The Classical World

by Robin Lane Fox

  19. Byzantine wall painting from the church of St Thomas at Kastoria in the north-west of Alexander's Macedon, showing the great king with King Porus of India, whose elephants he conquered but whose person he greatly honoured, King Cyrus, founder of the Persian Empire and King Nebuchad­nezzar of Babylon, each of them two centuries older than Alexander. Great Alexander and the kings of these three Eastern empires meet here for the Last Judgement. Late Byzantine, fourteenth century ad (Photo: J. L. Lightfoot)

  20.Grave stele of Thraseas and Euandria, husband and wife. She sits while he fondly clasps her hand and the head of a girl, surely a slave, looks on, pensively. A married Athenian scene, with a domestic onlooker, but we do not know which of the two had died. Athens, c. 350 bc (Antikensammlungen, Berlin)

  21. Modern drawing to reconstruct a major Macedonian hunting scene, known in a mosaic copy, perhaps c. 150 bc, which survives in the Piazza Vittoria, Palermo. The original painting showed a hunt in Asia, confirmed by the vegetation on the right side: perhaps it is a famous hunt in Syria, in 332/1 bc. The mounted huntsman, rescuing the fallen warrior from a lion, replicates the pose of the figure to be identified as Alexander in figure 20.1. The fallen warrior was, arguably, identified with Lysimachus, one of Alex­ander's Bodyguards and an eventual Successor in western Asia. To the right, a participant in Oriental dress runs away from a hunted boar: he chickens out symptomatically, so unlike the brave Macedonian 'lion kings'. The original is similar to parts of the Vergina hunt painting and probably comes from the same circle, or artist, at an uncertain date, but surely in Alexander's own lifetime, close to the memorable lion-hunting of 332/1 bc (Reconstruction, drawing and photo by William Wootton)

  22.Ptolemy I, silver tetradrachm, c. 310-305 bc. Head of Alexander (Heberden Coin Room, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford)

  23. Indo-Greek silver tetradrachm, c. 170-145 bc. Bust of Eucratides (Heberden Coin Room, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford)

  24. Indo-Greek silver tetradrachm, 160-145 bc. Bust of Menander

  (Heberden Coin Room, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford)

  25.Silver tetradrachm from Sardis, c. 213-190 bc. Head of Antiochus III (Heberden Coin Room, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford)

  26.Cast of a Roman bronze portrait bust of Seleucus I, commander of Alexander's Royal Shield-bearers, then a Successor King in Asia (he wears the royal diadem here) and founder of the Seleucid dynasty to which Antiochus III in figure 11.4 belonged. From the Villa of the Papyri, Herculaneum, Roman copy c. 50 bc of a lost marble original. Cast from Copenhagen Glyptotek (Photo: Professor Marianne Bergmann)

  27.Big Corinthian column-capitals excavated at Ai Khanum, the Greek city on the Oxus and Kokcha rivers in northern Afghanistan, probably an Alexandria, subsequently enlarged. Reused as the main city-site was pillaged and ruined during the wars of the 1980s and 1990s: they now support the roof of a nearby modern tea-house (Photo: Delegation Archelogique Franchise en Afghanistan: R. Besenval)

  28.Cast of a Roman copy of a contemporary marble portrait of Demetrius the Besieger, the most handsome and most flamboyant of Alexander's Suc­cessors. Born in 336 bc, year of Alexander's accession, he was son of Anti-gonus the one-eyed and is sculpted here with small bull's horns in his hair, attributes of the god Dionysus with whom he liked to be compared. He also wears a narrow diadem, symbol of royalty for Alexander's Successors since 306/5 bc. Cast, from Copenhagen Glyptotek. (Photo: Professor Marianne Bergmann).

  29.South facade of the court of Tomb I in Moustapha Pasha necropolis, Alexandria, Egypt, with a reconstructed altar in front and traces of fine painting, including Macedonian cavalrymen pouring libations with one hand and ladies standing between. Probably c. 280-260 bc, Alexandria (Photo: Professor Marianne Bergmann)

  30.The most remote Ionic Greek column-capital yet known: locally carved for the big temple-portico of the largely Asiatic-style temple to the river Oxus at Takht-i-Sangin where the Oxus and Waksh rivers meet. The capital recalls details of late fourth-third century bc Ionic capitals back in Ionia, but the site is on the Oxus's northern bank, in Tadjikistan. After Alexander, perhaps c. 300-280 bc under Seleucus (Photo: Delegation Archeologique Franchise en Afghanistan: R. Besenval)

  31. Foot of a colossal Greek acrolith statue, surely of a god, c. 250-150 bc, from the Greek city at Ai Khanum, Afghanistan (Delegation Archeologique Francaise en Afghanistan, courtesy of Prof. Paul Bernard)

  32.Imperial Roman copy of a marble portrait head of Pompey, combining the realism of small eyes and expression with a hairstyle recalling the great

  Alexander with whom Pompey was at times, optimistically, compared (Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen)

  33. Portrait head of Julius Caesar, probably posthumous: c. 40-30 bc (Vati­can Museum, Rome)

  34.Marble portrait generally assumed to represent Cicero. 30s bc (Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence)

  35.The Portland Vase, brilliantly crafted blue and white cameo-glass. The uncaptioned figures have attracted many interpretations, of which the mytho­logical ones are most likely. In our left-hand picture, the seated lady, holding a sea-monster, may be Thetis, goddess of the sea, watched pensively by the sea-god Poseidon, shown in a famous pose based on his statue by Lysippus, Alexander's favoured sculptor. She draws fondly to her the nearly naked Peleus whom she will marry. A 'Cupid' with a flaming torch leads him on. The tree above may be a myrtle, although it has been compared with a budding peach, erotically more apt. Our right-hand picture is more disputed. I suggest a (slightly) regretful Aeneas, looking to the distressed Dido whom he has 'reluctantly' abandoned. She sits on a heap of marble plaques, possibly symbolizing a 'broken home', and her torch of 'love' is lowered. She will kill herself on a bonfire, perhaps implied here. To the far right, Venus, Aeneas' mother, looks on with a sceptre. The tree is probably a fig tree, symbolizing barrenness. On the one side, then, the vase shows love leading to marriage, and to the future child Achilles. On the other side, love is abandoned and instead Aeneas will found a new home in Italy. As the supposed ancestors of Julius Caesar, Venus (and Aeneas) were Octavian's ancestors. So, there may be a hint of Octavian-Augustus in the choice of themes. There is now a theory that on the left, the figures are Mark Antony, a seated Cleopatra, and Anton (a Heracles-figure and a supposed ancestor of Antony). On the right, Octavian is suggested as looking at his poor sister Octavia, Antony's abandoned wife, while Venus and her sceptre assure him all will be well. The problems here are that Cleopatra is not naturally associated with a sea-monster (although she came by ship to meet Antony) nor with Poseidon, certainly the figure to her right. A half-naked pose for Octavia would also be surprising. The figures are surely mythological, not historical. Any reference to Octavian-Augustus is partial, and indirect, although the vase was made between c. 35 and 10 bc (British Museum, London)

  36.Amphitheatre mosaic from a house floor at Smirat in Tunisia (north of ancient Thysdrus): it is antiquity's supreme combination of text and image. A company of professional animal-hunters called the 'Telegonii' are shown fighting under the patronage of Dionysus, with Diana, goddess of the hunt, also in the mosaic. Each is captioned with their tough professional name ('the

  Mamertine') and each has just killed one of four leopards, individually named too ('the Roman' and 'Luxurious'): these two of the leopards are garlanded with ivy, Dionysus' plant. The inscription is a classic, recording how the herald in the arena called on 'my Lords', the local big-wigs, to pay 500 denarii to each hunter as the reward for each dead leopard. The crowd then started a chanted acclamation, to encourage a possible donor. 'By your example, may future donors learn how to give a show! Let past donors hear! From where has such a show ever come? When has there been one like this? (Quando tale). You will be giving a show like the quaestors at Rome .. . The day will be yours. . .' Then, the great moment occurred . . . 'Magerius is donating! This is what it means to have money! This is what it is to be powerful! This is it - here and now! Night is here! By your gift, they've taken their leave with bags of money.' The mosaic shows four moneybags but specifies each one wa
s of 1000 denarii: Magerius doubled the huntsmen's reward. Above all, Magerius had the scene, the very words of the herald and the crowd, the moneybags, the names (of the leopards, the hunters and his own) laid out in mosaic, naturally in his own house for future visitors' instruction. It is the pearl of all hunt-mosaics, though later than Hadrian, perhaps c. ad 260-80: Magerius' like, however, existed earlier, and still does (Sousse Museum, Tunisia)

  37.Modern colour reconstruction of the so-called 'Peplos Kore', or 'Maiden in a Robe', one of several such statues dedicated in Athenian dress for upper-class Athenian women, perhaps often to commemorate their role as a 'priestess' in an important cult. She may have held a pomegranate, symbol of fertility in other contexts, in her outstretched hand. Most Greek marble statues were brightly painted in this way, refuting their 'austere' or 'mar­moreal' reputation. Original c. 530 bc, from Athens (Photo and reconstruc­tion: Museum of Classical Archaeology, Cambridge)

  38.Colour reconstruction of the grave-stele of Aristion, by Aristocles. Aris-tion's name is inscribed on its own, with no father's name: perhaps he was a recent arrival in Attica, possibly the famous sculptor Aristion from Paros. Original c. 510 bc, found at Marathon in Attica. (Photo: V. Brinkmann, Staatliche Antikensammlungen und Glyptothek, Munich)

  39.The 'Lady in Blue', a terracorta Tanagra figurine found with four others in a tomb just north of Tanagra in central Greece in the early 1870s when thousands of local tombs, some with these figurines, were excavated. The 'Tanagras' seemed to give an intimate glimpse of ancient Greek life and were a sensation, especially in France of the 1870s for whose public many copies, and clever fakes, were mass-produced. The Tanagran ladies were hailed as the 'Parisiennes' of their day, apparently exemplifying the grace and innate elegance of true Parisian ladies. The figurines' original purpose is uncertain, some now considering them to be 'dolls'. Their style, at times echoing marble sculpture, probably began in Athens, being imitated in Thebes (Before 335 bc, when Alexander destroyed it) and then in nearby Tanagra. 'Tanagras' were widely exported, early to Macedon and then out eastwards as far as eastern Iran for Alexander's settlers in Asia who wanted such figurines from home. French critics named several, this one being 'La Dame en Bleu'. She preserves her blue and pink paint and some of the gold leaf, rare and precious, for her robe and the edge of her fan. Her robe, covered head and fan suggest that (like some Parisiennes) she is a courtesan. Tanagra, Greece, c. 330-300 bc (Musee du Louvre, Paris)

  40.Silver plate, 25 cms in diameter, with gilded figures, found carefully buried in a city-temple on the site at Ai Khanum, Afghanistan. A goddess is driven by a winged Victory in a chariot pulled by lions, attended by a priest behind, with parasol, and driven to a high stepped altar where a second priest waits, making an offering. A youthful Sun, the moon and a star are in the sky. The goddess wears a turreted headdress and is currently, but uncertainly, identified as the Greek Cybele coming down from her mountains, shown behind. However she may be Syrian, or local. The chariot is of near Eastern style, as are the altar and the priest's pointed hat, but the Victory and the youthful Sun are certainly Greek. A similar plate has now been found just to the west, at Takht-i-Sangin (see 30), implying a local craftsman, not an import from Seleucid Syria. This fine plate survived the wars of the 1980s and 1990s and is still in Afghanistan (Photo: Delegation Archelogique Francaise en Afghanistan, courtesy of Professor Paul Bernard)

  41. Aerial view of the Greek city-site on the Oxus, in modern Afghanistan, at Ai Khanum. The site in the plain contained Greek inscriptions, fragments of Greek sculpture (including a big horse statue, with a wild animal-skin shown as its horse-blanket: ridden by a king, no doubt), a big Greek gym­nasium, a palace, and a theatre set in the hillside. It was then plundered and devastated during the wars of the 1980s and 1990s. But the 'acropolis' was never excavated, nor a mound less than a mile up river: the site may thus be a foundation of Alexander in 329-7 bc, subsequently enlarged and flourish­ing until c. 130 bc (D. A. F. A., courtesy of Professor Paul Bernard)

  42.Wall painting from the big cist 'Tomb of Persephone' at Vergina (Aigai), the Macedonian royal centre, a few yards south-east of King Philip's tomb. The god Pluto ascends to his chariot, with his left foot still free, carrying a distraught Persephone off to the underworld. Beyond her, a female, perhaps her friend Kyane, is shown distressed. Beneath the chariot are flowers, like those Persephone was gathering in the meadow. The couple are also shown painted on the back of the marble throne in the tomb ascribed to King Philip's mother Eurydice, also at Vergina (c. 340 bc). The artist sketched freely, with visible revisions, before painting this four-colour masterpiece: he may be the famous Nicomachus. Dated c. 340 bc (Vergina (Aigai): Photo: courtesy of Professor C. Paliadeli)

  43.Detail from the facade painting on the Tomb of Philip at Vergina (Aigai), showing the face of the man identified as Alexander c. 336/5 bc (Photo: Professor C. Paliadeli)

  44.Detail from the tomb facade painting on the Tomb of Philip at Vergina showing King Philip II on horseback, c. 336/5 bc (Photo: Professor C. Paliadeli)

  45.Modern reconstruction by G. Miltsakakis of the original hunt painting, found on the fa£ade of King Philip IPs tomb at Vergina (Aigai). The scene is an expressive masrerpiece, perhaps not true to one single day's hunting. The figure of the prancing horse, directly over the door, is surely Alexander, centrally placed as the new king who paid for the scene. The dogs have been remarked for their exceptional jaws and fierce breeding. On the right, the older Philip (conforming to his coin portraits) attacks a lion, still at large in Macedon (a previous king had shown a lion pierced by a broken spear on his coinage). We are in Macedon, not Asia, and Philip hunts with younger lads, the Royal Pages whom he instituted. Alexander has brought down a boar, behind him, and now gallops to the lion: for the pose, compare our 21. The implausible notion that the Tomb contained the later Philip III, Alexander's half-witted half-brother (died 317 bc), is refuted by, among much else, the extreme implausibility of a painting on his tomb with Alexander himself at the centre and his absence (as a half-wit) from any such scene of hunting in person. Dated, therefore, 336/5 bc, the year of Philip IPs murder, by a Greek master, possibly Aristides, whose use of a bare tree, the prancing horse and (possibly) these faces was paralleled in other near-contemporary paintings for Macedonians (Photo: Professor C. Paliadeli)

  46.Three sections of the painted frieze above the doorway of a Macedonian tomb, discovered in 1994, at Agios Athanasios (probably ancient Chalastra) about twelve miles west of Thessalonica in Macedonia. Our middle register shows the frieze's centre, six men reclining at a symposion on bright cushions, listening to one woman (surprisingly, clothed) who plays the double aulos, like our oboe, while another, to the right, sits and plays a stringed kithara. A three-legged table is set with after-dinner dessert and the second male diner holds a drinking-horn, or rhyton, which ends in an 'oriental' griffin. Our upper register is the left of the frieze, showing three garlanded revellers on horseback, with others on foot carrying torches and a silver vessel for a drinking-party, similar to known examples, including one found in King Philip's tomb at Aigai. Our lower register shows eight Macedonian warriors, in military dress with shields typical of the Macedonian infantry. On either side of the door (not shown) a tall young Macedonian leans against a sarissa-spear, mourning the dead man inside. Despite the presence of a coin of Phillip II the tomb is currently dated to c. 320 bc. This splendid painting appeared in time for the size of its shields and its plumed helmets to be a starting point for the designers of Oliver Stone's epic Alexander film (2004), in which the comfortable lace-up cavalry boots, hand-made in Italy, resembled these Macedonians' own. So did the revels during filming. (Greek Archaeological Service; M. Tsimbidou-Avloniti, excavator)

  47.Painting of drunken Silenus, Dionysus' companion on his revels, set on a marble funeral-bed in a Macedonian Tomb, excavated at Potidaea in south­east Macedonia. He holds a drinking-horn, or rhyton, ending in an 'oriental' griffin, like the Macedonian diners in our figure 21.
Late fourth century bc (Excavator: Dr. Costas Sismanidis: photo courtesy of Professor D. Pan-dermalis)

  48.Wall painting of Terentius Neo, holding a book-scroll, and his wife, holding a stylus-pen and a folded writing-tablet. Pompeii, House vii.2.6, c. 60 ad. Ter­entius Neo's common features remind us that literacy was not the art, or preten­sion, only of an upper class at Pompeii (Photo: AKG Images, London)

  49.Wall painting from the portico on the far side of the peristyle garden of the House of Marine Venus in a Shell, at Pompeii. Venus is drawn by a cherub on a dolphin and pushed by another cherub across the sea: the scene seems to have been painted by different hands, of which the artist for her head is best. Venus was a patron-goddess of Pompeii and here, her hairstyle follows a fashion in Nero's reign at Rome. The trompe I'oeil style makes her and the sea seem to float beyond the adjoining wall paintings of enclosed gardens, at least when viewed from the peristyle's entrance way. ad 60s (Photo: J. L. Lightfoot)

  50.Female-male sex scene from House of the Centenary, Room 43. Sited above the recessed bed in the small 'slave-quarters' room of the supervisor of the household: not, then, in a main room in this house, which was eventually owned by an aedile of the town. c. ad 49-70, Pompeii (Photo, Giovanni Battista)

  51. Male-Female sex scene, uncertain location, wall painting, ad 40-70, Pompeii (Museo Archeologico, Naples; photo, Giovanni Battista)