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Artful crafts: the influence of metalwork on Athenian painted pottery

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2013

Michael Vickers
Michael Vickers
Affiliation:
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
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Extract

Why did Athenian vase-painters choose the colours they did for the vases they decorated? Why did they choose black figures on red, or red figures on black; why were lekythoi often decorated on white ground? These are basic questions, but have rarely been asked. Many books and articles deal with the technical aspects of how these effects were achieved, but never seem to ask why. A few minutes' conversation with a modern potter will dispel any illusion that the colours so familiar from Attic pottery were the only ones compatible with the local clay. Even the orange of that clay was made more intense by the addition of a thin reddish slip, and white-ground can scarcely be accidental. It is legitimate to enquire why a particular range of colour schemes was adopted.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 105 , November 1985 , pp. 108 - 128
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1985

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References

Thanks are due to many friends and colleagues for reading versions of this paper and for giving me their counsel. Thanks are especially due to Mr E. L. Bowie and JHS' anonymous referees, to Dr P. H. Blyth, Prof. J. Boardman, Mrs W. L. Brown, Dr T. J. Carpenter, Prof. R. M. Cook, Dr J. J. Coulton, Prof. E. D. Francis, Dr Jane Gardner, Mr D. W. J. Gill, Mr Richard Hattatt, Dr Nicholas Horsfall, Dr Oliver Impey, Dr Richard Jones, Dr D. M. Lewis, Prof. Jody Maxmin, Prof. Warren Moon, Mr Andrew Oliver Jr, Mr Peter Parsons, Dr Julian Raby, Prof. A. E. Raubitschek, Dr Sally R. Roberts, Prof. Martin Robertson, Mrs Diana Scaris-brick, Prof. B. B. Shefton, Dr Andrew Sherratt, Mr R. R. R. Smith and Prof. Andrew Stewart. Professors Maxmin and Stewart in addition submitted drafts to the searching criticism of their classes at Stanford and U.C. Berkeley and were kind enough to send me long and helpful reports. An earlier version was read to the Oxford Philological Society, and related papers have been read in Rouen and Amsterdam (see n. 36). A grant for Research in Design History from the Guild of St George enabled me to visit the Hermitage Museum and Châtillon-sur-Seine.

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7 Noble (n. 1) 61.

8 Hughes, D. and Parsons, P. J., POxy lii (1984) 3659Google Scholar. 5–8: καίτοι τί γένοιτ᾿ ἂν ἀρ γύρου λευκότερον;— -ἀλλ᾿ ὅ μως του̑του ὁ Θρασυάλκης φησὶν εἰ̂ναι μέλανα. Thanks are due to Mr Parsons for bringing this reference to my attention.

9 Olson, G. and Thordemann, B., ‘The cleaning of silver objects’, MusJ 1 (1951) 250–2Google Scholar; Evans, V. R., The corrosion and oxidation of metals. Scientific principles and practical applications (New York 1960)Google Scholar.

10 Cook (n. 6) 153.

11 Theoc. Id. 16. 16–17.

12 Ath. xi 489e:

13 Ath. xii 535f:

14 Seure, G., ‘Un char thraco-macédonien’, BCH xxviii (1904) 224–5Google Scholar. Prof. Robertson kindly notes that support for the view that silver may have been dark may be found in the frescoes illustrated in Pallottino, M., Etruscan painting (Geneva 1952) 45, 97Google Scholar, and in Maiuri, A., Roman painting (New York n.d.) 19, 21Google Scholar. Dr Paul Craddock draws attention to Pliny, NH xxxiii 10.56Google Scholar, who speaks of the Egyptians darkening their silver so as to see Anubis.

15 For bibliography, see British Museum, Thracian treasures from Bulgaria (London 1976) 93–5Google Scholar.

16 E.g. Sparkes, B. A., ‘Quintain and the Talcott class’, AK xx (1977) 24Google Scholar; Sparkes–Talcott (n. 2) 15; A. Oliver Jr, Silver for the gods: 800 years of Greek and Roman silver (Toledo, Ohio 1977) 29, 31.

17 Evans, A. J., ‘Syracusan “medallions” and their engravers’, NC3 xi (1891) 319–20Google Scholar; further bibliography, CVA Schwerin, p. 38. See too, D. B. Thompson's allusion to ‘silvered Italian pottery’ in the context of the closely related cups adorned with casts of coins of Heraclea: ‘Mater caelaturae; impressions from ancient Metalwork’, Hesperia viii (1939) 315Google Scholar.

18 Pazaurek, G. E., Guter und schlechter Geschmack im Kunstgewerbe (Stuttgart-Berlin 1912) 127CrossRefGoogle Scholar, fig. 108 (whence PLATE IVb).

19 Cf. Rotroff (n. 3) 14: ‘The bowls of the third century B.C. are covered with the black glaze familiar from Attic pottery of earlier periods.’

20 The bibliography is substantial, but the best illustrations and earlier references can be found in: Filow, B. D., Die Grabhügelnekropole bei Duvanlij in Südbulgarien (Sofia 1934) 63Google Scholar, pl. 4 (phiale), 106 ff., pl. 7 (kantharos) (pictures after conservation: I. Venedikov and T. Gerassimov, Thrakische Kunst [Vienna/Munich 1973] pls 163–9); Gorbunova, K. S., ‘Engraved silver kylikes from the Semibratny Barrows’, Kultura e iskusstvo antichnogo mira (Leningrad 1971) 18–38, 123Google Scholar; O. Lordkipanidze, ‘La civilisation de 1'ancienne Colchide aux Ve–IVe siècles (à la lumière des plus récentes découvertes archéologiques)’, RA 1971, 281–2. Reeder, E. D., Clay impressions from Attic metalwork (Diss. Princeton 1974) 212–14Google Scholar has an extremely useful list of engraved silver vessels. There is general unanimity that the silver vases in question are Attic: e.g. ‘Attisch sind auch die schönsten Funde, die Silbergefässe mit Gravierungen’ (K. Schefold, in a review of Filow, Gnomon xii [1936] 576)Google Scholar; ‘The analysis of the engraved and gilt decoration on the vessels has shown that they are stylistically related to the work of Attic vase painters, This fact is important for establishing their … provenance which is defined as Attic’ (Gorbunova 121); ‘Coupes attiques en argent doré’ (Lordkipanidze 282).

21 Gorbunova (n. 20) 20, fig. 1 (profile), 23, fig. 5 (interior); L. Byvanck-Quarles van Ufford, Zilveren en gouden Vaatwerk uit de Griekse und Romeinse Oudheid (1973) 60, pl. 20. My thanks are due to Mmc Irene Saverkina for allowing me to study this and other gilded silver vessels in the Hermitage and for supplying the photograph in PLATE IVc.

22 Blümner, H., Technologie und Terminologie der Gewerbe und Künste bei Griechen und Römern iv (Leipzig 1887) 311Google Scholar.

23 Pliny, NH xxxv 199Google Scholar; xvii 45. Cf. Olson–Thordemann (n. 9) 250: ‘Frequent cleaning and polishing of silver must inevitably wear down the surface and gradually destroy any engraved ornamentation.’

24 IG i3 p. 331.

25 Ibid.

26 IG ii2.2 1425.70.

27 Houser, C., ‘The Riace Marina bronze statues, classical or classicizing?’, Source, Notes in the History of Art i.3 (1982) 8Google Scholar. If a shining, non-tarnishable, effect was desired, tin might be used: Vickers, M., JHS xciv (1974) 177CrossRefGoogle Scholar n. 3; cf. Hom., Il. xviii 565, 574Google Scholar.

28 Cf. SIG 284.15 (Chios iv BC) ὄπως καθαρός ἰοῦ ἔσται ό ἀνδρίας, cited LSJ s.v. ỉός B.

29 The detail (though not its purpose) has been discussed by Clark, A. J., ‘The earliest known chous by the Amasis Painter’, MetrMusJ xv (1981) 45Google Scholar. See further M. Vickers, ‘Silver, copper and ceramics in ancient Athens’, in Pots and Pans, Proceedings of the Colloquium on Precious Metals and Ceramics in the Islamic, Chinese and Greco-Roman Worlds, Oxford 1985 ( = Oxford Studies in Islamic Art ii [1986]). Note that a rivet on an archaic hydria handle in the Ashmolean (1965.288) has been shown to contain 98% copper: Craddock, P. T., ‘The composition of the copper alloys used by the Greek, Etruscan and Roman civilisations 2. The archaic, classical and Hellenistic Greeks’, J. Archaeol. Science iv (1977) 118Google Scholar.

30 Attic silver was exceptionally pure (c. 98% compared with 92·5% of sterling; cf. the praise implied at Plb. xxi 32.8 and 43.19). ‘Unalloyed silver is very soft … and would wear very quickly in use’ (Craddock, P., AntJ lxiii [1983] 132Google Scholar); hence the apparent presence of copper for rivets and rims.

31 Plut., Nic. 28.6Google Scholar.

32 Cf. Alcibiades' ἀσπίδα … ἐκ χρνσοῦ καὶ ἐλέφαντος πεποιμένην, Ath. xii 534e; and χρυσελεφανηλέκτρους ảσπίδας of Phocian mercenaries; Plut. Tim. 31.

33 Barnett, R. D., Ancient ivories in the Middle East, Qedem, Monographs of the Inst. of Archaeology, Hebrew University of Jerusalem xiv (1982) 64Google Scholar. At Acragas there were even solid ivory couches: Ael. VH xii 29; for inlaid furniture see e.g. IG ii2 1415.26–7; 1421.112. In general see Daremberg–Saglio ii (1892) 2359 ff. s.v. ‘Ebur’.

34 I owe this observation to my colleague Dr Oliver Impey of the Department of Eastern Art, Ashmolean Museum. Ivory is a substance which is laminated concentrically, Penniman, T. K., Pictures of ivory and other animal teeth, bone and antler (Oxford 1952) 15Google Scholar, so that a single section of tusk might provide the material for several lekythoi, rather on the principle of ‘Chinese boxes’. It was always a relatively precious commodity, and little was allowed to go to waste; even the tip of the tusk was put to use if white-ground ‘Columbus’ alabastra are any indication (PLATE IVa). Plates of ivory up to ‘thirty inches square’ have been achieved by softening ivory cylinders in phosphoric acid: ‘The ivory is then subjected to hydraulic pressure, and when washed and dried, it regains its former consistency’, Williamson, G. C., The book of ivory (London 1938) 12Google Scholar. This is of interest in the context of ‘ivory softeners’ in Periclean Athens (Plut. Per. 12.6; cf. Paus. v 12.2; Plut. Mor. 499e; Sen. Ep. 90.33. I owe the last two references to Prof. P. Stadter who is preparing a commentary on Plut. Per.), and may well be relevant to such vessels as white-ground cups and craters.

35 Jacobsthal, P., Ornamente griechische Vasen (Berlin 1927) 39, 144Google Scholar.

36 Vickers, M., ‘Les vases peintes: image ou mirage?’, in Lissarague, F. and Thelamon, F., eds, Image et céramique grecque: Actes du collogue de Rouen 25–26 novembre 1982 (Rouen 1983) 29–41Google Scholar; id., ‘The influence of exotic materials on Attic white-ground pottery’, in Proceedings of the Symposium ‘Ancient Greek and related pottery’, Amsterdam 1984 (Allard Pierson Series V) 88–97.

37 Pliny, NH xv 33Google Scholar.

38 Perdolskaya, A. A., ‘Les dessins sur ivoire du Tumulus Koul-Oba’, Trudy OIIKAM i (1945) 69–83Google Scholar, pls 1–6; colour: Artomonov, M., Richesses des tombeaux scythes (Prague/Leningrad 1966)Google Scholar pls 258, 261. For the regular use of ivory at upper-class Greek funerals, see Plut., Pel. 34.1Google Scholar; Aem. 39.4; Amsterdam (n. 36). The colours actually found on white-ground lekythoi correspond closely to the palette (red, blue, violet, green, yellow, black) employed by Chinese ivory sculptors in recent times. For an account of the relatively simple materials used, e.g. cinnabar (a by-product of silver smelting) for red, see Cox, W. E., Chinese ivory sculptures (New York 1946) 110Google Scholar.

39 Cf. Jones, A. H. M., Athenian democracy (Oxford 1957) 93–4Google Scholar: ‘Among industrial products Attic pottery is of course famous, and has, perhaps, owing to its durability, unduly overshadowed other high-grade products, such as silver plate and furniture.’

40 Ath. Pol. 22.7. As J. F. Healy has observed, there is no reason to believe in Pisistratean interest in the Laurium mines (Mining and metallurgy in the Greek and Roman world [London 1978] 102Google Scholar), and W. P. Wallace's dismissal of the explicit statement in Ath.Pol. that the big strike was made in c. 483 is based on untenable judgements regarding the chronology of Athenian coinage: ‘The early coinages of Athens and Euboea’, NC7 ii (1962) 25–30Google Scholar; cf. Kraay, C. M., ‘The archaic owls of Athens’, NC6 xvi (1956) 57–8Google Scholar; id., ‘The early coinage of Athens: a reply’, NC 7 ii (1962) 418; M. Vickers, ‘Early Greek coinage, a reassessment’, NC 1985 1–44. For information concerning recent research on and in Laurium itself, see Gale, N. H., Gentner, W. and Wagner, G. A., ‘Mineralogical and geographical sources of archaic Greek coinage’, Metallurgy in Numismatics i (1980) 3–49Google Scholar; Jones, J. Ellis, ‘Another Eleusinian kernos from Laureion’, BSA lxxvii (1982) 191–9Google Scholar, esp. 194 ff.; Weisgerber, G. and Heinrich, G., ‘Laurion—und kein Ende? Kritische Bemerkungen zum Forschungstand über eines der bedeutendsten antiken Bergreviere’, Der Anschnitt, Zeits. für Kunst und Kultur im Bergbau xxxv (1983) 190–200Google Scholar.

41 For a detailed discussion of the problems involved, see Podlecki, A. J., The Life of Themistocles (Montreal 1975) 201–4Google Scholar.

42 Cf. Suda and Zonaras s.v. ἀγράφου μετάλλου δίκη.

43 See Podlecki (n. 41) loc. cit.

44 25.86 kg: OCD 2 1138.

45 Aesch. Pers. 240.

45 On the relative shortage of silver in the Achaemenid empire at the time, see Price, M. J. and Waggoner, N., Archaic Greek silver coinage, the ‘Asyut’ hoard (London 1975) 139Google Scholar n. 246.

47 Davies, J. K., Athenian propertied families 600–300 B.C. (Oxford 1971) 260–1Google Scholar; cf. Nepos, Cim. 1.3Google Scholar, magnas pecunias ex metallis fecerat. For other massive fortunes made from the Laurium mines, albeit in the fourth century, see Jones (n. 39) 87, 90.

48 The only comprehensive account is to be found in the chapter on ‘Booty’ in Pritchett, W. K., Ancient Greek military practices i (= The Creek art of war i) (Berkeley/L.A. 1971) 53–84Google Scholar.

49 Jones (n. 39) 87: ‘… it does … seem to have been true that there was a heavy concentration of wealth at the extreme top of Athenian society, in a small group of approximately 300 families’.

50 Thuc. iv 105.

51 Cf. Haskell, F., Patrons and painters: a study in the relations between Italian art and society in the age of the Baroque (London 1963)Google Scholar.

52 Reitlinger, G., The economics of taste ii (London 1963) 20–1Google Scholar.

53 Strong, D. E., Greek and Roman gold and silver plate (London 1966) 74Google Scholar.

54 IG i3 pp. 292–332.

55 Aesch. fr. 184.

56 Pind. Ol. 7.1–4.

57 Pind. fr. 221.1–3 Snell–Maehler; cf. Bacchyl. Encomia 20A. 13–16; the ảργυρίδες to be won at the games at Marathon in 468 BC (Pind. Ol. 9.90) and the ảργνρέαι φιάλαι at Sicyon (Pind. Nem. 9.51). On the perennial connection between the horse-racing set and silver plate, see Udy, D., ‘Piranesi's “Vasi”, the English silversmith and his patrons’, BurlMag cxx (1978) 820–37Google Scholar.

58 E.g. Ar. Equ. 814; Diod. xii 3–4; Ath. xii 512b–c, 553c; [Arist.] Ath.Pol. 24.1; Aristid. Panath. 143–4; cf. Vickers, M., ‘Attic symposia after the Persian wars’ in Murray, O., ed., Sympotica (Oxford 1985)Google Scholar.

59 Thuc. i 6.3. Pace Gomme, A. W., HCT i 103Google Scholar, Thucydides will actually have seen older men who favoured τέττιγες and κρωβύλοι. B. Jowett's note ad loc. is much more satisfactory; for him, as for Aristophanes (Equ. 1331 [performed 424); Nub. 984 [revision of a play performed 423]) τέττιγες ‘are the signs of old-fashioned gentility’.

60 Davies (n. 47) 41.

61 Plut. Alc. 4. Elsewhere, Alcibiades used, illegally, the gold plate belonging to the Athenian state delegation to the Olympic games of 416: [Andoc] in Alc. 29, Plut. Alc. 13. That Athenians in the circles in which Alcibiades moved were extremely wealthy is indicated by the value of 8 talents (Diod. xiii 74.3) placed on a team of chariot horses which Alcibiades purloined, probably in the same year.

62 Dem. xxiv 184; cf. xx 10, xxii 76.

63 Thuc. vi 32.1. Cf. the 200 dr. kotylos mentioned in Aristophanes' Babylonians of 426 (Pollux x 85).

64 Diod. xiii 3.2.

65 Thuc. vi 32.5–6. Whether or not W. M. Calder III is correct in his preference for the view that the gold shield set up by the Selinuntines in ‘Temple G’ was paid for from the proceeds of the Athenian disaster (The inscription from Temple G at Selinus [Durham, N.C. 1963]), pp. 61–3 make instructive reading.

66 Amyx, D. A., ‘The Attic stelai III’, Hesperia xxvii (1958) 208Google Scholar. Amyx is surely correct, as Lewis, D. M. saw (Ancient society and institutions: studies presented to V. Ehrenberg [Oxford 1966] 183Google Scholar n. 37) in regarding the : Lewis) as a piece which its unlucky owner was unable to secrete before it was confiscated: ‘The reason why such precious objects are not found elsewhere in the Stelai can only be that they had been successfully removed by the convicted persons, or stolen by others’. See too, D. B. Thompson's wise observation (n. 17) 316 that ‘our ignorance of the quality and quantity of [lost master-pieces in precious metals] has perhaps warped our judgement as to their position in the history of [the] artistic tradition’.

67 The term employed by Ehrenberg, V., From Solon to Socrates2 (London 1973) 353Google Scholar.

68 POxy xiii 1606.153–5; cf. Davies (n. 47) 589.

69 Lys. xii 11.

70 Dover, K. J., Lysias and the Corpus Lysiacum (Berkeley/L.A. 1968) 30Google Scholar.

71 We might note, however, that Socrates at Plato's Symposium drank from a large silver cup: Pl. Symp. 223c; Ath. v 192a.

72 Ath. vi 229c. For the tendency to see earlier periods, even classical Athens, as possessing wholesome simplicity, see Vischer, R., Das einfache Leben (Göttingen 1965)Google Scholar (a reference I owe to Mr E. L. Bowie).

73 Antiquarian interest: e.g. Pliny's account of the prices paid for antique silver (NH xxxiii 147), C. Verres' rapacious collecting activities (Verr. iv 23–4), and the intimation that M. Antonius might have ‘set a value on some curious pieces of ancient workmanship’ (Plut., Ant. 28.7Google Scholar). Cf. Juv., Sat. 8.104Google Scholar and Mayor ad loc. Old silver melted down: Stone, J, English silver of the eighteenth century (London 1965) 2Google Scholar.

74 E.g. IG ii2 1469.3–17. Cf. Dem. xxii 69 (where Androtion is accused of melting down crowns and phialai and having new ones made for which he took the credit).

75 IG vii 303.

76 Reitlinger (n. 52) 14.

77 E.g. Oliver (n. 16) 79; cf. Grünhagen, W., Der Schatzfund von Gross Bodungen (Berlin 1954) 65–7Google Scholar.

78 Lewis, D. M., ‘New evidence for the gold-silver ratio’, in Kraay, C. M. and Jenkins, G. K., eds., Essays in Greek coinage presented to Stanley Robinson (Oxford 1968) 109Google Scholar.

79 Johnston, A. W., Trademarks on Greek vases (Warminster 1979) 33, 113, 165Google Scholar. Mme Irene Saverkina kindly sent me the height of the Leningrad pot.

80 IG ii2 1400.23–32. Naturally 1 dr. weight of silver = I dr. value.

81 For details, see Amsterdam (n. 36) n. 26.

82 Oxford, Ashmolean Museum 1971.894, formerly Bomford collection. One is reminded of the scale of values expressed by the Tyanean: ‘When I enter a temple, I would prefer to find an image of gold and ivory in a small shrine, than a big shrine and nothing but a rubbishy terracotta thing in it’ (Philostr., VA v 22Google Scholar).

83 Xen., Cyr. viii 2. 8Google Scholar. The practice evidently continued into the sixth century AD: cf. Procop., Bell. i 17.28Google Scholar. We might compare the fact that the use of plate in France, prior to the mid-seventeenth century, was confined to the royal family and the most aristocratic circles: Hernmarck, C., The art of the European silversmith 1430–1830 (London 1977) 6Google Scholar.

84 Most of the plate that has survived from our period has apparently come from Asia Minor. No one would disagree with such a provenance for e.g. many of the 255 gold and silver objects acquired since 1966 by the Metropolitan Museum: D. von Bothmer, ‘Les trésors de l'orfévrerie de la Grèce orientale au Metropolitan Museum de New York’, CRAI 1981, 194–207; id., ‘A Greek and Roman treasury’, BullMMA xlii/i (1984) 24–45.

85 Cf. the ἐκπώματα καὶ χρυσία which formed part of Demosthenes' inheritance: Dem. xxvii 10.

86 Kurtz (n. 2) 70.

87 There are useful studies by Pritchett (n. 48) loc. cit. and Pape, M., Griechische Kunstwerke aus Kriegsbeute und ihre öffentliche Aufstellung in Rom (Diss. Hamburg 1975)Google Scholar. See too Finlay, G., Greece under the Romans (London 1856)Google Scholar ch. 1; Vessberg, O., Studien zur Kunstgeschichte der römischen Republik (Lund/Leipzig 1941) 26–114Google Scholar; Griffin, J., ‘Augustan poetry and the life of luxury’, JRS lxvi (1976) 91Google Scholar.

88 E.g. those of T. Quinctius Flamininus (194 BC): Livy xxxiv 52.4–5; and L. Scipio Asiagenus (188 BC): Livy xxxvii 59.3–5.

89 Cf. the Acragantines' proverbial taste for luxury (e.g. Ael., VH xii 29Google Scholar: silver lekythoi and solid ivory couches).

90 Stroheker, K. F., Dionysios I. Gestalt und Geschichte des Tyrannen von Syrakus (Wiesbaden 1958) 159 ff.Google Scholar

91 Livy xxv 40.1–3; Plut. Marc. 21.

92 Cic., Verr. iv 23–4Google Scholar.

93 Cic., Verr. iv 16, 20, 25, 27Google Scholar. Cf. Russian court practice in the sixteenth century: ‘… for goodly and rich plate we never saw the like or so much before. There dined that day in the Emperor's presence above 500 strangers and 200 Russians, and all they were served in vessels of gold, and that as much as could stand by one upon the tables. Besides this there were four cupboards garnished with goodly plate, both of gold and silver’, Hakluyt, R., The discovery of Muscovy (London 1904) 134Google Scholar. At the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1519, there was a cupboard of seven stages ‘covered with plate of gold, and no gilt plate’, Pollen, J. H., Gold and silver (London 1879) 136Google Scholar.

94 Lightbown, R. W., ‘Ex-votos in gold and silver: a forgotten art’, BurlMag cxxi (1979) 353Google Scholar. My colleague P. D. C. Brown kindly draws my attention to Dodwell, C. R., Anglo-Saxon art, a new perspective (Manchester 1982) 12Google Scholar: ‘If the survival pattern of the various crafts of the Anglo-Saxons has distorted our knowledge of their arts, it has also falsified our understanding of their tastes.’ Their favourite materials, it seems, were silver and gold.

95 E.g. Dodd, E. C., Byzantine silver stamps (Washington, D.C. 1961)Google Scholar; Catalogue, Spätantike und früh-byzantinische Silbergefässe aus der Staatlichen Ermitage Leningrad (Berlin 1978)Google Scholar.

96 E.g. when Syracuse was taken by the Saracens in 846, ‘the plate of the cathedral weighed five thousand pounds of silver’, E. Gibbon, Decline and fall ch. 52 (dependent on Abulfeda, Annal.Moslem. 271–3; Muratori, Script.Rer.Ital. i).

97 M. Vickers, Greek vases (Oxford 1978), comm. on figs 23–5.

98 Even letters of inscriptions might occasionally be ‘reserved’ (Robertson, M., ‘Euphronios at the Getty’, J. Paul Getty Mus.J. ix [1981] 23–5Google Scholar, figs 1 and 4), a practice which recalls the χρυσότευκτα γράμματα at Aesch. Septem 660; cf. ibid. 434; Plut., Dem. 20Google Scholar; Ath. xi 466e (the latter gold letters on a silver cup).

99 Boston 99.538. I am grateful to Ms F. Wolsky for permission to publish the photographs.

100 Good bibliography in Moore, M. B., Horses on black-figure vases of the archaic period, ca. 620–480 B.C. (Diss. New York Univ. 1971)Google Scholar.

101 Xen., Hipparch. v 14Google Scholar.

102 Relevant, perhaps, that when clay qua clay is shown in red-figure vase-painting it is shown in a different colour from the usual orange-red: e.g. on the oinochoe Berlin 2415.

103 Cohen, B., Attic bilingual vases and their painters (New York 1978) 55–60Google Scholar (esp. 59), pls 46–7.

104 Cook (n. 6) 186.

105 Cf. Rotroff (n. 3).

106 Cf. the many thousands of talents of gold and silver taken by Alexander from Susa, Ecbatana, Pasargadae, and Persepolis: bibl. in Cameron, G. C., Persepolis Treasury Tablets (Chicago 1948) 10–11Google Scholar.

107 Contrast e.g. the fifth- and fourth-century Acropolis inventories with Delian treasury accounts of the third century BC: Inscriptions de Délos 298, 313, 320. Comparable too is the transition from black to red sigillata that can be observed in the west in the mid-first century BC (e.g. Schindler, M., Die ‘schwarze Sigillata’ des Magdalensberges [Klagenfurt 1967] 64–6)Google Scholar, soon after Lucullus and Pompey's eastern victories. Lucullus ‘was the first to introduce luxury to Rome’: Ath. vi 274f; cf. xii 543a.

108 I am grateful to Dr Adrienne Lezzi-Hafter (who is currently studying Attic fictile vases of this period) for observation.

109 Cook, R. M., ‘The date of the Hesiodic Shield’, CQ xxxi (1937) 204–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar. ‘Silver-figure’ is described at Scut. 183, 188, 212, 224–5, 295, 299. For an evocative discussion of the inlaid metal on the comparable Shield of Achilles and House of Alcinous, see Pater, W., Greek studies (London 1895) 193 ff.Google Scholar

110 (1) AA 1930, 285 f, fig. 11; Kunze, , Ol. Ber. vi (1958) 149–9Google Scholar, fig. 108 (from Trebenischte); (2) Kunze fig. 107, pls 51–2; 100 Jahre deutsche Ausgrabung in Olympia (Munich 1972)Google Scholar pl. 2.3 (from Olympia); cf. the ἀργνρόπαστα ὄπλα at Polyaen. iv 16.

111 I have greatly benefitted from conversations on this topic with my colleague Mr Gerald Taylor.

112 Illustrated in colour in Materiali per servire alla storia del vaso François (Bollettino d'Arte, serie speciale i, 1977 [1981]) pls 2–8.

113 For good colour photographs of tin-rich bronzes, see Fehervari, G. and Safadi, Y. H., 1400 years of Islamic art, a descriptive catalogue (London 1981) 88–91Google Scholar, nos 34, 36.

114 Called by Beazley, J. D.‘Rosincrantz and Guildenstern’, ‘Amasea’, JHS li (1931) 258–9Google Scholar; and ‘our Danish friends’, ibid. 261.

115 Profit, moreover, will have been the motive behind the introduction of large white figures on fourth-century red-figure pots: the makers of the metal prototypes could make a figure in ivory for rather less than its equivalent in gold; cf. Amsterdam (n. 36) 92.

116 Cf. the heavy orange-yellow handles on large Etruscan red-figure vessels of the fourth century: e.g. Beazley, J. D., Etruscan vase-painting (Oxford 1947)Google Scholar pls 13a, 14, 20.1, 30.1–2, 35.5, 36.3, which were probably made in imitation of gold (Etruria was noted in the fifth century for its production of gold vessels: Ath. i 28b).

117 The figures certainly suggest as much. M. J. Price has estimated that a talent of bronze with an alloy of 15% tin would cost 64.25 dr., ‘a ratio of bronze to silver of about 93:1. The greatest quantity of tin yet found in a Greek coin is 14.74%, and therefore we may expect this valuation of 93:1 is the highest possible for coined bronze. In all probability it should be lower, 100:1 or 120:1’: ‘Early Greek bronze coinage’, in Kraay–Jenkins (n. 78) 103.

118 This general rule can be observed in goldwork of any period, and is borne out by the regulation of the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths that gold cannot be hallmarked when it is combined with other materials.

119 For otherwise there would have been no point in the weighing operation described at Plut. Per. 31.

120 See e.g. Harrison, E. B., ‘Motifs of the city-siege on the shield of Athena Parthenos’, AJA lxxxv (1981) 281–317CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

121 Joffroy, R., Le trésor de Vix (Côte d'Or) (Paris 1954)Google Scholar; for an account of subsequent Vix scholarship, see Robertson, M., A history of Greek art (Cambridge 1975) 144–5, 640–1Google Scholar, n. 150.

122 Cf. the ‘beautiful golden colour of the bronze’ on the unpatinated parts of the Monteleone chariot in New York: Richter, G. M. A., Greek, Etruscan and Roman bronzes (New York 1915) 29Google Scholar, and the ‘golden appearance’ of the Dherveni crater ‘due to a high content of tin [nearly 15%]’: Varoufakis, G. F., ‘Metallurgical investigation of the bronze crater of Dherveni’, in Oddy, W. A., ed., Aspects of early metallurgy (London 1977) 71–86Google Scholar. The tin content of the Vix crater (approx. 10%) was fairly high: that of the archaic and classical bronzes in the Ashmolean averages just over 8%, and most have a substantial amount of lead (average approx. 5%) as well: see Craddock (n. 29) 118, 120.

123 Diehl, E., Die Hydria: Formgeschichte und Verwendung im Kult des Altertums (Mainz 1964)Google Scholar.

124 Weber (n. 2); von Bothmer, D., ‘A bronze oinochoe in New York’, in Studies in Classical art and archaeology, a tribute to P. H. von Blanckenhagen (Locust Valley, N.Y. 1979) 63–7Google Scholar, pls 17–22.

125 Cf. B. B. Shefton in Rouen (n. 36) 172–3.

126 The value of the metal in the Vix crater (which weighs almost exactly 8 Attic talents) would have been only 435 dr. The slightly heavier (8 talents 42 minas) gold crater presented by Croesus to Delphi (Hdt. i 51) would have been worth nearly 1700 times as much.

127 Pace Cook (n. 6) 153. Scholars seem to agree that bucchero imitates metal (e.g. Camporeale, G., ‘Brocchetta cipriota dalla Tomba del Duce di Vetulonia’, Arch. Class, xiv (1962) 65Google Scholar; Rasmussen, T. B., Bucchero pottery from Southern Etruria [Cambridge 1979]CrossRefGoogle Scholarpassim; M. Schmidt, in Bloesch, H., ed., Greek vases from the Hirschmann Collection [Zurich 1982] 40)Google Scholar, but the relevant metal prototypes are for the most part absent. Could it be that the Etruscans of the classical period, like the Athenians, like us, preferred not to bury heritable wealth with the dead? The presence of gold jewellery in some burials ‘rich’ in pottery and bronze should not be regarded as an impediment to such a hypothesis. Such jewellery usually belongs to females and is part of their personal adornment. There is never more than one set per person, and yet in any élite of which we have detailed knowledge, the woman who possesses one parure possesses several (e.g. an inventory of Queen Elizabeth I's jewellery dated 1587 lists 627 items [B.L. Royal App. 68]; see too D. Scarisbrick, ‘Queen of the dressing-table: the jewellery of Madame de Pompadour’, Handbook to the Grosvenor House Antique Fair [1983]; ead., ‘Blazing like the Sun: the Marchioness of Londonderry's jewellery’, Country Life [June 14 1984] 1728–31. I am also grateful to Mrs Scarisbrick for a quotation from A Lady of Fashion by Mrs Gore [1856]: ‘I cannot always be sparkling in diamonds, I must have emeralds for one style of dress, and sapphires for another—no leader of bon ton can get on without all sorts and sizes of pretty gems.’). What happened to the rest? Perhaps they, like the family silver, were passed on to the living whose ‘need was greater’.

128 Cf. Evans, A. J., ‘Silver vessels and clay imitations’, Palace of Minos i (London 1921) 191–3Google Scholar.

129 Grey and yellow Minyan pottery, for example, may owe their respective colours to a desire on the part of potters to evoke, as best they could, silver and gold. ‘[Grey Minyan] was once thought to be a product manufactured from a special kind of clay at a centre from which it was widely distributed. Now it is known that almost any kind of clay will do’: Blegen, C., Troy and the Trojans (London 1963) 141Google Scholar. The uniform appearance of wares with ‘distinctive, largely angular shapes’ (Blegen 140) throughout the Aegean world is surely due to an external factor, and recent work on silver metallurgy in the area in the Bronze Age (e.g. Gale, N. H. and Stos-Gale, Z., ‘Lead and silver in the ancient Aegean’, Scientific American cciv [1981] 176–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar; id., ‘Cycladic lead and silver metallurgy’, BSA lxxvi [1981] 169–224, pls 33–40) which shows how wide-spread silver extraction was, suggests what that factor might have been. The highly burnished yellow-slipped ‘Early Helladic sauceboats’ of which S. S. Weinberg speaks in ‘A gold sauceboat in the Israel Museum’, AK xii (1969) 3–8Google Scholar were clearly made in imitation of precious metal. A. H. Sayce's note ad Hdt. i 14 may explain the existence of many black and grey wares in Anatolia: ‘Silver seems to have had a special attraction for the Hittites, whose monuments in Asia Minor are usually met with in the neighbourhood of old silver mines, and their fancy for the metal may have been communicated to the Lydians.’ An anonymous referee notes the existence of ‘test sherds’ for black-glaze Protogeometric pottery at Athens; we may suppose that the intention to evoke silver vessels was already present.

130 ‘Situla ware’ from Tell Defenneh provides a link here, as Murray, A. S. saw, Handbook of Greek Archaeology (London 1894) 37Google Scholar; not only, however, is the shape ‘derived from an Egyptian bronze pitcher’, but the colour as well.

131 Prof. Shefton has drawn my attention to a contrast between dark copper-rich and light tin-rich bronze on an extant metal vessel: Shefton, B. B., Die “Rhodischen” Bronzekannen (Mainz 1979) 72–3Google Scholar, pls 6.3, 7.1.

132 ‘Gelbglänzende und grünpatinierte Bronzevasen waren die Vorbilder’: Loeschke, S., Mitteilungen der Altertumskommission für Westfalen v (1909) 190Google Scholar n. 1; cf. id., ‘Römische Gefässe aus Bronze, Glas und Ton im Provinzialmuseum Trier’, Trierer Zeits. iii (1928) 75. In view of this and more recent literature, it is surprising to find the following statement made by an acknowledged expert in the field of ancient metalwork: ‘Nobody has been foolish enough to suggest that green vitreous glaze outside and yellow within, as it occurs on Roman cups of Cicero's time, was imitation of dirty and clean bronze, so let me not start here on such a false scent!’, D. K. Hill, ‘Bronze working’, in Roebuck, C., ed., The Muses at work: arts, crafts and professions in Ancient Greece and Rome (Cambridge, Mass. 1969) 83Google Scholar. Contrast: ‘Fast ausschliesslich grün und (oder) gelb glasiert, sollen die Gefässe augcnscheinlich glänzene oder patinierte Bronzegefässe nachahmen’, Pinkwart, D., Hellenistischrömische Bleiglasurkeramik aus Pergamon, Pergamen. Forsch. i (1972) 140Google Scholar; and ‘die grüne Bleiglasurkeramik in der Farbe Bronze imitiert’, Gabelmann, H., ‘Zur hellenistisch-römischen Bleiglasurkeramik in Kleinasien’, Jdl lxxxix (1974) 266Google Scholar. Gabelmann, , Gnomon li (1979) 679Google Scholar, rightly criticises the odd view expressed by Hochuli-Gysel, A., Kleinasiatische glasierte Reliefkeramik (50 v. Chr.—50 n. Chr.) und ihre oberitalischen Nachahmungen (Bern 1977)Google Scholarpassim, that such vessels imitate silver.

133 Cf. Allen, J. W. in Kunst des Orients xi (1976–1977) 5–21Google Scholar; Medley, M., Metalwork and Chinese ceramics (London 1972)Google Scholar; J. Rawson, ‘Song silver and its connexions with ceramics’, Apollo July 1984, and many of the contributors to the Oxford Pots and Pans colloquium (n. 29).

134 F. Andrelini, ‘Liviam vehementer increpat quod cyathum variis hystoriis depictum fregerit. Deinde earn solatur’, in Livia (Paris, F. Baligault c. 1495–6) n.p.

135 E.g. we might compare the sixteenth-century references in Vendramin inventories to ‘Un vaso di terra lavorado … un vaso di terra miniado … un altro vaso di terra figurado depento, un altro vaso di terra istoriado, un altro vaso grando istoriado con do manegi …’: Ravà, A., ‘Il “camerino delle antigaglie” di Gabriele Vendramin’, Nuovo archivio veneto xxxix (1920) 161Google Scholar; or that in a Grimani inventory to ‘Tre vasi di terracotta antiqui lavorati’: Levi, C. A., Collezioni veneziane d'arte e antichità (Venice 1900) 6Google Scholar, a reference I owe to the kindness of Prof. L. Beschi.

136 The full title of the work (of which Wilhelm von Kaulbach's original study is still extant in the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Munich) is: König Ludwig, umgeben von Künstlern und Gelehrten, steigt über die Stufen des Thrones herab, um die aus früheren Jahrhunderten stammenden und ihm darbrachten Werke Plastik und Malerei näher zu besehen; discussed most recently by Mittlmeier, W., Die Neue Pinakothek in München 1843–1854, Planung, Baugeschichte und Freshen (Munich 1977) 53Google Scholar, fig. 57.

137 E.g. the great majority of titles in the bibliography to Fortnum, C. D., A descriptive catalogue of the maiolica in the South Kensington Museum (London 1872) 657–65Google Scholar were published after 1850.

138 The most influential work of this kind was A. Jacquemart's Histoire de la ćeramique (Paris 1875) where (219) it was stated: ‘il devient incontestable aujourd'hui qu'on doit étudier la céramique grecque avec les mêmes méthodes, disons plus avec la même impartialité qu'on apporterait a l'examen des produits indous, égyptien ou chinois’. Both F. Jaennicke, Grundriss der Keramik (Stuttgart 1879) and Young, J. J., The ceramic art (London 1879)Google Scholar depend heavily on Jacquemart's work.

139 Charles, R., Continental porcelain of the eighteenth century (London 1964) 18Google Scholar; Hatcher, J. and Barker, T. C., A history of British pewter (London 1974) 280–1Google Scholar. According to Mathias, P., The brewing industry in England (Cambridge 1959) 375Google Scholar, per annum consumption of tea in England had grown from 1 oz per head to 2·3 lbs between 1722 and 1833; the change in drinking habits Malerei ‘favoured the potter … and having sold the cups [he] also supplied the matching saucers, plates and other dishes as well’ (Hatcher-Barker 281).

140 Caiger-Smith, A., Tin-glaze pottery in Europe and the Islamic World (London 1973) 191Google Scholar.

141 Trans. Heckscher, W. S., in ‘Pearls from a Dungheap: Andrea Alciati's “Offensive” emblem, “Adversus naturam peccantes”’, Art the Ape of Nature, H. W. Janson Festschrift (New York 1981) 297Google Scholar. While there may be echoes of the Persian chamberpots at Ar. Ach. 82, the immediate origins of More's image lie in the New World, early reports of which held that there were societies there which ‘held as nothing the wealth that we enjoy in this our Europe such as gold and jewels, pearls and other riches’: Vespucci, A., The first four voyages (Florence 1505/6, London 1893)Google Scholar fol. 4V. The influence such reports had on More has been well described by Slavin, A. J., ‘The American principle from More to Locke’, in Chiappelli, F., ed., First images of America (Berkeley etc. 1976) 139–64Google Scholar.

142 Turner, P., Thomas More, Utopia (Harmondsworth 1965) 13Google Scholar.

143 Cited by W. S. Heckscher (n. 141) 296.

144 W. Morris. News from Nowhere (1890), in Briggs, A., ed., William Morris, selected writings and designs (Harmondsworth 1962) 221–2Google Scholar.

145 Ibid. 190–1, 200, 222.

146 Ashmole, B., ‘Sir John Beazley, 1885–1970’, PBA lvi (1972) 443Google Scholar.

147 Beazley, J. D., AJA xlix (1945) 158Google Scholar.

148 Briggs, A., ‘The appeal of William Morris’, The Design Council, William Morris and Kelmscott (London 1981) 19Google Scholar.

149 Cf. Pind., Ol. 7.1–4Google Scholar.

150 Pind., Ol. 1.1 f.Google Scholar

151 The best account of Beazley's golden youth is to be found in the early chapters of Sherwood, J., No Golden Journey, a biography of James Elroy Flecker (London 1973)Google Scholar. His life-long admiration for Maynard Keynes and Lytton Strachey (Ashmole [n. 146] 446) may not be without significance. On their intellectual background, see Levy, P., Moore: G. E. Moore and the Cambridge Apostles (London 1979)Google Scholar. Beazley's friendship with the silversmith C. R. Ashbee (they travelled round Sicily together in 1910) will scarcely have given him reliable insights into the traditions of working in precious metals. Ashbee (who in 1898 bought up the printing machines of the Kelmscott Press) prided himself on not employing silversmiths ‘with trade experience; such experience was, in the eighties when we began our work, regarded rightly as rather a detriment’: Ashbee, C. R., Modern English silverwork (London 1909) 5Google Scholar. I am grateful to Prof. W. G. Moon and Mr R. S. Sennott for information about Ashbee.

152 Naylor, G., The Arts and Crafts Movement, a study of its sources, ideals and influence on design theory (London 1971)Google Scholar; Clark, R. J., The Arts and Crafts movement in America 1876–1916 (Princeton 1972)Google Scholar esp. 119–20: ‘It was in Cincinnati that the American art pottery movement began.’ In 1872 there was ‘instituted a class in china painting for socially prominent women at the Cincinnati School of Art; … enthusiasm for this new medium spread quickly in the city, for not only did it satisfy the ambitions of an age bent on culture’ but, in the words of a contemporary observer, ‘tidings of the veritable renaissance in England under the leadership of William Morris and his associates had reached [the United States]’.

153 Strong (n. 53) loc. cit.

154 Thus H. A. Shapiro claims that Attic pots were decorated by ‘great artists encouraged by prosperous and appreciative patrons’: ‘Courtship scenes in Attic vase-painting’, AJA lxxxv (1981) 137Google Scholar.

155 Boardman, J., Athenian red-figure vases: the archaic period (London 1975) 30Google Scholar. Contrast Hdt. ii 167: ‘whether the Greeks borrowed from the Egyptians their notions of trade, like so many others, I cannot say for certain. I have remarked that the Thracians, the Scyths, the Persians, the Lydians, and almost all other barbarians, hold the citizens who practise trades, and their children, in less repute than the rest, while they esteem as noble those who keep aloof from handicrafts, and especially honour such as are given wholly to war. These ideals prevail throughout the whole of Greece, particularly among the Lacedaemonians. Corinth is the place where mechanics are least despised’ (trans. Rawlinson). But see n. 176, to account for the comparative respectability of gold- and silversmiths in most societies.

156 cf. Ath. i 28c: … κέραμον, χρήσιμον οἰκονόμον.

157 Diogenian. v 97, κεραμέως πλου̑τος: ἐπὶ τω̑ν σαθρω̑ν καὶ ἀβεβαίων καὶ εὐθραύστων; cf. v 98, κεραμεὺς ἄνθρωπος: ἐπὶ του̑ σαθρου̑.

158 Johnston (n. 79) 35; cf. Scheibler, I., Griechische Töpferkunst, Herstellung, Handel und Gebrauch der antiken Tongefässe (Munich 1983) 121–33Google Scholar.

159 For what can be known of the vita of Leagros, see Francis, E. D. and Vickers, M., ‘Leagros kalos’, PCPS xxvii (1981) 97–136Google Scholar, pl. 1.

160 Willemsen, F., ‘Die Ausgrabungen im Kerameikos 1966’, Arch. Delt. xxiii (1968)Google Scholar Chron. 29. Thanks are due to Professor Willemsen for sending me a photograph of the ostracon describing Leagros as Κεραμεύς, and to Dr D. M. Lewis for drawing attention to the original publication in this context.

161 Πρ̣ωτόν̣[ικος] Κερ̣[αμε]ύς, IG i3 465.123–4. Dr Lewis kindly draws attention to Προτ│όνικος ἐκ Κεραμέον Ἐπιχάρος, IG i3 278.1.

162 Raubitschek, A. E., Dedications from the Athenian Akropolis (Cambridge, Mass. 1949)Google Scholar nos 178, 225. Apart from Raubitschek's ‘potters’ there are, surprisingly, no dedications made by demesmen of Kerameis (see the topographical index pp. 552–3) some of whom we can be sure were engaged in trades other than pottery. The other ‘banausic’ inscriptions (discussed 464 f.) perhaps require reassessment. There is no difficulty in seeing an architect (no. 196), a shipbuilder (no. 376), or even a tanner (no. 58) as wealthy and successful businessmen. It is the presence of a πλύντρια (no. 380) and κναϕεῖς (nos 49, 342) which is thought to lower the tone. This would be to underestimate the role of textiles at Athens. They constituted heritable wealth (Dem. xxvii 10); they might be held as security against a loan ([Dem.] xlix 22), and they are listed in temple inventories (e.g. in the Brauronion: IG ii2 1514–29), none of which is true for pottery. The care of textiles will have been a serious and expensive matter. Philocleon ap. Ar. Vesp. 1127–8 spent ‘a whole day's pay’ on cleaning a rag fifty years old: ‘how much worse it would be with a costlier garment’ (Rogers ad loc.). Plutarch (Mor. 830c) includes ἀναβάϕυς among the characteristic signs of luxury. Prof. Raubitschek kindly reminds me that Acropolis inscriptions which read ho κεραμεύς cannot be demotic and must refer to craftsmen. The fact is, however, that this expression only exists in restorations made in the belief that the inscriptions in question concern ‘potters’. No. 179 could easily be restored Ἐλευθεριε]ύς for example, and the ho in no. 225 is unwarranted.

163 Payne, H. and Young, G. M., Archaic marble sculpture from the Acropolis (London n.d.)Google Scholar pls 129–30; Beazley, J. D., ‘Potter and painter in ancient Athens’, PBA xxx (1944)Google Scholar pls 3.3 and 4.

164 J., Bažant, in ‘Homerian gold and Athenian pottery’, Studies on the use and decoration of Athenian vases (Prague 1981) 4–12Google Scholar has suggested that Xen., oec. ix 6–9Google Scholar be added to the scanty corpus of texts relating to ancient pottery. He believes that painted vases possessed a symbolic value and were consequently kept with the family treasures. The Greek text does not, however, bear the weight which Bažant wishes to place on it; this notwithstanding his argument is important in that it represents the only possible alternative to the hypothesis put forward here.

165 Thus Opous, Himera, Orchomenus and Aetna score o, Cyrene 7, Syracuse and Thebes 29, and Aegina 32.

166 Pind., Pyth. 8.58Google Scholar; a reference I owe to Dr N. J. Richardson. Cf. Artabazus' speech at Hdt. ix 41: ‘Coined gold was plentiful in the camp, and uncoined gold too; they had silver moreover in great abundance, and drinking cups. Let them not spare to take of these, and distribute them among the Greeks, especially among the leaders in the various cities …’ (trans. Rawlinson). The fact that the distribution was never made (at least until after Plataea) is not important; Artabazus accurately assessed the tastes of Greek plutocrats.

167 Becker, W. A., Charicles, or illustrations of the private life of the Ancient Greeks4 (London 1874) 89–108Google Scholar. For a thoroughly misleading account (pace Murray, O., Early Greece [London 1980] 307Google Scholar), see Vickers, M., Greek Symposia (London n.d.)Google Scholar.

168 Ath. xi 782b. The date of Parrhasius' and Mys' collaboration is disputed, but, as D. L. Page observes, there is no reason to dismiss this epigram as a late forgery: Further Greek epigrams (Cambridge 1981) 495Google Scholar.

169 Paus. i 28.2.

170 His, E., Dessins d'ornements de Hans Holbein (Paris 1886)Google Scholar.

171 Hayward, J. F., ‘Ottavio Strada and the gold-smith's designs of Giulio Romano’, BurlMag cxii (1970) 10–14Google Scholar; Hartt, F., Giulio Romano (New Haven 1958)Google Scholar figs 130–47.

172 Plin., NH xxxv 68Google Scholar: ‘et alias multa graphidis vestigia exstant in tabulis ac membranis eius, ex quibus proficere dicuntur artifices’. Cf. Theoc., Id. 15.80–1Google Scholar, where Praxinoa is amazed at a carpet in the royal palace at Alexandria: ποτνἰ Ἀθαναία, ποι̑αί σφ᾿ ἐπόνασαν ἔριθοι, / ποι̑οι ζω̨ογράφοι τἀκριβέα γράμματ᾿ ἔγραψαν. The carpet makers are clearly not the designers. For parchment before Pergamum, cf Hdt. v 58 and Driver, G. R., Aramaic documents of the fifth century BC (Oxford 1957) 1–3Google Scholar: ‘ubiquitous but costly’.

173 The vessels in question have recently been discussed by Guy, J. R., ‘A ram's head rhyton signed by Charinos’, Arts in Virginia xxi.2 (Winter 1981) 14Google Scholar, n. 70.

174 ‘Polygnotos’, the ‘Lewis Painter’, the ‘Nausicaa Painter’, and Beazley, ARV 2 1057, no. 99 (on which see Robertson, M., JHS lxxxv [1965] 97Google Scholar).

175 Beazley (n. 185) 25, but cf. M. Robertson's candid statements: ‘The evidence is difficult to evaluate and appears contradictory’, and ‘The signing practice on Greek pottery seems to be totally haphazard’ (‘“Epoiesen” on Greek vases’ JHS xci (1971) 137–8Google Scholar; Eisman, M. M., ‘A further note on epoiesen signatures’, JHS xciv (1974) 172CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Potter: Robertson 181. For a long and thoughtful study of the question, see Rosati, R., ‘La nozione di “proprietà dell’ officina” e l' epoiesen nei vasi attici’, Atti della Accademia delle Scienze dell'Istituto di Bologna, Classe di Scienze Morali lxv (1976–1977) 45–73Google Scholar. Beazley claimed (n. 163) 26, that the norm for such inscriptions when they occur together is for them to read ‘X epoiesen, Y egrapsen’, and his unconscious prejudice in the matter caused him occasionally to invert the expressions so that such indeed appeared to be the case. An example is provided by a standlet in New York (31.11.4) which bears an inscription which can only be read, as G. M. A. Richter right saw (BullMMA xxvi [1931] 289–90Google Scholar) Κλέτιας ⋮ [ἔγρα]φσεν Ἐργότιμος ⋮ ἐποίεσεν(there is a substantial gap between Ἐποίεσεν and Κλέτιας Beazley, however, printed them the other way round (ABV 78 no. 12).

176 Cf. H. Honour, writing in the context of medieval and later goldsmiths: ‘The fact that they worked in the very materials of wealth set them apart from all other artists and craftsmen’ and ‘… the goldsmith was the most highly honoured of all artists because he worked in the most precious materials’ (Goldsmiths and silversmiths [London 1971] 20Google Scholar).

177 G. M. A. Richter has observed the transmission of part at least of a silversmith's signature from metalwork to clay: ‘It is noteworthy that on some terracotta quadrigae the word ἐπόει appears faintly in relief between the spokes of Dionysus' chariot wheels. Presumably it was part of the signature of the original silver bowl….’ (‘A Greek silver phiale in the Metropolitan Museum, and the light it throws on Greek embossed metalwork (toreutice) of the fifth century B.C. and on the “Calene’ phialai mesomphalai of the Hellenistic period’, AJA lxv [1941] 388Google Scholar).

178 E.g. the Boeotian vases discussed by Oakley, J. H., The Phiale Painter (Diss. Rutgers 1980) 16Google Scholar.

179 Beazley (n. 163) 38; cf. Noble (n. 1) 50.

180 1890.22 ( = CVA Oxford i, pl. 18.12) and 1916.68 ( = ibid. pl. 29.1). Beazley compares with the latter a stamnos with ‘the same subject … but from a different hand, in the Cabinet des Médailles (388)’ (ibid. p. 24).

181 Erbse, H., ‘Überlieferungsgeschichte der griechischen klassischen und hellenistischen Literatur, methodische Vorbermerkungen’, in Geschichte der Textüberlieferung der antiken und mittelalterlichen Literatur (Zurich 1961) 210Google Scholar.

182 Hudeczek, E., ‘Theseus und die Tyrannenmörder’, Öjh l (1972–1975) 134–49Google Scholar; Schmidt, M., ‘Zu Amazonomachiedarstellungen des Berliner Malers und des Euphronios’, Taenia, Fests. R. Hampe (Mainz 1980) 153–72Google Scholar, pls 37–41.

183 E.g. Ἐπιλυκο[ςεγραφ]σενκαλος in a series of pots inscribed Σκυθεςμεγραφσεν and Επιλυκοςκαλος (Beazley, ARV 2 82–6).

184 E.g. the various spellings of Phintias: Φιντιας, Φιντις, Φιτιας, Φιλτιας (ibid. 23–4); Memnon: Μνεμεμνον, Μεμνον, Μεμμνον, Μεμνοον, Μεμνομος Μεμον (ibid. 56–66); Pamphaios: Παμαφιος, Πανφαιος, Πανοαιος, Πανφανος, Πανθαιος(ibid. 71, 124).

185 E.g. κοσθενεςεποι ‘complete aft, and probably fore’, Beazley, ibid. 161 no. 1.

186 On these see now Giudice, ‘Osservazioni sul commercio dei vasi attici in Etruria e in Sicilia: su una lekythos del pittore della Gigantomachia con l'inscrizione “LASA SA“’, Cronache di Archeologia xviii (1979) 6–7Google Scholar.

187 For a recent exercise in exegesis, see Robertson, M. in Burn, L. and Glynn, R., Beazley addenda (Oxford 1983) xi–xviiGoogle Scholar. J. Boardman is less enthusiastic (n. 155) 9: ‘not all students will be able to follow all these distinctions’. See too P. Bruneau: ‘… le souci de l'attribution stérilise depuis des décennies l'étude de la céramique attique’ (‘Situation méthodologique de l'histoire de l'art antique’, AC xliv [1975] 451Google Scholar).

188 Corbett, P. E., ‘Preliminary sketches in Greek vase-painting’, JHS lxxxv (1965) 25Google Scholar.

189 For a rough idea of what these drawings may have been like, see Kurtz, D. C. and Beazley, J. D., The Berlin Painter (Oxford 1983)Google Scholar.

190 Cf. Snodgrass, A. M., Archaic Greece, the age of experiment (London 1980) 193Google Scholar: ‘… vase-painters sought to divert their masses with the spectacle of the upper classes at play’.