The core of this volume is a catalogue of some 77 entries of unpublished Laconian pottery from recent excavations at Cyrene, chosen for reasons that are not divulged, embedded in a fuller statistical analysis of all accessible Laconian from the site, and a useful overview of that from the rest of Cyrenaica. Further sections discuss the old question of why Cyrenaic scenes appear on Laconian pots, not least the Arcesilas cup, and how Laconian ceramic exports may reflect or be reflected in broader historical concerns. Illustrations are excellent and plentiful; just one drawing omits the black-glaze (23) and one pair of photos (cat. 61) seems upside-down, in as far as matched outside and inside photos of a cup can be; the transcription of the name on the cup 60 is Archaios, not Arkaios (probably not the same man who dedicated in Ionic script at Naukratis at the same period). The landscape-printed quantative tables could perhaps have been better presented. An inadvertent phrase ‘collezione provata’ may sheepishly hide some dislike of such holdings. The price is modest, by ‘L'Erma’ standards. Throughout M. uses the work of Conrad Stibbe as the cornerstone of both his chronological and typological conclusions, adding some valuable evidence for the former from recent excavations at Cyrene and noting new workshop connections regarding the latter.
There is little here for the art-historian, merely a few small sherds which are iconographically challenging; but the number of more unusual, mostly simply decorated, shapes properly gives rise to thoughts of a ‘special relationship’ between Sparta and Cyrene. Some early ‘peri-colonial’ – if not perioikic – skyphoi point in that direction, but when arguing along these lines, one must wonder why Laconian pottery is so rare on Thera and, as M. acknowledges, absent at Taranto through the seventh century.
The ‘end’ of Laconian production after c. 540 invokes similar bivalent thoughts. M. notes that exports to Cyrenaica and Sicily continue later than those to other areas, and argues that there must be some connection here with the areas of interest that Dorieus made use of in the period in question. An elaborate black bell-krater indeed demonstrates some peculiar link, as it was carefully conserved into the fifth century in a room of the recently excavated sanctuary of Athena and Zeus Apotropaios.
A fuller picture is perhaps needed in this respect. Much of the relevant later pottery is black-glazed, and it would seem likely that such material may well not have been kept or recognised at some other sites, despite Stibbe's best efforts. It does appear in quantity nearer home, for example Olympia, Kythera, Aegina; were the undoubtedly perioikic producers ‘kept going’, in whatever economic environment, by the more local markets, with increasing populations? At the same time perhaps western Greek visitors to Olympia, well attested in both historical and archaeological records, took a liking to the pots they found there.
The volume does raise such questions and responses, indeed many more, and we must thank M. for providing a platform, or even springboard, for debate.
