This is an inspiring book. It is not only well researched, nicely illustrated and elegantly written, but it offers a whole range of new perspectives on the Protoattic style and its wider context, with the objects themselves (and their agency) taking center stage. Arrington works to loosen this style from its “orientalizing” paradigm as well as from its elite touch, and instead focuses on the historical, geographical and social margins. It is in these realms that Arrington locates the emergence of the style, and he convincingly argues that it impacted the ways people thought of themselves and connected with each other in a period characterized by an absence of cultural hegemony.
Chapter 1 includes an introduction and an outline of the book, sketches the problems with the orientalizing paradigm, and gives a definition of style which includes performative aspects (p. 14). Finally, an overview of the historical background is provided. This unfortunately is not much concerned with source criticism when accepting all the traditional dates—even 683/2 BCE for the moment “that the archonship became annual” (p. 17)—and the early existence of all the major offices, accepting early wars between Athens and Aegina or Mytilene and relying on the Athenian Constitution for the description of social conflicts in early Athens (pp. 16–18).[1] This is a minor flaw, since the “polis” and the connected political formation processes are refreshingly absent from Arrington’s study; nevertheless, a more critical approach may have helped to undermine the elitist perspective that Arrington’s book forcefully argues against.
Chapter 2 gives a helpful overview of the historiography of Protoattic, starting with the uneasiness the scholars of the 19thcentury felt with the style at least until Boehlau’s seminal paper.[2] Arrington explains how the successive accumulation of vases somewhat contra-intuitively lead not to a widening of the evidence discussed, but to the hardening of a “canon” of popular highest-quality pieces. The turn to consumption in the 1980s opened new perspectives but meant that the individual objects mattered much less. Arrington’s book, in turn, aims to broaden the view to all the Attic pottery of the Early Archaic period and to put production and consumption in dialogue.
The third chapter places Athens in the wider Mediterranean, starting with the question “which way is the orient?”. Arrington deals with “the eastern horizon”, “the western horizon” and “the horizon of antiquity”. The least important seems to be the last one. Arrington argues for the prominence of the past by referring to examples of hero cult and “cult” at buildings of the Geometric period, but the evidence remains problematic in nearly every case.[3] The (re-)foundation of sanctuaries in areas with ruins from the Bronze Age at Eleusis, Kiapha Thiti, Aphidna and Tourkovouni (and the Acropolis?) during/in the 8th/7th century BCE may have been more significant here.[4] Most compelling, though, is Arrington’s treatment of the Western connections of Attica, visible not only in exports of many SOS amphorae and some Late Geometric fine ware as well as very few Western imports, but also the movement of Attic artists to the West (the Francavilla Painter, the painter of the Incoronata dinos, Aristonothos) and the Attic look of other vases and groups from Sicily and Italy (the Narce Painter, the Painter of the Cranes, the Heptachord Painter and “Colonial Style” vases). Arrington underlines that Italy and Sicily were more directly linked with the Near East and may have acted as intermediaries of “oriental” influence on Attica. Less far to the West, but most influential in 7th century BCE Attica and another intermediary, has been Corinth; overall, Athens lay at the margins. Somewhat unfortunate is that Arrington downplays the role of the East maybe a bit too much: the number of imported objects is larger than he admits (pp. 65–66), and other modes of connection, especially mercenaries (p. 66), may have been important. The fact that Homer implies more familiarity with the East than with the West, as Arrington notes (p. 99), underscores this point. Thus, the “orient” for Attica probably lay to the East as well as to the West. Arrington’s thoughts, in any case, are a very welcome reminder that the 7th century BCE Mediterranean was “a more open and multifaceted system of communication” (p. 100) than often acknowledged.
Chapter 4 focuses on interaction at the grave and aims to put the vases found therein into a larger context reaching beyond the moment of deposition. It is based on a list of 7th century BCE burials in the appendix. Arrington not only delves deeper into the wider connotations of vases deposited in graves but rejects structuralist approaches focusing on the elite (if not the very idea that there was an elite which can be clearly separated from the sub-elite). He stresses the large degree of funerary variability and puts into perspective the only seemingly low visibility of 7th BCE century burials. In this way, he argues compellingly for a lack of “cultural hegemony in a period marked by a pervasive spirit of experimentation” (p. 142).[5] His suggestion that the Protoattic style “emerged” in the “marginalized” context of the Phaleron (and his cautious reading of a few Protoattic images as politically subversive) will not convince everyone, but Arrington certainly succeeds in strongly undermining the elite connotations of Protoattic pottery, and this has wider consequences on how we view the 7th century BCE in Attica.[6]
The fifth chapter deals with artists and their styles. Arrington does not engage in connoisseurship[7], but deals with the question of why there are so many different “hands” in the relatively small number of known Protoattic vases (especially when compared with Late Geometric). The material seems not to herald an “age of the individual”, since signatures and trajectories of painters leaving personal legacies are largely absent. Even though demand seems to have been comparatively low, there is an incredible amount of variety. Arrington shows that this is due to a large degree of horizontal mobility (with painters cooperating in varying groups for single commissions, with potters in different locations and with other artisans like figurine-makers); “workshops” identified in connoisseurship studies may be due rather to this high level of mobility than reflect actual productive units with permanent staff. These manifold interactions fueled experimentation, adaptation and rivalry between individual artists; the new role of ornaments and free-hand drawing, and the variety of techniques used further enhanced the emergence of artists’ subjectivities.
Chapter 6 expands the view to the symposion and the sanctuaries, that is to two spheres in which people could use material culture to participate in group activities. There is very little evidence for 7th century BCE symposia, even if loosely defined (p. 191). Nevertheless, Arrington succeeds in assembling some indications on how the production and the use of vases were influenced by this context: drinking vessels appealing because of the contrasts between their two sides may have been created to be passed (and thus turned) around in symposia, the new representations of myth surely sparked discussion in such contexts, and ownership inscriptions scratched into highly visible parts of drinking vessels “performed” the owner’s presence and his membership in this group. In all this, the “oriental” horizon seems to be of little importance. In cult, many humble votives likewise left lasting traces of their (certainly often likewise humble—although this may not be the same as “marginalized”) dedicants and at the same time tied these to the respective cult groups, the composition of which could be very different (even if proximity seems to be a very important criterion). Although vases certainly could have more complex biographies (p. 214), a treatment of the emergence of the first groups of mass-produced figurines could have further added weight to Arrington’s arguments. And even if he is certainly right in stating that the “orient” again seems to play a minor role (if at all) in most cult places, the many orientalizing cauldrons and bronze sheets from the Acropolis (not dealt with) again would have told a somewhat different story. This is not to say that Arrington’s move away from the orientalizing paradigm is not justified and helpful, but only that the pendulum may sway a bit too much into the opposite direction.
The final chapter helpfully recaps the approaches and the outcomes of the study and then asks which arguments are applicable beyond Athens and the 7th century BCE, stating that further research into the margins seems promising, and that much caution seems to be needed when dealing with the ways in which Greek objects connected to other areas of the Mediterranean; the mobility of artisans is one important facet of this. On the other side, the regions of Greece surely differed in many respects: “Regional styles in the seventh-century Mediterranean were pronounced, and they merit scrutiny as such” (p. 222). Arrington’s thoughts about how objects worked in socializing processes, but also in interregional connectivity, are applicable to other areas, too. Finally, Arrington’s book returns to the Phaleron, where the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center has been built over large unexcavated tracts of what gradually emerges as one of the most fascinating ancient cemeteries of Greece, and a museum showcasing at least the famous mass burial(s) is planned. We may join the author in hoping that the Phaleron will not return to the margins of history. His book, at least, is a major step in the opposite direction. It not only highlights this context, but offers many new perspectives on “a fitting style for this period of cultural change” (p. 215) beyond the orientalizing paradigm. It indeed is of much relevance beyond Athens and Attica.
Notes
[1] This is also felt in other chapters, e.g. when Arrington assumes the creation of civic institutions in the 8th century and an increase in hoplite warfare in the 7th century (pp. 141–142, 209), stresses that Hesiod could not have belonged to “an established family dynasty” (p. 143) as the son of an immigrant, thinks that Solon’s reforms change “the qualifications for office from wealth and birth to just wealth” (p. 145) or thinks that Athens and Eleusis were closely connected by the period of Solon at the latest (p. 213).
[2] J. Boehlau, Frühattische Vasen, JdI 2, 1887, 33–66.
[3] See e.g. A. Alexandridou, Sacred or Profane? Interpreting Late Geometric Edifices in Proximity to Burials in Attica, in: I. S. Lemos and A. Tsingarida (eds.), Constructing Social Identities in Early Iron Age and Archaic Greece, Études d’archéologie 12 (Brussels 2017) 43–72; F. van den Eijnde and M. H. Laughy, The Areopagus Oval Building Reconsidered, in: A. Mazarakis Ainian, A. Alexandridou and X. Charalambidou (eds.), Regional Stories: Towards a New Perception of the Early Greek World. An International Symposium in Honour of Professor Jan Bouzek, University of Thessaly, Volos, 18–21 June 2015 (Volos 2017) 229–248; M. H. Laughy, Figurines in the Road. A Protoattic Votive Deposit from the Athenian Agora Reexamined, Hesperia 87, 2018, 633–679.
[4] For references see F. van den Eijnde, Cult and Society in Early Athens, PhD diss. Utrecht 2010 (not included in Arrington’s bibliography).
[5] See now also J. B. Meister, “Adel” und gesellschaftliche Differenzierung im archaischen und frühklassischen Griechenland, Historia Einzelschrift 263 (Stuttgart 2021), especially pp. 189–221.
[6] It may be these results that show the most similarities to those of my Athen und Attika vom 11. bis zum frühen 6. Jh. v. Chr. Siedlungsgeschichte, politische Institutionalisierungs- und gesellschaftliche Formierungsprozesse, Tübinger Archäologische Forschungen 33 (Rahden 2021), published almost concurrently.
[7] G. Rocco, La ceramografia protoattica: pittori e botteghe (710–630 a.C.), Internationale Archäologie 111 (Rahden 2008) remains invaluable for this approach.