CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND GIVEN IN 1891 BY HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE Cornell University Library NB155 .H98 + Greek terracotta statuettes. 3 1924 031 048 824 olin Overs The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924031048824 GREEK TERRACOTTA STATUETTES A LADY 01> CORINTH. Brit. Mus. C. 7. -APrl'TH GREEK TERRACOTTA STATUETTES BY C. A. HUTTON WITH A PREFACE BY A. S. MURRAY, LL.D. KEEPER OF GREEK AND ROMAN ANTIOUJTIES IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM NEW YORK THE MACMILLAN COMPANY is 99 ; ' Why should little things be blamed? Little things for grace are famed. Love, the winged and the wild, Love was once a little child." Trans, by J. P. Rogers Mt] v€{ittTa (3aio7(Ti ' x°-P iS &<uOL<rtv hirrfiet' fiaths Ka\ Yla<pirns (-VAe-TO Kovpos ^Epcos" Anthol. Pal. ix. 784 PREFACE It may be said of a certain number of Greek terracottas that they do not need much explanation. If a statuette is charming in its expres- sion, its pose, and its costume, that was about all it was meant to be. Or if we meet with a figure taken from common life, such as an old nurse with a child on her lap, and are amused by it, that again was about all it was meant to be. Only, what we admire through an acquired taste, the old Greeks for whom these things were made admired in- stinctively. The terracottas of that class reflected the daily life of the Greeks, refined upon just enough to gratify the average household tastes of the time. They do not call for much mythology, and in an artistic sense they are not very ambitious — far less so than the bronzes, for instance, or the painted vases. On the other hand, no one can thoroughly understand that simplest class of statuettes without a know- ledge of the people for whom they were made, and of how it came about that the artistic tastes of the Greeks assumed different aspects in different centuries. That is one instance where the classical learning and artistic discrimina- tion of Miss Hutton come in usefully. Still more necessary is her aid if one desires to go further into the subject. For instance, it may not be difficult to distinguish a Tanagra statuette from among the others without knowing precisely why, but to be assured and confident in the matter means a careful study of the interesting problem of local fabrics in Greece and her colonies. It will then be seen, to take one illustration, that the terracottas of Sicily compared with those of Tanagra are like a different dialect of the Greek tongue. Or again, it may not require much artistic perception to distinguish at first sight an archaic terracotta of the sixth century b.c. from a later one of the third century b.c. But if this first impression is to be deepened it can only be by a careful Vlll PREFACE analysis of artistic details, such as are characteristic of each ot these periods, supplemented by knowledge of artistic development in Greece during that most momentous interval of three centuries. In the archaic period there is obviously greater refinement of execution and greater variety of subject. There are comparatively few statuettes of fashionable young women (corae), the abundance of which in the later periods justified the name of coroplasta;, applied to the makers of statuettes. That is a change both in style and in subject which can only be discussed and in some degree explained after laborious research such as Miss Hutton's in a region of archaeology which hitherto has tempted hardly any scholar. Apparently it was not till a late period that the coras began to take the form of mourners, and to be associated with funeral ceremonies like the " Pleureuses," as they are called, who surround the sarcophagus from Sidon now in Constantinople. The terracottas in question are perhaps rather more demonstrative, but there is a further analogy between them and the " Pleureuses " in the fact of their being often placed in groups on large terracotta vases, which vases were intended for the furniture of a tomb almost as explicitly as is a sarcophagus. We know that a large proportion of the terracottas, whether archaic or late, have been found in tombs, and we know that the same is true of the Greek painted vases. But just as there was one class of vases — the white lekythi — which had been made expressly for funeral purposes, so also there was at least one class of terracottas — the mourning cora; — similarly destined to the tomb from the first. But these terracottas and vases, however melancholy in action or in subject, and however well adapted to occasions of death, had no monopoly in the furnishing of a tomb. Miss Hutton's pages show that abundantly, and at the same time give many curious instances of other purposes for which terracottas were produced. One of the first things a student wants to know is how the terracottas were made, and that is a point on which Miss Hutton has taken special pains to be minute and exact in her information, describing at some leno-th the process of making the mould and taking an impression from it in soft clay, on which the artist could, if he chose, bestow any amount of finish. With a few moulds and some dexterous touches on the soft clav it is astonishing what a variety of figures could be produced. Then came the PREFACE ix colouring, combined occasionally with gilding. I suppose the blues and pinks of the Tanagra statuettes represent the favourite colours of dress in Bceotia for display out of doors. In Athens we read of purples, saffrons, and whites in a Greek inscription which gives a list of dresses that had been presented to the goddess Artemis in her temple on the Acropolis. On the vases we often have pictures of young women being elaborately decked out, and in archaic times the women of Samos were reproached for the extravagance of their ornaments and dress when they turned out to ceremonies at the Temple of Hera. No wonder dress is an important feature in the terracottas. Speaking generally of the statuettes one would say, young women are in a great majority, boys and girls fairly numerous, young men scarce. Clearly it was the young woman who ruled the taste of the household. But the coroplast may also have been guided to some extent by the very practical consideration that a young woman with her dress reaching to the ground presented a broad base and secured stability for the statuette, whereas the figure of a young man, bare from the knees downwards, was easily broken across at the ankles. Boy-figures are often made to sit on rocks, apparently for no other purpose than to have a broad base and not be easily over- turned. But with young men this is not at all common, and the reason may be found in the difference of up-bringing between them and young women which Miss Hutton has described. There is no doubt that many of the statuettes belong to the same age, and reflect the same spirit, as the epigrams of the Greek anthology. I think Miss Hutton has done wisely in drawing liberally from that sparkling source. A. S. Murray. CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE LIST OF ILLUSTRATION'S ....... \iii I. THE USE AND MEANING OF THE STATUETTES .... I II. METHODS OF MANUFACTURE . . . . . 14 III. ARCHAIC STATUETTES . . . . . . . 2 1 IV. DEVELOPMENT OF LHE GENRE STATUETTE . . . .32 V. GENRE STATUETTES OF FEMININE TYPE ... 44 VI. GENRE STATUETTES OF MASCULINE TYPE . . . . 'S3 VII. STATUETTES ILLUSTRATIVE OF MYTH AND LEGEND ... 65 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS N.B. — All figures arc in the British Museum unless otherwise so stated. The numbers following the provenance are those at present affixed to the figures in that collection, hut a new catalogue is now being compiled, and this will eventually necessitate the re-numbering of the figures. Hie reputed provenance is assigned in all cases. The coloured illustrations show the present condition of the statuettes ; the notes describe their original colouring. /■(The dimensions are given in centimetres. 6 inches=rc/n. 15 centimetres.) ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR. Plate I. Standing female figure on a round plinth. Height O.30. Blue shawl ... ... ... ... Corinth. C. 7. „ II. Standing goddess. Height 0.21. Fig. broken below the knees. Hair and border of robe black ; head-dress and robe red ; lower necklace and bulla yellow. Thickness, 0.2. Solid. Cypriote Phenician workmanship. Found on the ' Plateau Sacre ' at Cameiros. A. 22. „ II. Standing Aphrodite with a leveret. Height 0.24. Fine clay, no vent. Reverse moulded. Tunic and mantle red ; sleeve green. Used as a vase, mouth broken off. ... Cameiros. B 105 „ III. Seated Artemis. Height 0.20. Yellow pattern on stephane and on back of throne ; throne blue ; footstool, hair, diplois and fawn red. Square vent. Right arm added. From the Piot collection. Uncertain. B. 358 „ III. Eos carrying off Kephalos. Height 0.15. Relief a jour; wings, lining to cloak and figure of Kephalos red ; tunic yellow ; hair black plinth blue ... ... ... Cameiros. B. 219 IV. Man on a mule. Height 0.12. Figure moulded. Mule modelled by hand. Blue coat ; red hat ... ... Tanagra. B. 270 IV. Boy on a swan. Height 0.12. Swan white, with red beak; boy': tunic blue ; legs and cap red ... ... Tanagra \ B. 271 IV. Athenian Boy. Height 0-12. White mantle; crown and hair red Sandalled shoes. No vent ... ... Tanagra i C. 334 IV. Boy with a bag of knuckle-bones in his hand. Height 0.16. Flesh rose-pink, enamelled ; hair red. Vent oblong Tanagra. C. 324. xiv LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Plate IV. Satyr mask ; height 0.5. Beard and hair blue ; face red. From the outside of a tomb ... ... Capua. B. 479. V. Eros, muffled in a cloak, bearing ostrich feather fan. Height O.I I. Found in a tomb at iEgina with others of similar style, and an archaic figure ; fan, blue, pink, and yellow ... JEgina. C. 40. „ V. Eros bearing a musical instrument. Height 0.9. Phrygian costume, blue. Figure modelled behind with small hole for suspension. The tunic is not indicated behind ... ... Tanagra. C. 192. „ VI. The cup-bearer. Nude standing youth. Height 0.17. Modelled back and front. No vent. Flesh red ; eyeballs white ; pupil black. Athens. C. 14. „ VI. Pan the hunter. Height 0.16. Black legs ; red flesh tints and hair. Long vent. Plinth hollow ... Eretria. C. 282. „ VII. A dancing-girl. Height 0.30. Flesh pink ; cap and tunic black ; hair red. Modelled behind ... ... Tanagra ? C. 286. „ VIII. An attendant spirit. Semi-nude maiden seated on a rock. Height 0.17. Shawl pink ; hair red ; sphendone white ; mask red. Tanagra. C. 316. „ VIII. Eros. Height 0.15. Arms broken. Flesh enamelled pink. No other trace of colour ... Centorbi, Sicily. D. 26. ILLUSTRATIONS IN MONOCHROME. Fig. 1. Toy goat. Height O.io. Horns red; red and black lines on body to mark the wrinkles in the fleece ... ... Tanagra. B. 279. „ 2. Jointed doll with crotala in her hands. Height 0.18. Covered with fine flesh-coloured glaze. Hair brown ; ditto eyes and eyebrows ; lips re ° ••• ••• •■• ... Cameiros. B. 236. „ 3. Woman kneading bread. Height 0.12. Face and head moulded, the rest modelled. No colour ... ... Cameiros. B. 221. „ 4. Nike holding an alabastron. Height 0.26. Wings and drapery pink. Canosa. D. 81. „ 5. Nike. Height 0.25 ... ... ... j h](L D g 2 „ 6. Mould and cast of upper part of Caryatid figure. Height 0.10. Tarentum. E. 14. „ 7. Eros burning a butterfly. Height 0.21. Signature, APTEMilNI on base . . . i\/r f-y Iv-Lyrina. C. 535. „ 8. Eros burning a butterfly. Height 0.21. Finely retouched and coloured. Chlamys pink ; hair brown ; altar green // • / p , „ 9. Seated veiled goddess. Archaic. Height 0.13 Cameiros. B tf LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xv Fig. io. Seated goddess. Later type. Height 0.16. No trace of colour. Cameirm. B. 83. „ II. Nude crouching male figure. Height 0.14. Back modelled. No vent. Traces of red on feet. Vase mouth green Cameiros. B. 89. „ 12. Oscillum. Height 0.16. Necklace red ... Cameiros. B. 176. „ 13. Seated Aphrodite. Height 0.30. No colour. Base open." Larnaca. C. 80. „ 14. Athena. Height 0.20. No colour. Small circular vent. S a /amis. C. 1 25. „ 15. Mask of Pan. Height 0.12. Surface bright pink, except beard (brown). Two holes for suspension. Central Museum, Athens. Discovered in American excavations in Eretria ... Eretria. „ 16. An Athenian nymph. Height 0.16. No colour. Fine light clay. In the collection of C. H. Smith, Esq. ... ... Athens. „ 17. Greek lady in outdoor dress. Height 0.31. Anthemion pattern in red on the fan. No colour ... ... Eretria. C. 215. „ 18. Aphrodite with a vase of perfume. Height 0.19. Roughly modelled at back ... ... ... Canosa. D. 88. „ 19. Artemis. Height 0.23. Flesh pink ; blue tunic with gold border. Roughly modelled behind. No vent ... Myrina. C. 530. „ 20. Lady in outdoor dress. Height 0.26. Tunic pink. Square vent in back, round in base ... ... Tanagra. C. 263. „ 2r. Girl with bird. Height 0. 16. Hair red. Square vent. Tanagra. C. 246. „ 22. Corinna. Seated figure with an apple in her hand. Height 0.25. Rock blue ; mantle rose-pink ; flesh pink ; hair red ; fillet gilt. Athens ? C. 336. „ 23. Little girl. Height 0.10. No colour ... Tanagra. C. 321. „ 24. Nurse and child. Height 0.11. Hair of child red. No vent. Tanagra. C. 279. „ 25. Mother and child. Height 0.13. No colour. Tanagra. C. 278. „ 26. Writing lesson. Height 0.11. Boy nude. Fillet in curly red hair. Teacher semi-nude. Red cloak ; hair and beard red ; desk yellow. Square vent ... ... ... Eretria. C. 214. „ 27. Two women talking. Length 0*26. Height 0.18. Blue couch with red cushions. Younger woman red mantle Myrina. C. 529. „ 28. Standing athlete with oil flask and strigil. Height 0.18. Flesh pink; pillar blue ; hair red ... ... Tanagra. C. 323. „ 29. A banqueter. Semi-nude ephebe with a cock. Height 0.31. Flesh, hair, cock, red ; cloak pink. Eretria. In a private collection in England. xvi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Fig. 30. Bearded warrior. Height 0.24. No colour. Slightly modelled behind. Oblong vent ... ... ... Thebes. Ibid. „ 31. A Greek lady in gala dress. Height 0.24. Tunic blue and pink ; shawl blue with gilt border; wreath gilt ... Tanagra. C. 254. „ 32. Nereid bearing a helmet. Height 0.15. Hair yellow ; eye and snout of dolphin red. No vent. Plinth hollow Eretria r C. 335. „ 33. Small gold box with figure of a Nereid. Width 0.3. Found in a tomb at Cameiros in Rhodes in 1862 with a vase (E. 424) now in the British Museum. The other end of the box shows Eros twirling a metal disc on a twisted string. The box with another like it and a gem, were found in an alabaster box ... ... Cameiros. „ 34. Marsyas playing the double flute. Height 0.10. Modelled back and front. No vent. Figure and cloak red ; plinth green. Burgon Coll. ... ... ... Melos. C. 73. „ 35. Satyr with the infant Dionysos. Height 0.16. Whole body painted pink ; drapery blue ; grapes black. Back roughly modelled. Small round vent. Very heavy ... ... Uncertain. C. 10. „ 36. Seilenos as a Pedagogue with Dionysos. Height 0.20. Cloak blue. No vent. Plinth hollow. ... ... Eretria r C. 281. GREEK TERRACOTTA STATUETTES CHAPTER I THE USE AND MEANING OF THE STATUETTES " This little toy was mighty Brutus' pet, Great its renown, though small the statuette." " Gloria tarn parvi non est obscura sigilli Istius pueri Brutus amator erat." — Martial, Epig. xiv. 171. Greek terracotta statuettes have a double charm, archaeological and aesthetic, the one appealing to a rather restricted class of students, the other to a much wider public. To the archaeologist a statuette is interesting in proportion to the evidence it affords of successive phases of thought and custom and the light it throws on obscure points in the evolution of religion and art ; from this point of view archaic figures of the sixth century, some of which are frankly ugly, are much more attractive than the charming genre figure of the fourth or third century, whose in- terest lies mainly in its prettiness. So far, except in France, Greek statuettes have been chiefly treated from the archaeological stand- point, but the present publication is addressed to that wider public which, though not repelled by their archaeological interest, is mainly attracted by their aesthetic charm, and curious as to the circumstances under which they had their being, and the civilization which they represent. It therefore deals more particularly with those figures which are beautiful, roughly speaking those of later date than the middle of the fifth century B.C. and which represent genre subjects or hieratic and mythological ones, modified by the influence of the genre types. It is, however, impossible to entirely ignore the archaic statuettes of 2 GREEK TERRACOTTA STATUETTES the seventh, sixth and fifth centuries, for the genre figures are their lineal descendants, and by so doing we should lose the key to the most interesting and certainly the most important problems which arise in connection with these figures, the uses to which the Greeks put them and the meaning they attached to them. The difficulty of the problem is much increased by the absence of definite contemporary statements ; not a few classical writers allude incidentally to the figures, and valuable information can be gleaned from these scattered hints, but in the main we must rely on the results of excavation, which in the case of terracotta figures are often in- accessible, partly because in former days they were generally over- looked owing to their relative insignificance, and partly because the results of early excavations are often unmethodically recorded. By far the greater number of Greek statuettes, and almost all the best specimens, have been taken out of tombs, but many are found on the sites of temples and houses, and it is with respect to the last- named finds that we especially feel the want of accurate records, because the only Greek town preserved to us is Pompeii, and its excavation dates from so far back that most of the documentary evidence has disappeared. The material at our disposal is, however, considerable, and by its help we may hope to explain the allusions of classical writers. The evidence provided by the excavation of temple precincts is extremely important as it fully bears out the statements of Greek authors as to the practice of dedicating terracotta figures in temples and shrines. The best known passage is in the PJutdrus of Plato. 1 — " By Hera," quoth Socrates, « a fair resting-place, full of summer sounds and scents. Here is the lofty and spreading plane tree, and the stream that flows beneath it is deliciously cool to the feet. Judging from the ornaments and the images, this must be a spot sacred to Achelous or the nymphs." It may be confidently stated that every temple or shrine, so far excavated, has yielded numbers of these objects, and the finds are > P/W. 2 20, B. A vase in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris shows a fountain decorated with terracotta figures. THE USE AND MEANING OF THE STATUETTES 3 usually of a very peculiar character, an accumulation of broken figures of varying type and style, always accompanied by pieces of pottery, small bronzes, etc. It is well known that the temple guardians periodically emptied the shrines under their charge of the votive offerings which had accumulated there ; l some of the metal objects were melted down and made into basins and lavers for the temple service, but nothing could be done with the terracotta figures or vases, so they were thrown away, but to prevent the desecration of objects which had belonged to a divinity, they were first broken. In all such collections there are broadly speaking two classes of figures — those which have some obvious connection with temple worship, and those which have not. Under the first heading we may class representations of the local divinity or of other divinities, of persons and things employed in temple worship, and votive offerings proper, such as models of animals, limbs, etc. ; under the second come grotesque figures, genre figures and miscellaneous objects. The relative proportions of these two groups vary considerably, and if we take the finds at two Greek temple sites — the shrine of Demeter and Kore at Tegea in the Peloponnesos, and the temple of Athene Kraneia at Elatsea in Northern Greece — we obtain the following results. At Tegea two hundred figures of the local goddesses, five hundred water-carriers (temple attendants) and a number of pigs (sacrificial animals). At Elatasa only eight statuettes of Athene, and twenty- two of other divinities ; eighteen dancing figures (temple attendants) and one of a priestess bearing a pig. The second group, consisting of grotesque and genre figures and miscellaneous objects, was represented at Tegea by six hundred gro- tesque and ten genre statuettes, among the latter a woman riding on a camel. Athene, on the other hand, received only twelve grotesque figures and seven hundred genre, chiefly matrons of fourth-century type (Fig. 20), and such miscellaneous objects as a dolphin, a tortoise, fans, jointed dolls (Fig. 2), and weights and measures. These two finds establish the important fact concerning the use of terracotta figures in temples, that any figure was a suitable offering to any divinity, — and that though some may have been more appropriate 1 Corpus Inscrip. Grac. vol. i. 1570. 4 GREEK TERRACOTTA STATUETTES in particular circumstances than others, there was no class that could not be given. One of the most curious points elicited is that the image of another divinity was apparently as acceptable an offering as one of the god or goddess to whom the dedication was made ; no doubt such figures were sometimes copies of the statue of the pilgrim's own local deity, especially when the local statue was a celebrated one, but at Elatasa we find Eros, Psyche, Leda, Dionysos, Aphrodite and Demeter, and it is difficult at first sight to see how they can be considered appropriate offerings to Athene, because we read into them an esoteric character which they did not possess. It was the intention of the giver, the fact of their being offered, which made them appropriate offerings, not any inherent fitness of their own, and that is why the objects unearthed are so various in character. Such figures as pigs, birds, water-carriers, dancers and priestesses present no difficulty, for they may embody a certain idea of substitution, of performing by deputy duties whose constant performance was impossible. Again, the offering of votive limbs to any deity, not merely to Apollo and Asklepios, is too natural a form of thanksgiving to require any comment, while classical writers supply an explanation of the presence of toys and jointed dolls in the sanctuaries of Apollo, Artemis and Aphrodite, when they tell us that a maiden before marriage, and a boy at about fourteen, dedicated their toys to these deities, a custom referred to in the following epigram which accompanied such an offering — TO ARTEMIS.i " Maiden, to thee, before her marriage Timarete gives Her cap, her tambourines, her favourite ball, And as is meet, oh ! Artemis, the maiden brings Her childhood's toys, her dolls, their clothes and all." but dolls are found in the shrines of other divinities, not merely in those of Artemis and Aphrodite. 1 TifJMpera irpb yd/xoio to. TVfnrava, ti'jv t tpaxtwriv ' (Tfpaipav, tov tc KOyitas pvropa KtKpvtf>a\oi\ tus Te hupas, Ai/xrari, KOpa. Kopa ojs (TrietKh, avOeTo, koL to. Kopiiv ivhvpjxT , 'ApT€fj,L8i. — Anthol. Pal. vi. 280 THE USE AND MEANING OF THE STATUETTES 5 Objects which had been the personal property of the giver, such as fibula;, hairpins, weapons and jewellery, were often presented, and a number of the dedicatory epigrams which accompanied them are collected in the sixth book of the Anthologia Palatina, among them the following by Mnasalcos on a bow and quiver given to Apollo. 1 " Phoebus, to thee this curved bow and empty sounding quiver Are ottered at thy sacred shrine by Promachos the giver. But ah ! the shafts that used within that painted case to rattle, Now in the foemen's hearts are sheathed whom he hath slain in battle." Translated by J. H. MerIVALE. With these offerings we may class such statuettes as show marked differences of clay and technique, or peculiar artistic merit, and in such cases the personal element sufficiently explains the gift, but when all these deductions are made, there remain a vast number of figures whose dedication cannot be accounted for on such grounds, as for instance the hundreds of figures representing a Greek woman of the day, offered to Athene ; and in support of the theory that the choice of an offering was more or less the result of chance we may quote another epigram showing under what circumstances a school-boy offered a comic figure to the Muses. 2 " Konnaros' skill with style and reed has gained the writing prize, And eighty shining knuckle-bones delight his eager eyes. 1 am funny little Chares, and 'mid his comrades' glee, To the Muses who inspired him, he dedicated me." Our information as to the use of terracotta figures in private houses is based entirely on the excavations at Pompeii. It is so far unsatisfactory, that we have no means of discriminating between local and general custom, a point of great importance in this case, because 1 %ol p.er ku.jj.it vka. rdfa, Kai lu^iiupix <papeTpr], hmpa. irapu. npo/xa^ou, <I>oi/3e, raoe Kpep.a.TO.1 iovs <*>c impoevrwt &va kKovov avopes e^oi'ixti' iv KpaSi'cus, oA.oa £eaaa 8vcrp.evea>v. — Anthol. J at. vi. 9. - NtKJjtras tous ;ra«Sas, itrd KaXa ypd/XjUa-r' kypa\j/ev Kovrapos oySi&KOVr' darpayaAous iXapev. K&pX, x i '-t JLV Moucrats, rbv koj/ukov woe Xap-qra. wpe<r/3vTriv Qopvjita, 6,)k<j.to rrcuSapiuiv. — Asklepiades, Anthol. Pal. vi. 30S. 6 GREEK TERRACOTTA STATUETTES though we are justified in including Pompeii among Greek towns, objects found there belong chiefly to the middle of the first century a.d. Some few are prae-Augustan, but none can be assigned to an earlier date than the end of the Hellenistic age. The term is a conveniently vague one, and is applied to the last three centuries of the pagan era when the empire of the Greeks extended over the known world, but was one of taste and intellect only, and every educated person, whether Greek or barbarian, was a Hellene and adopted Greek customs, with such modifications as were suggested by local requirements. The customs of Pompeii do not therefore prove Greek custom as the customs of Athens would do, but they are the only evidence available, and therefore for the present must suffice. About two hundred perfect figures of varying size have been dis- covered in the ruins of Pompeii ; they appear but sparingly in the better class houses, but were found in increasing, but not large, quantities as the industrial part of the town was uncovered. It is therefore evident that by a.d. 79 they had gone out of fashion among the rich, and were even losing their popularity among the poor. A number lay in the outbuildings (probably the slaves' quarters) of one of the larger houses, but when found actually in the palaces, they always show some novelty of technique or style which explains their presence there. Their comparative scarcity is doubtless caused partly by a change of taste, which led to the employment of metal rather than clay, even for vases, but something may be due to an earthquake which took place in a.d. 63. Great damage was done by it and the necessary repairs were not entirely completed when the town was overwhelmed in a.d. 79. The terracotta ornamentation of the temples suffered severely, and there is every reason to suppose that the figures did so too, but fortunately sufficient remain to show the uses to which they were put, and their presence in larger numbers in the poorer houses is in itself a proof that at one time they had been more common in the richer ones. In the latter all statuettes stand in niches, whether in the atrium, the inner rooms or the garden court : sometimes the high garden wall contained recesses, in one case six, two still holding figures. The most usual place for them was evidently the atrium, where THE USE AND MEANING OF THE STATUETTES 7 th;y are found in company with small bronzes of a kind which shows thtt the niche was the lararium or shrine of the household deities. In the House of Lucretius, this contained five such bronzes and a terracotta bust of a boy with a bulla round his neck. A similar recess in -mother house held two bronzes, a warrior and a Diana, and two terricottas, a female bust and a seated woman with a child in her arms. Besides the niches which served as lararia, there were others over the inner door of the house ; for instance Minerva with shield and bowl had her place in one peristyle, and a similar figure in a similar position was found at Herculaneum. This custom of placing a house under the protection of a divinity was a common one in Greece, and is referred to in several dedicatory epigrams, as : x " A hero warder of Eetion's door I stand, No weapon save my sword is in my hand. A little sentinel just fits a little shrine, He hates the 'Guards' so chose me from the 'Line.'" Similar recesses were found over the doors of inner rooms, and a Greek commentator refers to the custom of placing a little terracotta figure of Hephaistos opposite the hearth as " protector of the fire." Those figures which stood either on pedestals in the niches, or for greater security in depressions in them, were probably objects of worship, but the niches themselves were not used merely as lararia ; one in the peristyle of the House of M. Gavius Rufus contained a relief of /Eneas carrying off Anchises, a group of two slaves bearing a palanquin with a figure in it, a seated figure of Abundantia and a crouching slave. The number of figures it contained suggests that it was a cupboard, but niches were also used to display the figures, for the garden cloister of the Villa of Julia Felix, one of the most gorgeous of the Pompeian houses, decorated in the taste of the Neronian age, had eighteen, containing alternately small herms and terracotta figures of which the subjects are comic, a bearded barbarian, a young man with a cake and a bald-headed man. It will thus be seen that only two classes of figures appear, sacred 1 "HpOJS AlCTlOJl'OS 'ETTidTO.OjJ.O'; ' A/J.<j>nro\tT€0) 'ISpV/JLCLL pllKptZ /XlKpOS £7Tl TTpO&vpw \o£ov o<$iiv KOU jjiovvov e^ojv £i'<£os' avSpl iwjtkjil 0vp.o6(h iratjiv Kap.i 7rapu)Ki'<7a,TO. — Anthol. Pal. ix. 336. 8 GREEK TERRACOTTA STATUETTES and profane, the former found only in the lararia, where they are clearly objects of worship, or in niches over the doors, in which case we may regard them as tutelary deities ; the genre figures are the only ones used as ornaments, though their frequent presence in the lararia suggests that they were offered to the household deities, as in temples they were offered to the greater gods. Some at least were highly valued by their owrers, for two skeletons were found in the streets, fugitives who had gathered up their treasures in haste ; one, a man, clutched his money, his jewellery and a statuette ; the other, a woman, was still holding a little female figure with a child in its arms. From the presence of these statuettes in Pompeian houses, we can argue that Greek houses also contained them, both as ornaments and as objects of worship, but we can draw no conclusion from them as to the subjects chosen. Doubtless many were religious, like the Aphrodite dedicated by Chrysogona, 1 " Here heavenly Aphrodite you survey, Style her celestial, and your offering pay. This in the house of Amphicles is placed, Fair present of Chrysogona the chaste." — Translated by Fawkes. and probably there were fewer purely genre subjects, as the taste for realism is characteristic of the Roman age. At Pompeii we find none of the indefinite figures so common in the temples and tombs of earlier date, which form a link between religious and profane types ; for instance, there are no graceful winged youths and maidens, whose place is taken by men and women in Roman costume, warriors and gladiators ; the Seileni and grotesque nude figures of the sixth and fifth centuries are replaced by the caricatures of slaves, barbarians and actors which appear for the first time in the second century B.C., and which at their first appearino- are still associated with mythological subjects in which beauty of form is more sought after than a realistic and accurate representation of nature. This difference of national temperament makes it impossible to base on 1 A Kvwpis ov TravSa/ios' i'A<;'<r«o rav 6cov, dirmv Ovpa.vi.av, dyvas arOe/xa Xpvcroyovas OLKia iv 'AfxrpiKXiovs, £ (cat tckdi (cat jiiov l.ryc tvvi>v\ da Se crtpiv Awtov ets etos Sv £k o-iOtv dpxo/HeVots, 3 tti'itvm. — Anthol, Pal. vi. 34.0, THE USE AND MEANING OF -THE STATUETTES 9 the contents of Pompeian houses, any theory as to the type of figure likely to be found in a Greek dwelling, though it is fair evidence of their presence there, but if any connection can be proved between the contents of Pompeian tombs and houses, we may reasonably assume a like connection between the contents of a Greek house and of the contemporary cemeteries. The inadequate records of early Pompeian excavations render this comparison somewhat difficult, but one Pompeian tomb contained a cameo vase of blue glass and eight terracotta statuettes, viz. — A female mask of hieratic type. Two animals. Mars. Mercury. Two porters bearing burdens. A gladiator. Replicas of the mask and the gladiator were found in two houses, palanquin bearers and a huckster, similar in style to the porters, in three houses, while the Mars, from its purely Roman treatment, may be compared with a group of lEnezs and Anchises found in the Plouse of M. Gavius Rufus. The intimate connection between the contents of a Pompeian house and tomb being; thus obvious it remains only to show that Greek tombs contain obiects of somewhat similar character, in order to prove a like connection between their contents and those of Greek houses. It was by no means an invariable custom to place statuettes in the tombs. MM. Pottier and Reinach opened five thousand in a cemetery at Myrina in Asia Minor which dates from the end of the third century b.c. to the beginning of the first, and found that the percentage was as follows : — forty seven contained nothing, nineteen contained figures, and thirty three other miscellaneous objects. MM. Salzmann and Biliotti explored two hundred and eighty six tombs in a sixth-century cemetery at Cameiros in Rhodes : only a few were absolutely empty, fifty yielded figures and other objects, and the rest contained vases and articles of bronze and bone. Pages could be filled with an inventory of the contents of Greek tombs, but for purposes ot comparison with the Pompeian one, three will suffice chosen at random from different places and different ages. io GREEK TERRACOTTA STATUETTES Cameiros in Rhodes. Sixth century b.c. Two terracotta reliefs a jour. Eos carrying off Kephalos (Plate III.), and the contest of Peleus and Thetis. One seated female figure (Fig. g)-\ One female mask (Fig. 12). I Terracotta. Ten fruits. I Two Seileni. Two vases. Two glass bottles. One large sea shell (engraved). Eretria. Third century b.c. Three white Athenian funeral vases. Six terracotta figures. Dionysos. Boy with grapes. Eros. An actor. A herm. A mask of Pan (Fig. 15). Five gold diadems. One gold ribbon decorated with tinsel leaves. One gold ring. Ten gilt terracotta buttons. One writing instrument. Myrina in Asia Minor. Second century b.c. One mirror. One dish. Fibula?. One bust of Demeter (hieratic), s One nude Aphrodite. „,, . . L 1 erracotta. 1 hree weeping sirens. Three floating female figures. There is a curious similarity between the contents of the four tombs, which range over a period of 600 years ; the difference between the Greek and the Pompeian tombs (see page 9) is one of degree, not kind ; the glass bottles of Cameiros correspond to the engraved blue glass vase of Pompeii. We have the same personal possessions, sea shell, golden ring, mirror and cameo vase, and in each case a collection of terracotta figures. We saw how faithfully the contents of that one Pompeian tomb reflected the finds in Pompeian palaces, and therefore we may assume that had a Greek city met with the fate of Pompeii, we should find standing in its houses such things THE USE AND MEANING OF THE STATUETTES n as we now find in its tombs, and that among them would be not a few of the same terracotta statuettes. Returning to the study of the contents of the earlier Greek tombs, we find that all contain some objects made purposely for them, i. e. the female bust from Cameiros, the gilt clay buttons and tinsel jewellery from Eretria, and the weeping sirens from Myrina ; but that in addition to these, all contain hieratic, genre and grotesque figures, and personal possessions such as fibula;, so that the contents of a tomb and the contents of a temple also differed only in extent — in kind they were the same. They also show the same change in the terracottas offered. In the fifth and sixth centuries, they are almost without exception hieratic (Fig. 9) and grotesque (Fig. 11) in type and the explanation of their use and meaning is comparatively simple. They were intended as amulets to protect the dead from evil influences, and there is no difficulty in giving a religious explanation of the figures ; but after the end of the fifth century the hieratic types, i. e. the figures of the under-world goddesses, the Seileni and nude crouching figures, gradually die out, and their place is taken by a multitude of graceful female figures (Fig. 17) which in turn are succeeded by floating youths and maidens and figures from the Dionysiac cycle. Caricatures of scenes from everyday life take the place of the grotesque figures, and it is no longer possible to find the faintest suggestion of religious motive in the greater number of the figures, though down to the latest period one figure in a tomb is usually of hieratic type ; for instance, the female mask found in a tomb in Pompeii (page 9). During the last seven centuries, therefore, of the Pagan era, a change was gradually taking place in the relative proportions of the hieratic and the " profane " figures placed in the tombs, until by the beginning of the first century b.c. their positions were reversed, and the latter were in the majority. The earliest necropolis under discussion, that of Cameiros, contained many objects to which no religious meaning can possibly be attached : strigils, mirrors, sea-shells, swords, glass bottles, spindle-rings, toys, vases, and two terracotta reliefs dealing with mythological subjects, the carrying off of Kephalos 12 GREEK "TERRACOTTA STATUETTES by Eos (Plate III.), and the struggle of Peleus and Thetis. The difference between the earlier and the later tombs is, that in the former the secular objects are generally not terracotta figures, but such objects as those enumerated above, while in the latter, in addition to such objects, which appear down to the Christian era, there is a large and increasing number of female figures of such indefinite type that they are known to Greek writers merely as " xopat " maidens (Fig. 16). This indefiniteness of type makes it impossible to account for their presence by the theory that they protect the dead, like the hieratic or grotesque amulet figures, but some light is thrown on the subject by Vitruvius, the Roman architect, who in describing the origin of the Corinthian capital, tells how a young girl died, and how her nurse brought to the tomb " those things which in life she had most dearly loved and placed them in a basket there." l Numer- ous passages in wills relate to the custom of burying personal possessions ; for instance, a law case opens thus ~ — A woman on her death-bed made her will as follows : " I desire to be buried as my husband wishes. Everything I wear on the day of my funeral is to be buried with me, and of my jewels, the two strings of pearls and my bracelets set with emeralds." Another testator says :; — " All my implements of the chase are to be buried with me, lances, swords, knives, nets, snares, ropes, decoys, cages, my bath furniture, my palanquins, my corracle and my woven and embroidered robes." No special mention is made either of terracotta figures or of vases, which occur quite as frequently as the objects mentioned. Panathenaic vases, the symbol of the proudest moment in a Greek's lite, are usually found in tombs ; so are the greater number of the beautiful red-figured vases signed by artists of renown, which were won in games of skill, and like the amphorae were buried with their possessors, but were certainly not made for that purpose. On the analogy of this custom it is likely that any very beautiful statuette (Plate VIII.), especially if not of local manufacture, found in a grave, was the personal property of the deceased, and had served to adorn 1 "Post sepulturam eius quibus ea virgo viva delectabatur, nutrix collecta, et comporta in calatho, pertulit ad raonuraentum et summo conlocavit." — Vitruv. iv. i q. - Digest, xxiv. 2, 40. :! Hubnhr, Annali, 1X64, p. 207. THE USE AND MEANING OF THE STATUETTES 13 his house ; but this would only account for a small number. Besides these very choice figures there are others of similar type which are found in great numbers. They cannot all have adorned the houses, because one tomb often contains several replicas of the same figure, and at Myrina one had nothing in it but ten pairs of wings ; so that they must be offerings from the friends of the deceased, not an offering in the sense that offerings were made to divinities to appease them, but a last tribute of respect, like the flowers sent now-a-days. There was no religious meaning attached to them any more than to the fibulae, the jewellery and the vases, and it must be borne in mind that we have no proof that even these were always the personal property of the deceased, they may have been offerings from friends. We therefore learn that all terracotta figures can be divided into two classes, those which occupy the position in which they are found in virtue of a definite meaning attached to them, and those which derive a meaning from the accident of the position in which the will of the purchaser placed them. These latter first attain import- ance in the fourth century B.C., but they existed from the earliest times, in the shape ot vases in human or animal form (Fig. 11). This class provided the bulk of the offerings to divinities and the presents to the dead ; their variations of type, style and technique are the natural consequences of fluctuations of taste, both local and national ; from the indefinite " maidens " of fourth-century type we pass to floating figures and groups to which the taste of the age gave mythological names and attributes (Figs. 4 and 5), and through this stage to the intensely realistic types which first appear in the comic figures and ultimately reign supreme. The variety of types all used for one purpose, is in itself sufficient to show that no deep- seated meaning can be attached to them. They had three recom- mendations : they were cheap, and so within the reach of all, they offered no temptation to tomb-robbers, and they were pretty and pleasant to look at and good to live with, but they had no mean- ing until the purchaser had decided on their destination, and, certain " funereal " types apart, the same figures served to decorate Greek temples, Greek tombs and Greek houses. CHAPTER II METHODS OF MANUFACTURE "For they (the image-makers) use a mould; and whatsoever clay they put into it comes out in shape like the mould." Kal yap Ikzivoi (ol KOpoirXaOoi) tvttov tlvo. Trape^oi'TC? hiroiov av irqXov ets TOVTOV €fx/3d\oj(TLV OfJ.OiOV TUJ TV7TIO TO ClSoS aTTOTe\oVO~lV- DlO. Chl'yS. Or. Ix. 25> The terracotta statuettes afford convincing proof of the high artistic level of popular taste in Greece. Their makers, the Koroplastas, 1 to give them their Greek name, occupied no distinguished position in the hierarchy of art, they were its humblest servants, and neither received nor claimed the name of artists, but neither were they mere craftsmen and their work only the product of generations of inherited mechanical skill, for it shows that sense of beauty of form which was the birthright of every Greek, and which he absorbed as insensibly as the air he breathed. The potter was not an artist whose creations appealed only to the select few, his cheap reproductions were for the many, his one aim to hit the public taste, therefore the terracottas are the surest evidence of what this taste really was. Any large collection of Greek statuettes contains some figures that are rough, some that are careless, some that offend our notions of decency, but none that are in bad artistic taste ; the conception is always large, the lines harmonious. They are in very truth statuettes, statues in little, and retain the breadth and grandeur of conception of the great works by which they were inspired. Our admiration for these statuettes is only increased by a knowledge of the simple methods used in their production. There were two ways of making them, modelling by hand and casting from a mould ; the former process is the more ancient, and in later times was used only for 1 Harpocr. 114, 27: KOpoir\<Wo<s Toi'S e« 7n;Aoii tt\o.ttovt<x% Kopas rj /copous outius on'o/xa£ov. 14 METHODS OF MANUFACTURE very small, rough figures, made by giving a pinch here and there to a bit of clay until it assumed the rough form of a human being or of an animal. Some of these little figures (Figs, i and 3) are wonderfully spirited and true to nature ; but the earliest human figures found are simply slabs of clay with a triangular lump at the top for a head and two fin-like appendages for arms ; seated figures were made by bending the clay and placing a support beneath it, standing ones by thickening it at the base, so as to form a cone or wedge. The first im- provement effected is to stamp a face on the upper part of the clay and to round off the top roughly in the form of a head ; the next, to use a stamp for the whole of the front of the figure, and we thus have a solid lump of clay with the figure embossed on it. When the margin was cut away it presented a superficial likeness to some of the early moulded figures, but there is always this difference, that in the one case the clay is put into the mould, and in the other the stamp is pressed upon it. The practice of moulding figures instead of stamping them doubtless arose from the difficulty of firing a solid lump of clay without warping it. Many of the moulds used in the manufacture of statuettes have been found ; this one from Tarentum (Fig. 6) represents the upper part of a draped female figure with her hands clasped above her head. A mould necessarily presupposes the existence of an original figure which must have been in the first instance modelled by hand, but of these models nothing is said by classical authors. Pliny indeed mentions that the little clay models (proplasmata) of the sculptor Pasiteles fetched high prices among amateurs of art, and quotes a saying of his to the effect that " modelling in clay was the parent art of chasing, carving and sculpture," but the extreme cheapness of the Greek statuettes and the absolute impossibility of " patenting " a novelty, would put sculptors' models out of the reach of the koroplast, and those he employed were probably made by a rather superior class of artificer. Now-a-days such Central Museum, Athens ; from Eretria. 16 GREEK TERRACOTTA STATUETTES models are built up on a wooden substructure which burns away in the firing, leaving the figure hollow, and probably the same method was used in classical times. The mould was made of clay baked very hard, and into it the workman carefully pressed a thin layer of fine moist clay, 1 adding others until the requisite thickness was obtained ; the mould was then set to dry, and the shrinkage produced by evaporation soon allowed of the cast being removed from it. For the commonest class of figures a mould is used for the front only, and the back is formed by a convex mass of clay cemented to the front so as to form with it a rough cylinder : for the backs of a better class of statuette there was a second mould, giving the general outline, and sometimes sufficient sketchy detail to complete the main features of the front, and the two casts are carefully joined with a little liquid clay. There are a small number of statuettes in which the back is modelled as carefully as the front, but these are imitations of bronzes, and comparatively rare (Plate VI.). Statuettes in which only one mould is used for the whole length of the figure are necessarily somewhat stiff and constrained in pose, and are treated rather as if they were reliefs than figures in the round ; the head is joined to the shoulders either by the head-dress or the hair, and portions of the background are left wherever their absence would endanger the safety of the cast ; the result is an impression of hieratic stiffness and rigidity, and for that reason this, the earliest method, was retained down to the latest times in making statuettes for temple offerings. Many more moulds and a more complicated method of procedure are required for most of the later figures, i, e. for those which appear in and after the fourth century b.c. ; for instance, a dancing girl (Fig. 31) required thirteen, three for the head and cap, two for the body from neck to knee, and two for each arm and leg ; the draped lady shown in Fig. 17 five in all, two for the head, back and front, two for the draped figure, and one for the fan. All the parts were cast separately, then very carefully fitted into one another and cemented with liquid clay, all roughnesses removed and the whole set to dry. 1 Dio. Chrys. Or. lx. 25. METHODS OF MANUFACTURE 17 It would be a mistake to suppose that because a Greek koroplast used thirteen moulds for one particular figure, he required a vast assortment of them to pursue his trade. Nothing is more characteristic of Greek art than its extreme economy of method ; the sculptor, instead of inventing new types, developed and modified old ones, the koroplast, his humble follower, made half a dozen different figures out of the judicious combination of a few moulds, and that is the reason why the heads and arms are frequently too big or too small for the bodies to which they are attached. A careful study of any large collection of figures from Bceotia, Asia Minor or Italy shows that though there is a strong family like- ness between those from one locality there are hardly ever two which are exactly alike, because by selection and combination of different moulds the potter was able to produce an infinite number of variations. The two accompanying figures are a striking example of the manner in which these variations were obtained (Figs. 4, 5) ; the same mould has been used in each case for the body, but the addition of different heads, wings, arms and attributes has changed not merely the type but the pose of the figures. Sometimes these more or less haphazard combinations are not very happy, but as a rule they are, thanks to the sense of beauty of form which was, so to speak, in the air, and it is on the artistic feeling with which the Greek potter combined his moulds that he rests his claim to be something more than a mere craftsman. After the statuette had been put together and before it was fired, it was subjected to a very delicate and skilful process of retouching ; the workman went over the whole surface with a graver, sharpening outlines, smoothing roughnesses, intensifying details of feature, head- dress and drapery, and giving to the whole that aspect of individuality which is the great charm of the Boeotian statuettes from the Tanagra district, and which is so characteristic of them that any specially pretty figure, whatever its provenance, is popularly known as a " Tanagra." The value of this retouching process is shown by two figures from the same mould, representing Eros burning a butterfly (Psyche) ; in the one (Fig. 7) the details are barely distinguishable, and the whole is heavy and lifeless, while in the other (Fig. 8) after 1 8 GREEK TERRACOTTA STATUETTES retouching, they are clear, and the whole scene is instinct with life and grace l — " Oh, love, be kinder, or some day, Alighting with thy cruel torch, Again my singed soul to scorch, Thou wilt not find her. She too has wings to fly away." Translated by W. R. Paton. The retouching process was not unaccompanied by risk and of course added to the cost of a figure, so that numbers even of the statuettes from the Tanagra district have not undergone it, and the vast majority of statuettes found in other places are left just as they came from the mould. To avoid risk the figures were fired at a very low temperature, and for the same reason a hole was cut in the back to facilitate evaporation ; it varies in shape, size and position according to the district in which the figure was made, and is entirely absent in some figures which are imitations of bronze statuettes (Plate VI.). After the firing the accessories were stuck on : these, tans, hats, wreaths, birds, etc., were made and fired separately and added at the caprice of the potter. The whole figure was next coated with a white lime-wash, the object being to make a medium for the final decoration in colour. Unfortunately this lime-wash peels off and brings the colour with it, so that we do not often find a statuette in which the original tints are well preserved, but enough remains to show that the scheme of colour was a brilliant one in which red and blue predominated, as might be inferred from the words ot a Greek, who in advising his friend to cultivate solid learning says, 2 " otherwise vou will be- like potter's work, all blue and red outside, and all clay and rubbish inside." Common figures are roughly coloured, but the finer ones are decorated with care, red-brown being used for the hair, red for the lips, rose pink for flesh tints, pink and blue for masses of drapery, green tor borders and patterns, and yellow or gold for trinkets. In every district where these statuettes were made, and it would Trjv Trvpi j'7/^o/i.err/i' ij/vxrjv ill' ttoXXiikl Kcurjs, e^ei'feT , Eptos- KavTi] cr^cT/Vi', «x e '- TTe/royas. — Meleager, Anthol. Pal. v. C7. 1 cos vvv ye i\e\rj9us cravrbv t<hs vtto twv KopowXildior eh T-ijv ayopav 7rAaTTOueV(n<j COIKOJS, Kt^)MITp.ivi><; pkv TYj IJ.iX.TW Kill TW KI'Ul'w, TO 8' evSo0£V 77?;All'OS T£ KO.I fv0uVTTTO<; wr. — Lucian, Lexiph. 22. METHODS OF MANUFACTURE 19 be difficult to find one from which they are entirely absent, the same methods of manufacture were pursued, but almost every centre of production has certain local peculiarities of make and a predilection for certain classes of figures (Chapter IV.). By a very careful study of the rough figures excavated in any one locality we can determine the local types or type, because such rough figures are made on the spot, and it is not unreasonable to consider that finer statuettes of like type are likewise local work. As the result of such comparisons we are now in possession of a certain number of types of which we can speak unhesitatingly as Boeotian, Attic, Corinthian, etc., but it must be borne in mind that from all the most famous centres of production there was a regular export trade in moulds and statuettes, and that given the mould and skill in retouching, there was nothing to prevent a potter in Asia Minor from reproducing a Boeotian figure, local peculiarities and all, and in some cases it is impossible for even the most experienced eye to distinguish between the two unless there happens to be some unmistakable peculiarity in the clav used for the copy. It might be supposed that in such cases the texture of the clay would be a sure guide as to provenance, but this is not the case ; excavation only reveals the character of the local clay or clays under normal conditions of firing. We can therefore discriminate between local and imported figures in any one district and determine the characteristics to be expected in the normal figures of a given place, but these hold good only tor average figures. A fine specimen is usually better fired, and then the local characteristics so far disappear that they can only be detected by chemical analysis, and there are obvious difficulties in the way of applying such a test to a fine statuette. The Greek laws respecting excavations are unfortunately so framed as to put every obstacle in the way of bond-fide excavators and to encourage clandestine operations, and therefore most of the fine genuine statuettes which come into the market are the result of the latter ; the finder has every reason to conceal the real locality of his trouvaille, and his statements on the subject need not be taken seriously unless confirmed by the presence of a number of minute details of style and technique which can only be learnt by the constant handling and study of genuine examples. 20 GREEK TERRACOTTA STATUETTES The question of provenance is, however, one which chiefly concerns the archaeologist, for inability to as'sign a Greek statuette to its proper provenance, to distinguish a figure from Asia Minor from one from Bceotia or Africa, does not affect our enjoyment of its artistic charm ; we may even derive legitimate artistic satisfaction from one class of the forged statuettes. These, roughly speaking, fall into two groups, modern casts from ancient moulds and figures, and modern casts from modern moulds. Nothing can be simpler than to reproduce the ancient methods of casting, retouching, firing, and painting ; and though the figures thus obtained are usually too heavy, too fresh and clean, too daintily painted, too artistically damaged, to deceive a practised eye and touch, they are at least of authentic Greek type ; they have the beauty of outline and large simplicity of design which is found in Greek work, and the forger's offence is a sin against morality, not against art. It is not, however, this class of forgery which usually tempts the non-expert, and his mistakes are due to ignorance of the precise nature of the charm of Greek art, and notably of its simplicity, for the forger does not content himself with copying, he invents and fathers on the ancient world, types which are the outcome of modern ways of looking at classical models. Modern artistic taste, even when good, is the " heir of all the ages," a curiously complicated product, enriched with the accretions of two thou- sand years and the spoils of many nations ; it cannot look at the beautiful from the simple Greek standpoint. Therefore the forger produces a figure which sins against every canon of Greek art, but which appeals to even cultivated modern taste, for many, judged by modern standards, are quite charming, only they are not Greek, and to an eye trained in the severe school of Greek art, they are not merely ridiculous, they are a crime against that art. For this reason much bitterness has been imported into recent discussions of the question ; the possessors of such figures feel that their treasures are beautiful, and cannot understand why archaeologists, usually, in their opinion, persons of no pretensions to taste, should at a glance relegate them to " a class of antiquities which no museum cares to possess." CHAPTER III ARCHAIC STATUETTES " Despise me, Mercury, because I'm only clay ! Cheap product of the potter's art. / glory in my humble birth, and say ' I only saw the humble giver's grateful heart.' " AvTOUZV OCTTftOLKlVOV [X€ KO.t iv TTOcrl "ffjivOV 'Ttjpfxfjv €Tr\acr€v dipt'dos kvk\o$ eAunro/xevos. II7/A.0S i<f>vpdOi]v, 01) ipevcrojjMt, AAA' i^lX-qcra. oj %€iv , ocrrpaKcon' ov(rp.opov ipyatrirjv. Anthol. Pal. xvi. {A[>p. Plan.) 19 1. The statuettes dealt with in the present chapter are those archaic figures which in the sixth and fifth centuries were used as temple offer- ings, and placed in the tombs to protect the dead from evil influences. The study of any large and representative collection of these archaic statuettes shows that it contains little beside hieratic types, /. e. figures of feminine divinities and grotesque male figures ; further examination shows that the same fundamental idea underlies all the figures of feminine divinities, that precisely similar figures are to be found in places which are separated from each other by the whole length of the Mediterranean Sea, and that two types of figure predominate to the practical exclusion of all others, — a seated woman dressed in a long robe, with a veil falling over her shoulders from her high head-dress, her feet resting on a footstool, her hands lying stiffly in her lap (Fig. 9), and a standing one, with one foot advanced, one hand pressed to her bosom, the other drawing aside the skirt of the long tunic over which she wears a curiously pleated little mantle (Plate II.) ; the faces of both figures are somewhat full and fleshy, their eyes are oblique and their mouths are distorted by a fixed smile. The curiosity aroused by the universal diffusion of these two types of statuette, which are obviously 22 GREEK TERRACOTTA STATUETTES the creation of one and the same school, is heightened when we find that the culminating point of every collection of archaic Greek statues is a feminine figure, which in attitude, dress, face, and expression is identical with those just described, and that in sculpture, as in the terra- cotta statuettes, the standing and the seated variants exhaust the artist's repertory. The discovery that at the end of the sixth century one type of face and dress dominated Greek art throughout its whole extent, that statues which are close parallels of our seated figure are found at Miletus in Asia Minor, in the island of Rhodes, in Athens, at Marseilles, that others which are only a more perfect rendering of the standing one exist in Athens, in Sicily and in the islands of the /Egean, that no other feminine types are found except these two, and that the faces of the masculine statues are fashioned in accordance with the same canon of taste, naturally leads us to enquire under what social and artistic influences the Greeks evolved the type. Briefly its history is this — It had its rise in the Greek trading communities who in the period between 900 and 550 b.c. migrating from Greece, established themselves on the eastern coast of Asia Minor (Ionia), where they came into contact with the oriental kingdoms of Phrygia and Lydia, and in the islands of the ZEgean where they settled among a population of more primitive Greek race. The cities of Ionia, under the rule of the descendants of their original leaders, attained to great wealth and prosperity, some of their members intermarried with Lydians, and their Greek civilization thus acquired an oriental tinge. The island settlements, conspicuous among which were the Rhodian towns of Cameiros, Lindos and Ialysos, were no less prosperous, the Rhodian and Ionian merchants wrested the trade of the vEgean Sea from the Phenicians in whose hands it had been, they founded colonies in Southern Italy and in Sicily, and the islands and shores of the iEgean Sea were peopled by busy communities of enterprising Greek traders in constant communication with each other, wealthy enough to desire to surround themselves with the material evidences of their prosperity, those foreign objects of luxury which the chances of trade threw in their way, and intelligent enough to adapt and modify them to suit their own taste. These objects they obtained from two sources : from the PLATE II Phoenician Figure. Brit. Mus. A. 22. Aphrodite, with a Leveret. Brit. Mus. B. 105. ARCHAIC STATUETTES 23 Lydians and from the Phenicians, who though driven out of the ZEgean Sea by Greek enterprise had a large trade with them and a basis of operations in Cyprus, where they had maintained the supremacy which at a very early period they had established over the indigenous Greek population. The geographical position of Phenicia at the eastern- most end of the Mediterranean Sea between Egypt and Assyria, made her the natural channel of communication between the oriental and the Greek world, so that we are not surprised to find that a large portion of the Phenician merchant's trading material consisted of copies oi the minor productions of Egyptian and Assyrian art. The Phenician workers in metal were famous, and their beautiful engraved bronze bowls and carved ivory figures teach us both the manner and the matter of the national art ; this was necessarily oriental in character because it grew up under the shadow of oriental art, but when we examine its designs we find that they consist in a skilful juxtaposition of Egyptian and Assyrian " motives " ingeniously com- bined to form a decorative whole, but not fused into a new and original form ; it is purely imitative, an artistic industry not an art, by turns' Egyptian and Assyrian in form, and even Greek when this force had pushed its way to the front, and a curious statuette which comes from a Phenician workshop in Cyprus well represents this admixture of styles (Plate II.). It shows a draped female figure in the pose of the ushabtiu or "answerers" of Egyptian funeral ritual and belongs to a period when Greek potters were still making form- less crescents and cylinders to represent human figures. Technically it is a fine specimen, modelled by hand, retouched, carefully painted and well fired, but artistically it shows a most disconcerting mixture of styles ; the face and pose are Egyptian, so is the attempt at showing the modelling of the body, the turban and long straight robe are Assyrian, and so is the triple necklace, though it is made of lotus buds. It is therefore a fair specimen of the figures which Phenician art made for the Greek market, and shows how incapable it was of pre- senting to a nation ignorant of oriental art, such a view of the larger monuments as would enable it to form any just idea of their style and technique, and to apply these to its own statues. What it did was to introduce its minor productions to the Greek, and so to 24 GREEK TERRACOTTA STATUETTES provide him with a series of fantastic forms — gryphons, human-headed birds, winged lions, grotesque dwarfs, etc., with which he clothed his own vague conceptions of the spirits of earth, air and sea, whose power for evil was ever present to his mind. These forms he used to decorate his pottery, but they were useless to him in the composition of a statue, and therefore Egyptian art, which was known to the early Greek only through a Phenician medium, had little influence on the development of his archaic sculpture, until long after its main features had been determined by other forces. With Assyrian sculpture, on the other hand, the Greek came into contact also through the kingdom of Lydia, with which from a very early period Ionia had had friendly relations. All that we know of Lydian art shows that it was strongly Assyrian in character, and it was therefore through it that the Greek artist derived his first and strongest impressions of the style and technique of Assyrian sculpture, with its wealth of decorative detail, its technical finish and its hide- bound conventionality ot subject and style. The material with which this oriental element was to combine was twofold, the remains of the civilization known as " Mycenasan," and the productions of an art of which we find traces in all the early necropoleis of the iEgean islands. One of the main features of " Mycenasan " art is its earnest and careful study of nature, a feature which we also find, though in a much more primitive form, in the art of the Greek race indigenous to the iEgean islands, for specimens of which we must have recourse to terracotta statuettes. At Troy, in the earliest Cypriote graves, in the prae-Phenician settlement at Ialysos in Rhodes, and in many other places, we find formless little idols made by flattening out a piece of clay, pinching it in at the neck, moulding a knob on the top with a point for a nose and a gash for a mouth, and adding two fins for arms (see cut on p. 15). This is the primordial statuette ; whenever the potter is thrown on his own resources for a rendering of the human figure he produces it, and it is interesting because the sculptor in making a statue of a divinity proceeded in just the same way. The Greek gods, unlike all the Assyrian and many of the Egyptian, were always anthropomorphic ; but though the Greeks imagined their divinities ARCHAIC STATUETTES 25 in human shape, they, like many other nations, worshipped them under the form of stones or of trees. When the tree died and was cut down, the trunk lopped of its branches presented a certain rough resemblance to a human figure, and from worshipping it as the abode of a divinity, to trying to cut it into his or her form, is but a small step, and the earliest Rhodian terracotta figures show us that this was done by roughly carving the head and face while leaving the body still imprisoned in the tree trunk. In this statue the divinity had his home, and so we are told that before the fall of Troy the gods, knowing that the city was doomed, picked up their statues and carried them away ! The slow and laborious process by which the artist, first in wood and then in stone, freed the limbs of his statue from the mass in which they were imprisoned, moved first a foot and then an arm, and finally attacked the difficult problem of rendering the drapery of a figure and the broken folds produced by motion, his naive attempts to put expression into the face, are all shown in a series of marble statues from Delos, now in the museum at Athens, and are reflected faithfully in the archaic statuettes. His art was a fusion of oriental types by the qualities which he had inherited from his Greek ancestry, the desire for truth and for the study of nature, and in this sense it was oriental in its origin, but the Greek artist was never content to use the types of oriental art until he had modified them to suit his own taste ; he did not, like the Phenician, "convey" them en bloc with no comprehension of their meaning, and he had this advantage over his oriental confrere, that his gods were human in form and spirit, and he was thus early driven to the study of the human figure and the human face with all their grace of movement and variety of expression. The widespread diffusion of the same type of statue through the Greek world ceases to be a matter for surprise when we consider that its art grew up among communities of the same race, all exposed in a greater or less degree to oriental influence, and all in constant communication with each other, so that the efforts of several centres of production were concentrated on the evolution of one type. The island schools busied themselves with the male figure, which is nude, while the feminine types with their elaborate drapery and rather 26 GREEK TERRACOTTA STATUETTES full, rounded features, showing stronger oriental influence, were the especial achievement of the Ionian cities whose position brought them more immediately into contact with it. Owing to ritual reasons the potters copied only the feminine types, and it is these which appear in the two statuettes from Cameiros in Rhodes, which are represented in Fig. 9 and Plate II. The type of the seated figure appears in sculpture in the sixth century, in the statues of the Branchidas family from the Sacred Way to the temple of Apollo at Miletus, 1 but the statuette differs from them in sex, and in wearing the high head-dress which belonged to divinities. The collection of Rhodian statuettes in the British Museum, which is of unrivalled completeness and extent, contains no less than six variations of the tvpe, showing its gradual modification until it ends in the figure which was the supreme effort of the Rhodian potter towards the end of the fifth century (Fig. 10). The high head-dress has gone, the Ionic tunic and veil are replaced by the Doric dress, with its folds and drapery carefully worked out, the disproportionately long arms are shortened, and the hands now lie idly in the lap, the face has lost its fixed smile, and has assumed rather a pensive expression, while the whole figure retains only just so much archaism as is necessary to establish its con- nection with its prototype. We can also trace the standing type through all its different phases, amongst which the figure on Plate II. occupies a middle position. The angular lines of the lower part of the statuette, the stiff position of the left toot, the timid rendering of the transverse folds, recall the time when the sculptor was still struggling to disengage his figure from a block of wood or marble, and the figure has a curious reminiscence of the tree origin of the statue in the way in which the drapery spreads out at the feet like the roots of a tree ; the latest member of the series corresponds to the seated lady in tvpe of face, dress and the rather studied elegance with which she holds out the folds of her drapery. These are, however, only artistic modifications introduced into types whose integral form was fixed by the end of the sixth century, and which down to the end of the fifth represent a feminine divinity whose presence in the tomb was due to a desire to protect the dead from evil J British Museum, Archaic Room, Nos. - 16. ARCHAIC STATUETTES 27 influences, but who at this period had neither a special name, nor any very definite functions. Deep seated in the mind of every primitive people there is an in- stinctive idea of the Earth-mother, the principle of fertility, the type of continual birth and death, and therefore when they wish to express this idea in a concrete form, they choose a woman for their type. The Assy- rians called her Astarte, and represented the reproductive powers of the earth by a coarsely symbolical nude figure ; the Greeks chose for this purpose the draped type which was the conventional rendering for a female figure, and indicated her godhead by adding the high head-dress reserved for divinities, but neither Greek nor Assyrian would have any difficulty in recognizing their own gods under another form, for the beliefs of polytheism are too vague and indefinite to be crystallized into a shape which would exclude all representations ot a divinity but one. Thus the cultus image of Athene worshipped at Lindos in Rhodes, was a Phenician idol, in whom the Greeks recognized some traits of their own goddess, and therefore when they expelled the Phenicians from the island they maintained the worship of their divinity under the name of Athene Telchinia. This vagueness of thought is reflected in the statuettes, which when found in tombs have a natural reference to the underworld character of the goddess-mother and her power of protection there, as in the upper world, therefore in time they are connected with the goddess Demeter, who as the Earth-mother had always such functions, but who became more particularly the underworld goddess, when the legend of the rape of Persephone and her sway among the dead as the bride of Hades had been shaped into words. In time the two goddesses ousted all other divinities from the underworld cycle, and endowed with their own personality not only the feminine statuettes, but also the female masks (oscilla) which were hung on the walls ot the tombs (Fig. 12). In their origin these are derived from the Egyptian coffins, the upper part of which is moulded in the likeness of the head and shoulders of the dead. The Greeks, misled by their beardless faces, and knowing them only in rough Phenician copies, turned them into female busts, and adapted them to the representation of a veiled goddess, while in time their truncated form, which gave 28 GREEK TERRACOTTA STATUETTES them the appearance of rising from the earth, connected them with the Persephone myth. They vary in height from three inches to two feet, and show every stage of archaic art. The preponderance of female figures among the archaic statuettes is directly due to the fact that the underworld divinities were feminine ; the small number of types is due to the indefiniteness of idea underlying the conception of these divinities, for there was no necessity to differentiate the figures when the personality was so vague. The standing and the seated figures have no necessary difference of meaning ; the standing type is usually, from its elegance, connected with the name of Aphrodite, but at the period at which it was evolved, Aphrodite is only another name for the Earth-mother's reproductive power, of which the young leveret in the hands of our statuette is a sign (Plate II.). Side by side with the archaic feminine figures we find masculine ones of an entirely different character, but fulfilling the same protective duties. The Greeks were deeply impressed with the idea that only the good could be beautiful, so though they imagined the under- world divinities in human form, they clothed the underworld spirits, who were malignant in character, in the grotesque shape of those oriental figures with which Phenician art had made them familiar. The two commonest types are those of a nude, beardless, crouching figure, which is derived from the Egyptian god Bes (Fig. n), and a bearded one, based on Seilenos, an Assyrian hunter-demon. In Egyptian ritual, statuettes of Bes were a symbol of joy, and were thus often used to form little perfume bottles, so that our Greek statuette has had a vase mouth placed on it, in imitation of the original model, though there is no corresponding hole in the figure. The beardless type is particularly common in Rhodian tombs, but in Greece proper the bearded Seilenos is the favourite amulet and appears in the slightly modified form of an elderly man with shaggy hair and beard, and in Italy it takes the form of a little satyr mask (Plate IV.). Its popularity led to the Seilenos being included in the train of the god Dionysos when the latter assumed an underworld character through his mystic connection with Demeter and Persephone, but his individuality was then merged in that of the satyr, and regaining his "to to ARCHAIC STATUETTES 29 woodland character he lost his protective one, so that in the fifth century the grotesque figures disappear almost entirely from the tombs and leave the field to the feminine types. A modification had in the meantime taken place in the shape in which the latter appear, but it was purely artistic and did not affect their meaning, and was the consequence of the great manifestation of energy in art, as in every other way ot life which followed the Persian wars. At the beginning of the fifth century a change took place in the Greek world ; during the sixth the centre of the world had shifted west- ward across the JEgean Sea to the towns of continental Greece, Corinth, Argos, Sikyon and Athens, whose wealthy rulers attracted to their courts all that was most brilliant and talented in the Greek world. With the defeat of the Persians, Athens, which had taken the lead in the national defence, leaped at once into the foremost place. She had suffered most at the hands of the foe, her city was destroyed and had to be rebuilt, hence it was to Athens that the sculptors and artists of the day flocked, and there grew up there a school of taste which for the next fifty years set the artistic tone for the rest of the Hellenic world. Its influence is shown in the fifth-century statuettes which, from whatever part of the Greek world they come, from Athens (Plate III.), Rhodes (Fig. 10), or Cyprus (Fig. 13), all have the grandeur of concep- tion, the nobility of design and purity of outline which we find in the sculpture of the time ; they have lost whatever air of stiffness their hieratic character gave them, and in its place they display a certain dignity and reserve which makes the graceful abandon of the figures of the next century look slightly vulgar. Part of the additional charm of the fifth-century figure is certainly due to a change in dress from the Ionian tunic (Plate II.) to the Dorian (Fig. 16), a change which was one of the consequences of the Persian wars. How far or for how long patriotic feeling led the women to make the change in private life, we do not know, for in the fourth century they had reverted to the Ionian tunic (Fig. 21), but sculptors clothed their figures in the Dorian garment, whose heavy drapery with its perpendicular and transverse folds afforded charming effects of light and shade. We have good examples of the modification which the seated goddess figure underwent in two statuettes, one from Athens (Plate III.), and one 3 o GREEK 'TERRACOTTA STATUETTES from Cyprus (Fig. 13), both of which show the more elaborate and ornate style of the period. Incidentally both bear witness to the greater precision of thought of the age, for though they differ only in the position of the left arm, this slight difference suffices to show that the one (Plate III.) is Artemis, the other (Fig. 13), Aphrodite. The potter has been constrained by hieratic conventions to seat his Artemis on a high throne with her feet on a footstool, to place a high coronet on her head, and to tuck her symbol, a fawn, in a very uncom- fortable position under her left arm, but satisfied that these concessions allow of no doubt that the figure is not only a goddess, but the goddess Artemis, he has rendered her long tresses and full, soft hair in a free style, he has painted her coronet with honey-suckle pattern, and has lavished a wealth of decoration on her throne and footstool. The same elaboration of detail is seen in the Aphrodite (Fig. 13), which comes from the Cypriote town of Kittion (Larnaca), a centre which produced some charming figures when, as in this case, it was inspired by Athenian types, but was not so successful in its unaided efforts. The potter has indicated the divinity of his figure by the same adherence to the conventional attitude and accessories, but the high head-dress is covered with ornament, the legs of the throne are in the form of sphinxes, and even the outstretched dish is elaborately embossed ; the coquettish action with which the goddess holds her shawl together beneath her chin identifies her with Aphrodite, the chief goddess on the island, for a statue of her in precisely the same attitude is shown on a coin of Nagidos, in Cilicia. 1 The novelty in this figure is the coquettish treatment of the drapery, and a comparison with any of the fourth-century genre types shows how slight the barrier was between the two. Religious con- servatism led to the preservation of existing archaic hieratic types, which were made down to the end of the Pagan era, but no new ones were invented after the fifth century, and as a class they decline rapidly in number and importance, giving place to other feminine figures whose indefiniteness is so complete that they are known to Greek writers only as " maidens." With these appear in ever-increasing number mytho- logical figures and figures drawn from real life. 1 Journal oj Hellenic Studies, vol. xix. Pt. I. p. \ 64. 3 ►s 8 X s ffl s °3 ARCHAIC STATUETTES 31 It must not, however, be supposed that in the archaic period the potter busied himself exclusively with hieratic figures. A series of archaic reliefs of very delicate sixth-century workmanship, which from their fragile character must have been made to decorate some solid object like a box, deal entirely with subjects drawn from legend or from real life. One of these represents the goddess Eos (the Dawn) carrying off Kephalos (Plate III.), a beautiful shepherd youth with whom she fell in love as he was hunting at break of day on Mount Hymettus. The artist's power of design is hardly on a level with his technical skill, and the group shows a curious archaic convention, by which the human figure is represented as very much smaller than the divine one, but the truth of rendering in the wind-blown drapery and hurrying figure shows that the picture is based on a direct study of nature, just as much as the other reliefs of the series which depict such scenes from real life as a man and woman conversing (British Museum, B. 317). Besides these reliefs there are a number of small vases in statuette form, the subjects of which are drawn from real life and depict male and female busts, mythological persons and animals, while one whole series from Athens is in the form of a foot in its sandalled shoe. In addition to these vases and reliefs, the potter made dolls (Fig. 2) and toys (Plate IV. and Fig. 1) for the children, and there are many little groups repre- senting scenes from real life, such as a woman cooking (Fig. 3), all roughly but cleverly modelled and wonderfully true to nature : the suggestion of effort with which this little woman rolls out her paste is very well given, and her paste-board and rolling-pin might be the basis of a dissertation on ancient kitchen utensils. It will thus be seen that there was always a non-hieratic side to the potter's work based on the direct study of nature, as opposed to the hieratic side based on a conventional rendering of it ; but the distinction between the two was very clearly made until the end of the sixth century. During the fifth the barrier was partially broken down by the intro- duction of greater grace and beauty into the hieratic types ; it was the final elimination of the conventional element, the application to all figures of the principles derived from the direct study of life which produced the graceful women, the charming youths and pretty children of the fourth century. CHAPTER IV DEVELOPMENT OF THE GENRE STATUETTE " How oit does taste Aiming too high, its toilsome efforts waste." " Quibus addere plura Dura cupit, ah, quotiens perdidit auctor opus." — Martial, xiv. 115. The modifications of form introduced into the hieratic statuettes by the influence of Attic art did not affect their meaning as long as they retained any vestige, however slight, of their hieratic character, but were in a great measure responsible for their disappearance. In the gradual process of humanizing which continued throughout the fifth century, the divinities lost the conventional attributes of their godhead, and it was expressed by superhuman beauty, grace, and dignity rather than by outward symbols. To represent this distinction between the divine and the human, to treat a human model in such a way as to turn it into a divinity, requires the talent of a great artist ; it is beyond the powers of a potter, and therefore his feminine divinities, when they become beautiful women in outward appearance, become women in nature ; they merge the goddess in the woman, and forget that they ever had any hieratic meaning or function. As the potter drew more and more of his inspiration from the direct study of real life he was able to widen his horizon, and henceforth his productions are not entirely confined to feminine figures, though these still predominate ; male figures appear and figures drawn from legend, and there are even imitations of celebrated statues. His studies from life, however, fall into two clearly marked divisions, the realistic present- ment of the individual and the idealistic presentment of the type : the o 2 DEVELOPMENT OF THE GENRE STJ-TVETTE 33 realistic deals with those figures which are concerned with the material or commonplace side of life ; cooks, nurses, old men and women ; the idealistic on the other hand deals with its cultivated and charming side, and its figures are chosen for their beauty, youth and grace. In the fourth and third centuries, while Greece still held sway in the world of art, these latter maintained their position in the potter's world, but with the decline of Greece, when the centre of civilization passed to the Hellenistic courts of the semi-oriental rulers of Asia Minor and Egypt, the realistic figures acquire a gradually increasing importance and finally oust the idealized types, as these had ousted the hieratic. The figures with which we have now to deal mark the highest point which the potter reached, and then his gradual falling away from his own high standard of excellence. In the fourth century he attained to such technical and artistic perfection as his material allowed, and then partly owing to a change of taste, partly to the decay of material prosperity in Greece, his craft died out, and by the end ot the third century was practically extinct there. At the close of the fifth century Athens, in spite of her political misfortunes, is still the centre of artistic influence, and we see in the Athenian statuettes of this period a decided tendency to the adoption of sculptural types, not based on the direct imitation of particular statues, but inspired by the general influence of the many beautiful works of art contained there. In point of type the earliest is the standing maiden (Fig. 16),' whose attitude with the whole weight falling on one leg recalls that of the Caryatids of the Erechtheion, though the position of the arms is different, and our figure seems to be lifting them above her head as if to place a burden on it. The potter has carefully worked out and retouched all the details of his figure so as to give full effect to the soft, thick hair, the delicately- rounded features, the contrasting folds of the fine under-dress and the thick robe over it, and even the elaborate necklace, and has thus produced a composition which gives a perfect idea of the combination of delicacy of finish and largeness of conception of Attic art. A figure of Athene (Fig. 14) presents it to us under another form, as inter- 1 This iigure is in the possession of Cecil H. Smith, Esq., to whom I am indebted for permission to publish it. 34 GREEK TERRACOTTA STATUETTES preted in a foreign workshop, which has deprived it of its technical perfection, but has not been able to obscure the noble idea which underlies the composition. The figure is a Cypriote cast from an Athenian mould and is a very rough and clumsy production, but this roughness and clumsiness cannot hide the dignified simplicity of the whole and the skill with which the qualities of a statue have been transmitted to a statuette. We see before us the goddess to whom the Athenians prayed, 1 "Pallas Athena, mighty protectress, Shield us from storm and stress, Guard thou this folk and state From civic strife and fierce debate. Thou and thy sire, thy servants save From doom of an untimely grave." Translated by J. H. Mf.rivale. A certain amount of interest attaches to the copy, because the goddess holds her helmet in her hand, and it is suggested this was the attitude of the celebrated Athene Lemnia of Pheidias, a statue so fair that when a Greek art critic was composing a figure " compact of every statue's best," he took the oval of her face and her grace of expression for his "beauty." The technical skill of the Athenian potter is shown by the nude youth on Plate VI., and the dainty grace which he imparted to his less ambitious productions by a figure of a school-boy (Plate IV.), and by two little toys, one a boy riding on a swan {Ibid.), and the other a man on a mule {Ibid.). In the middle of the fourth century the centre of interest shifts from Athens further north to the district which lies between the island of Eubcea and the Corinthian Gulf, and which comprises Eretria, Aulis, the cities of Bceotia and of the Opuntian Locri. During the whole of the fifth century Bceotia was under a cloud owing to its unpatriotic conduct during the Persian wars, and in 1 HaAAas TpiToyevu' avaacr' 'ABtjvcL, OpOoV T7]VO€ 7TU/W T€ K(U 7ToA(Va9 arcp dXyewv Kat CTacretuv KO.L OavdroiV aoipitiV <rv re /cat 7rari']p. Bergk :! , Poet.i- Lyrici Graci, Scholia 2; Frag. 12S7. PLATE IV Toy. Brit. Mus. B. 271. SATYR MASK— AMULET. Brit. Mils. B. 479. Toy. Z.Y/A JkfKj. B. 270. ATHENIAN BOY. Brit. Mus. C. 334. Boy with Knucklebones. Brit. Mus. C. 324. DEVELOPMENT OF THE GENRE STATUETTE 35 addition to this, Attic wit fastened on its inhabitants a reputation for clumsiness, stupidity and general coarseness of appetite. Nothing that we know of Bceotia justifies this reputation, for Pindar was a Boeotian, and so were the celebrated poetesses Corinna and Myrinna, who were his contemporaries, while the Boeotian fourth-century statuettes reveal a delicate fancy which we should imagine could hardly have emanated from an uncultivated people, or have proved acceptable to them. As the political power of Athens waned, Bceotia gained in consideration, for the cities of Greece were all gradually included in the Macedonian kingdom, and none could triumph over the others when all were conquered. It is just at this period, in the middle of the fourth century, that the statuettes from Bceotia assume the place of honour which had so far belonged to Athens. This district had always been a centre of vase production, and has yielded every variety of statuette both of archaic and of transition type. The latter are all rather heavy and massive in form, distinguished by high bases and crowns, both moulded in one with the figure, and by an unusual predominance of male figures. It is, however, rather difficult to distinguish the pro- ductions of one district from those of another, owing to the general similarity of the clay used and the constant interchange of moulds among the different workshops. In the latter part of the fourth century, when the so-called Tanagra figures acquired such a vogue as to practically monopolize the market for a time, these causes lead to a still greater similarity in the productions of the different districts, and therefore Bceotian types are usually named after the district in which they first appear in any quantity. The name of "Tanagra" has thus been bestowed on a whole series of idealized studies from real life representing youths, maidens and children in every-day costume, engaged in their every-day pursuits, which were first discovered in the graves there. Tanagra is the centre of a district which, even in the second century a.d., was still "a land of potters," and there is no a priori improbability in the type having first originated there, though it soon spread not only to all the other workshops in Bceotia, but in Greece, and was extensively copied in Africa and Asia Minor. The phase of art which 36 GREEK TERRACOTTA STATUETTES these figures represent is that which in sculpture is chiefly associated with the name of Praxiteles. He chose by preference for his statues those subjects in which beauty and grace were the leading features, and while drawing his inspiration from the living model, yet by the selection of its most general and expressive features, produced from it an abstract type which was perfectly true to nature, but more beautiful than any concrete figure. The idealized human types thus created served admirably for figures of the younger gods, Aphrodite, Eros, Apollo and Dionysos, and the Boeotian potter used them to depict the graceful women (Fig. 31), the athletes who "radiant with youth like living statues lounge, decking the streets" (Fig. 28), the pretty children (Plate IV.) who passed daily before his eyes, and he was so charmed with his human models that even when he wished to represent the denizens of the air, the graceful attendant spirits who play so large a part in Greek imagery (Chapter VII.), he drew them as semi-nude maidens (Plate VIII.) and as winged children (Plate V.), differing only in their nudity and their wings from the maidens and children of every-day life. Part of the attraction of these figures lies in their human interest, but part is due to the perfection of their technique and the care and skill with which they were retouched, so that the details are rarely smudged or blurred as in most of the earlier figures (see Chapter II.). Their greater freedom of gesture and of pose, owing to the employ- ment of several moulds, which allowed the potter to represent more complicated attitudes, is also part of their charm. Their only fault is that they are rather monotonous, because they represent a type, not an individual, but that is the fault of the period, not of the potter. In his treatment of his favourite types there is no brusque breaking away from past traditions but only a modification of them, in accordance with the spirit of the age ; his athletes, save in the Greater freedom of their attitude, differ very little from the youthful male figures of Locri or Thebes, whose slightly hieratic attitude obliges us to call them Hermes or Ganymede instead of Konnaros or Philochares ; it requires only a very little modification to transform the figure of a seated goddess, shrouded in her mantle, with her hand muffled in the DEVELOPMENT OF THE GENRE STATUETTE 37 folds of her drapery (Fig. 13), into a Tanagra lady gracefully wrapped up in her shawl and holding its folds together coquettishly (Fig. 20) ; deprived of her hieratic accessories, her throne, her high head-dress and her sacrificial bowl, with a pointed hat on her head and a fan in her hand, the goddess would differ little from the woman. Imitations of Tanagra types occupied a large place in the stock of other centres of production, and it is interesting to compare these with their models. The winged children of Tanagra, the little Erotes (Plate V.) who dance along on tip-toe, are among the most graceful and original of their productions, and the prototypes of all the floating figures so common in later workshops (Plate VII.). With these we may compare another child Eros from iEgina, muffled in a cloak with a large wreath on his head, and wielding an enormous feather fan of oriental type, quite different from the ordinary ivy-leaf fan of Tanagra figures (Plate V.). He differs from them, too, in being of a heavier, more human build, and in not having just that touch of spirituality which is their distinguishing characteristic. That is the point in which the imitations differ from the originals in most centres ; when the workman did not content himself with reproducing the type, but attempted to modify it, his work is more human and less graceful. He did not, however, confine himself entirely to these reproductions, and some of the figures assigned to other centres are extremely in- teresting, notabiy those from Eretria, which is especially distinguished for a taste for greater definiteness of subject showing itself in the choice of legendary subjects (Plate VI.), and of character studies from real life, the pictorial character of which proves that they belong rather to the second than the first half of the third century. It is present even in their imitations of Tanagra types (compare Fig. 17 with Fig. 20), and finds full scope in such subjects as a school-master teaching a boy to write (Fig. 26), or the Nereid bearing the helmet of Achilles (Fig. 32). Among the figures of undoubted Eretrian provenance is a mask of Pan (Fig. 15) found in the "Tomb of Aristotle," l which is especially interesting because it embodies those qualities of simplicity and breadth 1 In the Central Museum at Athens. I am indebted to the Ephors, and to the discoverer, Dr. Waldstein, for permission to publish it. 38 GREEK TERRACOTTA STATUETTES of design which are inseparable from good work in clay. The material has its limitations — it is well able to reproduce the main features of a design, to suggest its outlines and the idea it contains, but it is not suited to the reproduction of minute detail. The charm of most of the Greek statuettes arises from the potter's knowledge of these limitations, which Jed him in making his figures to eliminate all unnecessary detail, and only to render the broad masses and outlines of his model. Of this broad treatment the little Pan mask is an admirable example ; the potter had to suggest the woodland character of the god and his shaggy goat form, and therefore the pointed ears, the shaggy eyebrows and knotted forehead melt insensibly into the little horns, the horns into a fringe of hair with leaf-like locks. The lines of the forehead and the snub nose run down through the long pendent moustachios into the goat-beard, and the whole face is set in a frame of shaggy hair ; there is no attempt at special treatment of any separate part of the composition, no insisting on details which might distract the eye, and therefore the design produces its full effect and suggests the dual character of the god better than another Eretrian statuette, a full-length portrait of him (Plate VI.) in which all the details of horns, pointed ears and goat legs are carefully worked out. The striving after effect seen in most of the Eretrian figures is not peculiar to them, for we find it in a late Athenian statuette (Fig. 22) of a lady poising an apple, and in a Corinthian one (Plate I.). It was the means by which the potters tried to keep in touch with the taste of the age, and it is to this desire also, that is due the prominence assigned to the uglier members of the Dionysiac cycle, the Satyrs and Seileni. In a previous age the Seilenos under the type of a nude bearded elderly man with pig's ears, was used as an amulet (page 28) and thus came into contact with the underworld god Dionysos. Dionysos had, however, another character as a woodland divinity, in whose train were Pan, the nymphs and the satyrs. The satyr was also a bearded nude male figure, and with him Seilenos was confounded, while the satyr took over the protective character of Seilenos, and guarded the infant god from harm. This legend is referred to in two statuettes ; in one (Fig. 36) the Seilenos pedagogue is taking his charge to" school, and in another (Fig. 35), the satyr is shown carrying him on one arm, and a ^ s w a p ■A in -A U w p <! W o M w ft) £ <J o Ph "t << o H ^ 'S c/l >a f) is. p4 ^ w DEVELOPMENT OF THE GENRE STATUETTE 39 teasing him with a bunch of grapes. 1 The contrast between the native ugliness of the satyr and the childish grace of the little god is well expressed, but the group is rather clumsy and heavy, both in technique and style, and contrasts unfavourably with another satyr portrait, which represents him playing on the double flute (Fig. 34). This figure is from Melos, an island which was celebrated for its pottery from a very early period in Greek history ; all its productions are marked by great technical perfection in kneading, moulding and firing the clay, and by a certain dryness and sharpness of outline which recalls bronze technique. The figure is modelled back and front, the pelt of the satyr is incised, not given by the mould, and special pains have been taken that no detail of the figure shall fail of its effect, probably because statuettes dealing with a definite legend are extremely rare, and the artist wished to make his story quite clear. There is no violent break between the figures found in Greece proper and those of the Hellenistic world, for at Myrina, a town in Asia Minor, to which the interest shifts, a considerable number of imitations of Tanagra types were found (Fig. 27), some very exact, others rather rough and heavy, but the Myrina potters soon advanced beyond the stage of imitation, and it is in this centre that we first find a profusion of the winged floating youths and maidens whose popularity rivalled that of the Tanagra figures, and it is here that we follow out the gradual cleavage of the statuettes into two distinct groups ; the mythological, which engross all the beauty of the series, and the genre, which rapidly develop into cari- catures. The mythological figures belong to that cycle of youthful divinities to which the Praxitelean school had given such prominence, Aphrodite, Dionysos and Eros, for in the Asiatic cities the cult of Aphrodite and Dionysos, in whose train came Adonis, Atys and other local heroes, assumed an importance which threw all other divinities into the shade, and supplied the potter with a variety of subjects, not only mythological but hieratic, for he was not exempt from the necessity of producing hieratic figures. Eros appears in two forms, but in neither case as a god, either as a winged youth, who with his feminine pendent Nike is merely a member 1 The provenance of this statuette is unknown, but both clay and technique point to Asia Minor as its home. 4 o GREEK TERRACOTTA STATUETTES of Aphrodite's train, or as a mischievous boy (Fig. 8), that cruel Eros whose pranks the Hellenistic epigrammatists bewailed so prettily. In this character he is frequently engaged in burning a butterfly (Psyche), but the group can have no reference to the legend of Cupid and Psyche which is of much later origin. The statuettes of Myrina are remarkable for the extent and variety of their types, and among them are every variety of floating and dancing figure posed with wonderful freedom and grace. These floating figures mark a phase of Hellenistic art which began with the little Erotes of Tanagra, and inspired a charming figure of a dancing-girl (Plate VII.), which though found in Greece is more closely connected with Asiatic than with Greek statuettes, both by its technique, its type of face, and its style. A certain number of copies of famous statues are found, chiefly of Aphrodite, but these are less numerous than at Smyrna, where the potters were chiefly occupied in making copies of bronze statuettes, which were frequently gilt to represent metal, just as at the same period the vase maker silvered his embossed cups and bowls. The figures from every-day life are all drawn from the artisan or actor class, and are remarkable for the vividness with which they are modelled. As a rule these figures are not retouched and the potter relied rather on the general effectiveness of his work than on its technical perfection of detail, though on occasion he could retouch as cleverly as the Tanagra potter. The principal features of his style are its decorative and pictorial character, the figures are rounder and fuller, their features softer, their attitudes more conscious than in the Greek work of the preceding age (Fig. 19), the contrasts between the nude forms and the drapery are more insisted on, and we are con- fronted with an art of a more assertive and realistic type. We find the same characteristics in the Sicilian and Italian terra- cottas, for there were no such barriers in the Hellenistic world as had formerly divided the cities of Greece ; individualism had died out, and had given place to a monotonous uniformity of thought, of feeling and of taste, and the same subjects, mythological and genre, appealed to Italian and to Asiatic alike. The mythological figures are all taken from the Aphrodite cycle, copies of statues of the goddess (Fig. 18), graceful winged feminine (Figs. 4 and 5) and masculine DEVELOPMENT OF THE GENRE STATUETTE 41 types, and figures of a boy-Eros (Plate VIII.). The genre figures are all caricatures and drawn from the same class of subject ; the full type of face, the strong contrast between nude and draped forms, are found in both places. But in spite of the similarity of the subjects chosen there is a certain difference in the way in which they are treated ; the winged figures do not float, they stand, or rather lean against a pedestal, in an attitude common among Tanagra figures which borrowed it from Praxitelean art. This attitude necessitates a somewhat different arrangement of drapery : instead of a short tunic girdled round the waist and floating in the air, the Italian figures are swathed in a heavy mantle, which leaves the upper part of the body bare but falls in massive folds to the ground and forms a base for the figure, which thus assumes a more statuesque pose. It results from this that while the Asiatic types are the more dramatic and ornate in character, the Italian and Sicilian ones are more simply conceived and so approach more nearly to the traditions of Hellenic art. How far both fall short of them, not only in style but in mere technical skill, is shown by a comparison of three statuettes from Athens (Plate VI.), from Myrina (Fig. 19), and from Canosa (Fig. 18), all of which are reproductions of statues. The nude youth crowned with flowers, with wine-cup and jug in his hands, is one of those fifth-century conceptions which hover on the confines of the real and the ideal world, and for which it is difficult to find a name ; but whether we call him " The Cup-Bearer " or the " Spirit of the Banquet " (page 66), the name can add little to his charm. The slender figure is so perfectly balanced, the feet sink so naturally into the little clay plinth, the still undeveloped body is modelled with such attention to anatomical detail, but no undue insistence on it, the watchful attitude of the willing cup-bearer is so well expressed, that we seem to have before us one of those pro- plasmata or sculptor's models of which Pliny speaks as commanding so high a price. The technical skill displayed in firing so fragile a figure is no less remarkable. With it the Artemis (Fig. 19) from Myrina compares but poorly, for the potter has in proverbial phrase " aimed at perfection and +2 GREEK TERRACOTTA STATUETTES attained mediocrity," and though the figure is picturesque its general effect is clumsy and wanting in dignity, for he has been more anxious to render all the details of the goddess' equipment and to put her into a striking attitude, than to express her character, and therefore his figure is not the Artemis of whom Homer sang : ] — " Great Artemis, whose very heart Is on her arrows set, across some mount Her path pursues, on steep Taygetus Or Erimanthus coursing, where in bears And swiftly rieeing deer is all her joy, — And ever in her train the rural nymphs (Those daughters fair of aegis-bearing Jove,) Disportive play, and with the scene elate Latona too, shows gladness, while 'bove all By a whole head and brow she towers high Even where all are lovely, instant known." Translated by G. Musgrave. but the Artemis of the Hellenistic epigrammatist : 2 — " I am great Artemis, and worthy oi the name, My sire none else than Jove, these looks proclaim. Confess such maiden vigour here is found All earth's too narrow for my hunting-ground." Translated by J. H. Merivale. The Aphrodite from Canosa (Fig. 18) shows better workmanship, and the potter has cleverly avoided the difficulty or balancing an undraped full-length figure by adopting a crouching position. The nude Aphrodite of Praxiteles, perhaps the most famous statue in antiquity, is the basis of all the statues of the goddess bathing, wringing the water from her hair, etc. ; and in the third century b.c. a Bithynian sculptor, Daidalos, taking the idea from a picture, represented her as a kneeling bather. The type is known to us by many replicas, of which the most famous is one in the Louvre, the so-called "Venus de Vienne." In time these copies degenerate into mere toilet scenes from every-day life, but our statuette is distin- 1 Oilys. vi. 1 02. - fis 7rpt7rei ApTe/xis elfx ' e? 8' ApTe/«r cu'tos 6 xaA./<o<; jxavvzi ZrjVOS, koi'x erepov Ovyarpa. TcK/xai'pot) to Opa.do<i tus TrapOh'ov. H pa k(v zliroi.%. Ilucra x#u>i' oXi'yov Ta8e Kvvayimov. — Anthol. Pal. xvi. (App. Plan) 158. DEVELOPMENT OF THE GENRE STATUETTE 43 guished from these by its absence of affectation, and by the noble simplicity of the head and expression. It is these qualities which, though the bodily forms are too heavy and massive for grace, and the limbs somewhat disproportioned, make it no unworthy picture of the goddess.' "Thine own fair form's sweet image take Than this no choicer offering can I make." Translated by J. H. Merivale. In these three statuettes we have a resume of the history of Greek art during the last four hundred years of the Pagan era, of the variations of style and taste through which it passed, and of the phases of thought which dictated them, but a study of the statuettes shows that they have a human interest as well as an artistic one, and as human documents they have much to tell about the manners, customs and beliefs of classical Greece. 1 2ot fjiop(f>r}s avcO'ijKa rd)s 7re/)tk'a/\A.e9 ayaX/xa, Lucian, Anthol. Pal. xvi. (App. Plan) 164. CHAPTER V GENRE STATUETTES OF FEMININE TYPE " Not such your burden, happy youths, as ours — Poor women children, nurtured daintily — ■ For ye have comrades when ill fortune lours, To hearten you with talk and company ; And ye have games for solace, and may roam Along the streets, and see the painters' shows ; While woe betide us if we stir from home — And there our thoughts are dull enough, God knows!" Translated by William M. Harding. 'Hidcot? ovk eiTTi twos 7TOVOS O7T7T0Cr0S rjfJ.IV Tais aTaXoxpv^OLS «XP ae vrjh.VTepa.is. Tois p.ei' yap -n-apiamv op.ijA.iMS, ois t« jUepi/AV^s uAyea /ivOuvTai cpOtyfUin OapcraXtui. iraiyvia T upc^ieVoicxi 7rap)Jyopa k<u sat ayvias irAufoi'Tai ypa<j)L$u)V xpajpacri pep./3d^.ero[. r/fjlv S' oi>Se </>dos Aei'o-creiF 6ip,i<S, dAAa p£Aa#pois Kfiv7TTuiJ.€0a, £o<£epats (ppoVTLCTi, TiJKO/ievat. Agathias Scholasticus, Anthol. Pal. v. 297. To ninety-nine people out of a hundred the interest in any collection of Greek statuettes centres in the dainty little ladies from Tanagra whose acquaintance a delighted world made for the first time about thirty years ago, when they revealed to us a phase of Greek art whose existence we were far from suspecting. Since then their popularity has never decreased, and the reason of it is not far to seek. They are so human in their dainty prettiness that we realize at once that their type of beauty is not the ideal one of the sculptor, but the real one of every-day life. True, the modelling is sometimes sketchy, but the sketchiness is that of a Japanese drawing, not the omission of anything important, but the suppression of the unimportant ; for instance, the most interesting part 44 GENRE STATUETTES OF FEMININE TYPE 45 of the human body is the face, and the heads of these statuettes are treated in a spirit of delicate and refined realism which is only enhanced by the less detailed execution of the other parts of the figure. In this realism lies the secret of their charm ; we see the Greek woman of the upper classes, we learn how she dressed, the shape, colour and fashion of her different garments, and how coquettish! y and with what infinite variety she arranged a costume which, in itself, is extremely simple, and whose elements never varied ; and we also learn how she amused herself. Such details are all the more interesting because classical authors tell us so little about her daily life, and the general impression is that we know nothing of it, because she spent her days in the seclusion of which Agathias' epigram (quoted above) gives us so vivid a picture. But why do more than half the Tanagra ladies wear hat and shawl if " they were not allowed to breathe the outer air, and brooding on their own dull thoughts, must stay within " ? The status of women in Greece varied from century to century and from district to district, just as it has done in other lands. Homer and iEschylus probably drew their heroines from life, and neither suggests that they lived in Oriental seclusion ; on the contrary, both represent them as having a dignified position in the household and conversing freely with such strangers as came to their husband's or father's house, but after the Persian wars (b.c. 490), and possibly even before, when there was a great influx of Greeks from Asia Minor, Eastern ideas as to the propriety of secluding women seem to have crept in, especially in Athens. It is, however, quite clear that even there the restraining power was public opinion, not physical force. It must be borne in mind that our impressions of Greek life and custom are mainly derived from one epoch in the history of one state, the sixty years in the history of Athens which has been aptly named her "Imperial period" (b.c. 470-410). Athens was then the centre of the world, her streets were thronged with a motley crowd of Greek and foreign sailors and traders, and an Athenian gentleman may have been well justified in thinking that his woman-kind were better at home, except when they were taking part in religious processions and cere- monies, where custom protected them from insult. These functions afforded a fair number of outings, but they gave no opportunity of 46 GREEK TERRACOTTA STATUETTES meeting the other sex, for a Greek lady was entirely restricted to the society of her own or her husband's immediate male relations, and for a male friend, however intimate, to enter a house when the master of it was absent, would have been considered a wanton insult. It must also be remembered that the remarks of Athenian authors only refer to the women of the noble and wealthy classes, and to dwellers in towns. Prior to the Peloponnesian war, most wealthy Athenian families lived on their estates in Attica, and only came into Athens when their presence was required there. Xenophon, in his treatise, The Householder, mentions amongst the advantages of a country life, " that it is so much more pleasant for the wife ; " and Demosthenes draws a pretty picture of the excellent relations which had formerly existed between the mothers of two litigants, when they used to meet in the evening, and sit spinning and chatting in the fields, " as they naturally would, being neighbours in the country, and their husbands good friends." 1 The object of quoting these passages from Athenian authors is to show that by using the terracotta statuettes as the basis of this account of a Greek lady's life and habits, a truer general view of the subject can be obtained than by emphasizing the peculiar local conditions of life at Athens, which was undoubtedly more restricted, though rather in the direction of separation from the man's life than in entire seclusion at home. At the close of the first years of the Peloponnesian war, Pericles delivered a funeral oration at Athens in honour of the slain, in which occurs this passage addressed to their widows : — " Your greatest glory is not to fall short of the standard set up for your sex, and she is best whose name is least spoken of among men, either for praise or for blame." - This would certainly have missed its effect had the widows not been present to hear it ; undoubtedly they were, in a place apart, and that represents the Athenian, and in a lesser degree, the Greek view of what was becoming in a woman, to live modestly and discreetly in the background of a man's material life, a faithful guardian of his house and gear, leaving him free to seek abroad among his own sex the companion- ship and mental stimulus which she could not give. Judged by the standards of the present day, the life of a Greek woman 1 Demosthenes contra Kallielen, 23. 2 Thucvd ii j.c GENRE STATUETTES OF FEMININE TYPE 47 was dull and monotonous, but we should pass the same verdict on an English country gentlewoman's life a hundred years ago — a round of household cares and duties, broken only by domestic anniversaries and religious ceremonies. One of the most important duties of the women was the preparation of the clothing of the household, no light matter when every web of cloth had to be carded, spun, and woven at home. Theocritus : sang the " Blithely whirling distaff, azure-eyed Athena's gift To the sex, the aim and object of whose life is household thrift." Translated by Calverley. and though one poet hurled an angry epigram at " wool which makes women grow old " a Greek lady was proud of her skill in spinning and weaving, and claimed for herself the lines in which Theocritus sang of Helen,' 2 " And who into the basket e'er The yarn so deftly drew ; Or through the mazes of the web So well the shuttle threw, And severed from the framework As closely woven a warp, As Helen, Helen in whose eyes the loves for ever play " Translated by Calverley. Spinning, weaving and embroidery were the most important items of a Greek girl's education, which was conducted entirely at home, and therefore restricted to such accomplishments as her mother could teach her, music, singing and probably a little reading and writing ; the most important thing, in Xenophon's words, 3 being " that she should be brought up to see and hear as little and ask as few questions as possible." Her marriage, which took place at about fifteen, was a 1 rA.ai)Kas, oj <f>i\tpid' oXaKixra, Saipov 'Ar?ai'uas yvvai££v, I'o'o; oiK-ax^eAi'as alcnv en-d/JoAos. — Theoc. Id. xxvni. 1, 2. 2 ovre tis « TaAa'pojs 7rav«rO£Tai ipyo. ToiavTa ovt ivl SaiSaAe'w TrvKivu')T€pov arptov «tto> KepKiSi (Tvp.Tr\e$o.<Ta p.aKpwv trap €k koVcoi'Toji/ ojs 'EAeVa, tos 7rai'T€s iir' o/xpaaiv L/xepoi ivn. Theocritus, Epithalamium of Helen, 31 — 37- '■' Xenophon, (Economkus, vii. 5 — 7. 4 8 GREEK TERRACOTTA STATUETTES matter of arrangement between the relations on either side, and the shy, frightened demeanour of a young wife is well described by an Athenian husband, who told Socrates that when his young wife was " sufficiently tamed," he began to ask her questions, and to teach her how to manage the household, because all she knew when she came to him, — and it was all he could expect — was how to take wool and make a dress, and how to apportion the daily spinning tasks to the handmaidens, as she had seen it done in her mother's house. Xenophon is of course referring to life at Athens in the fourth century B.C., and we gain some details as to provincial life from one Dicsarchus, 1 a Greek dilettante whose notes of a tour through Attica and Bceotia in the third century have come down to us. He stayed at Tanagra, where he found much wealth but little display ; he praises the uprightness and hospitality of the inhabitants which made it the pleasantest place in Bceotia for a stranger to stay in, though at first it looked a mere heap ot lime-washed houses. He passed by Plata;a where the inhabitants lived on the memory of " the brave days of old," thence through well-watered plains to Thebes, a charming place for a summer residence, even though it was hot, because the gardens were the loveliest in Greece. The Theban men had every vice, but the women ! there was nothing Boeotian about them, nay ! they were like the women ot Sikyon, so gentle and pleasant were their voices. " Their height, beauty and graceful carriage makes them the fairest and most elegant women in all Greece." Then he notes some details of their dress. " Their method of wearing the shawl over the head is such that only the eyes show, the rest of the face is veiled ; this shawl is always white. Their hair is auburn and they wear it twisted up in a knot on the top of the head ; the local name of this coiffure is lampadion (the torch). Their shoes are thin, cut low, red in colour, and so neatly fitted to the foot that it looks almost bare." On the whole of this passage the statuettes form a most interest- ing commentary; we see the tall, graceful Theban lady with her shawl thrown over her head (Fig. 17) and draped closely round her in elegant folds, gracious and pleasant in looks, sometimes with, sometimes without, a hat (Fig. 20) to protect her from the scorching 1 Dicaearchi, Descriplio Grgcine, 8 — 22. GENRE STATUETTES OF FEMININE TYPE 49 rays of the sun, often bearing a fan with the same object. Until the discovery of the statuettes we were far from suspecting how important an adjunct a fan was to the toilette of a Greek lady, nor did we know the fashion and shape of the big straw hat (tholia) which Praxinoe wore when she and Gorgo went to see the Adonis play at Alexandria (page 50). In the same way the statuettes show us that the ordinary house dress was a long tunic (Fig. 21), with or without sleeves, girdled under the arms, and reaching to the feet ; this garment was usually white, but was often decorated with coloured borders and embroideries. Such a costume was, however, only suited for indoor wear, and on occasions of ceremony a shawl was added, even indoors. Of this we have a charming example in a standing figure with a wreath in her hair, who is draped in a large square shawl of a blue tint (Fig. 31). This shawl was de rigueur when a Greek lady walked abroad, and we see in how many and how varied ways it could be worn (Plate I.). According to Dicaearchus, it was always white, but as a rule, those of the statuettes are pink or blue. Another difference is in the shoes, which are of untanned leather with a red sole, and probably, though we do not see them, high red heels. The Theban " lampadion " coiffure frequently occurs (Ibid.), and so does a variation of it in which the knot is supported by a shaped band fastened over the forehead (Plate VIII.). Occasionally, but only occasionally, we find a statuette which seems to possess a definite personality, and to aim at representing not any lady, but some particular lady, and such is the dignified matron (Fig. 22) seated on a rock in one of those shady Theban gardens of which Dicasarchus spoke. Her gala costume, no less than her beauty, remind us of the beautiful Boeotian poetess Corinna, who five times won a prize from Pindar, and who boasted that by her sweet-toned songs she had brought great honour to Tanagra's white-robed dames, though current gossip ascribed her victory not to her poetry, but to her beauty ! In one hand she poises an apple, the lover's token. 1 ' Tui ij.i'jXui /SaXXo) ere' tv 8' el plv eKOvaa ^H/Yei? /-te, (iefo./j.erv; tj}? <n]<; -0.p9ei'O]<> /xeraOo;' €i 6 ap j it fMrj ytyvoiTO, 7'oets, tovt avTO Xapovva CK^ij/ai TrjV wp'ijv ws oAtyo^(0OVtO5. Plato, Bergk op. cit. 619. 5o GREEK TERRACOTTA STATUETTES " I throw an apple at my fair, And if she love me, love me truly, She'll guess aright the hidden prayer, Accept it, and reward me duly. But if — oh ! let it not be spoken, She have no mind to be persuaded, Still let her take the lover's token And think how soon it will be faded." Translated by J. H. Merivale. Charming and valuable as the statuettes are which deal with the outer aspect of a woman's life, they are still more interesting when they take us into the women's apartments and open for us what otherwise would be a sealed book. We see the little girl dressed in her best, seated on a square stool (Fig. 23), quivering all over with suppressed excitement at the prospect of some outing, perhaps the yearly fair, when toys of all kinds were given to the children. An older maiden strolls in the garden talking to the pet bird cooing on her shoulder (Fig. 21). Birds are not infrequent accessories of the Tanagra figures, whether boys or girls, youths or maidens, and the figure serves to illustrate that fondness for pets to which Greek epigrams so often allude. Another phase of lite, the interchange of visits between neighbours, is amusingly illustrated by the accompanying group of two ladies seated on a sofa (Fig. 27), enjoying a good gossip ; it is the plastic representa- tion of the opening scene between " Gorgo " and "Praxinoe" of the Adoniazitsw of Theocritus. 1 Praxinoe. Dear Gorgo! you are quite a stranger; I'd almost given you up. Sit down ! Gorgo. I hardly thought to get here alive ; such a crush ! all sorts and conditions of men, and what a distance away you do live now ! P. Oh, well ! that tyrant of mine took this hovel, I can't call it a house, at the back of beyond, to keep us apart — it's just like him ! Tiresome pest ! G. My dear! don't talk like that about your husband before the child. Look! how he's staring ! Never mind, Zopyrion, my pet, mama's not talking about dada ! Good gracious ! he understands ! Dear Dada ! P. " Dear dada " had some marketing to do the other day, soda and rouge to get, and if you believe me he brought home salt ! and so on, the gossip being only cut short by the necessity of Gorgo's putting on her shawl and hat to go and see the Adonis show in Alexandria. 1 ./do/aa-z,i/s,e, I — 1 6. GENRE STATUETTES OF FEMININE TYPE 51 The koroplastEe did not neglect that most important of persons in a Greek household, the nurse, though being a slave they usually treat her in a spirit of caricature (Fig. 24). Greek writers are loud in condemnation of the custom of entrusting the care of a free-born Greek to a barbarian who could not even speak properly, but in spite of their protests Thracian nurses were in great demand, and the memory of one of these, Cleita, has been preserved to us, by her grateful charge. 1 " To Cleita. The child Medeius to his Thracian mure This stone, inscribed ' To Cleita,' raised in mid high way. Her modest virtues ott shall men rehearse, Who doubts it: Is not ' Cleita's worth' a proverb to this day!"' Translated by Calyerley. The tie which bound nurse and nursling was a very close one, and in one of Demosthenes' orations - the plaintiff explains that after long and faithful service his nurse was set free and married. Long years after- wards her husband died, and she being alone and friendless, turned for help to her foster son, now a married man with children, and " of course I took her in, I could not see my nurse or my pedagogue in want." The Boeotian artist treats the nurse in a spirit of caricature, but his attitude to the mother is quite different, and one of the most charming statuettes (Fig. 25) in the collection shows us a graceful young mother in her high-backed chair singing her baby to sleep, perhaps with the cradle-song, which the Greek poet, Simonides, puts into the mouth of Danae. 3 " Sleep on, my babe, I bid thee sleep, And sleep, thou raging sea ; And sleep, ye countless cruel griefs Of miserable me." — 'Translated by W. Hay. The statuettes which illustrate this account of a Greek woman's life 1 'O /j.lkkos to 8' ereufe ra ®pdijcra M?/8«os to /xra/x' iirl to. cjSoj, Kr/Tre'ypat/'e KAeiVas. e£ei Tar \a.piv ''■ y vv " u, ' Tt T17V10V mv tov Kwpov Wpefe. Ti fldv ; hi ^pyjaipa KaAeiTcu. Theoc. Epig. xviii. 2 Bern, contra Everg et Mnes'ib, 55, 56. '■'• Ke'Ao/xai S' eSSe /3pe'<£os, cuSeVoj Se xoVtos €l'0€TOj 8' (ijXOTOV KO.KOV. SlMONIDES, Bel'gk, Op. Clt. I I 3 1 . 52 GREEK TERRACOTTA STATUETTES and habits do not come only from Tanagra ; some, and those not the least beautiful, are from other parts of Greece, though all are of the type which we associate with the name. It is noteworthy that when the importers did not merely content themselves with a rough reproduction of the graceful figures, their renderings of them have just the touch of character which the Tanagra statuettes lack. A comparison of the two standing figures from Corinth (Plate I.) and from Eretria (Fig. 17) with another (Fig. 20) from Tanagra shows the precise nature of this difference. Both figures are characterized by less delicacy of workman- ship and by greater breadth ot treatment than their model ; this shows in the firmer pose, the attitude of the head, the arrangement of the drapery, while the Corinthian potter has substituted for the usual thin, rectangular plinth, a high one of columnar form which adds much to the effectiveness of the figure, though it detracts somewhat from its poetry. Just the same difference is shown in the group of two ladies talking together (Fig. 27). It is from Myrina in Asia Minor, and obviously inspired by Tanagra types, but we are immediately impressed with the reality of the scene ; whatever the subject of the conversation, the talkers are engrossed in it, and the group gains immensely in value by the addition of this touch ot realism. The Tanagra potter was, however, particularly happy in his rendering of figures or scenes in which gentle grace predominates, and one of his most attractive groups is that of the mother and child which has all the sweet serenity of a mediaeval Madonna (Fig. 25), but it is not a matter for surprise that with the growing taste for realism in art, his dainty productions ceased to please and had to give way to a coarser and more human type of figure. CHAPTER VI GENRE STATUETTES OF MASCULINE TYPE " The first of mortal joys is health, Next beauty ; and the third is wealth, The fourth, all youth's delights to prove, With those we love." — Translated by J. H. Merivale. Yyiaivtiv jxkv apirrrov avSpl 6raTuJ, 0€vT€pov 8e tpvixv kiiXov ya'tvOaL, to TfjLTOv 6e irXovrtLV dooAojs koX to reraprov i]/3av /xeTu rtov <j>l\ciiv. Bergk op. cit. 1289. The Greek passion for beauty of form led to a cultus of youthful physical beauty and of its fortunate possessors ; the beauty of youth, the deformity of age, is the frequent theme of the Greek poets ; the pitifulness of growing old, of losing the vigour and freshness of youth, the horror and disgrace of physical decay, impressed the Greek imagination. 1 " The fruit of youth remains Brief as the sunshine scattered o'er the plains, And when these shining hours have fled away, To die were better than to breathe the day." — Translated by F. Elton. The sentiment was no late importation into Greek literature, it finds voice even in Homer,' and the crowning argument used by Tyrtajus to incite the Spartan youth to prowess in war, is the cruelty 1 /j.i'rvvOa 8e ylyvtTai y/3i]<; Kap7ros, oltov, T iirl yrjv KLOVCiTiU 77eAiOS, avrap €71-771' 07) tovto t€/Vos Trapa/u.eii^aTcu 07/7775 avTLKti reOvdpxvaL fiiXrLov 7} ptOTOS. Mimnermus, Frag. 2 ; Bergk op. at. 409. - Iliad, xxii. 7 \ Jf. 53 54 GREEK TERRACOTTA STATUETTES of allowing an elder man to suffer death in battle, a death which would reveal the deformities of age, but which could only bring fresh glory to the beauty of youth. 1 " Leave not our sires to stem the unequal light, Whose limbs are nerved no more by buoyant might. Nor lagging backward, let the younger breast Allow the man of age (a sight unblessed), To welter in the combat's foremost thrust, His hoary head dishevelled in the dust And venerable bosom bleeding bare : But youth's (air form, though fall'n, is ever fair, And beautiful in death the youth appears, The hero vouth who dies in blooming years." Translated by T. Campbell. This idea is so characteristically Greek, so interwoven with the fibre of Greek life and thought, that it would be strange if the potter had not given expression to it. Every collection of Tanagra figures contains a certain number of male types, and these almost without exception represent youths under twenty ; it is only very rarely that we find the portrait of a man of middle age, while old age is usually treated in a spirit of caricature, with special reference to its loss of figure, hair and teeth. Here again the statuettes afford valuable evidence ot contemporary Greek taste and thought, and an interesting commentary on the statements of classical authors about the education and training of the Greek boy. This was conducted on principles diametrically opposed to those on which his sister was brought up, she entirely at home, he entirely away from it. This absence of family lite is the weak point in the Greek social system ; a boy was removed from his mother's care 1 roes <^e TTaXaiOTepovs ct>v ovksti ytn'var' i\a<f>pn< ji>j KCLTaXenrovTts t^euyere, roe? yepaiovs' uirry/>ui' yap orj tovto pera — popA^otfTl — arovra KelaOcu —p6(r^€ re'oji- avopa iraXaioTtpov i/oe Aet'Kor e^orra KO.prj iro\lov re yeVetov dvpov airoTTVUOVT uA/a/xur er kovi'ij di0"xpa Tuy 0(p6aXp.oZ^ kcll vtfutri/Tov ideh' Kul xpoa yvp.VMOi.VTa' veoim. 8e ttu.vt e—eoiKev i'xj>p' cpaTijs r//3rj<; ayXaov avdo's t^ij. — iyrtteus, Bergk op. at. ^98. GENRE STATUETTES OF MASCULINE TYPE ^ when he was about seven, his father's day was passed almost entirely away from home, and tenderly attached to their children as the Greeks were, this tenderness did not lead them to take an intelligent interest in a child's upbringing, in which the parents had little share, for a father who had engaged an efficient attendant and competent in- structors for his son had done all that the most exacting theorist could require. The cause of this curiously detached attitude lies in the radical difference between the ancient and the modern conception of the objects of education. In our view education is directed to the advantage of the individual who belongs to himself, but the ancients sought the advantage of the State, to whom a man belonged. This theory carried to its logical conclusion would oblige the State to undertake the whole of a boy's education, but save in Sparta, it contented itself with providing him with two years' military train- ing at the age of eighteen, and left his previous studies to private enterprise. A Greek lad's education therefore fell into two parts : the first from seven to eighteen years of age, the second, from eighteen to twenty. During this latter period it is easy to follow his life, but not so easy to discover how he spent the preceding eleven years in acquiring the very slender amount of knowledge which constituted a liberal education in a world which had not much past of its own, and had not yet learnt to take an interest in the past of " barbarian " nations. Until he was seven a boy remained in the charge of his mother and nurse, but about that age he passed into the care of an elderly male slave, called a pedagogue, who had no literary duties, but whose function it was to attend him to and from school, and to teach him the ordinary rules of good behaviour — " not to sit with his feet crossed, nor to lean his chin on his hand ; not to stare about him in the streets, but to keep his eyes fixed modestly on the ground ; how to wear the big cloak which was his outdoor dress (Plate IV.), and how to eat tidily, taking one finger to relishes and sauce, two to bread and fish." The conventional representation of a pedagogue is an elderly man, with bald head, long beard and wrinkled forehead (Fig- 36). 5 6 GREEK TERRACOTTA STATUETTES There were three branches of learning — grammar, music and gymnastics ; until he was fourteen a boy was principally concerned with the two first-named, but at fourteen he was supposed to have finished his studies in "grammar," and it was replaced by gymnastics, to which and music, he chiefly devoted his attention during the last four years of his school life. " Grammar " comprised reading, writing and a little elementary arithmetic. After three years' instruction the pupil could usually begin to read the poets ; his acquaintance with their works was not, how- ever, postponed until he could read them for himself. The great poets supplied the religious influence in Greek life, and a Greek child learnt by heart passages from Homer and Hesiod, as an English child learns passages from the Bible. These were committed to memory from the oral instruction of the teacher, and we now see why education proceeded at so leisurely a pace ; there were, of course, no home lessons, for there were no school books, and though a Greek boy had not continuous holidays, there were a sufficient number of public festivals to seriously interrupt the course of study, for during these the schools were closed, and it is recorded as characteristic of a mean man that he did not send his children to school during the month Anthesterion because half of it was occupied by public festivals, and he thereby saved a whole month's school fees ! Besides selections from the works of Homer and Hesiod, a Greek boy had to learn the many popular songs, hymns, catches, dirges and choral odes, knowledge of which constituted a liberal education. Few of these have come down to us, except in quotation, because the greater part of a Greek gentleman's library was housed in his head, and every- body knew them by heart ; one of the finest, the " Song of Harmodios and Aristogeiton," x which was the Athenian National Anthem ("I'll wreath my sword in a myrtle bough"), is well known in translations to English readers. We learn from a terracotta statuette how writing was taught (Fig. 26) ; the teacher traced the letters on the wax-covered surface of a wooden tablet and guided the pupil's hand over these lines until Calli stratus, Frag. 11 ; Bergk op. fit. 1291. GENRE STATUETTES OF MASCULINE TYPE 57 he could form them for himself ; he also learnt to write in ink with a reed on papyrus, and as papyrus was expensive, these school exercises are usually written on the back of some other document. Numbers in Greek are denoted by the letters of the alphabet, differentiated by accents, a! = 1, but a = 1000, and the Greek boy learnt enough arithmetic to transact the ordinary business of life, but abstract quantities had no fascination for the Greek mind, and the followers of Pythagoras who devoted much time to their study were more concerned with the mystical qualities inherent in them than with their uses and capabilities. The Greeks attached more importance to the study of music than to any other branch of education. Reading and writing were com- paratively late innovations which old-fashioned folk viewed with some disfavour, but choral singing accompanied every public festival: ' — " Oh, would I were an ivory lyre ! A lyre of burnished ivory, That in the Dionysian choir Beauteous boys might carry me." Translated by J. H. Mkrivale. A hymn was sung at every banquet before the symposion began, and catches, glees, and songs during it. Thus Socrates, to put an end to a discussion which was growing heated, says : " — " Well ! if we are all so eager to be heard at once, what fitter time than now to sing a song in chorus," and started one, perhaps this by Hybrias the Cretan : 3 — 1 EWe Xvpa KaXrj ytvoijx-qv iXe<j>avTivrj ko.1 /j.e KaXot iraxoes <£e/jotei' \covvo~tov e<? \opov. Scholia, 19; Bergk op. ril. 1293. 2 Xen., Symp. 7, 1. 3 "Eo"Tt p.01 ttXovtos /Aeyas oopv ko.1 £/<£o? Sir. a . ko.I to KaXov Xaicn'jiov, Trp6/3Xrnxa ^pojro?' tovtu) yap dpoj, rovrio Otpi^o), Tovrui 7rareat TOV advv oivov a7T ap.7ri.Xur TOVTOi 0€cr7roras /xvoias KO<Xrpj.U.L. Tot 8e p.yj ToXp.wvT e'x e "' oopv Kal ii<f>o<; Str. p. Kal to KaXov Xaurrjlov irpopX-qp.a ^pojtos' 7rai'T£? yovv 7re7rT'//ioTe9 (ap,<f>i) eadr . . . (Trpos)KVV£VVTl (/j.e) Seo-TroTar Kal piyav fiaiTiXrja cpiovtovres. — Bergk op. cit. 1295. 5 8 GREEK TERRACOTTA STATUETTES " My wealth's a burly spear and brand, And a right good shield of hide untanned Which on my arm I buckle. With these I plough, I reap, I sow, With these I make the sweet wine flow, And all around me truckle. But your wights that take no pride to wield A massy spear and well-made shield, Nor joy to draw the sword. Oh ! I bring these heartless, hapless drones Down in a trice on their marrow-bones, To call me king and lord ! " — Translated by T. Campbell, Then there were drinking songs : 1 — " To be bowed with grief is foil v, Naught is gained bv melancholy, Better than the pain of thinking Is to steep the sense in drinking." Translated by J. H. Merivale. and many others, each with its own traditional air, knowledge of which was as necessary as a knowledge of the alphabet, for ignorance showed lack of breeding. Music included proficiency on some instrument, usually the lyre ; at one time the flute was in fashion, but, besides being ungraceful, it was a solo instrument, and, as such, lett to professional artists, the gentleman's object being merely to accompany himself when he sang. The amusements of a Greek bov did not differ materially from those of any other boy. We get a list of his favourite toys from a dedicatory epigram, which show that boy tastes have not changed much in two thousand years. - ' Oi' xfn) KtxKQitjl Ov/xov eV n-^e':r7/r- TrpOKoif/Ofjiev yap ovoev dcra^Ltej/ot, oi fjrK^L, <f>apfjiaKov o apuTTOv, furor iv€LK(X[Aevois fitOvcrOwv. Alczeus, Bergk op. at. 941 (Schol. 35). - hvcfuj/jor rat (Tcftalpav, ivKp6ra\6v re $iAokA.«s Epfaurj, Tavrrjv, vTrt'ireS/r -Aaruyi/r, cMTTpayaAas 6 "is — oAA eV e/xi/ruTo, xat riir kXiKTOV I'xifj.pur. Kovpoavvrj'i -a.i'yri' . aviKpifxau^v . Leonidas, Anthol. Pal. vi. 509. GENRE STATUETTES OF MASCULINE TYPE 59 " To Hermes, this fair ball of pleasant sound, This boxen rattle full of lively noise, These maddening bones, this top well spinning round, Philocles offers here, his boyhood's tovs." Translated by Lord Neaves. And besides these, numbers of toys — jugs, dolls (Fig. 2), cups, carts, animals (Plate IV r . and Fig. 1) have been found in the tombs, and one Athenian father mentions that he bought his son a toy cart and horse with his first juror's tee. Two of our statuettes represent boys in holiday trim, the one wrapped in a huge mantle, with a fillet on his head (Plate IV.), waiting to take part in some festival, the other with a ball in one hand, and a bag of knuckle-bones in the other (Plate IV.), just off to play with a comrade. These knuckle-bones took the place of our marbles in the favour of school-boys, and we learn that one Konnaros won eighty of them as a writing-prize (see page 5). At about fourteen a boy began his gymnastic training, which included running, leaping, hurling the quoit and throwing the javelin. The gymnasia in which the boys trained were private ones, under private teachers, the public ones being reserved for the ephebi and the older men. At all the great games there were contests lor boys, whose victories were duly honoured in song by Pindar and the later lyrists. Among the upper classes at Athens riding was a favourite amusement, and the last four years of the boy's school life was spent in learning the arts he would have to practise as an ephebe ; he was still, however, under the care of his pedagogue, and the strictest rules were laid down tor his behaviour ; the market-place and the law-courts were forbidden ground to him ; he was enjoined not to dawdle in the streets on his way home from school, to observe silence in the presence of his elders, and, in a word, to cultivate that modest and shamefaced reserve which was the crown of virtuous youth. At eighteen he became a citizen, and entered on his two years' military training. He doffed the great mantle and fillet, his boy dress, and assumed the traditional dress of the ephebe class, which he had now entered, the chlamys, or short cloak, and petasos, or sun-hat, with which the statuettes have made us familiar (Fig. 28). This was a Thessalian riding costume, and adopted by all Greek states as a fighting or travelling garb. At Athens the chlamys worn on state occasions 60 GREEK TERRACOTTA STATUETTES was dark, but this was a local fashion, mourning for the last king Kodros of blessed memory, and as a rule it was white or coloured. The Athenian ephebe was drilled for a year at Athens, then armed publicly with lance and buckler at the shrine of Agraulos, where he swore l not to abandon his comrade in arms, to fight for hearth and home and his country's gods, to obey all magistrates and to respect the belief of his ancestors, " so help me Aglauros, Enyalios, Ares, Zeus, Thallo Auxo and Hegemone." His second year was spent in the frontier guard of which there were two branches, infantry and cavalry, and at its expiration he was free from further service, unless war broke out. In the fifth and fourth centuries b.c. an ephebe was entirely occupied with physical culture ; but in later times he was expected to continue his other studies, and a Greek writer draws the following picture of a well- born youth's day 2 : — " He rises early from his unluxurious bed, washes away the remains of sleep from his eyelids with pure water, and with his classic cloak fastened on his shoulders by a clasp, he leaves his father's house with downcast eyes, looking at no one whom he meets. He is escorted by a decorous train of servants and pedagogues, who bear after him the honourable material for toil, no ivory combs to smooth his locks, no painted pictures of beauteous objects, no mirrors, but in their stead writing-tablets, volumes which enshrine the value of ancient deeds, and, if he is going to his music-master, his lyre. When his mind is satiated with lessons diligently learnt, he trains his body by liberal exercise ; in peace he practises the arts of war, casting the javelin, and hurling the dart with steady hand. Then come the sports of the palaestra, and under the sun's fierce rays he rolls his body in the dust till the sweat drops from it in the struggle. Next a brief bath and a frugal meal, and then his masters come again, expounding which hero was brave and which prudent, and who was famed for justice, who for temperance. Night puts an end to toil, and recruited by needful food, he enjoys the sound and refreshing slumber which is the reward of hard work." The statuettes show us this model youth on his way to the palaestra (Fig. 28), strigil and oil-flask in hand. It must not, however, be 1 Stob*us, Florikg. +1, N. 141. - Lucian, Amor. 44, 45. GENRE STATUETTES OF MASCULINE TYPE 61 supposed that he had no amusements ; of these cock-fighting was one of the most popular ; another statuette shows us a somewhat older youth (Fig. 29), no longer wearing his working-dress, but draped in a mantle of ceremony, with a woollen fillet wreathed with ivy on his head, on his way to a feast with his pet cock under his arm. In addition to the amusements of private life, the young man, as the flower of the state, and therefore most pleasing to the gods, took a prominent part in all festal processions, embassies, etc. A Greek usually married young, but that made little difference in his way of lite, for " for a man to remain indoors, instead of devoting himself to outdoor pursuits is a thing discreditable," and an Athenian gentleman in the fourth century B.C. gave the following account of his day to Socrates : 1 — " Why then, my habit is to rise early when I may still expect to find at home this, that, or the other friend whom I may wish to see. Then, if anything has to be done in town, I set off to transact the business and take a walk ; or it there is none, my groom leads my horse on to the farm. I follow, and so make the country road my walk, which suits me as well or better than pacing up and down the colonnade. After I have looked round the farm I generally mount my horse and take a canter. I put him through his paces, avoiding neither slopes, ditches, nor streams, only taking care not to lame him. That done, the groom leads him home, and I return too, partly walking, partly running, and when I cret home I have a bath and a rub down, and then I take my midday meal." This was rather an exceptional way of life for a townsman, though it must fairly represent the ordinary pursuits of a country gentleman, of whom Fig. 30 gives us an excellent portrait, a burly, rough-looking person in military costume, who would come up to Archilochus' idea of what a soldier should be. 2 1 Xen. (Economicus, 11, 14 — 1*. 1 Ov tfuXio) fj.cyu.v (TTpaTrjybv oioe SLa^cn-Xiy/xevoi', ou8e jlocTTpvyQiirrL yavpov oio vTrzsvprjfJLtvov, d\\d p.01 crfALKpos T15 thj ku.I 7re/jt KVijp.us loeiv potKos, d(T0u.A.f'oJs /3e/:?}/Kws —iMTiri, KapoLTjs — Xeos. Bergk op. cit. 698. 62 GREEK TERRACOTTA STATUETTES " Boast me not your valiant captain Strutting fierce with measured stride, Glorying in his well-trimmed beard and Wavy ringlet's measured pride. Mine be he that's short of stature, Firm of foot with curved knee, Heart of oak in limb and feature, And of courage bold and free." Translated by J. H. Merivale. Most dwellers in towns spent the morning in the agora, where they did the household shopping, and in the law courts, where a good deal of time was taken up in the performance of civic duties, and took their exercise in the colonnades. Afternoon and evening were the hours consecrated to social inter- course ; the evening meal was served about sunset, and after it the guests, having offered three libations, sang a hymn such as the following : 1 — " Pray we or not, great Jove, do thou supply All good ; all harm, e'en to our prayers, deny." Translated by Dr. H. Welleslev. as a prelude to the symposion or drinking-feast, at which they entertained each other with songs, riddles and discussions. On very grand occasions the assistance of professional musicians and dancing-girls was called in. A statuette shows us one of these with balls in her hands (Plate VII.), " and with these in her hands she falls to dancing, and the while she dances she flings them into the air, overhead she sends them twirling, judging the time they must be thrown to catch them as they fall in perfect time." Sometimes a symposion was a mere drinking bout, but though we can hardly believe that it was such a " feast of reason and a flow of soul " as Plato and Xenophon suggest, its attraction lay not only in its opportunity for drinking, it was a means of social intercourse. A Greek found no pleasure complete unless " enjoyed with friends," and his feeling is well expressed in the words of a popular refrain — 1 Ze? /3aut\ev, to fj.ev irr$\a Kal cvvofj.ivoi's Kal avevKTOis ajjifiii otoov' to. Se Xvypa Kal evyofxivoiv a7rcpvK-ot?. Anthol. Pal. X. IOiS PLATE VII. S«r A DANCING GlRI,- Brit. Mus. C. 286. HanhartI/th. GENRE STATUETTES OF MASCULINE TYPE 63 " Quaff with me the purple wine, And in youthful pleasures join ; Crown with me thy flowing hair, With me love the beauteous fair ; When sweet madness fills my soul, Rave thou too, without control ; When I'm sober, sink with me Into dull sobriety." 1 — Translated by J. H. Mlrhall. Turning from the lessons the statuettes teach us to the statuettes themselves, it will be noticed at once how few they are in comparison with their feminine counterparts, about one in fifteen is the usual propor- tion. All the specimens, however, merit careful attention ; the figure on Plate IV. representing a laughing boy, is noticeable not only for its expression, which is unusually animated for a terracotta statuette, but for the extreme care with which all the details of the costume are rendered, mantle, fillet and sandals fastened with cross-way thongs. Another (Plate IV.) has an interesting peculiarity of technique, the nude portions are not merely dipped in lime-wash and then painted, they are enamelled in colour, and hence the excellent preservation of the surface and the colour. The same technique appears in several other statuettes in the British Museum collection representing Leda and the swan, a grotesque old woman, etc. In the first century r.c. the potters of Centorbi in Sicily reverted to this technique with great success, an Eros (Plate VIII.) has the nude portions enamelled in pink, and other statuettes in a lurid purple which is the reverse of pleasing. In order to fully appreciate the excellence of the Tanagra statuettes at their best period we have only to compare Fig. 28 and Fig. 29, both representing the semi-nude figure of a youth. The graceful, easy pose, the effective contrast of the nude forms and the drapery, the gentle expression of the Tanagra youth, make up an artistic whole in which we see the ideal ephebe of Greek fancy ; the other figure, which probably comes from the neighbouring district of Eretria, and belongs to a later period, gives us a faithful and conscientious portrait of the ephebe as he was, seen through a less artistic medium than the Praxitelean ideal. 1 %vv jxoi. 7rtre, crvvrjfio., crwipa, rrvo-Tefiavjjipopei, (Tvv /J.OL /j.aii'o/xo'u) /AutVeo, tri/v (rutppovi (Tuxppovei. Praxilla, Bergk op. at. Frag. 1293. 64 GREEK TERRACOTTA STATUETTES The same may be said of the stalwart warrior shown in Fig. 30, who bears the same relation to the youthful armed warriors found among Tanagra figures, that the female figures from Corinth and Eretria do to the ordinary Tanagra type : he has gained in character what he has lost in grace. If we may judge from the infrequency with which they were repro- duced by foreign workshops, the masculine tvpes did not enjoy the same favour as the feminine ones, and this was probably the case ; they were consecrated to the glory of the ephebe, and represent a phase of life and thought which was too local, too exclusively Greek to appeal to nations among whom it did not exist. CHAPTER VII STATUETTES ILLUSTRATIVE OF MYTH AND LEGEND " To shaggy Pan and all the wood-nymphs fair, Fast by the rock this grateful offering stands, A shepherd's gift — to those who gave him there Rest, when he fainted in the sultry air, And reached him sweetest water with their hands." Translated by J. W. Burgon. <PpLtoKO[i.a rooe Llai'i Kat avXidcnv Oiro rSTvzAcAais OUipOV V7TO (JK-OTrtOS ©evSoTOS OtOVO/XO?' owe^ inr a^aXiov Oepeos /xeya KeKjxnwTo. Travaav, opetacraL \ep(rl fitXiypov v8wp. Asite, Anthal. Pal. x\i. [App. Plan.) 291. The border-land of Greek mythology is peopled with a throng of beings neither human nor divine, satyrs, nymphs — " those daughters fair of .ZEgis-bearing Jove," — and nereids, who filled a very large place in popular fancy, and who, especially to the country folk, were ever- present and very real. The shepherd heard them as he wandered with his flocks among the mountains : 1 — " Pan on his oaten pipes awakes the strain, And fills with dulcet sounds the pastoral plain ; Lured by his notes the nymphs their bowers forsake, From every mountain, running stream and lake, From every hill and ancient grove around, And in the mazy dance trip o'er the ground." Translated by J. H. Merivale. it was the wood-nymphs whom he thanked for grateful shade at noon-day, and for the fresh springs at which his parched flock slaked 1 Autos tirel (TVpiyyi {LfXitfiTai tvKekaou) llav vypov t€ts £eu/<Tojv ^etA-os virtp KaAafiuw' at Sc irlpi.1; OaXepoiat \opov irocrlv icmjcravTu 'YSpiaSes vvp.<f>au, vv/J.<f}ai A/mopuaoes. Plato, Frag. 24; Bergk op. at. 625. 65 ' F 66 GREEK TERRACOTTA STATUETTES their thirst ; it was Pan who sent the hunter home with well-filled bag. These spirits were not all beneficent : the nymphs waited at the bottom of the reedy pools, and dragged the shepherds down to death ; the sailor saw the nereids dancing and singing on the tops of the waves, and prayed that they might not wish him to dwell with them in the halls of their father Nereus, and so these minor divinities were the objects of a more constant and careful worship than the great Olympian gods and goddesses who were the official protectors of states and cities. The townsman into whose life wood-nymphs and nereids entered in a far less degree, peopled his world with attendant spirits, more particularly concerned with the occupations of a human life in its relations to other human lives, — who presided over its every act from birth to death, and had charge of everything connected with it from a lady's wool-basket to the cups for a drinking feast. The form under which popular fancy conceived these attendant spirits was very vague and indefinite, until Greek literature crystallized them into shape by providing art with a series of graceful conceptions to which it gave plastic expression. The potters could not neglect so fertile a field and one so admirably suited to the character of their wares, and in every centre of production we find figures which are neither presentments of divinities nor studies from real life, but something between the two, the form of which varies according to local taste. It is to this class that the semi-nude maidens and winged children of Tanagra belong ; in Athens the spirits take a severer, more sculptural form, often of fully-draped female figures both winged and wingless : at Myrina we find floating youths and maidens changed by the addition of a pair of wings into Eros and Nike, and in Italy, too, the same winged youthful forms occur, usually semi-nude and leaning against a pillar. The grave and stately maiden with arms uplifted (Fig. 16) is a fine specimen of the type which these figures take under the influence of the delicate and rather severe laws of Attic taste, but we can hardly picture her as presiding over a wool-basket or a mirror — rather she is one of the maidens to whom Athene committed the care of the youthful Ericthonios, or a divine attendant bearing water for the purification of those about to sacrifice to the " deathless gods," and is a worthy sister of the beautiful little nude cup-bearer (Plate VI.), STATUETTES ILLUSTRATIVE OF MYTH AND LEGEND 67 crowned with ivy, who is one of the gems of the British Museum collection. This figure, owing to its beauty, is known as Ganymede, the cup-bearer of Zeus, but it would be equally well adapted for the genius of a symposion, waiting with jug and cup to minister to the pleasure of the guests. The maidens and winged children of Tanagra are separated from these two Attic figures by a wide difference of taste. The local preference, as we have already seen, was for delicately idealized realism, and so we find that the supernatural character of these attendant spirits is indicated not by giving them wings, but by partially undraping them and seating them out of doors to show that they were not to be taken for mere mortal maidens (Plate VIII.), but for the genii who presided at their toilet, their games and their pleasures. Sometimes they hold a mirror, sometimes a fruit, a mask, or a tambourine, but little importance can be attached to these accessories which were distributed very much according to the caprice of the potter. The winged figures of Tanagra are the little loves afterwards so dear to Hellenistic art, distinguished only from mortal children by their winglets (Plate V.). These loves are not the great god Eros of early Greek mythology, nor even the naughty boy-love of the earlier poets (Fig. 8).i " Innumerable curling tresses grace His impudent and rakish face, His hands are tiny, but their power Extends to Pluto's gloomy bower. The peevish urchin carries wings With which from heart to heart he springs, As little birds, from spray to spray Fly carelessly, in wanton play." — Translated by Rev. W. Shepherd. Not content with one love, later lyrists brought into being a whole troop of loves to sport and play with human hearts : - — 1 EvTrXoKa/J-ov to Kapavov, i\(.i irafxov to irpoo-umov . fjXKKvXa jxiv Trjvoj TO. ^(pv&pia, p.o.Kpa Se /3aAXet. /JaAAa K€ts ' kxipovTa koX 'AiSecu /3ao-iAr)a. — Moschus. Id. i. 12 — 15. 2 Ovk tip.' ov&' irewv &vo kclkoo-l, kixl kottlw Jiv "iipwTes, tl kclkov tovto ; tl fi€ (^Aeyere ; "Hv yap iyw tl tt6.6<x>, tl 7rou;crcTe; brj\ov, "Eporres a)S to Trdpo'i 7raL^eo~0' atppoves ao~Tpayd\ois. ASKLEPIADES, Atlthol. Pell. Xli. 46. 68 GREEK TERRACOTTA STATUETTES " Ye loves why doth it so content ye To rend the hearts of men ? Think, loves, if mischief should beset me, Would it not grieve you then ? No ! by my faith ! you'd straight forget me, And to your dice again ! " — Translated by C. Merivale. The Tanagra sprites assume the form of these latest creations of Greek literature ; they flit and float about and personify the pleasure they dispense to mortals. Sometimes they are crowned and wreathed, they play on divers instruments, they muffle themselves up coquettishly in their cloaks in imitation of human beings, sometimes they bear mirrors, caskets, fans (Plate V.) or perfumes, but whatever the occupation of the moment, whether to serve beauty, or to promote the mirth of a banquet, they dance gaily along, adding to the joy of life by the zest with which they perform their duties. If we turn to the woodland spirits ruled over by " Pan, the cloven-footed deity, Dread king of sylvan Arcady," not the least picturesque among them are the satyrs, the wild men of the woods, rough and unkempt, with forms cast in human mould, but covered with shaggy hair, and with a little feathery tail and pigs' ears to mark their beast nature. The satyr of Greek literature is a creature " flown with insolence and wine," skilled in the dance, revelling and rioting over the country in the train of Dionysos, but there is an earlier tradition of a gentler satyr-race whose haunts were where 1 " Through orchard plots with fragrance crowned, The clear cold fountain murmuring flows, And forest leaves with rustling sound, Invite to soft repose." — Translated by J. H. Merivale. To one of these Greek legend gave a name, Marsyas, and told his story thus : — Marsyas (Fig. 34), like Pan, was a skilled performer on the reed pipes, and in an evil hour he drew near to listen to the dulcet strains which Athene was drawing from a double flute, her own 1 Api(f>l 8e (vSojp) if/i'xpov KtXdbei Si vtrSoiV fjia\iVO)Vj aWvfTfrofievoiv nc <fivW<t)V k-wfia KarapptZ — Sappho, Frag. 4; Bergk op. at. S.Sl. STATUETTES ILLUSTRATIVE OF MYTH AND LEGEND 69 invention, to imitate the dying shrieks of the gorgon Medusa ; but when she saw herself mirrored in a forest pool : " Athena flung away, From her pure hand, the noxious instruments It late had touched, and thus did say, ' Hence, ye banes of beauty, hence ! What r Shall I my charms disgrace, By making such an odious face?'" — Translated by J. H. Meriyale. Marsyas laughed, but he picked up the discarded flutes, and entranced with their music and certain of success, challenged Apollo to a contest in which the victor was to work his will on the vanquished. The upshot of the trial Alcaeus tells : 2 — " No more, mid Phrygian pines, the trills Of the sweet-sounding flute Athena flung away Will echo as of yore among the listening hills. Hushed now, poor Satyr, is thy pleasant lay, Fast bound thy hands, for that thy mortal breath And goatherd pipes, feared not to vie With Phoebus' golden lyre, and thou of death, Hast gained the crown, not victory." Marsyas was flayed alive by Apollo's orders, but our statuette does not deal with the last scene in the tragedy, we only see him in festal trim, playing on his pipes, a wreath of ivy-leaves in his hair, a cloak floating over his shoulders, hair and beard well brushed, as if to heighten the contrast between the crouching figure and the glorious beauty of his invisible antagonist. The artist has not shrunk from emphasizing all the details of his beast nature, shaggy pelt, pointed ears and feathery tail. The legend, as typifying the triumph 1 'A per 'Addva opyo.v' ippapev & tcpus atrb ^£ipos, (Ittc t'" "EppeT aio-vea, (TOifian kvp.a, or p.t to.6 iyi.o ku.koto.ti Si'oojlu. — Melanippides, Bergk op. fit. 1245. • Oi'kcV ai'a Qpvyiqv TriTvoTpbcpov ok TroTi, p.£/\.i//as Kpovp.a oY iVTpi'/Tviv fideyybp-evos oovaKow ovS' in orats TruAap^ai; Tpi-roji'to'os ipyov 'AOdi'us, (1>S TTpXv £1TU.v6l)<T£l wp.<poyevl$ ~2,aTvpe. A?; yap aAi>h-T07re'oais cr^iyyy X e 7 ms ovveKO. $01/3(1) 6Vcitos kwv, 6uav eis ipiv rjVTiacras. AojToi. 8' ol kA.u£oi'tes urov (popp.iyyi peXixpov wwao-av i$ ac6\w ov oretyos dXX' aihav.—Anthol. Pa/.\x\u (Jpp. Plan.) 8. 70 GREEK TERRACOTTA STATUETTES of Greek over barbarian, was a favourite one with the artists of the fifth and fourth centuries, who feeling the impolicy of laying so much stress on Marsyas' beast nature, made him human, save for his ears — and the wits of Athens made merry over the Satyr of Praxiteles who had lost his tail ! Another woodland musician (Plate VI.) challenged Apollo 1 — " Pan, the bright-haired god of Pastoral, Goat-footed, two-horned, amorous of noise, Who } et is lean and loveless and doth owe, By lot, all loftiest mountains crowned with snow, All tops of hills and cliffy highnesses, All sylvan thickets ; and the fortresses Of thorniest queaches here and there doth rove." Translated by T. Chapman. the gay insouciant being, leader of sylvan mirth and revelry, whose appearance so charmed the gods in festal assembly in Olympos, that "they call the name of him Pan because he delighted them all" and to whom mortals sang.' 2 o " Io Pan ! we sing to thee, King of famous Areadv ! Mighty dancer ! follower free Of the nymphs, mid sport and glee ! Io Pan, sing merrily, To our merry minstrelsy." — Translated by J. H. Merivale. To charm the mountain nymphs, Pan fashioned the reed pipes, and challenged Apollo to prove his lyre the better instrument. Worsted in the contest he withdrew to his woodland fastnesses, content alynroo-rjv, SiKepmra, (piXoKporov, out ava ttutii ZevhprjfVT a/tvAs <£om£ x<yjo?^«ri vvp.tpa.is, iii'tc ko.t' aiyi'AiTros TrcVpv/? a-Tel/3ov(TL K a.pr)va Ilav , ayaKexXofxevai, vopwv #eor, aykaidupov av^ij.ija'0' , os TraiTtt \6<f>ov VKpoiVTa. AtAoyve u Kopvcpus optmr /cat TrtTprjiVTa. KeXevda ra o €v6a Kal erOa Sid punrrjia. ttvkvo.. Homer, Hymn to Pan, I — 7. - Q Ilav, 'ApKaSi'as /xe8«W /cAaevvas, opX']<TTix, Bpo/it'ais 07ruSe Nv/i<£ais, yeAuo-etas, (i Ilav, lw' ip.a?s ev(ppoa~vvai(TL, Taio-o' doiSats Kevap^/xevos. kSchol. Callistr. 5 ; Bergk op. cit. 1288. K(U. <f>otra STATUETTES ILLUSTRATIVE OF MYTH AND LEGEND 71 with the adoration of his special votaries the shepherds and hunters, and many were the offerings made "To shaggy Pan, and all the wood-nymphs fair." He was himself a mighty hunter, the character in which our statuette represents him with scrip and staff (Plate VI.), and he was moreover the patron of all simple light-hearted folk, and more than any other divinity typifies that delight in living which is the keynote of the Greek attitude towards life and death. To the Greek "life" was earthly life, this world was beautiful, and the best he had to hope for in the nether world was a poor, faint copy of its joys ; it is this love of life, this joy in the mere fact of being alive, not dead, which separates the ancient world so sharply from the modern, — to the Greek, life was not a vale of tears, it was a garden full of flowers with " Gather ye roses while ye may, Old time will still be flying," for a motto, and it is this joyous spirit, of which Pan was the outward expression, which is such a joy and refreshment to our world in its inter- vals of sighing " vanity of vanities, all is vanity and vexation of spirit." The popularity in legend and in art of the sea-nymphs, the nereids, is in striking contrast to the silence of Greek literature about them ; there they hardly appear at all, and then only in the train of their sister Thetis, but doubtless their importance in legend is largely due to their connection with the story of Achilles and the events of his brief life. When Homer tells the tragic tale of how Achilles lost his dearest friend Patroklos ] — " Whom I honoured most Of all my comrades, loved him as my soul ; Him have I lost; and Hector from his corpse Hath stripped those arms, those weighty, beauteous arms, A marvel to behold, which from the gods Peleus received, a glorious gift." — Lord Derby's Translation. 1 eVei <f>lko<s w/\e$' eruipos HaTpo/cA.os, tov iyw irepl warron' TiOV eraipiijv l<rov i/j.rj Kicf>aX.y, tov aTrwXecra, Tcr^ea 6 ' Ektio/u 8;/o'jcrus aTTi'Svire 7re/\ojpia, 6u.vjj.o. ihar6ai /caAa' — Iliad, xviii. Ho — S + . 72 GREEK TERRACOTTA STATUETTES how at the prayer of his goddess-mother, silver-footed Thetis, Hephaistos fashioned for him ] — " A shield vast and strong, A breastplate, dazzling bright as flame of fire, And next, a weighty helmet for his head, Pair richly wrought, with crest of gold above, Then last, well-fitting greaves of pliant tin." — Lord Derby's Translation. he passes over the delivery of the armour in a few words, 2 " She, like a falcon, darted swiftly down, Charged with the glittering arms Hephaistos wrought." — Ibid. but for some reason, possibly this very reticence, the scene took hold of popular fancy, which decorated and adorned it with the graceful figures of Thetis' sister-nereids, the sea-maids throng, 3 " Whose dance enrings The eternal river springs, When dances heaven star glancing Adoringly, And the white moon is dancing." — Translated by W. Way. and instead of the solitary figure of Thetis we see " The sea maids flitting by shores Eubcean, From the depths where the golden anvils are Of the fire god, a hero's harness bearing." — Ibid. The story gains in grace what it loses in pathos, for our attention is distracted from the doomed figure of Achilles, to the graceful sisters 1 7rotet oe Trpwrurra ctuko5 /-te'ya tc 0"Tl/3ap6V re, rev± apa ot OotpijKa cpaeivoTepov -jrvpos avyrjs. rer£e oe ot KopvOa fipiaprjv, Kporacpots apapvtav Ka\ijv oatoaAevp', liri oe ypvcreov \6<pov, $Kev. Tev£e oe ot Kvrjploas iavov KacraiTepoto. — Il/ad, xvin. 608 — 612. 2 f] 8' e's 1/770.5 "/cave $eov irapa botpa c/je'poi'cra. — Ibid. xix. 3. ''' ore km. Aios («rrepa)7ros ave^opevrra' afflrjp X<j>p€V€l oe 2eA.um koI 7r€rriiKovra KOpOLt Ni/peos at Kara ttovtov aevatjiv Te 7roTap.wv. St'ras yppzvap.evai. — Iiurip. Ion. \o~^Jf. 4 Ni^pTjoes 0' Ei'/Joioas uktus A.l7roBa"ai H<pcu(TTOV y^pv<jiun> uKpoViur fio^Oovs u.mri(TTLi% e<f>epov T«UY6to'v. — Eurip. Elect. 442 ff. STATUETTES ILLUSTRATIVE OF MYTH AND LEGEND 73 who bear their heavy burdens so lightly over the sea. It is this version of the legend which our statuette illustrates (Fig. 32), and borrowing yet another touch from popular fancy, adds a dolphin steed, the good-humoured clumsy beast, who plays so important a part in all sea legends, and forms a piquant contrast to the graceful maiden who sits securely upon his back, giving all her care to the helmet " Fair richly wrought, with crest of gold above." The composition is worthy of note for two reasons ; it illustrates a definite legend, and it is evidently a close copy of some famous sculptural group. Statuettes inspired by some famous statue are not rare, but in that case the potter usually simplifies the design, and gives only its main features ; here he has given the details of the original, the round face, small head with its close curls, the attitude of the Nereid, sitting tight on her dolphin, the wind-blown drapery strained tightly across her knees by the pace at which the dolphin dashes along, even the elaborate helmet, difficult though its reproduction was in clay. The same design appears on the lid of a little gold box (Fig. 33) of fifth- century (405 b.c.) Attic workmanship, and considering the great interest taken at Athens in all matters pertaining to the sea, it is not strange il the potter attempted a cheap reproduction of" a popular group. His copy is not highly finished, the hair is only roughly indicated at the back of the head, the graving tool has slipped at the corner of the mouth, giving the face rather a sulky expression, one hand is a flat, shapeless mass, the fingers of the other are not separated and contrast curiously with the care bestowed on the helmet, but the latter is the keynote of the composition ; a Nereid on a dolphin might be : " escorting Achilles, the fleet-foot sen Of Thetis, with King Agamemnon, on Unto where broad Simo'i's, seaward creeping Rippled and glittered on Trojan strand." — Translated by W. Way. but a Nereid with a helmet in her hands could only be journeying to Achilles' tent. The beautiful design, the clumsy hands, and the elabor- 1 7TOp€V(J)V TOV TUS ©€TlOOS Kovdtov aXfJLa ttoomv A^u\rj txvv AyafjLefjLVOvt Tpot'as £77-1 2l/AOWTt5uS UKTUS. Eu.RIP. Ekd. \^' J] ■ 74 GREEK TERRACOTTA STATUETTES ate helmet are all typical of a Greek potter's work, for it was grace and novelty of design, not finish of detail, which was expected of it. The humorous side of Greek life is the only one about which the statuettes tell us nothing, because the intense objection which the Greeks had to absolute realism in art, led them to exclude a class of subject, the comic, in which we should have thought that they, with their keen sense of humour, would delight, but comic events happen only in real life and generally lose their point when transferred to that ideal world which, in the eyes of the Greeks, was the only sphere of art ; art could however represent a scene from real life in a spirit of jest, if that scene could be transferred from the real to the ideal world. The accompanying statuette (Fig. 36) is an excellent example of this ; at first sight it represents an every-day scene, a pedagogue with his young charge, but a closer inspection shows that the pedagogue has a socratic satyr face and pig's ears, that he holds a wine-jar on his head, and the child a bunch of grapes in his hand, and that the group therefore represents an elderly Seilenos taking the little god Dionysos to school, and thoughtfully bearing a jar of wine for their mutual refreshment there. The humour of the situation lies in the idea of a Seilenos, a maudlin old good-for-nothing, assuming the functions of a governor, and of the god Dionysos walking sedately to school through the streets like a good little boy. The Hellenistic cities of Asia Minor and Italy did not share this objection to realism in art, and we find countless " comic " figures, caricatures of the physical defects of the weaker parts of the population, the old, the crippled, the slaves, the actors. There are of course some character-studies from real life among the Greek statuettes (Fig. 24), but they are meant not to give a funny portrait, but a true one, whereas the Hellenistic figures are deliberate caricatures for the purpose of raising a laugh. The Hellenistic sense of humour was a more brutal thing, amused by physical peculiarities, whereas the Greek required the skilful commingling of incongruous ideas, as for instance the conjunction of a Seilenos and a pedagogue in one and the same person. For this reason parodies, in our sense of the word, the degrading of the ideal into the real, are almost unknown in Greek art, for the only permissible parody was one which remained in the world of fancy. STATUETTES ILLUSTRATIVE OF MYTH AND LEGEND 75 An amusing instance of such is the accompanying travesty of the Hermes of Praxiteles, where instead of the graceful figure in the prime of manly beauty, we see an ugly old satyr (Fig. 35), whose ugliness is only intensified by his wreath. To parody the group by turning Hermes into a slave, and Dionysos into a squalling baby would not have been permissible. It is this apt association of incongruous ideas to which the ancient world applied the term " Attic salt " ; the salt is apt to lose its savour in translation, but there is one little folk-song, on the theme of " the pot called the kettle black," which may bear the test. : " With his claw the snake surprising Thus the crab kept moralizing — Out on all such turns and graces, Straight's the word for honest paces." Translated by D. K. Sandford. The bulk of the statuettes reproduced in the present publication are in the British Museum, and my thanks are due both to the Trustees, and to Mr. A. S. Murray, Keeper of the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities, for permission to use them for this purpose. To Mr. Murray I have also to express my warmest thanks for his kindness, not only on this but on many other occasions, and for the unfailing interest, patience, and courtesy with which he has always helped me in my work. 1 'O KOpKlVO% 38' e<£a, \o.X.a tov orfiiv Xapwv, £v8vv xpr] tuv kraipov efifxev kcu fj/rj (TKOAta, (ppovetv. rergk op. clt. Schol. 16; Frag. 1292. INDEX Achilles. See Nereids Amulet, ii, 26, 28 Amusements, 50, 58, 61, 62 Aphrodite, 4, 8, 28, 30, 42 Arithmetic, 57 Art, Greek, 22 ; economy of, 17 ; evolution of, 25, 31, j6 ; archaic, 2, 21, 25; constituent elements of, 24. iEgean, 24. Assyrian, 24. Attic, ,33, 34, 41, 66, 73. Cypriote, 30. Hellenistic, 40, 41. Mycenaean, 24. Phenician, 23 Artemis, 4, 30, 41, 42 Athene, 68 f., Kranaia, 3, Lemma, 34, Telchinia, 27 Athens, artistic position of, 29, 3% ; imperial period of, 43 ; life at, 43 f., 61 f. ; statuettes from, 29, 33, 34, 38, 41, 66 f. Bes, 28 Bocotia, 34, 33, 43 Boys, training of, 34 ff. ; dress, r ^, 39, 63 ; amusements, 38 f. Cameiros, 9, 10, 22; statuettes trom, 20, 26, 27, 28, 31 ; gold box from, 73 Caricatures, 8, 11, 40; 31, 74 Colour, use of, 18 Corinna, 3-,, 49 Corinth, figure from, 38, 49, 32 Cyprus, 23, ; statuettes from, 23, 29, 30, .34 Demeter, shrine of, 3 ; functions of, 27, 28 Divinities, underworld, 27, 28; youthful, 32, 36. 39 Dolls, 4, 3,i, 39 Dress, 21, 29, 33, 41, 48, 49, ^S, 61, 6;] Education, ^, ; of girls, 47 ; of boys, ^ ff. Eos, 10, 31 Ephebi, 39; duties of, 60; dress of, 39; amusements of, 61 Eretria, 34; statuettes from, 10, 34,37,3,8, 31, 32, -jG, 63, 73, 7 i- Excavations, 2, 19 Fan, 37, 49 Feminine statuettes, hieratic, 21, 29, 30, 32, 37; genre, 33, 36, 44; predomin- ance of, 28, 64 Forgeries, 20 Funeral customs, 12; offerings, n, 13; statuettes, 13 Genre statuettes, 8, 12, 31, 33 Girls, education of, 47, 48, 30 ; pleasures of, 30 Grammar, 36 Grotesque statuettes, 3, 11, 28 Gymnastics, 36, -39 Hat, 37, 49, 39 Hellenistic, age, 6 ; art, 40, 67 ; humour, 74 Hieratic statuettes, n, 21, 28,31; types, paucity of, 21, 28 ; diffusion of, 21, 23 ; evolution of, 32; indefiniteness ot, 27, 28; persistence of, 11, 30 Italy, statuettes from, 12, 42 Kore. See Persephone Koroplastce, 14, 31 Lararia, 7, 8 Marsyas, 39, 68 ff. Masculine statuettes, hieratic, 28 ; genre, 33, 34; paucity of, 6], 64 Masks, 10, 27, 28, 37 Melos, 39 Men, pursuits of, 61, 62 ; amusements of, 62 Moulds, 13 ; export of, 19, 3^ Music, 37, 38 Myrina, 9, 3,9; statuettes from, 17, 39, 40, 41,30,32 Mythological statuettes, 1, 8, 13, 39 t. Nereids, 37, 71 ff. Nike, 17, ,39, 40 Nurse, 3 1 Nymphs, 63 f. 78 INDEX Offerings, votive, 3 f. ; funeral, 11, 1 3 Oscillum, 27 Pan, 37 f., 66 f., 70 f. Parodies, 74 Pedagogue, 55, 74 Persephone, 3, 27, 28 Pompeii, 2, 5 ; statuettes from, 6 ft. Praxiteles, influence of, 36, 39, 41, 63, 70 Proplasmata, 15, 41 Quotations, GYce/c ; from Anthologia Pala- tina, ii, 4, 5, 7, 8, 18, 43, 44, 58, 62, 67 ; App. Plan., 21, 42, 65, 69 Alceeus, 58 ; Archilochus, 61 ; Callis- tratus, 56,70; Hybrias, 57 ; Melanip- pides, 69 ; Mimnermus, 53 ; Plato, 49, 6$ ; Sappho, 68 ; Scholia, 34, 37, 63, 75; Simonides, 31; Tyrtaeus, 54; (Bergk 3 , Poetce Lyrici Grceci) Homer, Iliad, $3, 71, 72; Odyssey, 42; Hymn tn Pan, 70 ; Euripides, /oh, 72 ; Etectra, 72, 73 ; Theocritus, 47, 50,51; Mosch.us.67; Lucian, 18,43,60 Plato, 2; Dio. Chrys., 14, 16 ; Stobseus, 60 ; Xenophon, 46, 48, 37, 62 ; Thu- cydides, 46 ; Harpocrates, 14 Latin: Martial, 1, 32; Vitruvius, 12 Reliefs, 10, 11, 31 Re-touching, 17, 40 Rhodes, 22 ; statuettes from. See Cameiros Satyr, 28, 59, 68 f., 75 Seiienos, 8, 28, 38, 74 Sicily, statuettes from, 40, 63 Songs, ^6 f. Spirits, 24, 28, 36, 41, 65 ff. Stamps, 15 Statues, 33, 42, 66, 73 Statuettes, bronze, imitations of, 16, 18, 39, 40, 41 ; terracotta, artistic character of, 1, 14, 37 ; human value of, 43, 45, 54; manufacture of, 14 ff., 63; in temples, 3 f., 11 ; in houses, 6 f., 13 ; in tombs, 9 ff. ; decay of industry, 6, 33 ; varieties of. See under Hieratic, Genre, Grotesque, Mythological Symposion, 57, 61, 62 Tanagra, 17, 3',, 48; statuettes from, 17, 3 6 > 37> 44- 5 2 ' 54. 63, 66, 67 Temples. See under Statuettes Tombs. See under Statuettes Toys, 4, 31, 34, 50, 58 Tree worship, 2 5 Vases, 9, 10, 11, 12, 28, 31, 35 Venus de Vienne. 42 Wills, 12 Women, position of, 45 ; in Athens. 46 : dress of, 48 t. ; duties of, 47 f. ; amuse- ments, 45, 50 Writing, 56 ILLUSTRATIONS IN MONOCHROME 1. A TOY ANIMAL 2. A DOLL 3. WOMAN KNEADING BREAD 4. NIKE WITH AN ALABASTRON 5. NIKE 6. MOULD AND CAST 7. EROS BURNING A BUTTERFLY, NOT RE- TOUCHED 8. SAME FIGURE RETOUCHED 9. ARCHAIC VEILED GODDESS 10. VEILED GODDESS OF LATER TYPE 1 1. GROTESQUE FIGURE 12. OSCILLUM 13. APHRODITE FROM LARNACA 14. ATHENA 15. MASK OF PAN 16. AN ATHENIAN NYMPH 17. GREEK LADY IN OUTDOOR DRESS 18. APHRODITE WITH A VASE OF PERFUME 19. 20 21. 2~» 23- 24. 25- 26. 27. 28. 29. 30- 3i- 5-- 33- 34- 35- ARTEMIS GREEK LADY IN OUTDOOR DRESS GREEK GIRL WITH A PET BIRD CORINNA A LITTLE GIRL IN THE NURSERY A GREEK MADONNA THE WRITING LESSON A COSY CHAT AN ATHLETE A BANQUETER A SOLDIER GREEK LADY IN GALA DRESS NEREID WITH THE HELMET OF ACHILLES NEREID, DESIGN FROM A GOLD BOX MARSYAS SATYR WITH THE INFANT DIONYSOS SEILENOS AS A PEDAGOGUE WITH THE YOUNG DIONYSOS Richard Clay & Sons, Limited. London & Bungay. > ^ £ c r- a M m > o ^ H ^ ^ < }v d Bt) £ sa y, ( i 'A ■^ •**■ 2 C 05 s s 2 p a h O P ^ o — * fc S Fig. io. Later type of Seated Goddess. brit. Mus. B 83. Fig. 9. Archaic Goddess, Brit. Mus. B 58. Fig. 11. Grotesque Figure. Brit. Mus. E 89. Fig. 12. Oscillum. Brit. Mus. B 176- Fig. 13. Aphrodite, from Larnaca. But. Mm. C So. 2 S 3 < Ph P. o a < a o < S5 U IT) 04 K f- u < r* «t S= >J 6 Ik Fig. 17. Greek Lady in outdoor Press. Brit, Mas. C215. 1 °C| 5 ^ o (« w On «3 SB CJ O O a! Q a o o r ^ : * J1 Fig. 22. Corinna. Brit. Mus. C 25. 4 Fig. 23. A little Girl. Brit. Mus. C 321. ^Fig. 24. In the Nursery. Brit. Mus. C 279. Fig. 25. A Greek Madonna. Brit. Mus. C 278. Fig. 26. The Writing Lesson. Brit. Mus. C 214. a u o o a Fig. 31. A Greek Lady in Gala Dress. Brit. Mus. C 254. 2 -<S a2 i 6 to s B U X Q Q ■A O o 'J Q Q-i «s