1It is generally agreed that the transition from Corinthian Middle to Late Geometric (hereafter «MG» and «LG») coincides with the development of the hemispherical kotyle (skyphos sans rebord) out of the deep skyphos (skyphos à rebord oblique)1. In the handle-zones of the first Corinthian LG hemispherical kotylai, chevrons appear above a layer of horizontal lines; these two features are together flanked by verticals, which meet solid paint below the level of the handles. This is the decorative scheme christened «Aetos 666» by Buchner in 19632; it is the same as that found on Neeft’s «E-3» skyphoi, which begin in Corinthian MG II3.

2On Coldstream’s estimate, followed by Neeft, the Corinthian LG chevron (or Aetos 666) kotyle makes its first appearance around 7504. The type stands — in substantial quantities — at the upper end of the ceramic sequence in the cemetery and on the other constituent sites at Pithekoussai; and this fact led Buchner to state in 1975 that there is nothing at the oldest Greek establishment in the West which «must necessarily be earlier than 750» — but that «in view of the vast extent of the settlement in the third quarter of the VIII century, it seems most probable that Pithekoussai was founded before the end of the second quarter». Doubt has recently been cast on the validity of this reasoning, and hence on the validity of the absolute date to which it leads5: and the first object of this paper is to defend both.

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3Apart from the Aetos 666 scheme in the handle-zone, the Corinthian LG chevron kotyle-body has no further linear decoration save for a reserved line inside the rim, which in some cases inherits groups of little vertical bars from its MG II forerunner6. This feature occurs on many fragments of chevron kotylai examined by Neeft in the Vathy (Aetos) museum, and on thirteen out of fourteen recognizable fragments at Delphi. The only other site7 where the feature was encountered by Neeft’s exhaustive autopsy (published in 1975) is that of Pithekoussai. Chevron kotylai with these bars, which «disappear gradually» (Neeft), may reasonably be supposed to be comparatively early in any sequence of chevron kotylai that there may be. The fact that there is a significant number of chevron kotylai at Pithekoussai with this feature is already, therefore, a pointer towards the earliest possible date for the presence of Corinthian LG there: around 7508.

4This impression is if anything reinforced by the presence in local LG I tombs (ca. 750-725) of Corinthian LG «vertical squiggle kotylai», related to (rather than derived from) the Aetos 666 type9. One of them, Pithekoussai I, 201-2, is actually of a form which on Descoeudres’recent analysis appears to precede those of the chevron kotylai at Corinth, Aetos and Pithekoussai10.

5It is clear, in other words, that the final stages in the «kotylization» of the Corinthian MG II skyphos can be followed in some detail at Pithekoussai11. In itself, of course, this does not necessarily authorize the assumption of a purely MG horizon, hitherto unattested. Nevertheless, as Buchner’s 1975 statement (above) clearly implied, the existence of such a horizon (however unjustified it may appear to some) can logically be deduced from the sheer physical extent of the settlement — and of the distribution in it of «early» chevron kotylai — by 750. At that date, Pithekoussai was not a rural fair that had. been temporarily erected overnight: it was already a permanent community, consisting of a number of individual sites (including a suburban. Blacksmiths’Quarter) ranged along an axis that is 1 km. in length — this is, in fact, the greatest extent ever achieved by Pithekoussai in its long history12. How long it took to grow to this size is quite another matter: but years rather than months seem more probable if we care to think in terms of «a friendly base for wintering, mending ship, or loading cargoes assembled in advance byagents»13 developing naturally out of «a useful place to stop and revictual»14 — and generally fulfilling the pre-734 role convincingly assigned to Ischia in a new analysis: the essential one of «lifeline and source of information»15. Although it was the Euboeans rather than the Corinthians who took the first step westwards, the new finds from Otranto may well furnish a terminus post quern of around 780 for a significant increase in the variety no less than the volume of Greek commercial activity in Tyrrhenian waters, too16.

6Finally, it has not so far been sufficiently appreciated that there are a few faint traces of an MG presence at Pithekoussai. In 1968, Coldstream referred to the «late MG II character» of a. local skyphos — almost a kotyle, with a very low rim17. A similar chronological definition should surely be applied to another local imitation of a Corinthian original: a skyphos that resembles a kotyle only in its possession of the canonical Aetos 666 scheme of decoration in the handle-zone (Fig. 1)18. Both pieces have been re-built from sporadic sherds found in the cemetery: originally, they were almost certainly deposited in graves that were subsequently dismantled. It is hardly likely that the local potters who made these cups were recalling the Corinthian models they had left behind: it is much more probable that they were required to augment a meagre trickle of actual imported skyphoi, which in the nature of things are more likely to have been MG than LG19. In addition, re-examination of the material from the Acropolis Dump (the «Scarico Gosetti»), excavated in 196520, now reveals a number of sky-phos fragments with chevrons and with rims offset to varying degrees. The fabric is not local; in one case (Fr. 1, below) it is clearly Corinthian; that of the others (Frr. 2-9, below) I define for the time being as generically «Euboean». More detailed exegesis of the precise affinities of these sherds is inappropriate here: I limit myself simply to their presentation, in the hope of stimulating further definition and discussion21.

CATALOGUE (Pl. II)

Corinthian

7Fr. 1 ht. 3,9; diam. ca. 19; Naples inv. no. 169114; Neeft, Utrecht, p. 121 Table V, no. 26. Reddish yellow (5 YR 6/6) clay; surface very pale brown (10 YR 8/4); paint outside and inside red (2. 5 YR 4/8), slightly lustrous. As M. Robertson, BSA 43, 1948, p. 11, fig. 1 and pl. 2 nos. 9 and 10 (Aetos) — defined as possibly «on the verge of MG II» (GGP, p. 102); and A. Cambitoglou et al., Zagora I (Sydney, 1971), fig. 44 (Fig. 2)22. Fr. 1 is surely not far removed from Corinth C 37-4 (Corinth VII-1, no. 75, pl. 12 and p. 27, fig. 7; Neeft, Utrecht, p. 120, Table IV, no. 5), à propos of which Coldstream remarks «towards the end of MG (my italics), the shape seems to have deepened» (GGP, p. 97 with pl. 17h); cf. also J. K. Anderson, BSA 53-54, 1958-59, pl. 22, no. 60 (Old Smyrna). I therefore believe that Fr. 1 is a Corinthian MG II piece; Dr. Neeft’s preference is for LG («and not very early in that period»).

Euboean

8In addition to the specific parallels cited ss. vv. Frr. 2-9, below, the following sherds from Euboea are generally relevant: — M. R. Popham, L. H. Sackett et al., Lefkandi I: The Iron Age {BSA Supplementary Volume no. 11; London, 1979-plates only), pl. 50, nos. 201-204 from various areas of the Xeropolis settlement, defined as LG kotylai (sic). Like Frr. 6, 7, 8 and 9 below, the chevrons on these Xeropolis sherds are floating in the field to a greater (201, 202 and 204) or lesser (203) extent (see further s. v. Fr. 6, below); the scheme is not necessarily Aetos 666 (as ibid. 200); in. the absence of descriptions (forthcoming) and profiles, it is not possible to evaluate the precise shapes of the rims, but (to judge from the photographs) those of 201 and 202 may be offset, while those of 203 and 204 might be «nicked». Chevrons that are definitely not floating will be found on the sherds illustrated ibid. pl. 21 nos. 414-418 (Xeropolis Area 2, The Levelling Material: MG Attic and Atticizing), which look like sherds of chevron skyphoi with distinctly offset rims. See also six sherds from Eretria, published by A. Andreiomenou in Arch. Eph. 1977, p. 131, fig. 1, nos. 31-36 (profiles); p. 147, nos. 91-96; pl. 52a; and the drawings of several MG and LG frr. with chevrons from Otranto, presented with commendable speed by F. D’Andria in Salento Arcaico, cit., pl. 12.

9Fr. 2 ht. 4,5; diam. ca. 14. Light reddish brown (5 YR 6/4) clay; surface abraded, elsewhere pink (7. 5 YR 7/4); paint outside and inside red (2. 5 YR 5/8). Presumably a non-local imitation of the Corinthian type represented by Fr. 1. Cf. Pithekoussai I, Sp. 4/4 (above; and Fig. 1).

10Fr. 3 ht. 2,3; diam. ca. 22. Approximately pink (7. 5 YR 7/4) clay and surface (5 YR 7/4); paint outside yellowish red (5 YR 5/6), inside reddish brown (5 YR 4/3). Interior glazed save for a line in a broad reserved band inside the rim.

11Fr. 4 ht. 2,7; diam. ca. 21. Light red (2. 5 YR 6/8) clay; surface pink (7. 5 YR 7/4); paint outside and inside red (10 R 5/8). Interior glazed save for a thick line in a broad reserved band inside the rim.

12Fr. 5 ht. 2,3; diam. ca. 18. Pink (7. 5 YR 7/4) clay; surface very pale brown (10 YR 7/3); paint outside and inside red (10 R 5/8).

13Fr. 6 ht. 6,3; diam. ca. 13 (rim distorted); Naples inv. no. 169409. Four joining frr. Light red (2. 5 YR 6/6) clay; slip pale yellow (2. 5 Y 8/4); paint outside black to dark brown (7. 5 YR 3/2), inside red (2. 5 YR 5/6) to dark reddish brown (5 YR 3/2). Six-stroke multiple brush. Cf. Lefkandi I, cit., pl. 50, no. 204. The chevrons are well and truly floating in the field; but this piece is much finer than, say, Eretria III, pl. 15, no. 61 (the context of which is ca. 720 or later) or SE 35, 1967, pl. 58g (Veii: post 750). See further J. N. Coldstream, Rapport de synthèse: the pottery, in Actes du Colloque «La céramique grecque...», cit., in press — where the whole of the «floating chevron» class of skyphoi is excluded from the inventory of pre-colonial finds.

14Fr. 7 ht. 5,9; diam. ca. 18; Naples inv. no. 169415. Two joining frr. Red (2. 5 YR 5/8) clay; slip very pale brown (10 YR 8/3); paint outside red (2. 5 YR 5/6), inside mainly dark reddish brown (5 YR 3/2). Cf. Lefkandi I, cit., pl. 36, no. 1 (profile: pl. 60, no. 1); Andreiomenou, Arch. Eph., cit., p. 147, no. 93 (Eretria; chevrons barely floating-v. pl. 52a; for profile, see p. 131 fig. 1, no. 33). Perhaps a Euboean version of Corinth C 50-107: GGP, pl. 18d (MG II; «the immediate predecessor of the LG skyphos of the Thapsos class», p. 97) and Neeft, Utrecht, p. 121, Table V, no. 17.

15Fr. 8 ht. 4,5; diam. ca. 20; Naples inv. no. 169684. Approximately pink (7. 5 YR 7/4) clay, encrusted in the breaks; slip very pale brown (10 YR 7/3); paint outside and inside brown (7. 5 YR 5/2). Interior glazed save for a single reserved line on the top of the rim, crossed by sets of short vertical bars. Concerning the latter feature, Neeft (Utrecht, p. 121) observes that the varieties of the chevron skyphos collected in his Table V «continue until after the beginning of LG, as testified by the disappearance (my italics) of the groups of vertical strokes from the reserved line».

16Fr. 9 ht. 1,6; diam. ca. 23. Red (2. 5 YR 5/8) clay; slip very pale brown (10 YR 7/3); paint outside dark red (10 R 3/6), inside red (10 R 5/8). Interior glazed save for a single reserved line inside the rim, crossed by a set of short vertical bars (on the possible significance of which see Neeft, s. v. Fr. 8).

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17The minute quantity in which this — as I believe — basically MG material is present at Pithekoussai inhibits any attempt to assess its chronological and historical significance too precisely. We are dealing with sherds; there are no handles, no complete profiles (deep or otherwise), and no complete panels (with all that they might show us in the way of flanking verticals23 and underlying horizontals); nor am I convinced that rim lengths of less than 2 cm. (Fr. 2) and of just under 4,5 cm. (Fr. 5) are sufficient to exclude the presence of vertical bars in the reserved line inside the rim — whatever their significance (Frr. 8, 9). How indicative is the numerical disparity between the Corinthian and the Euboean pieces presented above24? Furthermore, Neeft suspects that his Corinthian E-3 scheme (the immediate precursor of the Aetos 666 decoration on kotylai) « continues on skyphoì (my italics) for quite some time inLG»25. But do we really know enough about the Corinthian-Euboean relationship to transfer this kind of observation automatically to Euboean material — and indeed to a «Western Euboean» piece like Pithekoussai I Sp. 4/4 (above; and Fig. 1)? And the date of 750 for the Corinthian MG-LG transition is in any case an ominously approximate one. Even so, there is surely a reasonable chance that some at least of the rim frr. listed, above belong to Euboean MG chevron skyphoi, and that they are earlier — in time as in typology — than the Aetos 666 variety of Corinthian LG kotyle, invariably cited as the earliest Greek type found so far at Pithekoussai. This being the case, one question in particular is inevitable.

18Hitherto, as Coldstream noted in 1976, the Greek skyphoi with chevrons exported to Italy have been found in native tombs, and were therefore presumably traded to the natives themselves as luxury articles26. The above Euboean sherds from the Scarico Gosetti were found neither in tombs nor in a native context: should we therefore see in them a clue to the immediate source of the extraordinary — and frankly un-Greek» — popularity of the chevron motif on «pre-colonial» skyphoi in the West (Campania and Etruria but not Latium vetus), as distinct from Euboea itself and the East? The issues raised by this question are complex, and cannot be solved by Pithekoussai alone. For the moment, it is sufficient to stress that there is no reason to doubt the existence of a Euboean presence on Ischia in the second quarter of the VIII century. Buch-ner’s argument for a foundation-date prior to 750, already unimpeachable in terms of common sense, can no longer be accused of resting even in part on the «presumed existence of earlier material, as yet undocumented»27.

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19Much recent and current discussion28 revolves around the alternative definitions of «trading settlement» and «colony» — and around the application of one or the other to Pithekoussai. What then of the process that may now be assigned there — even more emphatically than before — to late MG? Was it the beginning of trade, or the raising of a flag? Should we conclude, for the reasons stated long ago by Dunbabin29, that the oldest tombs at the first Western Greek establishment have still to be discovered? — or, worse still, that they were all dismantled at a later stage? In this connection, it is interesting to recall that the distribution pattern of chevron skyphoi in Etruria is the same as that of the contemporary South Italian pottery there. Accordingly, Colonna has deduced the existence of «a competitive situation that is difficult to imagine after the foundation of Pithekoussai, given the monopoly exercised by the latter centre over Tyrrhenian trade»30. In other words, if Pithekoussai was fully operational at the time of the chevron skyphoi, it would have blocked the trickle of contemporary Oenotrian Geometric into Southern Etruria. Since it did not succeed in doing so (always supposing that it tried), I am tempted — at least for the time being — to interpret the modest quantity of Corinthian, Euboean and local MG pottery considered in this paper as the outward and visible sign of what in a. more robust age would have been called an «advance party», still in the process of establishing the LG monopoly to which Colonna refers.

20As to the status of the Pithekoussan community at any stage in the VIII century, my own view is that both the «trading settlement» and the «colony» definitions have at least something to commend them. The nature (as distinct from the bulk) of the archaeological evidence so far retrieved at Pithekoussai is limited: nevertheless, I am beginning to wonder how important the emporion/apoikia distinction was to the VIII century Pithekoussans themselves — and indeed, as I have already hinted, whether the former could not have evolved effectively into the latter. If this suggestion seems unduly naive, I would plead that the dangers of rigid classification, notorious even among later Greek establishments overseas31, are likely to be even greater in the case of the first such establishment. After all, literacy and figurative art of a high order were present at Pithekoussai from an early stage and on a scale that almost compels conferment of «special case» status.

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21I should like to conclude by illustrating the current difficulties that I have encountei-ed in the search for a less anodyne word than «establishment» to define the status of Pithekoussai. Trading settlements (emporta) tend to be of mixed or otherwise uncertain parentage and to be characterized by mixed populations. Al Mina, Naucratis, Adria and Spina satisfy both these conditions: Pithekoussai satisfies only the second, and that to an arguably limited degree32. Colonies (apoikie), qua self-sufficient (because food-producing) city-states abroad, are a product of the world of the Greek polis — with all its attendant social implications. That there was a degree of social, indeed urban, organization at Pithekoussai from the mid-VIII century onwards cannot be doubted. But it is hard to believe that the polis concept was already packaged for export at the first available opportunity, along with the Euboean and Corinthian skyphoi: more than a generation later, in the 730’s, Corinth herself was no more than a group of villages33. In any case, it is far from obvious that the social arrangements archaeologically perceptible at VIII century Pithekoussai are exclusive to the polis, or to full-blown colonial status. Local dispositions concerning the siting (and doubtless the conduct) of the suburban Blacksmiths’Quarter, or the delimitation (and dismantling) of family plots34 in the cemetery are surely no more significant socially than the physical choice of an easily-defended site for the acropolis. Pioneers in strange lands are inevitably required to solve new problems on an ad hoc basis: and the resulting phenomena should not be taken as implying derivation from similar institutions at home. On the contrary, the most stimulating question asked recently about Pithekoussai is precisely this: «Is it possible that the example of the colonies (sic) may have accelerated developments at home?»35. If the answer to this question is simply «yes», the undisputed status of Cumae and of most of the Sicilian foundations as poleis makes good sense, and so does Cumae’s subsequent transmission of the polis-concept to the Etruscans. It remains true that the classic description of the new class which wielded the main power in the Etruscan poleis as an «evoluta ed ardita classe di commercianti»36 is strikingly reminiscent of the situation at Pithekoussai two centuries earlier.

22On the Bay of Naples, and perhaps in the West generally, I suggest that the process of urbanization may usefully be compared with that in contemporary Ionia. Although the re-organization of Smyrna after the presumed earthquake of ca. 700 amounts to «the first certain and unambiguous apparition of the Hellenic polis»37, the first wall circuit there dates to the mid-IX and the second to the mid-VIII century. Both represent public undertakings of considerable proportions, and the impression of an organized community is borne out by the densely packed structures of the VIII century habitation — between 400 and 500 families on a peninsula that was barely one third (365 m) as long as the axis of contemporary Pithekoussai.

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23Meanwhile, I can as yet see no reason why Euboean skyphoi with chevrons, at Pithekoussai as at Cumae, should not retain their traditional significance as trace-elements of pre-colonial exchanges.