Appendix B (to P. 168). the Date of the Argive-Aeginetan Embargo on Attic Pottery
The outstanding facts in the history of Attic pottery are these. During the dark ages Attic pottery takes perhaps the foremost place in the whole of Greece Proper. The dominant ware of this period is of a well defined style generally known as Geometric, of which the Attic “Dipylon” ware (fig. 43) is a superior and well represented variety1526, that appears to have been in considerable request beyond the borders of Attica1527. The period of eclipse for Attic pottery is the seventh century and the beginning of the sixth. During this period oriental influences made themselves felt in all Greek arts and crafts. In Greece Proper the dominant pottery of the period is the Corinthian (figs. 22, 34), and another ware that began somewhat earlier but largely overlapped it, generally known as Proto-Corinthian (fig. 44). These two fabrics flooded most of Greece as well as Sicily and Italy, and are found in abundance in many Greek cities of the East. But in Attica Dipylon ware seems to have held the market well into the seventh century1528, and to have been followed by the vases known as Proto-Attic and Phaleron1529, which occupy only a humble place in the ceramic history of the period1530. Then in the first half of the sixth century Attica developed its famous Black Figure style (fig. 41), that quickly drove all competitors out of the market.
From the commercial point of view an embargo on Attic pottery between about 670 and 570 B.C. would have been practically pointless. It is only before the earlier date and after the later that Attic pottery was a menace to its rivals. As between these dates all that is known of the history of pottery in the Argolid and Aegina inclines strongly in favour of the earlier period. The most ardent protectionist will admit that protection is useless without something to protect, and from 570 B.C. onwards neither Argos nor Aegina appears to have had any interest in any possible rival to Attic ware. But in the early part of the seventh century Argos and Aegina alike were flooded with both Corinthian1531 and Proto-Corinthian1532 pottery, and, as may be gathered from the traditions about the lot of Temenos1533, it is highly probable that they were much interested in pushing these wares, which are found in large quantities not only in Greece Proper, but also in Italy, Asia Minor, and even further afield1534. Corinthian pottery is unquestionably a Corinthian product1535. The place of origin of Proto-Corinthian is, as has been already noticed, much disputed. It has been claimed for Aegina itself1536, and for Argos1537. Corinth is a possibility1538, as also is Chalcis, for which latter the abundant finds at Cumae are interesting but by no means decisive evidence1539. Most archaeologists prefer Sicyon1540.
The balance of expert opinion at present is certainly in favour of the North-east Peloponnesus1541. In Chapter VI evidence is cited to show that the whole of this region was probably under Argive domination previous to the establishment of tyrannies at Corinth and Sicyon about the year 660 B.C. But after that the situation changes. Corinth and Sicyon become strong cities, friendly to one another and hostile to Argos1542. Corinthian pottery eclipses all its rivals, with Proto-Corinthian as an easy but lagging second. If Argos had wanted protection for her native pottery in the second half of the seventh century, she would have excluded not Attic pottery, but the wares of Corinth, and perhaps Sicyon1543. Attic pottery revived and began to dominate the Greek market about 570 B.C., and that is the date to which the embargo is assigned by Hoppin, who published the pottery from the Argive Heraeum. But if that was the date, then, as he himself declares, its motive cart have been “nothing but simple spite, since no increased activity on the part of the Argive potters is the result1544.” The motive that Hoppin so rightly desiderated can best have been at work when Proto-Corinthian and Corinthian pottery was already on the market, but Corinth and Sicyon were not yet under tyrants.
Thus on à priori grounds the early years of the seventh century form far the most likely period for an Aeginetan or Argive embargo on the pottery of Attica1545. The power that destroyed the Dipylon ships1546 might well have struck a blow at Dipylon pottery, if only to improve its own position in the carrying trade.
It remains to test this general probability by the evidence of the sites more immediately concerned.
In Aegina Attica Black Figure pottery has been found in some abundance1547. In fact Attic pottery found a ready entrance from the latter half of the seventh century onwards1548. If there is any stage of Attic pottery that is poorly represented on the island, it is the Proto-Attic and Phaleron. Such at any rate is the evidence of the excavations at the temple of Aphaia; and the scarcity of early orientalizing Attic harmonizes with what is known of the Geometric pottery from the site. This latter style, so Thiersch reports1549, is richly represented, and in two groups, which are plainly imports from the neighbouring regions of Attica and the Argolid. The Attic ware predominates at first, the finds at Eleusis and the Athenian Kerameikos offering the closest analogies. Towards the end of the Geometric style, when it begins to connect up with Proto-Corinthian, the second great group of imports begins, with types that are also found in great numbers in the Argolid, at Tiryns and the Argive Heraeum.
Again, in the Aeginetan temple of Aphrodite, where the pottery found by Stais has been published by Pallat1550, Geometric sherds, in clay and technique not to be distinguished from Attic, were fairly numerous, but coming down from the eighth century to the seventh, we are told that the Attic pottery of the period, the so-called Proto-Attic, is represented only by a few types, some of which are perhaps only imitations of the genuine Attic.
Similarly, the excavators of the Argive Heraeum report that “in the Argolid we find the Geometric style ceasing almost abruptly, while the Argive style becomes as it were emancipated1551.” Argive is the Americans’ name for Proto-Corinthian1552.
The vast majority of the fragments of this period from the Aphrodite temple are Proto-Corinthian or early Corinthian1553. Attic pottery reappears among the finds of about the middle of the sixth century, with a few sherds of Kleinmeister kylikes. Pallat indeed1554 speaks further on of the Proto-Attic (i.e. early seventh century Attic) that is richly represented at Aegina, and Loeschcke too speaks of all stages of Attic ware from Dipylon onwards occurring in the island1555. Unfortunately, such terms as rare and abundant are still used by archaeologists in the loosest and most misleading way. The only vases Loeschcke quotes are a “Tyrrhenian” amphora, and an Ergotimos cup, i.e. two early sixth century vases, both from the Fontana collection, and attributed to Aegina only on the authority of dealers or collectors of the early part of the nineteenth century1556. The fact remains that in the properly recorded excavations on the island, it is early in the seventh century that Attic pottery occupies its least prominent position, and that in the museum at Aegina1557, which includes the Aphaia finds and specimen pieces from the 1904 excavations at the Aphrodite temple, there is plenty of Mycenaean, Geometric, Proto-Corinthian, and Corinthian pottery, some early Black Figure (about 550 B.C.), and a fair number of late Black Figure vases, but no Proto-Attic at all.
For Argos the evidence is limited mainly to the finds from the Heraeum, the temple some miles from the city, that was excavated by the Americans. As mentioned already, the evidence from this site has been used for dating the embargo in the second half of the sixth century1558. Unfortunately, the American report is mistaken in the dating of some of its finds. It ascribes to the first half of the sixth century the archaizing Attic potter Nikosthenes, who flourished in the second half1559. The only two types of Attic fragments that the report states to have been found in considerable numbers1560 both belong to the latter part of the century, and not, as the report states, to the first half of it. The finds therefore can hardly be quoted as indicating an exclusion of Attic pottery that started in the middle of the sixth century. They include only a very few fragments of early seventh century Attic1561.
The indignant Argives and Aeginetans who, at the date that we are trying to determine, had crushed the Athenians in Aegina, did not merely exclude Attic pottery from the temple or temples of their outraged deities. They insisted further on the exclusive use of local pottery. It is highly probable that a whole mass of this local pottery, used for this very purpose, has actually come down to us. In the recent excavations of the Heraeum at Tiryns, the vast majority of the dedicated vases are miniature vessels of local fabric. The number reaches nearly a thousand, forming a series that begins in the seventh century and runs right through the sixth century into the fifth1562. Miniature vases similar in style, and presumably of about the same date, were found in like abundance in the Argive Heraeum1563, where they were dated by the Americans many centuries too early. They form the most characteristic series of vase dedications in the temple. It has been suggested with much plausibility by Frickenhaus in the Tiryns publication1564, that it was just such a mass of similar votive vases that was seen by Herodotus in the temple of Damia and Auxesia in Aegina. If Frickenhaus is right, the exclusion of Attic pottery from certain temples in Aegina and the Argolid is naturally put back at least into the seventh century. Frickenhaus refuses to believe that the use of these “native pots” was due to the reason given by Herodotus. But does the association of these harmless little local vases with an anti-Attic policy really look like an aetiological invention?
In the Aphaia temple on Aegina a quantity of local hand-made ware was found in the form of pots, jugs, plates, hydriae, amphorae, etc., large enough for use. Furtwaengler refers to them as χύτραι1565, another form of the word used by Herodotus of the native pots dedicated to Damia and Auxesia. Similar plain ware for practical use is found on many sites1566, and is not likely to have attracted the notice of Herodotus, though on the other hand the word that he uses (pots, χυτρίδες) points to plain coarse ware1567. If this is the ware he noticed, our dating is not however affected, since the principal shapes find their nearest parallels in Geometric graves.