What’s in a Name? The Inscriptions on the Siphnian Treasury at Delphi

Alexandra Pappas (University of Arkansas)

This paper considers specifically the painted and etched inscriptions that punctuate the sculpted frieze of the Siphnian Treasury at Delphi (c. 525 BCE). Arcing labels preserve the names of gods, heroes and Giants in one dialect, while a carved signature identifies one of the frieze’s two sculptors in another. These have garnered passing scholarly attention, but despite the careful reconstructions of V. Brinkmann (1985, 1994), their aesthetic and political implications remain neglected. I consider these words in their sacred and Panhellenic setting, asking what their presence and appearance suggest about the building’s patronage, craftsmanship, and audience, and propose a new reading of the Treasury as a cultural and political monument. As I will conclude, these inscriptions play a critical role in mediating tensions among the citizens of Siphnos as well as the Treasury’s international audience at Delphi.

The Ionic frieze of the Treasury is notable as the first continuous narrative sculpted frieze on the Greek mainland, and remains a critical marker for dating Archaic sculpture and vase painting because of its secure chronology; Herodotus reports the construction of the Treasury, which was made possible by Siphnian gold and silver mines, and the island’s devastation shortly thereafter at the hands of the Samians in 525/4 (3.57.1-58.4). There are clear stylistic commonalities shared by the building and contemporary painting techniques (Agard 1938; Moore 1977, 1985) and the subjects of the frieze were common fodder for vase painters, e.g. the struggle of Achilles and Memnon over the body of Antilochos on the East side (Watrous 1985; Brinkmann 1994; Neer 2001). But this paper presses these connections and their significance further by focusing on the dialects and appearance of the inscriptions themselves and their relationship to Attic vase painting. Indeed, since archaic architectural inscriptions are rare and those that do exist are almost all dedicatory (Umholtz 2002), we must explore why a public monument to Siphnian civic wealth and status at Delphi so overtly references the vases we typically associate with the private, secular, and elite spheres of Attica.

The painted inscriptions seen first when approaching the building label the gods and Homeric heroes on the East frieze and, in my view, intentionally mimic Attic vase inscriptions. In the fight over Antilochos’ body, variously oriented names curve around the Greek and Trojan figures they identify, including Aineas, Hektor, Menelaos, and Nestor (Brinkmann 1985, 1994). Painted name labels also appear on the North frieze, which the viewer sees next in the journey up the Sacred Way. In this remarkable Gigantomachy the Giants fight in hoplite regalia and phalanx formation. As on the East frieze, labels appear here in familiar shapes, but now with names otherwise unattested, e.g. Biatas, whose name encapsulates his violent struggle with Ares, and Kantharos, whose proximity to Dionysus recalls the drinking cup that is the god’s frequent accessory in Attic vase painting.

L.V. Watrous has suggested that the Treasury’s sculptural program betrays antagonism between Delphi and Peisistratid Athens (1982), and it is tempting to add the evidence of these names to this view. But we must acknowledge that, although they resemble Attic inscriptions in shape and placement, the names are painted in the local Phokian dialect. This is additionally striking for its juxtaposition with the sculptor’s signature, also on the North frieze, which is carved in Attic along the rim of one of the Giants’ shields (Guarducci 1965). This mixture of dialects and inscription types, the references to but important deviations from Attic vase inscriptions, and the highly unusual presence of these words in this context invite further exploration.

To resolve these anomalies, I apply R. Neer’s theoretical framework for reading the Treasury’s images (2001) to the inscriptions themselves. As he sees it, the Treasury’s iconography of binaries, e.g. Giants fighting as hoplites, articulates and ultimately reconciles the competing elite and middling ideologies at Siphnos generated by the great wealth from the mines. In my view, the inscriptions, too, signify in these terms; at once Phokian and Attic, painted and carved, public and private, secular and divine, their contradictory characteristics situate them in this schema of reconciliation. Finally, this paper extends this reading from Siphnos to Delphi herself: The Treasury’s Panhellenic audience would have had widely varying expectations, aesthetic vocabularies, and reading abilities, but the names would have resolved this potential disjunction through their shape, placement, and signification, which imported meaning for any viewer.