DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.8577#0014
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Vlll
PREFACE
explained; there was a dazzling wealth of spoils from Rhodes and the great sites
of the Asiatic seaboard; and there was a tendency, reasonable enough at that
time, to interpret the archaeological material in the light of racial and psycho-
logical rather than of geographical and economic factors. For these and other
reasons the 'new creative power' of the post-geometric period seemed 'almost
exclusively the property of the Ionians'. But the passage from which these
words are taken (p. 80 of Furtwangler's Gemmen) is worth quoting in full, as
it contains a special reference to Corinth: 'Das Neue und Schopferische in der
nun heranreifenden archaischen Kunst ist fastganzEigentumderlonier; und
wie das neue Ionische Wesen dann in Mutterlande aufgenommen und
umgestaltet wurde, das ist der Inhalt der archaischen Periode in Hellas . . .
Das Ionische siegt allenthalben; seine erste grosse Eroberung im Peloponnes
war Korinth, und dieser geschaftig industrielle Ort hat mit dem Eifer eines
Proselyten fur das Neue Propaganda gemacht.'
The substance of this estimate of Ionia has often been expressed or implied
since that was written; it would be easy to mention quite recent works in
which it may be found. I could not discuss it here without involving myself
in the whole development of the early archaic style in Greece; and this is
certainly not the place for a discussion of that kind. But it may be worth while
simply to state that, with a very great quantity of evidence before us, it is per-
fectly clear that the nineteenth-century view of the relation between Ionia and
the Peloponnese was mistaken; that Corinth in particular never depended on
Ionia for her knowledge of the East; and that her great contribution in the
archaic period was the development of a style, or of a series of styles, which,
though they may occasionally betray Ionian influence by small details, were in
reality the direct antithesis of the corresponding styles of Eastern Greece. It
is, I think, no exaggeration to say that this antithesis characterizes every one
of the categories discussed in this book. We now know enough of the early
local styles of Greece to realize that there was no one prevailing influence,
though there were, of course, primary and secondary, originative and
adaptive, forces. It would, perhaps, not be very far from the truth to suggest
that in the early archaic period there were three primary forces at work:
1, Eastern Greece (with its centre in Miletus, Samos, Ephesus, and Rhodes);
2, Crete; 3, Corinth and Sicyon. At any rate it is in relation to one or
another of these that much of the character of the various early schools is
explicable.
In the two years which have passed since my manuscript was sent to press,
our Corinthian material has been greatly increased by excavation in Greece.
At Aegina, it appears, large quantities of Protocorinthian and Corinthian
pottery are still being found; but I have principally in mind two other sources
—Corinth itself, where the American School is making exceedingly important
discoveries, and the Heraeum of Perachora.
Vlll
PREFACE
explained; there was a dazzling wealth of spoils from Rhodes and the great sites
of the Asiatic seaboard; and there was a tendency, reasonable enough at that
time, to interpret the archaeological material in the light of racial and psycho-
logical rather than of geographical and economic factors. For these and other
reasons the 'new creative power' of the post-geometric period seemed 'almost
exclusively the property of the Ionians'. But the passage from which these
words are taken (p. 80 of Furtwangler's Gemmen) is worth quoting in full, as
it contains a special reference to Corinth: 'Das Neue und Schopferische in der
nun heranreifenden archaischen Kunst ist fastganzEigentumderlonier; und
wie das neue Ionische Wesen dann in Mutterlande aufgenommen und
umgestaltet wurde, das ist der Inhalt der archaischen Periode in Hellas . . .
Das Ionische siegt allenthalben; seine erste grosse Eroberung im Peloponnes
war Korinth, und dieser geschaftig industrielle Ort hat mit dem Eifer eines
Proselyten fur das Neue Propaganda gemacht.'
The substance of this estimate of Ionia has often been expressed or implied
since that was written; it would be easy to mention quite recent works in
which it may be found. I could not discuss it here without involving myself
in the whole development of the early archaic style in Greece; and this is
certainly not the place for a discussion of that kind. But it may be worth while
simply to state that, with a very great quantity of evidence before us, it is per-
fectly clear that the nineteenth-century view of the relation between Ionia and
the Peloponnese was mistaken; that Corinth in particular never depended on
Ionia for her knowledge of the East; and that her great contribution in the
archaic period was the development of a style, or of a series of styles, which,
though they may occasionally betray Ionian influence by small details, were in
reality the direct antithesis of the corresponding styles of Eastern Greece. It
is, I think, no exaggeration to say that this antithesis characterizes every one
of the categories discussed in this book. We now know enough of the early
local styles of Greece to realize that there was no one prevailing influence,
though there were, of course, primary and secondary, originative and
adaptive, forces. It would, perhaps, not be very far from the truth to suggest
that in the early archaic period there were three primary forces at work:
1, Eastern Greece (with its centre in Miletus, Samos, Ephesus, and Rhodes);
2, Crete; 3, Corinth and Sicyon. At any rate it is in relation to one or
another of these that much of the character of the various early schools is
explicable.
In the two years which have passed since my manuscript was sent to press,
our Corinthian material has been greatly increased by excavation in Greece.
At Aegina, it appears, large quantities of Protocorinthian and Corinthian
pottery are still being found; but I have principally in mind two other sources
—Corinth itself, where the American School is making exceedingly important
discoveries, and the Heraeum of Perachora.