Smith, Cecil Harcourt; British Museum <London> [Hrsg.]: Catalogue of the Greek and Etruscan Vases in the British Museum (Band 3): Vases of the finest period (London, 1896)

INTRODUCTION. V

are mentioned (contemptuously enough, it is true) in the Ecclesiaznsm of
Aristophanes, produced in that year. Possibly some of the sepulchral vases
in vol. iv. may be of Attic origin ; but in any case there is no positive evidence
of exported Attic vases which can be assigned to this century. It has con-
sequently been suggested (Milchhofer, Jahrbuch, 1894, p. 79) that by B.C. 400
all the successive styles of purely Attic vase-painting (except those just named),
including, in fact, all the vases here catalogued, had had their day. This
position, suggested long ago by Ross {Arch. Aufs. i, pp. 1-72), but hitherto not
generally accepted, is now a natural corollary of the pushing back of the earlier
chronology, due to the Acropolis excavations. Even so, it presupposes a
development of Attic vase painting which is much more rapid than had hitherto
been imagined, but which is by no means incredible when we compare the rate
of progress made by the major arts in Athens within the same period. It may
be well briefly to examine the archaeological evidence which bears on this
question.

The principal necropolis of Athens itself has been on two occasions at
least subjected to searching investigation. In the excavation at the Hagia
Triada in 1879 a considerable number of tombs of the end of the fifth, and of
the fourth, centuries were opened, among which not a single painted vase worthy
of mention was found. Similarly, in the excavations described in the Ath.
Mittlieil. 1893, p. 73, where 231 tombs were opened, ranging from at least as
early as the sixth century down to 300 B.C., the latest vases painted with figures
are white lekythi of rough workmanship.

Again, many vases have been found at Camiros, in Rhodes, illustrating
most of the varieties of vase painting of the sixth and fifth centuries. One of
the latest examples found on this site is E 506, a crater of careless style, which
we should naturally assign to a period shortly before 400. About 408 B.C. the
city of Rhodes was founded by a combination of the inhabitants of Camiros,
Ialysos, and Lindos ; the relative positions of the necropoleis of Camiros
point to a contraction of that town about this time, and it seems probable that
the older settlements gradually sank into insignificance beside the growing
importance of the new city. In the city of Rhodes itself not a single Attic vase
of a style earlier than E 506 has as yet been found, and, indeed, very few
painted vases of any description ; E 249 and E 250, two hydrise of a debased
fourth century style, are typical examples of the ware which the city of Rhodes
has hitherto yielded. The natural suggestion is that the pottery of the earlier
necropolis of Camiros and that of the city of Rhodes represent a continuous
development, and that the latest of the Camiros vases were made before
B.C. 408.

Several necropoleis containing Attic red-figure or white ware have been
opened in Sicily, at Syracuse, Megara Hyblasa, and Gela, and in Italy at Locri,
and elsewhere ; the latest vases of this ware found here belong to the careless
style, of which E 604, from Gela, is a good example. In 405 B.C. the town of
Gela was taken by the Carthaginians, and the remnant of its inhabitants was