Long undervalued, Hellenistic Greece has in recent years experienced a renaissance of interest. No longer considered decadent, the literature and art of the three centuries from the spectacular conquests of Alexander the Great in the late fourth century BC to the fall of the last independent kingdom of his successors to the Romans in 31 BC now receive serious consideration. Although Hellenistic art is not accorded as much space in textbooks as Archaic or Classical, the achievements of Hellenistic architects, sculptors, and painters are widely appreciated. Accounts of Greek (and for that matter Roman) art, however, continue to be dominated by anachronistic emphasis on the Vasarian triad of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture, while other media, arguably more significant to the ancients themselves, remain underexamined. While the poor survival of ancient ivory- and wood-work, textiles, and precious metals might, perhaps, excuse their absence from modern art histories, engraved gems survive in better condition than pots and greater number than marbles and bronzes. Some have been recovered from graves, but many never went underground. Prized for their materials as well as their craftsmanship, ancient gems were treasured in the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Enlightenment, when their study was at the forefront of not only the emerging discipline of art history, but also elite culture (see, e.g., Peter and Hilde Zazoff, Gemmensammler und Gemmenforscher: von einer noblen Passion zur Wissenschaft Munich: C.H. Beck, 1983 and, more recently, Clifford M. Brown ed., Engraved Gems: Survivals and Revivals Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, Studies in the History of Art 54, 1997). In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, to a greater degree than ever before, the desirability of Greek intaglios motivated skilled craftsmen to imitate and copy the works of ancient gem-cutters for a ready market, and contamination of the corpus by forgeries has bedeviled their study. As the materials and techniques employed in the production of modern gems are, for the most part, identical to those of the ancients, scholars have resorted to the somewhat subjective criteria of style and iconography to organize this vast body of material. Even stones with a secure archaeological provenance often fail to provide reliable indications of date or place of manufacture; having personal as well as intrinsic value, gems served as highly portable heirlooms. Indeed, their carvers, unencumbered by major workshop installations, also traveled readily.

In the brief introduction to this admirable book, Dimitris Plantzos discusses these and other methodological problems as he traces the historiography of Greek glyptic. While the standard work in the field, John Boardman’s Greek Gems and Finger Rings (London: Thames & Hudson, 1970) provides masterly overviews of Bronze Age, Geometric, Archaic, Classical, and Greco-Persian glyptic, its last chapter, by Boardman’s own admission, offers but “a glance at what was done in the Hellenistic period….a summary account” (359). In this revision of his 1993 Oxford D.Phil. thesis (supervised by Boardman), Plantzos provides a much needed comprehensive treatment of the Hellenistic material.

This slim volume is packed with information and abounds with images drawn from numerous public and private collections. Following the introduction, the double-columned text is divided into three parts that address the evidence for Hellenistic engraved gems; the technique, style, and subject matter of the intaglios; and ancient contexts and functions. There is naturally some overlap between the sections, and much in Part III relates closely to Part I. The author’s command of his subject is evident throughout. He writes clearly and without jargon, and is well aware of the limits of certainty with such problematic material.

The three short, but meaty chapters in Part I examine ancient texts on gems, the evidence from temple inventories, and the use of seals in antiquity. Numerous ancient treatises on minerals and their properties addressed gemstones from viewpoints as diverse as folk-tale, natural observation, philosophical and medical doctrine, and religious conviction, but only two early lapidaria have survived: Theophrastos’s Peri lithon (aka ), written in the late fourth century BC, and Book 37 of the Elder Pliny’s Natural History written in the mid-first AD. Theophrastos, an associate and successor of Aristotle, produced a scientific treatise concerned less with mystical properties of stones (which Plantzos addresses in Part III) than with their origins and natural properties. Like Plato and others, he believed that they were formed from water and earth solidified by means of heat and/or cold. Pure rock crystal, for example, was commonly considered to be super-frozen ice. Theophrastos classified stones according to their hardness, smoothness, solidity, luster, transparency, and color. While he does occasionally mention the working of stones, that is not his principal concern. The Elder Pliny, in contrast, aimed in his encyclopedic Natural History to provide an account of how the bounty of Nature could (and should) be exploited for the good of mankind. He draws on Theophrastos and other scientific sources, but also provides short histories of gem carving and collecting: famous enthusiasts include King Mithradates of Pontos and Juba of Mauretania (who wrote a treatise on gems), as well as Sulla’s son-in-law Scaurus, Pompey, Caesar, and Maecenas. Pliny also discusses the production of glass imitations and fakes, and, more than Theophrastos, comments on some of the wondrous properties attributed to specific stones, though he rarely accepts the veracity of such reports. These are preserved in other ancient texts, such as Dioskorides’s Materia Medica, the Orphic Lithika, and other forerunners of medieval lapidaria. Such texts (and others cited in Part III) provide a glimpse of some of the less obvious reasons the Greeks, whose rationality we extol, cherished these objects. Indeed, their temple treasuries were full of them, as Plantzos makes clear in Chapter two’s close reading of sacred inventories inscribed on stone in Athens, Eleusis, and Delos. Most gems, however, were not immediately dedicated to the gods, but, as shown in Chapter three, rather used in life as personal (or public) seals that functioned to secure property or to guarantee the authority and/or secrecy of documents. Plantzos adduces the literary and physical evidence for intaglios employed to identify their bearers or represent their absent owners; mark ritual implements and sacrificial offerings; and, of course, authenticate public and private correspondence. Much of this chapter, the longest in Part I, examines the evidence of clay sealings retrieved from Hellenistic archives at sites as far afield as Carthage, Selinus, Elephantine, Edfu, Cyrene, Nea Paphos, and Palmyra, and Plantzos’s analysis yields information regarding not only the various contexts in which seals were used, but also chronology, for which there are few fixed points, apart from securely identifiable portraits.

Part II comprises the bulk of the book. A lucid chapter on Shapes and Materials and another considering Stylistic Groups and Chronology frame three iconographical studies, treating Royal Portraits, Gods and Humans, and, much more briefly, Objects and Animals. While Part I might be considered archaeology, this section is the stuff of more traditional art history and it is extremely well executed. In Chapter four Plantzos furthers Boardman’s examination of the development of shapes and mounts, and his section on technique is the clearest I have encountered. The iconographical exploration opens with images of kings and queens whose identities can be ascertained by comparison with coins. Plantzos notes, however, that because intaglio and coin portraits served different functions, they were sometimes conceived and used in distinct ways and thus the former do not always follow the norms of the latter. Some exceptional gems were arguably used by the rulers themselves, while others, mass-produced of cheaper glass, offer indications of the wider political and religious use of such objects in everyday life (a topic discussed more fully in Part III). Plantzos opens his treatment of individual gems (709 of which are included in his catalogue) with the Ptolemies, observing that “despite all the evidence suggesting that they were particularly interested in the glyptic arts, there are very few intaglios readily recognized as Ptolemaic portraits, and even fewer easily identified with a particular member of the dynasty” (42). Yet they alone of Hellenistic royal families seem to have represented many of their queens. In this and subsequent sections treating the Seleucids and others, Plantzos thoroughly examines the iconography of identifiable and unidentifiable rulers, Africans, Parthians, and Easterners as well as Greeks. He considers posthumous images of Alexander and also explores the status of gem-engravers and their relationship to die-cutters.

Chapter six addresses mythological figures, the most common subject matter. While many types appear related to sculptural models, few can be identified as copies or representations of statues. Indeed, the iconographical repertoire of Hellenistic gems, like most Greek art, is rather generic, and finds analogs in painting and mosaic as well as sculpture. It is the mythical and religious content of intaglios, rather than quotation of some famous work of art, that seems to have been what mattered. Plantzos examines depictions of Aphrodite and Eros (for which now see also Christopher A. Faraone, Ancient Greek Love Magic Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999, es15, 53), Herakles and Athena, Tyche, Isis, Serapis, Satyrs and Maenads, and many others. One of his most enlightening sections treats “Gems for the Masses,” mass-produced intaglios often of very poor quality depicting half-draped deities (usually Aphrodite, Apollo, Dionysos, or Nike). Most of these are fashioned of glass, which might be cut, but was usually molded, and in a few cases Plantzos presents multiple examples from the same mold, or both stone and glass versions. These relatively less expensive objects seem to indicate “the desire of people from every class or financial state to possess and perhaps use engraved gems or their substitutes” (73). Plantzos also considers the frequency and form of carvers’ signatures, their relationship to the patronage of Romans, and the advent of new iconographies (i.e., images of Diomedes and Kassandra) to satisfy that market. He calculates that signatures appear more frequently in the mid- to late first century BC than in the preceding 250 years, and suggests that they were intended as a guarantee of make and provenance. Indeed, even carvers with Latin names, such as Gnaeus and Felix, sign their names in Greek characters.

Part III consists of two short but highly informative chapters treating the Cost and Value of Engraved Gems in Antiquity and Engraved Gems and their Owners. Both rely on the evidence of literary sources, those discussed in Part I as well as the remarks culled from authors as diverse as Aelian, Aristophanes, Athenaeus, Diodorus Siculus, Heliodoros, Herodotos, Horace, Juvenal, Lucian, Martial, Plutarch, Seneca, Strabo, and Xenophon, not to mention the Ptolemaic geographer Agatharchides of Knidos. In the aftermath of Alexander’s conquests, not only gold and silver but also precious stones flooded the Greek world. While the specific monetary values recorded in temple inventories (see also Chapter 2) are naturally to be trusted more than the exaggerations of poets, such precious materials, then as now, had more than economic worth. Herodotos (3.40.41) tells the story of Polykrates of Samos, who, when instructed to sacrifice his most treasured possession, tossed his seal ring into the sea only to have it returned to him in the belly of a fish (a topos found elsewhere). Plantzos is quick to point out that the ring, though treasured, was unlikely to have been the most valuable possession of the tyrant. The connotations of such sumptuous objects were more than monetary, and, while praised by some, luxury—oriental luxury in particular—had many detractors. King Seleukos I might offer a gem-studded “barbarian” vessel to Apollo at Didyma, but the display of precious stones in Pompey’s triumph was severely criticized by Pliny as were the high prices paid for rare and exotic gems. Some stones, of course, were worth more than others, but ancient authors also report that skillful carving enhanced value, while by the Roman period (as today) pieces that could plausibly be associated with celebrities fetched particularly high prices. Plantzos continues to bring this material to life in Chapter ten. Whereas in Chapter two he examined gems dedicated in temples and in Chapter three their use as seals, here he explores their use as gifts and in spells; their putative medicinal properties; and the political connotations of their imagery, demonstrating that their value often went far beyond the cost of materials or quality of carving. In just a few pages, Plantzos adduces ancient texts testifying to the employment of gems as tokens of love and fidelity, amulets and charms, badges of authority and signifiers of political persuasion. Different stones were thought to cure illness, predict storms, prevent drunkenness or scorpion, snake, and spider bites, guarantee victories in court, in gymnasia, and, as mentioned above, in love.

Much more is packed into this comprehensive volume. Unlike other treatments that focus on iconography, style, chronology, technique, materials, or some other aspect of the material to the detriment of others, this well-rounded book is notable for the breadth as well as depth of its coverage. It is certain to become the standard account of the subject. Production values are high: I noticed only one minor typographical error. The authoritative and attractively designed text is enhanced by a rich trove of (mostly) high quality illustrations of the gems themselves, as well as impressions (sometimes both), in almost every case enlarged to give the reader a better view of their imagery. These are supplemented by relevant material in other media: ancient terra-cotta impressions, cameos, seal rings, coins, and sculpture in stone, faience, and bone. The book is unfortunately expensive, but a necessary acquisition for libraries. My only complaint is that all the plates are black and white. Although the text focuses on the carvings, the stones themselves, as Part III makes absolutely clear, were often extremely significant, and, as anyone who examines these appealing objects first hand can attest, their magical glow and radiant color remains responsible for much of their allure. This alone is missing from this otherwise outstanding publication.