Idea and Product: Potter and Philosopher in Classical Athens

Abstract

ed was the arena not of marketing, but of production. Given the way products like pots were bought in large numbers from particular workshops, once the merchant had decided that their deigma or demonstration sample was the best for his customers great importance must have attached to the quality of the product and to its standardization. A workshop that could produce many pots which were as close to the sample or ideal form as possible would clearly be more successful than one that could not. Pots of varying form and quality would inevitably put off purchasers who would hesitate, then as now, being uncertain which was the best. Modern bakeries take great care to ensure that every loaf comes out of the oven looking exactly like all the others in shape and colour and the workers in the kilns of the potters' quarter of Athens, the Kerameikos, must have done the same. Certainly there is a remarkable constancy of shape, colour and finish in the Attic black and red figure pots which are the glory of their production. Nowadays constancy of product in series production is above all guaranteed by automation and careful maintenance of the production apparatus, but in ancient Greece where there were no micrometers or thermometers such control was impossible. Instead the principal aid to quality control was the use of a paradeigma or exemplar from which all those involved in production would work. The word paradeigma means Idea and Product: Potter and Philosopher in Classical Athens 67 This content downloaded from 157.55.39.127 on Sun, 26 Jun 2016 06:29:46 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms