Two Statuettes from Mycenae

Abstract

The destruction of by the Argives ca. 468 B.C. seems to have been so thorough that two ancient authors imply that the site was abandoned after the event. Diodorus, who tells the story of that destruction so dramatically (11.65), adds that Mycenae remained uninhabited until our day, while Strabo, echoing this impression, wrote a trace of the city was to be seen in his day (8.6.io). The work of the excavators of Mycenae, however, has proved that these authors were not accurately informed. Tsountas especially and after him Wace revealed within the citadel of abundant remnants of houses proving that the site was re-inhabited. It is definitely established that in the third century B.C. the people of Argos built a kome, a township on the hill of Mycenae. It was then that the Cyclopean walls of were patched with polygonal masonry, that the breeches made in the destruction of 468 were bridged. Within the citadel many houses were built, often using the Mycenaean retaining walls and foundations, and the temple on top of the hill was reconstructed on a larger scale. In addition, part of the ridge to the west of the citadel was enclosed by fortification walls and transformed into a Lower City. Of the public buildings in the Lower City, the remains of an imposing fountain, perhaps the Perseia of Pausanias, were cleared by Wace in 1952 and the scanty remains of a theater were revealed, built across the dromos of the so-called Tomb of Clytemnestra. None of the houses excavated was described in detail, and the pottery found in the early excavations was summarily mentioned. Of the other objects discovered only the inscriptions were carefully studied and published, and it is from these inscriptions that we learn of the abduction of the Ephebes of at the very beginning of the second century B.C. by Nabis, the King of Sparta.' Plutarch also has preserved the information that in 235 B.c. the Argive tyrant Aristippos, after an unsuccessful attack on Kleonai, was killed at Mycenae.2 No statuary from the Hellenistic era has been recorded as having been found among the ruins of the Hellenistic village. We have to bear in mind these general facts of the later history of when we try to evaluate works of art found in its ruins. The two statuettes presented here were discovered in our campaign of 1961 on the north slope of the acropolis of Mycenae. They are of small artistic merit perhaps, but since they are the only pieces of sculpture found, or at least recorded, from the Hellenistic township they may prove of some interest. We offer them as a humble tribute from to a distinguished scholar and real friend who has devoted a lifetime to the study and appreciation of Greek statuary. Both were found on the floor of a Hellenistic room built against the Mycenaean terrace wall which formed the south margin of the road leading from the Lion Gate to the foot of the north stairway of the Palace. The context will place them in the second half of the third century B.c. Figures I and 2, pl. 80, illustrate the bronze statuette found on top of fragments of an unpainted pithos lying on the floor of the room. The profile of the rim of the pithos will place it midway between the pithos' fragments from the Agora area published by Thompson,3 i.e. in the third century s.c. and probably in the second half of that century. It stands 6.5 cm. in height and is tolerably well preserved. It represents a kouros holding a phiale in his right hand and a round object in his clenched left. The phiale would seem to indicate a votary preparing to sacrifice. The beardless face and the long hair, done in a pleasant manner combining plasticity and graphic but smooth linear patterns especially noticeable in the rear view, could suggest Apollo, but the phiale indicates a votary. In spite of the fact that the face is rather crudely modeled,