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Signa tabulae priscae artis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2013

John Boardman
John Boardman
Affiliation:
Lincoln College, Oxford
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Extract

The article ‘Signa priscae artis: Eretria and Siphnos’ in JHS ciii (1983) 49—67, by David Francis and Michael Vickers (hereafter ‘FV’), is part of a programme of investigation of ‘fixed points’ in Archaic archaeological chronology, the tendency of which is to demonstrate that the conventional chronology is some half-century wrong. This broaches various problems of wider significance, not made explicit in the article and not considered here. The present Note considers the article alone, since some features of the content and manner of the arguments give ground for concern. It is written mainly as a guide to students who may have been puzzled or impressed that such radical new views could be published so confidently. Briefly, FV argue that the Temple of Apollo at Eretria should be dated to the 470s, and that, although Herodotus places the Siphnian Treasury at Delphi c. 525, we ought to be happy with a date in the 470s for this building also.

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Notes
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The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 104 , November 1984, pp. 161 - 163
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1984

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References

1 Τά ἐναέτια γλυπτά τοῦ ναοῦ τοῦ Ἀπόλλωνος ⊿αφνηφόρου στήν Ἐρέτρια (Ioannina 1983). And cf. Boardman, in The Eye of Greece, Studies … Martin Robertson (Cambridge 1982) 9Google Scholar, where n. 29 should read ‘later than 499’, not ‘490’. FV cite (50 n. 10) Coulton's study of Doric capital proportions, placing the Eretria Temple with the Temple of Zeus at Olympia (and many others) in one group, without quoting his conclusion ‘proportions must be used as evidence of date only with great caution’, having reviewed evidence from Archaic to Hellenistic.

2 Cf. Wilhelm, A., ArchEph 1892, 134.Google Scholar

3 See Touloupa (n. 1) 91–2.

4 There have been various discussions, e.g. Boardman, , BSA lii (1957) 22–4Google Scholar, Themelis, P. G., ArchEph 1969, 157–61Google Scholar, and Popham, M. R., Lefkandi i (London 1980) 323–4Google Scholar with nn. 1, 4.1 incline now to Themelis' view that Old and New Eretria are on the same main site. New Eretria was a village in Strabo's day, refounded on and beside the ruins of a city that had suffered a Persian and two Roman sacks. (I shall return to this problem elsewhere.)

5 Arguments based on a highly selective assembly of suggestions from different sources are bound to be insecure. Stewart has already retracted (J. Paul Getty Mus. J. x [1982] 95Google Scholar n. 8) while, e.g., Frel attributes the Eretria sculpture to the artist of Attic stelai usually dated c. 500 (ibid. x [1982] 98–104).

6 In Burl. Mag. cxxiv (1982) 41–2Google Scholar, FV took a different line, claiming that '… confidence in the Siphnian Treasury as an absolute landmark in the development of Archaic Greek art is based on insufficient evidence and flawed reasoning’. Now, Herodotus is blamed, yet (ibid.) ‘… as long as the visual arts of ancient Greece are considered culturally autonomous and the evidence of Herodotus, for example, can be dismissed as having no archaeological validity, then we shall deprive ourselves of important information not only about “social conditions” but about Greek art itself. Quite so.

7 Archaic Greek Silver Coinage: the ‘Asyut’ Hoard (London 1975) 66–8Google Scholar, Group IVc. The impression of an owl on a tablet at Persepolis shows that the series starts earlier at least than 494: C. G. Starr, NC 1976, 219–22.

8 See Boardman in the Cincinnati symposium ‘Archaic to Classical’, publication forthcoming.