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Bryn Mawr College Scholarship, Research, and Creative Work at Bryn Mawr College Greek, Latin, and Classical Studies Faculty Research Greek, Latin, and Classical Studies and Scholarship 1978 Review of Blera: Topografia na tica della città e del territorio, by Stefania Quilici Gigli Russell Scott Bryn Mawr College, [email protected] Let us know how access to this document benefits ouy . Follow this and additional works at: http://repository.brynmawr.edu/classics_pubs Part of the Classics Commons Custom Citation Scott, Russell T. Review of Blera: Topografia antica della città e del territorio, by Stefania Quilici Gigli. American Journal of Archaeology 82 (1978): 264-265. This paper is posted at Scholarship, Research, and Creative Work at Bryn Mawr College. http://repository.brynmawr.edu/classics_pubs/38 For more information, please contact [email protected]. 264 AMERICAN JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY [AJA 82 are identified with them relief) by comparison as BLERA. TOPOGRAFIA ANTICA DELLA CITTA E DEL Thasian work. The attributions to Thasos, often borne TERRITORIO, by Stefania Quilici Gigli. (DAI Rom, out by observation of the marble, are a particularly Sonderschriften 3-) PP- 318 (double convincing part of the book. They include the pedi- columns), mental sculptures of the Hieron at Samothrace and figs. 571, pls. 14 (12 line drawings, i aerial photo- also a series of draped statues found at Palestrina. The graph, I map). Philipp von Zabern, Mainz, 1976. fragment from Thasos usually assigned to the base DM 148. with the signature of Philiskos of Rhodes is shown not to belong to it and to be another piece in the early- This folio volume contains the results of five years' Hellenistic Thasian series. topographical reconnaissance in the hilly territory of While the greatest revelations have to do with early Blera in central southern Etruria. The area as delim- Hellenistic there is also skillful of art, handling later ited in quadrant 4, sheet 143 of the 1:25,000oooIGM map material. Linfert has found a replica on Thera, also of Italy occupies io6 km.2 and extends on the north- early Imperial in date, of the draped girl at Sper- east from the site of Forum Cassii to Barbarano on the longa; the type has close parallels in Myrina terra cot- southeast and west from these points along the line tas (e.g. Boston 87.384, D. Burr, Terra-cottas from of the north-south course of the Biedano and its tribu- Myrina [Vienna 1934] no. 105). Several interesting tary streams. In 1848 Dennis wrote "I do not recollect typological series are discussed, including one figure a site in the volcanic district of Etruria, save Sorano which is seen both independently and incorporated in- in Tuscany, where the chasms are more profound and to the "Helen and Peitho" group in Izmir from Tor- the scenery more grand, than around Bieda," but it bali. The Rhodian Nymph sitting on a rock, known has only had sporadic attention from archaeologists in so many statuette replicas (another appears in and topographers from the early nineteenth century to Lorenzo Lotto's portrait of Andrea Odoni at Hampton the present and that chiefly directed to the rock-cut Court) was similarly incorporated into the Punish- necropolis of Blera. (Neither the Blera necropolis nor ment of Dirce group, and identifies the Farnese copy that of S. Giuliano is included here; they will be as descending from Asinius Pollio's marble version, treated separately in the series on rock-cut cemeteries brought from Rhodes, rather than from more conser- of central Etruria of which the first two volumes by vative Asia Minor types where Dirce's upper body is E. and G. Colonna on Castel d'Asso were published draped and her pose more horizontal. On the basis of in 1970.) It is, however, because of investigations made an example from Stratonikeia, under Rhodian domi- in the Blera necropolis in 1914 by a team from the nation from 189 to 167 B.C., Linfert dates the Nymph German Archaeological Institute in Rome that Quilici type, and with it the activity of Apollonios and Tau- Gigli's study appears in the Institute's Sonderschriften, riskos, sculptors of the Dirce group, to the early second enriched by previously unpublished photographic docu- "Helen and Peitho" is a mentation from its archives century. Possibly, however, (RdmMitt 30 [I915] 161). better parallel; the "Helen" type had had quite a long The format is that of the Forma Italiae: an intro- independent existence before being copied into the duction with history of previous scholarship and a group. Many elements of the Toro Farnese suggest synthetic account of the survey results chronologically a late Hellenistic model. by period from the Late Bronze Age to the later Roman Linfert's excursus, on the altars of Magnesia and Empire, followed by a detailed archaeological cata- Priene, the "Ehrengrab" of the Bouleuterion at Mile- logue of 490 items. These include major and minor tos (he considers it another altar), and the find situa- roads, bridges, cemeteries and tombs, settlements, tion of the female figures from the Artemision of habitations, farm houses and villas, cuniculi for drain- Thasos, is a group of studies which are significant in age and irrigation, agricultural, architectural and do- themselves and as points of reference for datings pro- mestic artifacts in metals, stone and terra cotta. Illus- elsewhere in posed the book. trations in the form of maps, topographical and object The Kunstzentren of the title provide an organi- photographs, plans and sections are profuse and rele- zational framework for the vast and potentially cha- vant. The usefulness of the work is immense as the otic material. Distinctive, apparently local styles do summaries based on the survey show. characterize certain limited groups of pieces; it takes The earliest evidence for a settlement comes from all of Linfert's refinement, though, to find any thread a promontory due east of Barbarano where surface of development running through all the works found pottery characteristic of the late Bronze Age was at one or site, any revealing distinction between very found. To the Villanovan necropoli at Chiusa Cima similar pieces made in widely separated places. The and Poggio Montano (both just beyond the limits of field is too vast, the evidence too fragmentary and the Blera quadrant) can be added eighth century pot- too incompletely recorded, for any book written now tery from the neighborhood of Blera itself. For the to be definitive. Linfert's remarkable compilation is an archaic period the survey has produced evidence of important beginning. territorial organization with examples of primary forti- ARIEL HERRMANN fied ridge settlements with outlying agricultural dis- MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS BOSTON tricts, in some of which are signs of villages and in BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02115 others substantial tombs which suggest comparatively 1978] BOOK REVIEWS 265 wealthy land holders. Communications followed the Italiae needs no defense and Stefania Quilici Gigli is southeast to north/northwest line of the settlement to be congratulated on this most recent of her con- pattern: two roads apparently diverged beyond Grotta tributions to it. Porcina, one heading north toward Castel d'Asso- RUSSELLT. SCOTT Orvieto, the other northwest toward Tuscania-Vulci, DEPARTMENT OF LATIN while from Blera a route ran west toward Tarquinia BRYN MAWR COLLEGE and the coast. This state of affairs was little altered in BRYN MAWR, PENNSYLVANIA 1900I the Hellenistic period, although here as elsewhere in Etruria of Roman encroachment possible signs may COSA: THE UTILITARIAN POTTERY, by Stephen L. be read in new fortifications; and changes from the Dyson. (Memoirs of the American Academy in earlier route system observable in the course of the Via Clodia near S. Giuliano in the south and in the Rome, 33.) PP. 173, figs. 68 + folding dia- direction of Castel d'Asso to the north may indicate grams. American Academy in Rome, 1976. the decline of these sites in the third century. Dyson's of Cosa's utilitarian will come The land presents quite a different in the late study pottery aspect as a relief to those who feared that it would be republican and early imperial periods from that sug- pub- lished in the same manner as the site's thin-walled gested by a few tendentious literary sources. The in- wares (Moevs, MAAR Moevs's was to tensity of cultivation is reflected by the rapid growth 32). approach set up a hypothetical model of of secondary and tertiary roads connecting numerous technological develop- ment and of wares and their surface to agricultural and light "industrial" establishments of decay coatings, establish a rigid classification of forms, and to derive small to medium size, not oriented to particular towns. most of the information on from these rather There is only one large villa estate of third or fourth dating than the of the excavations. In contrast, century date, imperfectly known because it underlies stratigraphy Dyson presents eight distinct of more S. Giovanni in Tuscia. (It is to be noted that the groups pottery, or less well stratified, dated ca. ca. 200 situation is analogous to what has been observed in 275-i50 B.C., B.C., mid-second B.C., ca. B.C., ca. the south Etruria survey of the British School in Rome century 70-60 Ioo- 30 B.C., Tiberian-early Claudian, late third and farther north in the territory of Cosa.) first-early century A.D., and late fifth A.D. The preceding descriptions of the development of fourth-early century respectively. The text is and the territory of Blera depend upon the author's inter- clearly logically organ- ized and the drawings can be related to their pretations of various kinds of physical evidence: quan- descrip- tions without difficulty, tabulation of the tity and distribution of roof tiles, pottery and imple- although descriptions on the the ment types, styles of masonry and concrete work, tomb pages facing drawings might have been both an and a convenience, allow- architecture and burial practice, cemetery locations, economy ing and to have been road beds and cuttings.

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