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The Francis–Vickers Chronology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2013

R. M. COOK
R. M. COOK
Affiliation:
Museum of Classical Archaeology, Cambridge
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Extract

Over the last few years the late E. D. Francis and M. Vickers (after this referred to as F. and V.) have been promulgating a revised chronology for Greek art from its later Geometric to its Early Classical phases. The subject is large and they have dealt with it in instalments, scattered over various journals. In Table 1 I give a list, though it may not be complete.

Type
Notes
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 109 , November 1989 , pp. 164 - 170
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1989

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References

1 This is stated more explicitly in XV, 22, which I saw after this paper was written. Here conventional 575–50 becomes c. 490, conventional 550–25 becomes c. 480, conventional 525–500 becomes c. 475, and conventional 500–475 becomes c. 465 (all BC), so compressing 100 conventional years into 25 or not much more. I have not considered the probability of so rapid an artistic development and increase in production.

2 The best discussion is by Coldstream, J. N. in Greek Geometric pottery (London 1968) 302–313:Google Scholar it should be noted that one or perhaps both of the sherds from Megiddo have since been assigned to stratum IV and not V (Riis, P. J., Sukas i [Copenhagen 1973] 144–6:Google Scholarcf. Coldstream, , AJA lxxix [1975] 155)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For F. and V.'s criticisms see X, 131–6.

3 Fugmann, E., Hama ii 1 (Copenhagen 1958) 269;Google Scholar G. Ploug, ib. iii I (1985) 13.

4 Still in a letter K. M. Kenyon, without further explanation, dated the end of stratum V c. 750–20 BC (P. J. Riis [n. 1] 146–8).

5 Coldstream (n. 1) 316–7.

6 vi 3–5.

7 X, 136–7 (though this is hardly a fair-minded statement).

8 For Sicilian and Italian evidence see Coldstream (n. i) 322–7, sustained by later reports; the most troublesome question is the interval between Gela and Selinus. In Cyrenaica Aziris is noteworthy since the finds support Herodotus' statement that it was short-lived (iv 157–8: Boardman, J., BSA lxi [1966] 150–2)Google Scholar. For Massilia the date usually accepted is Eusebius'.

9 XI, 21 n. 173. Thuc. i 13; cf. Paus x 8.6 and Isocr. vi 84.

10 i 165–6. It is sometimes argued that Herodotus meant that Amasis only reorganised Naucratis, but the wording is against such an interpretation. For ἔδωκε Ναύκρατιν πόλιν ένοικῆσαι compare δίδωσι χώρους ένοικῆσαι in ii 154. To take πόλιν predicatively with ἐνοικῆσαι is wanton, especially when one considers Herodotus' usage in adding πόλις to the name of a city (e.g. Βουτοῦν πόλιν in ii 152); and though, as Austin, M. M. has pointed out (Greece and Egypt in the Archaic Age [PCPS Suppl. 2 (1970)] 29–33,Google Scholar but note 59 n. 5) Herodotus refers to Naucratis in one place as a πόλις, but in another as an ἐμπόριον, I doubt if he intended a distinction. That is not to say that Amasis did not reorganise Naucratis and that this might have misled Herodotus; and if the finds from the Hellenion are not earlier than 570 BC (Boardman, J., The Greeks overseas 2 [London 1980] 120)Google Scholar there is evidence for some expansion under Amasis.

11 ii 178.

12 XI, 18–19; cf. X, 137.

13 Gjerstad, E. (LAAA xxi [1934] 67–84)Google Scholar was perhaps the last student to try to use it.

14 Naveh, J., IEJ x (1960) 129–39;Google Scholar xii (1962) 27–32, 89–113. See also BSA lxiv (1969) 14;Google Scholar J. Boardman (n. 10) 115; Riis, P.J., Madrider Beiträge viii (1982) 251Google Scholar.

15 X, 137; XI, 20.

16 ii 30.

17 i 16. Other dates for his accession are 609 (Eusebius) and 605 or 604 (Marmor Parium).

18 Cook, J. M., BSA liii–iv (1958–1959) 25–7;Google Scholar lxxx (1985) 25–8. See also BSA lxiv (1969) 13–14Google Scholar and Diagram 2 for another way of arriving at this date. E. Langlotz (n. 25 [1975]) 20–2 prefers 580 BC on historical grounds and because he accepts a lower dating of Corinthian pottery; but this would be difficult to maintain, if the interpretation of Mesad Hashavyahu is correct. There is an interesting report from Tell Batashi of a Corinthian pot, conventionally dated c. 620 BC, from a stratum with a terminal date off. 590 BC (AJA xci [1987] 275):Google Scholar if this is valid, it does not decide between Langlotz and the more orthodox, but tells strongly against F. & V.

19 X, 137; XI, 19. A further treatment is promised.

20 J. M. Cook (n. 17 [1958–9]) 14; The Greeks in Ionia and the East (London 1962) 71Google Scholar. E. Akurgal, though, does not mention this in Alt-Smyrna i (Ankara 1983)Google Scholar.

21 So P. Dupont kindly informs me.

22 XI, 19–20.

23 BSA xlvii (1952) pl. 30Google Scholar.

24 Cook, R. M., Clazomenian Sarcophagi (Mainz 1981)Google Scholar pls. 8.5; 9.2; 10.2; 11.2; 15.2; 34.3.

25 The fundamental study is still Langlotz, E., Zur Zeithestimmung der strengrotfigurigen Vasenmakrei und der gleichzeitigen Plastik (Leipzig 1920):Google Scholar there are minor modifications in his Studien zur nordostgriechis-chen Kunst (Mainz 1975) 17–26Google Scholar. See also Kleine, J., Untersuchungen zur Chronologie der altischen Kunst von Peisistratos bis Themistokles (1st Mitt. Beih. 8 [1973])Google Scholar and R. Tölle-Kastbein, AA (1983) 573–84. Kleine accepts the conventional chronology with some internal adjustments. Tölle more mechanically assumes a median age for Leagros when strategos in 465 BC and lowers the conventional chronology symmetrically between 590 and 440 BC with a maximum displacement of 15 yeas at 515 BC.

26 Langlotz (n. 25 [1920]) 12–16; [1975] 22–3.

27 Hdt i 26. Another fragment, found more recently, has εβασι (Bammer, A., Anat. St. xxxii [1982] 72)Google Scholar.

28 XI, 9–17.

29 Strabo xiv 640.

30 Sat. v 22. 4–5 (Page, Timotheus jr. 778).

31 NH xxxvi 14.

32 Hdt. iii 41.

33 Ath. xii 514 f. with Himerius, Or. xxxi 11.

34 For this information I thank C. G. Simon, who has studied dedications in Greek and particularly East Greek sanctuaries.

35 Diodorus (xiv 46.6) puts the floruit of Timotheus in 398/7 BC and this might be the date of the hymn; but he is said to have been born around 460 BC and to have died in his nineties. That Alexander Aetolus says he was paid in ‘sigloi’ for the hymn is, though, (as V. says) an argument for putting the performance after 412–11 BC, when Persia resumed suzerainty of Ephesus.

36 So Dinsmoor, W. B., The architecture of ancient Greece (London 1950) 224Google Scholar.

37 Ath. xii 514 f, 539d; Him. Or. xxxi 11; Hdt. vii 27; Pliny, , NH xxxiii 51Google Scholar. There is an excellent discussion with all the relevant references in Jacobsthal, P., Ornamente griechischer Vasen (Berlin 1927) 102–10Google Scholar and especially n. 172.

38 i 51.

39 The excavators of the Heraeum, as V. emphasises, note that offerings in the sanctuary fall off in the rime, as they suppose, of Polycrates. The Artemisium of Samos, though, seems then to have been at its most flourishing (AAA xiii [1980] 305–18)Google Scholar.

40 V.'s interpretation of Paus. vii 5.2, though what Pausanias saw was presumably the ruins of the unfinished later temple.

41 For the identification see Hdt i 93. The pottery is published in Abh. Bert. Akad. 1858, 556 and pl. 5.

42 For what it is worth, a radiocarbon date of 570 BC±50 years comes from carbonised grain found in a destruction deposit which also yielded two Attic cups, dated according to the conventional chronology to the mid sixth century (Greenewalt, C. H. jr in VII. Kazi Sonuçlari Toplantisi [Ankara 1985] 300–1,Google Scholar fig. 3; the cups are published more fully by Ramage, N. H., AJA xc [1986] 419–24,CrossRefGoogle Scholar pl. 27).

43 iii 57–8.

44 IV, 54–67 (III is a trailer); cf. also IX, 9–12.

45 JHS civ (1984) 162–3Google Scholar. Boardman also deals with the Eretria pediments (F. and V. IV, 49–54), the dating of which by itself is not vital to F. and V.'s general chronology.

46 IX, 9 n. 36.

47 Petrie, W. M. Flinders, Tanis ii (London 1888)Google Scholar part 2, 47–96; CVA British Museum viii passim for the fine pottery, pp. 59–60 for a discussion.

48 Cf. X, 137 on Oren's fort (for which see Oren, E. D., BASOR cclvi [1984] 7–44)Google Scholar.

49 J. Boardman (n. 10) 127,fig. 149: Webb, V., Archaic Greek faience (Warminster 1978) 124–5Google Scholar (no. 840).

50 Boardman (n. 10) 138, fig. 164. Boardman's date, it should be noted, is 525–500 BC.

51 Cook, J. M., BSA lx (1965) 136–7Google Scholar (no. 137) fig. 16, pl. 40.

52 I. F. Canciani has already discussed F. and V.'s chronology for the late sixth and early fifth centuries on the basis of evidence from Attica and Rome (edd. Böhr, E. and Martini, W., Studien zur Mythologie und Vasenmalerei [Mainz 1986] 59–64)Google Scholar: our emphases are a little different, but the conclusions similar.

53 R. Tölle-Kastbein (n. 25), observing that the traditionalists give Leagros the maximum age in 465 and V. and F. the minimum, proposes a compromise—that he was then forty-five. Incidentally, there is no explicit ancient authority for these limits and Pericles must have been over sixty when last strategos. Nor for that matter are the age limits for being καλός known precisely, though the fairly frequent ὁ παῖς καλός is indicative.

54 v 62: later writers, except the Scholiast to Dem. xxi, support him on the date (see Jacoby, F., FGrH III B 449–54Google Scholar on F. 115).

55 A good discussion in Ridgway, B. S., The Archaic style in Greek sculpture (Princeton 1977) 205–10Google Scholar.

56 As F. and V. say (I, 113). W. Voigtländer has indeed published a fragmentary red-figure askos in the early style of Duris as coming from a destruction deposit of 494 BC (1st Mitt, xxxii [1982] 87,Google Scholar fig. 45 no. 286); but without more particulars it would be imprudent to rely on this single piece.

57 Dacia xvii (1983) 19–43Google Scholar.

58 BSA xxxiv (1933–1934) 90,Google Scholar with details of contexts in the catalogue.

59 I owe this information and permission to use it to the kindness of G. Bakir.

60 XI, 14.

61 IV, 49–54. J. Boardman's rejoinder ([n. 45] 161–2) seems to me valid, but a final decision is not possible yet.

62 i 32.3.

63 For the finds in the Athenian mound see Stais, V., A. Delt vi (1890) 123–32Google Scholar and AM xviii (1893) 44–63;Google ScholarCVA Athens i pis 10–14 (18–22); ABV, Index I s.v. ‘Marathon’; and more informatively Haspels, C. H. E., Attic black-figured lekythoi (Paris 1936) 89–93, 139–40Google Scholar. The solitary red-figure fragment was used by E. Langlotz (n. 25 [1920] 38–41) in his formulation of what is now the conventional chronology: D. J. R. Williams has kindly told me that he considers it the work of Onesimos himself and of the 490s. Another, smaller mound, about two miles west of the Athenian, has been claimed for the Plataeans (Marinatos, S., AAA iii [1970] 164–6, 357–66;Google ScholarCallipolitis-Feytmans, D., AAA iv [1971] 99–101)Google Scholar: it contained black-figure pottery of the same stylistic stage as that from the Athenian mound, though to judge by illustrations rather less depraved, but excavation was incomplete and the identification may be doubted (Themelis, P. G., ADelt xxix A [1974] 244)Google Scholar.

64 x 11.

65 A lucid discussion with references by Harrison, E. B. in Agora xi 9–11Google Scholar.

66 III, 42.

67 Agora xii 2, 383–99 lists deposits. They seem, though, more numerous about 480 BC (conventional time).

68 Langlotz, it should be noted, was aware of this (n. 25 [1920) 98–100). For information about the deposits on the Acropolis see Dinsmoor, W. B., AJA xxxviii (1934) 416–41Google Scholar.

69 Langlotz perhaps is too confident about Ross's fragmentary plate (n. 25 [1920] 99).

70 Kavvadias, P.EA 1886, 75–9;Google ScholarDoerpfeld, W.AM xi (1986) 162–9Google Scholar.

71 The pedimental figures from Eleusis (Willemsen, F., AM lxix–lxx [1954] 33–40Google Scholar and Himmelmann-Wildschütz, N., MWPr 1957, 9–10)Google Scholar are presumably from a single building and so accidental destruction cannot be ruled out, though their conventional date suggests that the Persians were responsible.

72 XI, 22–33.

73 F. and V. do not limit rioting to the Acropolis, but see its effects in the burial of funerary sculpture in the countryside (XI, 28). For the sculpture from the city wall they have a parallel explanation, that it was incorporated not by Themistocles in 479/8 BC but because of a Spartan scare in 462/1 or perhaps still later (XI, 29–30). One may well wonder if the Persians left any archaeological trace of their visit.

74 XI, 26. Incidentally a building, if of stone, can be burnt without its sculpture, especially if external, being exposed to fire: this is relevant for the Eretria pediments.

75 Vallet, G. and Villard, F., Mégara Hyblaea ii (Paris 1964) 116–22,Google Scholar pls. 107–14. Among finds from the inhabited area they noted only two sherds, both sporadic finds, which belong to the period when the site was derelict. Admittedly, one or two later graves are recorded (Follmann, A.-B., Der Panmaler (Bonn 1968] 23Google Scholar and n. 108); but, though there was no city, the land is likely to have had occupants.

76 XI, 30.

77 FD iv 5, 26–31 (F. Chamoux).

78 Paus v 10: confirmatory fragments of the inscription have been found (Inscr. Olymp. no. 253).

79 BCH xcii (1968) 732–3,Google Scholar figs. 5–8; ADelt xxiii BI (1968) 28–9,Google Scholar pl. 19; Knigge, U., AM lxxxv (1970) 1–5Google Scholar.

80 I 100–1.

81 E.g. IX, 13–16.

82 I, 98.

83 XI, 4–9 and more definitely 21. Herodotus in fact says that the Lydians were first to coin gold and silver (i 94): as Croesus was the last king of an independent Lydia, the intended date cannot be later, but could be earlier, than him.

84 Though V. does not admit it (VII, 209).

85 NH xxxvi 9. V. and F. I,98; on Dipoenus and Scyllis see also VI, 119–22.

86 iii 17.6; on which V. in XII, 286.

87 VII.

88 Pilcher, J. R. et al. , Nature cccxii (1984) 150–2CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

89 XI passim.

90 Note for example, XII and XIII, professedly reviews but in fact propaganda, and such statements as ‘Mon collégue E. D. Francis et moi-méme avons pu montrer…’ (in edd. Lissarague, F.V. and Thelamon, F., Images et céramiques grecques [Rouen 1983] 29)Google Scholar and ‘If, as is in fact the case, stronger arguments exist…’ (in ed. Brijder, H. A. G.V., Ancient Greek and related pottery [Amsterdam 1984] 97Google Scholar.

91 J. N. Coldstream kindly read the early part of this paper and J. Boardman and A. W.Johnston the whole of it. I am very grateful to them for improvements they have made.

genealogy of F. and V.'s compression of the periods of Attic Black-figure and early Red-figure pottery. Amandry, P., BCH cxii (1988) 591–610CrossRefGoogle Scholar defends the authenticity of the Siphnian Treasury. F. and V., BSA lxxxiii (1988) 143–67Google Scholar publish their heralded ‘The Agora revisited’; but in effect this is concerned with relative and not absolute chronology, except for the notion that square water-shafts were the work of Persian invaders.