A Story of Five Amazons Brunilde S
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Bryn Mawr College Scholarship, Research, and Creative Work at Bryn Mawr College Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology Faculty Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology Research and Scholarship 1974 A Story of Five Amazons Brunilde S. Ridgway 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/arch_pubs Part of the Classical Archaeology and Art History Commons, and the History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology Commons Custom Citation Ridgway, Brunilde S. 1974. A Story of Five Amazons. American Journal of Archaeology 78:1-17. This paper is posted at Scholarship, Research, and Creative Work at Bryn Mawr College. http://repository.brynmawr.edu/arch_pubs/79 For more information, please contact [email protected]. A Story of Five Amazons* BRUNILDE SISMONDO RIDGWAY PLATES 1-4 THEANCIENT SOURCE dam a sua quisqueiudicassent. Haec est Polycliti, In a well-knownpassage of his book on bronze proximaab ea Phidiae, tertia Cresilae,quarta Cy- sculpturePliny tells us the story of a competition donis, quinta Phradmonis." among five artists for the statue of an Amazon This texthas been variously interpreted, emended, (Pliny NH 34.53): "Venereautem et in certamen and supplementedby trying to identifyeach statue laudatissimi,quamquam diversis aetatibusgeniti, mentionedby Pliny among the typesextant in our quoniamfecerunt Amazonas, quae cum in templo museums. It may thereforebe useful to review Dianae Ephesiaedicarentur, placuit eligi probatis- brieflythe basicpoints made by the passage,before simam ipsorum artificum, qui praesenteserant examining the sculpturalcandidates. iudicio,cum apparuitearn esse quam omnes secun- i) The Competition.The mention of a contest * The following works will be quoted in abbreviated form: von Bothmer D. von Bothmer, Amazons in Greek Arias, Policleto P. Arias, Policleto (Florence 1964) Art (Oxford 1957) Arias and Hirmer P. Arias and M. Hirmer, A Thousand In referring to illustrations of comparative monuments, Years of Greek Vase Painting (New only standard picture books have been used, with no attempt York 1962) to provide the best possible photograph or the most important Becatti G. Becatti, Problemi Fidiaci (Florence publication of the monument. Thus Bieber, Lippold and S. & S. 1951) are the most commonly given sources. In order to avoid ex- Becatti, Ninfe G. Becatti, Ninfe e Divinita Marine, cessive footnoting, documentation and references have often Ricerche Mitologiche iconografiche e been condensed, so that when several statues or several authors stilistiche, Studi Miscellanei no. 17 are mentioned, only one footnote at the end of the paragraph (Rome 1971) will provide the bibliographicalsupport. Bieber M. Bieber, The Sculpture of the Hel- The Amazon types have been referred to as follows: lenistic Age (2nd rev. ed., New York D-P Amazon = Villa Doria Pamphili Amazon; Capitoline 1961) Amazon type = also known as Sosikles' Amazon because the Furtwiingler A. Furtwlingler, Meisterwerke dec copy in the Capitoline Museum is signed by Sosikles; Ephesos (or, F., Meisterwerke) griechischen Plastik (Berlin 1893) (Ephesos pier) Amazon = the newly established "fifth" type Helbig4 various authors, writing entries for W. known through the high relief figure decorating one of the Helbig, Fiihrer durch die offentlichen piers of the Roman theater at Ephesos; Mattei Amazon type = Sammlungen klassischer Altertiimer in after the replica in the Vatican; Lansdowne Amazon type Rom, 4th edition; vol. I (nos. I-Ii6o) - variously called the "Sciarra"type after the copy in Copen- 1963; vol. 2 (nos. 161-2116) 1966; hagen, or the Berlin Type after the copy in Berlin; the Lans- vol. 3 (nos. 2117-2994) 1969. downe replica is in the Metropolitan Museum in New York, Johnson, Lysippos F. Johnson, Lysippos (Durham 1927) and it is published and illustrated fully in G. M. A. Richter, Lippold G. Lippold, Die griechische Plastik, Catalogue of Greek Sculpture in the Metropolitan Museum of in W. Otto, Handbuch der Archdologie Art (Cambridge, Mass. 1954) no. 37, pls. 34-36. 3:1 (Munich 1950) (Handbuch der The bibliography on the problem of the Ephesian Amazons Altertumswissenschaft Abt. 6) is extensive, and it has proved impossible to acknowledge the Lullies and Hirmer R. Lullies and M. Hirmer, Greek opinion of all the scholars who have written on the subject. Sculpture (New York I96o) Summaries of previous attributions as well as lists of replicas Michaelis A. Michaelis, "Die sogennanten ephesi- can be found in Michaelis, Becatti (ch. 13, pp. 185-199) and schen Amazonenstatues,"IJd I (1886) von Bothmer. 14-74. I am greatly indebted to Carol W. Carpenter for her draw- Poulsen V. Poulsen, Die Amazone des Kresi- ing of the five Amazons as they may have stood in Ephesos las, Opus Nobile I (Bremen 1957) (pl. 4, fig. 14). Her sketch is meant purely as a visual Richter, Archaeology G. M. A. Richter, "Pliny's Five Ama- aid to the reading of my text and makes no definitive claim zons," Archaeology 12 (1959) II1- as to the correct spacing of the statues and the rendering of "I5 individual details. Although in the drawing the Amazons have Severe Ridgway, Style B. S. Ridgway, The Severe Style in been conventionally rendered as if on a single base, nothing Greek Sculpture (Princeton 1970) prevents a more scattered arrangement of the statues in the S. & S. G. M. A. Richter, Sculpture and Sculp- proximity of the temple, perhaps within the perimeter of the tors of the Greeks (4th ed., New altar. Such a setting would probably avoid the monotony of Haven 1970) two figures, each leaning on a pier with the same elbow, but SQ J. Overbeck, Die antiken Schriftquel- it would not prevent a sequential alignment (from left to len zur Geschichteder bildende Kiinste right along a pi-shaped outline?) which may have prompted bei den Griechen (Leipzig I868) the order of winners in Pliny's anecdote. 2 BRUNILDE SISMONDO RIDGWAY [AJA 78 among ancient masters is not limited to this epi- bus geniti) but also for reinforcement (qui prae- sode. Pliny himself (NH 36.17) tells us that Alka- sentes erant iudicio). If, however, as we shall argue menes and Agorakritos competed for a statue of infra, Phradmon is a fourth century sculptor, the Aphrodite, which was apparently voted upon by possibility of contemporaneity collapses and with the citizens of Athens; another, but much later it the entire anecdote of the contest. source (the twelfth century Byzantine writer 2) The Artists. Aside from problems of chronol- = Tzetzes in his Chiliades 8.353 SQ 772) speaks ogy, the name of the fourth master mentioned by of a contest between Pheidias and Alkamenes, Pliny has given rise to skepticism, and the ancient where the former was pronounced victorious by his text has often been emended so as to avoid Kydon own compatriots. But all these episodes have a entirely and to eliminate the mention of a fifth strong anecdotal flavor and are open to doubt. In statue, shifting quarta to Phradmonis.' The grounds the case of the Ephesian Amazons in particular, for this emendation have usually been that Kydon Furtwangler, as early as 1893, had suggested that is otherwise unknown as a sculptor, that Pliny mis- the order of winners in Pliny simply corresponded took Kresilas' ethnic (from Kydonia in Crete) for to the alignment of the statues on their single base, the name of another person, and that the four types which had with time acquired an implication of of Amazons extant in our museums could be at- competition and prize; while D. von Bothmer has tributed to a fifth century monument. In recent more recently assumed that "Pliny's account ... years, however, G. M. A. Richter has defended the may well be an embroidered anecdote prompted original lectio of the text on the basis of a new by the presence of four statues of the same subject Amazonian type which was excavated in Ephesos in the same sanctuary by different artists."'A safer in 1898 but did not receive official publication until reference to a competition is given by the inscrip- sixty years later.5 Richter pointed out also that tion on the pedestal of Paionios' Nike at Olympia,2 Kydon, not attested as an ethnic, is well attested which mentions that the sculptor "won the com- as a proper name, and that therefore Pliny's in- mission to make the akroteria for the temple." One formation should be accepted in toto. This position may note however that akroteria are part of an is probably correct, regardless of the value of the architectural monument, and as such would re- whole passage. quire models and a public commission; nothing 3) The Statues. On the logical assumption that assures us that a single statue would be subject to the famous bronze originals would have been re- the same rules, or, specifically, that the city of produced in Roman copies, scholars have frequent- Ephesos officially commissioned the statue of an ly been tempted to "illustrate" Pliny's text with Amazon, though Pliny's passage has sometimes the sculptural types represented in modern col- been thus interpreted.3Furtwiingler (p. 289), who lections. Though lively disagreement still continues had discounted this possibility, thought in terms on the attributionsof the single types to the various of a wealthy private citizen, but in that case it is masters, the types themselves have been generally difficult to see why all five Amazons should be set established and accepted; they are usually known if one "won" and became the of the up only object as: the Lansdowne type (pl. I, fig. I), the Capi- dedication. Although evidence is insufficient either toline type (pl. i, fig. 2), the Mattei type (pl. i, to accept or to reject the idea of an ancient com- fig. 3) and the Villa Doria Pamphili Amazon petition, we may still stress the fact that Pliny (pl.