Description

Who Were the Greeks Immortalized in Stone? While figures like Socrates and Pericles have endured through history, they represent only a tiny fraction of those who were sculpted in antiquity. In the 2nd century BCE, on the island of Delos, Kleopatra, a wealthy Athenian woman, had statues of herself and her husband erected at the very heart of their home. Far from a personal whim, this gesture reflects a much broader phenomenon: during the Hellenistic and Roman periods, thousands of sculpted portraits appeared in sanctuaries and public squares, honoring the prominent figures of society. Through a close study of sculpted portraits from Delos and Athens, this book delves into the transformation of Greek civic societies between the 3rd century BCE and the 2nd century CE. Why were these statues erected? Who chose the individuals to be depicted? What defined fame and public recognition? By bringing together sculpture, inscriptions, and architecture, the author reveals how these seemingly immobile monuments were, in fact, vibrant witnesses of a changing world - one in which the individual and the city continually renegotiated their memory, their identity, and their place in the public space.