Classical Athens

A life narrative as short addendum to Chapter IV/Lives in Translation.

In Xenophon's Anabasis, Book IV, beginning of Chapter 8. Xenophon's army reaches the land of the Macrones at the east of Trabzon. The Macrones are lined up for battle. At this moment one of the peltasts came up to Xenophon, a man who said that he had been a slave at Athens, with word that he knew the language of these people; “I think,” he went on, “that this is my native country, and if there is nothing to hinder, I should like to have a talk with them.” (4.8.3). The man serves then as an interpret.

Madness is captivating. As a concept it is terrifying as it transgresses social norms, yet the human tragedy of it asks for our empathy and understanding. Although this is a modern assessment of the power of madness, looking at classical Athenian drama, it is clear that Athenians felt similarly. Classical Athenian drama is filled with examples of individuals that are mad or have succumbed to madness. Madmen are found on the comic and tragic stage and in these capacities they are there to make the audience laugh and cry. But it will be argued, they also provide a valuable window into how the mentally ill were viewed by the public of Athens. It will be shown that the perception of madness found in Classical Athenian drama reveals a complex understanding of mental illness by Athenians but also a diversity of reactions to mental illness depending on how it presented itself. The plays used to explore madness in antiquity are; Euripides’ Herakles, Bacchae, Medea, and Orestes, Sophocles’ Ajax, Aristophanes’ Wasps and Menander’s The Shield

This is the first commentary in Italian on Lysias' speech 25. The Greek text reproduces that oxoniensis of Ch. Carey (2007), from which it departs in a few places. In the general introduction (pp. 9-48), some fundamental questions are first dealt with: the speech's title, legal context, dating, fictititious or authentic charachter. The second part initially focuses on the modern reception of this speech in order to enlighten the biases against Lysias in modern scholarship, which only a different comprehension of the nature of Athenian law system, given by anthropology, can remove. Eventually an original interpretation of this text is offered as a selected and ideologically oriented reconstruction of recent events of Athenian history. The commentary (pp. 66-94) discusses the linguistic and rhetorical aspects of this speech, such as, e. g., the use of argumentum e contrario and the reductio ad absurdum, it also addresses legal and historical issues, such as, e. g., the discussed identification of the accusators, the so-called 'sykophants', with little known personalities, mentioned in other sources.

This paper [in Dutch] questions whether it is justified to earmark classical Athens as "The Age of Pericles". It offers a short overview of what the sources have to offer on the life and deeds of the statesman and shows how the ancients may delude modern conceptions of his significance.

La desigual distribución de la riqueza bajo las condiciones actuales del capitalismo es, como bien se sabe, el eje sobre el que Piketty ha centrado su atención; asimismo, forma parte de sus reflexiones el posible rol del estado, a través de los sistemas de tributación, como modo de in-tervenir en la distribución y atenuar el impacto de la desigualdad, incluso de propender a cierta igualación. No son sus respuestas concretas sino los interrogantes y los aspectos conceptuales a veces subyacentes en las respuestas mismas, los que aquí abordamos, en la medida en que nos convocan a reflexionar sobre la especificidad de la Atenas del siglo IV a.C. a partir de cuestiones que no dejan de remitir a la situación presente. Como en muchos otros aspectos de la Grecia antigua, las estimaciones acerca de cuán igualitarias o desiguales fueron las póleis según la distribución de la riqueza han conducido a que, sobre la misma base documental, unos las hayan considerado sociedades relativamente igualitarias, mientras que otros las han percibido como sociedades desiguales. En este contexto, la distribución de la riqueza y la eva-luación del grado de igualdad o desigualdad en la Atenas del siglo IV han encontrado un lugar privilegiado entre los intereses de los especialistas, debido a la conjunción de los datos disponibles sobre población y riqueza y a cierto nivel de consenso dentro de la comunidad académica en cuanto a la posibilidad de usar estos números, más de allá de discusiones sobre la interpretación de ciertos datos. Mi objetivo, tras revisar los datos e interpretaciones plan-teadas, es tratar de ensamblar este conjunto para producir un modelo de distribución de la riqueza entre diferentes sectores de la comunidad de ciudadanos atenienses. A partir de esto, se extrae el coeficiente de Gini con la idea de ponderar, dentro de lo que cabe, el grado de desigualdad que implica determinada disposición de los datos, cuando se asumen ciertos puntos de partida. Mi propia percepción a partir de los diferentes argumentos esgrimidos, conforme a los datos ensamblados, me llevará a proponer un modelo de distribución de la riqueza, con el cual voy a configurar un posible cuadro de distribución de la tierra, el elemento más significativo de la riqueza. Finalmente, planteo diversas cuestiones abiertas al debate conforme a los ejes de este evento. Mi perspectiva es que, a pesar de las importantes disparidades, en términos relativos y comparativos no en términos absolutos, claro está, la sociedad ateniense fue relativamente igualitaria.

In my undergraduate thesis I explored the possibility that Ancient Greek fertility cults ritualized certain ethnobotanical practices that might today have been called "abortion," but at the time, would have been thought of in a very different way. A lack of very hard evidence leaves these suggestions speculative at best, however we know from modern comparative anthropological studies that every culture has some method or another of dealing with pregnancies that do not end in a living birth, and the near silence on this matter in the historical record and modern scholarship has left this a question worth asking.

О статуе Афродиты «в садах» работы Алкамена сообщают античные авторы: Плиний Старший (Plin., N. H. XXXVI, 16), Лукиан (Luc., Imagg., 4; 6), Павсний (Pausan., I, 19, 2). Эти пассажи содержат противоречивую информацию. В частности, не вполне ясно, что подразумевается под «садами»: конкретный топоним, эпитет Афродиты, «мистические сады» или просто пространство за пределами храма. Древние авторы не уточняют, являлась ли статуя Алкамена культовой. Вопрос атрибуции также окончательно не решен. Наиболее убедительной предстает гипотеза, согласно которой тип «Афродиты у колонны» (Aphrodite Leaning Against a Pillar), известный по римским копиям, восходит к греческому оригиналу работы Алкамена.

Short paper written for Phillips Exeter Academy's Liber Classics Magazine Volume 2: Women. This paper briefly explores how the perceived message of Lysistrata has changed as the cultural context around the play has changed. Edited by Blane Zhu, Pepper Pieroni, Kevin Zhu, and Sophia Cho.

A typological pattern is provisionally proposed of the written records of ancient Greek drama, based on literary, epigraphic and iconographic testimony, and on the most up-to-date critical debate on several related topics. The historical context of aurality and performance culture proper to classical Athens (5th-4th centuries BCE) is firstly considered, before focusing on the spread of (re)performances as well as the increasing of private reading of written literature and the birth of scholarship in the Hellenistic era (3rd-1st centuries BCE). The suggested typology includes ‘proleptic’ records, such as the autograph and the scripts copied for performers (actors, chorus), and ‘analeptic’ records, such as scripts for posthumous reperformances, scholarly editions, and copies for private reading. As a result, the essay underscores the need for a reassessment of the traditional aims, targets and means of classical philology when it points towards the products of ancient Attic drama.

Este breve estudo comparativo das comédias de Aristófanes Os Cavaleiros e Os Acarnenses pretende abordar a forma pela qual política do representante democrático da Atenas do século V a.C. era vista por Aristófanes, tal como a crítica que o comediógrafo faz da situação política da pólis, tendo em consideração o alvo maior da crítica nas duas peças, o representante político Cléon.

The book tells the story of the Athenian elite between 600 and 400 BCE on the basis of the imagery on the luxury pottery from which the wealthy drank at their banquets. The statistical evaluation of more than 6,000 representations lend insight into the lives of the elite as horse owners, athletes, and revellers. The image analysis is prefaced by a cultural historical section that describes the history and socio-economics of the elite.

Das Buch erzählt die Geschichte der Elite Athens zwischen 600 und 400 v. Chr. anhand der Bilder auf der Luxuskeramik, aus der die Reichen bei ihren Festen tranken. Über 6000 ausgewertete Darstellungen liefern Erkenntnisse über das Leben der Elite als Pferdehalter, Athleten und Bankettgesellschaft. Der Bildanalyse ist ein kulturgeschichtlicher Teil vorangestellt ist, der die Elite über die Historie und sozioökonomische Aspekte definiert.

Since Nietzsche published his study The Birth of Tragedy in 1872, there has been a common misconception that the ancient Greek gods Apollo and Dionysus are two parts of a polarity, a dichotomy, an antithetical pair. This essay argues that in the context of the tragedies of classical Athens, the two gods are but different aspects of the same dramatic principle – that of κάθαρσις, catharsis. The ways in which each god is employed as an agent of catharsis can tell us much about the social, political, cultural and religious tensions present in classical Athenian society, especially considering the importance of theatrical performances during the fourth and fifth centuries BCE.

Демократический лидер Эфиальт - фигура в истории трагическая, но не только из-за своей трагической гибели. Он смог декретом отнять права у Совета  Ареопага, однако, как оказалось, сама афинская демократия не сумела обойтись без старинного и уважаемого Ареопага.

Similarly to some 16th century paintings by Bartolomeo Passarotti and Annibale
Carracci depicting butchers in their workshops, we find in the vase painting of late 6th and 5th century B.C. Athens modes of representation in which the semantics of objects are bound closely to the social class and background of the respective group of recipients.

This book is a comprehensive exploration of curse tablets in the Athenian legal domain. Drawing on sociological and critical theory, Zinon Papakonstantinou outlines a framework for the interaction between curse tablets and legalities, namely in both formal and informal manifestations of the legal sphere, in Classical Athens. By delving into the complex world of Athenian daily life and disputes, Papakonstantinou argues that Athenians involved in litigation deployed binding curses as polysemic acts of conflict management and information control. They also used them as transgressive transcripts that went beyond normative or legislative taxonomies. Further, Papakonstantinou demonstrates how Athenians acting in a self-assessing and long-term agential mode employed curse tablets strategically to advance their individual agenda and position in Athenian society.

As a result, Athenian legal curse tablets point to a conceptually malleable perception of “law” and “litigation” driven by utility and self-interest that clashed with claims to justice, the pursuit of the rule of law, and attitudes towards jurors articulated by litigants in Athenian forensic orations.

The essay examines some passages  of Herodotus' Histories,  from which the anthropological interest of the author and the need to tell in order to build his own self- memory can be inferred. In particular the essay focuses on the invention of the Other, of the Barbarian, in Herodotus and the construction of the opposition  between  East and West, Asia and Europe, Persia and Greece in the aftermath of the Greek-Persian wars. In the Histories it is possible to identify certain categories of Western anthropology such as the concept of identity and diversity, ethnocentrism and cultural relativism, multiculturalism and hybridism.

This paper aims to critically analyse the testimonies concerning Athenian impiety trials of the classical period. First, it reaffirms the arguments that some of them must have been an invention of Hellenistic and later authors. Second, it presents a likely political background behind the historical cases. Third, it discusses a number of legal issues, along with new arguments concerning the procedures employed. Finally, it examines some less well-known material from the fourth century BCE. Overall, it seeks to provide a possibly coherent and comprehensive framework of Athenian impiety trials based on their shared characteristics.

This paper deals with the Classical Athenian bronze and silver ware found in Thrace and discusses the frame of their production, exchange and use within this specific cultural frame. HERE ONLY A SAMPLE. PLEASE, CONTACT THE AUTHOR IF INTERESTED IN THE FULL PAPER.

Invited for an exhibition at the Athens National Museum to celebrate the beginning of the Greek War of Independence 200 years ago, this essay discusses the role of the goddess Nike in the sculptures of two fifth-century Athenian temples: the Hephaisteion, begun probably in the 470s and completed in the 410s, and the Temple of Ares, brought in from the Attic deme of Pallene and re-erected in the Agora under the Roman Emperor Augustus.

The far western area of the Mediterranean and its Atlantic extension beyond the legendary Stelai of Hercules were famous in Antiquity among other things for its renowned salted fish products, in addition to the maritime character of many of its cities, the frenetic activity of its ports and its skill in navigating the unexplored ocean. In this area, recent archaeological developments and the emergence of additional pathways of approach (such as Archaeo-zoology, Archaeology of Salt, etc.) have made it possible to overcome outdated debates and integrate data into a single historical discourse that gradually enables a better understanding of the archaic origins of fishing, salt-fish and preserved-fish trade by the western Phoenicians, technologies brought and improved by the first waves of Levantine settlers as well as potter’s wheel or complex kilns, intensive farming, etc. This industrial activity linked to fish processing, pottery production and commerce expanded greatly from 6th/5t...

Este libro explora la capacidad decisoria del pueblo (dêmos) en la asamblea ateniense y el modo en que esta subjetivación política des-inviste de autoridad a todo poder que no sea el de la propia reunión de la multitud ciudadana indiferenciada. La convicción que lo guía radica en asumir positivamente la anarquía de la democracia en tanto que efecto de la soberanía del pueblo como sujeto político. El análisis que se realiza intenta dar cuenta de la singularidad de esta actuación política del  pueblo ateniense.
El recorrido que proponemos no puede desplegarse más que en el cruce de las miradas de los antiguos con las ideas contemporáneas sobre la política y el sujeto, y, en este contexto, las posibles coincidencias entre demokratía y populismo como modos anárquicos de acción popular. No es ajena a la época actual la interrogación sobre qué es lo que da legitimidad a un sistema político. Se habla, por ejemplo, de democracia institucional o constitucional o de democracia plebiscitaria o populista. ¿Qué pueblo es el que da legitimidad a una o a otra? ¿Uno se apega a la ley mientras que el otro se configura en su articulación con un líder? La cuestión estriba en la magnífica polisemia del término pueblo, que denomina tanto a la totalidad de la comunidad como a la parte plebeya de la misma. La democracia deviene anárquica en la medida en que el pueblo como sujeto político opera sobre este entresijo, poniendo de relieve su capacidad igualitaria como fuerza no controlada ni dominada, de manera que la parte plebeya se funde con la totalidad comunitaria. La democracia es el acto soberano del pueblo, que puede reconfigurarla con cada decisión en que manifiesta su  fuerza. Tal es el argumento que este libro quiere invitar a pensar, reivindicando lo que el análisis histórico de la política antigua tiene de pensamiento político en el presente.

This book explores the decision-making capacity of the people (dēmos) in the Athenian assembly and the way in which this political subjectivation cut off the authority to all power other than that of the very meeting of the undifferentiated citizen crowd. The conviction that guides it lies in positively assuming the anarchy of democracy as an effect of the sovereignty of the people as a political subject. The analysis attempts to account for the uniqueness of this political action of the Athenian people.
The agenda we propose cannot be displayed except in the crossroads of the ancient political imaginary with contemporary views about politics and the subject, and, in this framework, the possible coincidences between dēmokratia and populism as anarchic modes of popular action. The question of what gives legitimacy to a political system is a crucial point at present. For example, it is talked about institutional/constitutional democracy or about plebiscitary/populist democracy. What people give legitimacy to one or the other? Does one adhere to the law while the other is configured in its relation to a leader? The question lies in the magnificent polysemy of the term “people”, which designates both the totality of the community and the plebeian part of it. Democracy becomes anarchic to the extent that the people as a political subject operate on this intricacy, highlighting the egalitarian capacity as a force neither controlled nor dominated, so that the plebeian part merges with the entire community. Democracy is the sovereign act of the people, which can reconfigure it with every decision in which the people expresses its strength. Such is the argument that this book wants to invite to think, claiming what the historical analysis of ancient politics has to offer to political thinkers in present times.

Προσκεκλημένο σε μια έκθεση στο Εθνικό Μουσείο Αθηνών για τον εορτασμό της έναρξης της Ελληνικής Επανάστασης πριν από 200 χρόνια, αυτό το δοκίμιο πραγματεύεται τον ρόλο της θεάς Νίκης στα γλυπτά δύο αθηναϊκών ναών του 5ου αιώνα: του Ηφαιστείου, που ξεκίνησε πιθανώς τον δεκαετία 470 και ολοκληρώθηκε τη δεκαετία του 410, και ο Ναός του Άρη, που εισήχθη από τον αττικό δήμο της Παλλήνης και ξαναχτίστηκε στην Αγορά υπό τον Ρωμαίο αυτοκράτορα Αυγούστου.

Alcibiades was one of the most controversial and widely discussed figures in Classical Athenian history. Furthermore, he was at the forefront of events during an extremely tumultuous period of time for Athens and all of Greece. This paper navigates through his life, focussing on the most influential and controversial moments of his career, while trying to interpret and evaluate them within the wider context of Athenian democracy and imperialism.

Στο βιβλίο "Η άνοδος και η πτώση της κλασικής Ελλάδας" ο Τζοσάια Όμπερ, σαν γνήσιος κοινωνικός επιστήμονας, αναζητεί τις ρίζες της πολιτισμικής ακμής του κλασικού κόσμου στην πολιτική και οικονομική βάση των ελληνικών κοινοτήτων, στην πολύπλευρη αλληλεπίδραση κρατικών θεσμών, κοινωνικής ζωής και υλικής ανάπτυξης. Τα πάντα ανάγονται στο «πρώτον κινούν» της πολιτικής ελευθερίας και των παρεπομένων της για την οικονομική δραστηριότητα. Καίρια έννοια, από αυτήν την άποψη, είναι η πολιτοκεντρική οργάνωση των αρχαίων κοινοτήτων. Στο κέντρο του δημόσιου βίου βρισκόταν η μερίδα των γηγενών ενηλίκων ανδρών της πόλης, οι οποίοι απολάμβαναν την ιδιότητα του πολίτη και είχαν ορισμένο βαθμό πρόσβασης στα δημόσια αγαθά και στη νομή της εξουσίας. Τα μέλη των κλασικών ελληνικών πολιτειών δεν είναι υπήκοοι κάποιου ισόθεου ηγεμόνα, όπως οι κάτοικοι των βασιλείων της Ανατολής, αλλά πολίτες, μέτοχοι δηλαδή της πόλεως, με δικαιώματα στη διαχείριση των κοινών και ισότητα έναντι των νόμων.

Η συμμετοχή των πολιτών στο δημόσιο αγαθό ευνοεί με τη σειρά της τη συνεργασία μεταξύ τους για την υπεράσπιση της κοινότητας και την προώθηση του συλλογικού συμφέροντος. Η συμμετοχική οργάνωση και το πνεύμα συνεργασίας έχουν ως αποτέλεσμα τη θέσπιση αστικών δικαιωμάτων και μηχανισμών κρατικής πρόνοιας που προσφέρουν δίχτυ ασφαλείας, μια αίσθηση ελάχιστης κοινής προστασίας για τα βιοτικά εγχειρήματα των πολιτών. Ακολούθως, χάρη στους παραπάνω ευνοϊκούς παράγοντες, δημιουργούνται οι προϋποθέσεις για επένδυση στο ανθρώπινο κεφάλαιο. Οι πολίτες αισθάνονται αρκετά ασφαλείς και έχουν κίνητρα για φιλόδοξες πρωτοβουλίες ή επιχειρηματικά σχέδια, για να επιδοθούν στην απόκτηση γνώσης και στην καλλιέργεια των δεξιοτήτων τους. Εκτός από τη σύμπραξη για το κοινό καλό, αναπτύσσεται μεταξύ τους και ο ανταγωνισμός, η άμιλλα για διάκριση — πάγιο στοιχείο της ελληνικής ιδιοσυγκρασίας και αυτό. Έτσι γεννιούνται οι καινοτομίες σε κάθε πεδίο, από τους πολιτικούς θεσμούς έως την επιστήμη και την τεχνολογία. Η καινοτομία είναι φυσικά ο κύριος μοχλός για την οικονομική ανάπτυξη και την κερδοφορία, που παρέχουν την υλική βάση για την άνθηση του υψηλού πολιτισμού.

Αυτό είναι, σε αδρές γραμμές, το αφήγημα (εμβαπτισμένο φυσικά στις αισιόδοξες αρχές του Διαφωτισμού) που προτείνει ο συγγραφέας για την ακμή του κλασικού Ελληνισμού. Ο Όμπερ υπερασπίζεται την αφήγησή του με ευγλωττία, πειθώ, και με την επικουρία του οπλοστασίου της σύγχρονης επιστημονικής σκέψης, από τη στατιστική ανάλυση έως τη θεωρία παιγνίων. Το βιβλίο θα σταθεί πολύτιμο βοήθημα για όσους θέλουν να προχωρήσουν βαθύτερα στη μελέτη της αρχαίας ελληνικής κοινωνίας και δημόσιας ζωής. Προσφέρει επίσης διδάγματα γύρω από τις αρετές και τα τρωτά της δημοκρατίας τα οποία ενδέχεται να αποβούν χρήσιμα στο δύσκολο παρόν μας. Αν η κλασική Ελλάδα υπήρξε, καθώς ακούμε συχνά, η κοιτίδα της δημοκρατίας, το παράδειγμά της μπορεί ίσως να μας καθοδηγήσει πώς να γλυτώσουμε τη δική μας δημοκρατία από τη θερμοκοιτίδα.

Ελάχιστο δείγμα του κειμένου αναρτάται εδώ. Διαβάστε το ολόκληρο στο νέο τεύχος της Athens Review of Books.

Series: Routledge Monographs in Classical Studies This study is devoted to the channels through which geographic knowledge circulated in classical societies outside of textual transmission. It explores understanding of geography among the non-elites, as opposed to scholarly and scientific geography solely in written form which was the province of a very small number of learned people. 20% Discount Available-enter the code FLR40 at checkout* Hb: 978-0-367-43970-5 | £96.00 * Offer cannot be used in conjunction with any other offer or discount and only applies to books purchased directly via our website. For more details, or to request a copy for review, please contact: Lizzi Risch, Senior Editorial Assistant, elizabeth.risch@tandf.co.uk For more information visit: www.routledge.com/9780367439705

In what follows I demonstrate that the disagreements between the accounts of Thucydides, Diodorus, and Ctesias on the Athenian expedition to Egypt in the 450s BC are of minor significance and that Ctesias provides valuable information which allows a more complete reconstruction of the Athenian involvement in the Egyptian rebellion.

The orthodox view of ancient Mediterranean slavery holds that Greece and Rome were the only 'genuine slave societies' of the ancient world, that is, societies in which slave labour contributed significantly to the economy and underpinned the wealth of elites. Other societies, labelled 'societies with slaves', have been thought to have made little use of slave labour and therefore have been largely ignored in recent scholarship. But this binary view forces a picture where only fully-fledged 'slave societies' are investigated, and assumes that the only other possibility is that slavery played no role of importance at all in the society in question, thus obliterating the full range of possible configurations lying between these Ideal types.

This volume presents a radically different view of the ancient Eastern Mediterranean world, portraying it as a patchwork of regional slave systems. Although slavery was indeed particularly highly developed in Greece and Rome, it was also of major economic importance in Carthage, and played a not insignificant role in the affairs of elites in Israel, Assyria, Babylonia, and Persia. In Greece, diversity was the rule: from the early archaic period onwards, differing historical trajectories in various regions shaped the institution of slavery in manifold ways, producing very different slave systems in regions such as Sparta, Crete, and Attica. However, in the wider Eastern Mediterranean world, we find a similar level of diversity: slavery was exploited to differing degrees across all of these regions, and was the outcome of a complex interplay between cultural, economic, political, geographic, and demographic variables.

In seeking to contextualize slaving practices across the Greek world through detailed soundings of the slaving practices of the Israelites, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, and Carthaginians, this volume not only provides new insights into these ancient cultures, but also allows for a nuanced exploration of the economic underpinnings of Greek elite culture that sets its reliance on slavery within a broader context and sheds light on the complex circumstances from which it emerged.

Now published:
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/greek-slave-systems-in-their-eastern-mediterranean-context-c800-146-bc-9780198769941?cc=gb&lang=en&#

Reviews:
R. Osborne
https://classicsforall.org.uk/reading-room/book-reviews/greek-slave-systems-their-eastern-mediterranean-context-c-800-146-bc

F. Duarte Joly
The Classical Review 69.2 (2019): 503-5

D. Vaucher
http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2019/2019-09-43.html

K. Vlassopoulos
Greece & Rome 66.2 (2019): 295.

P. Hunt
Phoenix 77.3-4 (2019): 376-9.

D.C. Snell, Classics Ireland 26 (2019): 167-9.

W. Mack
Journal of Global Slavery 5 (2020): 123-5.

W.Schmitz
W. Schmitz, Sehepunkte 20 (2020) no. 5 (15th May 2020)
http://www.sehepunkte.de/2020/05/32528.html

K. Wrenhaven
Slavery & Abolition 41.3 (2020): 677-8.

T. Clements, Rosetta 25 (2020): 23-7.

L. Iancu, Studii şi cercetări de istorie veche şi arheologie 71 (2020): 173-8.

The relief fragment Athens, NM Inv. 2636 was confiscated in 1904 in Piraeus. The preserved segment of the relief is dominated by the figure of a warrior with a shield, who moves left towards a cult image of Apollo set upon a base and holding a bow in his left hand. At the right-hand edge of the segment the right foot is preserved of another figure, who the warrior turns his head back to. The warrior is recognized as being Neoptolemos, fleeing from his persecutors to the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi. Technical details establish securely that the fragment comes from a relief frieze that was situated inside a sanctuary of Apollo Pythios in Athens. It is known that in Athens Apollo Pythios was also worshipped as Apollo Patroos, whose temple was erected on the Agora. Given the tradition that the gilding of the altar of Apollo Patroos was financed by the very wealthy Athenian Neoptolemos, son of Antikles, we propose the hypothesis that the same man may also have borne the cost of producing the statue, which would account for the choice of the Neoptolemos myth for the relief decoration of the statue base. The latter conjecture necessarily leads to the probable provenance of the confiscated fragment being the Athens Agora.


Das Relieffragment Athen, Nationalmuseum Inv. 2636 ist im Jahre 1904 im Piräus beschlagnahmt worden. Den erhaltenen Abschnitt der Darstellung beherrscht die Gestalt eines Kriegers mit Schild, der sich nach links auf ein Kultbild des Apollon zubewegt, das auf einer Basis steht und einen Bogen in der linken Hand hält. Am rechten Rand ist der rechte Fuß einer weiteren Gestalt erhalten, zu der der Krieger seinen Kopf zurückwendet. In der Kriegergestalt wird Neoptolemos erkannt, der vor seinen Verfolgern ins Heiligtum des Apollon in Delphi flieht. Technische Details führen zu dem gesicherten Ergebnis, dass das Fragment von einem Relieffries stammt, der sich im Inneren eines Heiligtums des Apollon Pythios in Athen befunden hat. Bekanntlich wurde Apollon Pythios in Athen auch als Apollon Patroos verehrt, dessen Tempel auf der Agora errichtet wurde. Anhand der Überlieferung, die Vergoldung des Altars des Apollon Patroos sei von dem sehr reichen Athener Neoptolemos, Sohn des Antikles, finanziert worden, wird die Hypothese aufge- stellt, dass derselbe Mann auch die Kosten für die Herstellung der Statue übernommen haben könnte, wodurch sich die Wahl des Neoptolemosmythos für den Reliefschmuck der Statuenbasis erklären würde. Die letztgenannte Annahme führt nahezu zwangsläufig zur wahrscheinlichen Herkunft des beschlagnahmten Fragments von der Athener Agora.