Polis and Personification in Classical Athenian Art

In this study Dr Smith investigates the use of political personifications in the visual arts of Athens in the Classical period (480-323 BCE). Whether on objects that served primarily private roles (e.g. decorated vases) or public roles (e.g. cult statues and document stelai), these personifications represented aspects of the state of Athens—its people, government, and events—as well as the virtues (e.g. Nemesis, Peitho or Persuasion, and Eirene or Peace) that underpinned it. Athenians used the same figural language to represent other places and their peoples. This is the only study that uses personifications as a lens through which to view the intellectual and political climate of Athens in the Classical period.

Amy C. Smith, PhD (1997) in Classical Archaeology, Yale University, is Senior Lecturer in Classics and Curator of the Ure Museum, University of Reading. She has published widely on Graeco-Roman art in the spheres of politics, myth, and religion.

"The volume has high production values, with crisply laid out text and glossy plates with over 90 black-and-white images. Illustration of some less familiar pieces, such as the Makaria Painter's name-vase in Reading's Ure Museum, is especially welcome. (...) Altogether, though, this is a useful contribution to the growing literature on Greek personification, particularly for its treatment of material not covered by Shapiro 1993, and for the attention it draws to the potential political connotations of these figures." Emma Stafford, Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2016.04.32.