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The Bronze Trumpeter at Sparta and the Earthquake of 464 b.c.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
Extract
Among the objects discovered in the excavation of the temple of Athena Chalkioikos at Sparta is a small bronze figure of a trumpeter (illustrated in the Annual of the British School at Athens, xiii p. 146). Mr. Dickins, who says that the figure ‘can be dated without hesitation in the middle of the fifth century,’ regards ‘the presence of a trumpeter as a dedication in Sparta as perplexing, because the Spartans marched to battle to the sound of flutes, and made no use of trumpets for martial music’. This is, I think, the view generally held. The purpose of this paper is to suggest a possible reason for the dedication of the trumpeter at the date, which the style of the work suggests.
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- Copyright © The Classical Association 1909
References
1 The effects of the earthquake (which is briefly more that 20,000 Lacedaemonians being killed, discussed by Thucydides) are described by Plutarch(I.e.), Diodorus xi 63, Pausanias iv 24. 6. Althoughhave been very serious. Diodorus, no doubt following Ephorus who had a taste for large figures, talks of Plutarch and others say that all but five houses in the city were overthrown. The overthrow of buildprobably ings may explain the destruction of some of the earlier temples at Sparta.