Some Greek Portraits

Extract

Since the Capitoline ‘Aeschylus’ was discredited as a portrait of the tragedian there has been a curious blank in our knowledge of Greek iconography; yet his portraits in antiquity were famous and it seems certain that they must, like those of Sophocles and Euripides, have been widely reproduced. Those known to us from literary evidence are that in the Στοὰ Ποικίλη, where he appeared as one of the warriors of Marathon, that erected by Lycurgos in 340, and (probably) another of earlier date, inferred from the words of Diogenes Laertius that the Athenians Ἀστυδάμαντα πρότερον τῶν περὶ Αἰσχύλον ἐγίμησαν εἰκόνι χαλκῇ; now Astydamas, nephew of Aeschylus, won the prize in Ol. 95. 2, and Bernoulli suggests that if a statue were erected at that date to one of his followers, one of the great tragedian was probably in existence, i.e., one erected before the end of the fifth century. That set up by Lycurgos was, however, by far the most famous, and of its style we get clear evidence from the Sophocles of the Lateran.