In considering the Geometrical vases as a whole, we are struck with the laudable aspirations of the artist, who, though unable to execute his new ambitions with complete success, yet shows in his work the same promise of the future that is latent in all early Greek art. His best achievement is in the ornamentation. Oriental influences as yet count for very little, though they are perhaps to be discerned in the human figures, as already noted; Kroker also thinks that the nude female figures on the larger vases are due to Oriental art.[[965]] In any case they are not to be traced until late in the period, and first, as might be expected for geographical reasons, in the fabrics found at Kameiros in Rhodes.

The question of chronology must next be considered. That the developed Geometrical style succeeds to the Mycenaean, and forms a link between it and the early Attic attempts at black-figured ware, of which we shall subsequently treat, is sufficiently clear. It may also be laid down that the Dipylon ware represents the last stage of Geometrical decoration, being in point of fact too far advanced to be regarded as a purely typical Geometrical ware. Such data as the finding of iron in the tombs, or the evidence of finds at Troy,[[966]] also tend to place the beginning of the style at least as early as the tenth century. It has also been noted that the figures correspond closely with the bronzes of Olympia which are dated about the ninth century, and this, if accepted, necessitates placing the simpler linear decoration back as far as the tenth. The lower limits of the style may be roughly fixed by the evidence from the tombs of Etruria, discussed in Chapter [XVIII]., at about 700 B.C.

Next, there is the evidence afforded by the ships,[[967]] which it should be noted are all of the bireme or διήρης form, with two banks of oars. The invention of the trireme, as we learn from Thucydides (i. 13, 5), was due to Ameinokles, about the year 704 B.C. Hence Kroker’s dating of the Dipylon vases about the year 700 can hardly be accepted. But the eighth century may be taken as representing the latest period of the Geometrical pottery, both in Attica and Boeotia. The curious inscription engraved on a Dipylon vase from Athens is dealt with elsewhere (Chapter [XVII].); undoubtedly the earliest known Attic inscription, its value as evidence is limited to that of a terminus ante quem, from the fact that it was probably engraved at a subsequent time to the manufacture of the vase.

The question of centres of manufacture is one that has already been the subject of some discussion,[[968]] the result of which has been to show that there is no complete homogeneity in the wares from different sites, and consequently no one central fabric. The colossal funerary vases, which, it may be remarked in passing, stand at the head of a long line of funerary fabrics and show the Athenian fondness for this class of vase,[[969]] were not, and could not have been, generally exported, in spite of the notable exception at Curium. The ordinary wares might have been made in some one place (probably a Dorian centre, not Attica or Boeotia); but we have seen that most finds, as in Rhodes, present local peculiarities.[[970]] Athens at this period was not sufficiently advanced to become the centre of large potteries, and did not become so, as we shall see, before the age of the Peisistratidae; such vases as were made were strictly confined to special purposes. It is a curious fact that very little Geometrical ware was found on the Acropolis.

The Geometrical pottery of Cyprus has already been discussed in its relation to that of Greece (pp. [249], [253])[[971]]; but there is yet another region which passed through a Geometrical period similar to that of Greece, and that is Etruria (see Chapter [XVIII].). It is, however, better illustrated by the metal products of the Villanova period, such as the bronze discs and large cinerary urns, than by the local pottery, which never reached the same level as in Greece; in the former the same combinations of elaborate ornament with rude animals and yet ruder human figures may be witnessed, and it is possible that importations from Greece may have had a share in influencing these products. They cover the period from the tenth to the eighth century B.C.

§ 2. Attica, Boeotia, and Melos

Following on to the Geometrical vases both in chronological and artistic sequence is a small class of Athenian vases, which, more for convenience than with regard to strict accuracy, have been styled Proto-Attic. The term has this much of truth in it, that the group may be said to stand at the head of, and in direct relation to, the long series of painted vases produced in the Athenian potteries for some two centuries afterwards. It is only of late years that a sufficient number of these vases has become known for them to be studied as a separate class, and even when Böhlau first drew attention to them, in 1887, only two or three were known. The list up to date is as follows (the order being roughly chronological):—

1.Athens 467
(Couve’s Cat.)AmphoraKerameikosAth. Mitth. 1892, pl. 10.
2.Berlin 56AmphoraHymettosJahrbuch, 1887, pl. 5.
3.Athens 468HydriaAnalatos (Phaleron)ibid. pls. 3, 4.
4.Athens 464LebesThebesibid. pl. 4.
5.Athens 469AmphoraPikrodaphniBull. de Corr. Hell. 1893, pls. 2, 3.
6.Athens Mus.AmphoraKynosargesJ.H.S. xxii. pls. 2–4.
7.Athens 650FragmentAeginaBenndorf, Gr. u. Sic. Vasenb. pl. 54.
8.Athens 657AmphoraKerameikosAnt. Denkm. i. pl. 57.
9.Athens 651AmphoraPeiraeusἘφ. Ἀρχ. 1897, pl. 5.
10.Berlin 1682LebesAeginaArch. Zeit. 1882, pls. 9, 10.
11.B.M. A 535LebesAthensRayet and Collignon, p. 43 = Fig. [87].

We may also add to this list Athens 652–664, a vase from Aegina (Ath. Mitth. 1897, pl. 8), B.M. A 1531 (Bull. de Corr. Hell. 1898, p. 285), and another at Athens (ibid. p. 283).