Fig. 3.—Relief from Mycenae, No. 6.
SCULPTURES FROM BRANCHIDAE.
The temple and oracle of Apollo at Didyma, near Miletus, in Asia Minor, were from time immemorial in the hands of the priestly clan of the Branchidae, whose name came to denote the place itself. This temple was destroyed by the Persians—probably by Darius on the suppression of the Ionian Revolt—about 495 b.c. (Herod. vi., 19. See, however, Strabo, xiv., p. 634; xi., p. 518.) After its destruction, the temple was not rebuilt till the time of Alexander. The temple was connected with the harbour Panormos by the Sacred Way. Along this the sculptures stood at intervals. They are dedicatory offerings made to Apollo, probably by the persons represented.
The following are the materials for fixing the period to which the sculptures of Branchidae must be assigned. It is certain that none of them are later than the destruction of the temple by the Persians, and the latest of them (No. 16) appears a generation earlier than the works associated with that period. On the other hand, there is no reason to place the oldest before the early part of the sixth century b.c. Thus these sculptures cover the period of (say) 580-520 b.c. On epigraphic grounds, the date may be more closely defined. It is believed that the older form for η ⊟ was changed to Η shortly before 550 b.c. By this criterion, Nos. 10, 17, belong to an older group, and No. 14 to a later group. An inscribed base now in the British Museum with the name of an artist, Terpsicles, also belongs to the older group (Roehl, I.G.A., 484). It has been suggested that Chares of Teichioussa (No. 14) was one of the local tyrants who were established after the destruction of the kingdom of Croesus (546 b.c.), and this agrees well with the epigraphical evidence.
The statues of Branchidae are of interest because they exhibit the process by which the grotesque coarseness of primitive work tends towards the stiff and formal refinement that marks the later stage of archaic art. The series in the British Museum breaks off before the second stage has been completely attained, but it can be well supplemented by a seated female figure from Miletus, now in the Louvre (Rayet et Thomas, Milet et le Golfe Latmique, pl. 21).
The sculptures of the Sacred Way were discovered by Chandler in 1765 (Antiqs. of Ionia, 1st ed., I. p. 46; Chandler, Travels in Asia Minor, 1775, p. 152). They were more accurately examined by Gell, and the second Dilettanti expedition in 1812 (Antiqs. of Ionia, 2nd ed., 1821, Part I., p. 29, vignette, and ch. III., pl. 1; Müller, Denkmaeler, I., pl. 9, fig. 33). A more accurate sketch was made by Ross (Arch. Zeit., 1850, pl. 13). Such of the sculptures as could be found in 1858 were removed by Sir C. Newton; Newton, II., p. 527. On the inscriptions see Kirchhoff, Studien, 4th ed., pp. 19, 25.
7.Female figure, seated on a chair, with her hand resting on her knees. The head is wanting, and the upper part of the body is much mutilated. The figure wears a long chiton, with sleeves, and a diploïdion. The feet of this figure (as of all the other figures) are bare. The drapery falls down in front of the legs in stiff conventional folds. The sleeve, however, of the chiton is worked in a more natural manner. There are remains of a key-pattern on the sides of the cushion of the chair.—Sacred Way, Branchidae.
Parian marble; height, 3 feet 9 inches. Mansell, No. 607.