8 The Stoa of Attalus at Athens, a sheltered space for lectures, meetings, commerce, and other forms of public business (photo credit 1.8)
9 Beyond Athens, many cities built far grander public buildings, though seldom more delicate or satisfying to the eye. The drawings show the relative scale of the Athenian Parthenon (left) and the fourth-century B.C. temple of Artemis at Ephesus (right).
THE MALE IDEAL
10 Detail from a large amphora (jug) from the time of Homer, found in a cemetery at Athens. Though geometric patterns cover most of its surface, it contains an early—exceedingly geometric—attempt at depicting human anatomy. The scene is the funeral of a hero, women seated in mourning beneath the corpse, men standing in mourning, all tearing their hair. The drawing is so elementary that the sexes are distinguishable only by their positions. A child stands to the right of the bier, perhaps attempting to touch the deceased. (photo credit 1.10)
11 typical Egyptian figure of the archaic period. Such figures served as models for early Greek monumental statuary. (photo credit 1.11)
12 A typical Greek kouros from about 600 B.C. (photo credit 1.12)
13 The so-called Second Egyptian Canon, a grid system borrowed from the Egyptians and used by early Greek sculptors to plan the kouroi (photo credit 1.13)
14 The revolutionary “Kritian boy,” early fifth century B.C. (photo credit 1.14)
15 The “fair-haired boy,” the head of a once-complete statue of the early fifth century B.C. Like the “Kritian boy,” its lines are considerably softened in contrast to earlier kouroi. Its still-yellow hair is a reminder that Greek marble statuary was brightly painted. (photo credit 1.15)
16 The Doryphorus (spear carrier), a Roman marble copy of a bronze original made by Polyclitus about 440 B.C. Presented by the sculptor as a display of the ideal proportions for the human figure, the Doryphorus had enormous influence. The spear, once held in the left hand, is missing. The tree trunk and strut are additions made by the copyist; the hollow-cast bronze original would not have required these for balance. (photo credit 1.16)
17 A fifth-century B.C. bronze recovered from the sea off Calabria, this warrior may be magnificently proportioned, but he’s also a little scary—brazen is the right word for him. (photo credit 1.17)
18 A fifth-century B.C. bronze recovered from the sea off Calabria. The whites of his flashing eyes are of ivory, his teeth silver, his eyelashes, lips, and nipples copper, and his body was once the golden brown of a man tanned by the sun. (photo credit 1.18)
19 The Discobolus (discus thrower) by Myron, fifth century B.C., in a Roman copy (photo credit 1.19)
20 A nude very different from the Calabrian warrior, this bronze, recovered from the sea off Marathon, is of a chapleted boy engaged in light labor, probably pouring wine at a symposium. (photo credit 1.20)
21 Harmodius and Aristogiton by Kritios (probably also the sculptor of the “Kritian boy”) and Nesiotes. Harmodius and Aristogiton were lovers who had been publicly insulted by Hipparchus, younger brother of the tyrant Hippias, after Harmodius had spurned his advances. They assassinated Hipparchus at a public festival and attempted to overthrow the tyranny but failed and were killed. Athenians remembered them, however, as “the Tyrannicides” and erected the bronze originals of these Roman marble copies in their memory in the agora. (photo credit 1.21)
22 Zeus, hurling his (now-vanished) thunderbolt, in an early-fifth-century B.C. bronze recovered from the sea off the Euboean coast (photo credit 1.22)
THE FEMALE
23 A korē, female equivalent of the kouros, of the same period as Figure 12—but unlike the male, always dressed and therefore not an ideal (photo credit 1.23)
24 Europa (who was raped by Zeus in the form of a bull and gave birth to Minos, afterwards king of Crete), dressed as a Greek matron in typical public attire. Reconstructed from fragmented Roman marble copies of a Greek original of the late fifth century B.C. (photo credit 1.24)
25 A somewhat free copy from Pergamon of Athēnē Parthenos (Athena the Virgin), the colossal statue housed in the Parthenon at Athens. Sculpted by Phidias in the fifth century B.C., its flesh was of ivory, its dress of gold plates. Athena’s left hand held her golden armor; her right palm was held outward, and on it alighted a small winged woman, a depiction of the goddess Nikē (Victory). (photo credit 1.25)
26 A wounded Amazon, Roman copy of a fifth-century B.C. Greek original. Amazons, who battled Greek male heroes, were not normal women but kindred to monsters—so some license could be permitted in their depiction. They were supposed to have sliced off the right breast to free their right arm for battle—a detail the sculptor has not adopted because any kind of physical deformity disgusted the Greeks and provoked them to derision. Throughout Western history there have been reported sightings of Amazons by men anxious about their prowess, most notably by conquistadors along the great river of South America, now called the Amazon. (photo credit 1.26)
27 Leading up to the unveiling of Aphrodite by Praxiteles, there are some fairly meek attempts [like Figure 26] to portray female nudity, but all these have the peekaboo quality of the Virgin Mary’s breast—which in Romanesque art is allowed to be shown nursing the Christ Child. Here we have a scene that is probably intended to be the birth of Aphrodite from the foam of the sea, looking as if she had won a fifth-century B.C. wet T-shirt contest. The scene is flanked on the left by a modestly naked flute girl—but flute girls were all hetairai (female “companions” for the evening) and not usable as ideals. The relief was found at Rome but belongs to Greece, though its date is somewhat uncertain. (photo credit 1.27)
28 Fifth-century B.C. panel from the frieze on the little temple of Athēnē Nikē (Athena of Victory) on the Athenian Acropolis. An especially graceful example of drapery used to suggest nudity, without actually undressing, this Athena is tying up her sandal strap. (photo credit 1.28)
29 A touching grave memorial from fifth century B.C. Paros, reminding us that, though the theme is hard to find in literature after the Odyssey, familial love remained part and parcel of private life. The parents of this little girl loved her very much. (photo credit 1.29)
30 At last, Aphrodite by Praxiteles—or rather, a Roman copy of the lost marble original. The head (which comes from another copy of the same statue) should be turned a little more to the figure’s left. (photo credit 1.30)
31 Crouching Aphrodite, a third-century B.C. statue of surpassing charm (photo credit 1.31)
32 Aphrodite of Melos, otherwise known as the Venus de Milo, of the late second century B.C. and thought by many to be the finest of all surviving Greek female nudes. She may have held her drapery with her right hand while her left rested against a pillar, or she may have been contemplating her reflection in a shield. (photo credit 1.32)
PRIVATE ART
33 A late-sixth-century B.C. herm from Siphnos. The herms are stone pillars topped by the head of the god Hermes, and they commonly sport an erect phallus. They were set at boundaries—for Hermes is the god of boundaries—and were certainly public rather than private art. I have placed the illustration here to emphasize that the herms in no way belong to the tradition of idealization. Rather, they are a survival from the distant past, and their inspiration lies in an exceedingly ancient notion common to primitive cultures: that it is possible to ward off evil and evil-wishers by a magical sign that possesses independent power. A variant of this, still with us, is the gold squiggle that some southern Italians wear around their necks to ward off il malocchio (the evil eye). (photo credit 1.33)
34 Satyrs having an orgy in a vineyard on an Attic cup of about 500 B.C. Note their brutish faces. Though their actions are homosexual—except for the satyr at right, about to bugger a (female) sphinx—this does not imply that satyrs were consistently homosexual. Rather, they were sexually omnivorous and always ready for copulation. (photo credit 1.34)
35 Bacchae, also called maenads, possessed by the god Dionysus and thus inspired to ritual ecstasy, on an Athenian vase of about 48
0 B.C. Each wears a diaphanous chiton, the garment Greeks wore next to their skin, and though these maenads are sexually abandoned, they are the wives and daughters of citizens—and therefore had to be at least rudimentarily clothed. (photo credit 1.35)
36 A typical scene of inebriated symposiasts on their way from one house to another on an Attic cup of the early fifth century B.C. The nude man is the leader, but the nude woman is an “entertainer” of no social standing—otherwise she wouldn’t be nude. The man playing the pipes is also of the servant class: well-born Greeks avoided any physical distortion, and pipe playing, because it distorted the cheeks, could not be taken up by citizens. The lyre was their instrument. (photo credit 1.36)
37 An orgy during the later stages of a symposium on an Attic wine goblet of about 510 B.C. It is difficult to know whether the “lucky Pierre” figure—the one getting it and giving it—is male or female, since at this period the convention was to draw men and women similarly, women distinguished only by their breasts and lack of external genitals. This figure—who is being beaten with a sandal by the man entering from behind—is probably male because its hair is less coiffed than that of the only female clearly shown. The woman on the right is a hetaira, not only because she is shown naked but because she has allowed her face to become distorted—unthinkable for the citizen class. (photo credit 1.37)
38 An orgy in a vineyard, this time of humans rather than satyrs, on a cup from Vulci of about 530 B.C. (destroyed during the Allied bombing of Berlin in 1944). Unlike the other pottery pictured—red-figure pottery, showing human subjects with clay-red skin—this is black-figure pottery, in which the usual convention was to show men as black and women as white. (photo credit 1.38)
39 Youths courting boys on a cup from Vulci of about 500 B.C. On the reverse side, which is damaged, youths court girls—but with far more reticence and no touching. (photo credit 1.39)
40 Sex on an Attic cup of about 480 B.C. Rear entry, whether for anal or vaginal sex, was the preferred Greek position, interpersonal communion not being their thing. The letters descending vertically from the man’s mouth form the Greek for “Hold still!” (photo credit 1.40)
41 A bedroom scene on the back of a Corinthian mirror of the late fourth century B.C. Eros (Cupid to the Romans) flies above. (photo credit 1.41)
42 Actors performing a scene from an unidentified comedy on a southern Italian krater (bowl) of the early fourth century B.C. They wear comic masks, comic genitals, and stuffing on their backsides. (photo credit 1.42)
TOWARD REALISM
43 A late fifth- or early fourth-century B.C. bust of Pericles. The bust belongs to the era of idealization—but not many decades before portraiture turned realistic. (photo credit 1.43)
44 The satyr-like Socrates in a Roman marble copy of a late-fourth-century B.C. bronze by Lysippus—almost certainly an accurate likeness (photo credit 1.44)
45 Plato in a Roman marble copy of a late-fourth-century B.C. bronze by Silanion, probably molded from life (photo credit 1.45)
46 Despondent Demosthenes, who tried to warn Athenians against the threat of Macedon, in a Roman copy of a statue that was set up in the agora in the early third century as a silent symbol of Athenian opposition to Macedonian rule. His simple dress and considered manner are intended as a contrast to the swagger of the Macedonians. (photo credit 1.46)
47 The Stoic philosopher Chrysippus, reconstructed from fragments of a statue sculpted in the late third century B.C. Here is a teacher as he was in life, with no attempt at idealization. The Stoics were so called because their founder, Zeno of Citium, taught in the Stoa Poikile at Athens. (photo credit 1.47)
48 Alexander the Great, who probably did look this good, in a Roman copy (photo credit 1.48)
49 The Farnese Heracles (Hercules to the Romans), a Roman copy of a bronze by Lysippus. The weary hero holds behind his back the golden apples of immortality, secured in the last of his labors. Lysippus’s portrayal became the standard “look” for Hercules for the rest of antiquity. (photo credit 1.49)
50 The Apollo Belvedere, a Roman copy of a late-fourth-century B.C. bronze, was unearthed in the fifteenth century of our era. Long thought “the consummation of the best that nature, art, and the human mind can produce” (in the words of Johann Winkelmann, an early neoclassical critic), the statue has fallen somewhat from its former renown in an age that prefers less refinement. (photo credit 1.50)
51 An armed hoplite, cast in bronze at Dodona in Epirus about 500 B.C., typical of the way Greeks looked as they entered battle (photo credit 1.51)
52 A Celtic chieftain committing suicide after killing his wife, in a Roman copy of a Greek bronze original of the late third century B.C. The tide of battle having turned against the Celts, the chieftain and his wife choose death—for the ancient world, the final act of courage—rather than surrender. This was part of a larger group of figures, set up as a monument in Asian Pergamon, that included the famous statue of the Dying Gaul (see How the Irish Saved Civilization, Volume I in this series). (photo credit 1.52)
53 Laocoön and his sons, which John Boardman describes “with its anguished rhetorical suffering” as “one of the finest examples of the Hellenistic high baroque.” Made about 200 B.C., it was rediscovered at Rome in A.D. 1506. Michelangelo was the first artist to see it, and it had a powerful impact on him and on subsequent sculptors. More to our taste than the Apollo Belvedere [Figure 50]. (photo credit 1.53)
54 The pitiable satyr Marsyas, strung from a tree by his wrists and about to be flayed alive by Apollo for challenging the god to a music contest—an example of what happens to those who in their hubris dare to put themselves on the level of the gods (photo credit 1.54)
55 Apollo’s Scythian servant, sharpening his knife, which will be used to flay Marsyas. The Scythian’s expression, whether uncomprehending, cunning, or cruel, sets him among all those who “do their duty” without a thought of the moral consequences. Both statues are late copies of Hellenistic works. (photo credit 1.55)
56 A Hellenistic bronze original, called the “Terme boxer,” a sad, brutalized figure (photo credit 1.56)
57 A Hellenistic marble of an old market woman, on her way to celebrate a festival, probably of Dionysus (photo credit 1.57)
58 A boy removing a thorn from his foot, in a marble copy of a probable bronze original of the second century B.C. (photo credit 1.58)
59 A drunken satyr, asleep, known as the “Barbarini faun,” probably a copy of a Hellenistic work of about 200 B.C. (photo credit 1.59)
60, 61 In a Hellenistic grouping, a wide-awake satyr at the start of a revel lures a young bacchante (or maenad) to the dance. (photo credit 1.60) (photo credit 1.61)
62 Magical Dionysus, having turned pirates into dolphins, sails the wine-dark sea as his mast sprouts a vine—on the interior of a black-figure vase of the sixth century B.C. by the master potter Exekias. Not in any sense “realistic,” but evidence of how Dionysus was originally portrayed. (photo credit 1.62)
63 Hermes with the infant Dionysus, possibly an original fourth-century B.C. marble by Praxiteles but deriving from the kouros tradition of the standing youth—with the innovative detail of a raised left foot (photo credit 1.63)
64 A satyr with the child Dionysus, a marble copy of a late-fourth-century B.C. bronze, probably by Lysippus, that seems almost an answer to the smoother Praxitelean treatment [Figure 63]. The contrast between childhood and age is similar to representations of the old year and the new year, the dying age and the age that is arriving. (photo credit 1.64)
65 “Dionysus is coming, Dionysus is coming!” He sure is in this pebble mosaic floor from late-fourth-century B.C. Pella. (photo credit 1.65)
66 A Hellenistic satyr tackling a “nymph,” who is actually a hermaphrodite—as a walk around the statue will reveal (photo credit 1.66)
67 A phallic dancer in faience of about 200 B.C. (photo credit 1.67)
68 A masturbating hunchback in bronze of about 200 B.C. (photo credit 1.68)
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p; 69 The plaque carried into the universe by NASA’s Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 spacecrafts (photo credit 1.69)
THOMAS CAHILL
SAILING THE WINE-DARK SEA
Thomas Cahill is the author of the bestselling Hinges of History series, published to great acclaim throughout the English-speaking world and in translation in Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Born in New York City, Cahill graduated from Fordham University and earned an MFA in film and dramatic literature from Columbia University. A lifelong scholar, he has taught at Queens College, Fordham University, and Seton Hall University and studied scripture at Union Theological Seminary and Hebrew and the Hebrew Bible as a Visiting Scholar at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. He served as North American education correspondent for The Times of London and was for many years a regular contributor to the Los Angeles Times Book Review. For six years he was Director of Religious Publishing at Doubleday before retiring to write full-time. In addition to The Hinges of History, Cahill has published Pope John XXIII and Jesus’ Little Instruction Book, and with his wife, Susan Cahill, A Literary Guide to Ireland and Big City Stories by Modern American Writers. In 1999 Cahill was awarded an honorary doctorate from Alfred University. He and his wife divide their time between New York City and Rome.
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