Wednesday, 9 September 2015

Greek Vase Painting


Around 530-520 bc a technical revolution in Athenian vase-painting occurred. The new technique was red-figure, and it would come to dominate Greek vase-painting over the next two centuries, covering the classical period of Greek drama. The scenes depicted on the vases of this period can be sometimes extremely important primary historical evidence as to how the Ancient Greeks staged their dramas.

Before 530 bc the dominant technique was black-figure. In the case of black-figure painting figures are seen as a  black silhouette depicted against the natural orange colour of the clay used in the vase. Details are created  by cutting through the black surface using a sharp engraving tool. Red-figure is the reversal of this technique: figures are left behind in the orange colour of the clay, whilst the background is coloured in black around them; details are added afterwards using a brush.

Red-figure was the more flexible, as different size brushes could be used, which when combined with different thicknesses in the glazing these generate different kinds of line, and look more natural than the lines created using the engraving tool. If the artists combined the two techniques on the same vase such vases are termed "bilingual".

The scenes depicted on the vases of this period can be sometimes extremely important primary evidence as to how the Ancient Greeks staged their dramas.

The Names of Some Shapes

Kylix = A shallow drinking cup with two handles
Amphora = A two-handled jar used for holding or storing liquids with a neck narrower than the body
Krater = A wide mouthed vessel used for mixing wine with water. 
Oinochoe = A single-handled jug typically taller than it is wide, used for pouring wine.
Hydria = A water carrying vessel  with three handles, two for carrying and one for pouring
Lekythos = A flask used for storing olive oil.

A Dictionary of the Ancient Greek World p. 194- Pottery: David Sacks - Internet Archive

 Pronomos Vase




Beazley ARV 1336.1  Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli No. 3240H

Oliver Taplin; Rosie Wyles (2010). The Pronomos Vase and its Context. OUP Oxford. ISBN 978-0-19-958259-4.

Mark Griffith (2015). Greek Satyr Play: Five Studies. The Pronomos Vase: California Classical Studies. pp. 135–. ISBN 978-1-939926-05-0.

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/artifact?name=Naples+3240&object=vase

http://www.beazley.ox.ac.uk/record/3D02875A-C39F-47EC-B0C3-396D004855C7







Copenhagen Krater Vase Red-Figure





Bell Krater Vase Red-Figure
Decoration:
A: Theatrical, Dithyramb, Chorus, Draped Men Singing, and Youth Playing Pipes, Post With Ivy
B: Draped Satyr With Torch, Women (Maenads) With Thyrsos

References

Illustrations of Greek drama : Trendall, A. D. - Internet Archive

Études sur la tragédie grecque dans ses rapports avec la céramique : Séchan, L. (Louis) - Internet Archive

The History of Greek Vases : potters, painters, and pictures: Boardman, John - Internet Archive

Greek Vase-Painting and the Origins of Visual Humour - Google Books
Greek vase-painting and the origins of visual humour : Mitchell, Alexandre G. - Internet Archive

The Comic Body in Ancient Greek Theatre and Art, 440-320 BCE - Google Books

Figures of Speech : men and maidens in ancient Greece: Ferrari, Gloria - Internet Archive

A catalogue of the Greek vases in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge: Fitzwilliam Museum - Internet Archive

Catalogue of the Greek vases in the Ashmolean Museum: Ashmolean Museum - Internet Archive

Shapes of Greek Vases: Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.) - Internet Archive

Internet Archive: Digital Library of Free & Borrowable Books, Movies, Music & Wayback Machine
Search: Catalog+Greek+Vases+Metropolitan+Museum

Weiss, N. (2023). Seeing Theater: The Phenomenology of Classical Greek Drama (1st ed.). University of California Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/jj.1895852
Seeing Theater: The Phenomenology of Classical Greek Drama on JSTOR

Geometry of Greek vases; Attic vases in the Museum of Fine Arts analysed according to the principles of proportion discovered by Jay Hambidge : Caskey, Lacey D - Internet Archive

TRENDALL, A. D. (1959). PHLYAX VASES. Bulletin Supplement (University of London. Institute of Classical Studies), 8, i–77. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43768419

TRENDALL, A. D. (1967). PHLYAX VASES (Second edition, revised and enlarged). Bulletin Supplement (University of London. Institute of Classical Studies), 19, iii–116. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43768296

Dearden, C. W. (1995). POTS, TUMBLERS AND PHLYAX VASES. Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies. Supplement, 66, 81–86. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43767990




Three-phase firing - Wikipedia
Leonard Whibley. A Companion to Greek Studies (IV.5 Vase Painting). Cambridge University Press. pp. 333–47. ISBN 978-1-107-49754-2.
John Davidson Beazley (1951). The Development of Attic Black-figure. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-05593-3.
Greek tragedy in the light of vase paintings : Huddilston, John Homer, 1869 - Internet Archive

A catalogue of the Greek and Etruscan vases in the British Museum Volume II : British Museum. Dept. of Greek and Roman Antiquities - Internet Archive

Explore the British Museum Collection

Oliver Taplin (28 January 1993). Comic Angels and Other Approaches to Greek Drama through Vase-Paintings. Clarendon Press. ISBN 978-0-19-158865-5.
Comic Angels and Other Approaches to Greek Drama through Vase-Paintings Archive.org

Edith Hall (10 January 2013). Adventures with Iphigenia in Tauris: A Cultural History of Euripides' Black Sea Tragedy. Chapter 4; Pots and Plots - The Fourth-century popularity of Iphigenia in Tauris: OUP USA. pp. 69–. ISBN 978-0-19-539289-0.

Tom B. Rasmussen (26 July 1991). Looking at Greek Vases. Chapter 7: Farce and tragedy in South Italian vase-painting: Cambridge University Press. pp. 151–. ISBN 978-0-521-37679-2.

Robin Osborne (6 February 2018). The Transformation of Athens: Painted Pottery and the Creation of Classical Greece. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-17767-0.

John H. Oakley; Olga Palagia (1 May 2009). Athenian Potters and Painters Volume II. Oxbow Books. ISBN 978-1-78297-322-5.

John Oakley (31 August 2014). Athenian Potters and Painters Volume III. Oxbow Books. ISBN 978-1-78297-666-0.

Arthur Dale Trendall; Thomas Bertram Lonsdale Webster (1971). Illustrations of Greek drama. Phaidon. ISBN 978-0-7148-1492-6.

Martin Robertson (1992). The Art of Vase-Painting in Classical Athens. Cambridge University Press. pp. 1–. ISBN 978-0-521-33881-3.

Mary Louise Hart (2010). The Art of Ancient Greek Theater. Getty Publications. ISBN 978-1-60606-037-7.

N. K. Rutter; Brian A. Sparkes (2000). Word and Image in Ancient Greece. Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 978-0-7486-1405-9.

Pat Easterling; Edith Hall (2002). Greek and Roman Actors: Aspects of an Ancient Profession. Cambridge University Press. pp. 93–. ISBN 978-0-521-65140-0. 

Mary Louise Hart; J. Michael Walton; J. Paul Getty Museum (2010). The Art of Ancient Greek Theater. Getty Publications. ISBN 978-1-60606-037-7.


R. M. Cook (2013). Greek Painted Pottery. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-135-63684-5.

CVA - Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum

Dietrich Von Bothmer (1987). Greek Vase Painting. Metropolitan Museum of Art. ISBN 978-0-87099-488-3.

Oliver Taplin (2007). Pots & Plays: Interactions Between Tragedy and Greek Vase-Painting of the Fourth Century B.C. Getty Publications. ISBN 978-0-89236-807-5. 

E. Buschor. Greek vase-painting. Рипол Классик. ISBN 978-5-87512-938-4.

Andrew J. Clark; Maya Elston; Mary Louise Hart (2002). Understanding Greek Vases: A Guide to Terms, Styles, and Techniques. Getty Publications. ISBN 978-0-89236-599-9.






The Siracusa Tragedy-Vase: Oedipus and his Daughters? by Oliver Taplin

FROM PADDED DANCERS TO COMEDY
Author(s): Axel Seeberg
Source: Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies. Supplement, No. 66, Stage Directions:
Essays in Ancient Drama in Honour of E. W. Handley (1995), pp. 1-12
Published by: Wiley
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/43767984

CORINTHIAN KOMOS VASES
Author(s): Axel Seeberg
Source: Bulletin Supplement (University of London. Institute of Classical Studies), No. 27,
CORINTHIAN KOMOS VASES (1971), pp. iii, v, vii, ix-xi, xiii-xv, 1-11, 13-55, 57-107
Published by: Wiley
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/43768428

Visual Language and Concepts of Cult on the "Lenaia Vases"
Sarah Peirce
Classical Antiquity
Vol. 17, No. 1 (Apr., 1998), pp. 59-95 (46 pages)
Published by: University of California Press
DOI: 10.2307/25011074
https://www.jstor.org/stable/25011074

Eric Csapo; Margaret C. Miller (2007). The Origins of Theater in Ancient Greece and Beyond: From Ritual to Drama. Cambridge University Press. pp. 1–. ISBN 978-0-521-83682-1.
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Sunday, 6 September 2015

Choregos [χορηγός]

Plural: choregia or khoregia

 The very richest or citizens [sometimes rich metics] from the very highest classes of the Athenian city state [polis] were required by the Athenian Constitution, when called upon by the Eponymous Archon to do so, to carry out a specific public service and civic duty at their own expense. This was known as a performing a "liturgy". This might be to command and maintain one of the ships in the Athenian navy, or to fund a chorus for one of the several Athenian festivals, or whatever public service the city state or polis required.

A poet who wished to put on a play [typically 4 plays required for a tragic production] went before a magistrate of the Athenian polis, , the Archon Basileus, head of the religious festivals who asked for a chorus. If he was granted his request, a wealthy citizen was assigned by the Eponymous Archon to be choregos, the financial sponsor of the project. The poet became didaskalos or "trainer" of the chorus, with the state paying for the poet [playwright] and the aulos players or auletes (αὐλητής) , and the actors or hypokritēs (ὑποκριτής).

Those nominated were compulsorily required to perform this service. One could escape this duty if could find a richer person than oneself who seemingly hadn't taken up this duty and claim in court that they had been passed over for nomination. This was known as antidosis [exchange of property], a legal form by which a citizen charged to perform a leitourgia might call upon the other citizen, whom he thought richer than himself, either to exchange all the property that each owned with each other, or to submit to the performance of the leitourgia himself.

In Athens for all the great festivals, such as the Greater Dionysia, the Thargelia, and the Panathenaia, each tribe was required to put forward one of its wealthier members to act as its choregos [sponsor of a chorus] as a leitourgia for the tribe. The duties of a choregos were to supply, suitably costume and equip, and organize suitable training grounds for the members of a chorus [choreutai] at his own expense to represent their tribe. The choregos has to find the money to feed, house, and train the chorus during rehearsal time. The choruses from the ten tribes of Athens then competed against each other at these festivals. Very great honour or kudos was bestowed upon the choregos of the winning team.

Some very well known persons in classical Athens acted at one time or other as choregos. For example, Perikles was the choregos for and underwrote the cost of the first production of Aeschylus' Persians in 472 bc. And also Plato acted as a choregos at one time.

 References

Definition of the word Liturgy
The word liturgy, derived from the technical term in ancient Greek (Greek: λειτουργία), leitourgia, which literally means "work for the people" is a literal translation of the two words "litos ergos" or "public service".

 Choregos - Wikipedia

1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Choragus - Wikisource

Chorēgia - Oxford Reference

Chorēgia - Oxford Reference Oxford Classical Dictionary

Eponymous archon - Wikipedia

Coryphaeus - Wikipedia

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archon_basileus?wprov=sfla1

Theorika in Fifth-Century Athens - CORE


Peter Wilson (18 September 2003). The Athenian Institution of the Khoregia: The Chorus, the City and the Stage. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-54213-5.
The Athenian institution of the Khoregia: the chorus, the city and the stage
PDF - Semantic Scholar.org

Aristotle. The Athenian Constitution. Part 56: Start Publishing LLC. pp. 48–. ISBN 978-1-62558-335-2.


The Athenian Constitution - Chapter 56

Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, χορηγ-ός 


Simon Hornblower; Antony Spawforth; Esther Eidinow (2012). The Oxford Classical Dictionary. Choregos  OUP Oxford. pp. 311–. ISBN 978-0-19-954556-8.

At Athens the chorēgia was a leitourgia (liturgy), or public service performed by a wealthy citizen for the polis. A chorēgos (literally ‘leader of a chorus’) was responsible for the recruitment, training, maintenance, and costuming of choreutai (members of a chorus) for competitive performance at a festival. The same system of individual contribution was used to provide the Athenian navy with its ships (trierarchia: see trierarchy).The chorēgia was central to the organization and funding of the dramatic festivals in Athens and its demes. The actors were appointed and remunerated separately by the polis, but the chorus involved the main part of the expense in these productions. In the Great Dionysia, the main dramatic festival held annually, choruses were required for each of the various genres of performance: five for comedy (with 24 choreutai in each), three for tragedy and satyr-play (see satyric drama) (12 or 15 choreutai) and ten each for the two categories of dithyramb, men's and boys’ (50 choreutai)

Marc G. de Santis (30 April 2017). A Naval History of the Peloponnesian War: Ships, Men and Money in the War at Sea, 431-404 BC. Pen & Sword Books. ISBN 978-1-4738-6160-2.
Eric Csapo; William J. Slater (1995). The Context of Ancient Drama. The Choregic System: University of Michigan Press. pp. 139–. ISBN 0-472-08275-2.

Discoveries in the Attic Deme of Ikaria 1888. III. The Choregia in Athens and at Ikaria

Jill Frank (2005). A Democracy of Distinction: Aristotle and the Work of Politics. University of Chicago Press. pp. 62–. ISBN 978-0-226-26019-8.

 Peter Wilson (2003). The Athenian Institution of the Khoregia: The Chorus, the City and the Stage. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-54213-5.

Christ, M. R. (1990). Liturgy Avoidance and Antidosis in Classical Athens. Transactions of the American Philological Association (1974-), 120, 147–169. https://doi.org/10.2307/283983 https://www.jstor.org/stable/283983




A Companion to Greek Studies. § 515 Liturgies: CUP Archive. 1905. pp. 495–.  Liturgies- A Companion to Greek Studies    §§ 515
A Companion to Greek Studies (4th Edition ed.). VI - Financing the Greek City States (incl. Liturgies): CUP Archive. 1931. pp. 491–. §§ 511-21

Simon Hornblower; Antony Spawforth; Esther Eidinow (2012). The Oxford Classical Dictionary. antidosis: OUP Oxford. pp. 101–. ISBN 978-0-19-954556-8.

Liturgy Avoidance and Antidosis in Classical Athens
Matthew R. Christ
Transactions of the American Philological Association (1974-)
Vol. 120 (1990), pp. 147-169
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
DOI: 10.2307/283983
Demosthenes on Liturgies: A Note
J. K. Davies
The Journal of Hellenic Studies
Vol. 87 (1967), pp. 33-40
Published by: The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies
DOI: 10.2307/627805
https://www.jstor.org/stable/627805

Leitourgia and Related Terms
Napthali Lewis
Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies
Leitourgia and Related Terms (I) Abstract PDF
Leitourgia and Related Terms (II) Abstract PDF

Liturgy (ancient Greece) - Wikipedia

 Liturgy, Greek - Oxford Classical Dictionary

Trierarch - Wikipedia

Metic - Wikipedia
Claude Calame: Les Choeurs de jeunes filles en Grèce archaïque. Two vols. I. Morphologie, fonction religieuse et sociale. II. Alcman. pp. 506, 212; 2 plates. Rome: Edizioni dellateneo e Bizzarri, 1977

Archontes

There were three senior archons [out of nine]: The Eponymous Archon, the civilian head of government and effective  head of state, The King [Basileus] the head of religious matters and the Polemarch [Polemarchos], commander of the army.





Simon Hornblower; Antony Spawforth; Esther Eidinow (2012). The Oxford Classical Dictionary. OUP Oxford. pp. 144–. ISBN 978-0-19-954556-8.

Thomas L. Dynneson (2008). City-state Civism in Ancient Athens: Its Real and Ideal Expressions. Peter Lang. pp. 30–. ISBN 978-1-4331-0311-7.

Chronological Institute of London (1852). Transactions of the Chronological Institute of London ... The Archons of Athens. pp. 2–.


Dionysos, Money, and Drama
Richard Seaford
Arion: A Journal of Humanities and the Classics
Third Series, Vol. 11, No. 2 (Fall, 2003), pp. 1-19
Published by: Trustees of Boston University; Trustees of Boston University through its publication Arion: A Journal of Humanities and the Classics
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20163921

Dramatic Festivals of Athens Pickard - Cambridge pp. 86-93
 
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Saturday, 5 September 2015

The Ten Tribes of Athens

In 508 bc Cleisthenes re-invented the political structure of Athens and the surrounding territory of Attica. He completely restructured the Athenian political electorate. Up till then there had only been four tribes, which the citizens of Athens had belonged to and owed their loyalty to by reason of their clan, region and religion. Every citizen of Athens was a member of one of these four tribes, and up until 508 bc the noble families exerted a huge influence upon them preventing the development and growth of any real kind of democracy.

Cleisthenes replaced the existing tribal structure by breaking up the traditional and conservative power of the aristocratic families by making the village (the demos or deme) as the unit of electoral democracy. Attica, the territory directly controlled by the Athens, was divided by Cleisthenes into three areas - the city of Athens itself, the coastal district of Attica and the rural inland region. He then replaced Attica's four historical tribes with ten  completely new ones. Each of the new tribes (phylae) was to comprise of people, that is demes, one from the city, one from the coast of Attica, and one from the rural inland region. This was known as the trittys system. Membership of all the democratically elected bodies, including the council and all civic and military duties including putting on of theatrical perfomances were then to be shared equally amongst the ten tribes or phyla, that is, for example, each tribe was responsible for the training and equipping of a hoplite regiment as well as a cavalry unit and the appointment of a general to lead their tribe's troops for the defence of Athens; and at the time of the Dionysiac festivals each tribe had to fund and train two choruses of dithyrambic dancers, one of young boys and one of men as well as hire a poet and aulos player to lead them. The new tribes were not all equal:  the divisions were not based on size of population, nor on the wealth of the citizens that comprised them.

Over time however the topological logic behind this reorganization broke down, as the rule for membership of a given tribe was hereditary rather than based of its regional location as in the initial setup. Nonetheless the ten new tribes were very soon accepted by all the people of Athens and the system soon become part of everyday life with people giving their loyalty to their newly assigned tribe : Cleisthenes reform was material in the very success of Athenian democracy during the 5th century bc.


References

 Deme - Wikipedia

Cleisthenes - Wikipedia

 

History of Athens - Wikipedia

 

Metic - Wikipedia  

 

Trittys - Wikipedia

 

Phyle - Wikipedia


Archive Link

 

Dennis C. Mueller (1996). Constitutional Democracy. Ancient Greece: Oxford University Press, USA. pp. 44–. ISBN 978-0-19-534939-9.

The Tribes and Eponymous Heroes of the Ancient Athenians

www.stoa.org/athens/essays/tribes.html

Birth of Democracy: The Ten New Tribes - Agathe.gr
www.agathe.gr/democracy/the_ten_new_tribes.html

Cleisthenes' Creation of the Ten Tribes of Athens

 

John S. Traill (1975). The political Organization of Attica. A study of the Demes, Trittyes, and Phylai, and their representation in the Athenian Council. Hesperia Supplement XIV: ASCSA. ISBN 978-0-87661-514-0.

DEME THEATERS IN ATTICA AND THE TRITTYS SYSTEM Jessica Paga
Hesperia: The Journal of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens
Vol. 79, No. 3 (July-September 2010), pp. 351-384
Published by: The American School of Classical Studies at Athens
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40981054


Kleisthenes and the Creation of the Ten Phylai
C. W. J. Eliot
Phoenix
Vol. 22, No. 1 (Spring, 1968), pp. 3-17
Published by: Classical Association of Canada
DOI: 10.2307/1087033
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1087033

Kleisthenes, Participation, and the Dithyrambic Contests of Late Archaic and Classical Athens
David Pritchard
Phoenix
Vol. 58, No. 3/4 (Autumn - Winter, 2004), pp. 208-228
Published by: Classical Association of Canada
DOI: 10.2307/4135166
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4135166

David Whitehead (2014). The Demes of Attica, 508/7 -ca. 250 B.C.: A Political and Social Study. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-1-4008-5768-5.


 



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