belongs around 368-350. The mention
of Asklepios' priest Teisias puts (13) in 338/7, overlapping (7), begun just after
the battle of Chaironeia in 338 and still unfinished at Philip's murder in 336
(Pausanias
1.3.4 ); (11) can hardly pre-date ca. 330, for Pandaites was born ca.
351 (cf. J.K. Davies 1971 no. 643); and finally, though the hunt commemorated
by (8) occurred either in 333 or when Alexander was campaigning in central Asia
in 331-327, its inscription (Fouilles
de Delphes 3.4.2 no. 137) records that Krateros died before its dedication.
Since he was killed in 320, and Plutarch, Alexander 40 records that Lysippos made
some of the figures, it is arguable that Leochares also died at around this time,
and Lysippos was hired to complete the work.
When one scans his oeuvre, Leochares emerges as something of a complementary figure
to Praxiteles, albeit at a rather lesser level of achievement. For while selecting
the same genres (divinities and portraits) as Praxiteles, he now concentrated
upon male gods, specialized in bronze, and worked mainly in Attica. There are
hints of a distinctive political strategy too, for while from ca. 340 Praxiteles'
sons were busy sustaining Athens' navy and working for the patriot Lykourgos and
his circle (Pliny
N.H. 36.24; Herondas,
Mimiambos 4; Tatian,
Contra Graecos 33) he cultivated the Macedonians and their partisans
(7, 8, perhaps 13) -- sympathies perhaps prefigured in the commission for the
panhellenist and eventually pro-Macedonian Isokrates (12).
If only his sculpture had survived in like measure to the testimonia.
Nothing significant was found in situ on the West side of the Mausoleum (Waywell
1978, 11-12), and repeated attempts at speculative attribution have never gained
universal support, even though Pliny's account seems unusually full (caution:
no. 22 and Dionysios
of Halikarnassos, Demosthenes 50):
Pliny
N.H. 34.79: Leochares made an eagle which is aware of just what it
is abducting in Ganymede and for whom it is carrying him, and therefore refrains
from injuring the boy with its claws, even through his clothing; [he also made]
the pancratiast victor Autolycus, in whose honor Xenophon wrote his Symposium
, a Jove the Thunderer now on the Capitol, praised above all others, a diademed
Apollo, Lyciscus, Lango, a boy with the crafty cringing look of a household slave.
The description of the Ganymede (6), probably based on a Hellenistic epigram (cf. Anth. Pal. 12.221: Hadrianic) has led many to see this in a heavily restored Vatican statuette, The Zeus (1) is pictured on Roman coins (most recently, Zanker 1988, 108, fig. 89a), and has been recognized in a series of fine Roman bronze statuettes (most recently, Kozloff-Mitten 1988, no. 30, correcting the attribution to Lysippos favored in Stewart 1990, 190-91, fig. 568). Unfortunately the Autolykos (often gratuitously given to Lykios son of Myron: but see Gallet de Santerre 1983, 257) and the diademed Apollo (cf. Paus. 1.8.4) seem lost forever.
Of the others, (4) -- cf. Pausanias
1.3.4 -- is regularly identified with the Belvedere Apollo (Vatican
1015; Stewart 1990, fig. 573). Two points are at issue here: the status of the
Belvedere copy, and the attribution itself. As to the first, a statuette in Arezzo
certifies the motif (Bocci Pacini, P., and Nocentini Sbolci, S., Museo Nazionale
di Arezzo. Catalogo di Sculture Romane [Rome 1983]: no. 17: contra, Deubner 1979,
225 n. 6), while plaster fragments from Baiae (Landwehr 1985, 104-111 nos. 64-76)
establish its classical pedigree. Concerning the attribution, Hedrick 1984 conclusively
identifies Leochares' statue (Pausanias
1.3.4 ) as an Apollo Pythios, which helps to support the traditional
view, since the Baiae casts prove that the type was indeed prepubescent, and the
epithet derives from his boyhood battle against the Pythoness at Delphi, when
"the lord Apollo, the far-shooter / shot a strong arrow at her / and she lay there,
torn with terrible pain" (Homeric Hymn to Pythian Apollo 356-59). Though the Versailles
Artemis type is often attributed to the same hand, Pfrommer 1984 has shown that
her sandals are late Hellenistic, and argues strongly for a date ca. 100.
As to the portraits, (7) is described by Pausanias:
Paus.
5.20.9:: [The Philippeion at Olympia] was built by Philip after the
fall of Greece at Chaironeia [338]. Here are displayed statues of Philip and Alexander,
and with them is Philip's father Amyntas. These works too are by Leochares, and
are of ivory and gold, like the portraits of Olympias and Eurydike.
Cf. Pausanias
5.17.3-4; though hard evidence is lacking, the so-called 'Alkibiades'/Philip
and Akropolis-Erbach Alexander (Athens, Acropolis 1331; Stewart 1990, fig. 560;
Stewart 1993, figs. 4-5) are often considered replicas of this group, though opinion
is divided upon whether the Akropolis head is fourth century (but recut), late
Hellenistic, or even Roman. I incline to a fourth-century date. (8) is apparently
reflected in a relief from Elis, now in Paris, while the Isokrates preserved in
a single poor copy in the Villa Albani could equally reproduce (10) or the statue
set up after his death in 338 (Paus. 1.18.8; Plut. Mor. 839B; cf. Richter 1965,
208-10). Finally, of the numerous attempts to resurrect Leochares from the debris
of the Mausoleum (20), perhaps the most attractive is still Ashmole's (Ashmole
1951a), who establishes a relatively tight association between B.M. slabs London
1013, London 1014, London 1015, London 1037 (now stripped of its lower part: Cook
1976, 53-4), the Akropolis Alexander (Athens, Acropolis 1331), and the Demeter
of Knidos, London 1300 (Stewart 1990, figs. 529-31, 560, 572). None of these seems
incompatible with the Belvedere Apollo, discussed above.
If all this is not fantasy, then it reveals a sculptor who is compositionally daring yet in other respects costively conservative: an unorthodox but strangely appealing address that first surprises then reassures the spectator. Whether attributable to Leochares or not, the combination can hardly have failed to be a winner.
This extract is from: Andrew Stewart, One Hundred Greek Sculptors: Their Careers and Extant Works. Cited July 2005 from Perseus Project URL below, which contains extracts from the ancient literature, bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
Phidias, (Pheidias). The greatest sculptor and statuary of Greece.
Of his personal history we possess but few details. He was a native of Athens,
was the son of Charmides, and was born about the time of the battle of Marathon,
B.C. 490. He began to work as a statuary about 464, and one of his first great
works was the statue of Athene Promachos, which may be assigned to about 460.
This work must have established his reputation; but it was surpassed by the splendid
productions of his own hand, and of others working under his direction, during
the administration of Pericles. That statesman not only chose Phidias to execute
the principal statues which were to be set up, but gave him the oversight of all
the works of art which were to be erected.
Of these works the chief were the Propylaea of the Acropolis,
and, above all, the temple of Athene on the Acropolis, called the Parthenon, on
which, as the central point of the Athenian polity and religion, the highest efforts
of the best of artists were employed. There can be no doubt that the sculptured
ornaments of this temple, the remains of which form one of the glories of the
British Museum, were executed under the immediate superintendence of Phidias;
but the colossal statue of the divinity made of ivory and gold, which was enclosed
within that magnificent shrine, was the work of the artist's own hand. The statue
was dedicated in 438. Having finished his great work at Athens, he went to Elis
and Olympia, which he was now invited to adorn. He was there engaged for about
four or five years from 437 to 434 or 433, during which time he finished his statue
of the Olympian Zeus, the greatest of all his works.
On his return to Athens he fell a victim to the jealousy against
his great patron, Pericles, which was then at its height. The party opposed to
Pericles, thinking him too powerful to be overthrown by a direct attack, aimed
at him in the persons of his most cherished friends--Phidias, Anaxagoras, and
Aspasia. Phidias was first accused of peculation; but this charge was at once
refuted, as, by the advice of Pericles, the gold had been affixed to the statue
of Athene in such a manner that it could be removed and the weight of it examined.
The accusers then charged Phidias with impiety, in having introduced into the
battle of the Amazons, on the shield of the goddess, his own likeness and that
of Pericles. On this latter charge Phidias was thrown into prison, where he died
from disease, in 432.
Of the numerous works executed by Phidias for the Athenians
the most celebrated was the statue of Athene in the Parthenon, to which reference
has already been made. This statue was of that kind of work which the Greeks called
"chryselephantine"-- that is, the statue was formed of plates of ivory
laid upon a core of wood or stone for the flesh parts, while the drapery and other
ornaments were of solid gold. The statue stood in the foremost and larger chamber
of the temple (prodromos). It represented the goddess standing, clothed with a
tunic reaching to the ankles, with her spear in her left hand and an image of
Victory four cubits high in her right: she was girded with the aegis, and had
a helmet on her head, and her shield rested on the ground by her side. The height
of the statue was twenty-six cubits, or nearly forty feet, including the base.
The eyes were of a kind of marble, nearly resembling ivory, perhaps painted to
imitate the iris and pupil; there is no sufficient authority for the statement,
which is frequently made, that they were of precious stones. The weight of the
gold upon the statue, which, as above stated, was removable at pleasure, is said
by Thucydides to have been forty talents, or about $470,000.
Still more celebrated than his statue of Athene was the colossal
ivory and gold statue of Zeus, which Phidias made for the great temple of this
god, in the Altis or sacred grove at Olympia. This statue was regarded as the
masterpiece not only of Phidias, but of the whole range of Grecian art, and was
looked upon not so much as a statue, but rather as if it were the actual manifestation
of the present deity. It was placed in the prodromos, or front chamber, of the
temple directly facing the entrance. It was only visible, however, on great festivals;
at other times it was concealed by a magnificent curtain. The god was represented
as seated on a throne of cedarwood, adorned with gold, ivory, ebony, stones, and
colours, crowned with a wreath of olive, holding in his right hand an ivory and
gold statue of Victory, and in his left hand supporting a sceptre, which was ornamented
with all sorts of metals, and surmounted by an eagle. The throne was brilliant
both with gold and stones and with ebony and ivory, and was ornamented with figures
both painted and sculptured. The statue almost reached to the roof, which was
about sixty feet in height. The idea which Phidias essayed to embody in this,
his greatest work, was that of the supreme deity of the Hellenic nation no longer
engaged in conflicts with the Titans and the Giants, but having laid aside his
thunderbolt, and enthroned as a conqueror, in perfect majesty and repose, ruling
with a nod the subject world. It is related that when Phidias was asked what model
he meant to follow in making his statue, he replied that of Homer. This passage
has been imitated by Milton, whose paraphrase gives no small aid to the comprehension
of the idea (Paradise Lost, iii. 135-137):
"Thus while God spake, ambrosial fragrance fill'd
All heaven, and in the blessed spirits elect
Sense of new joy ineffable diffused."
The statue was removed by the emperor Theodosius I. to Constantinople,
where it was destroyed by a fire in A.D. 475. In 1888 a red vase was exhumed at
Tanagra, bearing a signature which archaeologists believe to be that of Phidias.
The distinguishing character of the art of Phidias was ideal sublimity, especially
in the representation of divinities and of subjects connected with their worship.
While on the one hand he freed himself from the stiff and unnatural forms which,
by a sort of religious precedent, had fettered his predecessors of the archaic
or hieratic school, he never, on the other hand, descended to the exact imitation
of any human model, however beautiful; he never represented that distorted action,
or expressed that vehement passion, which lie beyond the limits of repose; nor
did he ever approach to that almost meretricious grace, by which some of his greatest
followers, if they did not corrupt the art themselves, gave the occasion for its
corruption in the hands of their less gifted and spiritual imitators.
This text is from: Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. Cited Nov 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Pheidias, or in Latin, Phidias. Of Athens, the son of Charmides, was the
greatest sculptor and statuary of Greece, and probably of the whole world.
I. His Life.
It is remarkable, in the case of many of the ancient artists, how great a contrast
exists between what we know of their fame, and even sometimes what we see of their
works, and what we can learn respecting the events of their lives. Thus, with
respect to Pheidias, we possess but few details of his personal history, and even
these are beset with doubts and difficulties. What is known with absolute certainty
may be summed up in a few words. He executed most of his greatest works at Athens,
during the administration of Pericles : he made for the Eleians the ivory and
gold statue of Zeus, the most renowned work of Greek statuary : he worked for
other Greek cities; and he died just before the commencement of the Peloponnesian
War, in B. C. 432. The importance of the subject demands, however, a careful examination
of the difficulties which surround it. The first of these difficulties relates
to the cardinal point of the time when the artist flourished, and the approximate
date of his birth.
First of all, the date of Pliny must be disposed of. It is well known
how little reliance can be placed on the dates under which Pliny groups the names
of several artists. Not only do such lists of names embrace naturally artists
whose ages differed by several years, but it is important to observe the principle
on which the dates are generally chosen by Pliny, namely, with reference to some
important epoch of Greek history. Thus the 84th Olympiad (B. C. 444--440), at
which he places Pheidias, is evidently chosen because the first year of that Olympiad
was the date at which Pericles began to have the sole administration of Athens.
The date of Pliny determines, therefore, nothing as to the age of Pheidias at
this time, nor as to the period over which his artistic life extended. Nevertheless,
it seems to us that this coincidence of the period, during which the artist executed
his greatest works, with the administration of Pericles, furnishes the best clue
to the solution of the difficulty. It forbids us to carry up the artist's birth
so high as to make him a very old man at this period of his life : not because
old age would necessarily have diminished his powers, though even on this point
those who quote the examples of Pindar, Sophocles, and other great writers, do
not, perhaps, make sufficient allowance for the difference between the physical
force required for the production of such a work as the Oedipus at Colonus and
the execution, or even the superintendence, of such works as the sculptures of
the Parthenon, and the colossal statues of Athena and Zeus: but the real force
of the argument is this; if Pheidias had been already highly distinguished as
an artist nearly half a century earlier, it is incredible, first, that the notices
of his earlier productions should be so scanty as they are, and next, that his
fame should be so thoroughly identified as it is with the works which he executed
at this period. Such an occasion as the restoration of the sacred monuments of
Athens would, we may be sure, produce the artist whose genius guided the whole
work, as we know that it did produce a new development of art itself; and it is
hardly conceivable that the master spirit of this new era was a man of nearly
seventy years old, whose early studies and works must have been of that stiff
archaic style, from which even Calamis, who (on this hypothesis) was much his
junior, had not entirely emancipated himself. This principle, we think, will be
found to furnish the best guide through the conflicting testimonies and opinions
respecting the age of Pheidias.
Several writers, the best exposition of whose views is given by Thiersch
(Ueber die Epochen der bildenden Kunst unter den Grieclxeu, p. 113, &c.), place
Pheidias almost at the beginning of the fifth century B. C., making him already
a young artist of some distinction at the time of the battle of Marathon, B. C.
490; and that on the following grounds. Pausanias tells us (i. 28.2) that the
colossal bronze statue of Athena Promachus, in the Acropolis of Athens, was made
by Pheidias, out of the tithe of the spoil taken from the Medes who disembarked
at Marathon; and he elsewhere mentions other statues which Pheidias made out of
the same spoils, namely, the group of statues which the Athenians dedicated at
Delphi (x. 10.1), and the acrolith of Athena, in her temple at Plataeae (ix. 4.1).
It may be observed in passing, with respect to the two latter works, that if they
had exhibited that striking difference of style, as compared with the great works
of Pheidias at Athens, which must have marked them had they been made some half
century earlier than these great works, Pausanias would either not have believed
them to be the works of Pheidias, or he would have made some observation upon
their archaic style, and have informed us how early Pheidias began to work. The
question, however, chiefly turns upon the first of the above works, the statue
of Athena Promachus, which is admitted on all hands to have been one of the most
important productions of the art of Pheidias. The argument of Thiersch is, that,
in the absence of any statement to the contrary, we must assume that the commission
was given to the artist immediately after the victory which the statue was intended
to commemorate. Now it is evident, at first sight, to what an extraordinary conclusion
this assumption drives us. Pheidias must already have been of some reputation
to be entrusted with such a work. We cannot suppose him to have been, at the least,
under twenty-five years of age. This would place his birth in B.C. 515. Therefore,
at the time when he finished his great statue of Athena in the Parthenon (B. C.
438), he must have been 77; and after reaching such an age he goes to Elis, and
undertakes the colossal statue of Zeus, upon completing which (B. C. 433, probably),
he had reached the 82nd year of his age ! Results like these are not to be explained
away by the ingenious arguments by which Thiersch maintains that there is nothing
incredible in supposing Pheidias. at the age of eighty, to have retained vigour
enough to be the sculptor of the Olympian Zeus, and even the lover of Pantarces
(on this point see below). The utmost that call be granted to such arguments is
the establishment of a bare possibility, which cannot avail for the decision of
so important a question, especially against the arguments on the other side, which
we now proceed to notice.
The question of the age of Pheidias is inseparably connected with
one still more important, the whole history of the artistic decoration of Athens
during the middle of the fifth century B. C., and the consequent creation of the
Athenian school of perfect sculpture; and both matters are intimately associated
with the political history of the period. We feel it necessary, therefore, to
discuss the subject somewhat fully, especially as all the recent English writers
with whose works we are acquainted have been content to assume the conclusions
of Miller, Sillig, and others, without explaining the grounds on which they rest;
while even the reasons urged by those authorities themselves seem to admit of
some correction as well as confirmation
The chief point at issue is this : Did the great Athenian school of
sculpture, of which Pheidias was the head, take its rise at the commencement of
the Persian wars, or after the settlement of Greece subsequent to those wars?
To those who understand the influence of war upon the arts of peace, or who are
intimately acquainted with that period of Grecian history, the mode of stating
the question almost suggests its solution. But it is necessary to descend to details.
We must first glance at the political history of the period, to see what opportunities
were furnished for the cultivation of art, and then compare the probabilities
thus suggested with the known history of the art of statuary and sculpture.
In the period immediately following the battle of Marathon, in B.
C. 490, we may be sure that the attention of the Athenians was divided between
the effects of the recent struggle and the preparation for its repetition; and
there could have been but little leisure and but small resources for the cultivation
of art. Though the argument of Miuller, that the spoils of Marathon must have
been but small, is pretty successfully answered by Thiersch, the probability that
the tithe of those spoils, which was dedicated to the gods, awaited its proper
destination till more settled times, is not so easily disposed of: indeed we learn
from Thucydides (ii. 13) that a portion of these spoils (skula Medika) were reckoned
among the treasures of Athens so late as the beginning of the Peloponnesian war.
During the occupation of Athens by the Persians, such a work as the colossal statue
of Athena Promachus would, of course, have been destroyed in the burning of the
Acropolis, had it been already set up; which it surely would have been, in the
space of ten years, if, as Thiersch supposes, it had been put in hand immediately
after the battle of Marathon. To assume, on the other hand, as Thiersch does,
that Pheidias, in the flight to Salamis, succeeded in carrying with him his unfinished
statue, with his moulds and implements, and so went on with his work, seems to
us a manifest absurdity. We are thus brought to the end of the Persian invasion,
when the Athenians found their city in ruins, but obtained, at least in part,
the means of restoring it in the spoils which were divided after the battle of
Plataeae (B. C. 479). Of that part of the spoil which fell to the share of Athens,
a tithe would naturally be set apart for sacred uses, and would be added to the
tithe of the spoils of Marathon. Nor is it by any means improbable that this united
sacred treasure may have been distinguished as the spoils of Marathon, in commemoration
of that one of the great victories over the Persians which had been achieved by
the Athenians alone. There is, indeed, a passage in Demosthenes (Parapresb. 272)
in which this is all but directly stated, for he says that the statue was made
out of the wealth given by the Greeks to the Athenians, and dedicated by the city
as an aristeion of the war against the barbarians. This can only refer to the
division of the spoil at the close of the second Persian War, while his statement
that the Athenians dedicated the state as an aristeion, clearly implies that the
Athenians were accustomed, through national pride, to speak of these spoils as
if they had been gained in that battle, the glory of which was peculiarly their
own, namely Marathon. This observation would apply also to the Plataeans' share
of the spoil; and it seems to furnish a satisfactory reason for our hearing so
much of the votive offerings dedicated by the Athenians out of the spoils of Marathon,
and so little of any similar application of the undoubtedly greater wealth which
fell to their share after the repulse of Xerxes. But in this case, as in the former,
we must of necessity suppose a considerable delay. The first objects which engrossed
the attention of the Athenians were the restoration of their dwellings and fortifications,
the firm establishment of their political power, and the transference to themselves
of the supremacy over the allied Greeks. In short, the administrations of Aristeides
and Themistocles, and the early part of Cimon's, were fully engaged with sterner
necessities than even the restoration of the sacred edifices and statues. At length
even the appearance of danger from Persia entirely ceased; the Spartans were fully
occupied at home; the Athenians had converted their nominal supremacy into the
real empire of the Aegean; and the common treasury was transferred from Delos
to Athens (B. C. 465); at home Cimon was in the height of his power and popularity,
and Pericles was just coming forward into public life; while the most essential
defences of the city were already completed. The period had undoubtedly come for
the restoration of the sacred edifices and for the commencement of that brilliant
era of art, which is inseparably connected with the name of Pheidias, and which
found a still more complete opportunity for its development when, after the conclusion
of the wars which occupied so much of the attention of Cimon and of Pericles during
the following twenty years, the thirty years' truce was concluded with the Lacedaemonians,
and the power of Pericles was finally established bv the ostracism of Thucydides
(B. C. 445, 444); while the treasury of Athens was continually augmented by the
contributions levied from the revolted allies. There is, indeed, no dispute as
to the fact that the period from B. C. 444 to the breaking out of the Peloponnesian
War, B. C. 431. was that during which the most important works of art were executed,
under the administration of Pericles and under the superintendence of Pheidias.
The question really in dispute regards only the commencenlent of the
period.
An important event of Cimon's administration affords a strong confirmation to
the general conclusion suggested by the above view of thie history of the period
: we refer to the transference of the bones of Theseus to Athens, in the year
B. C. 468, an event which must be taken as marking the date of the commencement
of the temple of Theseus, one of the great works of art of the period under discussion.
In this case there was a special reason for the period chosen to undertake the
work ; though the commencement of the general restoration of the sacred monuments
would probably be postponed till the completion of the defences of the city, which
may be fixed at B. c. 457-456, when 4he long walls were completed. Hence, assuming
(what must he granted to Thiersch) that Pheidias ought to be placed as early as
the circumstances of the case permit. it would seem probable that he flourished
from about the end of the 79th Olympiad to the end of the 86th, B. C.. 460-432.
This supposition agrees exactly with all that we know of the history
of art at that period. It is quite clear that the transition from the archaic
style of the earlier artists to the ideal style of Pheidias did not take place
earlier than the close of the first quarter of the fifth century B. C. There are
chronological difficulties in this part of the argument, but there is enough of
what is certain. Perhaps the most important testimony is that of Cicero (Brut.
18), who speaks of the statues of Canachus as "rigidiora quam ut imitentur veritatem,"
and those of Calamis as "dura quidern, sed tamen oolliora quam Canachi," in contrast
with the almost perfect works of Myron, and the perfect ones of Polycleitus. Quintilian
(xii. 10) repeats the criticism with a slight variation, "Duriora et Ttsscanicis
proxima Callon atque Egesias, jam minus rigida Calanmis, molliora adhuc supra
dictis Myron fecit." Here we have the names of Canachus, Callon, and Hieesits,
representing the thoroughly archaic school, and of Calamis as still archaic, though
less decidedly so, and then there is at once a transition to Myron and Polvcleitus,
the younger contemporaries of Pheidias. If we inquire more particularly into the
dates of these artists, we find that Canachus anid Callon flourished probably
between B. C. 520 and 480. Hegesias, or Hegias, is made by Pausanias a contemporary
of Onatas, and of Ageladas (of whom we shall presently have to speak), and is
expressly mentioned by Lucian, in connection with two other artists, Critios and
Nesiotes, as tes palaias ergasias, while Pliny, in his loose way, makes him, and
Alcamenes, and Critics and Nesiotes, all rivals of Pheidias in Ol. 84, B. C. 444
[Hegesias].
Of the artists, whose names are thus added to those first mentioned, we know that
Critios and Nesiotes executed works about B. C. 477; and Onatas, who was contemporary
with Polygnotus, was reckoned as a Daedaliani artist, and clearly belonged to
the archaic school, wrought, with Calamis, in B. C. 467, and probably flourished
as late as late as B. C. 460. Calamis, though contemporary with Onatas, seems
to have been younger, and his name (as the above citations show) marks the introduction
of a less rigid style of art [Calamis].
Thus we have a series of artists of the archaic school, extending quite down to
the middle of the fifth century, B. C.; and therefore the conclusion seems unavoidable
that the establishment of the new school, of which Pheidias was the head, cannot
be referred to a period much earlier.
But a more positive argument for our artist's date is supplied by
this list of names. Besides Ageladas, whom most of the authorities mention as
the teacher of Pheidias, Dio Chrysostom (Or. lv.) gives another name, which is
printed in the editions Hippiou, but appears in the MSS. as IPPOG, out of which
EGIOG may be made by a very slight alteration; and, if this conjecture be admitted,
we have, as a teacher of Pheidias, Hegias or Hegesias, who, as we have seen, was
contemlporary with Onatas. Without any conjecture, however, we know that Ageladas
of Argos, the principal master of Pheidias, was contemporary with Onatas, and
also that he was the teacher of Myron and Polycleitus. It is true that a new set
of difficulties here arises respecting the date of Ageladas himself; and these
difficulties have led Thiersch to adopt the conjecture that two artists of the
same name have been confounded together. This easy device experience shows to
be always suspicious; and in this case it seems peculiarly arbitrary, when the
statement is that Ageladas, one of the most famous statuaries of Greece, was the
teacher of three others of the most celebrated artists, Pheidias, Myron, and Polycleitus,
to separate this Ageladas into two persons, making one the teacher of Pheidias,
the other of Myron and Po!ycleitus. Certainly, if two artists of the name must
be imagined, it would be better to make Pheidias, with Myron and Polycleitus,
the disciple of the younyer.
The principal data for the time for Ageladas are these:
1. He executed one statue of the group of three Muses, of which Canachus and Aristocles
made the other two;
2. he made statues of Olympic victors, who conquered in the 65th and 66th Olympiads,
B. C. 520, 516, and of another whose victory was about the same period;
3. he was contemporary with Hegias and Onatas, who flourished about B. C. 467;
4. he made a statue of Zeus for the Messenians of Naupactus, which must have been
after B. C. 455;
5. He was the teacher of Pheidias, Myron, and Polycleitus, who flourished in the
middle of the fifth century, B. C.;
6. he made a statue of Heracles Alexicacos, at Melite, which was supposed to have
been set up during the great plague of B. C. 430-429; and
7. he is placed by Pliny, with Polycleitus, Phradmon, and Myron, at 432.
Now of these data, the 3rd, 4th, and 5th can alone be relied on, and
they are not irreconcileable with the Ist, for Ageladas may, as a young man, have
worked with Canachus and Aristocles, and yet have flourished down to the middle
of the fifth century : the 2nd is entirely inconclusive, for the statues of Olympic
victors were often made long after their victories were gained; the 6th has been
noticed already; and the 7th may be disposed of as another example of the loose
way in which Pliny groups artists together. The conclusion will then be that Ageladas
flourished during the first half and down to the middle of the fifth century B.
C. The limits of this article do not allow us to pursue this important part of
the subject further. For a fuller discussion of it the reader is referred to Muller,
de Phidiae Vita. Miller maintains the probability of Ageladas having visited Athens,
both from his having been the teacher of Pheidias and Myron, and from the possession
by the Attic pagus of Melite of his statue of Heracles (Schol. ad Aristoph. Ran.
504). He suggests also, that the time of this visit may have taken place after
the alliance between Athens and Argos, about B. C. 461; but this is purely conjectural.
The above arguments respecting the date of Pheidias might be confirmed
by the particular facts that are recorded of him; but these facts will be best
stated in their proper places in the account of his life. As the general result
of the inquiry, it is clearly impossible to fix the precise date of the birth
of the artist; but the evidence preponderates, we think, in favour of the supposition
that Pheidias began to work as a statuary about Ol. 79, B. C. 464; and, supposing
him to have been about twenty-five years old at this period, his birth would fall
about 489 or 490, that is to say, about the time of the battle of Marathon. We
now return to what is known of his life.
It is not improbable that Pheidias belonged to a family of artists;
for his brother or nephew Panaenus was a celebrated painter; and he himself is
related to have occupied himself with painting, before he turned his attention
to statuary. (Plm. H. N. xxxv. 8. s. 34.) He was at first instructed in statuary
by native artists (of whom Hegias alone is mentioned, or supposed to be mentioned,
under the altered form of his name, Hippias, see above), and afterwards by Ageladas.
The occaision for the development of his talents was furnished (as has been already
argued at length) by the works undertaken, chiefly at Athens, after the Persian
wars. Of these works, the group of statues dedicated at Delphi out of the tithe
of the spoils would no doubt be among the first; and it has therefore been assumed
that this was the first great work of Pheidias : it will be described presently.
The statue of Athena Promachus would probably also, for the sane reason of discharging
a religious duty, be among the first works undertaken for the ornament of the
city, and we shall probably not be far wrong in assigning the execution of it
to about the year B. C. 460. This work, from all we know of it, must have established
his reputation; but it was surpassed by the splendid productions of his own hand,
and of others working under his direction, during the administration of Pericles.
That statesman not only chose Pheidias to execute the principal statues which
were to be set up, but gave him the oversight of all the works of art which were
to be erected. Plutarch, from whom we learn this fact, enumerates the following
classes of artists and artificers, who all worked under the direction of Pheidias
: tektones, malakteres kai elephantos, zographoi, poikiltai, toreutai. (Plut.
Peric. 12.) Of these works the chief were the Propylaea of the Acropolis, and,
above all, that most perfect work of human art, the rememthe temple of Athena
on the Acropolis, called the Parthenon or the Hecatompedon, on which, as the central
point of the Athenian polity and religion, the highest efforts of the best of
artists were employed. There can be no doubt that the sculptured ornaments of
this temple, the remains of which form the glory of our national museum, were
executed under the immediate superintendence of Pheidias; but the colossal statue
of the divinity, which was enclosed within that magnificent shrine, was the work
of the artist's own hand, and was for ages esteemed the greatest production of
Greek statuary, with the exception of the similar, but even more splendid statue
of Zeus, which Pheidias afterwards executed in his temple at Olympia. The materials
chosen for this statue were ivory and gold; that is to say, the statue was formed
of plates of ivory laid upon a core of wood or stone, for the flesh parts, and
the drapery and other ornaments were of solid gold. It is said that the choice
of these materials resulted from the determination of the Athenians to lavish
the resources of wealth, as well as of art, on the chief statue of their tutelary
deity ; for when Pheidias laid before the ecclesia his design for the statue,
and proposed to make it either of ivory and gold, or of white marble, intimating
however his own preference for the latter, the were the most costly should be
employed. (Val. Max. i. 1.7.) The statue was dedicated in the 3d year of the 85th
Olympiad, B. C. 438, in the be described presently, with the other works of Pheidias;
but there are certain stories respecting it, which require notice here, as bearing
upon the life and death of the artist, and as connected with the date of his other
great work, the colossal statue of Zeus at Olympia.
The scholiast on Aristophanes (Pax, 605) has preserved the following
story from the Atthis of Philochorus, who flourished about B. C. 300, and whose
authority is considerable, inasmuch as he was a priest and soothsayer, and was
therefore well acquainted with the legends and history of his country, especially
those bearing upon religious matters. "Under the year of the archonship of Pythodorus
(or, according to the correction of Palmerius, Theodorus), Philochorus says that
`the golden statue of Athena was set up in the great temple, having forty-four
talents' weight of gold, under the superintendence of Pericles, and the workmanship
of Pheidias. And Pheidias, appearing to have misappropriated the ivory for the
scales (of the dragons) was condemned. And, having gone as an exile to Elis, he
is said to have made the statue of Zeus at Olympia; but having finished this,
he was put to death by the Eleians in the archonship of Scythodorus (or, according
to the correction of Palmerius, Pythodorus), who is the then, further down, "Pheidias,
as Philochorus says in the archonship of Pythodorus (or Theodorus, as above),
having made the statue of Athena, pilfered the gold from the dragons of the chryselepliantine
Athena, for which he was found guilty and sentenced to banishment; but having
come to Elis, and having made among the Eleians the statue of the Olympian Zeus,
and having been found guilty by them of peculation, he was put to death." It must
be remembered that this is the statement of Philochorus, as quoted by two different
scholiasts; but still the general ageement shows that the passage is tolerably
genuine. Of the corrections of Palmerius, one is obviously right, namely the name
of Pythodorus for Scythodorus; for the latter archon is not mentioned elsewhere.
Pythodorus was archon in Ol. 87. 1, B. C. 432, and seven years before him was
the archonship of Theodorus, Ol. 85. 3, B. C. 438. In the latter year, therefore,
the statue was dedicated; and this date is confirmed by Diodorus (xii. 31), and
by Eusebius, who places the making of the statue in the 2d year of the 85th Olympiad.
3 This is, therefore, the surest chronological fact in the whole life of Pheidias.
The other parts, however, of the account of Philochorus, are involved
in much difficulty. On the very face of the statement, the story of Pheidias having
been first banished by the Athenians, and afterwards put to death by the Eleians,
on a charge precisely similar in both cases, may be almost certainly pronounced
a confused repetition of the same event. Next, the idea that Pheidias went to
Elis as an exile, is perfectly inadmissible. This will be clearly seen, if we
examine what is known of the visit of Pheidias to the Eleians.
There can be little doubt that the account of Phipeople is true so
far as this, that the statue at Olympia was made by Pheidias after his great works
at Athens. Heyne, indeed, maintains the contrary, but the fallacy of his arguments
will prearchonship appear. It is not at all probable that the Athenians, in their
eagerness to honour their goddess by the originality as well as by the magnificence
of her statue, should have been content with an imitation of a work so unsurpassable
as the statue of Zeus at Olympia; but it is probable that the Eleians, as the
keepers of the sanctuary of the supreme divinity, should have desired to eclipse
the statue of Athena: and the fact, that of these two statues the preference was
always given to that of Zeus, is no small proof that it was the last executed.
Very probably, too, in this fact we may find one of the chief causes of the resentment
of the Athenians against Pheidias, a resentment which is not likely to have been
felt, much less manifested, at the moment when he had finished the works which
placed Athens at the very summit of all that was beautiful and magnificent in
Grecian art. It is necessary to bear in mind these arguments from the probabilities
of the case, on account of the meagreness of the positive facts that are recorded.
There is, however, one fact, which seems to fix, with tolerable certainty, the
time when Pheidias was engaged on the statue at Olympia. Pausanias informs us
(v. 11. 2) that, on one of the flat pieces which extended between the legs of
the throne of the statue, among other figures representing the athletic contests,
was one of a youth binding his head with a fillet (the symbol of victory), who
was said to resemble Pantarces, an Eleian boy, who was beloved by Pheidias; and
that Paltarces was victor in the boys' wrestling, in B. C. 436. If there he any
truth in this account, it follows, first, that the statue could not have been
completed before this date, and also that, in all probability; Pheidias was engaged
upon it at the very time of the victory of Pantarces. That the relief was not
added at a later period, is certain, for there is not the least reason for supposing
that any one worked upon the statue after Pheidias, nor would any subsequent artist
have the motive which Pheidias had to represent Pantarces at all. A more plausible
objection is founded on the uncertainty of the tradition, which Pausanias only
records in the vague terms eoikenai to eidos legousi. But it must be remembered
that the story was derived from a class of persons who were not only specially
appointed to the charge of the statue, but were the very descendants of Pheidias,
and who had, therefore, every motive to preserve every tradition respecting him.
The very utmost that can be granted is, that the resemblance may have been a fancy,
but that the tradition of the love of Pheidias for Pantarces was true; and this
would be sufficient to fix, pretty nearly, the time of the residence of the artist
among the Eleians. If we are to believe Clemens of Alexandria, and other late
writers, Pheidias also inscribed the name of Pantarces on the finger of the statue
(Cohort. p. 16; Arnob. adv. Gent. vi. 13).
Besides urging the objections just referred to against the story of
Pantarces, Heyne endeavours to establish an earlier date for the statue from that
of the temple; which was built out of the spoils taken in the war between the
Eleians and Pisacans. The date of this war was B. C. 580; but it is impossible
to argue from the time when spoils were gained to the time when they were applied
to their sacred uses: and the argument, if pressed at all, would obviously prove
too much, and throw back the completion of the temple long before the time of
Pheidias. On the whole, therefore, we may conclude that Pheidias was at work among
the Eleians about B. C. 436, or two years later than the dedication of his Athena
of the Parthenon.
Now, was he there at the invitation of the Eleians, who desired that
their sanctuary of the supreme deity, the centre of the religious and social union
of Greece, should be adorned by a work of art, surpassing, if possible, the statue
which had just spread the fame of Athens and of Pheidias over Greece; or was he
there as a dishonoured exile, banished for peculation? All that is told us of
his visit combines to show that he went attended by his principal disciples, transferring
in fact his school of art for a time from Athens, where his chief work was ended,
to Elis and Olympia, which he was now invited to adorn. Among the artists who
accompanied him were Colotes,
who worked with him upon the statue of Zeus, as already upon that of Athena, and
who executed other important works for the Eleians; Panaemus, his relative, who
executed the chief pictorial embellishments of the statue and temple; Alcamenes,
his most distinguished disciple, who made the statues in the hinder pediment of
the temple; not to mention Paeonius of Mende, and Cleoetas, whose connection with
Pheidias, though not certain, is extremely probable. It is worthy of notice that,
nearly at the time when the artists of the school of Pheidias were thus employed
in a body at Olympia, those of the Athenian archaic school -such as Praxias, the
disciple of Calamis, and Androsthenes, the disciple of Eucadmus, were similarly
engaged on the temple at Delphi . The honour in which Pheidias lived among the
Eleians is also shown by their assigning to him a studio in the neighbourhood
of the Altis (Paus. v. 15.1), and by their permitting him to inscribe his name
upon the footstool of the god, an honour which had been denied to him at Athens
(Paus. v. 10. 2; Cic. Tusc. Quaest. i. 15). The inscription was as follows :
Pheidias Charmidou huius Athenaios m' epoesen.
Without raising a question whether he would thus solemnly have inscribed his name
as an Athenian if he had been an exile, we may point to clearer proofs of his
good feeling towards his native city in some of the figures with which he adorned
his great work, such as that of Theseus (Paus. v. 10.2), and of Salamiis holding
the aplustre, in a group with personified Greece, probably crowning her (Paus.
v. 11.2). These subjects are also important ill another light. They seem to show
that the work was executed at a time when the Eleians were on a good understanding
with Athens, that is, before the breaking out of the Peloponnesian War. From the
above considerations, making allowance also for the tilln which so great a work
would necessarily occupy, it may be inferred, with great probability, that Plieidias
was engaged on the statue of Zeus and his other works among the Eleians, for about
the four or five years from B. C. 437 to 434 or 433. It would seem that he then
returned to Athens, and there fell a victim to the jealousy against his great
patron, Pericles, which was then at its height. That he was the object of some
fierce attack by the party opposed to Pericles, the general consent of the chief
ancient authorities forbids us to doubt; and a careful attention to the internal
politics of Athens will, perhaps, guide us through the conflicting statements
which we have to deal with, to a tolerably safe conclusion.
The most important testimony on the subject, and one which is in fact
enough to settle the question, is that of Aristophanes (Pax, 605), where, speaking
of the commencement of the war, says:
Prota men gar erxeW etes Pheidias praxas kakos:
eita Periklees Phobetheis me metaschoi tes tuches,
tas phuseis humon dedoikos kai ton autodax tropon,
prin pathein ti deinon, autos exephlexe ten polin,
embalon spinthera mikron megarikou psephismatos,
kaxephusesen tosouton polemon, k.t.l.
From this passage we learn, not only that Pheidias suffered some extreme calamity at the hands of the Athenians, but that the attack upon him was of such a nature as to make Pericles tremble for his own safety, and to hurry the city into war by the passing of the decree against Megara, which decree was made not later than the beginning of B. C. 432.
I t is clear that Pericles was at that period extremely unpopular with
a large party in Athens, who, thinking him too powerful to be overthrown by a
direct attack, aimed at him in the persons of his most cherished friends, Pheidias,
Alaxagoras, and Aspasia. This explanation is precisely that given by Plutarch
(Peric. 31), who furnishes us with particulars of the accusation against Pheidias.
At the instigation of the enemies of Pericles, a certain Menon, who had been employed
under Pheidias, laid an information against him for peculation, a charge which
was at once refuted, as, by the advice of Pericles, the gold had been affixed
to the statue in such a manner that it could he removed and the weight of it examined
(comp. Thuc. ii. 13). The accusers then charged Pheidias with impiety, in having
introduced into the battle of the Amazons, on the shield of the goddess, his own
likeness and that of Pericles, the former as a bald old man 8 , hurling a stone
with both his hands, and the latter as a very handsome warrior, fighting with
an Amazon, his face being partially concealed by the hand which held his uplifted
spear, so that the likeness was only visible on a side view. On this latter charge
Pheidias was thrown into prison, where he died from disease, or, as the less scrupulous
partizans of Pericles maintained, from poison. The people voted to his accuser
Menon, on the proposal of Glycon, exemption from taxes, and charged the generals
to watch over his safety. Plutarch then proceeds (c. 32) to narrate, as parts
of the same train of events, and as occurring about the same time, the attacks
upon Aspasia and Aniaxagoras, and concludes by distinctly affirming that the attack
on Pheidias inspired Pericles with a fear, which induced him to blow into a flame
the smouldering sparks of the coming war (Hos de dia Pheidiou proseptaise toi
demoi, Phobetheis to dikasterion, mellonta ton polemon kai hupotuphomenon exekausen,
elpizon diaskedasein ta enklemata, kai tapeiWosein ton Phthonon). To complete
the evidence, Philochorus, though he (or the scholiasts who quote him) has made
a confusion of the facts, may be relied on for the date, which he doubtless took
from official records, namely the archonship of Pythodorus, or B. C. 432. The
death of Pheidias happened about the time of the completion of the last of those
great works which he superintended, namely, the Propylaea, which had been commenced
about the time when he went to Elis, B. C. 437.
It will be useful to give a synopsis of the events of the life of
Pheidias, according to their actual or probable dates.
B. C. Ol.
490 72. 3 Battle of Marathon.
488 73. 1 Pheidias born about this time.
468 77. 4 Cimon commences the temple of Theseus.
464 79. 1 Pheidias studies under Ageladas, probably about this time, having previously been instructed by Hegias. Aet. 25.
460 80. 1 Pheidias begins to flourish about this time. Aet. 29.
457 80. 3 The general restoration of the temples destroyed by the Persians commenced about this time.
444 84. 1 Sole administration of Pericles.--Pheidias overseer of all the public works. Act. 44.
438 85. 3 The Parthenon, with the chryselephantine statue of Athena, finished and dedicated. Aet. 50.
437 85. 4 Pheidias goes to Elis.--The Propylaea commenced.
436 86. 1 Pantarces Olympic victor.
433 86. 4 The statue of Zeus at Olympia completed.
432 87. 1 Accusation and death of Pheidias.
The disciples of Pheidias were Agoracritus,
Alcamenes,
and Colotes
(see the articles)
II. His Works.
The subjects of the art of Pheidias were for the most part sacred, and the following
list will show how favourite a subject with him was the tutelary goddess of Athens.
In describing them, it is of great importance to observe, not only the connection
of their subjects, but, as far as possible, their chronological order. The classification
according to materials, which is adopted by Sillig, besides being arbitrary, is
rather a hindrance than a help to the historical study of the works of Pheidias.
1. The Athena at Pellene in Achaia, of ivory and gold, must be placed among his
earliest works, if we accept the tradition preserved by Pausanias, that Pheidias
made it before he made the statues of Athena in the Acropolis at Athens, and at
Plataeae. (Paus. vii. 27.1). If this be true. we have an important indication
of the early period at which he devoted his attention to chryselephtntine statuary.
This is one of several instances in which we know that Pheidias worked for other
states besides his native city and Elis, but unfortunately we have no safe grounds
to determine the dates of such visits.
2. It cannot be doubted that those statues which were made, or believed to have
been made, ou(t of the spoils of the Persian wars, were among his earliest works,
and perhaps the very first of his great works (at least as to the time when it
was undertaken, for it would necessarily take long to complete), was the group
of statues in bronze, which the Athenians dedicated at Delphi, as a votive offering,
out of the tithe of their share of the Persian spoils. The statues were thirteen
in number, namely, Athena, Apollo, Miltiades, Erechtheus, Cecrops, Paldion, Celeus,
Antiochus, Aegeus, Acamas, Codrus, Theseus, Phyleus. (Paus. x. 30.1.)
3. The colossal bronze statue of Athena Promachus, in the Acropolis, was also
said to have been made out of the spoils of Marathon; but it is important to remember
the sense in which this must probably be understood, as explained above. Bottiger
supposes that it was placed in the temple of Athena Polias; but there can be no
doubt that it stood in the open air, between the Propylaea and the Parthenon,
as it is represented on the coin mentioned below. It was between fifty and sixty
feet high. with the pedestal; and the point of the spear and the crest of the
helmet were visible as far off as Sunium to ships approaching Athens (Strab. vi.;
Paus. i. 28.2; comp. Herod. v. 77). It was still standing as late as A. D. 395,
when it was seen by Alaric (Zosiius, v. 6). It represented the goddess holding
up both her spear and shield, in the attitude of a combatant (Ibid). The entire
completion of the ornamental work upon this statue was long delayed, if we are
to believe the statement, that the shield was engraved by Mys, after the design
of Parrhasius (See Parrhasius:
the matter is very doubtful, but, considering the vast number of great works of
art on which Pheidias and his fellow-artists were engaged, the delay in the completion
of the statue is not altogether improbable). This statue is exhibited in a rude
representation of the Acropolis, on an old Athenian coin which is engraved in
Muller's Denkmaler, vol. i. pl. xx. fig. 104.
4. Those fiithful allies of the Athenians, the Plataeans, in dedicating the tithe
of their share of the Persian spoils, availed themselves of the skill of Pheidias,
who made for them a statue of Athena Areia, of a size not much less than the statue
in the Acropolis. The colossus at Plataeae was an acrolith, the body being of
wood gilt, and the face, hands, and feet, of Pentelic marble (Paus. ix. 4.1).
The language of Pausanias, here and elsewhere, and the nature of the case, make
it nearly certain that this statue was made about the same time as that in the
Acropolis.
5. Besides the Athena Promachus, the Acropolis contained a bronze statue of Athena,
of such surpassing beauty, that it was esteemed by many not only as the finest
work of Pheidias, but as the standard ideal representation of the goddess (See
Paus. i. 28.2; Plin. H. N. xxxiv. 8. s. 19.1; and especially Lucian, Imag. 4,
6. vol. ii. pp. 462, 464, who remarks upon the outline of the face, the softness
of the cheeks, and the symmetry of the nose). It is possible that this was Pheidias's
own model of the Athena of the Parthenon, executed in a more manageable material,
and on a scale which permitted it to be better seen at one view, and therefore
more beautiful. The statue was called Lemnia, from having been dedicated by the
people of Lemnos.
6. Another statue of Athena is mentioned by Pliny (l. c.) as having been dedicated
at Rome, near the temple of Fortune, by Paulus Aellilius, but whether this also
stood originally in the Acropolis is unknown.
7. Still more uncertainty attaches to the statue which Pliny calls Cliduchus (the
key-bearer), and which he mentions in such a way as to imply, probably but not
certainly, that it also was a statue of Athena. The key in the hand of this statue
was probably the symbol of initiation into the mysteries.
8. We now come to the greatest of Pheidias's works at Athens, the ivory and gold
statue of Atlena in the Parthenon, and the other sculptures which adorned that
temple. It is true, indeed, that none of the ancient writers ascribe expressly
to Pheidias the execution of any of these sculptures, except the statue of the
goddess herself ; but neither do they mention any other artists as having executed
them : so that from their silence, combined with the statement of Plutarch, that
all the great works of art of the time of Pericles were entrusted to the care
of Pheidias, and, above all, from the marks which the sculptures themselves bear
of having been designed by one mind, and that a master mind, it may be inferred
with certainty, that all the sculptures of the Parthenon are to be ascribed to
Pheidias, as their designer and superintendent, though the actual execution of
them must of necessity have been entrusted to artists working under his direction.
These sculptures consisted of the colossal statue of the goddess herself; and
the ornaments of the sanctuary in which she was enshrined, namely, the sculptures
in the two pediments, the high-reliefs in the metopes of the frieze, and the continuous
bash-reliefs which surrounded the cella, forming a sort of frieze beneath the
ceiling of the peristyle.
The great statue of the goddess was of that kind of work which the
Greeks called chryselephantine, and which Pheidias is said to have invented. Up
to his time colossal statues, when not of bronze, were acroliths, that is, only
the face, hands, and feet, were of marble, the body being of wood, which was concealed
by real drapery. An example of such a statue by Pheidias himself has been mentioned
just above. Pheidias, then, substituted for marble the costlier and more beautiful
material, ivory, in those parts of the statue which were unclothed, and, instead
of real drapery, he made the robes and other ornaments of solid gold. The mechanical
process by which the plates of ivory were laid on to the wooden core of the statue
is described, together with the other details of the art of chryselephantine statuary,
in the elaborate work of Quatremere de Quincy, Le Jupiter Olympien, and more briefly
in an excellent chapter of the work entitled the Menageries, vol. ii. c. 13. In
the Athena of the Parthenon the object of Pheidias was to embody the ideal of
the virgin-goddess, armed, but victorious, as in his Athena Promachus he had represented
the warrior-goddess, in the very attitude of battle. The statue stood in the foremost
and larger chamber of the temple (prodonmus). It represented the goddess standing,
clothed with a tunic reaching to the ankles, with her spear in her left hand and
an image of Victory four cubits high in her right : she was girded with the aegis,
and had a helmet on her head, and her shield rested on the ground by her side.
The height of the statue was twenty-six cubits, or nearly forty feet, including
the base. From the manner in which Plato speaks of the statue, it seems clear
that the gold predominated over the ivory, the latter being used for the face,
hands, and feet, and the former for the drapery and ornaments. There is no doubt
that the robe was of gold, beaten out with the hammer (sphurelatos). Its thickness
was not above a line; and, as already stated, all the gold upon the statue was
so affixed to it as to be removable at pleasure (See Thuc. ii. 13, and the commentators).
The eyes, according to Plato, were of a kind of marble, nearly resembling ivory,
perhaps painted to imitate the iris and pupil; there is no sufficient authority
for the statement which is frequently made, that they were of precious stones.
It is doubtful whether the core of the statue was of wood or of stone. The various
portions of the statue were most elaborately ornamented. A sphinx formed the crest
of her helmet, and on either side of it were gryphons, all, no doubt, of gold.
The aegis was fringed with golden serpents, and in its centre was a golden head
of Medusa, which, however, was stolen by Philorgus (Isocr. adv. Callim. 22), and
was replaced with one of ivory, which Pausanias saw. The lower end of the spear
was supported by a dragon, supposed by Pausanias to represent Erichthonius, and
the juncture between the shaft and head was formed of a sphinx in bronze. Even
the edges of the sandals, which were four dactyli high, were seen, on close inspection,
to be engraved with the battle of the Lapithae and Centaurs. The shield was ornamented
on both sides with embossed work, representing, on the inner side, the battle
of the giants against the gods, and on the outer, the battle of the Amazons against
the Athenians. All these subjects were native Athenian legends. The base, which
of itself is said to have been the work of several months, represented, in relief,
the birth of Pandora, and her receiving gifts from the gods : it contained figures
of twenty divinities. The weight of the gold upon the statue, which, as above
stated, was removable at pleasure, is said by Thucydides to have been 40 talents
(ii. 13), by Philochorus 44, and by other writers 50: probably the statement of
Philochorus is exact, the others being round numbers. Great attention was paid
to the preservation of the statue: and it was frequently sprinkled with water,
to preserve it from being injured by the dryness of the atmosphere (Paus. v. 11.5).
The base was repaired by Aristocles the younger, about B. C. 397 (Bockh, Corp.
Inscr. vol. i. p. 237: Bockh suggests that, as Aristcles was the son of Cleoetas,
who appears to have been an assistant of Pheidias in his great works, this artist's
family may have been the guardians of the statue, as the descendants of Pheidias
himself were of the Zeus at Olympia). The statue was finally robbed of its gold
by Lachares, in the time of Demetrius Poliorcetes, about B. C. 296 (Paus i. 25,7).
Pausanias, however, speaks of the statue as if the gold were still upon it; possibly
the plundered gold may have been replaced by gilding. We possess numerous statues
of Athena, most of which are no doubt imitated from that in the Parthenon, and
from the two other statues in the Acropolis. Bottiger has endeavoured to distinguish
the existing copies of these three great works (Andeutungen, pp. 90--92). That
which is believed to be the nearest copy of the Athena of the Parthenon is a marble
statue in the collection of Mr. Hope, which is engraved in the Specimens of Ancient
Sculpture, vol. ii. pl. 9, and in Muller's Denkmaler, vol.ii. pl. xix. fig. 202.
A less perfect, but precisely similar copy, stood in the Villa Albani. Copies
also appear on the reverses of coins of the Antiochi, engraved in this work. These
copies agree in every respect, except in the position of the left hand, and of
the spear and shield. In Mr. Hope's statue the left hand is raised as high as
the head, and holds the spear as a sceptre, the shield being altogether wanting:
on the medals, the left hand rests upon the shield, which stands upon the ground,
leaning against the left leg of the statue, while the spear leans slightly backwards,
supported by the left arm. An attempt has been made at a restoration of the statue
by Quatremere de Quincy in his Jupiter Olympien, and a more successful one by
Mr. Lucas in his model of the Parthenon. The statue is described at length by
Pausanias (i. 24), by Maximus Tyrius (Dissert. xiv.), and by Pliny (H. N. xxxiv.
8. s. 19.1, xxxvi. 5. s. 4.4).
The other sculptures of the Parthenon belong less properly to our
subject, since it is impossible to say which of them were executed by the hand
of Pheidias, though it cannot be doubted that they were all made under his superintendence.
It is, moreover, almost superfluous to describe them at any length, inasmuch as
a large portion of them form, under the name of the "Elgin Marbles,"
the choicest treasure of our national Museum, where their study is now greatly
facilitated by the admirable model of the Parthenon by Mr. Lucas. There are also
ample descriptions of them, easily accessible; for example, the work entitled
The Elgin and Phigaleian Marbles. It is, therefore, sufficient to state briefly
the following particulars. The outside of the wall of the cella was surrounded
by a frieze, representing the Panathenaic procession in very low relief, a form
admirably adapted to a position where the light was imperfect, and chiefly reflected,
and where the angle of view was necessarily large. The metopes, or spaces between
the triglyphs of the frieze of the peristyle, were filled with sculptures in very
high relief, ninety-two in number, fourteen on each front, and thirty-two on each
side; the subjects were taken from the legendary history of Athens. Those on the
south side, of which we possess fifteen in the British Museum, represent the battle
between the Athenians and Centaurs at the marriage feast of Peirithous. Some of
them are strikingly archaic in their style; thus confirming our previous argument,
that the archaic style continued quite down to the time of Pheidias, who may be
supposed, on the evidence of these sculptures, to have employed some of the best
of the artists of that school, to assist himself and his disciples. Others of
the metopes display that pure and perfect art, which Pheidias himself introduced,
and which has never been surpassed. The architrave of the temple was adorned with
golden shields beneath the metopes, which were carried off, with the gold of the
statue of the goddess, by Lachares. (Paus. l. c.) Between the shields were inscriptions.
The tympana of the pediments of the temple were filled with most magnificent groups
of sculpture, that in the front, or eastern face, representing the birth of Athena,
and that in the western face the contest of Athena with Poseidon for the land
of Attica (Pans. i. 24.5). The mode in which the legend is represented, and the
identification of the figures, in each of these groups, has long been a very difficult
problem.
9. A bronze statue of Apollo Parnopius in the Acropolis (Paus. i. 24.8).
10. An Aphrodite Urania of Parian marble in her temple near the Cerameicus (Paus.
ibid..)
11. A statue of the Mother of the Gods, sitting on a throne supported by lions,
and holding a cymbal in her hand, in the Metroum, near the Cerameicus. The material
is not stated (Paus. i. 3.4; Arrian. Peripl. Pont. Eux.).
12. The golden throne of the bronze statue of Athena Hygieia, in the Acropolis,
is enumerated by Sillig as among the works of Pheidias; but we rather think that
the words tes theou refer to the great statue in the Parthenon, and not to the
apparent antecedent in the preceding sentence, which is, in fact, part of a digression.
Of the statues which Pheidias made for other Greek states, by far the first place
must be assigned to:
13. The colossal ivory and gold statue of Zeus in his great temple in the Altis or sacred grove at Olympia. The fullest description of the statue is that given by Pausanias (v. 11).
The statue was placed in the prodomus or front chamber of the temple,
directly facing the entrance, and with its back against the wall which separated
the prodomus from the opisthodomus, so that it at once showed itself in all its
grandeur to a spectator entering the temple. It was only visible, however, on
great festivals, at other times it was concealed by a magnificent curtain; the
one used in the time of Pausanias had been presented by king Antiochus (Paus.
v. 12.4). The god was represented as seated on a throne of cedar wood, adorned
with gold, ivory, ebony, stones, and colours, crowned with a wreath of olive,
holding in his right hand an ivory and gold statue of Victory, with a fillet in
her hand and a crown upon her head, and in his left hand supporting a sceptre,
which was ornamented with all sorts of metals, and surmounted by an eagle. The
robe, which covered the lower part of the figure, and the sandals of the god were
golden, the former, as we learn from Strabo, of beaten gold (sphurelatos), and
on the robe were represented (whether by painting or chasing Pausanias does not
say, but the former is by far the more probable) various animals and flowers,
especially lilies. The throne was brilliant both with gold and stones, and with
ebony and ivory, and was ornamented with figures both painted and sculptured.
There were four Victories in the attitude of dancing, against each leg of the
throne, and two others at the foot of each leg. Each of the front legs was surmounted
by a group representing a Theban youth seized by a Sphinx, and beneath each of
these groups (that is, on the face of the bar which joined the top of the front
legs to the back) Apollo and Artemis were represented shooting at the children
of Niobe. The legs of the throne were united by four straight bars (kanones) sculptured
with reliefs, the front one representing various athletic contests, and the other
two (for the back one was not visible) the battle between the Amazons and the
comrades of Hercules, among whom Theseus was represented. There were also pillars
between the legs as additional supports. The throne was surrounded by barriers
or walls (erumata tropon toichon pepoiemena), which prevented all access to it.
Of these the one in front was simply painted dark blue, the others were adorned
with pictures by Panaenus. The summit of the back of the throne, above the god's
head, was surmounted on the one side by the three Graces, on the other by the
three Hours, who were introduced here as being the daughters of Zeus, and the
keepers of heaven. The footstool of the god was supported by four golden lions,
and chased or painted with the battle of Theseus against the Amazons. The sides
of the base, which supported the throne and the whole statue, and which must not
be confounded with the walls already mentioned, were ornamented with sculptures
in gold, representing Helios mounting his chariot; Zeus and Hera; Charis by the
side of Zeus; next to her Hermes; then Hestia; then Eros receiving Aphrodite as
she rises from the sea, and Peitho crowning her. Here also were Apollo with Artemis,
and Athena and Heracles, and at the extremity of the base Amphitrite and Poseidon,
and Selene riding on a horse or a mule. Such is Pausanias's description of the
figure, which will be found to be admirably illustrated in all its details by
the drawing, in which M. Quatremere de Quincy has attempted its restoration...
The dimensions of the statue Pausanias professes his inability to state; but we
learn from Strabo that it almost reached to the roof, which was about sixty feet
in height. We have no such statement, as we have in the case of the Athena, of
the weight of the gold upon the statue, but some idea of the greatness of its
quantity may be formed from the statement of Lucian, that each lock of the hair
weighed six minae (Jup. Trag. 25). The completion of the statue is said by Pausanias
to have been followed by a sign of the favour of Zeus. who, in answer to the prayer
of Pheidias, struck the pavement in front of the statue with lightning, on a spot
which was marked by a bronze urn. This pavement was of black marble (no doubt
to set off the brilliancy of the ivory and gold and colours), surrounded by a
raised edge of Parian marble, which served to retain the oil that was poured over
the statue, to preserve the ivory from the injurious effects of the moisture exhaled
from the marshy ground of the Altis, just as, on the contrary, water was used
to protect the ivory of the Athena from the excessive dryness of the air of the
Acropolis; while, in the case of another of Pheidias's chryselephantine statues,
the Aesculapius at Epidaurus, neither oil nor water was used, the proper degree
of moisture being preserved by a well, over which the statue stood. The office
of cleaning and preserving the statue was assigned to the descendants of Pheidias,
who were called, from this office, Phaedryntae, and who, whenever they were about
to perform their work, sacrificed to the goddess Athena Ergane (Paus. v. 14.5).
As another honour to the memory of Pheidias, the building outside of the Altis,
in which he made the parts of the statue, was preserved, and known by the name
of Pheidias's workshop (ergasterion Pheidiou). His name, also, as already stated,
was inscribed at the feet of the statue (Paus. v. 10.2).
The idea which Pheidias essayed to embody in this, his greatest work,
was that of the supreme deity of the Hellenic nation, no longer engaged in conflicts
with the Titans and the Giants, but having laid aside his thunderbolt, and enthroned
as a conqueror, in perfect majesty and repose, ruling with a nod the subject world,
and more especially presiding, at the centre of Hellenic union, over those games
which were the expression of that religious and political union, and giving his
blessing to those victories which were the highest honour that a Greek could gain.
It is related by Strabo (viii.), that when Pheidias was asked by Panaenus what
model he meant to follow in making his statue, he replied, that of Homer, as expressed
in the following verses (Il. i. 528-530).
E, kai kuaneeisin ep' ophrusi neuse Kronion:
Ambrosiai d' ara chaitai eperrhosanto anaktos,
Kratos ap' athanatoio: megan d' elelixen Olumpon.
The imitation of which by Milton gives no small aid to the comprehension of the
idea (Paradise Lost, iii. 135-137) :
"Thus while God spake, ambrosial fragrance fill'd
All heaven, and in the blessed spirits elect
Sense of new joy ineffable diffused."
Expression was given to this idea, not only by the whole proportions and configuration of the statue, but more especially by the shape and position of the head. The height and expansive arch of the forehead, the masses of hair gently falling forward, the largeness of the facial angle, which exceeded 90 degrees, the shape of the eyebrows, the perfect calmness and commanding majesty of the large and full-opened eyes, the expressive repose of all the features, and the slight forward inclination of the head, are the chief elements that go to make up that representation which, from the time of Pheidias downwards, has been regarded as the perfect ideal of supreme majesty and entire complacency of "the father of gods and men" impersonated in a human form.
It is needless to cite all the passages which show that this statue
was regarded as the masterpiece, not only of Pheidias, but of the whole range
of Grecian art; and was looked upon not so much as a statue, but rather as if
it were the actual manifestation of the present deity. Such, according to Lucian
(Imag. 14), was its effect on the beholders; such Livy (xlv. 28; comp. Polyb.
xxx. 15) declares to have been the emotion it excited in Aemilius Paulus; while,
according to Arrian (Diss. Epictet. i. 6), it was considered a calamity to die
without having seen it. Pliny speaks of it as a work "quem nemo aemulatur." (H.
N. xxxiv. 8. s. 19.1; comp. Quintil. xii. 10.9). There is also a celebrated epigram
of Philip of Thessalonica, in the Greek Anthology, to the effect that either the
god must have descended from heaven to earth to display his likeness, or that
Pheidias must have ascended to heaven, to behold the god:
E theos elth' epi gen ex ouranou, eikona deixon,
Pheidia, e su g' ebes ton theon opsomenos.
Respecting the later history of the statue... It was removed by the emperor Theodosius
I. to Constantinople, where it was destroyed by a fire in A. D. 475.
Respecting the existing works of art in which the Jupiter of Pheidias
is supposed to be imitated, see Bottiger, Andeutungen, pp. 104--106. The nearest
imitations are probably those on the old Eleian coins, with the inscription Phaleion
(See Muller Denkmaler, vol. i. pl. xx. fig. 103). Of existing statues and busts,
the nearest likenesses are supposed to be the Jupiter Verospi, the colossal bust
found at Otricoli, and preserved in the Museo Pio-Clementino, and another in the
Florentine Gallery.
14. At Elis there was also a chryselephantine statue of Athena,, which was said
to be the work of Pheidias. It had a cock upon the helmet (Paus. vi. 26.2).
15. At Elis also, he made a chryselephantine statue of Aphrodite Urania, resting
one foot upon a tortoise (Paus. vi. 25.2; comp. Plut. Praecept. Conjug., Isid.
et Osir.)
16. Of the statues which Pheidias made for other Greek states, one of the most
famous appears to have been his chryselephantine statue of Aesculapius at Epidaurus
(Paus. v. 11.5).
17. At the entrance of the Ismenium, near Thebes, there stood two marble statues
of Athena and Hermes, surnamed Pronaoi ; the latter was the work of Pheidias;
the former was ascribed to Scopas (Pans. ix. 10.2).
18. In the Olympieium at Megara was an unfinished chryselephantine statue of Zeus,
the head only being of ivory and gold, and the rest of the statue of mud and gypsum.
It was undertaken by Theocosmus, assisted by Pheidias, and was interrupted by
the breaking out of the Peloponnesian War (Paus. i. 40.3). Two interesting points
are involved in this statement, if correct : the one, a confirmation respecting
the age of Pheidias, who is seen still actively employed up to the very close
of his life; the other, an indication of the materials which he employed, in this
case, as the core of a chryselephantine statue.
19. Pliny (H. N. xxxiv. 8. s. 19), tells a story, which is rather suspicious,
respecting a contest between various celebrated statuaries who, though of different
ages, were all living together. The subject for the competition was an Amazon:
the artists themselves were the judges, and the prize was awarded to that statue
which each artist placed second to his own. The statue thus honoured was by Polycleitus;
the second was by Pheidias; the third by Ctesilaus; the fourth by Cydon; and the
fifth by Phradmon. If such a competition took place at all, it must have been
toward the close of the life of Pheidias. The Amazon of Pheidias is highly praised
by Lucian. The Amazon of the Vatican, preparing to leap forward, is supposed to
be a copy of it.
20, 21, 22. Pliny (l. c.) mentions three bronze statues by Pheidias, which were
at Rome in his time, but the original position of which is not known, and the
subjects of which are not stated : "item duo sign, quae Catulus in eadem
aede (sc. Fortunae) posuit palliata, et alterum colosicon nudum."
23. The same writer mentions a marble Venus, of surpassing beauty, by Pheidias,
in the portico of Octavia at Rome. He also states that Pheidias put the finishing
hand to the celebrated Venus of his disciple Alcamenes (H. N. xxxvi. 5. s. 4.3).
24. The well-known colossal statue of one of the Dioscuri, with a horse, on the
Monte Cavallo at Rome, standing on a base, which is evidently much more recent
than the statue, and which bears the inscription OPUS FIDIAE, is supposed, from
the character of the workmanship, to be rightly ascribed to Pheidias; but antiquarians
are by no means unanimous on this point. Possibly it may be the alterum colossicon
nudum of which Pliny speaks.
Among the statues falsely ascribed to Pheidias, were the Nemesis of
Agoracritus, and the Time or Opportunity of Lysippus (Anson. Ep. 12). At Patara
in Lycia there were statues of Zeus and Apollo, respecting which it was doubted
whether they were the works of Pheidias or of Bryaxis (Clem. Alex. Protrep.; comp.
Tzetz. Chil. viii. 33).
This list of the works of Pheidias clearly proves the absurdity of
the statement which was put forth by the depreciators of the Elgin marbles, that
he never worked in marble. Pliny also expressly states the fact : "scalpsit et
marmnora." (H. N. xxxvi. 5. s. 4.4)
Pheidias, like most of the other great artists of Greece, was as much
distinguished for accuracy in the minutest details, as for the majesty of his
colossal figures; and, like Lysippus, he amused himself and gave proofs of his
skill, by making images of minute objects, such as cicadas, bees, and flies (Julian,
Epist. viii.). This statement, however, properly refers to his works in the department
of toreutike, or caelatura, that is, chasing, engraving, and embossing in metals;
of which art we are informed by Pliny that he was the first great master (H. N.
xxxiv. 8. s. 19. 1; comp. Diet. of Antiq. art. Caelatura).
Great parts of the gold on his chryselephantine statues we know to have been chased
or embossed, though it is necessary to avoid confounding these ornaments with
the polychromic decorations which were also lavished upon the statues. The shields
of the statues of Zeus and Athena were covered with plates of gold, the reliefs
in which belong to the department of caelatura, as does the hair of his Athena,
and also the sceptre of his Zeus, which was of all sorts of metals. The shield
of his Athena Promachus furnishes another example of the art, though the chasing
on it was executed not by himself, but by Mys. Chased silver vessels, ascribed
to him (whether rightly or not, may well be doubted), were in use in Rome in the
time of Martial, who describes the perfectly natural representation of the fish
upon such a vessel, by saying "adde aquam, natabunt" (iii. 35; comp. Niceph. Greg.
Hist. viii.).
It has been stated already that Pheidias was said to have been a painter before he became a statuary. Pliny states that the temple of the Olympian Zeus at Athens was painted by him (H. N. xxxv. 8. s. 34).
III. The Art of Pheidias.
After the remarks, which have been made incidentally in the two preceding sections
of this article, it is unnecessary to say much more upon the characteristics of
the art of Pheidias. In one word, its distinguishing character was ideal beauty,
and that of the sublimest order, especially in the representation of divinities,
and of subjects connected with their worship. While on the one hand he set himself
free from the stiff and unnatural forms which, by a sort of religious precedent,
had fettered his predecessors of the archaic or hieratic school, he never, on
the other hand, descended to the exact imitation of any human model, however beautiful;
he never represented that distorted action, or expressed that vehement passion,
which lie beyond the limits of repose ; nor did he ever approach to that almost
meretricious grace, by which some of his greatest followers, if they did not corrupt
the art themselves, gave the occasion for its corruption in the hands of their
less gifted and spiritual imitators. The analogy between the works of Pheidias
and Polycleitus, as compared with those of their successors, on the one hand,
and the productions of Aeschylus and Sophocles as compared with those of Euripides,
on the other, is too striking not to have been often noticed; and the difference
is doubtless to be traced to the same causes in both instances, causes which were
at work in the social life of Greece, and which left their impression upon art,
as well as upon literature, though the process of corruption, as is natural, went
on more rapidly in the latter than in the former. In both cases, the first step
in the process might be, and has often been, mistaken for a step in advance. There
is a refinement in that sort of grace and beauty, which appeals especially to
sense and passion, a fuller expression of those emotions with which ordinary human
nature sympathises. But this sort of perfection is the ripeness which indicates
that decay is about to commence. The mind is pleased, but not elevated: the work
is one to be admired but not to be imitated. Thus, while the works of Callimachus,
Praxiteles, and Scopas, have sometimes been preferred by the general taste to
those of Pheidias, the true artist and the aesthetic critic have always regarded
the latter as the best specimens of ideal sculpture, and the best examples for
the student which the whole world affords. On the latter point especially the
judgment of modern artists, and of scholars who have made art their study, respecting
the Elgin marbles, is singularly unanimous. It is superfluous to quote those testimonies,
which will be found in the works already referred to, and in the other standard
writings upon ancient art, and which may be summed up in the declaration of Welcker,
that "the British Museum possesses in the works of Pheidias a treasure with which
nothing can be compared in the whole range of ancient art" (Class. Mus. vol. ii.
p. 368); but it is of importance to refer to Cicero's recognition of the ideal
character of the works of Pheidias (Orat. 2): "Itaque et Phidiae simulacris, quibus
nihil in illo genere perfectius videmus, et his picturis, quas nominavi, cogitare
tamen possumus pulchriora. Nec vero ille artifex, quum faceret Jovis formam, aut
Minervae, contemplabatur aliquem, e quo similitudinem duceret; sed ipsius in mente
insidebat species pulchritudinis eximia quaedam, quam intuens in eaque defixus,
ad illius similitudinem artem et manum dirigebat." It was the universal judgment
of antiquity that no improvement could be made on his models of divinities. (Quintil.
xii. 10. § 3.) It is sometimes mentioned, as a proof of Pheidias's perfect knowledge
of his art, that in his colossal statues he purposely altered the right proportions,
making the upper parts unnaturally large, in order to compensate for their diminution
in perspective. This notion, however, which is derived from a passage in Plato
(Sophist. p. 235, f.; comp. Tzetz. Chil. xi. 381), does not seem to be sufficiently
well founded; all that we know of the ancient colossal statues leads rather to
the idea that the parts were all in due proportion, and that the breadth and boldness
of the masses secured the proper impression on the eye of the spectator. As a
proof of Pheidias's knowledge of the anatomical department of his art, it is affirmed
by Lucian that from the claw of a lion he calculated the size of the whole animal.
(Hermotim. 54, vol. i. 795.)
The chief modern authorities on the subject, in addition to the histories
of art by Winckelmann, Meyer, Muller, Hirt, Kugler, &c., are the following :--Muller,
de Phidiae Vita et Operibus Commentationes tres, Gotting. 1827; David, in the
Biographie Universelle ; Volkel, Ueber den prossen Tempel und die Statue des Jupiter
zu Olympia, Leipz. 1794; Siebenkees, Ueber den Tempel und die Bildsaule des Jupiter
zu Olympia, Nurnb. 1795; Quatremere de Quincy, Jupiter Olympien, &c.; Schorn,
Ueber die Studien der Griechischen Kunstler ; Preller, in Ersch and Gruber's Encyklopadie.
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited July 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Pheidias Son of Charmides of Athens [Section in Andrew Stewart, One Hundred Greek Sculptors: Their Careers and Extant Works]
Perseus Project - Andrew Stewart, One Hundred Greek Sculptors
Praxiteles, one of the most distinguished artists of ancient Greece, was both
a statuary in bronze and a sculptor in marble; but his most celebrated works were
in the latter nmaterial (Plin. H. N. xxxiv. 8. s. 19.10, xxxvi. 5. s. 4.5). It
is remarkable how little is known of his personal history. Neither his country,
nor the name of his father or of his instructor, nor the date of his birth or
of his death, is mentioned by any ancient author. As to his country, sundry conjectures
have been founded on detached passages of some of the later ancient authors, but
none of them are sustained by sufficient evidence even to deserve discussion:
all that is known with certainty is, that Praxiteles, if not a native, was a citizen
of Athens, and that his career as an artist was intimately connected with that
city. This fact is not only indicated by the constant association of his name
with the later Attic school of sculpture, and by Pliny's reference to his numerous
works in the Cerameicus at Athens, but there is an inscription still extant, in
which he is expressly called an Athenian.
With respect to his date, he is mentioned by Pliny (H. N. xxxiv. 8.
s. 19) as contemporary with Euphranor at the 104th Olympiad, B. C. 364. Pausanias
(viii. 9.1) places him in the third generation after Alcamenes, the disciple of
Pheidias ; which agrees very well with the date of Pliny, since Alcamenes flourished
between Ol. 83 and 94, B. C. 448-404. Vitruvius (vii. Praef.13) states that he
was one of the artists who adorned the Mausoleum of Artemisia; and, if so, he
must have lived at least as late as Ol. 107, B. C. 350. If we were to accept as
genuine the will of Theophrastus, in which he requests Praxiteles to finish a
statue of Nicomachus (Diog. Laert. v. 14), we must extend the time of Praxiteles
to about the year B. C. 287, in which Theophrastus died; but it is not safe to
rest much upon such documents, occurring in the work of Diogenes. nor is it likely
that Praxiteles lived so late. It is most probable that the date assigned by Pliny
is about that of the beginning of the artistic career of Praxiteles.
The position occupied by Praxiteles in the his tory of ancient art
can be defined without much difficulty. He stands, with Scopas, at the head of
the later Attic school, so called in contradistinction to the earlier Attic school
of Pheidias. Without attempting those sublime impersonations of divine majesty,
in which Pheidias had been so inimitably successful, Praxiteles was unsurpassed
in the exhibition of the softer beauties of the human form, especially in the
female figure. Without aiming at ideal majesty, he attained to a perfect ideal
gracefulness; and, in this respect, he occupies a position in his own art very
similar to that of Apelles in painting. In that species of the art to which he
devoted himself, he was as perfect a master as Pheidias was in his department,
though the species itself was immeasurably inferior. In fact, the character of
each of these artists was a perfect exponent of the character of their respective
times. The heroic spirit and the religious earnestness of the period preceding
the Peloponnesian War gave birth to the productions of the one; the prevailing
love of pleasure and sensual indulgences found its appropriate gratification in
the other. The contrast was marked in their subjects as well as in their style.
The chryselephantine statue of Zeus at Olympia realised, as nearly as art can
realise, the illusion of the actual presence of the supreme divinity; and the
spectator who desired to see its prototype could find it in no human form, but
only in the sublimest conception of the same deity which the kindred art of poetry
had formed: but the Cnidian Aphrodite of Praxiteles, though an ideal representation,
expressed the ideal only of sensual charms and the emotions connected with them,
and was avowedly modelled from a courtezan. Thus also the subjects of Praxiteles
in general were those divinities whose attributes were connected with sensual
gratification, or whose forms were distinguished by soft and youthful beauty,--Aphrodite
and Eros, Apollo and Dionysus. His works were chiefly imitated from the most beautiful
living models he could find; but he scarcely ever executed any statues professedly
as portraits. Quintilian (xii. 10) praises him and Lysippus for the
natural character of their works.
His works are too numerous to be all mentioned here individually. The most important
of them will be described according to the department of mythology from which
their subjects were taken.
1. Statues of Aphrodite. By far the most celebrated work of the master, and that
in which he doubtless put forth all his power, was the marble statue of Aphrodite,
which was distinguished from other statues of the goddess by the name of the Cnidians,
who purchased it. The well-known story, related by Pliny (H. N. xxxvi. 5. s. 4.5),
is that the artist made two statues of Aphrodite, of which the one was draped,
the other not. In his own opinion, they were of equal value, for he offered them
for sale together at the same price. The people of Cos, who had always possessed
a character for severe virtue, purchased the draped statue, "severutr id ac peudicum
arbitrates ;" the other was bought by the Cnidians, and its fame almost entirely
eclipsed the merits of the rival work. It was always esteemed the most perfectly
beautiful of the statues of the goddess. According to Pliny, it surpassed all
other works, not only of Praxiteles, but in the whole world; and many made the
voyage to Cnidus expressly to behold it. So highly did the Cnidians themselves
esteem their treasure, that when King Nicomedes offered them, as the price of
it, to pay off the whole of their heavy public debt, they preferred to endure
any suffering rather than part with the work which gave their city its chief renown.
It was afterwards carried, with the Samian Hera and the Lindian Athena, to Constantinople,
where it perished by fire, with innumerable other works of art, in the reign of
Justinian. (Zonar. xiv. 2.)
The temple in which it stood at Cnidus was so constructed, that the
beauties of the statue could be seen equally well from every point of view.
Of the numerous descriptions and praises of the statue, which abound
in the ancient authors, the one which gives us the best notion of it is that of
Lucian (Amor. 13, 14). The material was the purest and most brilliant Parian marble;
the form was in every respect perfect; the position of the left hand was the same
as in the Venus de Medici ; the right hand held some drapery which fell over a
vase standing by her; the face wore supposed by the ancients to indicate the appearance
of the goddess when Paris adjudged to her the prize of beauty :
Oute se Praxiteles technasato, houth' ho sidaros,
All' houtos estes, hos pote krinomene,
an opinion, which, however well it may have accorded with the grace and beauty
of the work, cannot be regarded as the true expression of the intention of the
artist, for the drapery and vase by the side of the figure indicate that she has
either just left or is about to enter the bath. The representation of the goddess
as standing before Paris is rather to be seen in the Venus de Medici and in the
copy, by Menophantus, of the Aphrodite in the Troad. This statue appears to have
been the first instance in which any artist had ventured to represent the goddess
entirely divested of drapery. The artist modelled it from a favourite courtezan
named Phryne (Ath. xiii.), of whom also he made more than one portrait statue
(Paus. ix. 27.4. s. 5, x. 14.5. s. 7; Aelian. V. H. ix. 32 ; Tatian. Orat. ad
Graec. 53). This statue was, therefore, a new ideal of the goddess; which was
frequently imitated by succeeding artists. It is, however, very doubtful which,
or whether any, of the existing statues of Venus, are copies of the Cnidian Aphrodite.
Its type is preserved on coins of Cnidos, struck in hosour of Plautilla, and on
gems: the marble statues, which are probably copies of it, are the following:
one in the garden of the Vatican; another in the Museo Pio-Clementino, which,
however, is supposed by Bottiger to be a copy of the Coan, on account of the drapery
which covers part of the figure, which Visconti, and most of the subsequent writers,
take to be a mere addition made by the artist in copying the Cnidian statue ;
another, which was formerly in the Braschi palace, and is now in the Glyptothek
at Munich ; there are also some busts after it. It has been the subreign of Justject
of much discussion among the writers on art, whether or not the Venus de Medici
is an imitation of the Cnidian Aphrodite. The truth appears to be that Cleomenes,
in making the Venus de Medici, had the Venus of Praxiteles in his mind, and imitated
it in some degree; but the difference in the treatment of the subject is sufficient
to prevent the one being considered a copy of the other. Types between the two
are seen in the Aphrodite of Menophantus and in the Capitoline Venus; of which
the latter, while preserving the drapery and vessel of the Cnidian statue, has
almost exactly the attitude and expression of the Venus de Medici.
The supposed copies of the Coan Venus are even more doubtful than
those of the Cnidian. Indeed, with the exception of that in the Museo Pio-Clementino,
already mentioned, there is none which can with any probability be regarded as
a copy of it. A fine conjectural restoration of it is given in plate xxiii. to
Flaxman's Lectures on Sculpture.
Besides the Coan and the Cnidian, Praxiteles made other statues of
Aphrodite, namely: one in bronze which, Pliny tells us, was considered equal to
the Cnidian, and which perished at Rome in the fire in the reign of Claudius (Plin.
H. N. xxxiv. 8. s. 19.10); another, of Pentelic marble, at Thespiae (Paus. ix.
27.3); another at Alexandria on Mt. Latmus (Steph. Byz. s. v.).
2. Eros, and other divinities connected with Aphrodite. Praxiteles made two marble
statues of Eros, of the highest celebrity, the one of which was dedicated at Thespiae,
the other at Parium on the Propontis. Like all the early Greek artists, Praxiteles
represented Eros, not as a child, but as in the flower of youth. The statute at
Thespiae, which was of Pentelic marble, with the wings gilt (Julian. Or. ii.),
was dedicated by Phryne (Lucian, Am. 14, 17; Paus. ix. 27.3), and an interesting
story is told of the manner in which she became possessed of it. Praxiteles, in
his fondness for Phryne, had promised to give her whichever of his works she might
choose, but he was unwilling to tell her which of them, in his own opinion, was
the best. To discover this, she sent a slave to tell Praxiteles that a fire had
broken out in his house, and that most of his works had already perished. On hearing
this message, the artist rushed out, exclaiming that all his toil was lost, if
the fire had touched his Satyr or his Eros. Upon this Phryne confessed the stratagem,
and chose the Eros (Paus. i. 20. 2). When Mummius plundered Thespiae, like other
Greek cities, of the works of art, he spared this statue, and it was still at
Thespiae in the time of Cicero, who says that visits were made to that city expressly
to see it (In Verr. iv. 2). It was removed to Rome by Caligula, restored to Thespiae
by Claudius, and carried back by Nero to Rome, where it stood in Pliny's time
in the schools of Octavia, and it finally perished in the conflagration of that
building in the reign of Titus (Paus. ix. 27.3 ; Plin. H. N. xxxvi. 5. s. 4.5;
Dion Cass. lxvi. 24). Its place at Thespiae was supplied by a marble copy by Menodorus.
There was in the same place a bronze statue of Eros, made by Lysippus, in emulation
of the work of Praxiteles.
The other statue of Eros, at Parium on the Propontis, is said by Pliny
to have equalled the Cnidian Venus. Nothing is known of its history, unless it
be (which is extremely probable) the same as that of which the Sicilian, Heius,
was robbed by Verres (Cic. in Verr). Callistratus ascribes two bronze statues
of Eros to Praxiteles; but the truth of this statement is doubtful, and the author
may perhaps have confounded the bronze statue at Thespiae by Lysippus with the
marble one by Praxiteles (Callist. Ecphr. 3, 11). A copy of one of these statues
is seen in a beautiful torso found at Centocelle, on the road from Rome to Palestrina,
of which there is a more perfect specimen at Naples; there is also a very similar
figure among the Elgin Marbles in the British Museum. To this class of the artist's
works belong also the statues of Peitho and Paregoros, in the temple of Aphrodite
Praxis at Megara (Paus. i. 43.6).
3. Subjects from the Mythology of Dionysus. The artist's ideal of Dionysus was
embodied in a bronze statue, which stood at Elis (PaUs. vi. 26.1), and which is
described by Callistratus (Ecphr. 8). It represented the god as a charming youth,
clad with ivy, girt with a Faun's skin, carrying the lyre and the thyrsus. He
also treated the subject in a famous bronze group, in which Dionysus was represented
as attended by Intoxication and a Satyr (Plin. H. N. xxxiv. 8. s. 19.10: Liberum
Patrem et Ebrietatem nobilewmque una Satyrum, quem Gracci Periboeton nominant).
According to these words of Pliny, the celebrated statue of a satyr, which Praxiteles,
as above related, ranked among his best works, was the figure in this group. This
may, however, be one of Pliny's numerous mistakes, for it seems, from Pausanias's
account of this satyr, that it stood alone in the street of the tripods at Athens
(Paus. i. 20.1; Ath. xiii). It is generally supposed that we have copies of this
celebrated work in several marble statues representing a satyr resting against
the trunk of a tree, the best specimen of which is that in the Uapitoline Museum.
Groups of Maenades, Thyiades, and dancing Caryatides are mentioned
by Pliny among the marble works of Praxiteles; and also some Sileni in the collection
of Asinius Pollio (Plin. H. N. xxxvi. 5. s. 4.5). Among other works of this class,
for which the reader is referred to Muller and Sillig, the only one requiring
special mention is the marble group of Hermes carrying the infant Dionysus, of
which copies are supposed to exist in a bas-relief and a vase-painting (Paus.
v. 17. I).
4. Subjects from the Mythology of Apollo. This class contained one of the most
celebrated statues of Praxiteles, namely the bronze figure of Apollo the Lizard-slayer
(Plin. H. N. xxxiv. 8. s. 19.10; puberem Apollinem subrepenti Lacertae cominus
insidiantem, quem Sauroctonon vocant ; comp. Martial, Ep. xiv. 172). Numerous
copies of it exist; some in marble, one in bronze, and several on gems.
There still remain numerous works of Praxiteles, a full enumeration
of which will be found in Sillig. It was an undecided question among the ancients,
whether the celebrated group of Niobe was the work of Praxiteles or of Scopas.
One point in the technical processes of Praxiteles deserves particular
notice. It is recorded by Pliny that Praxiteles, on being asked which of his own
works in marble he thought the best, replied, those in which Nicias had had a
hand, "tantum," adds Pliny, "circumlitioni ejus tribucbat" (Plin. H. N. xxxv.
11. s. 40.28). In all probability, this circumlitio consisted in covering the
marble with a tinted encaustic varnish, by which we can easily conceive how nearly
it was made to resemble flesh (See Dict. of Ant. art. Pictura).
It was probably from a confused recollection of this statement in his Greek authorities
that Pliny had shortly before (l. c. 11. s. 39), mentioned Praxiteles as an improver
of encaustic painting.
Praxiteles had two sons, who were also distinguished sculptors, Timarchus and
Cephisodotus II. (Pseudo-Plut. Vit. X. Orat.; Paus. i. 8.5, ix. 12.5).
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited July 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Praxiteles of Athens (Article of: Andrew Stewart, One Hundred
Greek Sculptors)
Praxiteles' career is documented by over a hundred references in the
literary sources, ranging in date from Hellenistic through Byzantine, and eight
inscribed bases with his signature (some of them later renewals). Since the names
Praxiteles and Kephisodotos alternated in this family after ca. 350, it is likely
that he was the son of the Kephisodotos (Pausanias
9.16.1-2). The family's history has been succinctly charted by J.K. Davies
1971 (no. 8334): (Pliny,
N.H. 35.49-52) gives him a floruit of 364-361, but a base (IG 22 no. 4390)
signed by his son Kephisodotos (II) permits a rather more precise chronology,
since it mentions Asklepios' priest for 344/3.
Now Kephisodotos II floruit in 296-293 (Pliny,
N.H. 35.49-52), so this must have been a very early work of his, suggesting
that he was born around 365, and his father (for the Athenian males rarely married
before the age of 25) by ca. 390 at the latest. Praxiteles may have died shortly
before 326, since by then Kephisodotos (II) was paying heavy naval liturgies (IG
22 nos. 1628, lines 57, 68, 74, 11; 1629, line 674; 1633, line 100), perhaps as
heir to the family fortune -- evidently little diminished by his father's spectacular
liaison with the courtesan Phryne (Athenaeus
13.590; Pausanias
1.20.1). Praxiteles' Mantinea group (no. 19, below), done "in the third generation
after Alkamenes" (Pausanias
8.9.1: cf. Pausanias
1.24.3; JdI
82: 40; Valerius
Maximus 8.11; Pausanias
1.14.6) for the latter's dates, ca. 440-400) must therefore have been a late
work. The case of his various statues for Phryne's home town, Thespiae (almost
desolate between 374/3 and 338) is more complicated, and will be addressed below.
Finally, to return to his floruit with Euphranor in 364-361 (Pliny,
N.H. 35.49-52), this may derive from the date either of his most famous work,
the Knidia (compare Pheidias and Polykleitos here), or of Euphranor's, the Battle
of Mantinea (fought in 362).
Including Praxiteles' grandson (but not his later descendants, for
whom see J.K. Davies 1971, 288-90 and Stewart 1979, 157-76), the family's chronology
thus becomes:
Praxiteles: born ca. 400/390, active ca. 380/70-ca. 330/25
Kephisodotos (II): born ca. 365, active ca. 345-290
Timarchos: born ca. 360, active ca. 340-290
Praxiteles (II): active ca. 290-280
Praxiteles' known works are almost equally distributed between bronzes and marbles
despite his admirers' clear preference for the latter (Pliny, N.H. 34.69; Pliny
N.H. 36.20-22); just as clearly, too, he was both an agalmatopoios and an
accomplished andriantopoios , a maker of gods and men, despite the Hellenistic
practice of listing him only among the former (Laterculi
Alexandrini 7.3-9):
Divinities
Aphrodite and her circle
Aphrodite Euploia in Parian marble, at Knidos (Pliny
N.H. 36.20-22; Anth.
Pal. 16.167; Anth.
Pal. 16.168; Lucian,
Amores 13-14; Lucian,
Imagines 4 and 6; Athenaeus
13.590; Kedrenos,
Historiarum Compendium 322)
Aphrodite at Kos (Pliny
N.H. 36.20-22)
Aphrodite (and Phryne) in marble, at Thespiae (Pausanias
9.27.3)
Aphrodite in the shrine of Adonis at Alexandria in Caria
Aphrodite in bronze, later at Rome but destroyed by fire ca. A.D. 45
Peitho and Paregoros, grouped with the Eros, Himeros, and Pothos of Skopas around the ancient image of Aphrodite Praxis, in her temple at Megara
Eros in Pentelic marble, at Thespiae, later in Rome but destroyed by fire in A.D.
80 (Pausanias
9.27.3; Pausanias
1.20.1)
Eros in marble at Parion (by the Sea of Marmora)
Eros in bronze
Dionysos and his circle
Dionysos, Methe (Drunkenness) and a 'famed' satyr in bronze, later in Rome
Dionysos at Elis
Dionysos of bronze
Hermes and the infant Dionysos in marble, in the Heraion at Olympia (problematic)
(Pausanias
5.17.3-4)
Maenads, Thyiads, Karyatids and Silenoi in marble, later in Rome
Thespiadai in bronze, destroyed with (5)
Satyr in bronze, in the Street of the Tripods at Athens (Pausanias
1.20.1)
Satyr of Parian marble, in the temple of Dionysos at Megara
Others
Apollo, Leto and Artemis, in the temple of Apollo at Megara
Apollo, Leto, and Artemis, on a base with the Muses and Marsyas piping, in the
Letoion at Mantinea (Pausanias
8.9.1)
Apollo in marble, later in Asinius Pollio's collection at Rome (Pliny,
N.H.36.33-4)
Apollo Sauroktonos of bronze
Artemis Brauronia, on the Akropolis
Colossal Artemis, in her temple at Antikyra in Phokis
Demeter, Persephone, and Iakchos, in the temple of Demeter at Athens
Demeter, Persephone ("Flora"/Kore?) and Triptolemos in marble, later in Rome
Eubouleus, later in Rome
Hera enthroned between Athena and Hebe, in her temple at Mantinea
Colossal Hera Teleia and Rhea of Pentelic marble, in the temple of Hera at Plataia
Leto, in her temple at Argos
Pan, Danae, and the Nymphs, of Pentelic marble
Persephone raped by Hades, in bronze
Poseidon in marble, later with (20)
Trophonoios, in his temple at Lebadeia
The Twelve Gods, in the temple of Artemis Soteira at Megara
Personifications
Agathosdaimon and Agathe Tyche of marble, later in Rome
Tyche, in her temple at Megara
Victor-statues, portraits, and funerary sculpture
Archippe in bronze, dedicated by her mother Archippe in the Athenian Agora
A basket-bearer ('canephora') in bronze, later in Rome
A charioteer in bronze, completing a chariot group by (the younger) Kalamis
A courtesan laughing (Phryne?) in bronze
A diadoumenos in bronze, on the Akropolis
Phryne in marble, grouped with (3) at Thespiae (Pausanias
9.27.3)
Phryne, later in Rome (Tatian,
Contra Graecos 33)
Phryne in gold, on a column at Delphi
A soldier and his horse, on a tomb in the Kerameikos
Thrasymachos, dedicated by Archaias and Wanaxareta at Leuktra
Tomb monuments in marble, in the Kerameikos
A woman spinning ('catagusa') in bronze
A woman crowning herself ('stephanusa') in bronze
A woman mourning, in bronze
A woman putting on an armlet ('pseliumene') in bronze
Architectural sculpture in marble
Statues in the altar-court of Artemis at Ephesos
Labors of Herakles, in the pediments of the Herakleion at Thebes
Uncertain subject-matter
A statue at Olbia on the Black Sea (signature only preserved)
A statue on Delos (ditto)
Two statues in bronze, later at Pergamon (ditto -- a renewal)
A bronze statue later in Rome (ditto -- a renewal)
Dedication of Kleokrateia and another to Demeter and Kore, in the Agora
'Opora' in bronze
Disputed and Misattributed Works
Aphrodite and Eros in marble, now in the Louvre (Roman: signature forged)
Dioskouros on Monte Cavallo, Rome (Roman: the other signed 'Pheidias')
Eros/Alkibiades in marble, later in Rome (also given to Skopas)
Eros in the collection of Heius at Messana in Sicily, duplicate of (7), appropriated by Verres in 71 (a copy?)
Bust of the poet Ibykos from Crest (France) (Roman: signature forged)
'Janus' in marble, taken by Augustus from Alexandria to Rome (also given to Skopas)
Leto in emerald, at Myra (fanciful)
South side of the Mausoleum at Halikarnassos (Vitruvius
7. Praef. 12-13: also given to Timotheos)
Niobids in marble, later in Rome (also given to Skopas)
Tyrannicides in bronze, in the Agora (actually by Antenor)
The length of this list -far greater than one man could produce in
a lifetime- suggests either the activities of a sizable workshop and/or following,
or a phenomenon equivalent to that of the proudly-displayed Raphael in every self-respecting
Italian church, or both. The two definite survivors are the Hermes (no. 13) and
the Mantinea base (Apollo, Skythian, and Marsayas: Athens, NM 215); three Muses
(Athens, NM 216); three Muses (Athens, NM 217; no. 19), and modern scholarship
has added four others, the "Eubouleus" (Athens, NM 181), the Marathon Boy (Athens,
NM Br. 15118), the Aberdeen head (London 1600), and the Leconfield Aphrodite (Stewart
1990, figs. 492-97, 499-500).
Of these, (13) and (19) were seen by Pausanias:
Pausanias
5.17.3-4 :
...at a later time other statues were dedicated in the Heraion: a marble Hermes
carrying the baby Dionysos, the work of Praxiteles, and a bronze Aphrodite made
by Kleon of Sikyon. The master of this Kleon, called Antiphanes, was a pupil of
Periklytos, who was taught by Polykleitos of Argos. A nude, gilded child is seated
before the Aphrodite; Boethos of Kalchedon was its toreutes [metal-smith]. Also
brought there were statues from the so-called Philippeion, of gold and ivory,
Eurydike the wife of Philip [lacuna] . .
Pausanias
8.9.1:
The Mantineans have a two-part temple, divided right across the middle by a wall.
In one section of the temple is an image of Asklepios, the work of Alkamenes,
while the other is a sanctuary of Leto and her children; Praxiteles made the images
in the third generation after Alkamenes. On their base are carved the Muses and
Marsyas playing the flutes.
Yet even so, the Hermes is probably Hellenistic (see most recently, Pfrommer 1984, 176; Morrow 1985, 83-84; Stewart 1990, 177), while the base is clearly a workshop product, like the Marathon Boy (Athens, NM Br. 15118). The Leconfield and Aberdeen heads look authentically Praxitelean and late fourth-century, so could be by either the master himself or by his sons. As for the "Eubouleus", though a Roman inscription certifies Praxiteles' authorship of this minor Eleusinian underworld deity, and the bust was found with a dedication to Eubouleus in the Ploutonion there, the large number of copies (eight, including two on the Akropolis, of all places) is disturbing. Perhaps he merely reproduced his Triptolemos or Iakchos/Dionysos (24, 25), both of whom could easily prompt such a rendering, and generate the copies we have. The piece is evidently cut down from a complete statue: the tooling around the shoulders, the high polish on the face, and the deep drilling in the hair are all secondary, perhaps repairs after the Kostovokian sack of A.D. 170. It is surely not an Alexander: see Furtwangler 1895/1964, 330-33; Lippold 1950, 241; Bieber 1964, 26; Vierneisel-Schlorb 1979, 375-78; and Stewart 1993, Chapter 4.2 for a range of opinions.
The meager fragments so far recovered from (52) appear early Hellenistic,
and none seems particularly Praxitelean: see OJh 50 (1972-75): Beiblatt 462-67
and Grabungen 50 fig. 44. Finally, the head from Chios attributed by Marshall
1909 (Boston 10.70; cf. Stewart 1990, fig. 606) is now also universally accepted
as post-Praxitelean, while the recent suggestion that limb-fragments found near
the Knidian Aphrodite sanctuary, and a head, B.M. 1314, found in the Demeter sanctuary
-- a mile away! -- are all from (1) (Love 1972, 75-76, 401 n.1) are contradicted
by T 128, locating her among the works burnt in the Lauseion at Constantinople
in A.D. 476: see further, Haynes 1972, 731-37.
Pliny places Praxiteles next after Pheidias and his star pupils in his catalogue of the great marble-workers, with the words:
Pliny
N.H. 36.20-22:
(20) I have mentioned the date of Praxiteles among those sculptors who worked
in bronze (Pliny,
N.H. 35.49-52); yet in his fame as a marble-worker he surpassed even himself.
There are works by him at Athens in the Ceramicus, but first and foremost not
only of this, but indeed in the whole world, is the Venus that many have sailed
to Cnidus to see. He made two statues and put them up for sale together: one was
draped and for that reason was preferred by the people of Cos, who had an option
on the sale, even though it was the same price as the other, for they judged this
to be the sober and proper thing to do. The Cnidians bought the rejected one,
whose fame became immensely greater.
(21) Later King Nicomedes [of Bithynia, reigned 90-74] wanted to buy it, promising that he would pay off the city's entire foreign debt, which was enormous. The Cnidians, however, preferred to suffer anything but this, and not without reason, for with this statue, Praxiteles had made Cnidus famous. The shrine she stands in is completely open, so that one can view the image of the goddess from all sides, an arrangement (so it is believed) that she herself favored. The statue is equally admirable from every angle. There is a story that a man was once overcome with love for it, hid inside during the night, and embraced it, leaving a stain to mark his lust.
(22) In Cnidus there are other marbles by famous artists, a Father Liber [Dionysos]
by Bryaxis, another and a Minerva too by Scopas, but there is no greater witness
to the quality of Praxiteles' Venus that among all these it alone receives attention.
There follows a brief list of Praxitelean works at Rome. The erotic anecdotes
are typical of Greco-Roman writing on Praxiteles: since unlike the classical bronze
workers the marble sculptors inspired no substantial critical tradition, such
erotica, often worked up into verse by Hellenistic and later poets, constitute
our major source for the reception of his work in antiquity. The classic case
is of course the Knidia:
Anth. Pal. 16.167:
You'll say, when you look on Kypris in rocky Knidos,
That she, of stone herself, may set a stone on fire;
But when you see the sweet Desire in Thespiae, you'll say
He'll not just fire up stone, but coldest adamant.
Such were the gods Praxiteles made, each in a different land,
Lest all be burnt up by a double fire.
Anth. Pal. 16.168:
Paris saw me naked, and Anchises, and Adonis too.
I know of only three -- so how did Praxiteles contrive it?
Ps.-Lucian, Amores 13-14:
When we had taken sufficient delight in the garden plants, we entered the temple.
The goddess is placed in the middle -- she's a most beautiful statue of Parian
marble -- smiling just a little haughty smile. Since she is swathed in no clothes
all her naked beauty is revealed, except that she unobtrusively uses one hand
to hide her modesty. So great was the power of the craftsman's art that the hard
unyielding marble has done justice to every limb. . . . The temple has a door
on both sides for those who wish to see the goddess directly from behind so that
no part of her be left unadmired. It's easy, therefore, for people to enter by
this other door and survey the beauty of her back.
Deciding, then, to see all of the goddess we went round to the rear. And as the door was opened by the woman responsible for keeping the keys, immediate amazement at her beauty seized us. The Athenian who had been an impassive observer shortly before . . . suddenly shouted, "Herakles! What a well-shaped back, what generous flanks, what an armful to embrace! How delicately moulded the flesh of her behind, neither too thin and close to the bone, nor yet revealing too great an expanse of fat! And as for those precious parts sealed in on either side by the hips, how inexpressibly sweetly they smile! How perfect the shape of the thighs and shins as they stretch down to the ankle!" [The story of the stain follows].
see Lucian,
Imagines 4 and 6
Athenaeus 13.590:
At the festival of the Eleusinia and at the festival of Poseidon, Phryne took
off her cloak in full view of all the Greeks, let down her hair, and stepped into
the sea; and it was with her as a model that Apelles painted his Aphrodite Anadyomene
[Rising from the Sea]. And Praxiteles the sculptor fell in love with her and modeled
his Knidian Aphrodite on her . . . . [More about their love-affair follows, ending
with the dedication of the gold statue, no. 44 above].
At first sight the temple described in Ps.-Lucian,
Amores 13-14 (written ca. A.D. 300) seems incompatible with that of
Pliny
N.H. 36.20-22; clearly either the Doric rotunda found by Love (Love
1972; Stewart 1990, fig. 502) had been remodeled to limit access to the statue
or she had been moved elsewhere. The rotunda itself seems third-century, though
could be a reconstruction, since fragments of an earlier building were also recovered
at the site. For the copies, many of which seem to be taken from a mid or late
Hellenistic recension (Pfrommer 1985), see Stewart 1990, figs. 503-07: from Italy
(Vatican 812); from Syria (Malibu 72.AA.93); from Tralleis (Louvre 3518).
Of the other types recognizable in copy, the early Arles Aphrodite
(Louvre 439; Stewart 1990, fig. 501; condemned as neo-classical by Ridgway 1976)
resembles one shown with a statuette of a woman on Thespian coins, so could copy
(3); the checkered career of the Thespian Eros (7), on the other hand, suggests
that we should probably not expect monumental replicas:
Pausanias
9.27.3:
Later on Lysippos made a bronze Eros for Thespiae, and even before him Praxiteles
made one of Pentelic marble. The story of Phryne and the trick she played on Praxiteles,
I have already related elsewhere. The first to remove the image of Eros, it is
said, was Gaius [Caligula] the Roman emperor; Claudius sent it back to Thespiae
but Nero carried it off a second time to Rome. There a fire finally destroyed
it... The statue of Eros at Thespiae which exists now was made by the Athenian
Menodoros, who copied the work of Praxiteles. Here too and by Praxiteles also
are an Aphrodite and a portrait of Phryne, both of marble.
And for the trick:
Pausanias
1.20.1:
[The Street of the Tripods at Athens] also contains some really remarkable works
of art. For there is a Satyr, of which Praxiteles is said to have been very proud.
And once Phryne asked him for the most beautiful of all his works, and he agreed,
lover-like, to give it to her, but refused to say which he thought was the most
beautiful. So a slave of Phryne rushed in with the news that fire had broken out
in Praxiteles' studio, and that most of his works were lost, though not all. Praxiteles
immediately ran out through the doors and said that all his labor was wasted if
indeed the flames had caught his Satyr and Eros. But Phryne told him to stay and
cheer up, for he had suffered nothing grievous, but by a ruse she had trapped
him into confessing which of all his works was the most beautiful. So Phryne chose
the Eros.
No. 8 also only appears on coins, though Hermary 1986 has now reconnected the (sadly, headless) Palatine Eros type with (7). With the Pouring Satyr (Dresden type: Stewart 1990, fig. 408) and the Dresden Artemis (REF: cf. 10, 16-19, 22, 23 -- but which?) it too looks early, ca. 380-370 (cf. Arnold 1969, 161 and 210 for the chronology). On the other hand, the Leaning Satyr (Rome, Museo Capitolino 739; Stewart 1990, fig. 510) and two youthful Dionysos types at present known only from herms are clearly later, one approaching the Olympia Hermes (Ashmole 1922a, 242-4; cf. Stewart 1977a, 139).
The Apollo Sauroktonos (21; Louvre 441; Stewart 1990, fig. 509) is
securely identified from Pliny N.H. 34.70 and Martial 14.172. The Gabii Artemis
(Louvre MA 441; Stewart 1990, fig. 508) may copy the Brauronia (22); Treheux 1964
shows how this statue cannot date to 346/5, as often stated, but must belong between
345/4 and 336/5. Finally, the Apollo Lykeios described in Lucian, Anacharsis 7
-- but without naming the author -- and recognized both on Athenian coins and
on numerous replicas in the round, is regularly attributed to him . Other suggestions,
coin-pictures of lost works, and supposed versions on reliefs and other media,
are more problematic, and cannot be addressed here.
Because Praxiteles wrote no book on his art and inspired no proper
critical tradition about it, sources for his style are pitifully few in number.
While Quintilian (Quintilian
12.7-9) only contrasts his tact in naturalistic representation with Demetrios
(cf. Lucian,
Philopseudes 18), others are sometimes a little more explicit:
Diodoros 26.1:
Neither poet nor historian, nor indeed any craftsman of literature can in all
respects satisfy all his readers. For ... not even Pheidias, admired above all
for the fabrication of ivory statues, nor Praxiteles, who masterfully embodied
the emotions of the soul in works of stone, nor Apelles nor Parrhasios ... attained
such success in their work that they could display a product of their skill that
was totally above censure.
Pliny, N.H. 35.133:
Praxiteles used to say about Nicias, when questioned as to which one of his marbles
he preferred above all: those to which Nicias has set his hand -- so much value
did he put upon his ability to articulate with color. It is not quite clear whether
this artist or a namesake is the one people assign to the 112th Olympiad [332-329].
Pliny, N.H. 35.122:
It is not agreed who was the inventor of painting in wax and doing pictures in
encaustic. Some think Aristides discovered it and Praxiteles later perfected it,
but there were encaustic paintings that were considerably older, such as those
of Polygnotos.
Praxiteles is also regularly cited by writers on phantasia (Philostratos,
Life of Apollonios of Tyana 6.19) and in the various disputes concerning the
status of the artist, and by the Augustan period his popularity was prompting
quite an industry in forgeries:
Phaedrus, Fabulae 5, prologue:
Then there are those who in our own age
Find better prices for their new-made works
By signing marbles with "Praxiteles,"
Silverware with "Mys," and paintings, "Zeuxis."
This extract is from: Andrew Stewart, One Hundred Greek Sculptors: Their Careers and Extant Works. Cited July 2005 from Perseus Project URL below, which contains extracts from the ancient literature, bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
Salpion, an Athenian sculptor, of unknown date, whose name is inscribed upon a large vase of Parian marble, beautifully sculptured with figures in high relief, representing Hermes giving the infant Dionysus to the Nymphs to educate. This vase was found at Cormia, on the Gulf of Gaeta, and was applied to use as a font in the cathedral of Gaeta, but was afterwards removed to the Neapolitan Museum, where it now is.
Silanion, a distinguished Greek statuary in bronze, is mentioned by Pliny among
the contemporaries of Lysippus at B. C. 324 (H. N. xxxiv. 8. s. 19). He probably
belonged, however, not to the school of Lysippus, but to the later Attic school;
for we learn from Pausanias (vi. 4.3) that he was an Athenian. The passage of
Pliny, as commonly understood, represents Silanion as a wonderful instance of
a selftaught artist; but perhaps the words " in hoc mirabile, quod nullo doctore
nobilis flit," may be referred to Lysippus, rather than to Silanion. So, also,
in the next clause, " ipse discipulum. habuit Zeuxiadem," there is a doubt left,
whether Zeuxiades was the disciple of Silanion or of Lysippus. It should here
be observed that the word Zeuxiadem, which is the reading of all the best MSS.,
is corrupted, in the inferior MSS, and the common editions, into Zeuxin et Iadem.
The statues of Silanion belong to two classes, ideal and actual portraits;
the former again including heroes and men. Of these the most celebrated was his
dying Jocasta, in which a deadly paleness was given to the face by the mixture
of silver with the bronze; a remarkable example of the technical refinement, and
of the principle of actual imitation which characterised the art of this period.
We cannot conceive of Pheidias or Polycleitus descending to such an artifice (Plut.
de Aud. Poet. 3, Quaest. Conv. v. 1; comp. de Pyth. Or. 2). He also made a fine
statue of Achilles (Plin. l. c.21), and one of Theseus (Plut. Thes. 4). Tatian
ascribes to him statues of the lyric poetesses Sappho and Corinna (Tatian. ad
Graec. 52; where by Sappho ten hetairan Tatian undoubtedly means the poetess and
not, as some fancy, another person, a courtezan of Eresos, of whose existence
there is no proof). His statue of Sappho stood in the prytancium at Syracuse in
the time of Verres, who carried it off; and Cicero alludes to it in terms of the
highest praise (Verr. iv. 57). Silanion also made a statue of Plato, which Mithridates,
the son of Rhodobatus, set up in the Academy (Diog. Laert. iii. 2).
Among the actual portraits of Silanion, the most celebrated appears
to have been that of the statuary Apollodorus, who was so habitually dissatisfied
with his own works, that he frequently broke them in pieces. The vexation of the
disappointed artist was so vividly expressed in Silanion's statue, that Pliny
says "nec hominem ex aere fecit, sed iracundiam" (§ 21). Pliny also mentions his
statue of a superintendent of the palaestra exercising the athletes. He made also
three statues of Olympic victors; namely Satyrus of Elis, and Telestes and Demaratus
of Messene (Paus. vi. 4.3, 14.1, 3).
Probably this Silanion was the same as the one whom Vitruvius (vii.
praef.14) mentions among those who wrote praecepta symmetriarum ; for, although
that phrase no doubt refers especially to the proportions of the architectural
orders, yet it must also be understood as including the wider subject of proportion
in art generally, as is evident both from the mention of Euphranor in the list,
and also from the manner in which Vitruvius discusses the subject of architectural
proportions in connection with the laws of proportion derived from the human figure
(i. 2, iii. 1).
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited July 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Silanion of Athens
Pliny (Pliny,
N.H. 35.49-52) places the allegedly self-taught Silanion in the years 328-325,
but mentions only three pieces in his alphabetical catalogue of lesser masters
(Pliny,
N.H. 34.81-2); fortunately, others show more interest, increasing his known
works (all probably bronzes) to eleven, plus three signed bases:
Achilles (Pliny,
N.H. 34.81-2)
Theseus, in Athens
Jokasta dying
Sappho in Syracuse, taken to Rome by Verres (Tatian,
Contra Graecos 33)
Korinna, later in Rome (Tatian,
Contra Graecos 33)
Plato, dedicated to the Muses in the Academy by the Persian Mithradates (Diogenes
Laertius 3.25) Apollodoros the sculptor (Pliny,
N.H. 34.81-2)
The boxer Satyros of Elis, at Olympia
The boy-boxer Telestas of Messene, at Olympia
The boy-boxer Damaretos of Messene, at Olympia
A trainer of athletes (Pliny,
N.H. 34.81-2)
A bronze later taken to Pergamon (signature only preserved)
A statue at Ephesos (ditto)
A statue at Miletos (ditto)
Silanion was thus exclusively an andriantopoios, and one of the few Athenians
to challenge the Argive-Sikyonian school on its own territory (8)-(10). Indeed,
and perhaps not entirely by coincidence, he was also apparently the first portraitist
to follow Polykleitos and Euphranor (Pliny,
N.H. 34.55-6; Pliny
N.H. 35.128-9) and to write on symmetria (Vitruvius 7, Praef. 12); unfortunately,
Pliny ignored his book entirely. Yet his virtuosity inspired some far-fetched
anecdotes about his work, including the (surely fictitious) assertion that silver
was mixed in with the bronze to catch the pallor on the face of (3) (Plutarch,
Moralia 674A), and:
Pliny, N.H. 34.81-2:
Silanion cast a portrait of Apollodoros, himself a sculptor, but among all artists
the most meticulous in his art and a harsh critic of his own work, frequently
smashing his finished statues, since his zeal for his art always left him unsatisfied;
consequently they nicknamed him "the Madman". This quality Silanion expressed
in his portrait, and so represented in bronze not a man, but anger personified.
He also made a famous Achilles, and a trainer of athletes.
None of these has been identified in copy, and his other works have fared almost
as badly: Lattimore's identification of (1) with the Ludovisi 'Ares' is purely
hypothetical (S. Lattimore1979), Brommer 1982 rejects the Ince 'Theseus' for (2),
the Getty 'Sappho' head (cf. no. 4) is a fake, and the miserable little Korinna
from Compiegne (cf. no. 5) has no exact correlates at full size. Only the Plato
(6) and the 'Satyros' (8; Athens, NM Br. 6439) begin to be convincing as attributions
(Stewart 1990, figs. 513-14). The former is noted (but not described) by Diogenes
Laertius:
Diogenes Laertius 3.25:
In the first book of the Memorabilia of Favorinus it is stated that Mithradates
the Persian set up a statue of Plato in the Academy and inscribed on it: "Mithradates
the Persian, son of Orontobates, dedicated to the Muses this portrait of Plato,
made by Silanion."
The Satyros is given similar treatment by Pausanias (6.4.5), and Moretti 1957 no. 462 has established probable dates of 332 and 328 for his victories; the dates of (9) and (10) are unknown.
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Strongulion. A distinguished Greek statuary who flourished during the last thirty
or forty years of the fifth century B.C. and was famous for his statues of horses
and oxen.
Lamia, a celebrated Athenian courtezan, daughter of Cleanor. She commenced her career as a flute-player on the stage, in which profession she attained considerable celebrity, but afterwards abandoned it for that of a hetaera. We know not by what accident she found herself on board of the fleet of Ptolemy at the great sea-fight off Salamis (B. C. 306), but it was on that occasion that she fell into the hands of the young Demetrius, over whom she quickly obtained the most unbounded influence. Though then already past her prime, she so completely captivated the young prince, that her sway continued unbroken for many years, notwithstanding the numerous rivals with whom she had to contend. It was apparently not so much to her beauty as to her wit and talents that she owed her power: the latter were celebrated by the comic writers as well as the historians of the period, and many anecdotes concerning her have been transmitted to us by Plutarch and Athenaeus. Like most persons of her class, she was noted for her profusion, and the magnificence of the banquets which she gave to Demetrius was celebrated even in those times of wanton extravagance. In one instance, however, she is recorded to have made a better use of the treasures which were lavished upon her by her lover with almost incredible profusion, and built a splendid portico for the citizens of Sicyon, probably at the period when their city was in great measure rebuilt by Demetrius. Among the various flatteries invented by the Athenians to please Demetrius was that of consecrating a temple in honour of Lamia, under the title of Aphrodite, and their example was followed by the Thebans (Plut. Demetr. 16, 19, 24, 25, 27; Athen. iii., iv., vi., xiii., xiv.; Aelian. V. H. xii. 17, xiii. 9). According to Athenaeus, she had a daughter by Demetrius, who received the name of Phila. Diogenes Laertius (v. 76) mentions that Demetrius Phalereus also cohabited with a woman named Lamia, whom he calls an Athenian of noble birth. If this story be not altogether a mistake, which seems not improbable, the Lamia meant must be distinct from the subject of the present article.
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Leaena, (Leaina). The mistress of Aristogiton or of Harmodius. On the murder of Hipparchus she was tortured, but refused to betray her friends, and, according to one account, bit off her own tongue to make any revelation impossible. She died of her sufferings, and in her memory the Athenians erected on the Acropolis a bronze lioness (leaina) without a tongue.
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Εταίρα του Αριστογείτονα. Τη βασάνισε μέχρι θανάτου ο Ιππίας για να μάθει απ' αυτή ποιοι ήταν οι συνωμότες που κρύβονταν πίσω απ' τη δολοφονία του Ιππαρχου. Επειδή εκείνη δε λύγισε μπροστά στην απειλή του θανάτου και δεν ομολόγησε, οι Αθηναίοι έστησαν προς τιμήν της χάλκινο άγαλμα λέαινας στην Ακρόπολη (Παυσ. 1,23,2).
Thais, a celebrated Athenian hetaera, who accompanied Alexander the Great on his
expedition into Asia, or at least was present on various occasions during that
period. Her name is best known from the story of her having stimulated the conqueror
during a great festival at Persepolis, to set fire to the palace of the Persian
kings: but this anecdote, immortalized as it has been by Dryden's famous ode,
appears to rest on the sole authority of Cleitarchus, one of the least trustworthy
of the historians of Alexander, and is in all probability a mere fable (Cleitarchus,
ap. Athen. xiii.; Diod. xvii. 72; Plut. Alex. 38; Curt. v. 7.3-7).
After the death of Alexander, Thais attached herself to Ptolemy Lagi,
by whom she became the mother of two sons, Leontiscus and Lagus, and of a daughter,
Eirene. The statement of Athenaeus that she was actually married to the Egyptian
king may be doubted, but he seems to have been warmly attached to her, and brought
up their common children in almost princely style (Athen. xiii.). Many anecdotes
are recorded of her wit and readiness in repartee, for which she seems to have
been as distinguished as for her beauty.
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Theodota (Theodote), an Athenian courtezan, and one of the most celebrated persons
of that class in Greece, is introduced as a speaker in one of the dialogues is
Xenophon's Memorabilia (iii. 1 ), where some information is given respecting her
(Comp. Ath. v). She at last attached herself to Alcibiades, and, after his murder,
she performed his funeral rites (Ath. xiii).
Agatharchus (Agatharchos), a Athenian artist, said by Vitruvius (Praef. ad lib.
vii.) to have invented scene-painting, and to have painted a scene for a tragedy
which Aeschylus exhibited. As this appears to contradict Aristotle's assertion
(Poet. 4.16), that scene-painting was introduced by Sophocles, some scholars understand
Vitruvius to mean merely, that Agatharchus constructed a stage (Compare Hor. Ep
ad. Pis. 279: et modicis instraxit pulpita tignis). But the context shews clearly
that perspective painting must be meant, for Vitruvius goes on to say, that Democritus
and Anaxagoras, carrying out the principles laid down in the treatise of Agatharchus,
wrote on the same subject, shewing how, in drawing, the lines ought to be made
to correspond, according to a natural proportion, to the figure which would be
traced out on an imaginary intervening plane by a pencil of rays proceeding from
the eye, as a fixed point of sight, to the several points of the object viewed.
It was probably not till towards the end of Aeschylus's career that
scene-painting was introduced, and not till the time of Sophocles that it was
generally made use of; which may account for what Aristotle says.
There was another Greek painter of the name of Agatharchus, who was
a native of the island of Samos.... Some scholars (as Bentley, Bottiger, and Meyer)
have supposed him to be the same as the contemporary of Aeschylus, who, however,
must have preceded him by a good half century.
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Alexander, an Athenian painter, one of whose productions is extant, painted on
a marble tablet which bears his name. (Winckelmann, vol. ii. p. 47, v. p. 120,
ed. Eiselein.) There was a son of king Perseus of this name, who was a skilful
toreutes. (Plut. Aemil. Paul. 37). There was also a M. Lollius Alexander, an engraver,
whose name occurs in an inscription in Doni, p. 319, No. 14.
Antidotus, an encaustic painter, the disciple of Euphranor, and teacher of Nicias the Athenian. His works were few, but carefully executed, and his colouring was somewhat harsh (severior). He flourished about B. C. 336. (Plin. xxxv. 40. 27, 28.)
Apollodorus (Apollodoros). A Greek painter of Athens, about B.C. 420, the first who graduated light and shade in his pictures, whence he received the name of Sciagraphus (shadowpainter). This invention entitled him to be regarded as the founder of a new style, which aimed at producing illusion by pictorial means, and which was carried on further by his younger contemporary Zeuxis (Pliny , Pliny H. N.xxxv. 60).
With Apollodorus of Athens a new epoch is commenced, of such importance that Pliny
says of him that he was the first to give the appearance of reality to his pictures
(exprimere species), and to bring the brush into just repute. The great discovery
here alluded to is the invention of aerial perspective, the treatment of different
planes, the right management of chiaroscuro and the fusion of colours (Plut. de
gloria Ath. 2, exeuron phthoran kai apochrosin skias), so that he earned the title
of skiagraphos, and Pliny can say that before him no easel picture (tabula) had
existed fit to charm the eyes of the spectator. Doubtless the school of Polygnotus
had paved the way for this change: such a detail as that in the Vision of Hades
by Polygnotus, representing the river of Acheron with fish and pebbly bed seen
through the water his practice of placing his figures on different, levels; and
the figures on upper levels half hidden by a line of hill,--these seem to bespeak
a step immediately preceding that of true perspective; and it was Apollodorus
who took this step. The scarcity of actual records of his works prevents our knowing
whether his great fame (ho kleinos an' Hellada pasan, says Nicomachus the painter-historian)
is due to their individual excellence as much as to the value of his new discovery.
Two of his works are recorded; a priest in prayer, and an Ajax struck by lightning,
at Pergamon. This last picture has been quoted as an example of the pictorial
treatment of Apollodorus; as if it had shown Ajax in his ship, with startling
effects of light and shade. Furtwangler, however, is probably right in suggesting
that it was not Ajax, but the picture itself, that had suffered disaster; the
same thing had happened to a painting of Parrhasius: Pliny records (xxxv. § 69)
that a painting of this artist at Rhodes had been thrice struck by lightning and
not consumed (miraculo). Possibly the Ajax picture also contained the picture
of Odysseus, of which the Scholiast to Il. x. 265 says that this artist was the
first to represent him wearing a seaman's cap, pilos (protos egrapse pilon Odussei).
His date is specially given by Pliny (xxxv. § 60) as the 93rd Olympiad (B.C. 408-405);
but if we may judge from his relations with Zeuxis, it must go back considerably
before that time. It is from this age that the establishment of easel-painting
may be supposed to date; for although paintings on slabs of marble and terra-cotta
were naturally in vogue from early times, it is only now that they begin to occupy
the front place, hitherto held by the monumental paintings of Polygnotus; and
this is the meaning of Pliny's statement, neque ante eum tabula ullius, &c.; apart
from which, Pliny's sources of information seem to deal with easel pictures alone,
and to practically ignore the great epoch of monumental painting.
During the period which now terminates, Athens takes the lead in painting,
under Polygnotus and Apollodorus, as she had done under Pheidias in sculpture.
Though the artists who brought this about were not all Athenians by birth, Athens
was the chief seat of their industry; and even afterwards, when by the Peloponnesian
wars Athens had lost her supremacy, she still continued an important centre, although
the art of painting now branches off into other directions, and is no longer so
centralised. It has been customary to consider the sequence of the new schools
as (1) Ionian, (2) Sicyonian, and (3) Theban-Attic. But since Athens continues
to have an important share, it is better to accept two main branches only, viz.
(1) the Helladic, of which Athens is the centre, as opposed to (2) the Asiatic.
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Apollodorus. A painter, a native of Athens, flourished about 40, B. C. With him
commences a new period in the history of the art. He gave a dramatic effect to
the essential forms of Polygnotus, without actually departing from them as models,
by adding to them a representation of persons and objects as they really exist,
not, however, individually, but in classes: "primus species exprimere instituit"
(Plin. xxxv. 36.1). This feature in the works of Apollodorus is thus explained
by Fuseli (Lect. i.): " The acuteness of his taste led him to discover that, as
all men were connected by one general form, so they were separated, each by some
predominant power, which fixed character and bound them to a class: that in proportion
as this specific power partook of individual peculiarities, the farther it was
removed from a share in that harmonious system which constitutes nature and consists
in a due balance of all its parts. Thence he drew his line of imitation, and personified
the central form of the class to which his object belonged, and to which the rest
of its qualities administered, without being absorbed: agility was not suffered
to destroy firmness, solidity, or weight; nor strength and weight agility; elegance
did not degenerate to effeminancy, or grandeur swell to hugeness." Fuseli justly
adds that these principles of style seem to have been exemplified in his two works
of which Pliny has given us the titles, a worshipping priest, and Ajax struck
by lightning, the former being the image of piety, the latter of impiety and blasphemy.
A third picture by Apollodorus is mentioned by the Scholiast on the Plutus of
Aristophanes (v. 385) Apollodorus made a great advance in colouring.
He invented chiaroscuro (phthoran kai apochrosin skias, Plut. de Gloria Athen.
2). Earlier painters, Dionysius for example (Plut. Timol. 36), had attained to
the quality which the Greeks called tonos, that is, a proper gradation of light
and shade, but Apollodorus was the tirst who heightened this effect by the gradation
of tints, and thus obtained what modern painters call tone. Hence he was called
skiagraphos (Hesychius, s. v.). Pliny says that his pictures were the first that
rivetted the eyes, and that he was the first who conferred due honour upon the
pencil, plainly because the cestrum was an inadequate instrument for the production
of those effects of light and shade which Apollodorus produced by the use of the
pencil. In this state he delivered the art to Zeuxis, upon whom he is said to
have written verses, complaining that lie had robbed him of his art. Plutarch
says, that Apollodorus inscribed upon his works the verse which Pliny attributes
to Zeuxis:
Momesetai tis mallon e mimesetai.
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Asclepiodorus. An Athenian painter, a contemporary of Apelles, who considered him to excel himself in the symmetry and correctness of his drawing (Plin. H. N. xxxv. 10. s. 36.21). Plutarch (de Gloria Athen. 2) ranks him with Euphranor and Nicias.
Cratinus, a painter at Athens, whose works in the Pompeion, the hall containing all things used in processions, are mentioned by Pliny (H. N. xxxv. 40.33, 43).
Hippeus, a painter, whose picture at Athens of the marriage of Peirithous is mentioned by Polemon. (Athen.xi.)
Metrodorus of Athens, a painter and philosopher, of such distinction, that when Aemilius Paullus, after his victory over Perseus (B. C. 168), requested the Athenians to send him their most approved philosopher, to educate his children, and their best painter, to represent his triumph, they selected Metrodorus as the most competent man for both offices; and Paullus concurred in their opinion. (Plin. H. N. xxxv. 11. s. 40.30.)
Ζωγράφος και γλύπτης. Εργο του ήταν η ζωγραφική αναπαράσταση των Αργοναυτών στο Ιερό των Διοσκούρων στην Αθήνα (Κεραμεικός) (Παυσ. 1,18,1).
Micon was himself a sculptor. He is the only great painter of whom we have as yet a direct monumental record; and, curiously enough, this record is concerned, not with a picture, but with a statue. At Olympia a square base was found (Lowy, Inschr. Gr. Bildh. No. 41) which had supported a bronze statue; the inscription showed that this statue had recorded the victory in the pancration of Callias, son of Didymion, an Athenian; and added Mikon epoiesen Athenaios. This very statue is described by Pausanias (vi. 6, 1), who gives further in another passage (v. 9, 3) the date of Callias' victory as the 77th Olympiad (B.C. 472-469); the statue must have been set up soon after this date. Another inscribed base (Lowy, No. 42), found at Athens, records a statue made by Micon, son of Phanomachus, thus correcting the form of the name (Phanochus) given in the Scholiast to Aristoph. Lysist. 679. These statues of Athletes remind us of Pliny's statement that Micon was specially esteemed for this class of work ( Micon athletis spectatur ).
Of Micon's birth and life we know otherwise very little. In spite of the evidence afforded by the Olympia base, he has usually been considered as of un-Attic origin, on account of the Ionic character of his writing. But the evidence of his work all points to his being an Athenian; the subjects both of his sculpture and of his painting are Attic, and it is here that his activity was chiefly displayed. Six of his works are known to us, viz. (1) Battle of Amazons, and (2) Battle of Marathon, both in the Stoa Poikile; (3) an Argonautic scene, possibly the funeral games of Pelias, in the Anakeion; (4) Battle of Amazons, (5) Battle of Centaurs, and (6) The Recognition of Theseus, all in the Theseion. In describing this last, Pausanias goes on to relate the end of Theseus; and this has generally been considered as the description of a seventh picture: Klein, however, shows good reason for the opinion that this is merely an excursus of the garrulous topographer, and must not be included among Micon's paintings. The close connexion existing between the great artists of this period, and the probable similarity of their style, is shown in the fact that the Marathon ascribed to Micon. (No. 2) was probably painted by Panaenus, and that some of the works in the Theseion are in one author attributed to Polygnotus.
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Micon (Mikon), of Athens, the son of Phanochus, was a very distinguished painter
and statuary, contemporary with Polygnotus, about B. C. 460. He is mentioned,
with Polygnotus, as the first who used for a colour the light Attic ochre (sil),
and the black made from burnt vine twigs (Plin. H. N. xxxiii. 13. 56, xxxv. 6.
25). Varro mentions him as one of those ancient painters, by departing from whose
conventional forms, the later artists, such as Apelles and Protogenes, attained
to their great excellence. The following pictures by him are mentioned:
(1.) In the Poccile, at Athens, where, Pliny informs us (xxxv. 9. 35), Polygnotus
painted gratuitously, but Micon for pay, he painted the battle of Theseus and
the Athenians with the Amazons (Schol. ad Aristoph. Lysist. 879; Paus. i. 15.2).
(2.) According to some writers, Micon had a hand in the great picture of the battle
of Marathon, in the Poecile [comp. Panaenus
and Polygnotus],
and was fined thirty minae for having made the barbarians larger than the Greeks
(Sopater, in Ald. Rhet. Graec; Harpocr. s. v.). The celebrated figure, in that
picture, of a dog which had followed its master to the battle, was attributed
by some to Micon, by others to Polygnotus (Aelian, N. A. vii. 38).
(3.) He painted three of the walls of the temple of Theseus. On the one wall was
the battle of the Athenians and the Amazons: on another the fight between the
Centaurs and the Lapithae, where Theseus had already killed a centaur (no doubt
in the centre of the composition), while between the other combatants the conflict
was still equal: the story represented on the third side, Pausanias was unable
to make out (Paus. i. 17.2). Micon seems to have been assisted by Polygnotus in
these works.
(4.) The temple of the Dioscuri was adorned with paintings by Polygnotus and Micon:
the former painted the rape of the daughters of Leucippus; the latter, the departure
(or, as Bittiger supposes, the return) of Jason and the Argonauts (Paus. i. 18.1).
Micon was particularly skilful in painting horses (Aelian, N. A. iv.
50); for instance, in his picture of the Argonauts, the part on which he bestowed
the greatest care was Acastus and his horses. The accurate knowledge, however,
of Simon, who was both an artist and a writer on horsemanship, detected an error
in Micon's horses; he had painted lashes on the lower eye-lids (Pollux, ii. 71):
another version of the story attributes the error to Apelles. (Aelian, l. c.)
There is a tale that in one of his pictures Micon painted a certain
Butes crushed beneath a rock, so that only his head was visible, and hence arose
the proverb, applied to things quickly accomplished, Bouten Mikon edraphen, or
Thatton e Boutes (Zenob. Proverb. i. 11, Append. e Vatie. i. 12). He was a statuary
as well as a painter, and lie made the statue of the Olympic victor Callias, who
conquered in the pancratium in the 77th Olympiad. (Paus. vi. 6.1; comp. v. 9.3).
The date exactly agrees with the time of Micon, and Pausanias expressly says,
Mikon epoieoen ho zodraphns. Bottiger, in the course of a valuable section on
Micon, ascribes this statue to Micon of Syracuse (No. 3), to whom consequently
he assigns the wrong date.
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Diores, a painter, who is mentioned by Varro with Micon, the contemporary of Polygnotus, in such a manner as to imply that he lived at the same time. The text of the passage, however, is so corrupt, that the name is not made out with certainty. (Varro, L. L. ix. 12)
Nicias (Nikias).
1. An Athenian painter, a son of Nicomedes, and a pupil of Euphranor's pupil Antidotus. He lived during the latter half of the fourth century B.C., and was a younger contemporary of Praxiteles. The latter, when asked which of his works in marble he specially approved, was in the habit of answering, "Those that have been touched by the hand of Nicias"--such importance did he attribute to that artist's method of tinting, or "touching up with colour," circumlitio (Pliny , Pliny H. N.xxxv. 133). He painted mainly in encaustic, and was especially distinguished by his skill in making the figures on his pictures appear to stand out of the work by means of a proper treatment of light and shade. He was celebrated for his painting of female figures and other subjects which were favourable to the full expression of dramatic emotions, such as the rescue of Andromeda and the questioning of the dead by Odysseus in the lower world. This latter picture he presented to the city of his birth, after Ptolemy I. had offered sixty talents (about $60,000) for it (Pliny , Pliny H. N.xxxv. 130-133). He insisted on the importance of an artist's choosing noble themes, such as cavalry engagements and battles at sea, instead of frittering away his skill on birds and flowers (Demet. De Elocutione, 76).
2. The younger, an Athenian painter, son of Nicomedes, and pupil of Euphranor. He began to practise his art about B.C. 320. Nicias is said to have been the first artist who used burnt ochre in his paintings (Pliny , Pliny H. N.xxxv. 6Pliny H. N., 20).
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Nicias, a celebrated Athenian painter, was the son of Nicomedes,and the disciple
of Antidotus (Plin. xxxv. 11. s. 40.28). On this ground Silligargues that since
Antidotus was the pupil of Euphranor, who flourished about the 104th Olympiad,
Nicias must have flourished about B. C. 310. And this agrees with the story of
Plutarch about the unwillingness of Nicias to sell one of his pictures to Ptolemy,
king of Egypt, if we suppose Ptolemy I. to be meant (Non poss. suav. viv. sec.
Epicureos, 11). On the other hand, Pliny tells us that Nicias assisted Praxiteles
in statuis circumlinendis, that is, covering marble statues with a sort of encaustic
varnish, by which a beautifully smooth and tinted surface was given to them (see
Dict. of Antiq. PAINTING,
§ viii.). Now Praxiteles flourished in the 104th Olympiad, B. C. 364-360. We must
therefore either suppose that Nicias thus painted the statues of Praxiteles a
considerable time after they were made, which is not very probable in itself,
and is opposed to Pliny's statement; or else that Pliny has confounded two different
artists, indeed he himself suggests that there may have been two artists of the
name. But, plausible as this argument is, it is not conclusive, for the division
of a master and pupil by seven or eight Olympiads is an arbitrary assumption.
A pupil may be, and often is, nearly the same age as his teacher, and sometimes
even older. Again, Pliny's dates are very loosely given; we can never tell with
certainty whether they are meant to mark the early or the middle or the latter
part of an artist's career. In the case of Praxiteles, we know that he executed
great works considerably later than the date assigned by Pliny. Supposing then
that Nicias, as a young man. assisted Praxiteles when in the height of his fame
(and it is not likely that Nicias would have been so employed after he had obtained
an independent reputation), and that his refusal to sell his picture to Ptolemy
occurred when he was old, and had gained both reputation and wealth enough, there
remains no positive anachronism in supposing only one artist of this name.
Nicias was the most celebrated disciple of Euphranor. He was extremely
skilful in painting female figures, careful in his management of light and shade,
and in making his figures stand out of the picture (Plin. l. c.). The following
works of his are enumerated by Pliny (l. c.) : they seem to have been all painted
in encaustic. A painting of Nemea, sitting on a lion, holding a palm in her hand,
with an old man standing by with a staff, over whose head was a picture of a biga.
This last point is not very intelligible; Lessing has endeavoured to clear it
up (Laocoon): Nicias placed on this picture the inscription, Nikias enekanden:
the picture was carried from Asia to Rome by Silanus, and Augustns had it fastened
into the wall of the curia which he dedicated in the comitium (Plin. H. N. xxxv.
4. s. 10). Father Liber in the temple of Concord. A Hyacinthus, painted as a beautiful
youth, to signify the love of Apollo for him (comp. Paus. iii. 19.4); Augustus
was so delighted with the picture that he carried it to Rome after the taking
of Alexandria, and Tiberius dedicated it in the temple of Augustus. A Diana, probably
at Ephesus, as Pliny mentions in immediate connection with it the sepulchre of
Megabyzus, the priest of Diana, at Ephesus, as painted by Nicias. Lastly, what
appears to have been his master-piece, a representation of the infernal regions
as described by Homer (Nekuia, Necromantia Homeri); this was the picture which
Nicias refused to sell to Ptolemy, athough the price offered for it was sixty
talents (Plutarch, loc. sup. cit.): Pliny tells the same story of Attalus, which
is a manifest anachronism. Plutarch also tells that Nicias was so absorbed in
the work during its progress, that he used often to have to ask his servants whether
he had dined. From the above pictures, Pliny distinguishes the following as grandes
picturas: Calypso, Io, Andromeda, an admirable Alexander (Paris), and a sitting
Calypso, in the porticoes of Pompey. Some pictures of animals were attributed
to him: he was particularly happy in painting doges.
Pausanias (vii. 22.4) gives a full description of his paintings in
a tomb outside Tritaea in Achaea.
There is an interesting passage in Demetrius Phalereus (Eloc. 76),
giving the opinion of Nicias respecting the art of painting, in which he insists
on the importance of choosing subjects of some magnitude, and not throwing away
skill and labour on minute objects, such as birds and flowers. The proper subjects
for a painter, he says, are battles both on land and on sea; in which the various
attitudes and expressions of horses and of men afford rich materials for the painter:
the subject of the action was, he thought, as important a part of painting as
the story or plot was of poetry.
Nicias was the first painter who used burnt ochre, the discovery of
which was owing to an accident (Plin. H. N. xxxv. 6.20). He had a disciple, Omphalion,
who was formerly his slave and favourite (Paus. iv. 31.9). He himself was buried
at Athens, by the road leading to the academy (Paus. i. 29.15).
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited July 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
With Nicias of Athens we are brought fully into the Alexandrine age. Plutarch narrates a story of his having refused to sell one of his pictures (the Nekyia) at sixty talents to king Ptolemy; on the other hand, we hear of him as a contemporary of Praxiteles: so that his sphere of activity must have lain between about B.C. 340-300. From a statement in Demetr. Phaler. (de Elocut. 76) we gather that he tried to bring about a reaction in style against the follies of contemporary artists, who frittered away their art in painting birds and flower pieces; and laid down the principle of the importance of choosing a fine subject, such as a battle-piece. Following this principle himself, we find him occupied with more than one subject of the Polygnotan school: the Nemea, probably a personification of the Nemean games, whom he represented bearing a palm and seated on a lion; and a Vision of Hades (Pliny, xxxv. § 132, necyomantea Homeri), the picture which he refused to Ptolemy and presented to Athens. It is interesting in connexion with this last to note that an ancient treatment of this subject has come down to us in the famous Odyssey landscapes excavated on the Esquiline in 1848-50 (Woermann, Antiken Odysseelandschaften): these six pictures are almost exact illustrations of the Homeric text (Od. x. 80 to xi. 600), and though decorative in idea are examples of complete landscape painting, showing due observance of aerial perspective. Their execution dates, as the masonry of the walls on which they were found shows, from the last years of the Republic; but from their style the designs may probably be referred to the Hellenistic period. Among the grandis tabulas of Nicias, Pliny mentions an Io, a subject of which several replicas exist at Pompeii; it is probable that the largest and finest of these, found on the Palatine, reproduces the general form of the composition of Nicias (see Woltmann, p. 56). Besides his large pictures, principally of heroines ( diligentissime mulieres pinxit ), he seems to have worked in encaustic the Nemea was a specimen of this technique, on which the artist inscribed the statement that he had burned it in (inussisse); and to this style we may perhaps refer his pictures of animals and dogs, as well as the chiaroscuro and quality of relief for which he is praised. Connected also with his encaustic work was doubtless the circumlitio of the statues of Praxiteles which has already been dealt with on p. 395; and the painted scene on the sepulchral monument at Triteia which Pausanias describes (vii. 22, 6).
This extract is from: A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890) (eds. William Smith, LLD, William Wayte, G. E. Marindin). Cited July 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Αδελφός του Φειδία. Είχε ζωγραφίσει τις επιφάνειες ανάμεσα στα πόδια του θρόνου του αγάλματος του Δία στην Ολυμπία (Παυσ. 5,11,5).
Panaenus, if, as is nearly certain, he was the brother of Pheidias, probably in that case began his training under their father Charmides, who must have been also a painter. His personality is overshadowed somewhat by the superior claims of his greater brother; but the fact of his being chosen to paint the Battle of Marathon, and to decorate the throne rails and walls of the great temple of Olympian Zeus, show the high esteem in which his art was held. From the description which Pausanias gives (v. 11, 5) of his Olympian paintings, it is evident that his method corresponded to that of his contemporaries already described. With him we hear for the first time of those contests of painters which seem to have attracted the great masters in subsequent times to exhibit competitive works usually at the great games or religious festivals. Panaenus is recorded by Pliny (xxxv.58) as having been defeated in such a competition at the Pythia by Timagoras of Chalkis, an Ionic master who is otherwise unknown. Probably Pliny had derived this story from a copy that he may have seen of a metrical inscription of Timagoras, and this would explain the Timagorae vetusto carmine in the passage of Pliny.
This extract is from: A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890) (eds. William Smith, LLD, William Wayte, G. E. Marindin). Cited July 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Panaenus (Panainos), a distinguished Athenian painter, who flourished, according
to Pliny, in the 83rd Olympiad, B. C. 448 (H. N. xxxv. 8. s. 4). He was the nephew
of Pheidias (adelphidous, Strab. viii.; adelphos, Paus. v. 11.2 ;frater, i. e.
frater patruelis, Plin. l.e. and xxxvi. 23. s. 55), whom he assisted in decorating
the temple of Zeus, at Olympia; and it is said to have been in answer to a question
of his that Pheidias made his celebrated declaration that Homer's description
of the nod of Zeus (Il. i. 528) gave him the idea of his statue of the god. With
regard to the works of Panaenus in the temple at Olympia, Strabo tells us that
he assisted Pheidias in the execution of his statue of Zeus, by ornamenting it
with colours, and especially the drapery ; and that many admirable paintings of
his were shown around the temple (peri to hieron), by which, as Bottiger has pointed
out, we must understand the paintings on the sides of the elevated base of the
statue, which are described by Pausanias (v. 11). This author tells us that the
sides of the front of this base were simply painted dark blue, but that the other
sides were adorned with paintings of Panaenus, which represented the following
subjects : -Atlas sustaining heaven and earth, with Heracles standing by, ready
to relieve him of the burden; Theseus and Peirithous; Hellas and Salamis, the
latter holding in her hand the ornamented prow of a ship; the contest of Heracles
with the Nemean lion; Ajax insulting Cassandra; Hiippodameia, the daughter of
Oenomaus, with her mother; Prometheus, still bound, with Hercules about to release
him; Penthesileia expiring, and Hercules sustaining her; and two of the Hesperides,
carrying the apples, which were entrusted to them to guard.
Another great work by Panaenus was his painting of the battle of Marathon,
in the Poecile at Athens (Paus. l. c.); respecting which Pliny says that the use
of colours had advanced so far, and the art had been brought to such perfection,
that Panaenus was said to have introduced portraits of the generals (iconicos
duces), namely, Miltiades, Callimachus, and Cynaegeirus, on the side of the Athenians,
and Datis and Artaphernes, on that of the barbarians (H. N. xxxv. 8. s. 34). Pausanias
gives a fuller description of this picture, but without mentioning the artist's
name (i. 15). He says that the last of the paintings in the Poecile represented
those who fought at Marathon: "the Athenians, assisted by the Plataeans, join
battle with the barbarians; and in this part (of the picture) both parties maintain
an equality in the conflict; but, further on in the battle, the barbarians are
fleeing, and pushing one another into the marsh: but last in the painting are
the Phoenicians' ships, and the Greeks slaying the barbarians as they rush on
board of them. There also is painted the hero Marathon, from whom the plain is
named, and Theseus, like one ascending out of the earth, and Athena and Heracles."
He then mentions the polemarch Callimachus, Miltiades, and the hero Echetlus,
as the most conspicuous persons in the battle.
Bottiger infers from this description, compared with Himerius (Orat.
x.), that the picture was in four compartments, representing separate periods
of the battle: in the first, nearest the land, appear Marathon and Theseus, Heracles
and Athena; in the next the battle is joined, Miltiades is conspicuous as the
leader of the Athenians, and neither party has yet the advantage; in the third
we have the rout of the Persians, with the polemarch Callimachus still fighting,
but perhaps receiving his deathblow (polemounti mallon eoikos e tethneoti, Himer.;
comp. Herod. vi. 14); and here, too, Bottiger places the hero Echetlus, slaying
the flying enemies with his ploughshare : in the fourth the final contest at the
ships; and here was undoubtedly the portrait of Cynaegeirus, laying hold of the
prow of a ship (Herod. vi. 114). But it seems to us much better to view the whole
as one picture, in which the three successive stages of the battle are represented
by their positions, and not by any actual division, the necessary transition from
one part to the other being left to the imagination of the spectator, as is not
uncommon in modern battle pieces. Indeed Bottiger himself seems to have had this
idea in his mind; and we can hardly understand how the writer, who sees so clearly
that the scene of battle is marked by the land at one end, and the sea at the
other, and who assigns so accurately to each of the three leaders their proper
places in the picture, should at the same time think of cutting up the work into
four tableaur, and imagine that "the same figures (i. e. of the chieftains) were
probably exhibited in other divisions of the picture." Bottiger's notion of placing
Marathon and Theseus, lleracles and Athena, in a separate tablteau, seems to us
also quite arbitrary. Pausanias says entautha kai,, that is, in the picture. These
deities and heroes no doubt occupied, like the [p. 108] chieftains, their proper
places in the picture, although we cannot easily assign those places: this Bottiger
himself has seen in the case of Echetlus; and the apparition of Theseus rising
out of the earth would no doubt be connected with the opening of the battle.
Another question arises, how the individual chieftains were identified.
The expression of Pliny, iconicos duces, can hardly be accepted in the sense of
actual likenesses of the chieftains; for, to say nothing of the difficulty of
taking likenesses of the Persian chieftains, the time at which Panaenus lived
excludes the supposition that he could have taken original portraits of Miltiades
and the other leaders, nor have we any reason to believe that the art of portrait
painting was so far advanced in their time, as that Panaenus could have had portraits
of them to copy from. The true meaning seems to be that this was one of the earliest
pictures in which an artist rejected the ancient plan (which we still see on vases,
mirrors, &c.) of affixing to his figures the names of the persons they were intended
to represent, and yet succeeded in indicating who they were by some other method,
such as by an exact imitation of their arms and dresses (which may very probably
have been preserved), or by the representation of their positions and their well-known
exploits. This explanation is confirmed by the passages already cited respecting
Callimachus and Cynaegeirus, and still more strikingly by a passage of Aeschines
(e. Ctes.), who tells us that Miltiades requested the people that his name might
be inscribed on this picture, but they refused his request, and, instead of inserting
his name, only granted him the privilege of being painted standing first and exhorting
the soldiers (Comp. Nepos, Milt. 6). We learn from an allusion in Persius (iii.
53) that the Medes were represented in their proper costume. Some writers ascribe
parts of this picture to Micon and Polygnotus, but it was most probably the work
of Panaenus alone.
Pliny, moreover, states that Panaenus painted the roof of the temple
of Athena at Elis with a mixture of milk and saffron, and also that he painted
the shield of the statue of the goddess, made by Colotes, in the same temple (Plin.
ll. cc.)
During the time of Panaenus, contests for prizes in painting were
established at Corinth and Delphi. That is, in the Isthmian and Pythian games,
and Panaenus himself was the first who engaged in one of these contests, his antagonist
being Timagoras of Chalcis, who defeated Panaenus at the Pyvthian games, and celebrated
his victory in a poem (Plin. H. N. xxxv. 9. s. 35.)
Panaenus has been called the Cimabue of ancient painting (Bottiger),
but tie title is very inappropriate, as he had already been preceded by Polygnotus,
Micon, and Dionysius of Colophon, who, though his contemporaries, were considerably
older than him.
His name is variously spelt in the MSS. Panaios, Panainos, and Pantainos,
and Panainos is the true reading.
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited July 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Phasis, a painter, who is only known by an epigram of Cornelius Longinus, in which he is praised for having painted the great Athenian general Cynegeirus, not, as he was usually represented, with one hand cut off (see Herod. vi. 114), but with both his hands still unmutilated; it being but fair, according to the conceit of the epigrammatist, that the hero should not be deprived of those hands which had won him immortal fame! We have no indication of the painter's age; he was perhaps contemporary with the poet.
Pleistaenetus (Pleistainetos), an Athenian painter, the brother of Pheidias, is mentioned by Plutarch (De Glor. Athen. ii.) among the most celebrated painters, such as Apollodorus, Euphranor, Nicias, and Asclepiodorus, who painted victories, battles, and heroes; but there is no other mention of him.
Εκτός από ζωγράφος ήταν και γλύπτης και έργο του ήταν το άγαλμα του Πατρώου Απόλλωνα σε Ναό του Κεραμεικού (Παυσ. 1,3,4).
Euphranor (Euphranor). A distinguished statuary and painter.
He was a native of Corinth, but practised his art at Athens about B.C. 336. Of
one of his works, a beautiful sitting Paris, we have probably a copy in the Museo
Pio-Clementino. His best paintings were preserved in a porch in the Ceramicus.
Eumarus of Athens was the first who distinguished male from female, and who dared to imitate every sort of figure. On the vases with black figures we can trace the epoch at which a white colour is gradually introduced to indicate the flesh of female figures. It is not necessary that this should be precisely the change initiated by Eumarus, but it must evidently have been something analogous to this.3 The two facts we are told of Eumarus thus lead us naturally to think of the early Athenian vases with black figures. While the Corinthian and Chalcidian painters probably went on using their creamy white background, the Athenians used for background the natural brilliant red of their clay, and laid the white in their design on a surface of black paint. The white on these vases is a feature sufficiently striking to have attracted Pliny's informant; and the wealth of mythological material lavished on the Francois vase by CLITIAS and ERGOTIMUS, and their boldness in attempting difficult motives, may well have justified his expression figuras omnis. Like these two artists, Eumarus was also an Athenian; and in the recent excavations on the Acropolis an inscription has been found which seems to mention his name, and fixes his date, if this identification be correct, at the Solonic period in which Athenian art is beginning to take a foremost place. The vases and pinakes show us the influence of Corinthian painting on Athens at this period.
This extract is from: A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890) (eds. William Smith, LLD, William Wayte, G. E. Marindin). Cited July 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Γιατρός μαία, που την κατηγόρησαν, επειδή το επάγγελμα ήταν ανδρικό προνόμιο, και την δίκασαν. Ο Αρειος Πάγος την αθώωσε και σε λίγο καταργήθηκε ο νόμος που απαγόρευε στις γυναίκες να ασκούν ιατρική.
Agnodice (Agnodike), the name of the earliest midwife mentioned among the Greeks. She was a native of Athens, where it was forbidden by law for a woman or a slave to study medicine. According, however, to Hyginus (Fab. 274), on whose autlliority alone thle whole story rests, it would appear that Agnodice disguised herself in man's clothes, and so contrived to attend the lectures, of a physician named Hierophilus,--devoting herself chiefly to the study of midwifery and the diseases of women. Afterwards, when she began practice, being very successful in these branches of the profession, she excited the jealousy of several of the other practitioners, by whom she was summoned before the Areiopagus, and accused of corrupting the morals of her patients. Upon her refuting this charge by making known her sex, she was immediately accused of having violated the existing law, which second danger she escaped by the wives of the chief persons in Athens, whom she had attended, coming forward in her behalf, and succeeding at last in getting the obnoxious law abolished. No date whatever is attached to this story, but several persons have, by calling the tutor of Agnodice by the name of Herophilus instead of Hierophilus, placed it in the third or fourth century before Christ. But this emendation, though at first sight very easy and plausible, does not appear altogether free from objections. For, in the first place, if the story is to be believed at all upon the authority of Hyginus, it would seem to belong rather to the fifth or sixth century before Christ than the third or fourth; secondly, we have no reason for thinking that Agnodice was ever at Alexandria, or Herophilus at Athens; and thirdly, it seems hardly probable that Hyginus would have called so celebrated a physician " a certctin leropliilus." (Herophilus quidam.)
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited June 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Callias (Kallias) & Hipponicus (Hipponikos). A noble Athenian family, celebrated for their wealth. They enjoyed the hereditary dignity of torch-bearer at the Eleusinian Mysteries, and claimed descent from Triptolemus. The first member of this family of any note was the Callias who fought at the battle of Marathon, B.C. 490, and was afterwards ambassador from Athens to Artaxerxes, and, according to some accounts, negotiated a peace with Persia, B.C. 449, on terms most humiliating to the latter. On his return to Athens he was accused of having taken bribes, and was condemned to a fine of fifty talents. His son, Hipponicus, was killed at the battle of Delium in B.C. 424. It was his divorced wife, and not his widow, whom Pericles married. His daughter Hipparete was married to Alcibiades. Callias, son of this Hipponicus by the lady who married Pericles, dissipated all his ancestral wealth on sophists, flatterers, and women. The scene of Xenophon's Banquet, and also that of Plato's Protagoras, is laid at his house.
This text is from: Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. Cited Nov 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Aristeides. Son of Lysimachus, the Athenian statesman and general, makes his first
certain appearance in history as archon eponymus of the year 489 B. C. (Mar. Par.
50). From Herodotus we hear of him as the best and justest of his countrymen;
as ostracised and at enmity with Themistocles; of his generosity and bravery at
Salamis, in some detail (viii. 79, 82, and 95); and the fact, that he commanded
the Athenians in the campaign of Plataea (ix. 28). Thucydides names him once as
co-ambassador to Sparta with Themistocles, once in the words ton ep Aristeidou
phoron (i. 91, v. 18). In the Gorgias of Plato, he is the example of the virtue,
so rare among statesmen, of justice, and is said " to have become singularly famous
for it, not only at home, but through the whole of Greece". In Demosthenes he
is styled the assessor of the phoros (c. Aristocr.), and in Aeschines he has the
title of "the Just" (c. Tim. p. 4. 1. 23, c. Ctes. pp. 79. 1. 38, 90. ll. 18,20).
Added to this, and by it tobe corrected, wehave, comprehending the sketch by Cornelius
Nepos, Plutarch's detailed biography, derived from various sources, good and bad.
His family, we are told, was ancient and noble (Callias the torch-bearer
was his cousin); he was the political disciple of Cleisthenes (Plut. 2, An. Seni,
p. 790), and partly on that account, partly from personal character, opposed from
the first to Themistocles. They fought together, Aristeides as the commander of
his tribe, in the Athenian centre at Marathon; and when Miltiades hurried from
the field to protect the city, he was left in charge of the spoil. Next year,
489, perhaps in consequence, he was archon. In 483 or 482 (according to Nepos,
three years earlier) he suffered ostracism, whether from the enmities, merely,
which he had incurred by his scrupulous honesty and rigid opposition to corruption,
or in connexion, further, with the triumph of the maritime and democratic policy
of his rival. He wrote, it is said, his own name on the sherd, at the request
of an ignorant countryman, who knew him not, but took it ill that any citizen
should be called just beyond his neighbours. The sentence seems to have still
been in force in 480 (Herod. viii. 79; Dem. c. Aristog. ii.), when he made his
way from Aegina with news of the Persian movements for Themistocles at Salamis,
and called on him to be reconciled. In the battle itself he did good service by
dislodging the enemy, with a band raised and armed by himself, from the islet
of Psyttaleia. In 479 he was strategus, the chief, it would seem, but not the
sole (Plut. Arist. 11, but comp. 16 and 20, and Herod. ix.), and to him no doubt
belongs much of the glory due to the conduct of the Athenians, in war and policy,
during this, the most perilous year of the contest. Their replies to the proffers
of Persia and the fears of Sparta Plutarch ascribes to him expressly, and seems
to speak of an extant psephisma Aristeidou embracing them (c. 16). So, too, their
treatment of the claims of Tegea, and the arrangements of Pausanias with regard
to their post in battle. He gives him further the suppression of a Persian plot
among the aristocratical Athenians, and the settlement of a quarrel for the aristeia
by conceding them to Plataea (comp. however on this second point Herod. ix. 71);
finally, with better reason, the consecration of Plataea and establishment of
the Eleutheria, or Feast of Freedom. On the return to Athens, Aristeides seems
to have acted in cheerful concert with Themistocles, as directing the restoration
of the city (Heracl. Pont. 1); as his colleague in the embassy to Sparta, that
secured for it its walls; as proposing, in accordance with his policy, perhaps
also in consequence of changes in property produced by the war, the measure which
threw open the archonship and areiopagus to all citizens alike. In 477, as joint-commander
of the Athenian contingent under Pausanias, by his own conduct and that of his
colleague and disciple, Cimon, he had the glory of obtaining for Athens the command
of the maritime confederacy: and to him was by general consent entrusted the task
of drawing up its laws and fixing its assessments. This first phoros of 460 talents,
paid into a common treasury at Delos, bore his name, and was regarded by the allies
in after times, as marking their Saturnian age. It is, unless the change in the
constitution followed it, his last recorded act. He lived, Theophrastus related,
to see the treasury removed to Athens, and declared it (for the bearing of the
words see Thirlwall's Greece, iii. p. 47) a measure unjust and expedient. During
most of this period he was, we may suppose, as Cimon's coadjutor at home, the
chief political leader of Athens. He died, according to some, in Pontus, more
probably, however, at home, certainly after 471, the year of the ostracism of
Themistocles, and very likely, as Nepos states, in 468.
A tomb was shewn in Plutarch's time at Phalerum, as erected to him
at the public expense. That he did not leave enough behind him to pay for his
funeral, is perhaps a piece of rhetoric. We may believe, however, that his daughters
were portioned by the state, as it appears certain (Plut. 27; comp. Dem. c. Lept.
491. 25), that his son Lysimachus received lands and money by a decree of Alcibiades;
and that assistance was given to his grand-daughter, and even to remote descendants,
in the time of Demetrius Phalereus. He must, so far as we know, have been in 489,
as archon eponymus, among the pentacosiomedimni : the wars may have destroyed
his property; we can hardly question the story from Aeschines, the disciple of
Socrates, that when his poverty was made a reproach in a court of justice to Callias,
his cousin, he bore witness that he had received and declined offers of his assistance;
that he died poor is certain. This of itself would prove him possessed of an honesty
rare in those times; and in the higher points of integrity, though Theophrastus
said, and it may be true, that he at times sacrificed it to his country's interest,
no case whatever can be adduced in proof, and he certainly displays a sense, very
unusual, of the duties of nation to nation.
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited June 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
The Ostracism of Aristides
The threat ostracism was meant to combat could also come from a man's
great personal prominence, if he became so prominent that he could appear to overshadow
all others on the political scene and thus threaten the egalitarian principles
of Athenian democracy, in which no one man was supposed to dominate the making
of policy. This point is illustrated by a famous anecdote concerning Aristides,
who set the dues for the Delian League. This Aristides had the nickname "The
Just" because he was reputed to be so fair-minded. On the balloting day for
an ostracism, an illiterate man from the countryside handed Aristides a potsherd,
asking him to scratch on it the name of the man's choice for ostracism. 'Certainly',
said Aristides; 'Which name shall I write'? 'Aristides', replied the countryman.
'Very well', remarked Aristides as he proceeded to inscribe his own name. 'But
tell me, why do you want to ostracize Aristides? What has he done to you?' 'Oh,
nothing; I don't even know him', sputtered the man. 'I'm just sick and tired of
hearing everybody refer to him as "The Just".'
ΓΕΦΥΡΑΙΟΙ (Αρχαίος δήμος) ΑΤΤΙΚΗ
Harmodius, (Harmodios). An Athenian who, together with Aristogiton
(Aristogeiton), became the cause of the overthrow of the Pisistratidae. The names
of Harmodius and Aristogiton were immortalized by the gratitude of the Athenians.
Aristogiton was a citizen of the middle class; Harmodius a youth distinguished
by the comeliness of his person. They were both perhaps remotely allied to one
another by blood, and were united by ties of the closest intimacy. The youth had
received an outrage from Hipparchus, which roused both the resentment and the
fears of his friend, lest Hipparchus should abuse his power to repeat the insult.
But Hipparchus, whose pride had been wounded by the conduct of Harmodius, contented
himself with an affront aimed at the honour of his family. By his orders, the
sister of Harmodius was invited to take part in a procession, as bearer of one
of the sacred vessels. When, however, she presented herself in her festal dress,
she was publicly rejected, and dismissed as unworthy of the honour. This insult
stung Harmodius to the quick, and kindled the indignation of Aristogiton. They
resolved to engage in the desperate enterprise of overthrowing the ruling dynasty.
They communicated their plan to a few friends, who promised their assistance;
but they hoped that, as soon as the first blow should be struck, they would be
joined by numbers, who would joyfully seize the opportunity of recovering their
freedom. The conspirators fixed on the festival of the Panathenaea as the most
convenient season for effecting their purpose. This festival was celebrated with
a procession, in which the citizens marched armed with spears and shields, and
was the only occasion on which, in time of peace, they could assemble under arms
without exciting suspicion. It was agreed that Harmodius and Aristogiton should
give the signal by stabbing Hippias, while their friends kept off his guards,
and that they should trust to the general disposition in favour of liberty for
the further success of their undertaking. When the day came, the conspirators
armed themselves with daggers, which they concealed in the myrtle-boughs that
were carried on this occasion. But while Hippias, surrounded by his guards, was
in the Ceramicus, directing the order of the procession, one of the conspirators
was observed to go up to him, for he was easy of access to all, and to enter into
familiar conversation with him. The two friends, on seeing this, concluded that
they were betrayed, and that they had no hope left but of revenge. They instantly
rushed into the city, and, meeting Hipparchus, killed him before his guards could
come up to his assistance. These, however, arrived in time to avenge his death
on Harmodius. Aristogiton escaped for the moment through the crowd, but was afterwards
taken. When the news was brought to Hippias, instead of proceeding to the scene
of his brother's murder, he advanced with a composed countenance towards the armed
procession, which was yet ignorant of the event, and, as if he had some grave
discourse to address to them, desired them to lay aside their weapons, and meet
him at an appointed place. He then ordered his guards to seize the arms, and to
search every one for those which he might have concealed upon his person. All
who were found with daggers were arrested, together with those whom, on any other
grounds, he suspected of disaffection. Aristogiton was put to death, according
to some authors, after torture had been applied to wring from him the names of
his accomplices. It is said that he avenged himself by accusing the truest friends
of Hippias. The mistress of Aristogiton, one Leaena, whose only crime was to have
been the object of his affection, underwent the like treatment. She was afterwards
celebrated for the constancy with which she endured the most cruel torments. These
events took place in B.C. 514.
After the expulsion of Hippias the tyrannicides received almost
heroic honours. Statues were erected to them at the public expense, and their
names never ceased to be repeated with affectionate admiration in the popular
songs of Athens, which assigned them a place in the Islands of the Blessed, by
the side of Achilles and Tydides; and when an orator wished to suggest the idea
of the highest merit and of the noblest services to the cause of liberty, he never
failed to remind his hearers of Harmodius and Aristogiton. No slave was ever called
by their names. Plutarch has preserved a reply of Antipho, the orator, to Dionysius
the elder, of Syracuse. The latter had asked the question, which was the finest
kind of bronze? "That," replied Antipho, "of which the statues
of Harmodius and Aristogiton were made." He lost his life in consequence.
Their statues, made by Antenor and set up in the Agora, were carried away by Xerxes
when he took Athens in B.C. 480, but were restored by Alexander the Great.
This text is from: Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. Cited Nov 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Harmodius and Aristogeiton (Armodios, Aristonxiton), Athenians, of the blood of
the Gephyraei, were the murderers of Hipparchus, brother of the tyrant Hippias,
in B. C. 514. The following is the account we have received from the best authorities
of the circumstances which induced the crime. Aristogeiton, a citizen of the middle
class, was strongly attached to the young and beautiful Harnmodius, who returned
his affection with equal warmth. Hipparchus endeavored to withdraw the youth's
love to himself, and, failing in this, resolved to avenge the slight by putting
upon him a public insult. Accordingly, he took care that the sister of Harmodius
should be summoned to bear one of the sacred baskets in some religious procession,
and when she presented herself for the purpose, he caused her to be dismissed
and declared unworthy of the honour. Aristogeiton had been before exasperated
by the advances which Hipparchus had made to Harmodius, and this fresh insult
determined the two friends to slay both Hipparchus and his brother Hippias as
well. Of the motive for the conspiracy a different account is given by the author
of the dialogue named " Hipparchus," which is found among the works of Plato.
According to this writer, Aristogeiton had educated Harmodius, and was as proud
of him as he was fond, while he looked with jealousy on Hipparchus, who was ambitious,
it seems, of the same distinction as an attracter of the love and confidence of
the young. A youth, who was beloved by Harmodius, and had been accustomed to look
up to him and Aristogeiton as patterns of wisdom, became acquainted with Hipparchus,
and transferred to him his affection and admiration; and this circumstance excited
the anger of the two friends, and urged them to the murder. They communicated
their plot to a few only, in order to lessen the chance of discovery, but they
hoped that many would join them in the hour of action. The occasion they selected
for their enterprise was the festival of the great Panathenaea and the day of
the solemn procession of armed citizens from the outer Cerameicus to the temple
of Athena Polias,--the only day, in fact, on which they could appear in arms without
exciting suspicion. When the appointed time arrived, the two chief conspirators
observed one of their accomplices in conversation with Hippias, who was standing
in the Cerameicus and arranging the order of the procession. Believing, therefore,
that they were betrayed, and wishing to wreak their vengeance before they were
apprehended, they rushed back into the city with their daggers hid in the myrtle-boughs
which they were to have borne in the procession, and slew Hipparchus near the
Leocorium. Harmodius was immediately cut down by the guards. Aristogeiton at first
escaped, but was afterwards taken, and, according to the testimony of Polyaenus,
Justin, and Seneca, which is confirmed by the language of Thucydides, was put
to the torture. He named as his accomplices the principal friends of Hippias,
who were executed accordingly, and being then asked if he had any more names of
conspirators to give, he answered that there was no one besides, whose death he
desired, except the tyrant. According to another account, he pretended, while
under the torture, that he had some communication to make to Hippias, and when
the latter approached him, he seized one of his ears with his teeth, and bit it
off (Herod. v. 55, 56, vi. 109, 123; Thuc. i. 20, vi. 54--57; Psetdo-Plat. Hipparch.;
Plat. Symp.; Arist. Polit. v. 10, Rhet. ii. 24.5; Schol. ad Arist. Ach. 942; Aelian,
V. H. xi. 8; Perizon. ad loe.; Polyaen. i. 22; Justin. ii. 9; Seneca, de Ira,
ii. 23; Diog. Laert. ix. 26).
Four years after this Hippias was expelled, and thenceforth the policy
and spirit of party combined with popular feeling to attach to Harmodius and Aristogeiton
among the Athenians of all succeeding generations the character of patriots, deliverers,
and martyrs,--names often abused indeed, but seldom more grossly than in the present
case. Their deed of murderous vengeance formed a favourite subject of drinking-songs,
of which the most famous and popular is preserved in full by Athenaeus. To be
born of their blood was esteemed among the highest of honours, and their descendants
enjoyed an immunity from public burdens, of which even the law of Leptines (B.
C. 355) did not propose to deprive them (Aesch. c. Timarch.132, 140; Athen. xv.;
Aristoph. Ach. 942, 1058, Lysistr. 632, Vesp. 1225, Eq. 783; Aristot. Rhet. ii.
23.8; Suid. s. vv. Agoraso En murtou kladho, Paroinor, Phoreso; Dem. c. Let.).
Their tombs are mentioned by Pausanias (i. 29) as situated on thie road from the
city to the Academy. Their statues, made of bronze by Antenor, were set up in
the Agora in the inner Cerameicus, near the temple of Ares, in B. C. 509, the
year after the expulsion of Hippias and this, according to Aristotle and Pliny,
was the first instance of such an honour publicly conferred at Athens, Conon being
the next, as Demosthenes tells us, who had a bronze statue raised to him. When
Xerxes took the city, he carried these statues away, and new ones, the work of
Critias, were erected in B. C. 477. Tile original statues were afterwards sent
back to the Athenians from Susa, according to Pausanias by Antiochus, according
to Valerius Maximus by Seleucus, but, as we may believe, on the testimony of Arrian
and Pliny, by Alexander the Great. We learn, finally, from Diodorus, that when
the Athenians were anxious to pay the highest honours in their power to Antigonus
and Demetrius Poliorcetes, in B. C. 307, they placed their statues near those
of Harmodius and Aristogeiton (Paus. i. 8; Aristot. Rhet. i. 9.38; Dem. c. Lept.;
Plin. H. N. xxxiv. 4, 8; Val. Max. ii. 10. Ext. 1; Arr. Anab. iii. 16, vii. 19;
Diod. xx. 46).
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited June 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
ΣΚΑΜΒΩΝΙΔΑΙ (Αρχαίος δήμος) ΑΘΗΝΑΙΩΝ
Alcibiades, Alkibiades. The son of Clinias and Dinomache, born at Athens
about B.C. 450, and on the death of his father, in 447, brought up by his relation
Pericles. He possessed a beautiful person, transcendent abilities, and great wealth.
His youth was disgraced by his amours and debaucheries, and Socrates, who saw
his vast capabilities, attempted to win him to the paths of virtue, but in vain.
Their intimacy, however, was strengthened by mutual services. At the battle of
Potidaea (432) his life was saved by Socrates, and at that of Delium (424) he
saved the life of Socrates. After the death of Cleon (422) he became one of the
leading politicians, and the head of the war party in opposition to Nicias. In
415 he was appointed, along with Nicias and Lamachus, as commander of the expedition
to Sicily. While the preparations for the expedition were going on, there occurred
a mysterious mutilation of the busts of the Hermae, which the popular fears connected
with an attempt to overthrow the Athenian constitution. Alcibiades was charged
with being the ringleader in this attempt. He demanded an investigation before
he set sail, but this his enemies would not grant; but he had not been long in
Sicily before he was recalled to stand his Bust of Alcibiades. trial. On his return
homeward he managed to escape at Thurii, and thence proceeded to Sparta, where
he acted as the avowed enemy of his country. The machinations of his enemy, Agis
II., induced him to abandon the Spartans and take refuge with Tissaphernes (412),
whose favour he soon gained. Through his influence Tissaphernes deserted the Spartans
and professed his willingness to assist the Athenians, who accordingly recalled
Alcibiades from banishment in 411. He did not immediately return to Athens, but
remained abroad for the next four years, during which the Athenians under his
command gained the victories of Cynossema, Abydos, and Cyzicus, and got possession
of Chalcedon and Byzantium. In 407 he returned to Athens, where he was received
with great enthusiasm, and was appointed commanderin-chief of all the land and
sea forces. But the defeat at Notium, occasioned during his absence by the imprudence
of his lieutenant, Antiochus, furnished his enemies with a handle against him,
and he was superseded in his command (406). He now went into voluntary exile to
his fortified domain at Bisanthe, in the Thracian Chersonesus. After the fall
of Athens (404) he took refuge with Pharnabazus. He was about to proceed to the
court of Artaxerxes, when one night his house was surrounded by a band of armed
men and set on fire. He rushed out, sword in hand, but fell, pierced with arrows
(404). The assassins were probably either employed by the Spartans or by the brothers
of a lady whom Alcibiades had seduced. He left a son by his wife Hipparete named
Alcibiades, who never distinguished himself.
This text is from: Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. Cited Nov 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Alciviades (Alkibiades), the son of Cleinias, was born at Athens about B. C. 450,
or a little earlier. His father fell at Coroneia B. C. 447, leaving Alcibiades
and a younger son (Plat. Protag.). The last campaign of the war with Potidaea
was in B. C. 429. Now as Alcibiades served in this war, and the young Athenians
were not sent out on foreign military service before they had attained their 20th
year, he could not have been born later than B. C. 449, If he served in the first
campaign (B. C. 432), he must have been at least five years old at the time of
his father's death. Nepos (Alcib. 10) says he was about forty years old at the
time of his death (B. C. 404), and his mistake has been copied by Mitford.
Alcibiades was connected by birth with the noblest families of Athens.
Through his father he traced his descent from Eurysaces, the son of Ajax (Plat.
Alcib. I), and through him from Aeacus and Zeus. His mother, Deinomache, was the
daughter of Megacles, the head of the house of the Alcmaeonids.(1)
Thus on both sides he had hereditary claims on the attachment of the people; for
His paternal grandfather, Alcibiades, took a prominent part in the expulsion of
the Peisistratids (Isocrat. De Big. 10), and his mother was descended from Cleisthenes,
the friend of the commonalty. His father Cleinias did good service in the Persian
war. He fitted out and manned a trireme at his own expense, and greatly distinguished
himself in the battle of Artemisitum (Herod. viii. 17). One of his ancestors of
the name of Cleinias earned a less enviable notoriety by taking fraudulent advantage
of the Seisachtheia of Solon. The name Alcibiades was of Laconian origin (Thuc.
viii. 6), and was derived from the Spartan family to which the ephor Endius belonged,
with which that of Alcibiades had been anciently connected by the ties of hospitality.
The first who bore the name was the grandtlather of the great Alcibiades.
On the death of his father (B. C. 447), Alcibiades was left to the
guardianship of his relations Pericles and Ariphron.(2) Zopyrus,
the Thracian, is mentioned as one of his instructors (Plat. Alc. i.). From his
very boyhood he exhibited signs of that inflexible determination which marked
him throughout life.
He was at every period of his life remarkable for the extraordinary
beauty of his person, of which he seems to have been exceedingly vain. Even when
on military service he carried a shield inlaid with gold and ivory, and bearing
the device of Zeus hurling the thunderbolt. When he grew up, he earned a disgraceful
notoriety by his amours and debaucheries. At the age of 18 he entered upon the
possession of his fortune, which had doubtless been carefully husbanded during
his long minority by his guardians. Connected as he was with the most influential
families in the city, the inheritor of one of the largest fortunes in Athens (to
which he afterwards received a large accession through his marriage with Hipparete,
the daughter of Hipponicus (3), gifted with a mind of singular
versatility and energy, possessed of great powers of eloquence, and urged on by
an ambition which no obstacle could daunt, and which was not over scrupulous as
to the means by which its ends were to be gained, -in a city like Athens, amongst
a people like the Athenians, (of the leading features of whose character he may
not unaptly be regarded as an impersonation,) and in times like those of the Peloponnesian
war, Alcibiades found a field singularly well adapted for the exercise and display
of his brilliant powers. Accustomed, however, from his boyhood to the flattery
of admiring companions and needy parasites, he early imbibed that inordinate vanity
and love of distinction, which marked his whole career; and he was thus led to
place the most perfect confidence in his own powers long before he had obtained
strength of mind sufficient to withstand the seductive influence of the temptations
which surrounded him. Socrates saw his vast capabilities, and attempted to win
him to the paths of virtue. Their intimacy was strengthened by mutual services.
In one of the engagements before Potidaea, Alcibiades was dangerously wounded,
but was rescued by Socrates. At the battle of Delium (B. C. 424), Alcibiades,
who was mounted, had an opportunity of protecting Socrates from the pursuers (Plat.
Conviv.; Isocr. De Big. 12). The lessons of the philosopher were not altogether
without influence upon his pupil, but the evil tendencies of his character had
taken too deep root to render a thorough reformation possible, and he listened
more readily to those who advised him to secure by the readiest means the gratification
of his desires.
Alcibiades was excessively fond of notoriety and display. At the Olympic
games (probably in Ol. 89, B. C. 424) lie contended with seven chariots in the
same race, and gained the first, second, and fourth prizes. His liberality in
discharging the office of trierarch, and in providing for the public amusements,
rendered him very popular with tire multitude, who were ever ready to excuse,
on the score of youthful impetuosity and thoughtlessness, his most violent and
extravagant acts, into which he was probably as often led by his love of notoriety
as by any other motive. Accounts of various instances of this kind, as his forcible
detention of Agatharchus, his violence to his wife Hipparete, his assault upon
Taureas, and the audacious manner in which he saved Hegemon from a lawsuit, by
openly obliterating the record, are given by Plutarch, Andocides, and Athenaeus
(ix. p. 407). Even the more prudent citizens thought it safer to connive at his
delinquencies, than to exasperate him by punishment. As Aeschylus is made to say
by Aristophanes (Frogs, 1427), " A lion's whelp ought not to be reared in a city;
but if a person rears one, he must let him have his way."
Of the early political life of Alcibiades we hear but little. While
Cleon was alive he probably appeared but seldom in the assembly. From allusions
which were contained in the Daitaleis of Aristophanes (acted B. C. 427) it appears
that he had already spoken there (For the story connected with his first appearance
in the assembly, see Plutarch, Alcib. 10). At some period or other before B. C.
420, he had carried a decree for increasing the tribute paid by the subject allies
of Athens, and by his management it was raised to double the amount fixed by Aristeides.
After the death of Cleon there was no rival able at all to cope with Alcibiades
except Nicias. To the political views of the latter, who was anxious for peace
and repose and averse to all plans of foreign conquests, Alcibiades was completely
opposed, and his jealousy of the influence and high character of his rival, led
him to entertain a very cordial dislike towards him. On one occasion only do we
find them united in purpose and feeling, and that was when Hyperbolus threatened
one of them with banishment. On this they united their influence, and Hyperbolus
himself was ostracised. The date of this occurrence is uncertain.
Alcibiades had been desirous of renewing those ties of hospitality
by which his family had been connected with Sparta, but which had been broken
off by his grandfather. With this view he vied with Nicias in his good offices
towards the Spartan prisoners taken in Sphacteria; but in the negotiations which
ended in the peace of 421, the Spartans preferred employing the intervention of
Nicias and Laches. Incensed at this slight, Alcibiades threw all his influence
into the opposite scale, and in B. C. 420, after tricking the Spartan ambassadors
who had come for the purpose of thwarting his plans, brought about an alliance
with Argos, Elis, and Mantineia. In 419 he was chosen Strategos, and at the head
of a small Athenian force marched into Peloponnesus, and in various ways furthered
the interests of the new confederacy. During the next three years he took a prominent
part in the complicated negotiations and military operation which were carried
on. Whether or not he was the instigator of the unjust expedition against the
Melians is not clear; but he was at any rate the author of the decree for their
barbarous punishment, and himself purchased a Melian woman, by whom he had a son.
In B. C. 415 Alcibiades appears as the foremost among the advocates
of the Sicilian expedition (Thuc. vi.), which his ambition led him to believe
would be a step towards the conquest of Italy, Carthage, and the Peloponnesus
(Thuc. vi. 90). While the preparations for the expedition were going on, there
occurred the mysterious mutilation of the Hermases-busts A man named Pythonicus
charged Alcibiades with having divulged and profaned the Elensinian mysteries;
and another man, Audrocles, endeavoiured to connect this and sismilair offeinces
with the mutilation of the Hermae. In spite of his demands for an investigation,
Alcibiades was sent out with Nicias and Lamachus in command of the fleet, but
was recalled before he could carry out the plan of operations which at his suggestion
had been adopted, namely, to endeavour to will over the Greek towns in Sicily,
except Syracuse and Selinus, and excite the native Sicels to revolt, and then
attack Syracuse. He was allowed to accompany the Salaminia in his own galley,
but managed to escape at Thurii, from which place he crossed over to Cyllene,
and thence proceeded to Sparta at the invitation of the Spartan government. He
now appeared as the avowed enemy of his country; disclosed to the Spartans the
plans of the Athenians, and recommended them to send Gylipus to Syracute, and
to fortify Decelcia (Thuc. vi. 88, vii. 13, 27, 28). Before he left Sicily he
had managed to defeat a plan which had been laid for the acquisition of Messana.
At Athens sentence of death was passed upon him, his property confiscated, and
a curse pronounced upon him by the ministers of religion. At Sparta he rendered
himself popular by the facility with which he adopted the Spartan manners. Through
his instrumentality many of the Asiatic allies of Athens were induced to revolt,
and an alliance was brought about with Tissaphernes (Thuc. viii. 6); but the machinations
of his enemy Agis (Agis II) induced him to abandon the Spartans and take refuge
with Tissaphernes (B. C. 412), whose favour he soon gained by his unrivalled talents
for social intercourse. The estrangement of Tissaphernes from his Spartan allies
ensued. Alcibiades, the enemy of Sparta, wished to return to Athens. He accordingly
entered into correspondence with the most influential persons in the Athenian
fleet at Samos, offering to bring over Tissaphernes to an alliance with Athens,
but making it a condition, that oligarchy should be established there. This coinciding
with the wishes of those with whom he was negotiating, those political movements
were set on foot by Peisander, which ended (B. C. 411) in the establishmennt of
the Four Hundred. The oligarchs, however, finding he could not perform his promises
with respect to Tissaphernes, and conscious that lie had at heart no real liking
for an oligarchy, would not recall him. But the soldiers in the armament at Samos,
headed by Thrasybulus and Thrasyllus. declared their resolution to restore democracy,
and passed a vote, by which Alcibiades was pardoned and recalled, and appointed
one of their generals. He conferred an important benefit on his country, by restraining
the soldiers from returning at once to Athens and so commencing a civil war; and
in the course of the sale year the oligarchy was overthrown without their assistance.
Alcibiades and the other exiles were recalled, but for the next four years lie
remained abroad, and under his command the Athenians gained the victories of Cynossema,
Abydos (4). and Cyzicus, and got possession of Chalcedon and
Byzantium. In B. C. 407, he returned to Athens, where he was received with great
enthusiasm. The records of the proceedings against him were sunk in the sea, his
property was restored, the priests were ordered to recant their curses, and he
was appointed commander-in-chief of all the land and sea forces (Diod. xiii. 69;
Plut. Alc. 33; Xen. Hell. i. 4.13--20). He signalised his return by conducting
the mystic procession to Eleusis, which had been interrupted since the occupation
of Deceleia. But his unsuccessful expedition against Andros and the defeat at
Notium, occasioned during his absence by the imprudence of his lieutenant, Antiochus,
who brought on an engagement against his orders, furnished his enemies with a
handle against him, and he was superseded in his command. (B. C. 406.)
Thinking that Athens would scarcely be a safe place for him, Alcibiades
went into voluntary exile to his fortified domain at Bisanthe in the Thracian
Chersonesus. He collected a band of mercenaries, and made war on the neighbouring
Thracian tribes, by which means he considerably enriched himself, and afforded
protection to the neighbouring Greek cities. Before the fatal battle of Aegos-Potami
(B. C. 405), he gave an ineffectual warning to the Athenian generals. After the
establishment of the tyranny of the Thirty (B. C. 404), he was condemned to banishment.
Upon this he took refuge with Pharnabazus, and was about to proceed to the court
of Artaxerxes, when one night his house was surrounded by a band of armed men,
and set on fire. He rushed out sword in hand, but fell, pierced with arrows. (B.
C. 404.) According to Diodorus and Ephorus (Diod. xiv. 11) the assassins were
emissaries of Pharnabazus, who had been led to this step either by his own jealousy
of Alcibiades, or by the instigation of the Spartans. It is more probable that
they were either employed by the Spartans, or (according to one account in Plutarch)
by the brothers of a lady whom Alcibiades had seduced. His corpe was taken up
and buried by his mistress Timandra. Athenacus (xiii. p. 574) mentions a monument
erected to his memory at Melissa, the place of his leath, and a statue of him
erected thereon by the emperor Hadrian, who also instituted certain yearly sacrifices
in his honour. He left a son by his wife Hipparete, named Alcibiades, who never
distinguished himself. It was for him that Isocrates wrote the speech Peri tou
Zeugous. Two of Lysias's speeches (xiv. and xv.) are directed against him. The
fortune which he left behind him turned out to be smaller than his patrimony (Plut.
Alcib. and Nicias; Thucyd. lib. v.--viii.; Xenophon, Hellen. lib. i. ii.; Andoc.
in Alcib. and de Myster.; Isocr. De Bigis; Nepos, Alcib.; Diod. xii. 78--84, xiii.
2--5, 37--41, 45, 46, 49--51, 64--73; Athen. i, iv, v, ix, xi, xii, xiii)
Commentary:
1. Demosthenes (Mid. p. 561) says, that the mother of Alcibiades was the daughter
of Hippoincus and that his father was connected with the Alcmaeonidae. The latter
statement may possibly be true. But it is difficult to explain the former, unless
we suppose Demosthenes to have confounded the great Alcibiades with his son.
2. Agariste, the mother of Pericles and Ariphon, was the daughter of Hippocrates,
whose brother Cleisthenes was the grandfather of Deinomache (Herod. vi. 131; Isocr.
De Big. 10).
3. He received a portion of 10 talents with his wife, which was to be doubled
on the birth of a son. His marriage took place before the battle of Delium (B.
C. 424), in which Hipponicus was slain (Andoc. Alcib.).
4. Shortly after the victory at Abydos, Alcibiades paid a visit to Tissaphernes,
who had arrived in the neighlbourhood of the Hellespont, but was arrested by him
and sent to Sardis. After a month's imnprisolment, however, he succeeded in making
his escape. (Xen. Hellen. i. 1.9)
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited June 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Alcibiades. After the death of Pericles, the Athenians abandoned his strategy and embarked upon Cleon's less passive policy, attacking Sparta at home. After ten years of war, the Spartans were forced to admit that they were unable to defeat Athens. After 421, Athens started an increasingly aggressive policy. In 420, a nephew of Pericles, Alcibiades (c.450-404/403), convinced the Athenians that they had to join a new anti-Spartan alliance, and five years later, he commanded an armada to conquer Sicily. However, Alcibiades was recalled because it was believed that he was involved in a religious scandal (415). He understood that his life was in danger, and went into exile in Sparta, where he convinced the authorities to start the war against Athens anew. The moment was well-chosen, because in 413 the Athenians had supported Amorges, a rebel in the Persian empire. Almost immediately, the Persians sided with Sparta. This was to be Athens' undoing. It could overcome the loss of the Sicilian expedition force, but could not fight against Sparta and Persia at the same time. Ironically, Alcibiades was able to return to Athens after he had made a false promise to forge an alliance between Persia and Athens, but he had to leave his home town when it became clear that he could not keep his word. Alcibiades went into exile again, this time staying at the court of the Persian satrap Pharnabazus. Athens was forced to surrender in 404; Alcibiades was killed almost immediately after. A few years later, the Athenians avenged themselves upon his teacher, the philosopher Socrates, who was forced to drink poison ivy.
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ΧΟΛΑΡΓΟΣ (Αρχαίος δήμος) ΑΤΤΙΚΗ
Pericles, (Perikles). The greatest of Athenian statesmen. He
was the son of Xanthippus and Agariste, both of whom belonged to the noblest families
of Athens. The fortune of his parents procured for him a careful education, which
his extraordinary abilities and diligence turned to the best account. He received
instruction from Damon, Zeno of Elea, and Anaxagoras. With Anaxagoras he lived
on terms of the most intimate friendship till the philosopher was compelled to
retire from Athens. From this great and original thinker Pericles was believed
to have derived not only the cast of his mind, but the character of his eloquence,
which, in the elevation of its sentiments and the purity and loftiness of its
style, was the fitting expression of the force and dignity of his character and
the grandeur of his conceptions. Of the oratory of Pericles no specimens remain
to us, but it is described by ancient writers as characterized by singular force
and energy. He was described as thundering and lightening when he spoke, and as
carrying the weapons of Zeus upon his tongue.
In B.C. 469 Pericles began to take part in public affairs,
forty years before his death, and was soon regarded as the head of the more democratic
part in the State in opposition to Cimon. He gained the favour of the people by
the laws which he succeeded in passing for their benefit. Thus it was enacted
through his means that the citizens should receive from the public treasury the
price of their admittance to the theatre, amounting to two oboli apiece; that
those who served in the courts of the Heliaea should be paid for their attendance;
and that those citizens who served as soldiers should likewise be paid. It was
at his instigation that his friend Ephialtes proposed, in 461, the measure by
which the Areopagus was deprived of those functions which rendered it formidable
as an antagonist to the popular party. This success was followed by the ostracism
of Cimon, who was charged with Laconism, and Pericles was thus placed at the head
of public affairs at Athens. Pericles was distinguished as a general as well as
a statesman, and frequently commanded the Athenian armies in their wars with the
neighbouring States. In 454 he commanded the Athenians in their campaigns against
the Sicyonians and Acarnanians; in 448 he led the army which assisted the Phocians
in the Sacred War; and in 445 he rendered the most signal service to the State
by recovering the island of Euboea, which had revolted from Athens. Cimon had
been previously recalled from exile without any opposition from Pericles, but
had died in 449. On his death the aristocratic party was headed by Thucydides,
the son of Melesias; but on the ostracism of the latter in 444 the organized opposition
of the aristocratic party was broken up, and Pericles was left without a rival.
Throughout the remainder of his political course [p. 1202] no one appeared to
contest his supremacy; but the boundless influence which he possessed was never
perverted by him to sinister or unworthy purposes. So far from being a mere selfish
demagogue, he neither indulged nor courted the multitude. The next important event
in which Pericles was engaged was the war against Samos, which had revolted from
Athens, and which he subdued after an arduous campaign, 440. The poet Sophocles
was one of the generals who fought with Pericles against Samos.
For the next ten years, till the outbreak of the Peloponnesian
War, the Athenians were not engaged in any considerable military operations. During
this period Pericles devoted especial attention to the Athenian navy, as her supremacy
rested on her maritime superiority, and he adopted various judicious means for
consolidating and strengthening her empire over the islands of the Aegaean. The
funds derived from the tribute of the allies and from other sources were, to a
large extent, devoted by him to the erection of those magnificent temples and
public buildings which rendered Athens the wonder and admiration of Greece. Under
his administration the Propylaea and the Parthenon and the Odeum were erected
as well as numerous other temples and public buildings. With the stimulus afforded
by these works architecture and sculpture reached their highest perfection, and
some of the greatest artists of antiquity were employed in erecting or adorning
the buildings. The chief direction and oversight of the public edifices was intrusted
to Phidias. These works, calling into activity almost every branch of industry
and commerce at Athens, diffused universal prosperity while they proceeded, and
thus contributed in this, as well as in other ways, to maintain the popularity
and influence of Pericles. But he still had many enemies, who were not slow to
impute to him base and unworthy motives. From the comic poets Pericles had to
sustain numerous attacks. They exaggerated his power, spoke of his party as Pisistratids,
and called upon him to swear that he was not about to assume the tyranny. His
high character and strict probity, however, rendered all these attacks harmless.
But as his enemies were unable to ruin his reputation by these means, they attacked
him through his friends. His friends Phidias and Anaxagoras, and his mistress
Aspasia, were all accused before the people. Phidias was condemned and cast into
prison; Anaxagoras was also sentenced to pay a fine and leave Athens; and Aspasia
was only acquitted through the entreaties and tears of Pericles.
The Peloponnesian War has been falsely ascribed to the ambitious
schemes of Pericles. It is true that he counselled the Athenians not to yield
to the demands of the Lacedaemonians, and he pointed out the immense advantages
which the Athenians possessed in carrying on the war; but he did this because
he saw that war was inevitable; and that as long as Athens retained the great
power which she then possessed, Sparta would never rest contented. On the outbreak
of the war in 431 a Peloponnesian army under Archidamus invaded Attica; and upon
his advice the Athenians conveyed their movable property into the city and their
cattle and beasts of burden to Euboea, and allowed the Peloponnesians to desolate
Attica without opposition. Next year (430), when the Peloponnesians again invaded
Attica, Pericles pursued the same policy as before. In this summer a plague made
its appearance in Athens. The Athenians, being exposed to the devastation of the
war and the plague at the same time, began to turn their thoughts to peace, and
looked upon Pericles as the author of all their distresses, inasmuch as he had
persuaded them to go to war. Pericles attempted to calm the public ferment; but
such was the irritation against him that he was sentenced to pay a fine. The ill-feeling
of the people having found this vent, Pericles soon resumed his accustomed sway,
and was again elected one of the generals for the ensuing year (429). Meantime
Pericles had suffered in common with his fellow-citizens. The plague carried off
most of his near connections. His son Xanthippus, a profligate and undutiful youth,
his sister, and most of his intimate friends died of it. Still he maintained unmoved
his calm bearing and philosophic composure. At last his only surviving legitimate
son, Paralus, a youth of greater promise than his brother, fell a victim. The
firmness of Pericles then at last gave way; as he placed the funeral garland on
the head of the lifeless youth, he burst into tears and sobbed aloud. He had one
son remaining, his child by Aspasia; and he was allowed to enroll this son in
his own tribe and give him his own name. In the autumn of 429 Pericles himself
died of a lingering sickness. He survived the commencement of the war two years
and six months. The name of the wife of Pericles is not mentioned. She had been
the wife of Hipponicus, by whom she was the mother of Callias. She bore two sons
to Pericles, Xanthippus and Paralus. She lived unhappily with Pericles, and a
divorce took place by mutual consent, when Pericles connected himself with Aspasia.
Of his strict probity he left the decisive proof in the fact that at his death
he was found not to have added a single drachma to his hereditary property. His
greatest fault as a statesman was his inability to see that personal government
in the long run is injurious to a nation; for it impairs the capacity of the people
for self-government, and on the death of the chief leaves them helpless and inexperienced.
On his death-bed his friends were commenting on his victories and triumphs, when
he interrupted them with the remark, "That which you have left unnoticed
is that of which I am the proudest; no Athenian ever wore mourning through any
act of mine." His life is sketched for us by Thucydides and Plutarch.
This text is from: Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. Cited June 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Periclaes (Perikles). The greatest of Athenian statesmen, was the son of Xanthippus,
under whose command the victory of Mycale was gained, and of Agariste, the great
grand-daughter of Cleisthenes,
tyrant of Sicyon, and niece of Cleisthenes,
the founder of the later Athenian constitution (Herod. vi. 131; comp. Cleisthenes).
Both Herodotus (l. c.) and Plutarch have thought the story, that before his birth
his mother dreamed that she gave birth to a lion, of sufficient interest to deserve
recording. Pericles belonged to the deme Cholargos in the tribe Acamantis. The
date of his birth is not known. The early period of his life was spent in retirement,
in the prosecution of a course of study in which his noble genius found the most
appropriate means for its cultivation and expansion; till, on emerging from his
obscurity, his unequalled capabilities rapidly raised him to that exalted position
which thence-forwards he maintained throughout the whole of his long and brilliant
career till his death. His rank and fortune enabled him to avail himself of the
instructions of all those who were most eminent in their several sciences and
professions. Music, which formed so essential an element in the education of a
Greek, he studied under Pythocleides (Aristot. ap. Plut. Per. 3; Plat. Alcib).
The musical instructions of Damon were, it is said, but a pretext; his real lessons
having for their subject political science. Pericles was the first statesman who
recognised the importance of philosophical studies as a training for his future
career; he devoted his attention to the subtleties of the Eleatic school, under
the guidance of Zeno of E!ea. But the philosopher who exercised the most important
and lasting influence on his mind, and to a very large extent formed his habits
and character, was Anaxagoras. With this great and original thinker, the propounder
of the sublimest doctrine which Greek philosophy had yet developed, that the arrangements
of the universe are the dispositions of an ordering intelligence, Pericles lived
on terms of the most intimate friendship, till the philosopher was compelled to
retire from Athens. From him Pericles was believed to have derived not only the
cast of his mind, but the character of his eloquence, which, in the elevation
of its sentiments, and the purity and loftiness of its style, was the fitting
expression of the force and dignity of his character and the grandeur of his conceptions.
Of the oratory of Pericles no specimens remain to us, but it appears to have been
characterised by singular force and energy. He was described as thundering and
lightening when he spoke, and as carrying the weapons of Zeus upon his tongue
(Plut. Moral.; Diod. xii. 40; Aristoph. Acharn. 503; Cic. de Orat. iii. 34; Quintil.
x. 1.82). The epithet Olympius which was given to him was generally understood
as referring to his eloquence. By the unanimous testimony of ancient authors his
oratory was of the highest kind (Plat. Phaedr.). His orations were the result
of elaborate preparation; he used himself to say that he never ascended the bema
without praying that no inappropriate word might drop from his lips (Quintil.
xii. 9.13). According to Suidas (s. v. Perikl.), Pericles was the first who committed
a speech to writing before delivery. The influence of Anaxagoras was also traced
in the deportment of Pericles, the lofty bearing and calm and easy dignity of
which were sustained by an almost unrivalled power of self-command. The most annoying
provocation never made him forsake his dignified composure. His voice was sweet,
and his utterance rapid and distinct; in which respect, as well as in his personal
appearance, he resembled Peisistratus. His figure was graceful and majestic, though
a slight deformity in the disproportionate length of his head furnished the comic
poets of the day with an unfailing theme for their pleasantry, and procured him
the nicknames of schinokethalos and kephalegeretes.
In his youth he stood in some fear of the people, and, aware of the
resemblance which was discovered in him to Peisistratus, he was fearful of exciting
jealousy and alarm; but as a soldier he conducted himself with great intrepidity.
However, when Aristeides was dead, Themistocles ostracised, and Cimon much engaged
in military expeditions at a distance from Greece, he began to take a more active
part in the political movements of the time. In putting himself at the head of
the more democratical party in the state, there can be no question that he was
actuated by a sincere predilection. The whole course of his political career proves
such to have been the case. There is not the slightest foundation for the contrary
supposition, except that his personal character seemed to have greater affinities
with the aristocratical portion of the community. If he ever entertained the slightest
hesitation, his hereditary prepossessions as the grand-nephew of Cleisthenes would
have been quite sufficient to decide his choice. That that choice was determined
by selfish motives, or political rivalry, are suppositions which, as they have
nothing to rest upon, and are contradicted by the whole tenor of his public life,
are worth absolutely nothing.
As his political career is stated to have lasted above forty years
(Plut. Cic. l.c.), it must have been somewhat before B. C. 469 when he first came
forward. He then devoted himself with the greatest assiduity to public affairs;
was never to be seen in the streets except on his way to the place of assembly
or the senate; and withdrew [p. 193] entirely from the convivial meetings of his
acquaintance, once only breaking through this rule to honour the marriage of his
nephew Euryptolemus, and admitting to his society and confidence only a few intimate
friends. He took care, however, not to make himself too cheap, reserving himself
for great occasions, and putting forward many of his propositions through his
partisans. Among the foremost and most able of these was Ephialtes.
The fortune of Pericles, which, that his integrity might be kept free
even from suspicion, was husbanded with the strictest economy under the careful
administration of his steward Euangelus, insomuch as even to excite the discontent
of the women of his household, was not sufficient to enable Pericles qut of his
private resources to vie with the profuse liberality of Cimon. Accordingly, to
ingratiate himself with the people, he followed the suggestion of his friend Demonides,
to make the public treasury available for similar objects, and proposed a series
of measures having for their object to provide the poorer citizens not only with
amusement, but with the means of subsistence. To enable them to enjoy the theatrical
amuseents, he got a law passed that they should receive from the public treasury
the price of their admittance, amounting to two obluses apiece. The measure was
unwise as a precedent, and being at a later period carried to a much greater extent
in connection with various other festivals led to the establishment of the Theoric
fund. Another measure, in itself unobjectionable and equitable, was one which
ordained that the citizens who served in the courts of the Heliaea should be paid
for their attendance (misthos dikastikos--to heliastikon). It was of course not
in the power of Pericles to foresee the mischievous increase of litigation which
characterised Athens at a later time, or to anticipate the propositions of later
demagogues by whom the pay was tripled, and the principle of payment extended
to attendance at the public assembly: a measure which has been erroneously attributed
to Pericles himself. According to Ulpian (ad Demosth. peri suntax.) the practice
of paying the citizens who served as soldiers was first introduced by Pericles.
To affirm that in proposing these measures Pericles did violence to his better
judgment in order to secure popularity, would be to do him a great injustice.
The whole course of his administration, at a time when he had no rival to dispute
his pre-eminence, shows that these measures were the results of a settled principle
of policy, that the people had a right to all the advantages and enjoyments that
could be procured for them by the proper expenditure of the treasures of which
they were masters. That in proposing them he was not insensible to the popularity
which would accrue to their author, may be admitted without fixing any very deep
stain upon his character. The lessons of other periods of history will show that
the practice of wholesale largess, of which Cimon was beginning to set the example,
is attended with influences even more corrupting and dangerous. If Pericles thought
so, his measures, though perverted to mischief through consequences beyond his
foresight or control, must be admitted to have been wise and statesmanlike, and
not the less so because they were dexterously timed for the advancement of his
personal influence.
The first occasion on which we find the two rival parties assuming
anything like a hostile attitude towards each other, was when Cimon, on his return
from Thasos, was brought to tria. Pericles was one of those appointed to conduct
the impeachment. But whether the prosecution was not according to his wishes,
or he had yielded to the intercession of Elpinice, he only rose once, for form's
sake, and put forth none of his eloquence. The result, according to Plutarch,
was, that Cimon was acquitted. It was shortly after this, that Pericles, secure
in the popularity which he had acquired, assailed the aristocracy in its strong-hold,
the Areiopagus. Here, again, the prominent part in the proceedings was taken by
Ephialtes, who in the assembly moved the psephisma by which the Areiopagus was
deprived of those functions which rendered it formidable as an antagonist to the
democratical party. The opposition which Cimon and his party might have offered
was crippled by the events connected with the siege of Ithome; and in B. C. 461
the measure was passed. That Pericles was influenced by jealousy because, owing
to his not having been archon, he had no seat in the council, or that Ephialtes
seconded his views out of revenge for an offence that had been given him in the
council, are notions which, though indeed they have no claims to attention, have
been satisfactorily refuted. Respecting the nature of the change effected in the
jurisdiction of the Areiopagus, the reader is referred to the Dictionary of Antiquities,
art. Areiopagus. This success was soon followed by the ostracism of Cimoin, who
was charged with Laconism.
In B. C. 457 the unfortunate battle of Tanagra took place. The request
made by Cimon to be allowed to take part in the engagement was rejected through
the influence of the friends of Pericles; and Cimon having left his panoply for
his friends to fight round, Pericles, as if in emulation of them, performed prodigies
of valour. We do not learn distinctly what part he took in the movements which
ensued. The expedition to Egypt he disapproved of; and through his whole career
he showed himself averse to those ambitious schemes of foreign conquest which
the Athenians were fond of cherishing; and at a later period effectually withstood
the dreams of conquest in Sicily, Etruria. and Carthage, which, in consequence
of the progress of Greek settlements in the West, some of the more enterprising
Athenians had begun to cherish. In B. C. 454, after the failure of the expedition
to Thessaly, Pericles led an armament which embarked at Pegae, and invaded the
territory of Sicyon, routing those of the Sicyonians who opposed him. Then, taking
with him some Achaean troops, he proceeded to Acarnania, and besieged Oeniadae,
though without success (Thucyd. i. 111). It was probably after these events, that
the recal of Cimon took place. If there was some want of generosity in his ostracism,
Pericles at least atoned for it by himself proposing the decree for his recal.
The story of the private compact entered into between Pericles and Cimon through
the intervention of Elpinice, that Cimon should have the command abroad, while
Pericles took the lead at home, is one which might safely have been questioned
had it even rested on better authority than that of the gossip-mongers through
whom Plutarch became acquainted with it.
It was not improbably about this time that Pericles took some steps
towards the realisation of a noble idea which he had formed, of uniting all the
Grecian states in one general confederation. He got a decree passed for inviting
all the Hellenic states in Europe and Asia to send deputies to a congress, to
be held at Athens, to deliberate in the first place about rebuilding the temples
burnt by the Persians, and providing the sacrifices vowed in the time of danger;
but also, and this was the most important part of the scheme, about the means
of securing freedom and safety of navigation in every direction, and of establishing
a general peace between the different Hellenic states. To bear these proposals
to the different states, twenty men were selected of above fifty years of age,
who were sent in detachments of five in different directions. But through the
jealousy and counter machinations of Sparta, the project came to nothing.
In B. C. 448 the Phocians deprived the Delphians of the oversight
of the temple and the guardianship of the treasures in it. In this they seem at
least to have relied on the assistance of the Athenians, if the proceeding had
not been suggested by them. A Lacedaemonian force proceeded to Phocis, and restored
the temple to the Delphians, who granted to Sparta the right of precedence in
consulting the oracle. But as soon as the Lacedaemonians had retired, Pericles
appeared before the city with an Athenian army, replaced the Phocians in possession
of the temple, and had the honour which had been granted to the Lacedaemonians
transferred to the Athenians (Thucyd. i. 112). Next year (B. C. 447), when preparations
were being made by Tolmides, to aid the democratical party in the towns of Boeotia
in repelling the efforts and machinations of the oligarchical exiles, Pericles
opposed the measure as rash and unseasonable. His advice was disregarded at the
time; but when, a few days after, the news arrived of the disaster at Coroneia,
he gained great credit for his wise caution and foresight. The ill success which
had attended the Athenians on this occasion seems to have aroused the hopes of
their enemies; and when the five years' truce had expired (a. c. 445), a general
and concerted attack was made on them. Euboea revolted; and before Pericles, who
had crossed over with an army to reduce it, could effect anything decisive, news
arrived of a revolution in Megara and of the massacre of the greater part of the
Athenian garrison, the rest of whom had fled to Nisaea; and intelligence was also
brought of the approach of a Lacedaemonian army under the command of Pleistoanax,
acting under the guidance of Cieandridas. Pericles, abandoning Euboea for the
present, at once marched back to Athens. The Peloponnesians had already begun
to ravage the country; Pericles, with his usual prudence, declined the risk of
a battle; he found a bribe(1) a simpler and safer way of getting
rid of the enemy. When this more important enemy had been disposed of, Pericles
returned to Euboea with an armament of 50 galleys and 5000 heavy-armed soldiers,
by which all resistance was overpowered. The land-owners of Chalcis (or at least
some of them) were stripped of their estates. On the Histiaeans, who had given
deeper provocation by murdering the whole crew of an Athenian galley which fell
into their hands, a severer vengeance was inflicted. They were expelled from their
territory, on which was settled a colony of 2000 Athenians, in a new town, Oreus,
which took the place of Histiaea. These events were followed by the thirty years'
truce, the Athenians consenting to evacuate Troezen, Pegae, Nisaea, and Achaea.
The influence of the moderate counsels of Pericles may probably be traced in their
consenting to submit to such terms. The conjecture hazarded by Bishop Thirlwall
(vol. iii. p. 44), that the treaty was the work of the party opposed to Pericles,
seems improbable. It may at least be assumed that the terms were not opposed by
Pericles. The moment when his deeply-rooted and increasing influence had just
been strengthened by the brilliant success which had crowned his exertions to
rescue Athens from a most perilous position, would hardly have been chosen by
his political opponents as one at which to set their policy in opposition to his.
After the death of Cimon the aristocratical party was headed by Thucydides,
the son of Melesias. He formed it into a more regular organization, producing
a more marked separation between it and the democratical party. Though a better
political tactician than Cimon, Thucydides was no match for Pericles, either as
a politician or as an orator, which, indeed, he acknowledged, when once, being
asked by Archidamus whether he or Pericles was the better wrestler, he replied
that when he threw Pericles the latter always managed to persuade the spectators
that he had never been down. The contest between the two parties was brought to
an issue in B. C. 444. Thucydides and his party opposed the lavish expenditure
of the public treasure on the magnificent and expensive buildings with which Pericles
was adorning the city, and on the festivals and other amusements which he instituted
for the amusement of the citizens. In reply to the clamour which was raised against
him in the assembly, Pericles offered to discharge the expense of the works, on
condition that the edifices should be inscribed with his name, not with that of
the people of Athens. The assembly with acclamation empowered him to spend as
much as he pleased. The contest was soon after decided by ostracism, and Pericles
was left without a rival; nor did any one throughout the remainder of his political
course appear to contest his supremacy. Nothing could be more dignified or noble
than the attitude which under these circumstances he assumed towards the people.
The boundless influence which he possessed was never perverted by him to sinister
or unworthy purposes. So far from being a mere selfish demagogue, he neither indulged
nor courted the multitude. "As long as he was at the head of the state in peace
he administered its affairs with moderation, and kept a safe guard over it, and
it became in his time very great. Being powerful on the ground both of his reputation
and of his judgment, and having clearly shown himself thoroughly incorruptible,
he restrained the multitude with freedom, and was not so much led by it as himself
led it, because he did not seek to acquire power by unworthy means, bringing forward
propositions which would gratify the people, but on the ground of his high character
being able to speak in opposition even to its angry feelings. And so, whenever
he saw them insolently confident beyond what the occasion justified, by his speeches
he reduced them to a more wary temper, and when on the other hand they were unreasonably
alarmed, he restored them again to confidence. And there was in name a democracy,
but in reality a government in the hands of the first man" (Thucyd. ii. 65). After
the ostracism of Thucydides the organized opposition of the aristocratical party
was broken up, though, as we shall see, the malevolence of the enemies of Pericles
exposed him subsequently to some troublesome contests.
A few years after the commencement of the 30 years' truce a war broke
out between Samos and Miletus about the towns of Priene and Anaea. The Milesians,
being vanquished, applied for help to Athens, and were backed by the democratical
party in Samos itself. So favourable an opportunity for carrying out the policy
which Athens pursued towards her allies was quite sufficient to render the intervention
of Aspasia unnecessary for the purpose of inducing Pericles to support the cause
of the Milesians. The Samians were commanded to desist from hostilities, and submit
their dispute to the decision of an Athenian tribunal. This they showed themselves
slow to do, and Pericles was sent with a fleet of 40 galleys to enforce the commands
of the Athenians. He established a democratical constitution in Samos, and took
100 hostages from the oligarchical party, which he lodged in Lemnos. He also levied
a contribution of 80 talents. The bribe of a talent from each of the hostages,
with a large sum besides from the oligarchical party and from Pissuthnes, the
satrap of Sardes, is said to have been offered to Pericles to induce him to relinquish
his intention, and of course refused. He then returned, leaving a small garrison
of Athenians in Samos. When he had left, a body of Samians, who had left the island
as he approached, having concerted measures with Pissuthnes, recovered the hostages,
overpowered the Athenian garrison and their political opponents, and renounced
the Athenian alliance. A Phoenician fleet was promised to assist them; the enemies
of Athens in Greece were urged, though without success, to take up the cause of
the Samians; and Byzantium was induced to join in the revolt. Pericles, with nine
colleagues and a fleet of 60 vessels, returned to put down the revolt. Detachments
were sent to get reinforcements from the other allies, and to look out for the
Phoenician fleet. With the remaining ships, amounting to 44 in number, Pericles
attacked a Samian fleet of 70, as it was returning from Miletus, and gained the
victory. Having received reinforcements, he landed a body of troops, drove the
Samians within the walls, and proceeded to invest the town. A victory, though
probably a slight one, was gained by the Samians under the command of Melissus,
and Pericles, with 60 ships, sailed to meet the Phoenician fleet. In his absence,
the force which he had left behind was defeated, and the Samians exerted themselves
actively in introducing supplies into the town. On the return of Pericles they
were again closely besieged. An additional squadron of 40 ships was sent from
Athens under the command of Hagnon, Phormion, and Thucydides. The Samians, being
again decisively defeated in a sea-fight, were closely blockaded. Though Pericles
is said to have made use of some new kinds of battering engines, the Samians held
out resolutely, and murmurs were heard among the Athenian soldiers, whose dissolute
habits (comp. Athen. xiii.) soon rendered them weary of the tedious process of
blockade. There is a story that, in order to pacify them, Pericles divided his
army into eight parts, and directed them to cast lots, the division which drew
a white bean being allowed to feast and enjoy themselves, while the others carried
on the military operations. At the end of nine months the Samians capitulated,
on condition that they should give up their ships, dismantle their fortifications,
and pay the cost of the siege by instalments. Their submission was speedily followed
by that of the Byzantines. On his return to Athens, Pericles celebrated with great
magnificence the obsequies of those who had fallen in the war. He was chosen to
deliver the customary oration. At its close the women who were present showered
upon him their chaplets and garlands. Elpinice alone is said to have contrasted
his hardwon triumph with the brilliant victories of her brother Cimon. Pericles
had indeed good reason to be proud of his success; for Thucydides (viii. 76) does
not scruple to say that the Samians were within a very little of wresting from
the Athenians their maritime supremacy. But the comparison with the Trojan War,
if ever really made, was more likely to have come from some sycophantic partisan,
than from Pericles himself (Plut. l.c.; Thucyd. i. 115--117; Diod. xii. 27, 28;
Suidas, s. v. Samion ho demos ; Aelian, V. H. ii. 9; Aristoph. Aclitarn. 850).
Between the Samian war, which terminated in B. C. 440, and the Peloponnesian
war, which began in B. C. 431, the Athenians were not engaged in any considerable
military operations. On one occasion, though the date is uncertain, Pericles conducted
a great armament to the Euxine, apparently with very little object beyond that
of displaying the power and maritime supremacy of the Athenians, overawing the
barbarians, and strengthening the Athenian influence in the cities in that quarter.
Sinope was at the time under the power of the tyrant Timesilaus. Application was
made to Pericles for assistance to expel the tyrant. A body of troops, which was
left under the command of Lamachus, succeeded in effecting this object, and a
body of 600 Athenians was afterwards sent to take possession of the confiscated
property of the tyrant and his partisans.
While the Samian war was a consequence of the policy which Athens exercised towards
her allies, the issue of it tended greatly to confirm that direct authority which
she exercised over them. This policy did not originate with Pericles, but it was
quite in accordance with his views, and was carried out by him in the most complete
manner. By the commutation of military service for tribute, many of the allied
states had been stripped of their means of defence in the time of Cimon. It appears,
however, to have been on the proposition of Pericles that the treasure of the
confederacy was removed from Delos to Athens (about B. C. 461), and openly appropriated
to objects which had no immediate connection with the purpose for which the confederacy
was first formed, and the contributions levied. In justification of this procedure,
Pericles urged that so long as the Athenians fulfilled their part of the compact,
by securing the safety of their allies against the attacks of the Persian power,
they were not obliged to render any account of the mode in which the money was
expended; and if they accomplished the object for which the alliance was formed
with so much vigour and skill as to have a surplus treasure remaining out of the
funds contributed by the allies, they had a right to expend that surplus in any
way they pleased. Under the administration of Pericles the contributions were
raised from 460 to 600 talents. The greater part of this increase may have arisen
from the commutation of service for money. There is nothing to show that any of
the states were more heavily burdened than before. The direct sovereignty which
the Athenians claimed over their allies was also exercised ill most instances
in establishilng or supporting democratieal government, and in compelling all
those who were reduced to the condition of subject allies to refer, at all events,
the more important of their judicial causes to the Athenian courts for trial.
Pericles was not insensible to the real nature of the supremacy which Athens thus
exercised. He admitted that it was of the nature of a tyranny (Thucyd. ii. 63).
In defence of the assumption of it he would doubtless have urged, as the Athenian
ambassadors did at Sparta, that the Athenians deserved their high position on
account of their noble sacrifices in the cause of Greece, since any liberty which
the Greek states enjoyed wastile result of that self-devotion; that the supremacy
was offered to them, not seized by force; and that it was the jealousy and hostility
of Sparta which rendered it necessary for the Athenians in self-defence to convert
their hegemony into a dominion, which every motive of national honour and interest
urged them to maintain; that the Athenians had been more moderate in the exercise
of their dominion than could have been expected, or than any other state would
have been under similar circumstances; and that the right of the Athenians had
been tacitly acquiesced in by the Lacedaemonitans themselves until actual causes
of quarrel had arisetn between them (Thucyd. i. 73, especially 75, 76). In point
of fact, we find the Corinthians at an earlier period, in the congress held to
deliberate respecting the application of the Samians, openly laying down the maxim
that each state had a right to punish its own allies (Thucyd. i. 40). If Pericles
did not rise above the maxims of his times and country, his political morality
was certainly not below that of the age; nor would it be easy even in more modern
times to point out a nation or statesman whose procedure in similar circumstances
would have been widely different.
The empire which arose out of this consolidation of the Athenian confederacy,
was still further strengthened by planting colonies, which commonly stood to the
parent state in that peculiar relation which was understood by the term klerouchoi
(see Colonia).
Colonies of this kind were planted at Oreus in Euboea, at Chalcis, in Naxos, Andros,
among the Thracians, and in the Thracian Chersonesus. The settlement at Sinope
has been already spoken of. The important colony of Thurii was founded in B. C.
444. Amphipolis was founded by Hagnon in B. C. 437. These colonies also served
the very important purpose of drawing off from Athens a large part of the more
troublesome and needy citizens, whom it might have been found difficult to keep
employed at a time when no military operations of any great magnitude were being
carried on. Pericles, however, was anxious rather for a well consolidated empire
than for an extensive dominion, and therefore refused to sanction those plans
of extensive conquest which many of his contemporaries had begun to cherish. Such
attempts, surrounded as Athens was by jealous rivals and active enemies, he knew
would be too vast to be attended with success.
Pericles thoroughly understood that the supremacy which it was his
object to secure for Athens rested on her maritime superiority. The Athenian navy
was one of the objects of his especial care. A fleet of 60 galleys was sent out
every year and kept at sea for eight months, mainly, of course, for the purpose
of training the crews, though the subsistence thus provided for the citizens who
served in the fleet was doubtless an item in his calculations. To render the communication
between Athens and Peiraeeus still more secure, Pericles built a third wall between
the two first built, parallel to the Peiraic wall.
The internal administration of Pericles is characterised chiefly by
the mode in which the public treasures were expended. The funds derived from the
tribute of the allies and other sources were devoted to a large extent to the
erection of those magnificent temples and public buildings which rendered Athens
the wonder and admiration of Greece. A detailed description of the splendid structures
which crowned the Acropolis, belongs rather to an account of Athens. The Propylaea,
and the Parthenon, with its sculptured pediments and statue of Athene, exhibited
a perfection of art never before seen, and never since surpassed. Besides these,
the Odeum, a theatre designed for the musical entertainments which Pericles appended
to the festivities of the Panathenaea, was construtcted under his direction; and
the temples at Eleusis and other places in Attica, which had been destroyed by
the Persians, were rebuilt. The rapidity with which these works were finished
excited astonishment. The Propylaea, the most expensive of them, was finished
in five years. Under the stimulus afforded by these works architecture and sculpture
reached their highest perfection, and some of the greatest artists of antiquity
were employed in erecting or adorning the buildings. The chief direction and oversight
of the [p. 197] public edifices was entrusted to Pheidias, under whose superintendence
were employed his two pupils Alcamenes and Agoracritus, Ictinus and Callicrates
the architects of the Parthenon, Mnesicles the architect of the Propylaea, Coroebus
the architect who began the temple at Eleusis, Callimachus, Metagenes, Xenocles
and others. These works calling into activity, as they did in various ways, almost
every branch of industry and commerce at Athens, diffused universal prosperity
while they proceeded. Such a variety of instruments and materials were now needed,
that there could hardly be an artisan in the city who would not find scope for
his industry and skill; and as every art required the services of a number of
subordinate labourers, every class of the labouring citizens found employment
and support. This, however, though a most important object, and one which Pericles
had distinctly in view, was not the only one which he set before himself in this
expenditure. Independently of the gratification of his personal taste, which in
this respect accorded with that of the people, his internal and external policy
formed parts of one whole. While he raised A tiens to that supremacy which in
his judgment she deserved to possess, on account both of the natural capabilities
of the people and the glorious sacrifices which the had made for the safety and
freedom not of themselves only but of Greece, the magnificent aspect which the
city assumed under his directions was designed to keep alive among the people
a present consciousness of their greatness and power (Comp. Demosth. Aristocr.)
This feature of his policy is distinctly expressed in the speech delivered by
him over the slain in the first winter of the Peloponnesian war, a speech equally
valuable as an embodiment of his views, whether the sentiments contained in it
be, as is most probable, such as he actually delivered, or such as his contemporary
Thucydides knew him to entertain (Thucyd. ii. 35--46). He calls upon the survivors
to resolve that the spirit they cherish towards their enemies shall be no less
daring than that of those who had fallen; considering not alone the immediate
benefit resulting from repelling their enemies, but rather the power of the city,
contemplating it in reality daily, and becoming lovers (erastas) of it; and whenever
it seems to them to be great, considering that men acquired this magnificence
by daring, and judging what was necessary, and maintaining a sense of honour in
action (c. 43). The design of his policy was that Athens should be thoroughly
prepared for war, while it contained within itself every thing that could render
the citizens satisfied with peace; to make them conscious of their greatness,
and inspire them with that self-reliance and elastic vigour, which was a surer
safeguard than all the jealous measures resorted to by the Spartans (c. 36--39).
Nothing could well be further from the truth than the estimate Plato formed of
the policy of Pericles, if he makes Socrates express his own views, in saying
that Pericles made the Athenians idle, and cowardly, and talkative, and money-loving,
by first accustoming them to receive pay (Gory. p. 515, e.). The great object
of Pencles was to get the Athenians to set before themselves a great ideal of
what Athens and an Athenian ought to be. His commendations of the national characteristics
partook quite as much of the nature of exhortation as of that of praise. This
object, of leading the Athenians to value highly their station and privileges
as Athenian citizens, may doubtless be traced in the law which he got passed at
an early period, that the privileges of citizenship should be confined to those
whose parents were both Athenians; a law which was called into exercise ill B.
C. 444, on the occasion of a present of corn being sent by Psammetichus from Egypt,
to be distributed among the Athenian citizens. At the scrutiny which was set on
foot only about 14,000 were found to be genuine Athenians, nearly 5000 being discovered
to be aliens. That he had not miscalculated the effect likely to be produced on
the minds of his fellowcitizens, is shown by the interest and pride which they
took in the progress and beauty of the public works. When it was a matter or discussion
in the assembly whether marble or ivory should be used in the construction of
the great statue of Athene, the latter was selected, apparently for scarcely any
other reason than that it was the more costly. We have already seen that the bare
idea of having their name disconnected with the works that adorned their city,
was sufficient to induce them to sanction Pericles in his lavish application of
the public treasures. Pity, that an expenditure so wise in its ends, and so magnificent
in its kind, should have been founded on an act of appropriation, which a strict
impartiality cannot justify, though a fair consideration of all the circumstances
of the age and people will find much to palliate it. The honesty of the objections
raised against it by the enemies of Pericles on the score of its injustice is
very questionable. The issue of the opposition of Thucydides and his party has
already been noticed.
It was not the mere device of a demagogue anxious to secure popularity, but a
part of a settled policy, which led Pericles to provide amusement for the people
in the shape of religious festivals and musical and dramatic entertainments. These
were at the same time intended to prepare the citizens by cheerful relaxation
and intellectual stimulus for enduring the exertions necessary for the greatness
and well-being of the state, and to lead them, as they became conscious of the
enjoyment as well as dignity of their condition, as Athenian citizens, to be ready
to put forth their most strenuous exertions in defending a position which secured
to them so many advantages (Thucyd. ii. 38, 40). The impulse that would be given
to trade and commerce by the increase of requirements on the part of the Athenians
was also an element in his calculations (Thueyd. ii. 38). The drama especially
characterised the age of Pericles. From the comic poets Pericles had to sustain
numerous attacks. Their ridicule of his personal peculiarity coull excite nothing
more than a passing laugh. More serious attempts were made by them to render his
position suspicious in the eyes of the people. They exaggerated his power, spoke
of his party as Peisistratids, and called upon him to swear that he was not about
to assume the tyranny. Cratinus threw out insinuations as to the tardiness with
which the building of the third long wall to Peiraeeus proceeded. His connection
with Aspasia was made the ground of frequent sallies (Plut. Per. 24). His high
character and strict probity, however, rendered all these attacks harmless. But
that Pericles was the author of a law passed B. C. 440, restraining the exhibition
of comedy, is not probable (Cic. de Rep. iv. 10, 11). The enemies of Pericles,
unable to ruin his reputation by these means, attacked him through his friends.
A charge was brought against Pheidias of appropriating part of the gold destined
to adorn the statue of the goddess on the Acropolis; and Menon, a workman who
had been employed by Pheidias, was suborned to support the charge. By the directionof
Pericles, however, the golden ornaments had been so fixed as to admit of being
taken off. Pericles challenged the accusers to weigh them. They shrank from the
test, but the probity of Pheidias was established. This charge having been fruitless,
a second attack was made on him for having in the sculpture on the shield of the
goddess, representing the battle with the Amazons, introduced portraits of himself
and Pericles. To support this charge, again Menon was brought forward, and Pheidias
was cast into prison as having shown dishonour to the national religion. According
to Plutarch he died there, either by poison, or by a natural death.
The next attack was intended to wound Pericles on a still more sensitive
side. The connection between Pericles and Aspasia, and the great ascendancy which
she had over him, has already been spoken of in the article Aspasia
(Respecting the benefit which the oratory of Pericles was supposed to have derived
from her instructions, see Plat. Menex.). The comic poet Hermippus instituted
a prosecution against her, on the ground of impiety, and of pandering to the vices
of Pericles by corrupting the Athenian women; a charge beyond all doubt as slanderous
as that made against Pheidias of doing the same under pretence of admitting Athenian
ladies to view the progress of his works. Apparently, while this trial was pending,
Diopeithes got a decree passed that those who denied the existence of the gods,
or introduced new opinions about celestial phaenomena, should be informed against
and impeached according to the process termed eisangelia (see Eisangelia).
This decree was aimed at Anaxagoras, and through him at Pericles. Another decree
was proposed by Dracontides, that Pericles should give in an account of his expenditure
of the public money before the Prytanes, who were to conduct the trial with peculiar
solemnity. On the amendment of Agnon it was decreed that the trial should take
place before 1500 dicasts. Aspasia was acquitted, though Pericles was obliged
to descend to entreaties and tears to save her. The fate of Anaxagoras
is uncertain. Of the proceedings against Pericles himself we hear nothing further
(Plut. l. c. ; Athen. xiii, where several of the gossiping stories about Pericles
will be found; Diod. xii. 39; Diog. Laert. ii. 12). It was the opinion entertained
by many ancient writers that the dread of the impending prosecution was at least
one of the motives which induced Pericles to hurry on the outbreak of the war
with Sparta. That this unworthy charge was a false one is abundantly evident from
the impartial and emphatic statements of Thucydides. The honesty of Pericles was
unimpeachable, and the outbreak of hostilities inevitable.
When the Corcyraeans applied to Athens for assistance against Corinth,
one of their main arguments was that hostilities between the rival confederacies
could not be postponed much longer. Pericles doubtless foresaw this when by his
advice a defensive alliance was contracted with the Corcyraeans, and ten galleys
sent to assist them, under Lacedaemonius the son of Cimon, which were only to
be brought into action in case a descent upon the territories of the Corcyraeans
were threatened. Plutarch represents Pericles as sending so small a force through
jealousy of the family of Cimon. Pericles might safely have defied the rivalry
of a much more formidable person than Lacedaemonius. A larger squadron of 20 ships
was sent out not long after, in case the force first sent should prove too small
(Thucyd. i. 31--54). The measures taken by the Athenians with respect to Potidaea
doubtless had the sanction of Pericles, if they were not suggested by him (Thucyd.
i. 56). After war had been declared by the congress of the Peloponnesian alliance,
as the members of it were not in a condition to commence hostilities immediately,
various embassies were sent to Athens, manifestly rather with the intention of
multiplying causes of hostility, than with a sincere intention to prevent the
outbreak of war. The first demand made was, that the Athenians should banish all
that remained of the accursed family of the Alcmaeonids. This was clearly aimed
at Pericles, who by his mother's side was connected with that house. The design
of the Lacedaemonians was to render Pericles an object of odium when the difficulties
of the war came to be felt by the Athenians, by making it appear that he was the
obstacle in the way of peace (Thucyd. i. 127). The demand was disregarded, and
the Lacedaemonians in their turn directed to free themselves from the pollution
contracted by the death of Pausanias. Subsequent demands were made that the Athenians
should raise the siege of Potidaea, restore Aegina to independence, and especially
repeal the decree against the Megarians, by which the latter were excluded, on
pain of death, from the agora of Athens, and from all ports in the Athenian dominions.
One of the scandalous stories of the time represented this decree as having been
procured by Pericles from private motives, some Megarians having carried off two
girls belonging to the train of Aspasia (Aristoph. Acharn. 500). There was quite
sufficient ground for the decree in the long-standing enmity between the Athenians
and Megarians, which, just before the decree was passed on the motion of Charinus,
had been inflamed by the murder of an Athenian herald, who had been sent to obtain
satisfaction from the Megarians for their having encroached upon the consecrated
land that lay between the territories of the two states. This demand of the Lacedaemonians
was succeeded by one that the Athenians should leave all Greek states independent,
that is, that Athens should relinquish her empire, intimations being given that
peace might be expected if these conditions were complied with. An assembly was
held to deliberate on the answer to be given to the Lacedaemlonians. The true
motives which actuated Pericles in resisting these demands are given by Thucydides
in the speech which he puts into his mouth on the occasion (i. 140--144). Pericles
judged rightly in telling the Athenians that the demands made of them, especially
that about Megara, [p. 199] which was most insisted on, were mere pretexts by
which the Lacedaemonians were trying the spirit and resolution of the Athenians;
and that in that point of view, involving the whole principle of submission to
Sparta, it became of the utmost importance not to yield. He pointed out the advantages
which Athens, as the head of a compact dominion, possessed over a disjointed league
like that of the Peloponnesians, which, moreover, had not at its immediate command
the resources necessary for carrying on the war, and would find the greatest difficulty
in raising them ; showed how impossible it was that the Peloponesians should be
able to cope with the Athenians by sea, and how utterly fruitless their attack
would be while Athens remained mistress of the sea. The course which he recommended
therefore was, that the Athenians should not attempt to defend their territory
when invaded, but retire within the city, and devote all their attention to securing
the strength and efficiency of their navy, with which they could make severe retaliations
on the territories of their enemies; since a victor by land would be of no service,
and defeat would immediately be followed by the revolt of their subject allies.
He warned them, however, that they must be content with defending what they already
possessed, and must not attempt to extend their dominion. War, he bade them observe,
could not be avoided; and they would the iss feel the ill effects of it, if they
met their antagonists with alacrity. At his suggestion the Athenians gave for
answer to the Lacedaemonian ambassadors, that they would rescind the decree against
Megara if the Lacedaemonians would cease to exclude strangers from intercourse
with their citizens; that they would leave their allies independent if they were
so at the conclusion of the treaty, and if Sparta would grant real independence
to her allies; and that they were still willing to submit their differences to
arbitration.
In one sense, indeed, Pericles may be looked upon as the author of
the Peloponnesian war, inasmuch as it was mainly his enlightened policy which
had raised Athens to that degree of power which produced in the Lacedaemonians
the jealousy and alarm which Thucydides (i. 23) distinetly affirms to have been
the real cause of the Peloponnesian war. How accurately Pericles had ealculated
the resources of Athens, and how wisely he had discerned her true policy in the
war, was rendered manifest by the spirited struggle which she maintained even
when the Peloponnesians were supplied with Persian gold, and by the irreparable
disasters into which she was plunged by her departure from the policy enjoined
by Pericles.
In the spring of B. C. 431 Plataea was seized. Both sides prepared
with vigour for hostilities ; and a Peloponnesian army having assembled at the
isthmus, another embassy was sent to the Athenians by Archidamus to see if they
were disposed to yield. In accordance with a decree which Pericles had had passed,
that no herald or embassy should be received after the Lacedaemonians had taken
the field, the ambassador, Melesippus, was not suffered to enter the city. Pericles,
suspecting that Archidamus in his invasion might leave his property untouched,
either out of private friendship, or by the direction of the Peloponnesians, in
order to excite odium against him, leclared in an assembly of the people that
if his lands were left unravaged, he would give them up to be the property of
the state (Thucyd. ii. 13). He took the opportunity at the same time of giving
the Athenians an account of the resources they had at their command. Acting upon
his advice they conveyed their moveable property into the city, transporting their
cattle and beasts of burden to Euboea. When the Peloponnesian army advanced desolating
Attica, the Athenians were clamorous to be led out against the enemy, and were
angry with Pericles because he steadily adhered to the policy he had recommended.
He would hold no assembly or meeting of any kind. He, however, kept close guard
on the walls, and sent out cavalry to protect the lands near the city. While the
Peloponnesian army was in Attica, a fleet of 100 ships was sent round Peloponnesus
(Thucyd. ii. 18). The foresight of Pericles may probably be traced in the setting
apart 1000 talents, and 100 of the best sailing galleys of the year, to be employed
only in case of an attack being made on Athens by sea. Any one proposing to appropriate
them to any other purpose was to suffer death. Anotller fleet of thirty ships
was sent along the coasts of Locris and Euboea: and in this same summer the population
of Aegina was expelled, and Athenian colonists sent to take possession of the
island. An alliance was also entered into with Sitalces, king of Thrace. In the
autumn Pericles in person led an army into Megaris, and ravaged most of the country.
The decree against Megara before spoken of enacted that the Athenian generals
on entering office should swear to invade Megaris twice a year (Plut. l.c.; Thuicyd.
iv. 66). In the winter (B. C. 431--430), on the occasion of paying funeral honours
to those who had fallen in the course of the hostilities, Pericles was chosen
to deliver the oration (Thucyd. ii. 35--46). In the summer of the next year, when
the Peloponnesians invaded Attica, Pericles pursued the same policy as before.
In this summer the plague made its appearance in Athens (Thucyd. ii. 48). An armament
of 100 ships (Thucyd. ii. 56) was conducted by Pericles in person to the coast
of Peloponnesus. An eclipse of the sun which happened just before the fleet set
sail afforded Pericles an opportunity of applying the astronomical knowledge which
he had derived from Anaxagoras in quieting the alarm which it occasioned (Plut.
Per. 35).
The Athenians, being exposed to the devastation of the war and the
plague at the same time, not unnaturally began to turn their thoughts to peace,
and looked upon Pericles as the author of all their distresses, inasmuch as he
had persuaded them to go to war. Pericles was unable to prevent the sending of
an embassy to Sparta, with proposals for peace. It was however fruitless. Pericles
then called an assembly , and endeavoured to bring the people to a better mind;
set forth the grounds they had for hoping for success; pointed out the unreasonableness
of being cast down and diverted from a course of action deliberately taken up
by an unforeseen accident like that of the plague, and especially the injustice
of holding him in any way responsible for the hardships they were suffering on
account of it. It was impossible now to retreat ; their empire must be defended
at any sacrifice, for it was perilous to abandon it (Thucyd. ii. 60--64). Though
his speech to some extent allayed the public ferment, it did not remove from their
minds the irritation they felt. Clecn appears among his [p. 200] foremost enemies.
According to Plutarch a decree was passed that Pericles should be deprived of
his command and pay a fine, the amount of which was variously stated. Thucvdides
merely says that he was fined. The ill feeling of the people having found this
vent, Pericles soon resumed his accustomed sway, and was again elected one of
the generals for the ensuing year.
The military operations of B. C. 429 were doubtless conducted under
the general superintendence of Pericles, though he does not appear to have conducted
any in person. The plague carried off most of his near connections. His son Xanthippus,
a profligate and undutiful youth, his sister, and most of his intimate friends
died of it. Still Pericles maintained unmoved his calm bearing and philosophic
composure, and did not even attend the funeral rites of those who were carried
off. At last his only surviving legitimate son, Paralus, a youth of greater promise
than his brother, fell a victim. The firmness of Pericles then at last gave way;
as he placed the funeral garland on the head of the lifeless youth he burst into
tears and sobbed aloud. He had one son remaining, his child by Aspasia. Either
by a repeal of the law respecting legitimacy which he himself had before got passed,
or by a special vote, he was allowed to enrol this son in his own tribe and give
him his own name. In the autumn of B. C. 429 Pericles himself died of a lingering
sickness, which, if a variety of the plague, was not attended by its usual violent
symptoms, but was of such a nature that he wasted away by slow degrees. Theophrastus
preserved a story, that he allowed the women who attended him to hang an amulet
round his neck, which he showed to a friend to indicate the extremity to which
sickness had reduced him, when he could submit to such a piece of superstition.
When at the point of death, as his friends were gathered round his bed, recalling
his virtues and successes and enumerating his triumphs (in the course of his military
career, in which he was equally remarkable for his prudence(2)
and his courage, he had erected as many as nine trophies), overhearing their remarks,
he said that they had forgotten his greatest praise: that no Athenian through
his means had been made to put on mourning. He survived the commencement of the
war two years and six months (Thuc. ii. 65). His death was an irreparable loss
to Athens. The policy he had laid down for the guidance of his fellow-citizens
was soon departed from; and those who came after him being far inferior to him
in personal abilities and merit and more on a level with each other, in their
eagerness to assume the reins of the state, betook themselves to unworthy modes
of securing popular favour, and, so far from checking the wrong inclinations of
the people, fostered and encouraged them, while the operations of the forces abroad
and the counsels of the people at home were weakened by division and strife (Thuc.
ii. 65).
The name of the wife of Pericles is not mentioned. She had been the
wife of Hipponicus, by whom she was the mother of Callias. She bore two sons to
Pericles, Xanthippus and Paralus. She lived unhappily with Pericles, and a divorce
took place by mutual consent, when Pericles connected himself with Aspasia by
a tie as close as the law allowed. His union with her continued in uninterrupted
harmony till his death. It is possible enough that Aspasia occasioned the alienation
of Pericles from his wife; but at the same time it appears that she had been divorced
by her former husband likewise. By Aspasia Pericles had one son, who bore his
name. Of his strict probity he left the decisive proof in the fact that at his
death he was found not to have added a single drachma to his hereditary property.
Cicero (Brut. 7. 27, de Orut. ii. 22. 93) speaks of written orations by Pericles
as extant. It is not unlikely that he was deceived by some spurious productions
bearing his name (Quint. I. O. iii. 1). He mentions the tomb of Pericles at Athens
(de Fin. v. 2). It was on the way to the Academy (Paus. i. 29.3). There was also
a statue of him at Athens (Paus. i. 28. § 2). (Plut. Pericles)
(1) When, some time after, in a transient outbreak of ill-feeling,
Pericles was called upon to submit his accounts for inspection, there appeared
an item of ten talents spent for a necessary purpose. As the purpose to which
the sum had been applied was tolerably well understood, the statenent was allowed
to pass without question (Aristoph. Nub. 832, with the Scholiast; Thucyd. ii.
21). It was probably this incident which gave rise to the story which Plutarch
found in several writers, that Pericles, for the purpose of postponing the Peloponnesian
war, which he perceived to be inevitable, sent ten talents yearly to Sparta, with
which he bribed the most influential persons, and so kept the Spartans quiet;
a statement which, though probably incorrect, is worth noting, as indicating a
belief that the war was at any rate not hurried on by Pericles out of private
motives.
(2) He used to say that as far as their fate depended upon him,
the Athenians should be immortal.
This text is from: A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890) (eds. William Smith, LLD, William Wayte, G. E. Marindin). Cited June 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Pericles, Plutarch, Lives (ed. Bernadotte Perrin)
Pericles. On seeing certain wealthy foreigners in Rome carrying
puppies and young monkeys about in their bosoms and fondling them, Caesar asked,
we are told, if the women in their country did not bear children, thus in right
princely fashion rebuking those who squander on animals that proneness to love
and loving affection which is ours by nature, and which is due only to our fellow-men.
Since, then, our souls are by nature possessed of great fondness for learning
and fondness for seeing, it is surely reasonable to chide those who abuse this
fondness on objects all unworthy either of their eyes or ears, to the neglect
of those which are good and serviceable. Our outward sense, since it apprehends
the objects which encounter it by virtue of their mere impact upon it, must the
exercise of his mind every man, if he pleases, has the natural power to turn himself
away in every case, and to change, without the least difficulty, to that object
upon which he himself determines. It is meet, therefore, that he pursue what is
best, to the end that he may not merely regard it, but also be edified by regarding
it. A color is suited to the eye if its freshness, and its pleasantness as well,
stimulates and nourishes the vision; and so our intellectual vision must be applied
to such objects as, by their very charm, invite it onward to its own proper good.
Such objects are to be found in virtuous deeds; these implant in those who search
them out a great and zealous eagerness which leads to imitation. In other cases,
admiration of the deed is not immediately accompanied by an impulse to do it.
Nay, many times, on the contrary, while we delight in the work, we despise the
workman, as, for instance, in the case of perfumes and dyes; we take a delight
in them, but dyers and perfumers we regard as illiberal and vulgar folk. Therefore
it was a fine saying of Antisthenes, when he heard that Ismenias was an excellent
piper: "But he's a worthless man", said he, "otherwise he wouldn't
be so good a piper". And so Philip2 once said to his son, who, as the wine
went round, plucked the strings charmingly and skilfully, "Art not ashamed
to pluck the strings so well"? It is enough, surely, if a king have leisure
to hear others pluck the strings, and he pays great deference to the Muses if
he be but a spectator of such contests.
Labour with one's own hands on lowly tasks gives witness, in the toil
thus expended on useless things, to one's own indifference to higher things. No
generous youth, from seeing the Zeus at Pisa or the Hera at Argos, longs to be
Pheidias or Polycleitus; nor to be Anacreon or Philetas or Archilochus out of
pleasure in their poems. For it does not of necessity follow that, if the work
delights you with its grace, the one who wrought it is worthy of your esteem.
Wherefore the spectator is not advantaged by those things at sight of which no
ardor for imitation arises in the breast, nor any uplift of the soul arousing
zealous impulses to do the like. But virtuous action straightway so disposes a
man that he no sooner admires the works of virtue than he strives to emulate those
who wrought them. The good things of Fortune we love to possess and enjoy; those
of Virtue we love to perform. The former we are willing should be ours at the
hands of others; the latter we wish that others rather should have at our hands.
The Good creates a stir of activity towards itself, and implants at once in the
spectator an active impulse; it does not form his character by ideal representation
alone, but through the investigation of its work it furnishes him with a dominant
purpose. For such reasons I have decided to persevere in my writing of Lives,
and so have composed this tenth book, containing the life of Pericles, and that
of Fabius Maximus, who waged such lengthy war with Hannibal. The men were alike
in their virtues, and more especially in their gentleness and rectitude, and by
their ability to endure the follies of their peoples and of their colleagues in
office, they proved of the greatest service to their countries. But whether I
aim correctly at the proper mark must be decided from what I have written.
Pericles was of the tribe Acamantis, of the deme Cholargus, and of
the foremost family and lineage on both sides. His father, Xanthippus, who conquered
the generals of the King at Mycale (479 BC), married Agariste, granddaughter of
that Cleisthenes who, in such noble fashion, expelled the Peisistratidae and destroyed
their tyranny, instituted laws, and established a constitution best tempered for
the promotion of harmony and safety. She, in her dreams, once fancied that she
had given birth to a lion, and a few days thereafter bore Pericles.
His personal appearance was unimpeachable, except that his head was
rather long and out of due proportion. For this reason the images of him, almost
all of them, wear helmets, because the artists, as it would seem, were not willing
to reproach him with deformity. The comic poets of Attica used to call him "Schinocephalus",
or Squill-head (the squill is sometimes called "schinus"). So the comic
poet Cratinus, in his "Cheirons", says: "Faction and Saturn, that
ancient of days, were united in wedlock; their offspring was of all tyrants the
greatest, and lo! he is called by the gods the head-compeller". And again
in his "Nemesis": "Come, Zeus! of guests and heads the Lord!"
And Telecleides speaks of him as sitting on the acropolis in the greatest perplexity,
"now heavy of head, and now alone, from the eleven-couched chamber of his
head, causing vast uproar to arise". And Eupolis, in his "Demes",
having inquiries made about each one of the demagogues as they come up from Hades,
says, when Pericles is called out last:
The very head of those below hast thou now brought.
Eupolis, Demes
His teacher in music, most writers state, was Damon (whose name, they
say, should be pronounced with the first syllable short); but Aristotle (Plato,
rather, in Plat. Alc. 1 118c.) says he had a thorough musical training at the
hands of Pythocleides. Now Damon seems to have been a consummate sophist, but
to have taken refuge behind the name of music in order to conceal from the multitude
his real power, and he associated with Pericles, that political athlete, as it
were, in the capacity of rubber and trainer. However, Damon was not left unmolested
in this use of his lyre as a screen, but was ostracized for being a great schemer
and a friend of tyranny, and became a butt of the comic poets. At all events,
Plato (Plato the comic poet) represented some one as inquiring of him thus:
In the first place tell me then, I beseech thee,
thou who art
The Cheiron, as they say, who to Pericles gave his
craft.
Pericles was also a pupil of Zeno the Eleatic, who discoursed on the natural world,
like Parmenides, and perfected a species of refutative catch which was sure to
bring an opponent to grief; as Timon of Phlius expressed it:
His was a tongue that could argue both ways with
a fury resistless,
Zeno's; assailer of all things. Timon, unknown
But the man who most consorted with Pericles, and did most to clothe him with
a majestic demeanor that had more weight than any demagogue's appeals, yes, and
who lifted on high and exalted the dignity of his character, was Anaxagoras the
Clazomenian, whom men of that day used to call "Nous", either because
they admired that comprehension of his, which proved of such surpassing greatness
in the investigation of nature; or because he was the first to enthrone in the
universe, not Chance, nor yet Necessity, as the source of its orderly arrangement,
but Mind (Nous) pure and simple, which distinguishes and sets apart, in the midst
of an otherwise chaotic mass, the substances which have like elements.
This man Pericles extravagantly admired, and being gradually filled
full of the so-called higher philosophy and elevated speculation, he not only
had, as it seems, a spirit that was solemn and a discourse that was lofty and
free from plebeian and reckless effrontery, but also a composure of countenance
that never relaxed into laughter, a gentleness of carriage and cast of attire
that suffered no emotion to disturb it while he was speaking, a modulation of
voice that was far from boisterous, and many similar characteristics which struck
all his hearers with wondering amazement. It is, at any rate, a fact that, once
on a time when he had been abused and insulted all day long by a certain lewd
fellow of the baser sort, he endured it all quietly, though it was in the marketplace,
where he had urgent business to transact, and towards evening went away homewards
unruffled, the fellow following along and heaping all manner of contumely upon
him. When he was about to go in doors, it being now dark, he ordered a servant
to take a torch and escort the fellow in safety back to his own home.
The poet Ion, however, says that Pericles had a presumptuous and somewhat
arrogant manner of address, and that into his haughtiness there entered a good
deal of disdain and contempt for others; he praises, on the other hand, the tact,
complaisance, and elegant address which Cimon showed in his social intercourse.But
we must ignore Ion, with his demand that virtue, like a dramatic tetralogy, have
some sort of a farcical appendage. Zeno, when men called the austerity of Pericles
a mere thirst for reputation, and swollen conceit, urged them to have some such
thirst for reputation themselves, with the idea that the very assumption of nobility
might in time produce, all unconsciously, something like an eager and habitual
practice of it.
These were not the only advantages Pericles had of his association
with Anaxagoras. It appears that he was also lifted by him above superstition,
that feeling which is produced by amazement at what happens in regions above us.
It affects those who are ignorant of the causes of such things, and are crazed
about divine intervention, and confounded through their inexperience in this domain;
whereas the doctrines of natural philosophy remove such ignorance and inexperience,
and substitute for timorous and inflamed superstition that unshaken reverence
which is attended by a good hope. A story is told that once on a time the head
of a one-horned ram was brought to Pericles from his country-place, and that Lampon
the seer, when he saw how the horn grew strong and solid from the middle of the
forehead, declared that, whereas there were two powerful parties in the city,
that of Thucydides and that of Pericles, the mastery would finally devolve upon
one man,--the man to whom this sign had been given. Anaxagoras, however, had the
skull cut in two, and showed that the brain had not filled out its position, but
had drawn together to a point, like an egg, at that particular spot in the entire
cavity where the root of the horn began. At that time, the story says, it was
Anaxagoras who won the plaudits of the bystanders; but a little while after it
was Lampon, for Thucydides was overthrown, and Pericles was entrusted with the
entire control of all the interests of the people.
Now there was nothing, in my opinion, to prevent both of them, the
naturalist and the seer, from being in the right of the matter; the one correctly
divined the cause, the other the object or purpose. It was the proper province
of the one to observe why anything happens, and how it comes to be what it is;
of the other to declare for what purpose anything happens, and what it means.
And those who declare that the discovery of the cause, in any phenomenon, does
away with the meaning, do not perceive that they are doing away not only with
divine portents, but also with artificial tokens, such as the ringing of gongs,
the language of fire-signals, and the shadows of the pointers on sundials. Each
of these has been made, through some causal adaptation, to have some meaning.
However, perhaps this is matter for a different treatise.
As a young man, Pericles was exceedingly reluctant to face the people,
since it was thought that in feature he was like the tyrant Peisistratus; and
when men well on in years remarked also that his voice was sweet, and his tongue
glib and speedy in discourse, they were struck with amazement at the resemblance.
Besides, since he was rich, of brilliant lineage, and had friends of the greatest
influence, he feared that he might be ostracized, and so at first had naught to
do with politics, but devoted himself rather to a military career, where he was
brave and enterprising. However, when Aristides was dead (Soon after 468 B.C.)
and Themistocles in banishment (after 472 B.C.) and Cimon was kept by his campaigns
for the most part abroad, then at last Pericles decided to devote himself to the
people, espousing the cause of the poor and the many instead of the few and the
rich, contrary to his own nature, which was anything but popular. But he feared,
as it would seem, to encounter a suspicion of aiming at tyranny, and when he saw
that Cimon was very aristocratic in his sympathies, and was held in extraordinary
affection by the party of the "Good and True", he began to court the
favour of the multitude, thereby securing safety for himself, and power to wield
against his rival. Straightway, too, he made a different ordering in his way of
life. On one street only in the city was he to be seen walking,--the one which
took him to the market-place and the council-chamber. Invitations to dinner, and
all such friendly and familiar intercourse, he declined, so that during the long
period that elapsed while he was at the head of the state, there was not a single
friend to whose house he went to dine, except that when his kinsman Euryptolemus
gave a wedding feast, he attended until the libations were made, and then straightway
rose up and departed. Conviviality is prone to break down and overpower the haughtiest
reserve, and in familiar intercourse the dignity which is assumed for appearance's
sake is very hard to maintain. Whereas, in the case of true and genuine virtue,
"fairest appears what most appears", and nothing in the conduct of good
men is so admirable in the eyes of strangers, as their daily walk and conversation
is in the eyes of those who share it.
And so it was that Pericles, seeking to avoid the satiety which springs
from continual intercourse, made his approaches to the people by intervals, as
it were, not speaking on every question, nor addressing the people on every occasion,
but offering himself like the Salaminian trireme, as Critolaus says, for great
emergencies. The rest of his policy he carried out by commissioning his friends
and other public speakers. One of these, as they say, was Ephialtes, who broke
down the power of the Council of the Areiopagus, and so poured out for the citizens,
to use the words of Plato, too much "undiluted freedom", by which the
people was rendered unruly, just like a horse, and, as the comic poets say, "no
longer had the patience to obey the rein, but nabbed Euboea and trampled on the
islands".
Moreover, by way of providing himself with a style of discourse which
was adapted, like a musical instrument, to his mode of life and the grandeur of
his sentiments, he often made an auxiliary string of Anaxagoras, subtly mingling,
as it were, with his rhetoric the dye of natural science. It was from natural
science, as the divine Plato says, that he "acquired his loftiness of thought
and perfectness of execution, in addition to his natural gifts", and by applying
what he learned to the art of speaking, he far excelled all other speakers. It
was thus, they say, that he got his surname; though some suppose it was from the
structures with which he adorned the city, and others from his ability as a statesman
and a general, that he was called Olympian. It is not at all unlikely that his
reputation was the result of the blending in him of many high qualities. But the
comic poets of that day who let fly, both in earnest and in jest, many shafts
of speech against him, make it plain that he got this surname chiefly because
of his diction; they spoke of him as "thundering" and "lightening"
when he harangued his audience, and as "wielding a dread thunderbolt in his
tongue".
There is on record also a certain saying of Thucydides, the son of
Melesias, touching the clever persuasiveness of Pericles, a saying uttered in
jest. Thucydides belonged to the party of the "Good and True", and was
for a very long time a political antagonist of Pericles. When Archidamus, the
king of the Lacedaemonians, asked him whether he or Pericles was the better wrestler,
he replied: "Whenever I throw him in wrestling, he disputes the fall, and
carries his point, and persuades the very men who saw him fall".
The truth is, however, that even Pericles, with all his gifts, was
cautious in his discourse, so that whenever he came forward to speak he prayed
the gods that there might not escape him unawares a single word which was unsuited
to the matter under discussion. In writing he left nothing behind him except the
decrees which he proposed, and only a few in all of his memorable sayings are
preserved, as, for instance, his urging the removal of Aegina as the "eye-sore
of the Piraeus", and his declaring that he "already beheld war swooping
down upon them from Peloponnesus". Once also when Sophocles, who was general
with him on a certain naval expedition (Against Samos, 440-439 B.C.) praised a
lovely boy, he said: "It is not his hands only, Sophocles, that a general
must keep clean, but his eyes as well". Again, Stesimbrotus says that, in
his funeral oration over those who had fallen in the Samian War, he declared that
they had become immortal, like the gods; "the gods themselves", he said,
"we cannot see, but from the honors which they receive, and the blessings
which they bestow, we conclude that they are immortal". So it was, he said,
with those who had given their lives for their country.
Thucydides describes the administration of Pericles as rather aristocratic,
"in name a democracy, but in fact a government by the greatest citizen".
But many others say that the people was first led on by him into allotments of
public lands, festival-grants, and distributions of fees for public services,
thereby falling into bad habits, and becoming luxurious and wanton under the influence
of his public measures, instead of frugal and self-sufficing. Let us therefore
examine in detail the reason for this change in him.
In the beginning, as has been said, pitted as he was against the reputation
of Cimon, he tried to ingratiate himself with the people. And since he was the
inferior in wealth and property, by means of which Cimon would win over the poor
-furnishing a dinner every day to any Athenian who wanted it, bestowing raiment
on the elderly men, and removing the fences from his estates that whosoever wished
might pluck the fruit- Pericles, outdone in popular arts of this sort, had recourse
to the distribution of the people's own wealth. This was on the advice of Damonides,
of the deme Oa, as Aristotle has stated.
And soon, what with festival-grants and jurors' wages and other fees
and largesses, he bribed the multitude by the wholesale, and used them in opposition
to the Council of the Areiopagus. Of this body he himself was not a member, since
the lot had not made him either First Archon, or Archon Thesmothete, or King Archon,
or Archon Polemarch. These offices were in ancient times filled by lot, and through
them those who properly acquitted themselves were promoted into the Areiopagus.
For this reason all the more did Pericles, strong in the affections of the people,
lead a successful party against the Council of the Areiopagus. Not only was the
Council robbed of most of its jurisdiction by Ephialtes, but Cimon also, on the
charge of being a lover of Sparta and a hater of the people, was ostracized (461
B.C.) -a man who yielded to none in wealth and lineage, who had won most glorious
victories over the Barbarians, and had filled the city full of money and spoils,
as is written in his Life. Such was the power of Pericles among the people.
Now ostracism involved legally a period of ten years' banishment.
But in the meanwhile (457 B.C.) the Lacedaemonians invaded the district of Tanagra
with a great army, and the Athenians straightway sallied out against them. So
Cimon came back from his banishment and stationed himself with his tribesmen in
line of battle, and determined by his deeds to rid himself of the charge of too
great love for Sparta, in that he shared the perils of his fellow-citizens. But
the friends of Pericles banded together and drove him from the ranks, on the ground
that he was under sentence of banishment. For which reason, it is thought, Pericles
fought most sturdily in that battle, and was the most conspicuous of all in exposing
himself to danger. And there fell in this battle all the friends of Cimon to a
man, whom Pericles had accused with him of too great love for Sparta. Wherefore
sore repentance fell upon the Athenians, and a longing desire for Cimon, defeated
as they were on the confines of Attica, and expecting as they did a grievous war
with the coming of spring. So then Pericles, perceiving this, hesitated not to
gratify the desires of the multitude, but wrote with his own hand the decree which
recalled the man. Whereupon Cimon came back from banishment and made peace (450B.C.)
between the cities. For the Lacedaemonians were as kindly disposed towards him
as they were full of hatred towards Pericles and the other popular leaders.
Some, however, say that the decree for the restoration of Cimon was
not drafted by Pericles until a secret compact had been made between them, through
the agency of Elpinice, Cimon's sister, to the effect that Cimon should sail out
with a fleet of two hundred ships and have command in foreign parts, attempting
to subdue the territory of the King, while Pericles should have supreme power
in the city. And it was thought that before this, too, Elpinice had rendered Pericles
more lenient towards Cimon, when he stood his trial on the capital charge of treason
(463 B.C.). Pericles was at that time one of the committee of prosecution appointed
by the people, and on Elpinice's coming to him and supplicating him, said to her
with a smile: "Elpinice, thou art an old woman, thou art an old woman, to
attempt such tasks". However, he made only one speech, by way of formally
executing his commission, and in the end did the least harm to Cimon of all his
accusers.
How, then, can one put trust in Idomeneus, who accuses Pericles of
assassinating the popular leader Ephialtes, though he was his friend and a partner
in his political program, out of mere jealousy and envy of his reputation? These
charges he has raked up from some source or other and hurled them, as if so much
venom, against one who was perhaps not in all points irreproachable, but who had
a noble disposition and an ambitious spirit, wherein no such savage and bestial
feelings can have their abode. As for Ephialtes, who was a terror to the oligarchs
and inexorable in exacting accounts from those who wronged the people, and in
prosecuting them, his enemies laid plots against him, and had him slain secretly
by Aristodicus of Tanagra, as Aristotle says. As for Cimon, he died on his campaign
in Cyprus (449 B.C.).
Then the aristocrats, aware even some time before this that Pericles
was already become the greatest citizen, but wishing nevertheless to have some
one in the city who should stand up against him and blunt the edge of his power,
that it might not be an out and out monarchy, put forward Thucydides of Alopece,
a discreet man and a relative of Cimon, to oppose him. He, being less of a warrior
than Cimon, and more of a forensic speaker and statesman, by keeping watch and
ward in the city, and by wrestling bouts with Pericles on the bema, soon brought
the administration into even poise.
He would not suffer the party of the "Good and True", as
they called themselves, to be scattered up and down and blended with the populace,
as heretofore, the weight of their character being thus obscured by numbers, but
by culling them out and assembling them into one body, he made their collective
influence, thus become weighty, as it were a counterpoise in the balance. Now
there had been from the beginning a sort of seam hidden beneath the surface of
affairs, as in a piece of iron, which faintly indicated a divergence between the
popular and the aristocratic programme; but the emulous ambition of these two
men cut a deep gash in the state, and caused one section of it to be called the
"Demos", or the People, and the other the "Oligoi", or the
Few. At this time, therefore, particularly, Pericles gave the reins to the people,
and made his policy one of pleasing them, ever devising some sort of a pageant
in the town for the masses, or a feast, or a procession, "amusing them like
children with not uncouth delights", and sending out sixty triremes annually,
on which large numbers of the citizens sailed about for eight months under pay,
practising at the same time and acquiring the art of seamanship. In addition to
this, he despatched a thousand settlers to the Chersonesus (447 B.C.), and five
hundred to Naxos, and to Andros half that number, and a thousand to Thrace to
settle with the Bisaltae, and others to Italy, when the site of Sybaris was settled
(444 B.C.), which they named Thurii. All this he did by way of lightening the
city of its mob of lazy and idle busybodies, rectifying the embarrassments of
the poorer people, and giving the allies for neighbors an imposing garrison which
should prevent rebellion.
But that which brought most delightful adornment to Athens, and the
greatest amazement to the rest of mankind; that which alone now testifies for
Hellas that her ancient power and splendor, of which so much is told, was no idle
fiction -I mean his construction of sacred edifices- this, more than all the public
measures of Pericles, his enemies maligned and slandered. They cried out in the
assemblies: "The people has lost its fair fame and is in ill repute because
it has removed the public moneys of the Hellenes from Delos into its own keeping,
and that seemliest of all excuses which it had to urge against its accusers, to
wit, that out of fear of the Barbarians it took the public funds from that sacred
isle and was now guarding them in a stronghold, of this Pericles has robbed it.
And surely Hellas is insulted with a dire insult and manifestly subjected to tyranny
when she sees that, with her own enforced contributions for the war, we are gilding
and bedizening our city, which, for all the world like a wanton woman, adds to
her wardrobe precious stones and costly statues and temples worth their millions".
For his part, Pericles would instruct the people that it owed no account
of their moneys to the allies provided it carried on the war for them and kept
off the Barbarians; "not a horse do they furnish", said he, "not
a ship, not a hoplite, but money simply; and this belongs, not to those who give
it, but to those who take it, if only they furnish that for which they take it
in pay. And it is but meet that the city, when once she is sufficiently equipped
with all that is necessary for prosecuting the war, should apply her abundance
to such works as, by their completion, will bring her everlasting glory, and while
in process of completion will bring that abundance into actual service, in that
all sorts of activity and diversified demands arise, which rouse every art and
stir every hand, and bring, as it were, the whole city under pay, so that she
not only adorns, but supports herself as well from her own resources".
And it was true that his military expeditions supplied those who were
in the full vigor of manhood with abundant resources from the common funds, and
in his desire that the unwarlike throng of common laborers should neither have
no share at all in the public receipts, nor yet get fees for laziness and idleness,
he boldly suggested to the people projects for great constructions, and designs
for works which would call many arts into play and involve long periods of time,
in order that the stay-at-homes, no whit less than the sailors and sentinels and
soldiers, might have a pretext for getting a beneficial share of the public wealth.
The materials to be used were stone, bronze, ivory, gold, ebony, and cypress-wood;
the arts which should elaborate and work up these materials were those of carpenter,
moulder, bronze-smith, stone-cutter, dyer, worker in gold and ivory, painter,
embroiderer, embosser, to say nothing of the forwarders and furnishers of the
material, such as factors, sailors and pilots by sea, and, by land, wagon-makers,
trainers of yoked beasts, and drivers. There were also rope-makers, weavers, leather-workers,
road-builders, and miners. And since each particular art, like a general with
the army under his separate command, kept its own throng of unskilled and untrained
laborers in compact array, to be as instrument unto player and as body unto soul
in subordinate service, it came to pass that for every age, almost, and every
capacity the city's great abundance was distributed and scattered abroad by such
demands.
So then the works arose, no less towering in their grandeur than inimitable
in the grace of their outlines, since the workmen eagerly strove to surpass themselves
in the beauty of their handicraft. And yet the most wonderful thing about them
was the speed with which they rose. Each one of them, men thought, would require
many successive generations to complete it, but all of them were fully completed
in the heyday of a single administration. And yet they say that once on a time
when Agatharchus the painter was boasting loudly of the speed and ease with which
he made his figures, Zeuxis heard him, and said, "Mine take, and last, a
long time". And it is true that deftness and speed in working do not impart
to the work an abiding weight of influence nor an exactness of beauty; whereas
the time which is put out to loan in laboriously creating, pays a large and generous
interest in the preservation of the creation. For this reason are the works of
Pericles all the more to be wondered at; they were created in a short time for
all time. Each one of them, in its beauty, was even then and at once antique;
but in the freshness of its vigor it is, even to the present day, recent and newly
wrought. Such is the bloom of perpetual newness, as it were, upon these works
of his, which makes them ever to look untouched by time, as though the unfaltering
breath of an ageless spirit had been infused into them. His general manager and
general overseer was Pheidias, although the several works had great architects
and artists besides. Of the Parthenon, for instance, with its cella of a hundred
feet in length, Callicrates and Ictinus were the architects; it was Coroebus who
began to build the sanctuary of the mysteries at Eleusis, and he planted the columns
on the floor and yoked their capitals together with architraves; but on his death
Metagenes, of the deme Xypete, carried up the frieze and the upper tier of columns;
while Xenocles, of the deme Cholargus, set on high the lantern over the shrine.
For the long wall, concerning which Socrates says he himself heard Pericles introduce
a measure, Callicrates was the contractor. Cratinus pokes fun at this work for
its slow progress, and in these words:
Since ever so long now
In word has Pericles pushed the thing; in fact he
does not budge it. Cratinus
The Odeum, which was arranged internally with many tiers of seats and many pillars,
and which had a roof made with a circular slope from a single peak, they say was
an exact reproduction of the Great King's pavilion, and this too was built under
the superintendence of Pericles. Wherefore Cratinus, in his "Thracian Women",
rails at him again:
The squill-head Zeus! lo! here he comes,
The Odeum like a cap upon his cranium,
Now that for good and all the ostracism is o'er.Cratinus
Then first did Pericles, so fond of honor was he, get a decree passed that a musical
contest be held as part of the Panathenaic festival. He himself was elected manager,
and prescribed how the contestants must blow the flute, or sing, or pluck the
zither. These musical contests were witnessed, both then and thereafter, in the
Odeum. The Propylaea of the acropolis were brought to completion in the space
of five years, Mnesicles being their architect. A wonderful thing happened in
the course of their building, which indicated that the goddess was not holding
herself aloof, but was a helper both in the inception and in the completion of
the work. One of its artificers, the most active and zealous of them all, lost
his footing and fell from a great height, and lay in a sorry plight, despaired
of by the physicians. Pericles was much cast down at this, but the goddess appeared
to him in a dream and prescribed a course of treatment for him to use, so that
he speedily and easily healed the man. It was in commemoration of this that he
set up the bronze statue of Athena Hygieia on the acropolis near the altar of
that goddess, which was there before, as they say. But it was Pheidias who produced
the great golden image of the goddess, and he is duly inscribed on the tablet
as the workman who made it. Everything, almost, was under his charge, and all
the artists and artisans, as I have said, were under his superintendence, owing
to his friendship with Pericles. This brought envy upon the one, and contumely
on the other, to the effect that Pheidias made assignations for Pericles with
free-born women who would come ostensibly to see the works of art. The comic poets
took up this story and bespattered Pericles with charges of abounding wantonness,
connecting their slanders with the wife of Menippus, a man who was his friend,
and a colleague in the generalship, and with the bird-culture of Pyrilampes, who,
since he was the comrade of Pericles, was accused of using his peacocks to bribe
the women with whom Pericles consorted. And why should any one be astonished that
men of wanton life lose no occasion for offering up sacrifices, as it were, of
contumelious abuse of their superiors, to the evil deity of popular envy, when
even Stesimbrotus of Thasos has ventured to make public charge against Pericles
of a dreadful and fabulous impiety with his son's wife? To such degree, it seems,
is truth hedged about with difficulty and hard to capture by research, since those
who come after the events in question find that lapse of time is an obstacle to
their proper perception of them; while the research of their contemporaries into
men's deeds and lives, partly through envious hatred and partly through fawning
flattery, defiles and distorts the truth.
Thucydides and his party kept denouncing Pericles for playing fast
and loose with the public moneys and annihilating the revenues. Pericles therefore
asked the people in assembly whether they thought he had expended too much, and
on their declaring that it was altogether too much, "Well then", said
he, "let it not have been spent on your account, but mine, and I will make
the inscriptions of dedication in my own name". When Pericles had said this,
whether it was that they admired his magnanimity or vied with his ambition to
get the glory of his works, they cried out with a loud voice and bade him take
freely from the public funds for his outlays, and to spare naught whatsoever.
And finally he ventured to undergo with Thucydides the contest of the ostracism,
wherein he secured his rival's banishment,1 and the dissolution of the faction
which had been arrayed against him.
Thus, then, seeing that political differences were entirely remitted
and the city had become a smooth surface, as it were, and altogether united, he
brought under his own control Athens and all the issues dependent on the Athenians,--tributes,
armies, triremes, the islands, the sea, the vast power derived from Hellenes,
vast also from Barbarians, and a supremacy that was securely hedged about with
subject nations, royal friendships, and dynastic alliances. But then he was no
longer the same man as before, nor alike submissive to the people and ready to
yield and give in to the desires of the multitude as a steersman to the breezes.
Nay rather, forsaking his former lax and sometimes rather effeminate management
of the people, as it were a flowery and soft melody, he struck the high and clear
note of an aristocratic and kingly statesmanship, and employing it for the best
interests of all in a direct and undeviating fashion, he led the people, for the
most part willingly, by his persuasions and instructions. And yet there were times
when they were sorely vexed with him, and then he tightened the reins and forced
them into the way of their advantage with a master's hand, for all the world like
a wise physician, who treats a complicated disease of long standing occasionally
with harmless indulgences to please his patient, and occasionally, too, with caustics
and bitter drugs which work salvation. For whereas all sorts of distempers, as
was to be expected, were rife in a rabble which possessed such vast empire, he
alone was so endowed by nature that he could manage each one of these cases suitably,
and more than anything else he used the people's hopes and fears, like rudders,
so to speak, giving timely check to their arrogance, and allaying and comforting
their despair. Thus he proved that rhetoric, or the art of speaking, is, to use
Plato's words, "an enchantment of the soul", and that her chiefest business
is a careful study of the affections and passions, which are, so to speak, strings
and stops of the soul, requiring a very judicious fingering and striking. The
reason for his success was not his power as a speaker merely, but, as Thucydides
says, the reputation of his life and the confidence reposed in him as one who
was manifestly proven to be utterly disinterested and superior to bribes. He made
the city, great as it was when he took it, the greatest and richest of all cities,
and grew to be superior in power to kings and tyrants. Some of these actually
appointed him guardian of their sons, but he did not make his estate a single
drachma greater than it was when his father left it to him.
Of his power there can be no doubt, since Thucydides gives so clear
an exposition of it, and the comic poets unwittingly reveal it even in their malicious
gibes, calling him and his associates ?new Peisistratidae,? and urging him to
take solemn oath not to make himself a tyrant, on the plea, forsooth, that his
preeminence was incommensurate with a democracy and too oppressive. Telecleides
says that the Athenians had handed over to him
With the cities' assessments the cities themselves,
to bind or release as he pleases,
Their ramparts of stone to build up if he likes,
and then to pull down again straightway,
Their treaties, their forces, their might, peace,
and riches, and all the fair gifts of good fortune. Telecleides
And this was not the fruit of a golden moment, nor the culminating popularity
of an administration that bloomed but for a season; nay rather he stood first
for forty years (Reckoning roundly from 469 to 429 B.C.) among such men as Ephialtes,
Leocrates, Myronides, Cimon, Tolmides, and Thucydides, and after the deposition
of Thucydides and his ostracism, for no less than fifteen of these years did he
secure an imperial sway that was continuous and unbroken, by means of his annual
tenure of the office of general. During all these years he kept himself untainted
by corruption, although he was not altogether indifferent to money-making; indeed,
the wealth which was legally his by inheritance from his father, that it might
not from sheer neglect take to itself wings and fly away, nor yet cause him much
trouble and loss of time when he was busy with higher things, he set into such
orderly dispensation as he thought was easiest and most exact. This was to sell
his annual products all together in the lump, and then to buy in the market each
article as it was needed, and so provide the ways and means of daily life. For
this reason he was not liked by his sons when they grew up, nor did their wives
find in him a liberal purveyor, but they murmured at his expenditure for the day
merely and under the most exact restrictions, there being no surplus of supplies
at all, as in a great house and under generous circumstances, but every outlay
and every intake proceeding by count and measure. His agent in securing all this
great exactitude was a single servant, Evangelus, who was either gifted by nature
or trained by Pericles so as to surpass everybody else in domestic economy.
It is true that this conduct was not in accord with the wisdom of
Anaxagoras, since that philosopher actually abandoned his house and left his land
to lie fallow for sheep-grazing, owing to the lofty thoughts with which he was
inspired. But the life of a speculative philosopher is not the same thing, I think,
as that of a statesman. The one exercises his intellect without the aid of instruments
and independent of external matters for noble ends; whereas the other, inasmuch
as he brings his superior excellence into close contact with the common needs
of mankind, must sometimes find wealth not merely one of the necessities of life,
but also one of its noble things, as was actually the case with Pericles, who
gave aid to many poor men. And, besides, they say that Anaxagoras himself, at
a time when Pericles was absorbed in business, lay on his couch all neglected,
in his old age, starving himself to death, his head already muffled for departure,
and that when the matter came to the ears of Pericles, he was struck with dismay,
and ran at once to the poor man, and besought him most fervently to live, bewailing
not so much that great teacher's lot as his own, were he now to be bereft of such
a counsellor in the conduct of the state. Then Anaxagoras -so the story goes-
unmuffled his head and said to him, "Pericles, even those who need a lamp
pour oil therein".
When the Lacedaemonians began to be annoyed by the increasing power
of the Athenians, Pericles, by way of inciting the people to cherish yet loftier
thoughts and to deem it worthy of great achievements, introduced a bill to the
effect that all Hellenes wheresoever resident in Europe or in Asia, small and
large cities alike, should be invited to send deputies to a council at Athens.
This was to deliberate concerning the Hellenic sanctuaries which the Barbarians
had burned down, concerning the sacrifices which were due to the gods in the name
of Hellas in fulfillment of vows made when they were fighting with the Barbarians,
and concerning the sea, that all might sail it fearlessly and keep the peace.
To extend this invitation, twenty men, of such as were above fifty years of age,
were sent out, five of whom invited the Ionians and Dorians in Asia and on the
islands between Lesbos and Rhodes; five visited the regions on the Hellespont
and in Thrace as far as Byzantium; five others were sent into Boeotia and Phocis
and Peloponnesus, and from here by way of the Ozolian Locrians into the neighboring
continent as far as Acarnania and Ambracia; while the rest proceeded through Euboea
to the Oetaeans and the Maliac Gulf and the Phthiotic Achaeans and the Thessalians,
urging them all to come and take part in the deliberations for the peace and common
welfare of Hellas. But nothing was accomplished , nor did the cities come together
by deputy, owing to the opposition of the Lacedaemonians, as it is said, since
the effort met with its first check in Peloponnesus. I have cited this incident,
however, to show forth the man's disposition and the greatness of his thoughts.
In his capacity as general, he was famous above all things for his
saving caution; he neither undertook of his own accord a battle involving much
uncertainty and peril, nor did he envy and imitate those who took great risks,
enjoyed brilliant good-fortune, and so were admired as great generals; and he
was for ever saying to his fellow-citizens that, so far as lay in his power, they
would remain alive forever and be immortals. So when he saw that Tolmides, son
of Tolmaeus, all on account of his previous good-fortune and of the exceeding
great honor bestowed upon him for his wars, was getting ready, quite inopportunely,
to make an incursion into Boeotia, and that he had persuaded the bravest and most
ambitious men of military age to volunteer for the campaign,--as many as a thousand
of them, aside from the rest of his forces,--he tried to restrain and dissuade
him in the popular assembly, uttering then that well remembered saying, to wit,
that if he would not listen to Pericles, he would yet do full well to wait for
that wisest of all counsellors, Time. This saying brought him only moderate repute
at the time; but a few days afterwards, when word was brought that Tolmides himself
was dead after defeat in battle near Coroneia (447 B.C.), and that many brave
citizens were dead likewise, then it brought Pericles great repute as well as
goodwill, for that he was a man of discretion and patriotism.
Of all his expeditions, that to the Chersonesus (447 B.C.) was held
in most loving remembrance, since it proved the salvation of the Hellenes who
dwelt there. Not only did he bring thither a thousand Athenian colonists and stock
the cities anew with vigorous manhood, but he also belted the neck of the isthmus
with defensive bulwarks from sea to sea, and so intercepted the incursions of
the Thracians who swarmed about the Chersonesus, and shut out the perpetual and
grievous war in which the country was all the time involved, in close touch as
it was with neighboring communities of Barbarians, and full to overflowing of
robber bands whose haunts were on or within its borders. But he was admired and
celebrated even amongst foreigners for his circumnavigation of the Peloponnesus
(453 B.C.), when he put to sea from Pegae in the Megarid with a hundred triremes.He
not only ravaged a great strip of seashore, as Tolmides had done before him, but
also advanced far into the interior with the hoplites from his ships, and drove
all his enemies inside their walls in terror at his approach, excepting only the
Sicyonians, who made a stand against him in Nemea, and joined battle with him;
these he routed by main force and set up a trophy for his victory. Then from Achaia,
which was friendly to him, he took soldiers on board his triremes, and proceeded
with his armament to the opposite mainland, where he sailed up the Achelous, overran
Acarnania, shut up the people of Oeniadae behind their walls, and after ravaging
and devastating their territory, went off homewards, having shown himself formidable
to his enemies, but a safe and efficient leader for his fellow-citizens. For nothing
untoward befell, even as result of chance, those who took part in the expedition.
He also sailed into the Euxine Sea (Probably about 436. B.C.) with
a large and splendidly equipped armament. There he effected what the Greek cities
desired, and dealt with them humanely, while to the neighboring nations of Barbarians
with their kings and dynasts he displayed the magnitude of his forces and the
fearless courage with which they sailed whithersoever they pleased and brought
the whole sea under their own control. He also left with the banished Sinopians
thirteen ships of war and soldiers under command of Lamachus to aid them against
Timesileos. When the tyrant and his adherents had been driven from the city, Pericles
got a bill passed providing that six hundred volunteers of the Athenians should
sail to Sinope and settle down there with the Sinopians, dividing up among themselves
the houses and lands which the tyrant and his followers had formerly occupied.
But in other matters he did not accede to the vain impulses of the citizens, nor
was he swept along with the tide when they were eager, from a sense of their great
power and good fortune, to lay hands again upon Egypt and molest the realms of
the King which lay along the sea. Many also were possessed already with that inordinate
and inauspicious passion for Sicily which was afterwards kindled into flame by
such orators as Alcibiades. And some there were who actually dreamed of Tuscany
and Carthage, and that not without a measure of hope, in view of the magnitude
of their present supremacy and the full-flowing tide of success in their undertakings.
But Pericles was ever trying to restrain this extravagance of theirs,
to lop off their expansive meddlesomeness, and to divert the greatest part of
their forces to the guarding and securing of what they had already won. He considered
it a great achievement to hold the Lacedaemonians in check, and set himself in
opposition to these in every way, as he showed, above all other things, by what
he did in the Sacred War (About 448 B.C.) The Lacedaemonians made an expedition
to Delphi while the Phocians had possession of the sanctuary there, and restored
it to the Delphians; but no sooner had the Lacedaemonians departed than Pericles
made a counter expedition and reinstated the Phocians. And whereas the Lacedaemonians
had had the "promanteia", or right of consulting the oracle in behalf
of others also, which the Delphians had bestowed upon them, carved upon the forehead
of the bronze wolf in the sanctuary, he secured from the Phocians this high privilege
for the Athenians, and had it chiselled along the right side of the same wolf.
That he was right in seeking to confine the power of the Athenians
within lesser Greece, was amply proved by what came to pass. To begin with, the
Euboeans revolted (446 B.C.), and he crossed over to the island with a hostile
force. Then straightway word was brought to him that the Megarians had gone over
to the enemy, and that an army of the enemy was on the confines of Attica under
the leadership of Pleistoanax, the king of the Lacedaemonians. Accordingly, Pericles
brought his forces back with speed from Euboea for the war in Attica. He did not
venture to join battle with hoplites who were so many, so brave, and so eager
for battle, but seeing that Pleistoanax was a very young man, and that out of
all his advisers he set most store by Cleandridas, whom the ephors had sent along
with him, by reason of his youth, to be a guardian and an assistant to him, he
secretly made trial of this man's integrity, speedily corrupted him with bribes,
and persuaded him to lead the Peloponnesians back out of Attica. When the army
had withdrawn and had been disbanded to their several cities, the Lacedaemonians,
in indignation, laid a heavy fine upon their king, the full amount of which he
was unable to pay, and so betook himself out of Lacedaemon, while Cleandridas,
who had gone into voluntary exile, was condemned to death. He was the father of
that Gylippus who overcame the Athenians in Sicily. And nature seems to have imparted
covetousness to the son, as it were a congenital disease, owing to which he too,
after noble achievements, was caugt in base practices and banished from Sparta
in disgrace. This story, however, I have told at length in my life of Lysander.
When Pericles, in rendering his accounts for this campaign, recorded
an expenditure of ten talents as "for sundry needs", the people approved
it without officious meddling and without even investigating the mystery. But
some writers, among whom is Theophrastus the philosopher, have stated that every
year ten talents found their way to Sparta from Pericles, and that with these
he conciliated all the officials there, and so staved off the war, not purchasing
peace, but time, in which he could make preparations at his leisure and then carry
on war all the better. However that may be, he again turned his attention to the
rebels, and after crossing to Euboea with fifty ships of war and five thousand
hoplites, he subdued the cities there. Those of the Chalcidians who were styled
Hippobotae, or Knights, and who were preeminent for wealth and reputation, he
banished from their city, and all the Hestiaeans he removed from the country and
settled Athenians in their places, treating them, and them only, thus inexorably,
because they had taken an Attic ship captive and slain its crew.
After this, when peace had been made for thirty years between the
Athenians and the Lacedaemonians, be got a decree passed for his expedition to
Samos (440 B.C.), alleging against its people that, though they were ordered to
break off their war against the Milesians, they were not complying.
Now, since it is thought that he proceeded thus against the Samians
to gratify Aspasia, this may be a fitting place to raise the query what great
art or power this woman had, that she managed as she pleased the foremost men
of the state, and afforded the philosophers occasion to discuss her in exalted
terms and at great length. That she was a Milesian by birth, daughter of one Axiochus,
is generally agreed; and they say that it was in emulation of Thargelia, an Ionian
woman of ancient times, that she made her onslaughts upon the most influential
men. This Thargelia came to be a great beauty and was endowed with grace of manners
as well as clever wits. Inasmuch as she lived on terms of intimacy with numberless
Greeks, and attached all her consorts to the king of Persia, she stealthily sowed
the seeds of Persian sympathy in the cities of Greece by means of these lovers
of hers, who were men of the greatest power and influence. And so Aspasia, as
some say, was held in high favour by Pericles because of her rare political wisdom.
Socrates sometimes came to see her with his disciples, and his intimate friends
brought their wives to her to hear her discourse, although she presided over a
business that was any- thing but honest or even reputable, since she kept a house
of young courtesans. And Aeschines says that Lysicles the sheep-dealer, a man
of low birth and nature, came to be the first man at Athens by living with Aspasia
after the death of Pericles. And in the "Menexenus" of Plato, even though
the first part of it be written in a sportive vein, there is, at any rate, thus
much of fact, that the woman had the reputation of associating with many Athenians
as a teacher of rhetoric. However, the affection which Pericles had for Aspasia
seems to have been rather of an amatory sort. For his own wife was near of kin
to him, and had been wedded first to Hipponicus, to whom she bore Callias, surnamed
the Rich; she bore also, as the wife of Pericles, Xanthippus and Paralus. Afterwards,
since their married life was not agreeable, he legally bestowed her upon another
man, with her own consent, and himself took Aspasia, and loved her exceedingly.
Twice a day, as they say, on going out and on coming in from the market-place,
he would salute her with a loving kiss.
But in the comedies she is styled now the New Omphale, now Deianeira,
and now Hera. Cratinus flatly called her a prostitute in these lines:
As his Hera, Aspasia was born, the child of Unnatural
Lust,
A prostitute past shaming. Cratinus, Cheirons
And it appears also that he begat from her that bastard son about whom Eupolis,
in his "Demes", represented him as inquiring with these words:
And my bastard, doth he live? Eupolis, Demes
to which Myronides replies:
Yea, and long had been a man,
Had he not feared the mischief of his harlot-birth.
Eupolis, Demes
So renowned and celebrated did Aspasia become, they say, that even Cyrus, the
one who went to war with the Great King for the sovereignty of the Persians, gave
the name of Aspasia to that one of his concubines whom he loved best, who before
was called Milto. She was a Phocaean by birth, daughter of one Hermotimus, and,
after Cyrus had fallen in battle, was carried captive to the King, and acquired
the greatest influence with him. These things coming to my recollection as I write,
it were perhaps unnatural to reject and pass them by.
But to return to the war against the Samians, they accuse Pericles of getting
the decree for this passed at the request of Aspasia and in the special behalf
of the Milesians. For the two cities were waging their war for the possession
of Priene, and the Samians were getting the better of it, and when the Athenians
ordered them to stop the contest and submit the case to arbitration at Athens,
they would not obey. So Pericles set sail and broke up the oligarchical government
which Samos had, and then took fifty of the foremost men of the state, with as
many of their children, as hostages, and sent them off to Lemnos. And yet they
say that every one of these hostages offered him a talent on his own account,
and that the opponents of democracy in the city offered him many talents besides.
And still further, Pissouthnes, the Persian satrap, who had much good-will towards
the Samians, sent him ten thousand gold staters and interceded for the city. However,
Pericles took none of these bribes, but treated the Samians just as he had determined,
set up a democracy and sailed back to Athens. Then the Samians at once revolted,
after Pissouthnes had stolen away their hostages from Lemnos for them, and in
other ways equipped them for the war. Once more, therefore, Pericles set sail
against them. They were not victims of sloth, nor yet of abject terror, but full
of exceeding zeal in their determination to contest the supremacy of the sea.
In a fierce sea-fight which came off near an island called Tragia, Pericles won
a brilliant victory, with four and forty ships outfighting seventy, twenty of
which were infantry transports.
Close on the heels of his victorious pursuit came his seizure of the harbor, and
then he laid formal siege to the Samians, who, somehow or other, still had the
daring to sally forth and fight with him before their walls. But soon a second
and a larger armament came from Athens, and the Samians were completely beleaguered
and shut in. Then Pericles took sixty triremes and sailed out into the main sea,
as most authorities say, because he wished to meet a fleet of Phoenician ships
which was coming to the aid of the Samians, and fight it at as great a distance
from Samos as possible; but according to Stesimbrotus, because he had designs
on Cyprus, which seems incredible. But in any case, whichever design he cherished,
he seems to have made a mistake. For no sooner had he sailed off than Melissus,
the son of Ithagenes, a philosopher who was then acting as general at Samos, despising
either the small number of ships that were left, or the inexperience of the generals
in charge of them, persuaded his fellow-citizens to make an attack upon the Athenians.
In the battle that ensued the Samians were victorious, taking many of their enemy
captive, and destroying many of their ships, so that they commanded the sea and
laid in large store of such necessaries for the war as they did not have before.
And Aristotle says that Pericles was himself also defeated by Melissus in the
sea-fight which preceded this.
The Samians retaliated upon the Athenians by branding their prisoners
in the forehead with owls; for the Athenians had once branded some of them with
the samaena. Now the samaena is a ship of war with a boar's head design for prow
and ram, but more capacious than usual and paunchlike, so that it is a good deep-sea
traveller and a swift sailor too. It got this name because it made its first appearance
in Samos, where Polycrates the tyrant had some built. To these brand-marks, they
say, the verse of Aristophanes made riddling reference:
For oh! how lettered is the folk of the Samians!
Aristophanes, Babylonians
Be that true or not, when Pericles learned of the disaster which had befallen
his fleet, he came speedily to its aid. And though Melissus arrayed his forces
against him, he conquered and routed the enemy and at once walled their city in,
preferring to get the upper hand and capture it at the price of money and time,
rather than of the wounds and deadly perils of his fellow-citizens. And since
it was a hard task for him to restrain the Athenians in their impatience of delay
and eagerness to fight, he separated his whole force into eight divisions, had
them draw lots, and allowed the division which got the white bean to feast and
take their ease, while the others did the fighting. And this is the reason, as
they say, why those who have had a gay and festive time call it a "white
day",--from the white bean.
Ephorus says that Pericles actually employed siege-engines, in his
admiration of their novelty, and that Artemon the engineer was with him there,
who, since he was lame, and so had to be brought on a stretcher to the works which
demanded his instant attention, was dubbed Periphoretus. Heracleides Ponticus,
however, refutes this story out of the poems of Anacreon, in which Artemon Periphoretus
is mentioned many generations before the Samian War and its events. And he says
that Artemon was very luxurious in his life, as well as weak and panic-stricken
in the presence of his fears, and therefore for the most part sat still at home,
while two servants held a bronze shield over his head to keep anything from falling
down upon it. Whenever he was forced to go abroad, he had himself carried in a
little hammock which was borne along just above the surface of the ground. On
this account he was called Periphoretus.
After eight months the Samians surrendered, and Pericles tore down
their walls, took away their ships of war, and laid a heavy fine upon them, part
of which they paid at once, and part they agreed to pay at a fixed time, giving
hostages therefor. To these details Duris the Samian adds stuff for tragedy, accusing
the Athenians and Pericles of great brutality, which is recorded neither by Thucydides,
nor Ephorus, nor Aristotle. But he appears not to speak the truth when he says,
forsooth, that Pericles had the Samian trierarchs and marines brought into the
market-place of Miletus and crucified there, and that then, when they had already
suffered grievously for ten days, he gave orders to break their heads in with
clubs and make an end of them, and then cast their bodies forth without burial
rites. At all events, since it is not the wont of Duris, even in cases where he
has no private and personal interest, to hold his narrative down to the fundamental
truth, it is all the more likely that here, in this instance, he has given a dreadful
portrayal of the calamities of his country, that he might calumniate the Athenians.
When Pericles, after his subjection of Samos, had returned to Athens,
he gave honorable burial to those who had fallen in the war, and for the oration
which he made, according to the custom, over their tombs, he won the greatest
admiration. But as he came down from the bema, while the rest of the women clasped
his hand and fastened wreaths and fillets on his head, as though he were some
victorious athlete, Elpinice drew nigh and said: "This is admirable in thee,
Pericles, and deserving of wreaths, in that thou hast lost us many brave citizens,
not in a war with Phoenicians or Medes, like my brother Cimon, but in the subversion
of an allied and kindred city". On Elpinice's saying this, Pericles, with
a quiet smile, it is said, quoted to her the verse of Archilochus:
Thou hadst not else, in spite of years, perfumed
thyself. West, Iambi et Elegi Graeci i. 205
Ion says that he had the most astonishingly great thoughts of himself for having
subjected the Samians; whereas Agamemnon was all of ten years in taking a barbarian
city, he had in nine months time reduced the foremost and most powerful people
of Ionia. [6] And indeed his estimate of himself was not unjust, nay, the war
actually brought with it much uncertainty and great peril, if indeed, as Thucydides
(Thuc. 8.76.4) says, the city of Samos came within a very little of stripping
from Athens her power on the sea.
After this, when the billows of the Peloponnesian War were already
rising and swelling, he persuaded the people to send aid and succour to the Corcyraeans
(433 B.C.) in their war with the Corinthians, and so to attach to themselves an
island with a vigorous naval power at a time when the Peloponnesians were as good
as actually at war with them. But when the people had voted to send the aid and
succour, he despatched Lacedaemonius, the son of Cimon, with only ten ships, as
it were in mockery of him. Now there was much good-will and friendship on the
part of the house of Cimon towards the Lacedaemonians. In order, therefore, that
in case no great or conspicuous achievement should be performed under the generalship
of Lacedaemonius, he might so be all the more calumniated for his Iaconism, or
sympathy with Sparta, Pericles gave him only a few ships, and sent him forth against
his will. And in general he was prone to thwart and check the sons of Cimon, on
the plea that not even in their names were they genuinely native, but rather aliens
and strangers, since one of them bore the name of Lacedaemonius, another that
of Thessalus, and a third that of Eleius. And they were all held to be the sons
of a woman of Arcadia. Accordingly, being harshly criticized because of these
paltry ten ships on the ground that he had furnished scanty aid and succour to
the needy friends of Athens, but a great pretext for war to her accusing enemies,
he afterwards sent out other ships, and more of them, to Corcyra,--the ones which
got there after the battle (Thuc. 1.50.5).
The Corinthians were incensed at this procedure, and denounced the
Athenians at Sparta, and were joined by the Megarians, who brought their complaint
that from every market-place and from all the harbors over which the Athenians
had control, they were excluded and driven away, contrary to the common law and
the formal oaths of the Greeks; the Aeginetans also, deeming themselves wronged
and outraged, kept up a secret wailing in the ears of the Lacedaemonians, since
they had not the courage to accuse the Athenians openly. At this juncture Potidaea,
too, a city that was subject to Athens, although a colony of Corinth, revolted,
and the siege laid to her hastened on the war all the more.
Notwithstanding all, since embassies were repeatedly sent to Athens,
and since Archidamus, the king of the Lacedaemonians, tried to bring to a peaceful
settlement most of the accusations of his allies and to soften their anger, it
does not seem probable that the war would have come upon the Athenians for any
remaining reasons, if only they could have been persuaded to rescind their decree
against the Megarians and be reconciled with them. And therefore, since it was
Pericles who was most of all opposed to this, and who incited the people to abide
by their contention with the Megarians, he alone was held responsible for the
war.
They say that when an embassy had come from Lacedaemon to Athens to
treat of these matters, and Pericles was shielding himself behind the plea that
a certain law prevented his taking down the tablet on which the decree was inscribed,
Polyalces, one of the ambassadors, cried: "Well then, don't take it down,
but turn the tablet to the wall; surely there's no law preventing that".
Clever as the proposal was, however, not one whit the more did Pericles give in.
He must have secretly cherished, then, as it seems, some private grudge against
the Megarians; but by way of public and open charge he accused them of appropriating
to their own profane uses the sacred territory of Eleusis, and proposed a decree
that a herald be sent to them, the same to go also to the Lacedaemonians with
a denunciation of the Megarians. This decree, at any rate, is the work of Pericles,
and aims at a reasonable and humane justification of his course. But after the
herald who was sent, Anthemocritus, had been put to death through the agency of
the Megarians, as it was believed, Charinus proposed a decree against them, to
the effect that there be irreconcilable and implacable enmity on the part of Athens
towards them, and that whosoever of the Megarians should set foot on the soil
of Attica be punished with death; and that the generals, whenever they should
take their ancestral oath of office, add to their oath this clause, that they
would invade the Megarid twice during each succeeding year; and that Anthemocritus
be buried honorably at the Thriasian gates, which are now called the Dipylum.
But the Megarians denied the murder of Anthemocritus, and threw the
blame for Athenian hate on Aspasia and Pericles, appealing to those far-famed
and hackneyed versicles of the "Acharnians":
Simaetha, harlot, one of Megara's womankind,
Was stolen by gilded youths more drunk than otherwise;
And so the Megarians, pangs of wrath all reeking
hot,
Paid back the theft and raped of Aspasia's harlots
two. Aristoph. Ach. 524-527
Well, then, whatever the original ground for enacting the decree -and it is no
easy matter to determine this- the fact that it was not rescinded all men alike
lay to the charge of Pericles. Only, some say that he persisted in his refusal
in a lofty spirit and with a clear perception of the best interests of the city,
regarding the injunction laid upon it as a test of its submissiveness, and its
compliance as a confession of weakness; while others hold that it was rather with
a sort of arrogance and love of strife, as well as for the display of his power,
that he scornfully defied the Lacedaemonians.
But the worst charge of all, and yet the one which has the most vouchers,
runs something like this. Pheidias the sculptor was contractor for the great statue,
as I have said, and being admitted to the friendship of Pericles, and acquiring
the greatest influence with him, made some enemies through the jealousy which
he excited; others also made use of him to test the people and see what sort of
a judge it would be in a case where Pericles was involved. These latter persuaded
one Menon, an assistant of Pheidias, to take a suppliant's seat in the market-place
and demand immunity from punishment in case he should bring information and accusation
against Pheidias. The people accepted the man's proposal, and formal prosecution
of Pheidias was made in the assembly. Embezzlement, indeed, was not proven, for
the gold of the statue, from the very start, had been so wrought upon and cast
about it by Pheidias, at the wise suggestion of Pericles, that it could all be
taken off and weighed (Thuc. 2.13.5), and this is what Pericles actually ordered
the accusers of Pheidias to do at this time.
But the reputation of his works nevertheless brought a burden of jealous
hatred upon Pheidias, and especially the fact that when he wrought the battle
of the Amazons on the shield of the goddess, he carved out a figure that suggested
himself as a bald old man lifting on high a stone with both hands, and also inserted
a very fine likeness of Pericles fighting with an Amazon. And the attitude of
the hand, which holds out a spear in front of the face of Pericles, is cunningly
contrived as it were with a desire to conceal the resemblance, which is, however,
plain to be seen from either side.
Pheidias, accordingly, was led away to prison, and died there of sickness;
but some say of poison which the enemies of Pericles provided, that they might
bring calumny upon him. And to Menon the informer, on motion of Glycon, the people
gave immunity from taxation, and enjoined upon the generals to make provision
for the man's safety.
About this time also Aspasia was put on trial for impiety, Hermippus
the comic poet being her prosecutor, who alleged further against her that she
received free-born women into a place of assignation for Pericles. And Diopeithes
brought in a bill providing for the public impeachment of such as did not believe
in gods, or who taught doctrines regarding the heavens, directing suspicion against
Pericles by means of Anaxagoras. The people accepted with delight these slanders,
and so, while they were in this mood, a bill was passed, on motion of Dracontides,
that Pericles should deposit his accounts of public moneys with the prytanes,
and that the jurors should decide upon his case with ballots which had lain upon
the altar of the goddess on the acropolis. But Hagnon amended this clause of the
bill with the motion that the case be tried before fifteen hundred jurors in the
ordinary way, whether one wanted to call it a prosecution for embezzlement and
bribery, or malversation.
Well, then, Aspasia he begged off, by shedding copious tears at the
trial, as Aeschines says, and by entreating the jurors; and he feared for Anaxagoras
so much that he sent him away from the city. And since in the case of Pheidias
he had come into collision with the people, he feared a jury in his own case,
and so kindled into flame the threatening and smouldering war, hoping thereby
to dissipate the charges made against him and allay the people's jealousy, inasmuch
as when great undertakings were on foot, and great perils threatened, the city
entrusted herself to him and to him alone, by reason of his worth and power. Such,
then, are the reasons which are alleged for his not suffering the people to yield
to the Lacedaemonians; but the truth about it is not clear.
The Lacedaemonians, perceiving that if he were deposed they would
find the Athenians more pliant in their hands, ordered them to drive out the Cylonian
pollution, in which the family of Pericles on his mother's side was involved,
as Thucydides states (Thuc. 1.127.1). But the attempt brought a result the opposite
of what its makers designed, for in place of suspicion and slander, Pericles won
even greater confidence and honor among the citizens than before, because they
saw that their enemies hated and feared him above all other men. Therefore also,
before Archidamus invaded Attica with the Peloponnesians, Pericles made public
proclamation to the Athenians, that in case Archidamus, while ravaging everything
else, should spare his estates, either out of regard for the friendly tie that
existed between them, or with an eye to affording his enemies grounds for slander,
he would make over to the city his lands and the homesteads thereon.
Accordingly, the Lacedaemonians and their allies invaded Attica with a great host
under the leadership of Archidamus the king. And they advanced, ravaging the country
as they went, as far as Acharnae, where they encamped, supposing that the Athenians
would not tolerate it, but would fight with them out of angry pride.Pericles,
however, looked upon it as a terrible thing to join battle with sixty thousand
Peloponnesian and Boeotian hoplites (those who made the first invasion were as
numerous as that), and stake the city itself upon the issue. So he tried to calm
down those who were eager to fight, and who were in distress at what the enemy
was doing, by saying that trees, though cut and lopped, grew quickly, but if men
were destroyed it was not easy to get them again. And he would not call the people
together into an assembly, fearing that he would be constrained against his better
judgement, but, like the helmsman of a ship, who, when a stormy wind swoops down
upon it in the open sea, makes all fast, takes in sail, and exercises his skill,
disregarding the tears and entreaties of the sea-sick and timorous passengers,
so he shut the city up tight, put all parts of it under safe garrison, and exercised
his own judgement, little heeding the brawlers and malcontents. And yet many of
his friends beset him with entreaties, and many of his enemies with threats and
denunciations, and choruses sang songs of scurrilous mockery, railing at his generalship
for its cowardice, and its abandonment of everything to the enemy. Cleon, too,
was already harassing him, taking advantage of the wrath with which the citizens
regarded him to make his own way toward the leadership of the people,as these
anapaestic verses of Hermippus show:
Thou king of the Satyrs, why pray wilt thou not
Take the spear for thy weapon, and stop the dire talk
With the which, until now, thou conductest the war.
While the soul of a Teles is in thee?
If the tiniest knife is but laid on the stone
To give it an edge, thou gnashest thy teeth,
As if bitten by fiery Cleon. Hermippus, Fates (Moirai)
However, Pericles was moved by no such things, but gently and silently underwent
the ignominy and the hatred, and, sending out an armament of a hundred ships against
the Peloponnesus, did not himself sail with it, but remained behind, keeping the
city under watch and ward and well in hand, until the Peloponnesians withdrew.
Then, by way of soothing the multitude, who, in spite of their enemies' departure,
were distressed over the war, he won their favour by distributions of moneys and
proposed allotments of conquered lands; the Aeginetans, for instance, he drove
out entirely, and parcelled out their island among the Athenians by lot. And some
consolation was to be had from what their enemies suffered. For the expedition
around the Peloponnesus ravaged much territory and sacked villages and small cities,
while Pericles himself, by land, invaded the Megarid and razed it all. Wherein
also it was evident that though their enemies did the Athenians much harm by land,
they suffered much too at their hands by sea, and therefore would not have protracted
the war to such a length, but would have speedily given up, just as Pericles prophesied
in the beginning, had not a terrible visitation from heaven thwarted human calculations.
As it was, in the first place, a pestilential destruction fell upon
them (430 B.C. Cf. Thuc. 2.47-54) and devoured clean the prime of their youth
and power. It weakened them in body and in spirit, and made them altogether wild
against Pericles, so that, for all the world as the mad will attack a physician
or a father, so they, in the delirium of the plague, attempted to do him harm,
persuaded thereto by his enemies. These urged that the plague was caused by the
crowding of the rustic multitudes together into the city, where, in the summer
season, many were huddled together in small dwellings and stifling barracks, and
compelled to lead a stay-at-home and inactive life, instead of being in the pure
and open air of heaven as they were wont. They said that Pericles was responsible
for this, who, because of the war, had poured the rabble from the country into
the walled city and then gave that mass of men no employment whatever, but suffered
them, thus penned up like cattle, to fill one another full of corruption, and
provided them no change or respite.
Desiring to heal these evils, and at the same time to inflict some
annoyance upon the enemy, he manned a hundred and fifty ships of war, and, after
embarking many brave hoplites and horsemen, was on the point of putting out to
sea, affording great hope to the citizens, and no less fear to the enemy in consequence
of so great a force. But when the ships were already manned, and Pericles had
gone aboard his own trireme, it chanced that the sun was eclipsed and darkness
came on, and all were thoroughly frightened, looking upon it as a great portent.
Accordingly, seeing that his steersman was timorous and utterly perplexed, Pericles
held up his cloak before the man's eyes, and, thus covering them, asked him if
he thought it anything dreadful, or portentous of anything dreadful. "No",
said the steersman. "How then", said Pericles, "is yonder event
different from this, except that it is something rather larger than my cloak which
has caused the obscurity?" At any rate, this tale is told in the schools
of philosophy. Well, then, on sailing forth, Pericles seems to have accomplished
nothing worthy of his preparations, but after laying siege to sacred Epidaurus,
which awakened a hope that it might he captured, he had no such good fortune,
because of the plague. Its fierce onset destroyed not only the Athenians themselves,
but also those who, in any manner soever, had dealings with their forces. The
Athenians being exasperated against him on this account, he tried to appease and
encourage them. He did not, however, succeed in allaying their wrath, nor yet
in changing their purposes, before they got their hostile ballots into their hands,
became masters of his fate, stripped him of his command, and punished him with
a fine. The amount of this was fifteen talents, according to those who give the
lowest, and fifty, according to those who give the highest figures. The public
prosecutor mentioned in the records of the case was Cleon, as Idomeneus says,
but according to Theophrastus it was Simmias, and Heracleides Ponticus mentions
Lacratides.
So much, then, for his public troubles; they were likely soon to cease,
now that the multitude had stung him, as it were, and left their passion with
their sting; but his domestic affairs were in a sorry plight, since he had lost
not a few of his intimate friends during the pestilence, and had for some time
been rent and torn by a family feud. The eldest of his legitimate sons, Xanthippus,
who was naturally prodigal, and had married a young and extravagant wife, the
daughter of Tisander, the son of Epilycus, was much displeased at his father's
exactitude in making him but a meagre allowance, and that a little at a time.
Accordingly, he sent to one of his father's friends and got money, pretending
that Pericles bade him do it. When the friend afterwards demanded repayment of
the loan, Pericles not only refused it, but brought suit against him to boot.
So the young fellow, Xanthippus, incensed at this, fell to abusing his father,
publishing abroad, to make men laugh, his conduct of affairs at home, and the
discourses which he held with the sophists. For instance, a certain athlete had
hit Epitimus the Pharsalian with a javelin, accidentally, and killed him, and
Pericles, Xanthippus said, squandered an entire day discussing with Protagoras
whether it was the javelin, or rather the one who hurled it, or the judges of
the contests, that ?in the strictest sense? ought to be held responsible for the
disaster. Besides all this, the slanderous charge concerning his own wife Stesimbrotus
says was sown abroad in public by Xanthippus himself, and also that the quarrel
which the young man had with his father remained utterly incurable up to the time
of his death,--for Xanthippus fell sick and died during the plague.
Pericles lost his sister also at that time, and of his relatives and
friends the largest part, and those who were most serviceable to him in his administration
of the city. He did not, however, give up, nor yet abandon his loftiness and grandeur
of spirit because of his calamities, nay, he was not even seen to weep, either
at the funeral rites, or at the grave of any of his connections, until indeed
he lost the very last remaining one of his own legitimate sons, Paralus. Even
though he was bowed down at this stroke, he nevertheless tried to persevere in
his habit and maintain his spiritual greatness, but as he laid a wreath upon the
dead, he was vanquished by his anguish at the sight, so that he broke out into
wailing, and shed a multitude of tears, although he had never done any such thing
in all his life before.
The city made trial of its other generals and counsellors for the
conduct of the war, but since no one appeared to have weight that was adequate
or authority that was competent for such leadership, it yearned for Pericles,
and summoned him back to the bema and the war-office (429 B.C.). He was lying
dejectedly at home because of his sorrow, but was persuaded by Alcibiades and
his other friends to resume his public life. When the people had apologized for
their thankless treatment of him, and he had undertaken again the conduct of the
state, and been elected general, he asked for a suspension of the law concerning
children born out of wedlock,--a law which he himself had formerly introduced,--in
order that the name and lineage of his house might not altogether expire through
lack of succession.
The circumstances of this law were as follows. Many years before this
(451-450 B.C.), when Pericles was at the height of his political career and had
sons born in wedlock, as I have said, he proposed a law that only those should
he reckoned Athenians whose parents on both sides were Athenians. And so when
the king of Egypt sent a present to the people of forty thousand measures of grain,
and this had to be divided up among the citizens, there was a great crop of prosecutions
against citizens of illegal birth by the law of Pericles, who had up to that time
escaped notice and been overlooked, and many of them also suffered at the hands
of informers. As a result, a little less than five thousand were convicted and
sold into slavery, and those who retained their citizenship and were adjudged
to be Athenians were found, as a result of this scrutiny, to be fourteen thousand
and forty in number. It was, accordingly, a grave matter, that the law which had
been rigorously enforced against so many should now be suspended by the very man
who had introduced it, and yet the calamities which Pericles was then suffering
in his family life, regarded as a kind of penalty which he had paid for his arrogance
and haughtiness of old, broke down the objections of the Athenians. They thought
that what he suffered was by way of retribution, and that what he asked became
a man to ask and men to grant, and so they suffered him to enroll his illegitimate
son in the phratry-lists and to give him his own name. This was the son who afterwards
conquered the Peloponnesians in a naval battle at the Arginusae islands (406 B.C),
and was put to death by the people along with his fellow-generals.
At this time, it would seem, the plague laid hold of Pericles, not
with a violent attack, as in the case of others, nor acute, but one which, with
a kind of sluggish distemper that prolonged itself through varying changes, used
up his body slowly and undermined the loftiness of his spirit. Certain it is that
Theophrastus, in his "Ethics", querying whether one's character follows
the bent of one's fortunes and is forced by bodily sufferings to abandon its high
excellence, records this fact, that Pericles, as he lay sick, showed one of his
friends who was come to see him an amulet that the women had hung round his neck,
as much as to say that he was very badly off to put up with such folly as that.
Being now near his end (He died in the autumn of 429 B.C.), the best
of the citizens and those of his friends who survived were sitting around him
holding discourse of his excellence and power, how great they had been, and estimating
all his achievements and the number of his trophies,--there were nine of these
which he had set up as the city's victorious general. This discourse they were
holding with one another, supposing that he no longer understood them but had
lost consciousness. He had been attending to it all, however, and speaking out
among them said he was amazed at their praising and commemorating that in him
which was due as much to fortune as to himself, and which had fallen to the lot
of many generals besides, instead of mentioning his fairest and greatest title
to their admiration; "for", said he, "no living Athenian ever put
on mourning because of me".
So, then, the man is to be admired not only for his reasonableness
and the gentleness which he maintained in the midst of many responsibilities and
great enmities, but also for his loftiness of spirit, seeing that he regarded
it as the noblest of all his titles to honor that he had never gratified his envy
or his passion in the exercise of his vast power, nor treated any one of his foes
as a foe incurable. And it seems to me that his otherwise puerile and pompous
surname is rendered unobjectionable and becoming by this one circumstance, that
it was so gracious a nature and a life so pure and undefiled in the exercise of
sovereign power which were called Olympian, inasmuch as we do firmly hold that
the divine rulers and kings of the universe are capable only of good, and incapable
of evil. In this we are not like the poets, who confuse us with their ignorant
fancies, and are convicted of inconsistency by their own stories, since they declare
that the place where they say the gods dwell is a secure abode and tranquil, without
experience of winds and clouds, but gleaming through all the unbroken time with
the soft radiance of purest light, --implying that some such a manner of existence
is most becoming to the blessed immortal; and yet they represent the gods themselves
as full of malice and hatred and wrath and other passions which ill become even
men of any sense. But this, perhaps, will be thought matter for discussion elsewhere.
The progress of events wrought in the Athenians a swift appreciation
of Pericles and a keen sense of his loss. For those who, while he lived, were
oppressed by a sense of his power and felt that it kept them in obscurity, straightway
on his removal made trial of other orators and popular leaders, only to be led
to the confession that a character more moderate than his in its solemn dignity,
and more august in its gentleness, had not been created. That objectionable power
of his, which they had used to call monarchy and tyranny, seemed to them now to
have been a saving bulwark of the constitution, so greatly was the state afflicted
by the corruption and manifold baseness which he had kept weak and grovelling,
thereby covering it out of sight and preventing it from becoming incurably powerful.
This extract is from: Plutarch's Lives (ed. Bernadotte Perrin, 1914). Cited June 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains comments & interesting hyperlinks.
Aspasia. A celebrated woman, a native of Miletus. She came as an adventuress to
Athens, in the time of Pericles, and, by the combined charms of her person, manners,
and conversation, completely won the affection and esteem of that distinguished
statesman. Her station had freed her from the restraints which custom laid on
the education of the Athenian matron, and she had enriched her mind with accomplishments
which were rare even among men. Her acquaintance with Pericles seems to have begun
while he was still united to a lady of high birth, and we can hardly doubt that
it was Aspasia who first disturbed this union, although it is said to have been
dissolved by mutual consent. But after parting from his wife, who had borne him
two sons, Pericles attached himself to Aspasia by the most intimate relation which
the laws permitted him to contract with a foreign woman; and she acquired an ascendency
over him which soon became notorious, and furnished the comic poets with an inexhaustible
fund of ridicule and his enemies with a ground for serious charges. The Samian
War was ascribed to her interposition on behalf of her birthplace, and rumours
were set afloat which represented her as ministering to the vices of Pericles
by the most odious and degrading of offices. There was, perhaps, as little foundation
for this report as for a similar one in which Phidias was implicated ; though
among all the imputations brought against Pericles, this is that which it is the
most difficult clearly to refute. But we are inclined to believe that it may have
arisen from the peculiar nature of Aspasia's private circles, which, with a bold
neglect of established usage, were composed not only of the most intelligent and
accomplished men to be found at Athens, but also of matrons, who, it is said,
were brought by their husbands to listen to her conversation. This must have been
highly instructive as well as brilliant, since Plato did not hesitate to describe
her as the preceptress of Socrates, and to assert in the Menexenus that she both
formed the rhetoric of Pericles and composed one of his most admired harangues,
the celebrated funeral oration. The innovation, which drew women of free birth
and good standing into her company for such a purpose, must, even where the truth
was understood, have surprised and offended many, and it was liable to the grossest
misconstruction. And if her female friends were sometimes seen watching the progress
of the works of Phidias, it was easy, through his intimacy with Pericles, to connect
this fact with a calumny of the same kind.
There was another rumour still more dangerous, which grew out of the
character of the persons who were admitted to the society of Pericles and Aspasia.
No persons were more welcome at the house of Pericles than such as were distinguished
by philosophical studies, and especially by the profession of new philosophical
tenets. The mere presence of Anaxagoras, Zeno, Protagoras, and other celebrated
men, who were known to hold doctrines very remote from the religious conceptions
of the vulgar, was sufficient to make a circle in which they were familiar pass
for a school of impiety. Such were the materials out of which the comic poet Hermippus
formed a criminal prosecution against Aspasia. His indictment included two heads:
an offence against religion, and that of corrupting Athenian women to gratify
the passions of Pericles. The danger was averted; but it seems that Pericles,
who pleaded her cause, found need of his most strenuous exertions to save Aspasia,
and that he even descended, in her behalf, to tears and entreaties, which no similar
emergency of his own could ever draw from him.
After the death of Pericles, Aspasia attached herself to a young man
of obscure birth, named Lysicles, who rose through her influence in moulding his
character to some of the highest employments in the Republic. (See Plut. Pericl.;
Xen. Mem.ii. 6.)
This text is from: Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. Cited June 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Aspasia. The celebrated Milesian, daughter of Axiochus, came to reside at Athens, and there gained and fixed the affections of Pericles, not more by her beauty than by her high mental accomplishments. With his wife. who was a lady of rank, and by whom he had two sons, he seems to have lived unhappily; and, having parted from her by mutual consent, he attached himself to Aspasia during the rest of his life as closely as was allowed by the law, which forbade marriage with a foreign woman under severe penalties (Plut. Peric. 24; Demosth. c. Neaer.). Nor can there be any doubt that she acquired over him a great ascendancy; though this perhaps comes before us in an exaggerated shape in the statements which ascribe to her influence the war with Samos on behalf of Miletus in B. C. 440, as well as the Peloponnesian war itself (Plut. Peric. l. c.; Aristoph. Acharn. 497; Schol. ad loc.; comp. Aristoph. Pax, 587; Thuc. i. 115). The connexion, indeed, of Pericles with Aspasia appears to have been a favourite subject of attack in Athenian comedy (Aristoph. Acharn. l. c.; Plut. Peric. 24; Schol. ad Plat. Menex.), as also with certain writers of philosophical dialogues, between whom and the comic poets, in respect of their abusive propensities, Athenaeus remarks a strong family likeness (Athen. v. p. 220; Casaub. ad loc.). Nor was their bitterness satisfied with the vent of satire; for it was Hermippus, the comic poet, who brought against Aspasia the double charge of impiety and of infamously pandering to the vices of Pericles; and it required all the personal influence of the latter with the people, and his most earnest entreaties and tears, to procure her acquittal (Plut. Peric. 32; Athen. xiii). The house of Aspasia was the great centre of the highest literary and philosophical society of Athens, nor was the seclusion of the Athenian matrons so strictly preserved, but that many even of them resorted thither with their husbands for the pleasure and improvement of her conversation (Plut. Peric. 24); so that the intellectual influence which she ex ercised was undoubtedly considerable, even though we reject the story of her being the preceptress of Socrates, on the probable ground of the irony of those passages in which such statement is made (Plat. Menex.; Xen. Occon. iii. 14, Memor. ii. 6.36); for Plato certainly was no approver of the administration of Pericles (Gorg), and thought perhaps that the refinement introduced by Aspasia had only added a new temptation to the licentiousness from which it was not disconnected (Athen. xiii). On the death of Pericles, Aspasia is said to have attached herself to one Lysicles, a dealer in cattle, and to have made him by her instructions a first-rate orator (Aesch. ap. Plut. Peric. 24). For an amusing account of a sophistical argument ascribed to her by Aeschines the philosopher, see Cic. de Inxent. i. 31; Quintil. Inst. Orat. v. 11. The son of Pericles by Aspasia was legitimated by a special decree of the people, and took his father's name (Plut. Peric. 37). He was one of the six generals who were put to death after the victory at Arginusae.
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited June 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Aspasia
Summary
Aspasia was the mistress of Pericles, the leader of Athens during
the Classical Age. She was a hetaira, a trained and paid companion who accompanied
upper-class men to the symposiums. According to some ancient sources she was skilled
in rhetoric and took part in the intellectual discussions of the leading men in
Athens, including Socrates. As the mistress of Pericles, she suffered attacks
from his political enemies. Aspasia and Pericles had one son, who was later legitimized.
After the death of Pericles she married Lysicles a man of humble birth who became
a successful politician in Athens through her assistance. Factual information
about Aspasia is difficult to locate in the ancient sources. Playwrights, biographers
and other ancient authors use Aspasia to illustrate their views on philosophy,
rhetoric and Pericles.
Family
Modern scholars agree that the basic facts of Aspasia's life as recorded
by Diodoros the Athenian (FGrHist 372 F 40 ), Plutarch (Plut. Per. 24.3 ) and
the lexicographers are correct. She was born in the city of Miletus between 460-455
B.C., the daughter of Axiochus. Miletus, part of the Athenian empire, was one
of the leading cities in Ionia, an area of Greek settlement located along the
coast of Asia Minor.
It was probably in Ionia, before she left for Athens, that Aspasia
was educated. Women in that part of the Greek world were generally given more
of an education than women in Athens. As a hetaira she would have been trained
in the art of conversation and of musical entertainment including singing, dancing
and playing instruments.
Biography
Arriving in Athens as a free immigrant around 445 B.C., Aspasia worked
as a hetaira. In fact Aspasia, which meant "Gladly Welcomed", was probably
her professional name. Hetairai were much more than just high-class prostitutes.
According to ancient literary sources and scenes from vase paintings, many hetairai
were intelligent, beautiful, well-dressed and had fewer restrictions on their
lives than the respectable, married women in Athens (Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae
583f. ). This description would also apply to Aspasia. As a hetaira, however,
she would not have had financial security or any legal or family protection.
As the paid companion of aristocratic men Aspasia attended symposiums,
drinking parties combined with political and philosophical discourse. At the symposiums
she met the most influential and powerful men in Athens, including Pericles. Sometime
around 445 B.C. Aspasia began to live with Pericles, who at that time was the
leader of Athens. He had been divorced from his wife for five years, with whom
he had two sons. According to Plutarch, it was an amiable divorce because the
marriage was not a happy one (Plut. Per. 24.5).
Plutarch relates more information about Aspasia than any other ancient
author. Unfortunately, Plutarch's Lives are full of distortions and historical
inaccuracies. His purpose in the Lives was to exemplify the virtues and vices
of great men, not to write history. In respect to Aspasia and Pericles he states
that Pericles valued Aspasia's intelligence and political insight, but he emphasizes
that Pericles' feelings for her were primarily erotic. This may be an attempt
on Plutarch's part to remove the stigma from Pericles of having been overly influenced
by a woman.
Plutarch describes the relationship between Aspasia and Pericles as
a very happy one. He states that she was so loved by Pericles that he kissed her
everyday when he left the house and again when he returned (Plut. Per. 24). Plutarch
portrays Aspasia as the influential courtesan. He writes that Aspasia was trying
to emulate Thargelia, a famous Milesian courtesan whose lovers were the most powerful
men in Greece. Using her influence over these men Thargelia helped win Thessaly
over to the Persians at the time of Xerxes' invasion.
Plutarch blames Aspasia for Pericles' decision to start the war against
Samos, a wealthy and powerful member of the empire. The Milesians and the Samians
were involved in a border dispute. The Samians refused to submit the conflict
to Athenian arbitration. Supposedly, Aspasia pressured Pericles to take military
action against Samos (Plut. Per. 25.1). Although it would have been natural for
Aspasia to take the side of her native city, she and Pericles both must have realized
that the loss of Samos to the empire would have meant the rapid end of Athenian
domination of the Aegean.
The exact status of Aspasia's relationship with Pericles and her position
in Pericles' household is disputed. While some say that she was his a pallake
(concubine ), Plutarch (Plut. Per. 24) seems to imply, and Diodorus the Athenian
(FGrHist 372 F 40) says, that she was his akoitis. She and Pericles had one son
also named Pericles. As the mistress of Pericles' household and hostess to his
friends and supporters, Aspasia participated in discussions revolving around politics
and philosophy with the leading men of the Athenian empire. According to several
ancient authors, Socrates respected her opinions (Plut. Per. 24.3; Xen. Ec. 3.15;
Cicero, De Inventione 31.51). As a pallake she would have been outside of the
legal, traditional role of an Athenian wife. Freed from the social restraints
that tied married women to their homes and restricted their behavior, Aspasia
was able to participate more freely in public life.
Strong evidence that Aspasia's role in Athens went beyond that of
mistress to Pericles is given by Plato in the Menexenus. In this dialogue Plato
has Socrates recite a funeral oration composed by Aspasia that glorifies the Athenians
and their history. The Menexenus is a humorous vehicle for Plato to make a serious,
but negative comment on rhetoric and popular opinion in Athens. Everything in
Aspasia's speech is selected, arranged and stated by Plato in order to produce
the greatest possible irony. By satirizing a speech "written" by Aspasia,
Plato acknowledges her role as a leader of rhetoric in the Greek Classical Age.
In Cicero's book on rhetoric he uses as an example of the Socratic
method a dialogue attributed to Aspasia by Aeschines a student of Socrates. In
this dialogue Aspasia skillfully proves to a husband and wife that neither one
of them will ever be truly happy with the other because they each desire the ideal
spouse. Aeschines and another student of Socrates, Antisthenes, both wrote dialogues
titled Aspasia. Unfortunately, only fragments of these works survive (Diogenes
Laertius, Antisthenes 6.16).
Several ancient authors state that Aspasia herself operated a house
of courtesans and trained young women in the necessary skills (Plut. Per. 24.3).
Aristophanes and others refer to "Aspasia's whores" (Aristoph. Ach.
527). Although as Pericles' pallake she was taken care of financially, Aspasia
may have been preparing for her future after the death of Pericles. According
to Plutarch, she was known in Athens as a teacher of rhetoric. Perhaps these women
were her pupils (Plut. Per. 34). Aspasia's hetairai would have had as patrons
the elite men of Athens, especially the supporters of Pericles.
Around 438 B.C. Pericles' political enemies began attacking those
close to him in court and eventually brought charges against Pericles himself.
Soon Aspasia became a target. She was brought to trial on charges of impiety and
of procuring free women. She was acquitted thanks to a passionate and tearful
defense by Pericles (Plut. Per. 32.1-3). Although her political wisdom was valuable
to Pericles, not having an Athenian citizen as a legal wife, but rather living
with a foreign hetaira in an unofficial marriage may have been a political liability
for him.
In the contemporary comedy The Acharnians, Aristophanes parodies the
imputations that Aspasia had undue influence on Pericles' political decisions.
One of his characters blames the start of the Peloponnesian War in 431 B.C. on
the abduction of two of Aspasia's hetairai (Aristoph. Ach. 527-530). The joke
worked because the audience knew that Aspasia had some influence on Pericles,
but not enough to start a war.
The plague in Athens in 430 B.C. killed both of Pericles' sons by his first wife. This led him to ask for an exemption from the citizenship law, which he himself had enacted, for his illegimate son by Aspasia. The citizenship law decreed that only persons whose father and mother were both Athenians could be legal citizens. The people of Athens agreed to Pericles' request. His son was legitimized and made a citizen of Athens. He later became a general, but was executed in 406 B.C.
In 429 B.C. Pericles died from the plague. A year later Aspasia became
involved with a sheep seller named Lysicles in another unofficial marriage. He
was an uneducated man of humble birth who rose to prominence thanks to her guidance.
She taught him how to speak in public and gave him the benefit of her valuable
insights and personal contacts in Athenian politics (Plut. Per. 24.6; Scholia
to Plato, Menexenus 235E). He was one of the new type of political leaders who
came to prominence after the death of Pericles. This was probably the same group
who had led the earlier attacks against Pericles and his friends, including Aspasia
herself. Questions remain regarding Aspasia's decision to marry so quickly after
Pericles' death. She might have been in need of a protector from Pericles' enemies.
The selection of another politician as her husband might also suggest a desire
to remain involved in the politics of Athens.
There is no information about Aspasia's life after this point. Although
the actual extent of her influence on Athenian politics and society during Athens'
most glorious period will never be certain, she did become one of the few women
in the ancient Greek world to be noted and remembered. She became so famous that
Cyrus, a prince of Persia, Athens' most hated enemy, gave the name Aspasia to
his favorite concubine. Through the succeeding centuries ancient authors, including
playwrights and biographers, used Aspasia as a well-known historical figure to
illustrate their views on philosophy, politics, rhetoric, Pericles and Socrates.
The primary sources give little information about Aspasia. Plutarch
relates more than the other ancient authors, but he seems almost wholly dependent
on Athenian comedy and stories from the Socratic circle for his information, all
of which is difficult to verify. The secondary sources tend to discuss Aspasia
in relation to Pericles or Athenian politics and society.
Elizabeth Lynne Beavers, ed.
This text is cited June 2005 from
Perseus Project URL bellow, which contains interesting hyperlinks
In the same winter the Athenians gave a funeral at the public cost to those who
had first fallen in this war. It was a custom of their ancestors, and the manner
of it is as follows. Three days before the ceremony, the bones of the dead are
laid out in a tent which has been erected; and their friends bring to their relatives
such offerings as they please. [3] In the funeral procession cypress coffins are
borne in cars, one for each tribe; the bones of the deceased being placed in the
coffin of their tribe. Among these is carried one empty bier decked for the missing,
that is, for those whose bodies could not be recovered. Any citizen or stranger
who pleases, joins in the procession: and the female relatives are there to wail
at the burial. The dead are laid in the public sepulchre in the most beautiful
suburb of the city, in which those who fall in war are always buried; with the
exception of those slain at Marathon, who for their singular and extraordinary
valor were interred on the spot where they fell. After the bodies have been laid
in the earth, a man chosen by the state, of approved wisdom and eminent reputation,
pronounces over them an appropriate panegyric; after which all retire. Such is
the manner of the burying; and throughout the whole of the war, whenever the occasion
arose, the established custom was observed. Meanwhile these were the first that
had fallen, and Pericles, son of Xanthippus, was chosen to pronounce their eulogium.
When the proper time arrived, he advanced from the sepulchre to an elevated platform
in order to be heard by as many of the crowd as possible, and spoke as follows:
'Most of my predecessors in this place have commended him who made this speech
part of the law, telling us that it is well that it should be delivered at the
burial of those who fall in battle. For myself, I should have thought that the
worth which had displayed itself in deeds, would be sufficiently rewarded by honors
also shown by deeds; such as you now see in this funeral prepared at the people's
cost. And I could have wished that the reputations of many brave men were not
to be imperilled in the mouth of a single individual, to stand or fall according
as he spoke well or ill. For it is hard to speak properly upon a subject where
it is even difficult to convince your hearers that you are speaking the truth.
On the one hand, the friend who is familiar with every fact of the story, may
think that some point has not been set forth with that fulness which he wishes
and knows it to deserve; on the other, he who is a stranger to the matter may
be led by envy to suspect exaggeration if he hears anything above his own nature.
For men can endure to hear others praised only so long as they can severally persuade
themselves of their own ability to equal the actions recounted: when this point
is passed, envy comes in and with it incredulity. However, since our ancestors
have stamped this custom with their approval, it becomes my duty to obey the law
and to try to satisfy your several wishes and opinions as best I may.
I shall begin with our ancestors: it is both just and proper that
they should have the honor of the first mention on an occasion like the present.
They dwelt in the country without break in the succession from generation to generation,
and handed it down free to the present time by their valor. And if our more remote
ancestors deserve praise, much more do our own fathers, who added to their inheritance
the empire which we now possess, and spared no pains to be able to leave their
acquisitions to us of the present generation. Lastly, there are few parts of our
dominions that have not been augmented by those of us here, who are still more
or less in the vigor of life; while the mother country has been furnished by us
with everything that can enable her to depend on her own resources whether for
war or for peace. That part of our history which tells of the military achievements
which gave us our several possessions, or of the ready valor with which either
we or our fathers stemmed the tide of Hellenic or foreign aggression, is a theme
too familiar to my hearers for me to dilate on, and I shall therefore pass it
by. But what was the road by which we reached our position, what the form of government
under which our greatness grew, what the national habits out of which it sprang;
these are questions which I may try to solve before I proceed to my panegyric
upon these men; since I think this to be a subject upon which on the present occasion
a speaker may properly dwell, and to which the whole assemblage, whether citizens
or foreigners, may listen with advantage.
Our constitution does not copy the laws of neighboring states; we
are rather a pattern to others than imitators ourselves. Its administration favors
the many instead of the few; this is why it is called a democracy. If we look
to the laws, they afford equal justice to all in their private differences; if
to social standing, advancement in public life falls to reputation for capacity,
class considerations not being allowed to interfere with merit; nor again does
poverty bar the way, if a man is able to serve the state, he is not hindered by
the obscurity of his condition. The freedom which we enjoy in our government extends
also to our ordinary life. There, far from exercising a jealous surveillance over
each other, we do not feel called upon to be angry with our neighbor for doing
what he likes, or even to indulge in those injurious looks which cannot fail to
be offensive, although they inflict no positive penalty. But all this ease in
our private relations does not make us lawless as citizens. Against this fear
is our chief safeguard, teaching us to obey the magistrates and the laws, particularly
such as regard the protection of the injured, whether they are actually on the
statute book, or belong to that code which, although unwritten, yet cannot be
broken without acknowledged disgrace.
Further, we provide plenty of means for the mind to refresh itself
from business. We celebrate games and sacrifices all the year round, and the elegance
of our private establishments forms a daily source of pleasure and helps to banish
the spleen; while the magnitude of our city draws the produce of the world into
our harbor, so that to the Athenian the fruits of other countries are as familiar
a luxury as those of his own.
If we turn to our military policy, there also we differ from antagonists.
We throw open our city to the world, and never by alien acts exclude foreigners
from any opportunity of learning or observing, although the eyes of an enemy may
occasionally profit by our liberality; trusting less in system and policy than
to the native spirit of our citizens; while in education, where our rivals from
their very cradles by a painful discipline seek after manliness, at Athens we
live exactly as we please, and yet are just as ready to encounter every legitimate
danger. In proof of this it may be noticed that the Lacedaemonians do not invade
our country alone, but bring with them all their confederates; while we Athenians
advance unsupported into the territory of a neighbor, and fighting upon a foreign
soil usually vanquish with ease men who are defending their homes. Our united
force was never yet encountered by any enemy, because we have at once to attend
to our marine and to despatch our citizens by land upon a hundred different services;
so that, wherever they engage with some such fraction of our strength, a success
against a detachment is magnified into a victory over the nation, and a defeat
into a reverse suffered at the hands of our entire people. And yet if with habits
not of labor but of ease, and courage not of art but of nature, we are still willing
to encounter danger, we have the double advantage of escaping the experience of
hardships in anticipation and of facing them in the hour of need as fearlessly
as those who are never free from them.
Nor are these the only points in which our city is worthy of admiration.
We cultivate refinement without extravagance and knowledge without
effeminacy; wealth we employ more for use than for show, and place the real disgrace
of poverty not in owning to the fact but in declining the struggle against it.
Our public men have, besides politics, their private affairs to attend to, and
our ordinary citizens, though occupied with the pursuits of industry, are still
fair judges of public matters; for, unlike any other nation, regarding him who
takes no part in these duties not as unambitious but as useless, we Athenians
are able to judge at all events if we cannot originate, and instead of looking
on discussion as a stumbling-block in the way of action, we think it an indispensable
preliminary to any wise action at all. Again, in our enterprises we present the
singular spectacle of daring and deliberation, each carried to its highest point,
and both united in the same persons; although usually decision is the fruit of
ignorance, hesitation of reflection. But the palm of courage will surely be adjudged
most justly to those, who best know the difference between hardship and pleasure
and yet are never tempted to shrink from danger. [4] In generosity we are equally
singular, acquiring our friends by conferring not by receiving favors. Yet, of
course, the doer of the favor is the firmer friend of the two, in order by continued
kindness to keep the recipient in his debt; while the debtor feels less keenly
from the very consciousness that the return he makes will be a payment, not a
free gift. And it is only the Athenians who, fearless of consequences, confer
their benefits not from calculations of expediency, but in the confidence of liberality.
In short, I say that as a city we are the school of Hellas; while
I doubt if the world can produce a man, who where he has only himself to depend
upon, is equal to so many emergencies, and graced by so happy a versatility as
the Athenian. And that this is no mere boast thrown out for the occasion, but
plain matter of fact, the power of the state acquired by these habits proves.
For Athens alone of her contemporaries is found when tested to be greater than
her reputation, and alone gives no occasion to her assailants to blush at the
antagonist by whom they have been worsted, or to her subjects to question her
title by merit to rule. Rather, the admiration of the present and succeeding ages
will be ours, since we have not left our power without witness, but have shown
it by mighty proofs; and far from needing a Homer for our panegyrist, or other
of his craft whose verses might charm for the moment only for the impression which
they gave to melt at the touch of fact, we have forced every sea and land to be
the highway of our daring, and everywhere, whether for evil or for good, have
left imperishable monuments behind us. Such is the Athens for which these men,
in the assertion of their resolve not to lose her, nobly fought and died; and
well may well every one of their survivors be ready to suffer in her cause.
Indeed if I have dwelt at some length upon the character of our country,
it has been to show that our stake in the struggle is not the same as theirs who
have no such blessings to lose, and also that the panegyric of the men over whom
I am now speaking might be by definite proofs established. That panegyric is now
in a great measure complete; for the Athens that I have celebrated is only what
the heroism of these and their like have made her, men whose fame, unlike at of
most Hellenes, will be found to be only commensurate with their deserts. And if
a test of worth be wanted, it is to be found in their closing scene, and this
not only in the cases in which it set the final seal upon their merit, but also
in those in which it gave the first intimation of their having any. For there
is justice in the claim that steadfastness in his country's battles should be
as a cloak to cover a man's other imperfections; since the good action has blotted
out the bad, and his merit as a citizen more than outweighed his demerits as an
individual. But none of these allowed either wealth with its prospect of future
enjoyment to unnerve his spirit, or poverty with its hope of a day of freedom
and riches to tempt him to shrink from danger. No, holding that vengeance upon
their enemies was more to be desired than any personal blessings, and reckoning
this to be the most glorious of hazards, they joyfully determined to accept the
risk, to make sure of their vengeance and to let their wishes wait; and while
committing to hope the uncertainty of final success, in the business before them
they thought fit to act boldly and trust in themselves. Thus choosing to die resisting,
rather than to live submitting, they fled only from dishonor, but met danger face
to face, and after one brief moment, while at the summit of their fortune, escaped,
not from their fear, but from their glory.
So died these men as became Athenians. You, their survivors, must
determine to have as unaltering a resolution in the field, though you may pray
that it may have a happier issue. And not contented with ideas derived only from
words of the advantages which are bound up with the defence of your country, though
these would furnish a valuable text to a speaker even before an audience so alive
to them as the present, you must yourselves realize the power of Athens, and feed
your eyes upon her from day to day, till love of her fills your hearts; and then
when all her greatness shall break upon you, you must reflect that it was by courage,
sense of duty, and a keen feeling of honor in action that men were enabled to
win all this, and that no personal failure in an enterprise could make them consent
to deprive their country of their valor, but they laid it at her feet as the most
glorious contribution that they could offer. For this offering of their lives
made in common by them all they each of them individually received that renown
which never grows old, and for a sepulchre, not so much that in which their bones
have been deposited, but that noblest of shrines wherein their glory is laid up
to be eternally remembered upon every occasion on which deed or story shall fall
for its commemoration. For heroes have the whole earth for their tomb; and in
lands far from their own, where the column with its epitaph declares it, there
is enshrined in every breast a record unwritten with no tablet to preserve it,
except that of the heart. These take as your model, and judging happiness to be
the fruit of freedom and freedom of valor, never decline the dangers of war. For
it is not the miserable that would most justly be unsparing of their lives; these
have nothing to hope for: it is rather they to whom continued life may bring reverses
as yet unknown, and to whom a fall, if it came, would be most tremendous in its
consequences. And surely, to a man of spirit, the degradation of cowardice must
be immeasurably more grievous than the unfelt death which strikes him in the midst
of his strength and patriotism!
Comfort, therefore, not condolence, is what I have to offer to the
parents of the dead who may be here. Numberless are the chances to which, as they
know, the life of man is subject; but fortunate indeed are they who draw for their
lot a death so glorious as that which has caused your mourning, and to whom life
has been so exactly measured as to terminate in the happiness in which it has
been passed. Still I know that this is a hard saying, especially when those are
in question of whom you will constantly be reminded by seeing in the homes of
others blessings of which once you also boasted: for grief is felt not so much
for the want of what we have never known, as for the loss of that to which we
have been long accustomed. Yet you who are still of an age to beget children must
bear up in the hope of having others in their stead; not only will they help you
to forget those whom you have lost, but will be to the state at once a reinforcement
and a security; for never can a fair or just policy be expected of the citizen
who does not, like his fellows, bring to the decision the interests and apprehensions
of a father. While those of you who have passed your prime must congratulate yourselves
with the thought that the best part of your life was fortunate, and that the brief
span that remains will be cheered by the fame of the departed. For it is only
the love of honor that never grows old; and honor it is, not gain, as some would
have it, that rejoices the heart of age and helplessness.
Turning to the sons or brothers of the dead, I see an arduous struggle
before you. When a man is gone, all are wont to praise him, and should your merit
be ever so transcendent, you will still find it difficult not merely to overtake,
but even to approach their renown. The living have envy to contend with, while
those who are no longer in our path are honored with a goodwill into which rivalry
does not enter. On the other hand if I must say anything on the subject of female
excellence to those of you who will now be in widowhood, it will be all comprised
in this brief exhortation. Great will be your glory in not falling short of your
natural character; and greatest will be hers who is least talked of among the
men whether for good or for bad.
My task is now finished. I have performed it to the best of my ability,
and in words, at least, the requirements of the law are now satisfied. If deeds
be in question, those who are here interred have received part of their honors
already, and I for the rest, their children will be brought up till manhood at
the public expense: the state thus offers a valuable prize, as the garland of
victory in this race of valor, for the reward both of those who have fallen and
their survivors. And where the rewards for merit are greatest, there are found
the best citizens.
And now that you have brought to a close your lamentations for your
relatives, you may depart.'
Such was the funeral that took place during this winter, with which the first
year of the war came to an end. (Thuc. 2.34.1-47.1) : Perseus Encyclopedia
This extract is from: Thucydides. The Peloponnesian War (ed. Richard Crawley, 1910). Cited June 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains comments & interesting hyperlinks.
The idea that democracy was best served by involving a cross-section
of the male citizenry received further backing in the 450s B.C. from the measures
proposed to the assembly by a wealthy aristocract named Pericles (c. 495-429 B.C.),
whose mother had been the niece of the famous democratic reformer Cleisthenes.
Pericles successfully proposed that state revenues be used to pay a daily
stipend to men who served on juries, in the Council of the Five Hundred,
and in other public offices filled by lot. The stipend was modest, in fact less
than a skilled worker could have made on a good day. Without the stipend, however,
poorer men would have found it virtually impossible to leave their regular work
to serve in these positions, which required much of a man's time. By contrast,
the board of ten annually elected generals--the most influential public officials,
who had broad responsibilities for the city-state's military, civil, and financial
affairs--were to receive no stipends despite the heavy demands of their post.
Mainly rich men like Pericles won election as generals because they were supposed
to have been able to afford the education and training required to handle this
top job and to have the personal wealth to serve without financial compensation.
They were compensated by the prestige conferred by election to their office. Like
Cleisthenes before him, Pericles was an aristocrat who became the most influential
leader in the Athens of his era by devising innovations to strengthen the egalitarian
tendencies of Athenian democracy. Pericles and others of his economic status had
inherited enough wealth to spend their time in politics without worrying about
money, but remuneration for poorer men serving in public offices was an essential
foundation of Athenian democracy, if it was truly going to be open to the majority
of men, who, along with their wives and children, had to work to support themselves
and their families. Above all, Pericles' proposal that jurors receive state stipends
made him overwhelmingly popular with the mass of ordinary male citizens. Consequently,
he was able to introduce dramatic changes in Athenian domestic and foreign policy
beginning in the 450s B.C.
The Citizenship Law of Pericles
In 451 B.C. Pericles introduced one of most striking proposals with
his sponsorship of a law stating that henceforth citizenship would be
conferred only on children whose mother and father both were Athenians.
Previously, the offspring of Athenian men who married non-Athenian women were
granted citizenship. Aristocratic men in particular had tended to marry rich foreign
women, as Pericles' own maternal grandfather had done. Pericles' new law enhanced
the status of Athenian mothers and made Athenian citizenship a more exclusive
category, definitively setting Athenians off from all others. Not long thereafter,
a review of the citizenship rolls was conducted to expel any who had claimed citizenship
fraudulently. Together these actions served to limit the number of citizens and
thus limit dilution of the advantages which citizenship in Athens' radical democracy
conveyed on those included in the citizenry. Those advantages included, for men,
the freedom to participate in politics and juries, to influence decisions that
directly affected their lives, to have equal protection under the law, and to
own land and houses in Athenian territory. Citizen women had
less rights because they were excluded from politics, had to have a male
legal guardian (kurios), who, for example, spoke for them in court, and
were not legally entitled to make large financial transactions on their own. They
could, however, control property and have their financial interests protected
in law suits. Like men, they were entitled to the protection of the law regardless
of their wealth. Both female and male citizens experienced the advantage of belonging
to a city-state that was enjoying unparalleled material prosperity. Citizens clearly
saw themselves as the elite residents of Athens.
Periclean Foreign Policy
Once he had gained political prominence in the 450s at Athens, Pericles
devoted his attention to foreign policy as well as domestic proposals. His intial
foreign policy encompassed dual goals: 1) continuing military action against the
Persian presence in Egypt and the eastern Mediterranean and 2) greater attention
to Athenian relations and disputes with other Greek states. This latter part of
his policy reflected above all the growing hostility between Athens and Sparta.
Hostilities with Sparta and its allies had become more and more frequent following
the rebuff of Cimon's expedition to Sparta in 462 B.C. The former part of the
policy suffered a severe setback when a campaign to liberate Egypt from Persian
control ended with the catastrophic loss of over two hundred ships and their crews
in 454 B.C. The Delian League treasury was thereupon transferred to Athens from
Delos to move it farther away from a potential Persian raid. The decision to move
the alliance's funds, apparently taken unilaterally, confirmed Athens' absolute
superiority over the other allies. Even after the Egyptian disaster the Athenian
assembly did not immediately renounce further action against the Persians. Cimon,
now returned from the exile imposed by his ostracism, was in fact sent out in
charge of a major naval expedition to the eastern Mediterranean to try to pry
the large island of Cyprus from Persian control. When he was killed on this campaign
in 450 B.C., however, the assembly apparently decided not to send out any further
overseas expeditions against Persian territory. Rather, Athens would focus its
military efforts on containing Spartan power in Greece and preventing the Delian
League from disintegrating through revolts of allies. When neither Sparta nor
Athens was able to achieve a clear-cut dominance in Greece in the battles that
followed in the early 440s, Pericles in 445 engineered a peace treaty with Sparta
designed to freeze the current balance of power in Greece for thirty years and
thus preserve Athenian dominance in the Delian League.
The Breakdown of Peace
After making peace with Sparta in 445, Pericles was free to turn his
attention to his political rivals at Athens, who were jealous of his dominant
influence over the board of ten annually elected generals, the highest magistrates
of Athenian democracy. When the voters in 443 expressed their approval of Pericles'
policies by choosing to ostracize not him but rather his chief political rival,
Thucydides (not the same man as the historian of the same name), Pericles' overwhelming
political prominence was confirmed. He was thereafter elected general fifteen
years in a row. His ascendency was again challenged, however, on the grounds that
he mishandled the revolt in 441-439 of Samos, a valuable and consistently loyal
Athenian ally in the Delian League. Instead of seeking a diplomatic solution to
the dispute, Pericles quickly opted for a military response. A brutal struggle
ensued that extended over three campaigning seasons and inflicted bloody losses
on both sides before the Samians were forced to capitulate. With his judgment
under attack for this incident, Pericles soon faced an even greater challenge
as relations with Sparta worsened in the mid-430s. When the Spartans finally threatened
war unless the Athenians ceased their support of some rebellious Spartan allies,
Pericles prevailed upon the assembly to refuse all compromises. His critics claimed
he was sticking to his hard line against Sparta and insisting on provoking a war
in order to revive his fading popularity by whipping up a jingoistic furor in
the assembly. Pericles retorted that no accommodation to Spartan demands was possible
because Athens' freedom of action was at stake. By 431 B.C. the Thirty Years'
Peace made in 445 B.C. had been shattered beyond repair. The protracted Peloponnesian
War (as modern historians call it) began in that year, not to end until 404 B.C.,
and ultimately put an end to the Athenian Golden Age.
This text is from: Thomas Martin's An Overview of Classical Greek History from Homer to Alexander, Yale University Press. Cited June 2005 from Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
The Peloponnesian War put a stop to the most spectacular demonstration of the
confidence and pride that Pericles and his fellow citizens felt in their city-state
during the height of the Golden Age in the 440s and 430s B.C. In the early 440s
B.C. the assembly accepted Pericles' recommendation to initiate a public building
program of temples and other structures in public religious sanctuaries on a scale
seldom before seen in a Greek city-state. The new buildings seemed spectacular
not only because they were expensive but also because their large scale, decoration,
and surrounding open spaces contrasted so vividly with the private architecture
of Athens in the fifth century B.C.
Athenian Private Dwellings
Athenians lived in a variety of different kinds of private dwellings
in the city proper, in its densely populated suburb around the main harbor of
Piraeus, in villages of varying sizes scattered throughout the countryside of
Attica, and, occasionally, in isolated farmsteads. The majority of city and suburban
dwellers lived in apartment buildings, which could be several stories high. Most
apartment dwellers probably crowded themselves and their families into no more
space than a room or two, which they rented from the building's owner, because
they could not afford a very high rent. Wealthier people in the city owned individual
homes, but they frequently had a house and land in the countryside, too. Dwellers
in the countryside owned or rented houses that varied in size from tiny bungalows
to larger structures perhaps on the scale of a small modern house that might be
accompanied by other farm buildings such as sheds. Indeed, Athenian private houses
in both in the city and the country were generally modest in size.
City Houses
Archaeology has not been able to reveal much detail about the homes
of residents of Athens because the modern city covers the remains of almost all
the residential districts of the ancient city and thus inhibits excavation. Nevertheless,
we know that homes in ancient Athens were wedged haphazardly against one another
along narrow, winding streets. Even the residences of rich people followed the
same basic design of bedrooms, storerooms, and dining rooms grouped around open-air
courtyards. Some houses had more than one story. The women and men of the household
usually had rooms set apart for their separate use, especially if there were infants
or small children in the family. These youngsters would be looked after in the
women's quarters, but all members of the household would see each other frequently
despite the notional division of the interior space of the home by gender and
age. The architectural tradition of grouping the house's rooms around a courtyard
facilitated contact among all the members of the household, who included the slaves
of the family. Wall paintings or works of art were as yet uncommon as decoration
in private homes. Sparse furnishings and simple furniture were the rule. Water
for household needs had to be fetched from public fountains. This onerous and
constant work was performed by women and the household's slaves. Sanitary facilities
usually consisted of a pit dug just outside the front door. The pits were emptied
by collectors paid to dump manure outside the city at a distance set by law.
Liturgies and Benefactions
The rich citizens of Athens were expected to benefit the public as
a whole by spending their own money to increase the amenities of life for all.
In the case of the civic duties called liturgies ("work for the people; public
service"), the wealthy were legally obligated to provide financial benefits
to the city-state. Especially costly liturgies included duties such as paying
the costs of putting on drama in the annual public festivals of Athens or financing
and serving as an officer on a warship in the city-state's fleet. In other cases
the wealthy provided benefactions that were not obligatory but nevertheless also
displayed their civic mindedness and generosity toward their fellow citizens.
Such benefactions included providing animals for public sacrifices and the feasting
on their roasted meat that followed and constructing public buildings and other
architectural improvements in the city. Although the costs of liturgies and benefactions,
which could be heavy, obviously were a drain on the resources of a family as a
whole, they were normally peformed in the name of the male head of the household.
Spending generously to provide benefits for the common good was regarded as a
primary component of male aristocratic virtue. Generous benefactors of the public
earned increased social eminence as their reward and perhaps greater favor with
their fellow male citizens when they ran for elective office, such as that of
general. Liturgies and benefactions performed by the rich in the interest of the
city compensated to a certain extent for the lack of any regular income or property
taxes.
Benefactions by Cimon and his family
Cimon, an aristocratic and wealthy man, gained great fame for his
costly benefactions to his fellow citizens. He was renowned, for example, for
opening his orchards to let others pick whatever they wanted, but his most famous
benefactions were architectural. He paid to have landscaping with shade trees
and running tracks installed in open areas of Athens, and he also footed the enormous
bill for the construction of footings for defensive walls to link the urban center
of Athens and the harbor at Piraeus some seven kilometers away. Cimon's brother-in-law
also participated in the family tradition of benefiting Athens by paying for highly-visible
public building projects. He had built as a gift to the city the renowned Painted
Stoa. Stoas were narrow, colonnaded buildings open along one side, whose purpose
was to provide shelter from sun or rain for these conversations. The Painted Stoa
stood on the edge of the central open area, the agora, at the center of the city.
The agora served both as a market area where merchants could set up small stalls
and as a gathering place for Athenian men to discuss politics and every other
issue affecting their lives in the city-state. It was the commercial and social
heart of Athens. The crowds of men who came to the agora daily for conversation
would cluster inside the Painted Stoa, whose walls were decorated with paintings
of great moments in Greek history commissioned from the most famous painters of
the time, Polygnotus and Mikon. That one of the stoa's paintings portrayed the
battle of Marathon in which Cimon's father, Miltiades, had won glory was only
appropriate, since the building had been paid for by the husband of Cimon's sister,
probably with financial assistance from Cimon himself.
Public Funding of Buildings
Although rich Athenians sometimes personally financed the construction
of buildings for the use of the public in classical Athens in keeping with the
tradition that the wealthy should benefit their city-state, the most conspicuous
and ultimately most famous architectural monuments of the fifth century were paid
for by public revenues. Athens received revenues from many indirect taxes such
as harbor fees and sales taxes. The extent to which Athens may have benefited
from the tribute paid by the allies in the Delian League remains controversial
because the ancient sources offer no detailed picture of the ways in which the
tribute was expended. Some scholars think that Athens used part of the League
funds, which were stored on the acropolis after the League's treasury was moved
to Athens from the island of Delos in 454, to help finance the massive public
building program initiated by Pericles in 447. Others argue, however, that the
ancient evidence does not support this view.
The Scale of Athenian Public Buildings
The scale of Athenian public buildings varied according to the amount
and kind of space required to fulfill their function. The complex of buildings
on the agora's southwestern edge, for instance, consisted of modest-sized structures
such as that in which the city-state's council of 500 held its frequent meetings
and the public archives were kept. The larger meetings of the assembly, for which
6,000 attendees seems to have represented a quorum, did not take place in a building
at all but rather convened in the open air on a hillside above the agora. There
the architectural modifications were minimal: a speaker's platform hewn from the
rock of the hillside, a retaining wall built up at the rear of the meeting area,
and, eventually, a portico along the sides of the open area.
Pericles' Acropolis
In 447 Pericles instigated a building project in Athens whose scale,
cost, and magnificence provoked comment and controversy in its own time and has
contributed enormously in later ages to the reputation of the Golden Age of Greece.
The focus of the project's construction was the Athenian acropolis. The acropolis
("upper city" or "city-height") was the massive, mesa-like
promontory that rose abruptly from the plain on which the city was built and towered
over its center, the agora below. Here the original settlers of Athens had made
their homes, and only slowly had the city expanded onto the plain at the foot
of the looming citadel. A single access road, the "Sacred Way", wound
up the slope from the agora to the acropolis and passed through a gate near the
top at its western end. The two most conspicuous monuments constructed on the
acropolis under Pericles' program were a huge marble temple of Athena (called
the Parthenon) and a mammoth gate building (called the propylaia) straddling the
western entrance to the acropolis. The purpose of the Parthenon was to house a
costly new image of the goddess, over thirty feet high and made of gold and ivory.
Elaborate carved sculptures decorated the outside of the Parthenon, which was
surrounded by a colonnade of fluted columns. The propylaia, too, had columns,
and one of its rooms apparently housed paintings, rather like a modern museum.
The Controversial Cost of the Periclean Program
The Parthenon and the propylaia alone easily cost more than the equivalent
of a billion dollars in contemporary terms, a phenomenal sum for an ancient Greek
city-state. The finances for the program perhaps came in part from the tribute
paid by the members of the Delian League, although scholars debate to what extent
allied funds were used. Funds certainly came from the financial reserves of the
goddess, whose sanctuaries, like those of the other gods throughout Greece, received
both private donations and public support. Pericles' program was so expensive,
however, that his political enemies among the aristocrats railed at him for squandering
public funds and ruining the city-state's budget. In response to the criticism,
Pericles brought the issue before the assembly of male citizens: "Do you
think I have spent too much?" he reportedly asked. "Entirely too much",
they shouted back. "Fine", he retorted, "I will pay for the buildings
myself and put my name on them instead of the people's". Shamed by the implication
that they lacked pride in their city-state, the men in the assembly immediately
changed their minds. In an uproar they authorized Pericles to spare no expense
in spending public funds to finish the project.
The Parthenon
The new temple built for Athena on the acropolis became known as the
Parthenon, meaning "the house of the virgin goddess", from the Greek
word for a virginal female, parthenos. As the patron godddess of Athens, Athena
had long possessed another sanctuary on the acropolis. Its focus was an olive
tree regarded as the sacred symbol of the goddess, who was believed to provide
for the economic health of the Athenians. Athena's temple in this earlier sanctuary
had largely been destroyed by the Persians in the invasion of 480 B.C. For thirty
years, the Athenians purposely left the Acropolis in ruins as a memorial to the
sacrifice of their homeland in that war. When Pericles urged the rebuilding of
the Acropolis' temples, the assembly turned not to reconstruction of the olive-tree
sanctuary, but rather to construction of the Parthenon. The Parthenon honored
Athena not in her capacity as the provider of economic prosperity but as a warrior
serving as the divine champion of Athenian military power. Inside the Parthenon,
the gold and ivory statue, over thirty feet high, portrayed the goddess in battle
armor and holding in her outstretched hand a six-foot statue of the figure of
Victory (Nike in Greek).
The Parthenon's design
Like all Greek temples, the Parthenon itself was meant as a house
for its deity, not as a gathering place for worshippers. In its general design,
the Parthenon was representative of the standard architecture of Greek temples:
a rectangular box on a raised platform, a plan that the Greeks probably derived
from the stone temples of Egypt. The box, which had only one relatively small
door at the front, was fenced in columns all around. Normally only priests and
priestesses could enter the boxlike interior of the temple; public religious ceremonies
took place around the open-air altar, which was located outside the east end of
the temple. The soaring columns of the Parthenon were carved in the simple style
called Doric, in contrast to the more elaborately decorative Ionic or Corinthian
styles that have often been imitated in modern buildings. The facade of the United
States Supreme Court Building in Washington, D.C., for example, is built in the
Corinthian-style.
The Parthenon's special architecture
The Parthenon was special in its great size and elaborate decoration.
Constructed from 20,000 tons of Attic marble, it stretched nearly 230 feet in
length and a hundred feet wide, with eight columns across the ends instead of
the six normally employed in Doric style, and seventeen instead of thirteen along
the sides. These dimensions gave it a massive look conveying an impression of
power. Since perfectly rectilinear architecture appears curved to the human eye,
the Parthenon's architects ingeniously designed subtle curves and inclines in
its architecture to produce an optical illusion of completely straight lines:
the columns were given a slight bulge in their middles; the corner columns on
the corners of the temple's raised platform were installed at a slight incline
and closer together; the platform itself was made slightly convex. These technical
refinements made the Parthenon appear ordered and regular in a way a building
built entirely on straight lines would not. By overcoming the distortions of nature,
the Parthenon's sophisticated architecture made a confident statement about human
ability to construct order out of the entropic disorder of the natural world.
Sculpture on the Parthenon
The sculptural decoration of the Parthenon also proclaimed Athenian
confidence about their city-state's relationship with the gods, whom the citizens
regarded as their helpers and supporters. The Parthenon had sculptured panels
along its exterior above the columns and tableaux of sculptures in the triangular
spaces (pediments) underneath the roof line at both ends of the building. These
decorations were part of the Doric architectural style, but the Parthenon also
presented a unique sculptural feature. Carved in relief around the top of the
walls inside the porch formed by the columns along the edges of the building's
platform was a continuous band of figures. This sort of continuous frieze was
usually put only on Ionic-style buildings. Adding an Ionic frieze to a Doric temple
was a striking change meant to attract notice to its subject. The Parthenon's
frieze depicted the Athenian religious ritual in which a procession of citizens
paraded to the Acropolis to present to Athena in her olive-tree sanctuary a new
robe woven by specially selected Athenian girls (the Panathenaic festival). Depicting
the procession in motion, like a filmstrip in stone, the frieze showed men riding
spirited horses, women walking along carrying sacred implements, and the gods
gathering together at the head of the parade to observe their human worshippers.
As usual in the sculptural decoration on Greek temples, the Parthenon frieze sparkled
with brightly colored paint enlivening the figures and the background. Shiny metal
attachments also brightened the picture, serving, for example, as the horsemen's
reins.
The Significance of the Parthenon Frieze
No other city-state had ever before gone beyond the traditional function
of temples in paying honor and glorifying its special deities by adorning, as
the Athenians did on the Parthenon, a temple with representations of its citizens.
Previously, the closest temples had come to a reference of such local significance
had been to place sculptures in their pediments that depicted mythological scenes
with particular meaning for the people of the locale in which temple had been
built. The Parthenon, indeed, had such scenes in its pediments. The sculptures
of the east pediment portrayed the birth of Athena, the patron deity of the Athenians,
while the west pediment portrayed Athena and Poseidon, god of the sea, engaged
in a contest to see who would become the patron deity of the Athenians by bestowing
on them the greater blessing. The Parthenon frieze, however, achieved a new level
of local reference. It made a unique statement about the relationship between
Athens and the gods by showing its citizens in the company of the gods, even if
the assembled deities carved in the frieze at the temple's eastern end were understood
to be separated from and perhaps invisible to the humans in the procession depicted
in the frieze. A temple adorned with pictures of citizens, albeit idealized citizens
of perfect physique and beauty, amounted to a claim of special intimacy between
the city-state and the gods, a statement of confidence that these honored deities
favored the Athenians. Presumably this claim reflected the Athenian interpretation
of their success in helping to turn back the Persians, in achieving leadership
of a powerful naval alliance, and in controlling, from their silver mines and
the allies' dues, an amount of revenue which made Athens richer than all its neighbors
in mainland Greece. The Parthenon, like the rest of the Periclean building program,
paid honor to the gods with whom the city-state was identified and expressed the
Athenian view that the gods looked favorably on their empire. Their success, the
Athenians would have said, proved that the gods were on their side.
Colonia.
...Colonies of Conquest, such as Alexander's various colonies in the East. There
are none that are distinctly of this class in early Greek times. A subdivision
of this class are Military Colonies, such as were to a great extent the
colonies planted by Pericles in Thrace and the cleruchies...
The Athenian Colonies.
These belong to a later period than the greater mass of the other
Greek colonies, and differ in the intention with which they were founded. They
were more of the nature of cleruchies; but differ from cleruchies in the strict
sense in that they were not planted on Hellenic land from which the inhabitants
had been expelled, but were settlements effected on the territory of barbarian
tribes. They were, however, similar to the cleruchies in the whole arrangement
of their planting being directed by the state. We have remaining part of a charter
directing the foundation of one of these colonies, that of Brea (cf. Plut. Pericl.
11) in Thrace, which was pre-eminently the country in which such colonies were
founded, owing to its great wealth in wood and metals. Such a charter was called
apoikia (Harpocr. s. v.). By the charter referred to a certain Democlides is appointed
as leader of the colony (oikistes). A rider to the charter confined participation
in the colony to the Zeugitae and Thetes, which shows one of the main purposes
of the colonising policy of Pericles, viz. to free the city of the idle and so
turbulent mob (Plut. l. c.). Sundry provisions as regards the religious duties
to be observed by the colonists towards the mother-city were further stated, such
as sending an ox for sacrifice at the Panathenaea: and a very strict proviso was
enacted that this charter was to be final, so that the colonists should have fixity
of tenure, and not be liable to be dispossessed by any vote of the easily-moved
democracy at home. Orders were given to be ready to depart within thirty days.
The state supplied arms and money for the colonists. When the colonists arrived,
the lands were distributed to the colonists by geonomoi, which had been previously
divided by geometrai. The oekist of such a colony received all the honours which
the oekist of the colonies of earlier days had received (cf. Hagnon at Amphipolis,
Thuc. v. 11). The great national Hellenic colony founded at Thurii under the superintendence
of Athens, in 443 B.C., was established with the greatest method and completeness.
There were very few Athenians among the colonists. It was connected with Athens
by but a very slender tie, and was not mentioned as one of her allies in Thucydides'
enumeration (ii. 9). A full account is given in Grote (v. 277) and Curtius (ii.
488). The colony of Amphipolis, founded about the same time, 437 B.C., was also
of a very mixed population. It differed from Thurii, as it was founded partly
because it was a convenient centre for getting ship timber from, and also for
working the gold and silver mines in the neighbourhood; but principally it served
military purposes, as being close to the bridge over the Strymon (Thuc. iv. 102).
Hence it always remained a regular Athenian dependency. This forms a transition
to
The Athenian Cleruchies.
All colonies in their relation to the mother-city may be divided into
apoikiai and klerouchiai, i. e. are independent or dependent. But the ancients
did not observe this distinction. Strabo calls all colonies without exception
apoikiai. Thucydides (ii. 27, 70; v. 102) calls epoikoi those whom Diodorus and
Plutarch, in relating the same events, call klerouchoi. However, Herodotus (v.
77; vi. 100) applies the term klerouchoi to those who were settled on the land
of the hippobatae at Chalcis. Thucydides uses it (iii. 50) with reference to the
Lesbian colonists, and Aristophanes (Nub. 205) shows that it was a term frequently
used. Roscher lays it down as a law that the system of apoikiai gives place to
that of klerouchiai, according as a state advances to a higher stage of development.
The main characteristics of the Athenian cleruchies were that they
consisted solely of Athenians, were settled on Hellenic land, and were dependent.
There were doubtless cleruchies sent out by other states, e. g. the Lerii from
Miletus (Boeckh, Staatshaushaltung der Athener, ii. 457, ed. 3); but it is of
the Athenian cleruchies that we alone have any detailed information.
The objects were to relieve the city of the idle and troublesome mob,
to alleviate the distress of the poorer classes, to inspire fear into the allies,
and keep watch that they should not take any hostile steps against Athens (Plut.
Pericl. 11). An additional reason was sometimes to secure a supply of corn, as
in the case of the colony to Hadria, which colony also served to protect the surrounding
seas from pirates. The sending out of cleruchies formed one of the recognised
portions of the democratic programme (Aristoph. Nub. 205). In their military aspect
they corresponded to the Roman colonies. The Greek writers often call the Roman
colonists klerouchoi (Dion. H. viii. 14; Plut. Flam. 2), and conversely Cicero
(de Nat. Deor. i. 26, 72) calls the Athenian cleruchs sent to Samos landgrabbers
(agripetae). The first cleruchs were those sent to occupy the land of the hippobatae
at Chalcis, about 510 B.C., the first Hellenic town against which the right of
the conqueror was enforced with harsh severity (Curtius, ii. 484). Gilbert gives
a list of the cleruchs sent out between 460 and 427; and, even where the numbers
are given, they amount to 9,450, and this does not reckon the cleruchs sent to
Lemnos, Imbros, or Aegina.
The procedure adopted in sending out a cleruchy was doubtless similar
to that of state-directed colonies, viz. by ordinary bill brought by the senate
before the people, which defined the principal conditions on which the cleruchy
was founded. The poorer classes of all the ten tribes were invited to send in
their names, and the lot decided who were to get the lands, which were doubtless
measured out prior to the departure of the colonists. They were led by an apoikistes
or strategos (Arg. to Dem. de Chers.), and to be such a leader was esteemed a
great honour (Pans. i. 27, 5). All the prayers and sacrifices for the success
of the cleruchy were made on behalf of the state and at state expense, whereas
in the apoikiai the consulting of the oracle and all religious duties were left
to the initiative of the colonists and their leader.
As to the relations of the cleruchs to Athens:
(1) they remained Athenian citizens, as may be seen from inscriptions from the
fifth century B.C., e. g. from Melos, Eponphes Athenaios Pandionidos phules Kutherrios,
down to Roman times. The Lemnian and Imbrian cleruchs were Athenian citizens (Dem.
Phil. i.34). In a list of killed we have Lemnion eg Murines, names with the Athenian
tribes they belonged to added to them (C. I. A. i. 443). The official titles for
the cleruchs were such as ho demos ho en Hephaistiai (Hyperid. pro Lycophr.13;
cf. C. I. A. ii. 284), Athenaion hoi en Potidaiai katoikountes (Dem. de Halon.10),
hoi en Murinei politai (C. I. A. ii. 593).
(2) There seems no definite proof that the state retained the supreme ownership
of the lands; for in the inscription of 377 B.C. (C. I. A. ii. 17, 1. 29, 37)
which Foucart refers to, and which speaks of private and public possessions in
the land of the allies, the public possessions refer to mines and other such state
property.
(3) That the cleruchs paid tribute, though maintained by Boeckh, has been completely
disproved by Kirchhoff. He divides the Athenian cleruchies into, on the one hand,
those settled on lands entirely conquered, from which the inhabitants were driven
out, and those acquired by capitulation; and, on the other, those acquired in
an amicable manner. In the former of these (e. g. Histiaea, Aegina, Potidaea,
Scione, Torone) he proves that the lists which set down the amount of tribute
to be paid do not refer to the time when the cleruchies held the land, but to
a preceding time: for example, Hestiaea pays a tribute according to two lists;
but these lists belong to 454 B.C., not to 446, as Boeckh says; and the Hestiaeans
never appear on the lists after 446, the time cleruchs were sent to occupy their
lands. As regards the second class of cleruchies (e. g. the Chersonesitae, Andros,
Naxos, &c.), the sudden lowerings of the tribute appear inexplicable, unless we
suppose it to be a compensation for the cession of their lands to Athenian cleruchs:
for example, Andros had its tribute lowered between 427 and 425 from 12 to 6 talents,
Imbros from 2 to 1 talent between 444 and 442; cf. Naxos, Lemnos.
(4) There is no evidence as to whether or not the cleruchi could alienate their
lands: but their military functions render such a supposition unlikely. For a
similar reason, as a general rule the cleruchi had to reside on their land. That
the cleruchi of Lesbos were allowed to let the lands to the original owners for
a rent and reside themselves at Athens (Thuc. iii. 50) is highly exceptional.
(5) The cleruchi certainly paid taxes for their property to their own cleruchic
community (Aristot. Oec. ii. 6). For such property as some few may have retained
in Attica, it is most likely that they had to pay eisphorai when such were required;
but from muntera personalia, such as the various liturgies, they were of course
exempt, as being absent from Athens on state service (cf. Dem. de Symm.16).
(6) As we have seen from the list of killed, the cleruchi served in the Athenian
army on certain occasions (cf. Herod. viii. 46; Thuc. vii. 57); and, even when
in their cleruchy, they had to obey strictly whatever orders for military service
arrived from Athens (Herod. vi. 100; Dem. Epist. Phil. 16). Beside the cleruchi,
there was generally a cavalry force, commanded in the case of Lemnos by an iPparchos
(Dem. Phil. i. 27), which was supported by the cleruchi, and that as it seems
sometimes grudgingly (Hyperid. pro Lycophr. 13).
(7) There appear to have been civil magistrates, too, occasionally sent by Athens
to the cleruchies. Such are the archontes at Lesbos (Antiphon. de Caed. Herodis,
47), which are no doubt the same as the episkopoi (cf. Aristoph. Av. 1050). In
later times we find epimeletai sent from Athens, as e. g. to Delos (C. I. G. 2286),
Haliartos and Paros.
(8) As regards jurisdiction, as far as we can judge from the very fragmentary
inscription in reference to the cleruchi of Hestiaea (C. I. A. i. 28, 29), some
cases had to be tried within thirty days (dikai emmenoi) before the Nautodicae
at Athens; others before judges chosen by lot out of the cleruchi themselves.
The really important cases were tried at Athens: e. g. the murder of Herodes.
(9) Touching religion, a certain portion, generally a tenth of cleruchic lands,
was set apart for the gods (Thuc. iii. 50). The cleruchi appear to have worshipped
Athenian gods generally, though sometimes the native gods also. Each cleruchy
sent an ox to be sacrificed at the Panathenaea (Schol. on Aristoph. Nub. 386;
cf. C. I. A. i. 31). The Athenians also associated the cleruchies in their sacrifices.
But the cleruchi possessed a certain independence. They had the right
of coining money, though only copper: e. g. the coins of Hephaestia and Myrina
in Lemnos reproduce Attic emblems (Pallas and the owl), after the Athenian cleruchi
had gone there in 387, while the coins prior to this have the attributes of Hermes
and the Dioscuri. Towards the natives, who often, as in the case of Imbros and
Lemnos, were reduced to the state of metics (Foucart, p. 393), the Attic cleruchi
appear to have formed a strictly closed body, neither intermarrying (such indeed
was not allowed by Attic law, Dem. Neaer. 17) nor having more intercourse than
was absolutely necessary. The constitution of the cleruchic state was a miniature
Athens, and Foucart (p. 373 ff.) has shown how their political procedure, and
even the very names of their officers, changed with the changes at Athens.
Thus we find senate and people at Lemnos (C. I. A. ii. 592) and Imbros
(Conze, Reise auf den lnseln des Thrakischen Meeres, p. 88), and a prytaneum at
Hephaestia in Lemnos (C. I. A. l. c.). Ordinary political procedure consisted
of preliminary discussion by the senate, and afterwards debate in the assembly,
e. g. at Salamis (C. I. A. ii. 470, 1. 56: cf. 469, 1. 79; 594, 1. 22). We have
some decrees of cleruchi already mentioned, though of rather late date (C. I.
A. ii. 591-595; C. I. G. 2270). The date is given by archons both of the cleruchy
and of Athens (C. I. A. ii. 594). In the Roman era the strategos epi tous hoplitas
takes the place of the archon: so in Myrina (ib. 593). A grammateus tou demou
first appears at Athens in 308 B.C. A similar grammateus is found in two contemporary
inscriptions of Lemnos and Imbros (ib. 592; Conze, op. cit. p. 88). In the third
century an agonothetes is first found under that name: at the same time we find
one at Hephaestia (C. I. A. ii. 592).
The system of cleruchies, not unreasonable in itself, but prosecuted
by the Athenian democracy with exceedingly great tyranny, and yet with no consistency
and completeness as the Romans did their colonial system, was the most hated feature
of the Athenian empire. Grote indeed does not think that it was looked on as a
grievance, as it is not mentioned as such in Xenophon's Resp. Ath., nor in any
of the anti-Athenian orations of Thucydides; and that the outcry raised against
them at the time of the second confederacy was due to the islands fearing the
return of the Athenian cleruchi, who, after the Peloponnesian war, had been driven
away and deprived of their property, which had reverted to the insular proprietors
(cf. Xen. Mem. ii. 8, 1; Symp. 4, 31). Isocrates (Paneg. 107) felt called upon
to defend the system, and did so by asserting that it maintained peace and peopled
depopulated lands. But the cities had been depopulated by the Athenians; they
made a solitude and called it peace. So when Athens strove to re-organise her
allied confederacy a second time in 377 B.C., she distinctly agreed to discontinue
the system, and the convention (C. I. A. ii. 17, 11. 27, 36) declares that no
land is to be held by Athens or an Athenian citizen within the territories of
the allies. Yet in 366 B.C., on the conquest of Samos, she renewed the system
in that island, which Demades (Athen. iii. 99 d) called the city's drain (tes
poleos aporux). The Samians became exiles from their country (Paus. vi. 13, 5),
and it is with reference to this occupation of Samos and the gradual absorption
of the lands by the Athenian settlers that Craterus explains the proverb )*attiko\s
pa/roikos of a neighbour who, called in to help you, finally ousts you of your
possessions. There was no doubt a bitter feeling, not only on the part of the
Samians, but of others who had been dispossessed by Athenian cleruchs. There is
an interesting inscription in which we perceive the intrigues of the Samian exiles
at the Macedonian court, and how Alexander promised to give back Samos to the
Samians. He, however, did not do so; but it was effected by Perdiccas, according
to the convention which followed the defeat of the Athenians in the Lamian War,
322 B.C.
This text is from: A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890) (eds. William Smith, LLD, William Wayte, G. E. Marindin). Cited June 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
ΑΘΗΝΑΙ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΕΛΛΑΔΑ
Atthis (Atthidographi): A chronicle of Attic history in which
especial attention was paid to occurrences of political and religious significance.
After the last half of the fourth century A.D., chronicles of this kind were composed
by a number of writers (Atthidographi), among whom Androtion and Philochorus deserve
special mention. These writings were much quoted by the grammarians.
This text is from: Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. Cited Nov 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
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