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The Bronze Fragments of the Acropolis: II

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

A. G. Bather
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Extract

To any student of early Greek bronze ornament the works of Dr. Furtwaengler on the Olympian bronzes must be well known, and as he has dealt at length with the development of patterns on bronzes, and as every day fresh evidence seems to be coming up which serves to confirm his views, there is no necessity for me here to do anything more than recount shortly the general characteristics and nature of this class of bronzes from the Acropolis. These, like those of Olympia, may be divided into two main classes according as they belong to the geometric or the oriental style; while a cross distinction may also be drawn between engraved or stamped ornament and relief. Originally however these two distinctions seem to have been one and the same, the geometric corresponding to the engraved or stamped technique, and the oriental generally to the relief; but later we find each of these forms of ornament translated into the other technique. The original distinction however is due to two main causes, the quality of the bronze used in the two factories and the nature of the objects principally produced in them. The bronze of geometric ornament is much harder and more brittle than that of oriental, which is soft but very tough: to work geometric bronze into repoussé relief would be almost impossible, while the finer quality of the oriental is peculiarly suitable to such a technique. Thus it is often possible simply from the feel of a bronze fragment to decide which factory it came from.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 13 , November 1893 , pp. 232 - 271
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1893

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References

1 In publishing this inscription I conjectured that possibly it referred to funeral games, a view which is confirmed by two other somewhat similar inscriptions which had escaped my notice, one in fifth century Attic characters, and the other from Cumae in Chalcidian letters, (Furt., B. v. O. p. 135Google Scholar; Mon. 1880, p. 344, Von Duhn).

2 The type is a very common one in ancient art especially in terra-cottas, cf. Ol. iv. Tav. vii. 76 (also from a vase rim) viii. 77, Friedrich, Kl. Kunst, 602Google Scholar, Friedrichs-Wolters, No. 378. Also Olympia, iv. p. 24 where Furtwaengler gives other instances and conjectures that the type may be Chalcidian.

3 There is, however, a marked absence of fibulae from among these fragments, which is sufficiently accounted for by the story of Herodotus as to why the Athenians gave up wearing these (v. 87).

4 It is remarkable that we have thin strips of bronze and not bronze wire, as in the ends of the Naples bronze (Mon. ix. Tav. 18). Of the wire treatment specimens were found, but I must believe that this work is of an earlier date than the wire; which fact may again have an important bearing on the history of early bronze work with regard to the relation between the thin sheet bronze work and the round earlier work. Being, as pointed out above, thoroughly in technique, this work in thin strips would appear older than the soldered wire work: but of course it is not necessarily older than the invention of the soldering of iron by Glaueus (Ol. 22, according to Eusebius, Paus. x. 16. 1, Plut., def. or. 47Google Scholar). A similar technique may have been that of the gold colossal Zeus at Olympia, v. Suidas sv.

5 Mr. Heycock of King's College, Cambridge, has kindly promised to analyse certain fragments of the various sorts of bronze. But his results, I fear, will not be ready in time to appear in this paper.

6 The combination of such animals is very frequent on early works of art, e.g. Hom. Od xi. 609, Hes. Scut. Her. 168.

7 During last summer M. De Bidder, a member of the French school, has found a large number of similar reliefs, of an extremely interesting character at Orchomenos, which he will shortly publish in the Bulletin Corr. Hell.

8 Instances of this pattern are found on nearly all Greek sites rich in bronze remains: Dodona, Olympia, the Ptoon, Eleutherae, Mantiueia, and the Acropolis.

9 Another instance of this use of the basket pattern is to be found in a small gold fragment from Camirus now in the British Museum, where it is used to frame in an archaic representation of a griffin.

10 It may be remarked however that there is found on vases a type of a friendly meeting between Athene, and Heracles, , in which very much the same attitude is preserved (Vases in B. M. ii. B 198Google Scholar; Gerh., Aus. Vas. ii. 246Google Scholar). The figure opposed to Heracles, which occurs on an amphora in the British Museum, is not, as described by Dümmler, (Rom. Mit. 1887, p. 174)Google Scholar, Athene, but Juno Caprotina (v. Roscher, , Lex. p. 2221Google Scholar; Gerh. Aus. Vas. ii. 127.

11 Bull. 1836, p. 191. Museo Greg. i. t. 39. Antike Denkmäler, i. t. 21. Rom. Mit. iii. 176, Schumacher, , Eine Pränestinische Cista im Mus. zu Karlsruhe, pp. 57Google Scholar ff. Bull. des Mus. June, 1892, p. 189.

12 Other examples are a terra-cotta relief found by Lenormant at Mycenae, (Arch. Zeit. 1856)Google Scholar, the impress of a seal preserved in the Polytechnic Museum at Athens, and several Mycenae gems, e.g. one in the British Museum (Milchhoeffer, , Anfänge, etc., p. 86Google Scholar).

13 Mr. A. J. Evans informs me that he is in this same number of the Journal offering a different explanation of a similar gold figure of Mycenaean style. That figure can undoubtedly be traced back to an Egyptian origin, and a strong Egyptian element appears, as we have seen, in the Acropolis bronzes. But the appearance of the wings of our figure and the absence of any Egyptian characteristics in point of style point at any rate to an equally strong oriental influence.

14 Six, (J.H.S. vi. pp. 289Google Scholar ff., De Gorgone, p. 82) strives unnecessarily to find some mythological explanation of the attributes of these figures.

15 This object may perhaps be the sacred harp which is represented with a somewhat similar shape (Gerh., A. V. II. 79Google Scholar, 3, 4, Baum., Denk. pp. 1290—1291Google Scholar). In this case the scene would be one from the Perseus myth, cf. Hes., Seul. 216 ff.Google Scholar Paus. v. 18, 1.

16 It may perhaps be thought that this point represents a beard; but if it has been so, the outline must have been carried on over the face. It may be however that this is simply another instance of the absence of in-drawing, like that of the books.

17 It is impossible in the present state of the bronze to be certain how these wings joined. Probably they curved down from the top to meet in the middle of the breast as is the case with the great Gorgon of the Acropolis.

18 Scenes of contests for prizes of tripods are common on early works of art. On one of the Daphnae vases (Tanis, ii. p. 69, Pl. 30) we have boxing and wrestling scenes with geometric tripods for prizes. Similar scenes occur on the Amphiaraus, vase (Ann. 1874, pp. 82Google Scholar ff., Mon. x. Pl. 4, 5; cf. Gerh., A. V. 256Google Scholar, 257), the chest of Cypselus (Paus. v. 17. 10, 11), the throne of Apollo at Amyclae, (Id. iii. 18, 16)Google Scholar, and the shield of Heracles (Hes. Scut. 302, 313).

19 It may be remarked, however, that it would be natural that the artist should show greater truth in the figure of a man engaged in some definite athletic exercise than in that of a strange unnatural foreign deity.

20 In the Acropolis Museum is preserved the ring of a large tripod about 2 feet in diameter in the centre of which was fixed a full-length figure of a Gorgon, cut out of a thin bronze sheet, mounted in a very slight relief, with details added with a fine graving tool, just as is the case with the large shooting Heracles from Olympia (Ol. iv. Taf. 40). This was fixed inside the handle by means of a framework of strips similar to that of our tripod leg, and Dr. Wolters has suggested to me that they may be parts of the same object. This cannot, however, be anything but a conjecture.

21 The line running down from the hand, however, looks very like a bow which on many early vases is represented without a string, e.g. Ger. Aus. Vas. Pl. 26, 59, 63. In this case the arm is in almost exactly the same position as that of Heracles. It is the ordinary position of the bow when not in actual use; cf. Micali, Mon. Ant. xxx., Gerhard, , A. V. ii. 124Google Scholar.