the attic stelai - The American School of Classical Studies at Athens

252 W. KENDRICK PRITCHETT
be smikros gegracmmenos (VII, 60-61), and one is called poikilos (VII, 62). Anything
with lettering, drawing, or painting could be referred to as gegrammenos,277
while poikilos definitely suggests the use of paint of various colors.278 Painted pinakes
were ordinarily done in tempera on pieces of wood, stone, or terracotta, which had
been covered first with white paint or chalk.279 There was a second method of coloring
a pinax called enkausis, by which heated wax color was applied to a plaque of wood or
ivory.280 Since such a pinax was generally signed o 8dEva 'VE'KavcrEv, it seems unlikely
that the term gegrammenos would be applied; thus it is possible that the pinakes first
mentioned in our list were painted in tempera, and that the one labelled poikilos was
done in encaustic.
Pollux (X, 84) reported the pinax poikilos as being air opo4hjg; apparently this
phrase comes from the Skeuographikon of Eratosthenes,28' representing the opinion
of a fourth-century antiquarian as to the kind of painted board this was. According
to Eratosthenes it was a panel to be fixed to a decorated ceiling, but Pliny 282 later
asserted that Pausias of Sikyon, a fourth-century painter, was the first to introduce
the practice of painting panels (laccncurica). Either Eratosthenes was reading a practice
of his own day back into the Attic Stelai, or else Pliny was too precise in his
attempt to name the inventor of the technique. One painted Greek ceiling panel, of
marble, has been found, in the Lycian Nereid monument; 288 it is usually dated around
400 B.c.,284 although J. Six has attempted to prove a date in the mid-fourth century.288
Whatever date is chosen, both the style and the provenance of the Nereid panel suggest
that it was not from one of the very earliest decorated ceilings, but comes rather
from a time when the fashion was already widespread. Thus there is no reason to
discard the informed opinion of Eratosthenes; Pliny probably meant that Pausias was
the best known Greek painter of ceiling plaques. However, the private house from
which the pinax poikilos came must have been one of the first in Athens to boast of
277
Pliny, H.N., XXXV, 68, mentions the existence of sketches or drawings (graphides) by
Parrhasios, some on panels and some on parchment.
278
For a discussion of the meaning of poikilos, see A. J. B. Wace, A.J.A., LII, 1948, p. 54.
279 See I.G., XI, 2, 161, line 76: AXEVK aavYTt TrO'( 7rvaKa aALSobTEPWGEv FHI. Cf. I.G., J2 66, line 31;
112, 1237, line 62. There is a description of painted pinakes found near Sikyon in J.H.S., LV, 1935,
pp. 153-154.
280
For the technique of encaustic painting, see Elizabeth Dow, Technical Studies, V, 1936-37,
pp. 3-17; Bliimner, Technologie, IV, pp. 442 ff.; Pliny, H.N., XXXV, 122. A third sort of pinax
is found in the Delian lists of the second century B.C., the wrva4 4E/J3A7TrEo0, evidently done in mosaic
(Insc. Delos, 1403 B b II, line 18), but there is no evidence for the existence of mosaic pinakes in
fifth-century private homes.
281
See below, Pippin, p. 323.
282 H.N., XXXV, 123.
283
Brit. Mus. Cat., Greek Sculpture, II, no. 934.
284 I note that there is a 1952 Columbia University dissertation by C. Gottlieb, The Restoration
of the " Nereid " Monument at Xanthos, which is not available to me.
285 Jahrbuch, XX, 1905, pp. 155 if.