Eight
Panathenaic Amphorae
With the Leagros Group we reached the last decades of the sixth century, and we found black-figure still competing, not unsuccessfully, with the new red-figure technique, but red-figure rapidly gained the upper hand; black-figure was more and more restricted to small, slight, or rough vases, and by the middle of the fifth century it was almost extinct. With one great exception. The prizes at the Great Panathenaic games, held once every four years, were amphorae of the famous Attic oil, and for these official vases the old technique was retained. Hundreds of Panathenaic amphorae, if we count fragments, have come down to us, the earliest belonging to the second quarter of the sixth century, the latest to the Hellenistic age. They enable us to recapitulate the history of black-figure vase-painting, not from the beginning, but from the period of Kleitias or early Lydos; and to continue the history through the fifth and fourth centuries down to a time when the red-figure technique had long ceased to exist.[1]
The shape of the Panathenaic vase, with its swelling body, short thin neck, pinched base, small foot, remains the same, in essentials, all the time, although its character is gradually transformed to suit changing taste. The subjects of the pictures remain the same. On the front a figure of Athena, in warlike attitude, between two columns surmounted by cocks, with the inscription twn ' Aqhnhqenaqlwn , "a prize from the games at Athens." On the reverse, a picture of the type of event in which the victor was successful. The style of the reverse is "straight"; in other words, apart from the old-fashioned technique, the drawing is in the natural manner of contemporary art. The style of the obverse, the Athena between the columns, is straight during the archaic period, but not after it; in the period of freer art it remains traditional and "archaic," just as Athenian coins do—not, of course, true archaic, but a mannered mixture of old and new.
Athletic contests are reported to have been introduced at the Panathenaea in the year 566, and it is natural to connect this date with what from the style are seen to be the earliest of our Panathenaic amphorae. The Burgon vase in the British Museum
[1] For numbered notes to chapter viii see pages 106–109.
(pls. 89–90),[2] so called from the scholar who found it, was not awarded for an athletic contest, but for an equestrian; it might therefore be earlier than 566.[3] The style shows that it cannot be much earlier, and it is likely enough that the custom of giving amphorae as prizes came in simultaneously for all events.
Neck-amphorae of this general form had long been made in Attica, can be traced back to the Late Geometric period,[4] and it is probable that they had long been used to contain oil. The Burgon vase is stout and squat; let us compare it with some later Panathenaics, all in the British Museum, and see how the shape develops.[5] For the present we consider the shape only. In London B 134, by the Euphiletos Painter, about 530, the neck is shorter, the body longer, and the whole vase gives a deeper impression of collected power (pl. 93, 2). In London B 133, by the Eucharides Painter, about 480, the shape is even stronger and more compact; the shoulder is higher, the handles closer to the neck, the mouth and foot straighter, and there is distinctly more incurve at shoulder and base. In London B 606, of about 400, the incurve at base and shoulder has increased, and the line has slackened. London B 604 (pl. 100, 3–4), of about 366, has a new elegance: the curve of the neck swings right up into the flaring mouth, which is now concave instead of convex; and as if to make up for the slighter "punctuation"[*] between neck and mouth, the foot is given a lip at the top. In London B 611, of 327 B.C. , the elegance is exaggerated; the neck and handles are longer, the base slenderer, the proportions spoilt.
To return to the Burgon Panathenaic (pls. 89–90). Like the vase itself, the Athena is short and stout. Her garment, a peplos, is simple, and no folds are indicated. The helmet, as in all the earliest Panathenaics, is no more than a skull-cap with a high crest attached. The aegis is a sort of large bib, covering the breast only, set round with a few big snakes. The device on the shield is a fat dolphin. In several respects the decoration is not yet canonical. There are no columns to left and right of the figure; there is no band of tongue-pattern above it; the neck of the vase has a siren on one side and an owl on the other instead of the floral design that soon became obligatory. The picture on the reverse represents a horse-race of a special kind, the sunwriV , which differs widely from the chariot-race; a pair of horses is driven by a young man who sits in a light cart with his feet resting on a board suspended from the pole. The wheels are cart-wheels, and the horses' collar is like the mule's collar as we saw it on the plaque by Exekias (pl. 74, 4).[**] Besides the goad, the driver holds a long rod curving round at the end and furnished with a pair of what seems to be dangling metal plates intended to encourage the horse. The same instrument appears on a cup in the Louvre in the neighbourhood of a pair of mules (pl. 91, 2).[6] In the few later pictures of this event chariot-wheels are substituted for cart-wheels, and the driver is content with a goad.[7] The style of the Burgon vase is contemporary with the earliest work of Lydos, but is rather more uncouth; the nearest approach to it is on a prothesis plaque in the Louvre (pl. 91, 1).[8]
[*] See p. 49.
[**] See p. 66.
The fragmentary Panathenaic in Halle is contemporary with the Burgon or little later, but of much better quality.[9] The inscription is not preserved, but there can be little doubt that this was a prize-vase. Not much of the Athena remains, but we have the greater part of the picture on the reverse, three sturdy sprinters, a youth and two men (pl. 91, 3). Above them is part of an inscription, the end of the word andrwn , "of men."[10] This is a splendid early example of the running attitude which first appears at this time:[11] the forward leg raised so that the thigh is horizontal and the foot well advanced, the arm of the same side of the body raised, both upper arms horizontal, and the forearms at right angles. (Here the back leg too, as often, is raised from the ground.) The suggestion of thunderous speed is even stronger than in the later runners by Lydos on the shoulder of his hydria (pl. 38, 4).[*] The Halle Panathenaic has been attributed to Lydos himself, and it has much in common with him, but is not certainly, I think, his. The design on the neck of the vase is floral, but not yet of canonical type.
From the other Panathenaics of this earliest period only fragments survive.11 bis Good part of a very early Panathenaic has been found in the American excavations of the Athenian Agora (pl. 91, 4).[12] The Athena is of the same build as on the Burgon vase, and, as there, the sole of the back foot as well as the front one is planted firmly on the ground, which gives a very earthbound effect. The aegis is again bib-like, with fat semicircular frontal-headed snakes. The shield bears a large flower, a kind of marigold, a common device at the time.[13] This amphora was one of the prizes for the pentathlon, for the second picture alludes to three of the five events: the javelin, the discus, the long jump with weights, halteres[*] , in the hands. A fourth man, facing the other three, may have been either another javelin-thrower or the judge with his wand. The inscription is missing, but this too was doubtless a prize-vase.
Good fragments from the Acropolis of Athens give glimpses of short Athenas and thickset athletes,[14] but the next complete vase is in Florence (pl. 92).[15] It has several unusual features. There are no columns yet: the inscription, Twn'AQhnhQenaQlwn , is on the back of the vase instead of on the front, and runs horizontally instead of vertically, and on the front of the vase a naked man stands facing Athena with a fillet in his hand.[16] The vigorous picture on the reverse shows that the event was the chariot-race. The driver in Greece was sometimes the owner and sometimes not.[17] In any case the man on the front of the vase must be the victor, that is, the owner. One might not expect the victor in the chariot-race to be shown naked, but there does not seem to be any other explanation; the man has the same nudity as a marble kouros. Athena still has the cap-helmet and the large round aegis-snakes; but one heel is ever so slightly raised from the ground, the long aegis covers back as well as breast, and, as often later, two garments are worn. The shape is now canonical, and the floral band on the neck is of the accepted type. The painter is in all probability Lydos: the style of drawing is very like him, especially as he is seen in a late and eccentric work,
[*] See p. 43.
the oinochoë in Berlin (pl. 93, 1),[18] and there we find the same profusion of sharp folds at the lower edge of garments. We have already mentioned part of a later Panathenaic amphora by Lydos, the fragment with sprinters at the University of Chicago;[*] we cannot be sure, of course, that it was inscribed.
A Panathenaic amphora in the British Museum (pl. 93, 2–3) is interesting for two reasons.[19] First, in subject as well as shape it is at last canonical: Athena raises one heel from the ground, which gives the figure swing; wears an aegis covered with scales and trimmed with smaller serpents; and is flanked by two columns surmounted by cocks. The columns perhaps refer to her temple, but possibly they are only there to support the cocks. The cocks are there as symbols of the fighting spirit; the cock, in the words of the poet Ion, "smitten in body and both eyes, forgets not his courage; though fainting, he crows":
oud o ge swma TupeiV difneiz Te Korap epilaQeTai alKaz
FQoggaxeTai. [20]
Secondly, the artist is the first who is known to have painted many Panathenaics; it is plain that he specialised in them, since we have thirteen by him, including two fragments. He has come to be called the Euphiletos Painter from the inscription EuFilhtoVkaloz which surrounds the chariot-wheel here emblazoned on the shield (pl. 93, 2).[21] It may seem odd to find a kalos-inscription on an official prize-vase, but a century later, if the story is true, Pheidias himself wrote PantarkhVkaloV of his Zeus at Olympia. The Athena of the Euphiletos Painter is an energetic figure, still short in the leg; there are many folds in the two garments; and the cap-helmet has been replaced by a less simple form with frontlet, neckpiece, and floral ornament on the skull. The photograph shows the nutcracker features and the quiff (pl. 93, 2). The vase was a prize for the pentathlon, three events of which are indicated in the second picture, the javelin, the discus, and the jump with halteres.[halt[emacr;res.] The athletes are taller and leaner than before, and there is a mixture of liveliness and stiffness in their attitudes (pl. 93, 3). The Panathenaic by this painter in Leyden is also a pentathlon vase (pl. 93, 4).[22] The events are the same as in the London Panathenaic, but the attitudes of the jumper and acontist are even more violent, while the discusthrower is in the contorted posture that follows the one depicted on the London vase. The shield-device, partly repainted, is a lion attacking a deer. One of the other Panathenaics by the Euphiletos Painter represents the chariot-race, and four of them the foot-races, long distance and short. The best of our artist's sprints is on his Panathenaic in New York (pl. 93, 5);[23] the movement is less tempestuous than on the early vase in Halle, although our painter was probably not thinking either of a longer distance or of a less crucial moment in the race. The drawing of the faces is mannered. The parts between breast and hip are still rendered in the summary fashion of early times. The date of these vases should be about 530.
[*] See p. 43.
A good foot-race by another artist of this period is on the Panathenaic in Copenhagen (pl. 94, 1);[24] the date should be about 525, contemporary with work by the Andokides Painter. The Athena is slenderer and less emphatic than the Euphiletan (pl. 94, 2). The shield-device is a large eye. The foot of the vase seems wrongly attached.
A fine Panathenaic in Nauplia is not far from the Lysippides Painter himself;[25] the artist, the Mastos Painter, was one of his companions. The Athena is not completely preserved. Device, a triskeles. The picture on the reverse of the vase is one of the most attractive on any Panathenaic (pl. 94, 3). The victory is in a horse-race and the winning horse is being led in. Jockeys were small boys in Greece, as they sometimes are today. They were not always professionals: Pausanias saw at Olympia the statues, by a noted fourth-century sculptor, Daidalos of Sicyon, of one Timon and his son Aisypos, a boy on horseback; Timon had won not only the chariot-race, but also the horse-race with his son up.[26] On the Nauplia vase the boy holds a pair of long branches; the man beside the horse passes one hand between the reins and the horse's clammy neck, and with the other adjusts a fillet on the reins. Thus the horse too receives recognition. (We remember the praise of the race-horse Pherenikos in Pindar and Bacchylides, the statues of race-horses recorded by Pausanias and in the Anthology,[27] and the fourth-century marble reliefs, in Athens and in the British Museum, in which a horse is being crowned.)[28] A man stands in front of the horse, patting its face and holding a wreath and branches. A youth stands behind the horse holding out a branch. I am inclined to think that the man beside the horse is the trainer; that the owner is the man who pats the horse; and the youth, his son.
The picture likest this in subject is on a vase of somewhat earlier style in the British Museum.[29] The shape is Panathenaic, although the proportions are different, but this cannot have been a prize at the Panathenaea. A boy, wearing a short chiton, and mounted on a horse, is followed by a youth who carries a wreath, and bears on his head a tripod, the prize (pl. 95, 2); a man stands in front of the rider and announces that "the horse of Dysniketos wins" (the proper name is badly misspelt). Athena appears on the front of the vase in the prescribed attitude, but she is accompanied by Hermes and another male figure (pl. 95, 1). The prize, not oil but a tripod, shows that the games referred to are not the Panathenaea. The artist is the Swing Painter, a curious minor painter, and this is one of his less comic works.[30]
There are no inscribed Panathenaics by the Antimenes Painter; there are uninscribed, unofficial ones, and a prize-vase in Boulogne is by a painter related to him.[31] The athletes are wrestlers, and illustrate the beginning of the throw known as the cross-buttock. There are two onlookers; one is the judge or trainer with his wand, the other a spectator leaning on his stick. The wrestlers are of heavy build, and one of them like many wrestlers has his hair shaved in front.[*] The shield-device, partly repainted, is an anchor.
[*] See p. 67.
We are now nearing the end of the sixth century, and there are three good Panathenaics from the Leagros Group. The Athena on the New York vase[32] has changed costume, and wears a chiton instead of a peplos (pl. 95, 3). The rim of the shield is no longer red, but black with red dots. The shield-device in all three Panathenaics of the Leagros Group is a siren, and henceforth each painter tends to confine himself to one device. On the reverse, one of our best pictures of the horse-race (pl. 95, 4). Three jockeys, on powerful horses, pass the post. (The head of one boy is missing, except the hair of the forehead.) They use long cut sticks instead of the usual whip. They ride, of course, without saddles or stirrups; spurs were sometimes worn, but are not represented on Panathenaic vases. The two other Panathenaics of the same style, one in Sparta,[33] one in Taranto (pl. 96, 1),[34] were awarded for the chariot-race, and the artist has chosen the perilous moment of turning round the post. At Olympia the post was turned twenty-three times, and each time there was a chance of coming to grief, as we remember, for example, from the Elektra of Sophocles. The wheels of the chariot are in three-quarter view, the bodies of the trace-horses foreshortened or at least diminished, the breasts of the pole-horses three-quartered and their faces frontal. The three-quarter view of chariots wheeling round comes in before this, in the period of Group E, but is especially appropriate to pictures of a race. The Leagros Group corresponds in black-figure to the red-figure work of the great pioneers, Euphronios, Phintias, Euthymides, and it has been plausibly suggested that a small fragment of a Panathenaic, found on the Acropolis, in Athens, may be black-figure by Euphronios.[35]
The next period is late archaic red-figure: the two great pot-painters of the period (as opposed to cup-painters) are the Kleophrades Painter, whose name has now been proved to be Epiktetos—Epiktetos the Second,35bis —and the Berlin Painter, whose name is still unknown. Both of them painted black-figure prize Panathenaics, and the finest panathenaics of the period, as might be expected, are theirs. A third red-figure artist who painted Panathenaics is the Eucharides Painter, and as a general rule the prize Panathenaics of the fifth century can be shown to be by red-figure artists, not by a special class of black-figure artists producing prize-vases and nothing else, nor yet by any of those humble black-figure painters who were active in the first half of the fifth century. In the fourth century the same rule very likely held good, although it has not yet been found possible to assign a fourth-century prize-vase to a particular red-figure painter.
There are many Panathenaics by the Kleophrades Painter, besides some fragments, and a good many others are either from his hand or in his manner.[36] It would be natural to expect, considering the number of replicas required in the production of Panathenaic amphorae, that some of the work would be turned over to copyists, but this does not seem to have been common. Two of the Kleophrades Painter's Panathenaics are in New York. One of them has a chariot on the reverse, the other a pair of pancratiasts. The Athena on the chariot-vase (pl. 96, 2)[37] shows how much character could be imparted to the traditional figure; as one might anticipate from his red-
figure work, no Panathenaic Athenas give such an impression of power as the Kleophrades Painter's. This is partly due to the sit of the figure and to the proportions, partly to the massive forms, both in body and in head; in the head the large ear and nostril and thick lips are Kleophradean. Even the lettering is exceptionally bold. The shield-device is always a Pegasus. The charioteer on the reverse is not very well preserved. The second New York vase[38] has a scene from the pancration (pl. 96, 3), which was an all-in combination of wrestling and boxing. One man has kicked the other, who catches his opponent's foot, passes his hand under his leg, and tilts him backwards. A judge or trainer stands watching, holding the forked wand of his office. A third vase, in Munich, was a prize for the pentathlon (pl. 96, 4).[39] The man in the middle stands with one leg frontal, holding a pair of halteres[*] , jumping-weights; his companion prepares to throw the javelin; the third figure is again a judge. These powerfully built athletes are the brothers of those on red-figured vases by the Kleophrades Painter, such as his calyx-krater in Tarquinia.[40] It will be noticed that the anatomy of the middle of the body is now fully carried out. Fragments from the Acropolis give a good head of Athena by this artist, and parts of another event, the longdistance foot-race.[41]
The Eucharides Painter is an able artist of the second class, and his Panathenaics are sound.[42] His vases in London and Toronto[43] were both prizes for the horse-race (pl. 96, 5–6). The small jockeys ply the whip, and one of them looks round, as often in ancient pictures, although the practice is said to be discouraged on the modern race-course. Athena now has a distinct sleeve. Her shield-device in both vases is a snake.
The Panathenaics by the Berlin Painter are more important.[44] His prize-vases belong to his latest period, after 480; it is as if he received the contract after the Kleophrades Painter had given up this class of work. We possess a long series of prize-vases the earlier of which are by the Berlin Painter, the later by a pupil and follower, also a great red-figure artist, the Achilles Painter. These take us well into the classic period, to 440 B.C. or even later. The earliest of the Berlin Painter's Panathenaics is from the Marquess of Northampton's collection at Castle Ashby and now in New York.[45] The Athena is slenderer than the Kleophrades Painter's, with a long face and neck (pl. 97, 1). On the skirt of the sleeved chiton groups of massed vertical folds alternate with void spaces as in the later among the red-figure vases of the Berlin Painter. The shield-rim is set with small, dense, red dots. The device, as always in the Berlin Achilles series, is a gorgoneion. The other picture represents the longdistance foot-race, four tall elegant figures (pl. 97, 2). The post is shown, but this is not the finish, only the turn; there is thus hope that the elderly man who is running fourth, but well within himself, will forge ahead and win after all. While three of the runners raise the forward leg, as is usual in the art of the sixth and fifth centuries, one of them raises the back leg, which is rare until the second half of the fifth.[46] Rare also, so early, that the arm-leg movement, as in nature, is diagonal; in all four figures left leg and right arm move forward together, and right leg and left arm.[47] Lastly, the
three-quarter views of breast and back are well executed. All these particulars contribute to the appearance of ease and grace.
The Athena of the Panathenaic in Warsaw from the Czartoryski collection in Castle Goluchow[48] differs only in minor details. The reverse represents a horse-race: graceful horses with small heads; slender boys using sticks instead of whips; one of them looking back. On the Vatican Panathenaic (pl. 97, 3),[49] in which there is some repainting, the subject is the boys' sprint; here again the arm-leg movement is crosswise in most of the figures and in two of them the shoulders are in three-quarter back-view. The next stage is illustrated by the amphora once in El Merj,[50] where the men's sprint resembles the boys' sprint on the Vatican vase, and the Athena differs only in being taller and thinner.
Two Panathenaics, found together in a tomb at Bologna (pls. 97, 4–5 and 98, 1–2), and now in the Museum there, are by the Achilles Painter and, as we said, not earlier than 440.[51] The Athena (device still a gorgoneion) is a repetition of that at Benghazi, and the men's sprint is much the same as there, but the hand is unmistakably the Achilles Painter's. The other Bologna vase relates to the long-distance race for boys, but the picture consists of two groups, not thought of as simultaneous. On the left are two boys running, one sprinting to overtake the other; on the right, the victor, holding branches in his hands, stands frontal and looks up at a man who may be a trainer, although he is not characterised as such. Another sprint by the Achilles Painter is on a fragmentary Panathenaic from the Robinson Collection at Oxford, Mississippi and now in the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University.[52] Three others, all fragmentary, from the same collection, are later, about 430, and by another artist;[53] the two Athenas that remain are even slimmer than in the Achilles Painter, and the drawing is drier and more formal. The device is Nike proffering a wreath.
The Kuban Group, so called after a vase found in that district of South Russia, brings us to the very end of the fifth century.[54] On a small vase of this group, in the British Museum (pl. 98, 3–4),[55] the Athena is still more meagre than on the Robinson vases, and even the cocks have become scraggy. The reverse illustrates a new event (of which there are a few other pictures, all from the end of the fifth century and the early part of the fourth): javelin-throwing on horseback, the target a shield fastened to a post. It has been noticed that, entertaining as this may have been, it was not regarded as a very serious athletic performance, since we read that only five amphorae were awarded as the first prize.[56] The full-size Panathenaics of this group are more striking, if that is the word. The vase from the Kuban, in Leningrad (pl. 98, 5–6),[57] has an absurd Athena, with long legs, straight skirt, and on a long neck a tiny head. The florid ornamentation of the garments is in late fifth-century taste at its lowest. The device is a star with a small gorgoneion in the middle. The cocks are scraggy. On the reverse, the end of a boxing-match; the fallen boxer raises his finger in sign of submission. A third boxer, holding a strigil, looks on, and the judge is also present. This is the unbearably trivial style that is common at the end of the fifth century and the beginning of the fourth. In the London chariot-vase by the same
painter the garments are even more ornate, and the lower edge of the chiton is decorated with a frieze of dancing-girls (pl. 99, 1).[58] A third vase by the same painter, also in London (pl. 99, 2), was a prize in the pentathlon.[59] The potter has allowed himself to tamper with the shape, and has given the body a melon-like form which happily was not imitated. The device on the shield is interesting; it represents the bronze statues of the Tyrant-slayers, by Kritios and Nesiotes, set up at Athens in the year 476. The same device occurs on two Panathenaics of the same period as ours, but by a different painter, in Hildesheim (pl. 99, 3–4).[60] It has been argued that the choice of this exceptional device commemorates the expulsion of other tyrants, the Thirty, and the restoration of the democratic regime at Athens, in the autumn of the year 403; the amphorae would then have been offered as prizes at the Panathenaic games of summer, 402.
What will happen now? Will the Athena, and the cocks, grow still thinner? The answer is given by a vase in Berlin (pl. 100, 1–2), which bears, or bore, its date upon it.[61] In the fourth century it became the practice to inscribe the Panathenaic amphorae with the name of the archon for the year. As we know—from other sources—the archons for every year in the fourth century, we can date the vases exactly. The practice must have been prescribed by a law passed early in the fourth century. It might be thought that the date would be that of the Panathenaea at which the amphora was awarded, but this is not so; the date is that of the collection of the oil.[62] The earliest fairly complete amphora with the archon's name is in Oxford (pl. 99, 5); the archon is Asteios, 373/2 B.C. , but a small fragment in Istanbul bears an archon's name which can be restored with certainty as Hippodamas, who held office in 375/4.[63] Now the Berlin Panathenaic also bore an archon-name, but unfortunately all the letters except the final sigma are effaced. The style shows the vase to be earlier than the Asteios amphora, and it is stated that there is space for just seven letters before the sigma, neither less nor more; if so, the archon was Philokles, of 392/1 B.C. [64] The style would suit a date somewhere in that neighbourhood, and the costume of the Athena recalls the Hildesheim vases. In any case the figure is a reaction from the exaggerated Athena of the Kuban Group; the proportions are normal, and the drapery plain. What of the cocks? They were past revival, and have been abolished. Their place on top of the columns is taken by a small design often reproducing a statue; here a figure of Agathos Daimon on the left, and of Agathe Tyche on the right. The "symbols," as they are called, change from year to year, and may be compared, roughly, to the "symbols" on coins. The picture on the reverse of the Berlin vase is again javelin-throwing on horseback, but here the youths wear helmets. The foot of the vase is modern.
The small fragment of 375/4 in Istanbul gives, besides the archon's name, the name of a potter Bakchios,[65] a member of a family about which something is known (pl. 99, 6). Another member of it was the potter Kittos whose signature appears on a Panathenaic in the British Museum (pl. 100, 3–4).[66] It is unusual in not bearing the name of the archon—it may have been a competition sample,—but the style of the
Athena shows it to be not far from the archonship of Polyzelos, in 367/6 B.C. , from which several Panathenaics have been preserved.[67] We have already spoken of the elegant shape, with the innovations, accepted henceforth, in mouth and foot; another novelty is that the traditional rays at the base have disappeared. The costume of Kittos' Athena is very plain, with simple folds; the helmet and crest are more fanciful. The device is a star, and the columns are surmounted by figures of Triptolemos. The inscription, for the first time, is written kionedon , the letters horizontal instead of lengthwise. On the reverse, pancration; one youth has the head of the other in chancery. The drawing is accomplished, and elegant to excess: a more unsuitable style for a picture of what was a slightly regulated rough-and-tumble cannot easily be conceived. In the London Panathenaic with the name of the archon Polyzelos, 367/6 B.C. (pl. 101, 1–2),[68] the goddess resembles the Athena of Kittos, and the shield is the same—device a star, sparse white dots on the rim. The layout of the wrestling-scene on the reverse is much as in the Kittos vase, and the two might go back to a rough sketch by one artist; the style, however, is as different as can be. There is no elegance here; the wrestlers are short, heavy, and unprepossessing.
Sometime between 359 and 348 B.C. , a change was made in the Panathenaic Athena, it is not known why, and a new series begins.[69] The goddess now faces right instead of left. The inside of the shield is now shown instead of the outside, and we are deprived in consequence of the shield-device. A good example of the new Athena, though not one of the earliest, is on the Panathenaic in Harvard (pl. 101, 3–4) which bears the name of the archon Theiophrastos, 340/339 B.C. .[70] The skirt is longer; the aegis is reduced to a mere cross-cord with a small gorgoneion (here faded) in the middle, and the garment clings to the breasts as well as to the rest of the figure. A swallow-tailed wrap is worn over the shoulders: this is not a novelty, as it appears on a Panathenaic in Eleusis of the year 363/2 B.C. [71] The swallow-tails are echoed in the lower edges of the over-garment above the knees, and at the ankles in a rudimentary train. The edges are stressed by thick white borders. The swallow-tails do not really correspond to anything archaic, but they become a feature of archaistic work at the beginning of the fourth century and remain so throughout antiquity. Is it quite by chance that this Athena reminds one of early twentieth-century fashion plates? Or may not a Paris designer at his wits' end, desparately turning the pages of a dictionary of art in search of a new and hideous idea, have hit upon a woodcut of a fourth-century Panathenaic amphora, and suddenly warmed at the sight of antiquity at its worst?
This Athena was stereotyped, and was repeated on all Panathenaics from the introduction of the rightward turn. Thenceforth the reverses varied greatly in style, but the obverse was drawn to pattern.
The reverse of the Harvard vase has a very unusual representation (pl. 101, 4). Two boxers are seen, not fighting, but receiving instructions from an official before the match (rather, I suppose, than being warned for infringing the rules). On the left is a female figure leaning on a pillar, looking round towards the athletes, with her
face in three-quarter view. The himation is drawn tightly round the whole body, and, as often in the fourth century, covers chin and mouth. An inscription informs us that this is Olympias, the personification of the athletic festival at Olympia. It is surprising to find Olympias depicted on a prize awarded at another sports meeting, the Panathenaea. It can only mean that the victor in the boxing contest at the Panathenaea stands a good chance of winning the still more important contest at Olympia two years later; Olympias, as it were, has her eye on the pair. Modern parallels will occur, and we think of Pindar's odes, in which the poet often contrives, as has been said, to congratulate an athlete on an Olympic victory which he might have won.[72] In his tenth Nemean ode he actually speaks of a victory at the Panathenaea as being a "prelude" to a victory at Olympia.[73] The presence of Olympias on the reverse of the Harvard vase is perhaps answered by the presence of Zeus, in whose honour the Olympic games were held, as a symbol on the obverse: on the left column, a figure of Athena; on the right column, Zeus, sceptred, holding Nike on his hand. The figures are tall, with small heads: these are already the so-called Lysippean proportions of the late fourth century. It is characteristic, too, of that period that three of the four figures front the spectator.
The next year from which Panathenaic amphorae have survived is the archonship of Pythodelos, 336/5, four years later than the Harvard vase. On a Panathenaic with this name in the British Museum[74] the Athena is the same (pl. 102, 1), but the symbols are changed: the small figure of Athena on the left-hand column holds an aphlaston —stern-ornament of a ship—on which an owl is perched; the other symbol is Triptolemos sitting in his winged car, with a "bakchos" beside him—the bundle of branches carried by initiates at Eleusis.[75] The reverse has a pair of boxers again, but in action (pl. 102, 2). On the left, a third boxer, perhaps the winner of the other semifinal, watches; on the right, a female figure, as in the Harvard vase: Nike, dressed in white chiton and dark mantle, holds a palm-branch. The boxers have small bulletheads, thick limbs, and heavy, gross bodies with thick waists; this is a new ideal. There is another novelty; the boxers wear the new heavy glove, while those of the Theiophrastos amphora still wore the old light hand-covering consisting of a simple soft thong. The new glove must have been introduced at the Panathenaea between 339 and 336; at the Panathenaea, and about the same time at all the great athletic meetings, including Olympia.[76] The terrible new glove, and the changed physical type of the boxers, are both symptomatic of a certain trend in the sporting thought of the time; the aged Plato, it will be remembered, had favoured the heavy glove for the young men. On the neck of the vase, an olive-wreath is substituted for the traditional ornament. There is only one other Panathenaic with an olive-wreath;[77] the innovation did not find favour. Another fruitless experiment was made in the same year. On a second vase with the name of Pythodelos in London (pl. 102, 3),[78] and another in Munich (pl. 102, 4),[79] the upper part of the Athena is the same as usual, but the feet are close together, and the effect of a hobble-skirt is obtained. On the reverse (pl. 103, 2) the race in armour, four ponderous athletes in the same taste as
the brute boxers. In the amphora from the year of the archon Niketes, 332/1, in the British Museum (pl. 103, 1 and 3),[80] the Athena, though of the usual type, is a little simpler; the artist has pared away the train at the ankles and the projecting end at the thigh. In the pancration on the reverse, one man has again his opponent's head in chancery; he catches it in the crook of his arm and pummels it. The referee is ready to intervene if necessary, and there is a third athlete. He gazes out of the picture, and the whole composition has that frontal tendency to which we have referred.[81] A little later is the Panathenaic in the British Museum from the year of the archon Euthykritos, 328/7 (pls. 103, 4 and 104, 1):[82] it is not very well preserved, but deserves a glance because it shows that even at this late period the sprinter might still be represented, as in early times, with left leg and left arm both advanced. All four runners, however, set the forward foot on the ground and raise the back leg; this scheme has at last driven out the more violent one in which the forward leg is raised. On a Panathenaic in Leningrad, the back foot is again lifted, but the arm-leg movement is diagonal.[83] The archon's name is lost, but the style is so like that of a Panathenaic which bears the archon-name Neaichmos that the date should be the same, 320/319 B.C.
The last archon's name to appear, on a small fragment of an extant Panathenaic, is Polemon, 312/311.[84] Just how much longer the practice persisted is not established; Hellenistic Panathenaics bear the names of other, minor magistrates, the tamias, the agonothetes, whose dates are seldom known.[85] The official inscription twn Aqhnhqenaqlwn was still used in the second century B.C. A second-century Panathenaic in Berlin (pl. 104, 2–3), although uninscribed, was doubtless a prize at the Panathenaea.[86] The fourth-century Panathenaics, however one may judge the style of the drawing, are handsome pieces of pottery, skilfully fashioned, technically sound, with fine colour and surface; in the Hellenistic period the technique has collapsed. In the Berlin amphora one recognises the old shape, but caricatured: the traditional Athena, but debased and furnished with a baroque Corinthian helmet instead of the Attic. Of the horses it were well to say nothing. Red-figure had long been extinct: this is the end of black-figure. We have followed its story, in the Panathenaic amphora, from the days of Peisistratos to the days of Kleisthenes, of Themistokles, of Kimon, of Perikles, of Alcibiades, of Kallistratos, of Demosthenes, of Lachares, of Chremonides, of Eurykleides, of Kephisodoros. Looking back over the distance we have travelled in earlier chapters, we see the age of Kleisthenes, beyond it the ages of Peisistratos and Solon, beyond those the seventh century, and beyond that, ages in which although almost everything is misty this small plot of ground is clear.