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New Light on the Grylli

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

Anne Roes
Anne Roes
Affiliation:
Heemstede, Holland
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Extract

Well known though the grylli are, we have still very little to say about their meaning and about their origin.Our knowledge of them, which has hardly increased since the days of Furtwangler, amounts to the following facts. Grylli were one of the most popular motives for the decoration of gems in Roman times; they remained in favour during more than three centuries. Several indications lead us to believe that some pro-phylactic value was ascribed to them;this may also account for their long popularity. In appearance they can as a rule be divided into two classes. Either they are a composition of various human and animal heads, sometimes with birds added to them, or else they consist of the body of a bird, generally a cock, to which heads and masks are attached in different ways. As the cock often is provided with a horse's head, we are reminded of the Attic hippalectryon; it is, however, impossible to trace their descent from Greek art, for we do not know of any more complicated Greek design that may have inspired Roman gem-cutters; the hippalectryon itself even does not seem to have lived down to the Hellenistic period. On the other hand, it is equally impossible to regard them as an original Roman fantasy. In the first place, their connexion with the hippalectryon, though distant, is unmistakable; secondly and chiefly, we know there were grylli before the days of Roman glyptic art. In the necropolis of Tharros in Sardinia have been found several scarabs decorated with motives closely resembling the Roman grylli. Now the necropolis seems to have been in use for a very long time, but Furtwangler believed, no doubt rightly, that the bulk of the objects found in it, and especially the grylli, must be dated rather early as they still show some of the traditions of archaic art. Our Fig. 3a is a good example.

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The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 55 , Issue 2 , 1935, pp. 232 - 235
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Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1935

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References

page 233 note 1 Böttiger, , Kl. Schriften, 1838, III, p. 461Google Scholar; King, Antique Gems, 1860, p. 330Google Scholar; Furtwängler, , Gemmen, III, p. 353Google Scholar; Blanchet, , REA 1921, p. 50Google Scholar.

page 233 note 2 AdI LV, 1883, p. 102Google Scholar; Furtwängler, , Gemmen III, p. 113 f.Google Scholar; BM Gems, p. XXX f.

page 233 note 3 Furtwängler, , Gemmen, III, p. 114Google Scholar.

page 233 note 4 Reinach, Antiq. du Bosph. cimm., pl. XXI, 2 = Minns, , Scythians and Greeks, p. 158, fig. 45Google Scholar; Compte Rendu, 1876, pl. III, 4, 5, 6 = Minns, p. 208, fig. 106. The spirals no doubt are the artist's solution of the difficulty he felt in joining the two heads together.

page 233 note 5 Compte Rendu, 1877, pl. III, 19 = Minns, p. 208, fig. 106, no. 19.

page 233 note 6 Ill. London News, 1932, May 7, p. 756Google Scholar; Antiquaries Journ., 1932, p. 390Google Scholar.

page 233 note 7 Compare Legrain, Culture of the Babylonians, pl. liii, 802; Ill. London News, 1932, Aug. 6, p. 207, fig. 9Google Scholar.

page 233 note 8 Furtwängler, pl. XV, 89; BM Gems, no. 428.

page 234 note 1 Furtwängler, pl. XXVI, 78; also 79 and 80; BM Gems, nos. 1204, 2571; Babelon, , La Gravur en Pierres fines, p. 176Google Scholar, fig. 134.

page 234 note 2 BM Gems, pl. XXIX, 2569; compare Furwängler, pl. XXV, 33; pl. XXVI, 19. Our fig. 3b also has a bird, in this case an eagle, for a head-dress.

page 234 note 3 See Rostovtzeff, , Iranians and Greeks, 1922Google Scholar.

page 234 note 4 Roes, , Greek geom. Art, 1932, p. 48 ff.Google Scholar; RA 1934, II, p. 148Google Scholar.

page 234 note 5 Ranae 938.

page 235 note 1 Roes, Motifs iraniens dans 1'art grec arch, et classique, RA 1934, II, p. 135 ff.Google Scholar Compare the Sardinian gryllus AdI LV, 1883, pl. H, 72Google Scholar, that consists of the forepart of a horse joined to the upper part of the body of a man.

page 235 note 2 RA 1934, II, p. 147Google Scholar.

page 235 note 3 Böttiger, Kl. Schriften, III, p. 460Google Scholar; King, , Handb. of engr. Gems, p. 329Google Scholar.

page 235 note 4 For inst. King, , Antique Gems, p. 329Google Scholar; Creuzer, , Symbolik u. Mythologie, III, 2, pl. I, 3Google Scholar; IV, 1, pl. I, 2.

page 235 note 5 After AZ 1851, pl. 33; see Besckreibung d. ant. Skulpt., Berlin, 1891, p. 61Google Scholar, no. 134.

page 235 note 6 Compare Roscher s.v. Zagreus, 537 f.