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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 December 2013
The literature dealing with the so-called ‘Cyrenaic’ vases is comparatively so huge that some excuse is needed for a fresh approach to the subject. That excuse is to be found in the new light shed on these vases through the recent excavations at Sparta by the British School at Athens, of which one result has been the discovery that Laconia was the home of the school which produced them.
At Sparta this distinctive Laconian style is presented in good chronological sequence, and its course can be traced from its rise in the early seventh century, through its development and decline in the sixth and fifth centuries, to its end in the latter part of the fourth.
It is true that the finds of pottery at the shrine of Artemis Orthia at Sparta consist of fragments of dedicated vases, the refuse, in fact, thrown out from time to time from the temple, so that what is presented by the stratification of the site is the chronological sequence not of the manufacture of the vases but of their destruction. Yet the development of the style as a whole, even when judged by the stratification, is so regular that it may be assumed that in most cases the order of destruction corresponded with that of manufacture. In any case the destruction of the older temple at the close of the seventh century gives at least one point where such correspondence is certain. Vases thrown out from the new temple must have been dedicated after the destruction of the older building. To divide the style with much certainty into six chronological periods called, and approximately dated
1 B.S.A. xiv. p. 44.
2 B.S.A. xiv. p. 47.
3 By ‘exported’ vases I mean all those of this style known before the excavations at Sparta, none of which, so far as I know, were found in Laconia.
4 It is impossible in the light of the new evidence to accept Dugas', M. tentative classification, Rev. Arch. 1907, Tom. IX. p. 403Google Scholar.
5 These exceptions (all in Laconian II.) are very few. The criterion still holds, because they are exceptions, but their existence weakens it a little.
6 J.H.S. 1908, p. 179.
7 B.S.A. xiv. p. 31.
8 I have to thank the Committee of the British School at Athens for permission to use this photograph.
9 Three papers (B.C.H. 1893, p. 226, n. 1; Rev. Arch. 1907, Tome IX., p. 377; J.H.S. 1908, p. 175) between them give the bibliography of these vases, which is completed by a reference to Prinz, , Funde aus Naukratis, p. 66Google Scholar. An extremely useful feature of M. Dugas' paper in the Revue Archéologique is the numbered catalogue, which shows at a glance the references for each vase. To this for brevity's sake I shall in all cases refer, thus (Dugas 1).
10 B.S.A. xiv. p. 32, Fig. 2, d.
11 B.S.A. xiv. p. 31, Fig. 1.
12 B.S.A. xiii. p. 128; xiv. p. 32.
13 Inv. number 1907, 12–1, 731.
14 I am indebted to M. Pottier for leave to publish this photograph.
15 My thanks are due to Comm. Castellani for permission to publish this vase, and to Mr. Yeames for procuring the photograph.
16 B.S.A. xiv. p. 34.
17 B.S.A. xiv. p. 46.
18 I convinced myself, when examining this vase in the summer of 1908, that slip was used over the whole both inside and outside. Dr.Puchstein, (Arch. Zeit. 1881, p. 218Google Scholar, No. 10, c) says that it has no slip, and M. Pottier (Dumont-Chaplain, , Céramique grecque, vol. i. p. 299, 14)Google Scholar says ‘pas de couverte blanche visible. Fond jaune sale.’ But Pottier, M., in publishing the vase fully (B.C.H. 1893, p. 238)Google Scholar, says ‘Terre rouge pále… Décor intérieur. Il n'y a pas ďengobe visible… Décor extérieur. Ľengobe blanc sali paraît ne couvrir que la zône ďanimaux et la zône de lotus placée en dessous.’ I submit that M. Pottier was right when he wrote ‘fond jaune sale,’ and that this must be slip, as otherwise the light red clay would show.
19 There is, I think, no doubt that the London hydria belongs to the Laconian style, and is no mere imitation. Both clay and slip are to me conclusive on this point.
20 B.S.A. xiv. Plate IV.
21 Böhlau, , Aus ion. u. ital. Nekrop. p. 128Google Scholar.
22 Böhlau, l.c. p. 126.
23 Dugas' numbers.
24 Graef, B., Vasen von der Akropolis zu Athen, p. 50Google Scholar, Taf. 15.
25 My thanks are due to Ashmole's keeper (Mr. D. G. Hogarth) for permission to publish this fragment.
26 Dugas' numbers.
27 Von Urlichs' illustration (Von Urlichs, Beiträge zur Kunstgeschichte, Pl. X.) wrongly gives the impression that the whole of the inside of the vase is covered with slip.
28 I hesitate, in the face of the statement in M. De Ridder's Catalogue and the illustration Mon. d. I. i. Pl. VII., to speak definitely of the two rows of dots on the snake, but when I examined the vase I certainly thought that they had been white also, not purple.
29 It may be that this vase should be placed earlier, but there is hardly enough surface left for a sure judgment.
30 Glyptothek, , Sammlung Arndt: Kurzer Führer, p. 7Google Scholar.
31 J.H.S. 1808, pp. 175 ff.
32 J.H.S. l.c.
33 B.S.A. xiv. p. 45.
34 Dugas' numbers.
35 For permission to publish this vase I have to thank Dr. Stais, Ephor of the National Museum.
36 Böhlau, , Arch. Anz. 1898, p. 189Google Scholar; Droop, , J.H.S. 1908, p. 176Google Scholar.
37 Walters, , History of Ancient Pottery, p. 337Google Scholar.
38 Böhlau, , Aus ion. u. ital. Nekrop. p. 30Google Scholar.
39 M. Dugas catalogues eighty-seven pieces, two of which (22, 74) probably belong together, making eighty-six vases. Of these I have tried to classify seventy-four, with the addition of fourteen vases which M. Dugas did not know, making eighty-eight. Ten of M. Dugas' vases (Nos. 7, 46, 66, 68, 76, 77, 78, 79, 83, 84) I have not yet seen, and two (63, 85) M. Dugas has included in his catalogue by an error. My reasons for rejecting the Copenhagen vase (85) I will give later, but 63 (Ashmolean Museum, No. 187 c) is catalogued by Prof. Gardner as Naucratite, and has a clay different from that of the Laconian fabric, of which it may be a local copy. Thus the total number of known exported Laconian vases is ninety-eight. This is exclusive of the Laconian I. fragments in the Pinakothek at Munich, about the number of which I am not quite certain, and also of the fragments found at the Heraeum of Argos, (The Argive Heracum. ii. p. 173)Google Scholar.
40 I know this pattern only on three Laconian sherds found at Sparta.
41 B.S.A. xiii. p. 120, Fig. 1, e.
42 An exact replica of this vase has been found by Prof.Burrows, at Rhitsóna, No. 231, Grave 51 (B.S.A. xiv. p. 269Google Scholar, Fig. 14; Plate IX. b).
43 For permission to publish these vases my grateful thanks are due to Dr. Stais, Ephor of the National Museum at Athens; to Dr. Sieveking, Konservator of the Vase Collection at Munich; to Dr. Bulle at Würzburg; to Dr. Zahn of the Antiquariam at Berlin; and to M. de Mot of the Musée du Cinquantenaire at Brussels.
44 Copenhagen, Nat. Mus. Collection of Antiquities, No. 58.
45 Rev. Arch. 1907, Tom. X. p. 47.
46 Pottier, , Catalogue des vases antiques au Musée du, Louvre, pp. 754, 757Google Scholar; Wiener Vorleg. 1890–91, Plate IV. 1, 2; Loeschcke, , Arch. Zeit. 1881, p. 36Google Scholar.
47 Lau, , Brunn, und Krell, , Griech. Vasen, Plate XV. 1Google Scholar; Gerhard, A.V.B. lxvii; Loeschcke, loc. cit.
48 B. M. Cat. of Vases, vol. ii. pp. 285, 286; Loeschcke, loc. cit.; Walters, , Hist. of Ancient Pottery, i. p. 385Google Scholar, Plate XXX.
49 B.C.H. 1893, p. 432.
50 Rev. Arch. 1907, Tom. X. p. 37.
51 Böhlau, , Aus ion. u. ital. Nekrop. p. 131Google Scholar.
52 B.S.A. xiv. p. 32, Fig. 2, h.
53 Jahrb. 1901, p. 193.
54 J.H.S. xxix. p. 304. I see that Mr.Hogarth, (Ionia and the East, p. 37)Google Scholar gives the Phoenicians credit for importing eastern influences to Laconia. How far the development of Laconian art at the end of the eighth century was also due to the revival of the artistic instincts of the older inhabitants of Aegaean race (op. cit. p. 39) is not easy to say; but the geometric pottery which preceded that development shows no trace of even ‘a partial derivation from some Aegaean Bauernstil’ (op. cit. p. 35), being quite free from any of the characteristics that show the mixed origin of the Geometric ware of Crete.
55 Cesnola, Salaminia, Fig. 131, and Plate XII. Fig. 2; Perrot-Chipiez, iv. Fig. 286.
56 Perrot-Chipiez, iv. Fig. 314, Plate VIII.
57 Dugas, op. cit. p. 40. To the resemblances there noted I would add, for what it is worth, a comparison between the figures of horsemen on these vases (Perrot-Chipiez, iii. Figs. 544, 548) and those on three Laconian kylikes (Dugas 7, 8, 9).
58 In this list I shall continue M. Dugas' sequence of numbers for those vases which are not in his catalogue.
