What Travelled with Greek Pottery?

Abstract

During the sixth and fifth centuries very large amounts of Athenian black- and red-figure were transmitted round the Mediterranean. The nature of the exchange relations underlying this pottery distribution have long been a topic for discussion. This paper picks up on earlier arguments that Athenian potters responded to very specific orders from Italian markets and that Italian markets consumed voraciously whatever Athenian potters produced, and investigates what sort of information flowed along the network created by the exchange of pottery. By looking at the find contexts of Athenian pottery outside Athens, and at the images found on that pottery, I argue that in almost all circumstances Greek pottery presupposes rather than transmits cultural knowledge, and so is testimony to a pre-existing network, not an agent in creating new networks.

Keywords:

• Trade
• Pottery
• Greek History
• Etruscans
• Mediterranean

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Christy Constantakopoulou and Katherina Panayopoulou for their invitation to the most hospitable conference at Rethymnon in May 2006, and to the two sympathetic and helpful readers who substantially reinforced the final product.

Notes

 [1] Osborne, ‘Pots’; ‘Why Did Athenian Pots Appeal?’ (with useful corrections of detail in Paléothodoros, ‘Pourquoi les Étrusques achetaient-ils?’). The conclusions about voracity square with those offered independently by Reusser, Vasen für Etrurien.

 [2] Long et al. , ‘Les épaves archaïques’, 205, base this estimate upon the recovery of a minimum number of 1265 ‘Ionian’ cups and more than 500 Attic cups of various sorts (along with 68 transport amphoras. See also Stissi, ‘Modern Finds’, 354; Parker, Ancient Shipwrecks, 192, 323.

 [3] Rouillard, ‘Le vase attique’, 332; for the complex pattern of fine pottery and transport amphoras in archaic wrecks see Long et al., ‘Les épaves archaïques’, 229. It is not the case that no Athenian pottery, other than transport amphoras, is exported in the late eighth and first half of the seventh century, but the quantities are small. For Megara Hyblaea, see De Angelis, Megara Hyblaea and Selinous, 89–90.

 [4] Hesnard, ‘Nouvelles recherches’, 237.

 [5] Compare the discussions in Marconi, ‘Images’; and Osborne, ‘Images’.

 [6] Dubosse, ‘Ensérune’. Open vessels similarly predominate at Saint-Pierre-lès-Martigues: Campenon, ‘La céramique grecque’.

 [7] Gantès, ‘La physionomie’.

 [8] Athenaios, Deipnosophistai, 576; Justin 43.3–4. See Dietler, ‘Driven by Drink’; ‘The Cup of Gyptis’.

 [9] Dietler, ‘The Cup of Gyptis’; ‘The Iron Age’, 278–79, 303.

[10] Dietler, ‘The Cup of Gyptis’, 98: ‘In the highly stratified societies of the Hallstatt area, Mediterranean imports were valued primarily for their diacritical symbolic value in distinguishing elite consumption rituals … In the less politically centralized and socially stratified societies of the Lower Rhône basin, wine was valued as an additional element in the traditional arena of commensal politics by which prestige was competed for.’ The classic survey of the evidence is Shefton, ‘Zum Import und Einfluss’.

[11] Olmos, ‘Usos’, 428.

[12] Olmos, ‘Usos’, 433.

[13] Cabrera, ‘Comercio’.

[14] Shanks, Art and the Early Greek State, fig. 4.2.

[15] Shepherd, ‘The Pride of Most Colonials’.

[16] Gran-Aymerich, ‘Vases grecques’, 449.

[17] Spivey, ‘Greek Vases in Etruria’, 135–37, discussing the Tomba dei Vasi Dipinti and the Tomba della Nave.

[18] Menichetti, Archeologia del potere, 96–98.

[19] Philippaki, The Attic Stamnos.

[20] Shapiro, ‘Modest Athletes’, 330–33. For suggestions that some Dionysiac imagery on stamnoi relates to Etruscan rather than Athenian festivals, see de la Genière, ‘Vases des Lénéennes?’ and ‘Images attiques’; and, for counter-arguments, see Osborne, ‘The Ecstasy’.

[21] De la Genière, ‘Quelques reflexions’, 417: ‘Quant à l'abondance exceptionnelle des épisodes de la légende grecque qui couvrent le reste du vase, elle répond à l'appétit d'érudition d'une société riche et perméable; et pour le cas où l'usage du grec n'y serait pas parfaitement maîtrisé, le peintre a parfois indiqué le nom des objets représentés.’

[22] Snodgrass, Homer and the Artists.

[23] Rizzo, ‘Un incunabulo’.

[24] Spivey and Stoddart, Etruscan Italy, 99.

[25] I owe my knowledge of the philology to Albio Cassio. On this phenomenon, see de Simone, ‘Per la storia’, 497–501, 517–88 and, more generally, Die griechischen Entlehnungen. For the exception of Odysseus, see Malkin, The Returns, 161.

[26] De Angelis, Megara Hyblaia, 57–61; Massa-Pairault, ‘Megarica’, 110–19.

[27] De la Genière, ‘Quelques reflexions’, 420; Marconi, ‘Images’.

[28] De la Genière, ‘Quelques reflexions’, 419.

[29] There are limits to the robustness of Shanks conclusions because his data set does not include fragmentary material and a number of important sites are not represented at all in his data. Nevertheless, it is currently the only such study that is published and it is his data from which I derive my claims here. For what can be achieved with more thorough analysis of the material, see Cooper, Winged Figures in Corinthian Vase-Painting.

[30] Shanks, Art and the Early Greek State, figs. 4.4, 4.5, 4.6.

[31] That is the view argued in Osborne, ‘Pots’.

[32] That is the view argued in Osborne, ‘Why Did Athenian Pots Appeal?’.

[33] Morris and Papadopoulos, ‘Phoenicians’.

[34] On Etruscan pottery, see Beazley, Etruscan Vase Painting; Spivey, The Micali Painter; Martelli, La Ceramica degli Etruschi.

[35] On Nikosthenes, see Tosto, The Black-Figure Pottery Signed [NIKOSTHENESEPOIESEN].