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 1978 Review of Onatas of Aegina, by José Dörig 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. 1978. Review of Onatas of Aegina, by José Dörig. American Journal of Archaeology 82:260-261. This paper is posted at Scholarship, Research, and Creative Work at Bryn Mawr College. http://repository.brynmawr.edu/arch_pubs/63 For more information, please contact [email protected]. 260 AMERICAN JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY [AJA 82 more than the height of a vase. One must deplore the latter could reflect another work by the same master. apparent poor state of the earlier excavation records Finally, three male figures are attributed to the group as seen in the entries for E 37 and Pr 9 in particular. of Greek Heroes dedicated by the Achaeans at Olym- Production mistakes are very few and easily cor- pia, which portrayed nine warriors waiting for Nes- rected by the reader. P1. 7,7, however, does show 100 tor to draw lots. These marble copies, selected because (not indicated in the catalogue or caption) and 118 of their heroic size and Severe style, are the torso Tor- (not indicated in the caption). P1. 73,2 is printed up- lonia 401, the "Poseidon" Borghese and the "Ares" side down. Fig. 5, cross section N-N', does not show Somz&e in its recently restored form (for which see 40 (HW i ii) as it should according to Plan I and also J. Marcad6 and G. Donnay, Cahiers de Marie- the description. Enclosure I, cross section R-R', has mont 4 ['9731 47-57). The book closes with a note 114 (HW 200) drawn in but not numbered. It is by A.E. Raubitschek on an inscribed pillar found at above HW 198. 407 (HW 7) cuts 391 (HW 6) and Olympia in 1963, on which Onatas's name can plausi- is not cut by it, as stated on p. 167. bly be restored as the sculptor's signature. Each mon- A great deal of effort went into the excavations and ument is illustrated with excellent photographs, in the preparation of this report. It is unfortunate that many views. the additional effort needed for the report was not Of all these identifications, that of the Hermes Kri- made. On the omissions, such as the relation of this ophoros is perhaps the most convincing, because the part of the Kerameikos to the rest of the cemetery bronze statuette in Paris, despite its diminutive size, and other nearby burials, one hopes that they may be corresponds in all details to Pausanias's description of taken up in future volumes. Certainly a summary in- the original and the general style seems Severe. The terpretation similar to Agora XIV by Thompson and connection between the head of the figurine and the Wycherley is desired. marble head from the Akropolis seems to rest more MICHAEL M. EISMAN on general typology than on true similarity; certainly DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY the arrangement of the hair is entirely different and TEMPLE UNIVERSITY to restore a cap or a helmet on the marble seems some- PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA 19122 what arbitrary. Since a draped figure of minute size cannot be used to determine a sculptor's treatment of male anatomy, ONATAS OF AEGINA, by (Monumenta lose D6rig. the Herakles represents an important premise for all Graeca et Romana vol. i, edited by H.F. Mussche.) further attributions. Here the identification with Ona- Pp. x + 32, ills. 65. E.J. Brill, Leiden, 1977. tas's work is based on the "Severe style" of the Roman Gld 48. replicas and on the attributes held by the statues. However, the pronounced and fractioned musculature "There is no more dangerous obstacle to knowledge of the replicas in Cherchel and Alexandria seems hard- than an adherence to unquestioned received opinions, ly in keeping with an original created shortly after which have come to be as documented accepted facts 470 (p. 14) and indeed the type had been previously force of through habit." With this statement (p. 6) dated to the advanced fifth century B.C. Were the the entire D6rig reopens question of Onatas's oeuvre anatomical rendering to be imputed to the copyist, it and begins a painstaking process to formulate his own is still difficult to dismiss the hint of a chiasmus in the attributions. I find myself totally in agreement with pose itself. Of the heads, one is excessively emotional the initial statement, but I am not entirely convinced and highly modelled, the other too cold and smooth. the results. by To attempt a reconstruction of the original from these starts D6rig by collecting the literary sources on two extremes, and to reach a date on its evidence, Onatas (from which however Paus. 6.12.I and Anth. seems risky. Finally, the attributes are not as definite Palat. are and 9.238 omitted), then discusses previous as suggested. The club held in the right hand is a fact, scholarship and attributions, such as the bronze god but the left hand is missing and the strut below the from Artemision and the Aegina sphinx, none of left hip is insufficient to postulate a lowered arm hold- which he finds tenable. Even among the monuments ing a bow. Even the works mentioned as possible re- mentioned Pausanias like by some, the horse-headed flections of the type hold the Apples of the Hesperides, Demeter now Melaina, may be irretrievable. D6rig an attribute which had in fact been proposed for the therefore concentrates on the few pieces for which he Cherchel replica. believes that a reasonable certainty exists. His starting The three male figures assigned to the Achaean is the Herakles dedicated at point Olympia by the monument find good parallels among the pedimental which he in Thasians, recognizes colossal Roman cop- sculptures of the Temple of Zeus, although the latter ies at Alexandria and Cherchel, London. His second are said to be by a different master. The Borghese identification is the Hermes Kriophoros, also at Olym- "Poseidon" wears its mantle like Oinomaos, and Do- which is pia, represented by a bronze statuette (8.6 cm. rig suggests that he may have been the in the Agamemnon high) Cabinet des Medailles, and perhaps by a in Onatas's group, since he is not armed. The other marble head from the Athenian Akropolis, though the two figures, though naked, were probably character- 1978] BOOK REVIEWS 261 ized as warriors through their weapons. The Somzie trievably lost, the enquiry is frustrated at every turn. statue has been vastly improved by the removal of an This, sadly, is the case with the Marine Thiasos in extraneous piece from its hair, the shortening of its sculpture. Over the centuries it acquired a significance neck and the consequent alteration in the turn of the transcending the purely decorative: religious, political, head. I am somewhat puzzled by the long hair of a and funerary. Yet the piece de rdsistance, Skopas's Severe warrior, since shorter coiffures were preferred group later in the Circus Flaminius at Rome, seems for both men and gods. Could the Somzie head have lost beyond recall, and its influence thereby incalcula- originally belonged to an Athena? The helmet, with ble. It is upon this rather intractable problem that L. its hinged cheek-pieces, could be Attic (or pseudo- brings his not inconsiderable critical powers to bear, Chalkidian), and the Roman predilection for switch- supplementing the older studies of Nereids and sea- ing heads of statues regardless of sex is well known. monsters by Gang (1907) and Shepard (1940). The Torlonia torso is itself crowned by a Roman por- This approach has two rather unfortunate conse- trait and is introduced by D6rig "with all due reser- quences. The "non-Skopaic" Ahenobarbus-Ara, for in- vations." All in all, the group is interesting but the stance (the sole-surviving near-complete thiasos in attribution to Onatas is not compelling, especially in Greek monumental sculpture), merits only a 3-page view of the influence the Olympia pediments must "excursus" (on location and date alone) in a book of have exercised on later works. some 80 pages; yet whenever the central question of No further information can be derived from the Skopas's influence upon later sculpture is raised, inscribed pillar. It carried a small object (perhaps a "might-have-beens" are uncomfortably prominent. In bird) and the recipient of the dedication is not men- fact, here the only conclusion as such is that the dou- tioned. Raubitschek would date the letter forms in the ble-tailed Triton was probably Skopas's creation (p. sixth century, "were it not for the artist's name" 61). So, whereas an appraisal of Skopas's contribution (p. 30). D6rig refers to the pillar as the Kephalos alone might have made a good article, or a widening stele (pp. ix, 32, captions to figs. 58-65) but is that of L.'s perspective (to include, e.g., the sarcophagi) not the patronymic of Pythion? Onatas's signature on an important and comprehensive book, as it stands, the the Akropolis accompanied another statuette, not a present monograph, though generally convincing, oc- major work. casionally illuminating, and certainly useful, falls rath- D6rig's method "proceeds from the conviction that er between the two stools.