Attalos, Athens, and the Akropolis: The Pergamene 'Little Barbarians' and their Roman and Renaissance Legacy

Description

This volume examines the 'little barbarians', ten highly expressive Roman marble figures of Giants, Amazons, Persians, and Gauls that were found in Rome in 1514 and are now recognized as copies of the Small (or Lesser) Attalid Dedication on the Athenian Akropolis. Manolis Korres' recent discovery of the monument's pedestals, fully published in this volume, has led Andrew Stewart to a complete reconsideration of the statues' form, date, and significance. He demonstrates that this is the only Hellenistic royal donation of sculpture whose donor, location, and form are all known; the only one securely identified in copy; and the only one whose life can be glimpsed from beginning to end, a period ranging over 2200 years. Illustrated with new photographs of all ten Barbarians, and 26 new drawings by Manolis Korres, it systematically traces the Barbarians' impact upon Roman and Renaissance art, and the intellectual history of art and archaeology.

Andrew Stewart is Professor of Ancient Mediterranean Art and Archaeology at University of California, Berkeley. A recipient of fellowships from the Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities and Guggenheim Foundation, he is the author of numerous works on aspects of Greek art, including Greek Sculpture: An Exploration; Faces of Power: Alexander's Image and Hellenistic Politics; and Art, Desire, and the Body in Ancient Greece.

'... the author's stated aim, 'to explain something of what Roman art was intended to do, how it functioned, and how ... it was perceived', has been brilliantly achieved.' Arctos