Alcamenes () was an

ancient Greek sculptor The sculpture of ancient Greece is the main surviving type of fine ancient Greek art as, with the exception of painted ancient Greek pottery, almost no ancient Greek painting survives. Modern scholarship identifies three major stages in monumenta ...

Lemnos Lemnos ( ) or Limnos ( ) is a Greek island in the northern Aegean Sea. Administratively the island forms a separate municipality within the Lemnos (regional unit), Lemnos regional unit, which is part of the North Aegean modern regions of Greece ...

and

Athens Athens ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. A significant coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, Athens is also the capital of the Attica (region), Attica region and is the southe ...

, who flourished in the 2nd half of the 5th century BC. He was a younger contemporary of

Phidias Phidias or Pheidias (; , ''Pheidias''; ) was an Ancient Greek sculptor, painter, and architect, active in the 5th century BC. His Statue of Zeus at Olympia was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Phidias also designed the statues of ...

and noted for the delicacy and finish of his works, among which a

Hephaestus Hephaestus ( , ; wikt:Hephaestus#Alternative forms, eight spellings; ) is the Greek god of artisans, blacksmiths, carpenters, craftsmen, fire, metallurgy, metalworking, sculpture and volcanoes.Walter Burkert, ''Greek Religion'' 1985: III.2. ...

and an Aphrodite of the Gardens were conspicuous. Pausanias says that he was the author of one of the pediments of the temple of

Zeus Zeus (, ) is the chief deity of the List of Greek deities, Greek pantheon. He is a sky father, sky and thunder god in ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, who rules as king of the gods on Mount Olympus. Zeus is the child ...

at Olympia, but this seems a chronological and stylistic impossibility. Pausanias also refers to a statue of Ares by Alcamenes that was erected on the

Athenian agora The ancient Agora of Athens (also called the Classical Agora) is an ancient Greek agora. It is located to the northwest of the Acropolis of Athens, Acropolis, and bounded on the south by the hill of the Areopagus and on the west by the hill k ...

, which some have related to the Ares Borghese. However, the temple of Ares to which he refers had only been moved from Acharnes and re-sited in the Agora in

Augustus Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian (), was the founder of the Roman Empire, who reigned as the first Roman emperor from 27 BC until his death in A ...

's time, and statues known to derive from Alcamenes' statue show the god in a

breastplate A breastplate or chestplate is a device worn over the torso to protect it from injury, as an item of religious significance, or as an item of status. European In medieval weaponry, the breastplate is the front portion of plate armour covering th ...

, so the identification of Alcamenes' Ares with the Ares Borghese is not secure. At

Pergamum Pergamon or Pergamum ( or ; ), also referred to by its modern Greek form Pergamos (), was a rich and powerful ancient Greek city in Aeolis. It is located from the modern coastline of the Aegean Sea on a promontory on the north side of the river ...

there was discovered in 1903 a Hellenistic copy of the head of the Hermes "Propylaeus" of Alcamenes.''Athenische Mittheilungen'', 1904, p. 180 As, however, the deity is represented in a Neo-Attic, archaistic and conventional character, this copy cannot be relied on as giving us much information as to the usual style of Alcamenes, who was almost certainly a progressive and original artist. It is safer to judge him by the sculptural decoration of the

Parthenon The Parthenon (; ; ) is a former Ancient Greek temple, temple on the Acropolis of Athens, Athenian Acropolis, Greece, that was dedicated to the Greek gods, goddess Athena. Its decorative sculptures are considered some of the high points of c ...

, in which he must almost certainly have taken a share under the direction of Phidias. He is said to be the most eminent sculptor in Athens after the departure of Phidias for Olympia, but enigmatic in that none of the sculptures associated with his name in classical literature can be securely connected with existing copies.

Notes

References

* * Julius Sillig, ''Dictionary of the artists of antiquity''; 1837 * Andrew Stewart, ''One hundred Greek Sculptors : Their Careers and Extant Works'' * Sir Charles Waldstein, ''Alcamenes and the establishment of the classical type in Greek art''; 1926

External links

Scholars Resource: Works by Alkamenes

Perseus Digital Library: Alcamenes

Herma by Alcamenes - Uni Graz
{{Authority control Pergamene sculpture 5th-century BC Greek sculptors Ancient Athenian sculptors Ancient Lemnos Metics in Classical Athens People from Lemnos Year of birth unknown Year of death unknown