The Temple of Aphaia at Aegina
Authors: Webster T. B. L. 
Published: May 2006

Furtwängler's reconstructions of the pediments of the temple of Aphaia, though in the main right, can be improved in certain details. The object of these notes is to criticise certain suggested improvements. I take the West pediment first. Schrader has recently advocated a return to something like the Cockerill scheme. His chief objections to Furtwängler are that the blocks of the Geison as arranged by Furtwängler do not agree with the footprints of the figures which they are meant to carry, that Furtwängler's assumption of a fourth prostrate figure is based on a fragmentary arm which may well belong to the East pediment, that the combatants should be divided into friends on one side of Athena and foes on the other, and that it is impossible for the archers to shoot out into space. I take these points in order. Furtwängler, as far as possible, put the Geison blocks in positions corresponding to those in which they were found; Schrader's chief objection is to Block 5, in which, he says, the space is not the right shape for the plinth of the Athena, but there is no doubt that there is room enough, and as no ancient edge of this plinth is preserved, how can we tell what was its shape? Secondly, the only evidence (fr. 62) which Schrader adduces for a piece of one pediment being found among the remains of the other rests, as Pfuhl has shown, on a misprint. The desire to have friends on one side of the pediment and foes on the other is purely modern; the Gigantomachies of the Megarian treasury and the Hekatompedon and the Centauromachy of the West pediment at Olympia all take no account of the sides of the pediment in dividing the combatants. Schrader quotes no parallels for his own reconstruction (Fig. 2) because there are none; it involves far too much overlapping, which Greek sculptors of the archaic period avoided when working in the round; Schrader has to assume that a piece was cut out of the shield of the figure which lies in front of Athena to make room for her legs. Furtwängler, however, can adduce numerous parallels from Greek vases for his reconstruction (Fig. 1): the Geryon cup of Euphronios has just such a battle over a fallen foe with Athena helping one of the combatants. The reason for this similarity of composition is not that both were borrowing from Samian models, as Furtwängler suggests: the West was ahead of the East in such things: there is no cross-influence, but the compositional problem of the pediment is the same as that of the outside of the cup. Studniczka also suggested that the archers should be turned inwards, but this transposition spoils the central groups and puts the caesura too near the outside: the Furtwängler group would naturally be completed by a friend of the fallen man, but this is precluded by the raking cornice. Another transposition is more likely. Wolters wanted to transpose nos. 1 and 13, and correspondingly 33 and 24. There is some evidence for this, because in Cockerell's first drawing, when he was most influenced by the position in which the figures were actually found, no. 13 is placed in the corner. Nos. 1 and 33 are more weathered than no. 13, which would be curious if they had been in the corners protected by the slanting Geison. Nos. 1 and 33, if placed in the middle, obscure the legs of the combatants less than would no. 13 and its fellow. Nos. 1 and 33 are nearer death than no. 13, therefore it is natural to fight over their bodies and to fight with no. 13.