Three Centuries of Hellenistic Terracottas the Second Century B.C.

Abstract

A S we have seen in the previous articles of this series, Athens during the 3rd century B.C. produced an abundance of figurines of which the Agora excavations obtained a fair, if fragmentary, sampling. For the coroplastic work of the 2nd century, we have not discovered so much material nor so much chronological evidence. This period was evidently not very productive. The groups of terracottas which we have studied above (pp. 276-292), the Komos Cistern and Group C, moreover, did not end neatly with the end of the 3rd preChristian century, but they evidently included a certain amount that must be dated within the next half-century. The line of demarcation is vague between work of the latest 3rd century and of the earlier 2nd century. Similarly, at the other end, the natural limit of chronological grouping falls not at 100 B.C. but at 86 B.C. when the sack of Athens by Sulla filled wells and cisterns with destruction debris. This discussion is therefore devoted to the period ca. 200-86 B.C. and will be divided into three sections.