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WORK TITLE: Alexander at the End of the World
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WEBSITE: https://rachelkousser.com/
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PERSONAL
Female.
EDUCATION:Yale College, B.A. (Classics and Art History), 1994; New York University Institute of Fine Arts, Ph.D. (Art History), 2001.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Teacher and writer. Columbia University, postdoctoral fellow and lecturer; Franklin & Marshall College, assistant professor; Brooklyn College, professor; City University of New York, professor of art history, 2007–, Classics Doctoral Faculty, 2011–, executive officer, 2015–; chair of the Classics Program at the Graduate Center.
AWARDS:Yale, Latin Language Prize, 1991, Greek Language Prize, 1992, Mark Deitz Memorial Prize; PSC-CUNY Research Award, CUNY Research Foundation, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2013, 2014; Whiting Foundation Fellowship for Outstanding Teaching in the Humanities, 2007; Center for Hellenic Studies Non-Residential Fellowship, 2010; National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, 2011; Getty Research Institute Senior Fellowship, 2011.
WRITINGS
Contributor of articles to historical journals, including American Journal of Archaeology, Anthropology and Aesthetics, Journal of Roman Archaeology, and The Art Bulletin.
SIDELIGHTS
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Rachel Kousser is a writer and teacher of Roman and Greek antiquity and classics. With degrees from Yale and New York University Institute of Fine Arts, and numerous research fellowships, she studies Alexander the Great, the destruction of monuments in ancient Greece, and the representation of gender and power in the Mediterranean world.
In her debut 2008 book, Hellenistic and Roman Ideal Sculpture: The Allure of the Classical, she analyzes the Romans’ preference for retrospective, classicizing statuary based on Greek models, rather than taking a modern approach. During the rapidly changing times of the 4th and 5th centuries BCE, Roman and Hellenistic statuary emulated earlier designs. Using the original statue of the Aphrodite of Capua and its Hellenistic copies and variations as a case study, Kousser traces the different meanings that variations of the statue had on subsequent forms, regions, classes, and cultures.
Writing in Bryn Mawr Classical Review, Olympia Bobou remarked: “the book presents an exciting topic. If treated with caution, it can offer valuable insight to the way idealistic sculpture was used in specific contexts and specific periods. When we have adequate information regarding the context and usage of particular statues, Kousser’s stated approach can be fruitful and enrich our understanding of the past.”
In Kousser’s 2024 biography, Alexander at the End of the World: The Forgotten Final Years of Alexander the Great, covers the ambitious conqueror’s final years during his Iranian and Indian campaigns. The book covers the years 330 BCE after Alexander had defeated Persian ruler Darius III and took the capital city of Persepolis, and follows him on his quixotic quest east toward Afghanistan in search of the end of the world. However, he experienced a series of failures, such as intense weather like monsoons, adversaries that forced setbacks, the death of beloved companions, and the mutiny of his own tired men who questioned his motives. Alexander died in 323 BCE at the age of 32 with his legacy intact but his dreams unfinished.
“The result is a fresh and propulsive take on an ancient figure who grappled with how to govern a diverse society,” according to a reviewer in Publishers Weekly. Writing in Kirkus Reviews, a critic noted that Kousser “argues astutely that assimilation and integration with those he conquered would ultimately define his enduring legacy…. A thoughtful, elegant study that sheds new light on an endlessly fascinating historical figure.”
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BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Kirkus Reviews, June 2024, review of Alexander at the End of the World: The Forgotten Final Years of Alexander the Great.
ONLINE
Bryn Mawr Classical Review, https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/ (July 10, 2009), Olympia Bobou, review of Hellenistic and Roman Ideal Sculpture: The Allure of the Classical.
Publishers Weekly, https://www.publishersweekly.com/ (June 2024), review of Alexander at the End of the World.
Rached Kousser homepage, https://rachelkousser.com/ (July 1, 2024).
Rachel Kousser writes and teaches about Alexander the Great, the destruction of monuments in ancient Greece, and the representation of gender and power in the Mediterranean world. For her work, she has received fellowships from the National Endowment of the Humanities, the Getty Research Institute, and the Center for the Advanced Study of the Visual Arts. She’s published articles in Art Bulletin, American Journal of Archaeology, and Res: Archaeology and Aesthetics as well as two books with Cambridge University Press. Rachel is currently the chair of the Classics Program at the Graduate Center, City University of New York and a professor of ancient art and archaeology at Brooklyn College. She has a B.A. in Classics and Art History from Yale University and a Ph.D. in Classical Art and Archaeology from New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts.
Rachel Meredith Kousser
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Rachel Meredith Kousser is professor of art history at the City University of New York.
Education
Kousser earned her B.A at Yale College, double majoring in Classics and Art History in May 1994. During her undergraduate years, she received the Summa cum laude Lati Language Price (1991), the Greek Language Prize (1992), and the Mark Deitz Memorial Prize for original research by an undergraduate in the History of Art. Her senior essay was titled "Death, Art, and Daily Life: An Essay in the Interpretation of Classical Athenian White-ground Lekythoi" J. J. Pollitt advised it. She completed her Ph.D. in Art History at the New York University Institute of Fine Arts. Her May 2001 Dissertation is titled "Sensual Power: A Warrior Aphrodite in Greek and Roman Sculpture" was completed under the advisory of Evelyn Harrison..[1] [2]
Career
Kousser is a professor and Executive Officer in the Art History Department (2015-Present). She has been a member of the Art History Doctoral Faculty since 2007 and the Classics Doctoral Faculty since 2011.
She was previously a professor in the art department of Brooklyn College, a visiting assistant professor in the Department of Classics at Franklin & Marshall College and a postdoctoral fellow and lecturer in the Department of Art History and Archaeology of Columbia University.
Work
Books
The Afterlives of Greek Sculpture: Interaction, Transformation, and Destruction.
Cambridge University Press, 2017. Winner: Archaeological Institute of America Publication Subvention Award, 2015
Hellenistic and Roman Ideal Sculpture: The Allure of the Classical. Cambridge University Press, 2008 (hardback), 2014 (paperback).
Selected other publications
“The Mutilation of the Herms: Violence toward Sculptures in the Late Fifth Century B.C.” In
Margaret M. Miles, ed., Autopsy in Athens: Recent Archaeological Research on Athens and Attica, Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2015, pages 76-84.
“A Sacred Landscape: The Creation, Maintenance, and Destruction of Religious Space in Roman Germany.” Res: Anthropology and Aesthetics 27/28 (2010): pages 120-139.
“Destruction and Memory on the Athenian Acropolis.” The Art Bulletin XCI.3 (2009): pages 263-282.
“Mythological Group Portraits in Antonine Rome: The Performance of Myth.” American Journal Of Archaeology 111.4 (2007): pages 673-691.
“Creating the past: The Vénus de Milo and the Hellenistic Reception ofClassical Greece.” American Journal of Archaeology 109.2 (2005): pages 227-50.
Awards and honors
National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship (2011-12)
Getty Research Institute Senior Fellowship (2011)
Center for Hellenic Studies Non-Residential Fellowship (2010-11)
Center for the Advanced Study of the Visual Arts, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Senior Fellowship (2010)
Whiting Foundation Fellowship for Outstanding Teaching in the Humanities (2007-08)
Post-Doctoral Fellowship, Deutsches Archäologisches Institut Berlin (2006)
PSC-CUNY Research Award, CUNY Research Foundation (2005, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2013,2014)
Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum Fellowship, Mainz (2002, 2003)
RACHEL KOUSSER
Professor
Art
School of Visual, Media and Performing Arts
Profile
Rachel Kousser is a Professor at Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York. In her writing and teaching, she focuses on the Greeks’ creation, transformation, and destruction of monuments; the representation of gender, sexuality, and power in the classical era; and the place of Greek art within the globally interconnected ancient world. Professor Kousser is the author of The Afterlives of Greek Sculpture: Interaction, Transformation, Destruction; Hellenistic and Roman Ideal Sculpture: The Allure of the Classical (Cambridge University Press, 2017, 2008) and articles in Art Bulletin, RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics, and the American Journal of Archaeology. She has received fellowships from the National Endowment of the Humanities, the Getty Research Institute, and the Center for the Advanced Study of the Visual Arts. Her current project, Alexander at the End of the World, is forthcoming from HarperCollins.
Professor Kousser’s expertise includes: Greek and Roman art, ancient sculpture, classicism, ancient iconoclasm, Alexander the Great.
EDUCATION
B.A., Yale University (Classics / Art History), 1994
Ph.D., New York University (Art History), 2001
SELECTED RESEARCH, SCHOLARSHIP, AND CREATIVE ACTIVITY
Books and Publications:
The afterlives of Greek sculpture: Interaction, transformation, and destruction (Cambridge University Press)
Books and Publications:
"Mutilating goddesses: Aphrodite in Late Antique Aphrodisias.? In Julia Koch and Christina Jacobs (eds.), Prähistorische und antike Göttinnen. Frauen-Forschung-Archäologie vol. 12.
Books and Publications:
"Monument and memory in ancient Greece and Rome: A comparative perspective." In Memoria Romana, edited by Karl Galinsky (Gettty Publications).
Books and Publications:
"The mutilation of the herms: Violence toward sculptures in the late fifth century B.C.? In Autopsy in Athens: Recent archaeological research on Athens and Attica, edited by Margaret M. Miles (Oxbow Books).
Books and Publications:
Adapting Greek art. In Blackwell companion to Roman art, edited by Barbara Borg (Blackwell, 2015).
Books and Publications:
The Roman reception of Greek art and architecture. In The Oxford handbook of Greek and Roman art and architecture, edited by Clemente Marconi (Oxford University Press, 2014).
Books and Publications:
"The Female Nude in Classical Art: Between Voyeurism and Power." Aphrodite and the Gods of Love. Boston: Museum of Fine Arts.
Books and Publications:
"Augustan Aphrodites: The Allure of Greek Art in Roman Visual Culture." Brill's Companion to Aphrodite. Spring.
Books and Publications:
"A Sacred Landscape: The Creation, Maintenance, and Destruction of Religious Space in Roman Germany." Res: Anthropology and Aesthetics 27/28, Spring/Fall.
Books and Publications:
"Hellenistic and Roman Art, 221 BC-AD 337." Blackwell Companion to Ancient Macedonia. Blackwell. Fall.
Books and Publications:
"Destruction and Memory on the Athenian Acropolis." Art Bulletin.
Books and Publications:
Review of The Language of the Muses: Hellenized Roman Sculpture, by Miranda Marvin. Journal of Roman Archaeology.
Books and Publications:
Hellenistic and Roman Ideal Sculpture: The Allure of the Classical. Cambridge University Press.
Books and Publications:
"Mythological Portraiture in Antonine Rome: The Performance of Myth." American Journal of Archaeology.
Books and Publications:
"The Desirability of Roman Victory: Victoria on Imperial and Provincial Monuments." Representing War in Ancient Rome. Cambridge University Press.
Books and Publications:
"The World of Aphrodite in Late Fifth Century Vase Painting." Greek Painted Pottery: Images, Contexts and Controversies. Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition.
Awards, Honors and Fellowships:
National Endowment for the Humanities Public Scholar Award
Awards, Honors and Fellowships:
Runciman Book Award Shortlist for "The Afterlives of Greek Sculpture: Interaction, Transformation, and Destruction."
Awards, Honors and Fellowships:
Archaeological Institute of America Publication Subvention award
Awards, Honors and Fellowships:
PSC-CUNY research award, CUNY Research Foundation
Awards, Honors and Fellowships:
PSC-CUNY research award, CUNY Research Foundation
Awards, Honors and Fellowships:
National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship, 2011-12.
Awards, Honors and Fellowships:
Center for Hellenic Studies non-residential fellowship. (2010-2011)
Awards, Honors and Fellowships:
Getty Research Institute senior fellowship. 2011
Awards, Honors and Fellowships:
Alisa Bruce Mellon Senior Fellowship, Center for the Advanced Study of the Visual Arts, National Gallery, Washington, D.C.
Awards, Honors and Fellowships:
PSC-CUNY Research Foundation Grant.
Awards, Honors and Fellowships:
New Faculty Fund Fellowship.
Awards, Honors and Fellowships:
PSC-CUNY Research Award, CUNY Research Foundation.
Awards, Honors and Fellowships:
Tow Faculty Travel Fellowship, Brooklyn College.
Awards, Honors and Fellowships:
PSC-CUNY Research Award, CUNY Research Foundation.
Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums:
"Alexander the Great, the Burning of Persepolis, and the Destruction of Cultural Heritage." Archaeological Institute of America
Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums:
"Of Elephants and Kings: The Materiality of Power in Hellenistic Macedonia." Bard Graduate Center
Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums:
"Black is beautiful: The materiality of sculpture in Hellenistic Egypt." Keynote speech, Graduate Student Symposium, SUNY Geneseo, 2017.
Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums:
"Sculptures and ritual in ancient Greece." Rehak Symposium, University of Kansas.
Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums:
"The Red and the Black: Materiality in Hellenistic Sculpture." Greek and Roman Seminar, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University
Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums:
Representing royal power: A dark stone queen from Ptolemaic Egypt. Archaeological Institute of America.
Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums:
Iconoclasm and iconophilia in ancient Greece. Rewald Lecture, Ph.D. Program Lectures: in Art History, The Graduate Center, CUNY, 2016.
Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums:
"Ek tou melanthos lithou: The materiality of dark stone sculptures in Ptolemaic Egypt." University of Pennsylvania
Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums:
The afterlives of sculptures in ancient Greece. Julius Fund Lecture in Ancient Art History, Case Western Reserve University, 2015.
Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums:
The mutilation of the herms: Violence toward images in the late fifth century B.C. Archaeological Institute of America, 2014.
Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums:
Damnatio memoriae in Hellenistic Athens. Institute of Fine Arts, symposium in honor of Evelyn Harrison
Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums:
Hellenistic damnatio memoriae. Johns Hopkins University, 2014.
Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums:
Hellenistic damnatio memoriae: Recarved ruler portraits from Ptolemaic Egypt. Archaeological Institute of America.
Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums:
The recycling and restoration of funerary monuments in Late Classical Athens. College Art Association.
Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums:
Respondent, Cultural memory in the Roman empire. Memoria Romana project, Getty Villa.
Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums:
"The Use and Abuse of Images in Ancient Greece." Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, University of California at Los Angeles.
Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums:
"Mutilating goddesses: Aphrodite in Late Antique Aphrodisias." "Prahistorische und antike Gottinen," Heilbronn, Spring 2011.
Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums:
"Aphrodite and the Female Nude." Museum of Fine Arts. Boston.
Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums:
"Mutilated, bound, confined, concealed: "Voodoo dolls" in Classical and Hellenistic Greece." Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, Spring 2011.
Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums:
"The aesthetics and facture of "voodoo dolls" in Classical Athens". Department of Art History, University of California at Berkley, Spring 2011.
Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums:
"The Living Image: Ancient and Modern Approaches to Iconoclasm." Center for the Advanced Study of the Visual Arts. Washington, D.C.
Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums:
"Memories of Greece, Souvenirs of Egypt: The Visual Culture of Expatriatism in Ptolemaic Alexandria." College Art Association Annual Meeting.
Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums:
"Monument and Memory in Ptolemaic Alexandria." CUNY Graduate Center. New York.
Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums:
"Colossal Power: Scale as Metaphor in Hellenistic Ruler Portraits." Heoretical Archaeology Group New York. Columbia University.
Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums:
"Augustan Aphrodites: The Allure of the Classical in the Early Empire." University of Reading. Reading, United Kingdom.
Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums:
"Destroying Sacred Space: Iconoclasm in Roman Germany." Archaeological Institute of America. Winter.
Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums:
"Lost on the Borderlands: Destroying Art in Roman Germany." College Art Association. Spring.
Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums:
"The Parthenon as Palimpsest: Destruction and Memory on the Athenian Acropolis." Department of Art History and Archaeology, Columbia University. New York.
Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums:
"Representing Sensual Power: A Classical Statue of Aphrodite in Corinth." Archaeological Institute of America. Winter.
RACHEL KOUSSER
FACULTY
Executive Officer and Professor, Classics
Professor, Art History
RESEARCH INTERESTS
Greek and Roman Art and Archaeology
EDUCATION
Ph.D., Institute of Fine Arts, New York University 2001
Download CV
PROFESSOR OF GREEK AND ROMAN ART AND ARCHAEOLOGY
Rachel Kousser is Professor at Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York. In her writing and teaching, she focuses on the Greeks' creation, transformation, and destruction of monuments; the representation of gender, sexuality, and power in the classical era; and the place of Greek art within the globally interconnected ancient world. Her most recent work, The Afterlives of Greek Sculpture: Interaction, Transformation, Destruction (Cambridge University Press, 2017), received an Archaeological Institute of America Publication Subvention Award and was shortlisted for the Runciman Book Award for a book on Greek history or culture. Professor Kousser is also the author of Hellenistic and Roman Ideal Sculpture: The Allure of the Classical (Cambridge University Press, 2008) and of articles in Art Bulletin, RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics, and the American Journal of Archaeology. She has received fellowships from the National Endowment of the Humanities, the Getty Research Institute, and the Center for the Advanced Study of the Visual Arts. Her current project uses archaeological evidence to illuminate the last years of Alexander the Great; it is forthcoming from Custom House/HarperCollins.
ARTICLES
“Monument and Memory in Ancient Greece and Rome: A Comparative Perspective.” In Karl Galinsky and Kenneth Lapatin, eds., Cultural Memories in the Roman Empire. Los Angeles: Gettty Publications, 2015, 33-48.
“Adapting Greek Art.” In Barbara Borg, ed., Blackwell Companion to Roman Art. Chichester, West Sussex, UK: Blackwell, 2015, 114-129.
“The Roman Reception of Greek Art and Architecture.” In Clemente Marconi, ed., The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Art and Architecture. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014, 374-394.
"The female nude in classical art: Between voyeurism and power." In Aphrodite and the Gods of Love, edited by Christine Kondoleon with Phoebe C. Segal. Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 2011.
"Augustan Aphrodites: The allure of Greek art in Roman visual culture." In Brill's Companion to Aphrodite, edited by Amy C. Smith and Sadie Pickup, 287-306. Boston/Leiden: Brill, 2010.
"A sacred landscape: The creation, maintenance, and destruction of religious space in Roman Germany." Res: Anthropology and Aesthetics 27/28 (Spring/Fall 2010): 121-139.
"Hellenistic and Roman Art, 221 BC-AD 337." In A Companion to Ancient Macedonia, edited by Joseph Roisman and Ian Worthington, 522-542. Wiley-Blackwell, 2010.
“Destruction and Memory on the Athenian Acropolis” Art Bulletin 91, no. 3 (September 2009): 263-282.
"The historiography of Roman art and the 'modern copy myth.'" Review of The Language of the Muses: The Dialogue Between Roman and Greek Sculpture by Miranda Marvin. Journal of Roman Archaeology 22 (2009): 608-610.
“Mythological Group Portraits in Antonine Rome: The Performance of Myth.” American Journal of Archaeology 111.4 (2007): 673-691.
“Conquest and Desire: Roman Victoria in Public and Provincial Sculpture." In Sheila Dillon and Katherine Welch, eds., Representations of War in Ancient Rome. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006, 218-243.
“Creating the past: The Vénus de Milo and the Hellenistic Reception of Classical Greece.” American Journal of Archaeology 109.2 (2005): 227-50.
Kousser, Rachel ALEXANDER AT THE END OF THE WORLD Mariner Books (NonFiction None) $35.00 7, 16 ISBN: 9780062869685
A professor of ancient art and archaeology tracks Alexander III through the last years of his Iranian and Indian campaigns, arguing that this period proved his greatness.
Kousser catches up with Alexander the Macedonian king in 330 B.C.E., after four years of wildly successful conquests through Central Asia in pursuit of his rival, Persian Emperor Darius III. Although the Macedonians found the seasoned warrior already assassinated, Alexander resolved to continue his rampage through eastern Persia and down into India for another seven grueling years. The author asks: Why did he press on when his exhausted, devoted army beseeched him to return home, where he could have rested on his laurels and vast riches? Inspired by the Hellenistic ideals taught to him by his early tutor, Aristotle, Alexander chose to embody them. Kousser shows him as a godlike Achilles figure who challenged lions single-handedly, even while he was chided for recklessness by his own men. Although impulsive and quick to anger--e.g., he stabbed his longtime companion Kleitos at a drunken feast, an act he quickly regretted, considering suicide--Alexander evolved as he became more aware of the humanity of the people he conquered. As he pushed his army in pursuit of rogue Persian generals like Bessos through eastern Persia and across the formidable Hindu Kush, he took Persian lovers and a wife, Roxane; assimilated Persian generals into his army; and began to adopt Persian clothes and customs. "The East did not corrupt the Macedonian king," writes the author. "Instead, from the outset he contained within himself the seeds of everything he would one day become." Kousser argues astutely that assimilation and integration with those he conquered would ultimately define his enduring legacy. The text includes maps.
A thoughtful, elegant study that sheds new light on an endlessly fascinating historical figure.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
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"Kousser, Rachel: ALEXANDER AT THE END OF THE WORLD." Kirkus Reviews, 1 June 2024, p. NA. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A795673857/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=f865113a. Accessed 25 June 2024.
Hellenistic and Roman Ideal Sculpture: The Allure of the Classical
Rachel Meredith Kousser, Hellenistic and Roman Ideal Sculpture: The Allure of the Classical. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008. xv, 208. ISBN 9780521877824. $85.00.
Review by
Olympia Bobou, Brasenose College, Oxford. Olympia.bobou@bnc.ox.ac.uk / Olympia.bobou@gmail.com
Preview
[Table of contents is listed at the end of the review.]
Hellenistic and Roman Ideal Sculpture: The Allure of the Classical by Rachel Kousser is a short monograph tackling a phenomenon spanning several centuries: the emergence of classicizing statuary in the fourth century BCE and its uses and transformations in the changing and complex world of the Hellenistic and Roman Imperial periods.
Kousser’s methodological weapon of choice in examining and assessing the ways a particular image was used, transmitted, and transformed from period to period and according to each context in which it was set up, is the theory of reception. Even though she acknowledges the contribution of recent studies on Roman statuary, and most notably of those scholars propagating the importance of emulation in Roman artistic circles, and those emphasising the originality of Roman statuary, she identifies two significant problems with modern approaches. First of all, statues are studied outside their specific historical context and, secondly, without any concern as to the particular needs and beliefs of local populations in the areas where the statues were placed. By focusing on the statue of the Aphrodite of Capua type and analysing its differing uses according to location and patron requirements, Kousser hopes to address these problems.
In the first chapter, Kousser looks at the information regarding the original statue of the Aphrodite of Capua, and its Hellenistic copies and variations. She incorporates the statue in a series of partially clothed Aphrodite images produced from the late fifth century BCE onwards, and acknowledges the spirit of emulation that governed the creation of the type. The original of the Aphrodite of Capua is accepted to have been that of the Armed Aphrodite ( Aphrodite Hoplismene), a cult statue of the goddess placed in her sanctuary at Acrocorinth. Kousser examines the evidence for the existence of the statue in Corinth in the Hellenistic and Roman period, and then proceeds into a detailed discussion of the different meanings that variations of the type might have had. For that reason, she focuses on the ‘Venus de Milo’, found in the gymnasium of Melos, small-scale statuettes from houses, and terracotta figurines from tombs.
In the second chapter, Kousser examines the uses and functions of classical images in early imperial Roman art, by focusing on specific examples in large and small scale. These highlight the changes occurring in the visual language of the period, and the tensions between programmatic, classicizing images, and the meaning imbued in them. The Aphrodite of Capua type proves a flexible vehicle for images denoting both sensuality and valour, as can be shown by the use of the type for both Venus and Victoria statues. At the same time, the placement of different variations (in diverse public spaces such as the Forum Romanum, or that of Brescia, or the tomb of Zoilos in Aphrodisias, but also sword scabbards from Germany, as well as coinage), demonstrates the fluidity of meaning that the image has in the period under discussion, and the way that different signifiers still battle for supremacy over a single sign.
In the third chapter, Kousser discusses the role of classicizing sculpture as a tool used for the consolidation of the Roman Empire, and as means of mediation between elite classes and state. The images derivative of the Aphrodite of Capua type are shown to be used in imperial state art, especially in arches and coinage, in order to allude to imperial power, virtue and culture. The desirability of victory and power, which was part of the type’s intrinsic meaning since the creation of the Aphrodite Hoplismene, is accentuated through the progressive, even aggressive, exposure of the goddess’s flesh and becomes associated with the desirability of Roman rule and government, especially when it is used outside the capital. But, whereas Victory images still refer to victory, images of Aphrodite, especially in Asia Minor, allude to culture, erudition and Greek tradition.
The fourth chapter is dedicated to the use of these idealistic and retrospective images in the shifting world of late antiquity, a world moving from paganism to Christianity. She examines them in ‘three major contexts:… imperial triumphal monuments, houses and villa décor, and tombs’ (112). Kousser argues that they are used selectively, and that their significance lies in disguising the sense of discord and change of period.
In the conclusions, Kousser first reiterates the basic principles of her approach, and how, instead of focusing either on the uniformity or the originality of Roman idealistic art, it shows classicizing art as a refined body of works whose significance and appreciation was dependent on the nuanced elaboration of well-known originals. She then proceeds to a review of the recent scholarship on Roman classicism that highlights the great number and variety of idealistic statues, and their equally varied placement and geographic distribution. Finally, she looks briefly at three statues (known from copies and originals) and examines them through the lens of her approach, in order to show how even seemingly unproblematic statues such as the Athena Parthenos or the so-called Herculaneum Women, could be ascribed a different meaning and importance depending on the period in which the copy was made, and the place where it was set up.
On the whole, the identification of the meaning of idealizing statuary in both the Hellenistic and Roman period is an ambitious project, even when attempted through the examination of a single statuary type. As a result, the chapters are unequal in length, and depth. Even though the difference in length can be explained by the relative abundance or lack of material evidence, the discrepancy in the treatment of the different copies is problematic. The discussions concerning Aphrodite statuettes, classicizing art in private contexts of the Early empire, sarcophagi and the entire fourth chapter offer tantalizing glimpses into the uses of idealistic art in general, and not just sculpture, and it would have been desirable to see more on these topics.
From a methodological point of view, there is one main problem. In several cases, the argumentation is based on hypotheses or personal interpretations, that take into account much later statuary and literary accounts. This is a traditional approach that continues the controversial argumentation that has existed concerning ideal statuary since the 19th century. One example of that can be seen in her analysis of the statue of Aphrodite Hoplismene.
The best evidence for the existence of the statue of the armed Aphrodite date from the Roman period. Kousser starts with previously studied Severan coins depicting the statue, and then proceeds to Antonine frescos, late antique statues and back to second century lamps (20-23, figs 8-11). The logic of the presentation is difficult to follow. Moreover, lamps and statuettes with such images of Aphrodite were not confined to Corinth, and testify rather to the popularity of the Aphrodite image than to the specificity of the meaning of the type in Corinth.
The evidence for the presence of a statue of the goddess in Acrocorinth is scant, and there are no Late Classical or Hellenistic literary sources to help us recognize or reconstruct the statue. For that reason, Kousser cites two terracotta statuettes from the Tile Works at Corinth (figs 12-13) that are identified as ‘evidence …for the early use of the … type’ (24). Yet, neither of the two figurines bears a close enough resemblance to be positively identified as a copy or even a variation of the Aphrodite of Capua type.1
Based on this evidence, Kousser proceeds to reconstruct a lost original that is identical to the one depicted in coins and frescos of the Roman period, and treat that hypothetical original, as the original of the type throughout her discussion of the variations and copies of the statue of the Aphrodite of Capua type.
Moreover, the argument is weakened further by incorrect citations of ancient Greek. The word used for shield is hoplon, not hoplos (23), and hoplismene is the past participle of the verb hoplizo, which means to make/be ready, or be armed. Therefore, the word itself does not ‘[draw] attention to the shield (the hoplos‘) held by the goddess’ (23), but rather points out that the goddess is armed.
This kind of circular argumentation can be found in other instances in the book, and one must be especially attentive while reading, because a hypothesis, no matter how likely or plausible, is still a hypothesis and should be treated as such. This is especially important since, because of the title and subject matter, the book will be read by undergraduates.
Another problem when trying to understand the use of images based on the Aphrodite of Capua type, is that once the subject matter of an image changes, then so does its meaning. It is to be expected that an image of Aphrodite will have different connotations, functions and allusions than an image of Victory.
Finally, the aim of the book according to Kousser is to study ‘the historical evolution of a major sculptural type … [and to use] this as a case study through which to analyze a series of broader artistic receptions/transformations’ (4). Furthermore, in the introduction Kousser insists on her use of reception theory as a methodological tool. For this reason, one is led to expect the history of the type’s reception, rather than the history of the type. However, this is almost always the weakest aspect of each chapter.
In the first chapter, the emphasis is on the typology and the iconography of the Aphrodite of the Capua type. The use and reception of the image of the goddess takes a secondary place (seven pages out of eighteen in the discussion of Aphrodite Hoplismene and its variations), while the reception and use of terracotta figurines especially is summarily described as funerary.2
The situation is similar in the second chapter, with the focus again on the shifting iconographies of the figures. The Zoilos monument in Aphrodisias is well-published, and so could have been a good test case for the reception of idealistic images in an Eastern provincial city with ambitions of grandeur. The Victory of Brescia and the possible reception of an idealistic sculpture in a newly created civilian colony are similarly unexplored. Cameos and coins are discussed for their typology only.
In the third chapter, when discussing the Victory from the column of Trajan, Kousser focuses on the size and framing of the divine figures, but does not indicate the actual height and placement of the panel with the Victory, and how that would have impaired the highly nuanced view that she suggests. Kousser turns away from discussions of style and iconography when examining votive columns from Roman Germany, but returns to them when analyzing statues of Aphrodite from bath complexes.
In this respect, the fourth chapter offers the best examples on using reception theory in order to understand idealistic, classicizing images, such as figures of Victories in imperial monuments in Rome and Constantinople. Unfortunately, due to the brevity of this chapter, her analysis is neither detailed or in-depth.
Kousser also seems to be alternating between patrons and viewers when discussing uses and meanings. The Aphrodite Hoplismene is seen through the eyes of the worshippers, but not the commissioners, a Mars-Venus group found in the Forum Augusti is discussed in relation to its viewers, the Tomb of Zoilos is studied in connection to Zoilos, the Victory of Brescia is also seen through the eyes of the commissioners, and so on. Of course, we do not always have information about both, but either some consistency in her treatment or some acknowledgment of the possible patrons and viewers would have been welcome.
This also opens the question: which viewers are we talking about? Kousser only rarely makes some attempts to differentiate and identify her viewers, and even then, they tend to belong to the upper classes and be mostly male. To her credit, she is being cautious and most times her potential viewers can also be identified with the patrons of the works she discusses (as in the case of images on gems and swords). Nevertheless, recognizing the multiplicity of viewers may be a difficult task, but not an impossible one.3
But, Kousser’s use of traditional approaches is masterful and proves to be the great strength of the book. Instead of an old-fashioned, staid methodology, Kousser demonstrates how careful iconographic analysis of the material can be insightful and help us understand better the importance of sculpture in specific contexts. Kousser’s discussion of Aphrodite of Melos offers glimpses of the possible meanings of Aphrodite’s attributes in an athletic-educational setting. Her analysis of gems and glass pastes of Victoria Romana is solid, perceptive and innovative in its conclusions. The same can be seen in her treatment of Aphrodite figures from baths in Asia Minor.
On the whole, the book presents an exciting topic. If treated with caution, it can offer valuable insight to the way idealistic sculpture was used in specific contexts and specific periods. When we have adequate information regarding the context and usage of particular statues, Kousser’s stated approach can be fruitful and enrich our understanding of the past.
Contents 1. Creating the past: the origins of classicism in Hellenistic sculpture
2. From Greece to Rome: retrospective sculpture in the early empire
3. From metropolis to empire: retrospective sculpture in the high empire
4. From Roman to Christian: retrospection and transformation in late antique art
Notes
1. Merker, in her publication of the statuette depicted on fig. 12, identifies it as a ‘woman or goddess, probably arranging her hair,’ G. S. Merker, The Greek Tile Works at Corinth: The Site and Finds (2006), 117, no. 252.
2. An examination of the different finds and terracotta figurines from tombs shows that the figure of Aphrodite could have had a different meaning in the tomb of a young girl or a maiden from that of a married woman. For some insights on the potential and diverse uses (and users) of such statuettes, see D. Graepler, Tonfiguren im Grab: Fundkontexte hellenistischer Terrakotten aus der Nekropole von Tarent (1997), or U. Mrogenda, Die Terrakottafiguren von Myrina : eine Untersuchung ihrer möglichen Bedeutung und Funktion im Grabzusammenhang (1996).
3. Caroline Vout’s Power and Eroticism in Imperial Rome (2007), offers a good example of how we can plausibly identify and discuss different possible viewers, and shows one way of dealing with this problem.
Alexander at the End of the World: The Forgotten Final Years of Alexander the Great
Rachel Kousser. Mariner, $35 (432p) ISBN 978-0-06-286968-5
“The last years of Alexander were not just the sordid aftermath of a once impressive career; they were in fact what made him ‘Great,’ ” according to this beguiling biography. Historian Kousser (The Afterlives of Greek Sculpture) argues that, during Alexander’s “quixotic” push eastward after his defeat of the Persian empire in 330 BCE, he experienced a string of “failures” that tempered and matured his outlook. These included his poor handling of mutinies, conspiracies, and the deaths of beloved companions; strategic blundering in response to enemies’ guerilla tactics; and a brush with death on the battlefield. Kousser portrays these setbacks as feeding into Alexander’s larger struggle “com[ing] to terms with a world far more complicated than the one in which he was born” as he traveled, and governed, farther from home than people of his era typically ventured. In so doing, Alexander gained an unprecedented glimpse of the way in which human culture varies across vast distances, which altered his political philosophy, Kousser argues; he developed a “hard-won understanding of his enemies and a willingness to compromise” that led to his empire’s most significant legacy, the forging of an “interconnected Hellenistic world” that promoted a new kind of democratic pluralism. Kousser’s novelistic account, with its emphasis on personalities and intrigues, makes for compulsive reading. The result is a fresh and propulsive take on an ancient figure who grappled with how to govern a diverse society. (July)