Andrew Stewart

Images and Ideologies: Self-Definition in the Hellenistic World

This volume captures the individuality, the national and personal identity, the cultural exchange, and the self-consciousness that have long been sensed as peculiarly potent in the Hellenistic world. The fields of history, literature, art, philosophy, and religion are each presented using the format of two essays followed by a response. Conveying the direction and focus of Hellenistic learning, eighteen leading scholars discuss issues of liberty versus domination, appropriation versus accommodation, the increasing diversity of citizen roles and the dress and gesture appropriate to them, and the accompanying religious and philosophical ferment. The result is an arresting view of the incredible and unprecedented diversity of the Hellenistic world.

To Entertain an Emperor: Sperlonga, Laokoon and Tiberius at the Dinner-Table

Even to-day, twenty years after its discovery in September 1957, the great corpus of sculptures from the grotto by the sea-shore at Sperlonga still retains many of its secrets. The sheer quantity and richness of the material, its clearly programmatic character, and the enigmatic personalities and affiliations of its sculptors cannot but prompt any visitor to the cave and museum, specialist or no, to ask: what was the purpose of this great complex of Odyssean themes? When were they carved and for whom? Only recently, with the preliminary publication of the major fragments and their replicas by Conticello and Andreae, have their subjects and positions been satisfactorily determined, and the groundwork laid for a solution to such problems as these. All four major groups had, as their protagonist, Odysseus. First of all, at the mouth of the cave on the left, he was shown dragging the limp corpse of Achilles away from the battle before Troy (Pl. IX, 1), and on the right, standing thwarted of his plan to snatch the Palladion away from Diomedes (Pl. IX, 2 and 3); in the centre of the pool the scene shifted to his wanderings, with his ship, its helmsman still clinging desperately to the stern, enmeshed in Scyllas coils (Pl. IX, 4–X, 2), while in the dim light of the cavern at the rear to the right, he appeared for the last time to direct his companions in the blinding of a gigantic Polyphemus (Pl. X, 3–XI, 4; cf. Pl. XII, I).

The canon of Polykleitos: a question of evidence

It is now rather over a century since the marble statue of a youth in Naples was recognised as a copy of the Doryphoros of Polykleitos, and the first attempt made to extract from it the mathematical principles of the Polykleitan canon. Periodic warnings uttered on the subject by such scholars as Gardner and Furtwangler failed to deter further speculation, which culminated in Antis monumental publication of 1921. Understandably enough, this seems effectively to have checked research in the field, with only one or two exceptions, for a number of years. In the past decade or so, however, the pendulum, apparently never stable for long, has swung back again: a spate of books and articles on Polykleitos and his school has appeared, including no fewer than four major attempts to recover the principles of the canon from the surviving copies of his works. Again, murmurings to the contrary have passed unheeded, the gulf between believers and unbelievers now, it seems, having become virtually unbridgeable. With this in mind, and considering that Polykleitan studies have undergone a quiet revolution in the last year or two through the identification of fragments of casts of the Doryphoros and an Amazon among those recently discovered at Baiae, it seems an opportune moment to try to restate a few principles, basic but all too often ignored, and to indicate a number of directions that further research might take.

A Tale of Seven Nudes: The Capitoline and Medici Aphrodites, Four Nymphs at Elean Herakleia, and an Aphrodite at Megalopolis*

The Capitoline Aphrodite (fig. 1) counts among the most copied statues of antiquity. In 1951, Bianca Felletti Maj collected 101 replicas of the type compared with 33 for the Medici Aphrodite (fig. 2) and a mere five for the so-called Aphrodite of the Troad; and many more examples have surfaced since.’ Yet despite the Capitoline types popularity, the date, location and authorship of its original remain clouded, as does its relation to these other ‘pudica’-type Aphrodites, especially the Medici. Leaving aside the Aphrodite of the Troad, this article presents new evidence that may resolve one of these problems and sheds some new light upon some of the others.

Sculptors and physicians in fifth-century Greece : a preliminary study

Exploring this interplay, Guy Metraux shows how the depiction of physiological processes gave statues and reliefs their animating force and how many medical and philosophical speculations about the body were derived from depictions in art. He examines works such as the Omphalos Apollo, the relief of the Girl with Doves from Paros, and the recently discovered two bronze warriors from Riace, paying particular attention to developments in the depiction of breathing, blood vessels, and facial expression, to attempts to show actual or potential motion, and to the invention of contrapposto (asymmetry of stance). Sculptors and Physicians in Fifth-Century Greece is a fascinating examination of the interaction between art and ideas in Greek intellectual life.

Greek Sculpture: An Exploration

Part 1 The sculptors world. Part 2 The sculpture. Appendices: museum catalogues and guides glossary of Greek and Latin words.