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Two Tomb-Groups from Selinus
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 August 2013
Extract
In the course of a study of Etruscan bucchero, I had an opportunity in the spring of 1937 to examine the contents of the graves from Selinus in the museum at Palermo. For permission to publish these I wish to express my thanks to Dr. P. Mingazzini, then Director of the Museum, who most courteously gave me every facility for studying them, and provided me with the photographs here reproduced. I gladly availed myself of the opportunity to publish the contents of two of the early tombs (nos. 27 and 55), not only because they contain bucchero and other pottery closely resembling bucchero, as well as Corinthian vases, but also in view of the fact that although the dating of more than one category of Greek pottery rests on the foundation date of Selinus, none of the early tombs from this site has been published in detail. The published information on this material is contained in an article by Cavallari in the Bulletino della Commissione di Antichità e Belle Arti in Sicilia, no. 5 (1872), pp. 10 f.
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References
1 The later cemetery lies in the district of Manicalunga on the west side of the ancient town. The position of the two cemeteries is shown by Cavallari (op. cit. Tav. I.). Payne (Necrocorinthia p. 23, n. 1.) is mistaken in supposing that Galera lies near the shrine of Demeter Malophoros (on the west of the town); in fact, it closely adjoins Bagliazzo, and forms with it a single cemetery.
2 Op. cit. p. 16.
3 Griech. Gesch.2 vol. i, p. 416, n. 3.
4 Cf. Orsi in Not. Scav. 1925, p. 181, n. 2.
5 Orsi, loc. cit.
6 Whitaker, Motya, pp. 317–318.
7 Cf. Orsi, in Mon. Ant. vol. xvii, p. 647Google Scholar.
8 Gabrici, in op. cit., vol. xxii, p. 269, fig. 108, and p. 293Google Scholar.
9 Cf. B.M. Cat. Vases, vol. i, Part ii, no. H 145 (Pl. XIV), which closely resembles the Selinus examples.
10 Cavallari, op. cit. p. 15 and fig. 11a.
11 Cf. Grenier, Bologne Villanovienne et Etrusque (1912), 245, 250. The description of the clay as more closely resembling impasto than true bucchero makes it probable that Grenier's specimens resemble those from Selinus here under discussion. They are distinct, on the one hand, from the thin, fine Etruscan bucchero contemporary with late Protocorinthian pottery, and, on the other, from the heavy moulded bucchero which appears to have succeeded it.
11a This work will be referred to hereafter as ‘Payne.’
12 Cf. Clara Rhodos, vol. iii, 1929 (Jacopi, , Scavi nella necropoli di Jalisso, 1924–1928), p. 24, nos. 6, 7, and fig. 6Google Scholar. (This publication will be referred to hereafter as Ialysos.)
13 Corinth museum, Case 32, nos. 129, 130. I am in debted for this information to my colleague Mr. R. M. Cook.
14 Cf. Gardner, E. A., Naukratis, vol. ii (1888), pp. 47 f., 50 fGoogle Scholar.
15 Payne in his Necrocorinthia divides his material into Transitional, which he dates c. 640–625 B.C.; Early Corinthian (c. 625–600 B.C.); Middle Corinthian (c. 600–575 B.C.); and Late Corinthian (c. 575–550 B.C.). These chronological groups are hereafter referred to by the abbreviations TR., E.C., M.C., and L.C.
16 Some unpublished graves from Megara Hyblaea, exhibited in the Syracuse museum, contain examples of these kantharoi together with Corinthian pottery of later date. But the early graves from this site nearly always contained several burials (cf. Not. Scav. 1892, pp. 172 f.), and are therefore useless for dating purposes.
17 Cf. Thuc. vi. 4,4; and 5, 3. On the reliability of these foundation-dates see below, pp. 130 f.
18 Cf. Gardner, ibid. (above, n. 14).
19 Illustrated by Ure, Sixth- and Fifth-Century Pottery From Rhitsona, 1927, Pl. X, top row, second from left.
20 Op. cit. p. 18.
21 Cf. Pfuhl, , Malerei und Zeichnung der Griechen, Bd. iii, p. 54, fig. 222Google Scholar.
22 Cf. the example with repoussé decoration, Ure Black Glaze Pottery from Rhitsona, 1913, p. 12.
23 Cf. Ducati, , Storia della Ceramica Greca (1922), vol. i, p. 101, n. 4Google Scholar.
24 These are exhibited in the Syracuse museum and may be found by reference to Iibertini, Guida del Regio Museo Archeologico di Siracusa (1929), p. 75 (Sala XII, piccola vetrina d'angolo, iii° palchetto).
25 Cf. Furtwängler, Aegina, p. 478, n. 3, p. 448 (five small pointed aryballoi, a round aryballos and a miniature oinochoe, all classed as ‘bucchero,’ from the temple of Aphaia). Furtwängler, ibid. p. 477, says they are contemporary with Protocorinthian and (early) Corinthian, and cites parallels from the Argive Heraeum (Cf. Waldstein, , Argive Heraeum, vol. ii, p. 71Google Scholar), other sites in Aegina, Eleusis, Kameiros, also from Syracuse (Cf. above, p. 126) and Gela. The same ware at Thera, here mainly represented by skyphoi of the well-known Theraean (or Rhodian?) type is associated late Protocorinthian (cf. Pfuhl, in Ath. Mitt. vol. xxviii, 1903, pp. 212, 213Google Scholar). For examples at Vroulià, cf. Kinch, op. cit. p. 138. Others were found at Sparta (cf. B.S.A. vol. xxxiv, 1933, p. 155, classed as ‘dull greyish bucchero’).
26 A 634, 64.10.7. 1576. For information about this vase I am indebted to my colleague Mr. R. M. Cook, who drew my attention to it.
27 Cf. Mon. Ant. vol. i, p. 881, Tomb 216.
28 Cf. Not. Scav. 1934, p. 394, fig. 51 (broken off at neck).
29 Cf. above, p. 126.
30 Cf. Mon. Ant. vol. xxv, p. 537, n. 2. The explanation of its almost complete absence may be that the early colonists at Selinus found it too expensive.
31 Jacopi asserts that this cemetery contains only single burials (Ialysos, p. 11).
32 Payne, p. 26, n. 1.
33 This corresponds to type 7 in Cavallari's description (op. cit. pp. 11 f., and Tav. 3), which includes an account of the graves in the later cemetery also. Cavallari's type 10 is really a very slight variation from this, the difference being that the loculi are slightly narrower and the walls thinner.
34 Cavallari's type 8.
35 Cavallari's type 9.
36 Cf. Not. Scav. 1893, p. 448, and fig. on p. 454.
37 Cf. Ialysos, p. 11.
38 Cf. Not. Scav. 1893, p. 448.
39 Cf. ibid., loc. cit.
40 Op. cit. p. 23.
41 Cf. Payne, p. 22, n. 5. In his chronology of Corinthian pottery (as in that of Rumpf, see n. 42 below) this date is expressed in round terms as 625 B.C.
42 Cf. Rumpf, in Jahrb. d. Inst. 48 (1933), p. 62Google Scholar, ‘In dem um 625 gegründeten Selinus ist von der Kameirosgattung nur ein spätes Stück.’ He therefore accepts. 625 B.C. as the date for the earliest ‘Euphorbos’ type.
43 Cf., for example, Byvanck's recent article in Mnemosyne IV, iii, 1937Google Scholar (Untersuchungen zur Chronologic der Funde in Italien aus den VIII und VII vorchristlichen Jahrhunderi).
44 Cf. Mon. Ant. vol. xxxii.
45 Allowing, however, for the possibility that Tomb 55 is a double grave, but closely related in date. Cf. above, pp. 129 f.
46 Most recently by Byvanck, op. cit. p. 224.
46a Cf. Strabo. xvii, 18 (101); Hdt. ii, 152.
47 Hdt. iv, 159.
48 Hdt. ii, 178.
49 Cf. Busolt, , Griech. Gesch.2, vol. i, p. 385, n. 2Google Scholar; p. 416, n. 3. Busolt is, however, wrong in asserting that Thucydides is using dates approximate only to five or ten years in this passage on the Sicilian colonies; for in vi, 4. 4, he says that Gela founded Akragas ‘as nearly as possible 108 years after her own foundation.’
50 xiii, 59.
51 Thus the original number of colonists to Cyrene was contained in two ‘penteconters’ (Hdt. iv, 153) and was not increased until after 56 years (ibid. iv, 159).
52 But not much more than half a kilometre away.
53 Cf. Dittenberger, Syll. 3 no. 141 (colony of the Issaeans in Corcyra Nigra, early fourth century B.C.). But the procedure was much more ancient: cf. Od. vi, 9 f., on the founding of the city of the Phaeacians.
54 Cf. Aristotle, , Pol. ii, 8. 1Google Scholar. (Bekker) (the scheme of Hippodamus of Miletus) and ibid. vii, 10. 9 (Aristotle's own scheme).
55 Ditt. Syll. 3 67. 
.
56 Thuc. vi, 3. 1.
57 Cf. Mon. Ant. vol. xxxii, p. 126.
58 Cf. coins of Selinus with ear of corn in the exergue (Head, Historia Numorum,2 p. 169). The meaning of this symbol is clear from its appearance on the coins of many other corn-producing states of Sicily and South Italy.
59 Byvanck, op. cit. p. 189 (in agreement with Pais and Pareti).
60 Dareste-Haussoulier-Reinach, , Inscriptions Juridiques Grecques, vol. i, fasc. i (1891), pp. 104 fGoogle Scholar.
61 Cf. Dareste-Haussoullier, I, ii (1892), pp. 267 f.
62 Dareste-Haussoullier, I, ii (1892), p. 193–234.
63 Cf. Kawerau-Rehm, Milet, Bd.III (Das Delphinion).
64 Antiochus of Syracuse, whose history of Sicily ended with the year 424 b.c. and is used as a source by Thucydides, is likely to have obtained his information about the foundation of Selinus before the destruction of that city by the Carthaginians in 409 b.c.