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Stesichorus at Bovillae?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

Nicholas Horsfall
Affiliation:
University College London

Extract

The term Tabulae Iliacae is conventionally applied to twenty low reliefs scattered through museums from Warsaw to New York. The common name conceals a bewildering artistic farrago: the earliest Tabula, the Tabula Iliaca Capitolina (1 A; Plate II; Fig. 3), is mid-Augustan (cf. p. 48), the latest (19J) late Antonine (Sadurska 94). Five of the Tabulae bear the name Theodorus and I shall argue (p. 27) that he is the craftsman responsible for their execution. Where provenance is known, it is always Rome or the Roman Campagna. The materials of the Tabulae vary widely: most, but not all, are of some sort of marble, white, yellow, and Giallo Antico (Sadurska 13). Little can be said of their size, for not one survives complete. It would appear, however, that the largest rectangular Tabula, the calcite 1 A, was originally c. 25 cm by 42 cm (Sadurska 14). Two, portraying the Shield of Achilles, were circular (4N and 5O) and 5O may have had a radius of 20 cm (Sadurska 47). The name Iliacae is appropriate only in as much as eleven out of twenty Tabulae portray episodes from the Iliad (Sadurska 15 + 20Par.) and six the Sack of Ilium; others, however, represent (e.g.) Alexander's victory at Arbela and the apotheosis of Hercules. What the Tabulae do display in common is a combination of low reliefs in miniature and inscriptions, often extensive and not always on the same topic as the reliefs (see Plate II). In ancient art, only the Megarian bowls (cf. p. 47) stand comparison, and their ratio of text to illustration is substantially lower.

Information

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1979

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