Agoracritus
Agoracritus/ˌæɡəˈrækrɪtəs/(Ancient Greek:ἈγοράκριτοςAgorákritos;fl.late 5th century BC) was a famous sculptor inancient Greece.[1]
Life
[edit]Agoracritus was born on the island ofParos,and was active from aboutOlympiad85 to 88, that is, from about 436 to 424 BC.[2]He was a pupil of the sculptorPhidias.[3]
Only four of Agoracritus' works are mentioned: a statue ofZeusand one ofAthenaItoniain the temple of that goddess atAthens;a statue, probably ofCybele,in the temple of the Great Goddess at Athens;[2]and theRhamnusianNemesis.Respecting this last work there has been a great deal of discussion. The account whichPlinygives of it is that Agoracritus contended withAlcamenes(another distinguished disciple of Phidias) in making a statue ofVenus;and that the Athenians, through an undue partiality towards their countryman, awarded the victory to Alcamenes. Agoracritus, indignant at his defeat, made some slight alterations so as to change his Venus into aNemesis(the goddess of retribution or revenge), and sold it to the people ofRhamnuson the condition that it should never be set up in Athens.
Pausanias,without saying a word about Agoracritus, says that the Rhamnusian Nemesis was the work of Phidias, and was made out of the block ofParian marble,which thePersiansunderDatisandArtaphernesbrought with them for the purpose of setting up a trophy.[4]This account however has been overwhelmingly rejected as involving a confusion of the ideas connected by the Greeks with the goddess Nemesis.[5]The statue moreover was not of Parian, but ofPentelic marble.[6]Strabo,John Tzetzes,theSudaandPhotiusgive other variations in speaking of this statue.[7][8]It seems generally agreed that Pliny's account of the matter is correct in most of the particulars; and there have been various dissertations on the way in which a statue of Venus could have been changed into one of Nemesis.[9][10][11]
As late as the early 20th century, parts of the statue's head were in theBritish Museum;some fragments of the reliefs which adorned the pedestal were in the museum atAthens.[12]By the beginning of the 21st century, enough fragments had been recovered (including the base) that a partial reconstruction of Agoracritus' Nemesis was performed inRhamnus.In it, Nemesis is depicted holding an apple branch and aphiale,wearing a crown decorated with deer. The base depictsLedashowingHelentoTyndareus.[5]
Agoracritus is also a character (the sausage seller) in Greek playwrightAristophanes' playThe Knights.
References
[edit]- ^Mason, Charles Peter (1867),"Agoracritus",in Smith, William (ed.),Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology,vol. 1, Boston:Little, Brown and Company,p. 75
- ^abPliny,Naturalis Historiaxxxvi. 5. s. 4
- ^Chisholm, Hugh,ed. (1911)..Encyclopædia Britannica.Vol. 1 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 381.
- ^See Theteaetus and Parmenio,Anthol. Gr. Planud.iv. 12, 221, 222
- ^abStewart, Anthony F. (1996), "Agoracritus", in Hornblower, Simon (ed.),Oxford Classical Dictionary,Oxford:Oxford University Press
- ^The Unedited Antiquities of Attica, p. 43
- ^Strabo,ix. p. 396
- ^John Tzetzes,Chiliadesvii. 154
- ^Johann Joachim Winckelmann,Sämmtliche Werkevon J. Eiselein, vol. v. p. 364
- ^Jörgen Zoega,Abhandlungen,pp. 56—62
- ^Karl Otfried Müller,Arch. d. Kunstp. 102
- ^Chisholm 1911.
Other sources
[edit]
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain:Smith, William,ed. (1870). "Agoracritus".Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology.
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