Archaic Greek Culture: History, Archaeology, Art and Museology

161 Pages·2010·6.92 MB·English

by  Sergey Solovyov (ed.)

Archaic Greek Culture:
History, Archaeology, Art & Museology
Proceedings of the International Round-Table Conference
June 2005,St-Petersburg, Russia
Edited by
Sergey Solovyov
BAR International Series
C
ONTENTS
Acknowledgements 5
Archaic Greek Culture 7
John Boardman
A Kore in Amber 12
Faya Causey
Greeks and the Local Population in the Mediterranean:
Sicily and the Iberian Peninsula 25
Adolfo J. Domínguez
The Contribution of Archeometric Results to
Our Understanding of Archaic East-Greek Trade 37
Pierre Dupont
Greeks in the East: A View from Cilicia 41
Charles Gates
The Collection of Works in Archaistic Style
in the Hermitage Museum’s Department of Classical Antiquities 46
Alexander Kruglov
Greek-Ionian Necropoleis in the Black Sea area: Cremation and Colonisation 51
Vasilica Lungu
Greeks and the Local Populations in Magna Graecia and in Gaul 59
Jean-Paul Morel
Greek Gems and Rings of the Archaic Period.
The Formation of the Hermitage Collection 64
Oleg Neverov
Archaic Greek Culture: The Archaic Ionian Pottery from Berezan 66
Richard Posamentir
Black-Figure on the Black Sea: Art and Visual Culture at Berezan 75
Tyler Jo Smith
Borysthenes and Olbia:
Greeks and Natives Interactions on the Initial Stage of Colonisationon 89
Sergey Solovyov
Die Beziehungen zwischen Borysthenes, Olbia und Bosporos
in der archaischen Zeit nach den epigraphischen Quellen 103
Sergey R. Tokhtasev
Аrchaic Bronzes. Greece – Asia Minor – North Pontic Area 109
Mikhail Treister
The Program of the Rearrangement of the Classical Antiquities Galleries.
The Display of Archaic Art in the State Hermitage Museum 121
Anna Trofi mova
The Polis in the Northern Black Sea Area 129
Yuryi Vinogradov
3
Bibliography 133
Abbreviations 153
Index 155
4
Acknowledgements
From 23–25 June 2005 the State Hermitage was host to and Western Black Sea Littoral were the subject of papers
the international scholarly round-table conference dealing given by J.-P. Morel (France), A. Dominguez ( Spain),
with issues relating to the culture, history and archaeology S. L. Solovyov and A. M. Butyagin (Russia), аnd V. Lungu
of Archaic Greece. Attention was also devoted to questions ( Romania). The reports by A. A. Trofi mova (Russia) and
of exhibiting ancient Greek monuments in museums. J. Gaunt (USA) examined historical questions and issues in
The conference was opened by the Hermitage’s Director creating museum exhibitions of Archaic monuments.
Prof. Mikhail Piotrovskii. The basic problems of studying The conference provided the context for the opening
Archaic Greece were set out in a lecture written by Sir John of the exhibition entitled Borysthenes– Berezan. Early
Boardman ( Great Britain), which was read in his absence by Antiquity in the Northern Black Sea Littoral. The 120th
Dr. Udo Schlotzhauer of the German Archaeological Institute. Anniversary of Archeological Excavations on the Island of
Twenty-two reports were delivered during the conference. Berezan with the illustrated catalogue that was published
They dealt with the following major themes: Archaic art; at the Hermitage Publishing House and ARS Publisher
the Greek polis (forms and rate of development); and ( St-Petersburg). The fi rst volume of the Hermitage’s series
colonisation (models and evolution, interrelations between entitled Borysthenes–Berezan: the Archaeological Collection
Greeks and non-Greeks). Within the limits of these topics of the State Hermitage was also released to coincide with
great attention was directed to the Greek city-states of the the conference.
Mediterranean Sea region (J.-J. Maffre, France) and Black The conference was made possible by fi nancial support
Sea region (Yu. A. Vinogradov, Russia); to the penetration from the Alexander A. Onassis Public Benefi t Foundation,
of Greek culture to the East (М. М. Dandamaeva, Russia; the British Academy Black Sea Initiative and the British
Ch. Gates, Turkey) and the West (F. Causey, USA); and Society for Hellenic Studies. The organisation and successful
to the trade relations of the Greek cities as we know them work of the conference were certainly depending on
from archaeological and epigraphic data (P. Dupont, France; many people, among which I am especially grateful to
S. R. Tokhtasev, Russia). the managing team’s members, which were E. Arsenteva
Two of the conference sessions were devoted to the issues and M. Akhmadeeva. At the first stage of preparation
surrounding study of Archaic art in its basic manifestations: of the conference large job was done by the staff of
vase painting (M. Kerschner, Аustria; R. Pozamentir, the Department of Foreign Affairs of the Hermitage, which
Germany), sculpture (А. V. Kruglov, Russia), jewellery in time issued and has dispatched offi cial invitations to all
(D. Williams, Great Britain), bronzes produced by artisan participants of the conference, as well as by the members
workshops (M. Treister, Germany), glyptic ornaments of the Department of Social Development of the Museum,
(О. Ya. Neverov, Russia), and numismatics (S. А. Коvalenko, which secured comfortable accommodation for all participants
Russia). Questions involving Greco-barbarian relations in at St-Petersburg’s hotels. I am very thankful to Catherine
the regions of Greek colonisation on the Iberian Peninsula, Philips for translating some contributions from Russian
in the South of France and Italy, as well as in the Northern into English.
Sergey Solovyov
5
6
Archaic Greek Culture
John Boardman
We have become very easy with the term ‘Archaic’. However, the fi rst half of the 5th century saw a suffi cient
Applied to history and art it has acquired a serious status change in the fi gurative arts of at least parts of the Greek
which we might deem to refl ect something positive and world to promote the convenient view that the Archaic was
defi nable in antiquity. Indeed, to defi ne it in general turning into the Classical, and therefore that the Archaic
terms is not diffi cult, but there is always the danger of itself had enjoyed some sort of individual entity. This may
letting our terminology dictate expectations, leading to be apparent in some of the arts, but is far less so in other
theories of development, progress, assumptions about areas of life and politics. The ethos of 6th-century Sparta
dating, even admitting some ancient consciousness of was not so unlike that of 5th-century or even 4th-century
an archaic Greek cultural self-identity, which may not be Sparta. We are trapped by our own terminology, our
wholly warranted by the evidence, and this must take dependence on Athens, which was the least typical of
priority over the convenient theory. the Greek states, and on art history.
When ancient authors used the word archaios they The Archaic period may be thought of as seeing the rise of
referred to anything old or old-fashioned, or to a remote the Greek polis, as though this was a unique phenomenon.
past whose arts seemed to them generally crude and Aristotle’s research team collected 158, perhaps over 250,
unformed, or at best in a style that bore little recognizable different politeiai, and I doubt whether they were able to
relationship to the Classical, as it had been defi ned by determine much uniformity in them any more than can
the 5th century. The Lindos Chronicle used the word modern scholarship, except in very general terms. But
of the odd poses of fi gures on early panel paintings; the development of relatively small self-suffi cient and self-
Dionysius of Halicarnassus picked on simplicity of governing communities with their own territory – chora –
colouring and a preference for line; Demetrius saw was a phenomenon of antiquity wherever conditions
in the statues a compactness and spareness unlike dictated, from the Levant to China to Peru. In Greece it
the grandeur and precision of a Pheidias; Pausanias was especially determined by geography, to which Greek
singled out crudeness and composition (Pollitt 1974, culture owed it special character, and which encouraged,
255–59, for passages). The Archaic lacked beauty. indeed obliged a degree of independent development in
The word, and our use of the word ‘Archaic’, implying all areas of life, undisturbed by considerations of any
primitive, antiquated or out of date, combined a view central authority or concerted action, yet with total
that admits to a degree of the primitive and unformed, intercommunication of people and ideas. We must not
but also the idea that it involved also something of an confuse the Homeric view of Bronze Age Greece, with
arche, a beginning, that was to develop into something its broad kingdoms and interrelated royalty, with reality.
more fully fl edged. Both views are supported to some Those thick walls of Mycenae, Tiryns and the rest were
degree by what we now know of Archaic Greece, by erected by each state against its neighbour, sometimes
which we mean the Greek mainland, the eastern Aegean a very close neighbour, and the Homeric Catalogue of
and much of the colonial Greek world in the 8th to 6th Ships hints at a somewhat different pattern of diverse and
centuries BC. The defi ning points for the end of Archaic independent states and cities. Later, there were dozens
are, I suppose, the Persian Wars, or the advent of a form of Greek Leagues of city-states before Rome intervened,
of democracy in just one state in Greece, Athens, or, in and most of them were lucky to survive as long as two
the arts, the beginning of a move towards the idealised generations. It was not that sort of country, and it bred
realism that typifi es the High Classical. Of all these people who were used to determining their own fortunes
the least important, I think, is the Persian Wars, for all in their own communities. This was to lead to their
that is claimed today about it being a defi ning point downfall and loss of independence, but not before they had
for Greek self-realisation and identity. It was no such demonstrated to the rest of the world, and to the present
thing. Half Greece still resisted the results of the wars day, what this independence and the conscious exercise
and most of Greece resented the resultant dominance of of freedom could do for human culture and welfare, even
Athens, while democracy, demokratia, meant whatever progress.
any politician wished it to mean, just as it does today.
In Athens it defi nes a period when democratic institutions What I want to do is to take a regional view of how
were in place, but which was still dominated by families Archaic Greece developed – not a common view although
and individuals – Themistokles, Kimon, Perikles – and it was the one wisely adopted by Ann Jeffery (1976) in
outside Athens it meant nothing at all, while in the arts her book on Archaic Greece 30 years ago, and it can
whatever was being developed after the Archaic in Athens be revealing about differences; and then to consider just
took long to be regarded elsewhere, and in some places how coherent the Archaic was, vis-à-vis the Classical, in
was totally disregarded. various areas.
7
J. Boardman
A few years ago I explored the concept of what I call we tend to, this might seem to suggest a cultural revolution
the visual experience of antiquity (Boardman 1995), since leading to notable progress in the narrative arts, but this
this is one of the few things that an archaeologist/art- is probably a wrong deduction from the prolifi c evidence.
historian can do with any hope of success, and without Nothing in the narrative goes much beyond the traditional
excessive reliance on the literary heritage of the ancient and formulaic manners established in the 7th century in
world, which to some still seems self-suffi cient, especially Athens and Corinth, even though there is much more of
in Oxford. In other words to speculate on what the ordinary it. More credit perhaps goes to whoever traded the pottery
citizen would judge of his own environment and that of far afi eld, and so provided the impetus for home production
other Greeks simply from what he saw around him. Thus, to grow, and imaginative innovation to work upon it, but
the visual experience of an early 6th-century Corinthian we should not judge Archaic people by their pottery alone.
would have been very different from that of a contemporary A busy trade in home goods, as well as an extensive chora,
Athenian or M ilesian, and in Athens this experience would may explain in part Athenian lack of interest in any colonial
change as the century wore on to a material climate activity, beyond an intermittent involvement in the north-east
markedly more Ionian than Corinth’s was ever to be. And Aegean, on an important trade route.
all this was not simply a matter of geography and art but
of a mixture of political and economic infl uences. By contrast, Corinth faces all ways. We fi nd there, from
the Geometric on, an interest in the arts of the east, probably
There was probably a good deal more uniformity in promoted by people as well as objects since Corinthians
the way of life of all Greeks in the 9th and 8th centuries themselves sailed west rather than east, but they were on
BC, the Geometric period, than there was thereafter, at a vital east-west route and therefore the recipient of anything
least for another 500 years. The impact of the Near East of worth and novelty. There was the Diolkos on which ships
was felt strongly in C rete, where it was brought to them could be dragged across the peninsula linking the Corinthian
by easterners. It was felt in the Euboean states, where it Gulf at the west with the Aegean at the east, while their
had been sought out by the Greeks themselves, and to artifi cial harbour at Lechaion sounds more like an artifi cial
some degree in Corinth. The rest of Greece held back, or Phoenician kothon harbour than most Greek harbours,
observed and copied, and everywhere, to varying degrees, answering the more natural harbour at Perachora opposite,
the Geometric forms in the arts were remembered, but were and recalls the oriental fl avour of cults on Acrocorinth.
never again dominant to the point that one could say that The abandonment by Corinthian potters of fi gure decoration
the arts and culture were totally regressive or stagnant. on their vases about the mid-6th century was probably
The ‘sub-geometric’ was a widespread but subsidiary a minor craft revolution, and only in part the product of
phenomenon, in some places lingering into the 6th century, Athenian competition. More likely, the visual experience
and geometry in the arts always appealed to Greeks. of the Corinthian was better fed than in Athens by other
media – metalwork and panel-painting, in which Corinth
Politically the individual, king or tyrant, was in charge, had an early reputation. In other areas Ionian infl uences in
even among oligarchic families, and the assembly of citizens Corinth were negligible, while Corinthian commerce fuelled
only counted for something because from about 700 BC most novelty, not least in the proliferation of coinage and in
on warfare depended more on the hoplite class, which was associations with new colonies in the west, which Athens
socially more extensive than the élite families and leaders, wholly lacked, and the state was managed by tyrants and
and so had a voice that could not be ignored. related oligarchs.
We start with Athens. In Athens the Geometric period Sparta, meanwhile, was managed by a tyrant-type twin
had monumental aspirations, as also in Euboea, and this dynasty. It devoted itself to a social order which guaranteed
survived in Athenian arts into the 7th century, with little a strong army and this it deployed against its neighbours
more than a glance towards Corinth and the islands. Athens’ relentlessly, and in a virtually imperialistic way within
political health seems to have been in a poor state until the Peloponnese, even eventually interfering in Athens
desperate regulatory measures by Drakon, if he existed, at and courting the major powers across the Aegean, both
the end of the 7th century, and cool ones by Solon, which Ionian and foreign. To this extent it was outward-looking,
put it on course again in the 6th century, when a tyrant no less than Athens; in others it was too much constrained by
family, as tyrants tended to, established a form of stability the need to keep control at home. The system was austere, yet
and prosperity at the expense, it may be, of some degree the élite could live well enough, to judge from the bronzes
of individual freedom, and with more reliance on an army and pottery made in Laconia, although this was certainly
more loyal to the tyrant family than the state. Then there not a place for palaces and marble temples or fancy grave
is K leisthenes, not that he really managed to do more than monuments. Thucydides remarked how deceptive would
shift the identity of power rather than its character, and with be a comparison between a ruined Athens and a ruined
the help of a Spartan army, we should remember. But with Sparta in terms of judging power. Spartans had not
the tyrants Athens had become more consciously Ionian been not slow to respond too much of the orientalising
(where tyrants were the norm) in its arts – in sculpture more revolution in Greek art or even its later manifestations
than painting, an innovation that was slow to spread to other in the 6th century. It was to play a major military role in
parts of homeland Greece. In other 6th-century arts Athens the Persian Wars, but these had little enough effect on its
followed the lead of Corinth. If we judge by the pottery, as general culture, and only intermittently did Sparta rouse
8
Archaic Greek Culture
itself to ensure that it was top dog in south Greece or even When the Persians came to Ionia they took rather than
in Greece generally. Athenian classicism in the arts was gave, or were tolerant of people they could exploit and who
virtually ignored and the Spartans’ visual experience long gave access to the rest of a Greek world that they had tried
remained sub-archaic. to embrace. They failed to get further after the attempts
of the early 5th century because the poor Greeks were
Thebes seems even less like the pattern of Athens, perforce made of stouter stuff than the already faltering
Corinth and Sparta. It was busy trying to dominate empires like those of the Medes and Lydians, and they had
the lesser states in Boeotia, one of the richer agricultural better military technology and strategy, but for the most part
areas of Greece, like Thessaly to the north. Like Thessaly, the Persians could not be bothered with them. Domination
it was indifferent to the Persian threat when it came, and of Greece offered the Persians no obvious profits to
caved in, always jealous of Athens. Its arts stagnated compare with those of Anatolia, Egypt and Central Asia.
and depended much on the arts of neighbours, including The Ionians thus emerge as the cleverest of all the Greek
Athens; its people stayed at home. states. Their proximity to eastern cultures probably explains
their precocious science, and in their arts we should look
Crete took a prominent part in Greece’s orientalising to their achievements in metalwork, painting, architecture
revolution, as recipient of ideas and, it seems, people, and sculpture, all of them much affected by the east, rather
without going to look for the east, or at least beyond than their mainly miserable pottery. Their Persian wars
Cyprus, as the Euboeans did. Crete was also something had been in the mid-6th century and many of their people
of a leader in codifying legal practices, an activity followed their masters against their fellow Greeks. Some of
not characteristic of all parts of Greece in the earlier them were stirred to revolt by their fellows to the west, but
Archaic period, but to be an important element in for the most part they acquiesced in the new order; their
the development of even a roughly democratic city artists took little enough notice of the Classical revolution,
state. But in the 6th century the big Cretan sites seem and when they did it was in a very innovative way and
strangely quiet, and it would be hard to tell from fi nds often with borrowed craftsmen.
or art when or whether the Archaic ever gave way to
the Classical in art or manners, while the island was If we turn to the colonial world we fi nd a political
untouched by the Persian Wars or even the 5th-century scene in the Archaic period not that unlike some parts
inter-Greek wars, and we have no reason to believe that of the homeland – dominated by tyrants or kings, call
there was any serious depopulation. Like many other them which you will. Perhaps it should be easier to study
parts of the Greek world it simply does not conform Greek political behaviour in this environment, away from
to expectations of the pattern of Greek progress and the heroic traditions of the homeland, although the colonies
behaviour in the archaic period. were quick to create their own heroic traditions; away
also from attitudes to long-established neighbours which
If we move on to the east Aegean, to Ionian cities had been adopted over centuries. Colonial links with
like Ephesus and Miletus, we meet a yet more different the homeland remained strong even if commercial rather
cultural and political environment. They were ruled by than political. After early exploration, which was a legacy
tyrants, but tyrants, in Greek terms, do not represent of the Bronze Age, there must have been more deliberation
a special form of political control, just a form of kingship in the foundations than some current scholarship credits; this
with less certain succession and loyalties, dependent more is clear enough from the archaeology even without the texts,
on armed support than family. In the east Greek world, as indicating the possibility of easy subsistence as well as
in Athens, tyrants could be patrons of major enterprises – sources of a surplus for trade. The essential Greekness – by
temples, waterworks, fortifi cations – much more like which I mean language and religion, rather than any
the kings of Anatolia. One reason why they could act in more complicated sense of so-called ethnicity – remained
this way in east Greece was their geographical position dominant, and in the arts the colonies took their lead from
beside powerful neighbours – Phrygians, Lydians – and the homeland wherever they could, but were capable of
their presence on sea-routes north and south that took developing individual styles.
them into the exciting and rich territories of the Black
Sea, into the Levant and Egypt, although in the Levant at But the colonies’ neigbours were not now other Greeks.
least they had been anticipated by mainlanders. Much that They were people who sometimes had raw materials
they achieved must have been, and some demonstrably which the Greeks valued and needed, whether metals or
was, fi nanced by their neighbours, who regarded them foodstuffs. Culturally they were, in Greek eyes, naive.
as their vassals, to a degree that Greek historians, then It is fashionable nowadays to pretend that the colonial
and now, were generally unwilling to admit. Lydians Greeks learned much from their new neighbours, be they
did not subsidise the building of a colossal temple to Sicels, Apulians or Scythians, but it seems impossible for
a very Anatolian goddess like Artemis of the Ephesians anyone to produce any serious evidence for this in either
just out of the goodness of their hearts, or because they material or social matters, beyond the probable effects of
thought the Greeks were basically good people, a third a degree of intermarriage. Syracuse would have looked much
world worth supporting. They did it, and advertised it, to the same if it had been founded on the shores of Thrace or
demonstrate their supremacy and in honour of a goddess even Libya. The natives offered a market which could be
of Anatolian signifi cance. observed and exploited, sometimes by trying to cater to its
9
J. Boardman
special needs and encouraging the people and their leaders terms, but again not in a way that suits all Greek lands
to esteem Greek products. There was no serious reciprocal at all times. Take sculpture. The kouroi may have been
effect – or I would be glad to hear of it if any can be ubiquitous in Greece, but the Athenian ionicising arts of
shown to have existed. The Greeks of the Black Sea did the mid century on were not. Natural selection of forms
not pick up nomad ways or nomad arts; quite the reverse. tended to greater realism in rendering of anatomical detail,
When in contact with Europe, in Italy, Spain or France, and towards the end of the 6th century, in drawing perhaps
the Greeks were unaffected by European arts. They barely before sculpture, more thought was given to effective
noticed Egypt, yet, years before, when their own arts had depiction of action and posture – but it was a question of
been relatively unsophisticated, they had been totally won the effective not the realistic, and the artist does not begin
over by the arts of Syria, so they were not temperamentally to look at life, virtually a fi rst for the history of the art
averse from learning, just very discriminate. of ancient man anywhere, until the 5th century. Then
it is encouraged by a shift in sculptural techniques from
What is certain is that Archaic colonial Greeks went on the carved to the modelled. It was not inevitable; it was
living a Greek life, while the life of their neighbours was not so elsewhere in ancient art in the world, and it took
irretrievably changed by the Greek intrusion. This is not some time to be adopted in all Greek lands, mainly from
jingoistic – it is simply observation of verifi able fact. Even the example of travelling artists.
when the Greeks succeeded in securing a trading enclave at
Naukratis in Egypt, they turned it into a Greek town, with In its way the Archaic mode was the general mode for
Greek temples and a social system which they came to call all antiquity, in the Old and New Worlds, and we single
a polis – that magic word. The Egyptians were the only it out in Greece only because it is easier to isolate, and
race to remain immune, most of them until Roman times. for what came later, a progression not to be identifi ed
The British Raj could have done no better for themselves; elsewhere. Egypt maintained what we might call a very
but the Raj had other missions too and came to seek more sophisticated Archaic mode in the arts through over three
than just subsistence and trade. Strabo observed bitterly on millennia, highly successfully and despite the constant
the bad effect the Greeks had on the natives with whom possible infl uence of other styles, including the Greek.
they had contact in the Black Sea. Think too of Europeans The rest of the world never quite had a Classical revolution
in the Americas. Lord Curzon, looking at Central Asia in to look forward to in Greek terms – China, India,
the 19th century, commented that “Western civilization in the Americas – only China eventually devised its own style
its Eastward march suggests no sadder refl ection than that of idealised realism, beside much that was still Archaic.
it cannot convey its virtues alone, but must come with Rome spread its own reading or misreading of the Greek
Harpies in its train, and smirch with their foul contact message, until it was recaptured by the Renaissance and
the immemorial simplicity of Oriental life”. modern scholarship. Refl ecting on this we can see how
unnatural in its way the Classical revolution was, and how
Looking at the archaic behaviour of these areas – of Greece might easily have continued with modes of art and
Athens, Corinth, S parta, Thebes, Ionia, the colonies – expression on which variations might be worked but never
the states of Archaic Greece can be seen to have had very a revolution. Nor is it easy to argue for any sort of political
different fortunes, motivations and achievements. They were sophistication which inevitably culminated in the reforms
all Greek in that they spoke Greek, in various not always of Kleisthenes, rather than a pattern of royal, dynastic,
intercommunicable dialects, and they worshipped Greek or commercial governance of vastly different style even
gods. They recognized that non-Greeks were different but in adjacent territories. We move from near-oriental cities
not necessarily worse or inferior, and they were well ready like Miletus, in many ways dependent on major powers to
to court them and learn from them, at least in the east or the east, to the quaintness of Sparta, to the internal intrigues
Egypt. If we look for something more coherent by which of Athens, to trading states like Corinth, the farmers of
to defi ne Archaic Greece we should perhaps look rather Boeotia and Thessaly. There was perhaps more coherence
to the national sanctuaries, Delphi and Olympia, but in of political practice in the Greek colonial world than at
this period even they were very much at the mercy of home, determined by partial isolation and the importance
local politics – think of the Amphiktionic wars at Delphi of trade as much as subsistence on local land, but it did
and Olympia’s Peloponnesian bias. At least, as showcases not lead to democracy, if that is what we think the post-
of the arts, from architecture to Kleinkunst, they provided Archaic is about.
visitors with a fairly broad range of examples of excellence
from different parts of Greece, and no less from outside It becomes clear that our understanding the coherence
Greece. of the Archaic has to depend to some degree on our
view of the coherence and achievement of what came
A prime mover for the Archaic was the example of afterwards – the Classical. The English poet Alexander
the Near East, sought out by some Greeks, but to which Pope wrote: ‘Know then thyself, presume not god to scan,
the Greeks responded in different ways and at a different The proper study of mankind is man’.
tempo in different places, many of them without direct
knowledge of or contact with the east, as we have seen, This is a concept that goes back to Greece, not least
but simply copying other Greeks. In the arts it is certainly to the Greek motto gnothi seauton ‘know thyself’, but
possible to make a defi nition of Archaic art on its own especially to Classical Greece. Archaic Greece observed
10
Archaic Greek Culture
man, his world and his behaviour, rather than his Greek taste and standards, and not by foreign example.
motivations and processes of thought and argument, But this happened only locally and was not a universal
and observed him closely – from Homer, the Lyric Greek pattern of development.
poets, through the developing narrative arts. Archaic
philosophical and scientific speculation went outside If there is any message at all it is that we may easily
man to the whole cosmos, from atomic theory to global be led away from the truth, and a fair assessment of what
geography, still largely observed in terms of divinity, was achieved in ancient Greece, if we are as bound by
however defi ned, and much dependent on the example of consideration of ‘the Archaic’ or ‘the Classical’ as other
the foreigner, Egyptian or Babylonian. Meanwhile Hesiod antiquarians are by classifi cations and labels of Early,
and others codifi ed what the Greeks should believe about Middle, Late, Ripe, Decadent. Greek history and culture
their myth history and gods. is nothing if it is not variegated, and the different strands
of culture, physical and intellectual, did not always or
Classical Greece is different; in Athens at least it did everywhere progress in a uniform way. We fi nd it easy,
not simply observe, but went on to analyse man and his with hindsight, to discern progress, but there is little in
behaviour, with or without gods, through the tragedians, Greek art or culture in any period to suggest that their
historians, sophists, philosophers and scientists. It was artists and thinkers were consciously dedicating themselves
not a foregone conclusion that this would have happened to improvement, rather than reacting to different conditions
after the Archaic period, and the reasons for it are not and associations, or trying to answer old and new problems.
for pursuit today. It was also highly localised. What if Professor Dodds (1973) argued that the Greeks had no
the Persians had succeeded? concept of Progress at all except for a brief period in
the 5th century. It would even be possible to argue that
It would not be altogether impossible for me, as others going for the realistic in the arts was a retrograde step,
have, to turn my whole initial argument on its head, and not taken by any other ancient culture, whatever its
to argue that the Archaic in Greece was a unifi ed culture, results may have proved to be. In this Plato would have
consciously developed by a people with a mission and agreed. What 7th-century Corinth or Ionia, 6th-century
ambition; but it would mean that I would have to cut Athens or Sparta achieved, what much of the Greek
many corners in the argument and ignore many parts world simply chose to ignore, are but stepping stones
of the Greek world altogether. Or, as I did in a book of across very troubled waters, which were eventually but
nearly 40 years ago (Boardman 1967), one might argue not inevitably to be channelled in parts of Greece and
that the Archaic period amounts to a first phase of eventually on the broader fi elds of the Roman empire, into
necessary instruction from the east in the orientalising other achievements; these had much more to do with the
revolution, followed by a later archaic phase in which history of human culture than idealised realism, narrative
Greek arts grew up and purged themselves of the foreign formulae, predicting the eclipse of the moon, or recording
and oriental, while developing an art dictated wholly by history and the material world.
11