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

THE ATTIC STELAI 253
this new form of decoration which was invented for use in public buildings. If we
take the pinax poikilos as a lacuncrium, then the conjecture that it was done in enkausis
is strengthened, for this was the medium associated with Pausias.286 The Nereid
plaque is only about seven inches square, and shows a full-face drawing of a woman.
Six 287 supposes that other lacunaria were similar to coin types, with heads also shown
in three-quarters or profile, and hands holding objects of iconographical significance.
Pausias was famous also for his paintings of boys, and there may have been Erotes,
on round or rectangular plaques, among the ceiling pinakes painted for private
houses.288
Votive pictures were often equipped with doors which could be closed over the
painted surface,289 and purely decorative pictures protected in this way can be seen in
the wall paintings at Pompeii."' This was evidently a late development, however, and
none of our pinakes is said to be tethyromenos. We can assume that the plaques listed
in the Attic Stelai were of wood, since the material of the ground is not specified.
Price. An unknown number of pictures called gegramtmenos was sold for 60
drachmas (VII, 59); the one which was smikros gegrcammenos brought 6 drachmas 4
obols (VII, 60-61), and the pincax poikilos sold for an amount which was more than
5 and less than 10 drachmas (VII, 62). Pinakes ordered for the temple buildings at
Delos varied in price from 12 to 100 drachmas,29' but some of these were probably
much larger than anything which would hang -in a private house. As time passed,
paintings became even more popular and more valuable; they were a suitable gift for
Aratos to send to the King of Egypt,292 and an Archigallus by Parrhasios, valued at
6 million sesterces, was one of Tiberius' favorite treasures.293
8. 'Tpoo-KEba6Xtaov (II, 216-217). Pillow, cushion for the head. There are
several passages in which the word proskephcalaion occurs in a context in which reference
is clearly made to a cushion for the head: Aristophanes, Plutus, 542; Plutarch,
Moralia, 59C; and Sextus Empiricus, M., 267. On the other hand, at the beginning
of Plato's Republic (328 c), Kephalos is seated on a sort of proskephalaion and stool.
286 Pliny, H.N., XXV, 122.
287 Op. cit., p. 158.
288 Pausanias, II, 27, 3; Hesychius, s.vv. 'EyKoVp4&e and Kovpas.
289
For instance, Insc. De'los, 1403, Bb II, line 30; 1414 b I, line 21. See Rene Vallois, " Les
IIINAKEK deliens," Me'langes Holleaux, Paris, 1913, pp. 289 ff.
290
Van Buren, Mem. of Amer. Acad. in Rome, XV, 1938, pl. 6, fig. 3; pl. 7, figs. 1 and 2;
Daremberg-Saglio, Dictionnaire, s.v. Pictura, figs. 5651, 5652. For a recent popular discussion of
painted tablets from Herculaneum, see A. Maiuri, Roman Painting, Geneva, Albert Skira, 1953,
p. 105.
291
I.G., XI, 2, 158, lines 67 if.; 161, line 75.
292
Plutarch, Arat., 12.
293
Pliny, H.N., XXXV, 70. The figure has been questioned, and 60,000 sesterces and 1 million
sesterces have been suggested instead; see Lippold, R.E., s.v. Parrasios, 1876.