The Problem of Classical Ionia

The sixth century B.C. was a brilliant age in Ionia. Milesian academic research and Samian opportunism set the bounds for intellectual and mechanical progress, the Chians made money and the Phocaeans sailed the seven seas. The surviving fragments of Ionic sculpture and architecture, the massive relics of the biggest-ever temples, and engineering feats like those of Polycrates in the town of Samos still demonstrate the scale on which the Ionic achievement was conceived. But when the archaeologist turns his attention to the fifth century in Ionia he seeks in vain for comparable creations. Sculpture has virtually disappeared, while painting seems to have come to an end with the Clazomenian sarcophagi and the schools of vase decoration that were associated with them. There are no new city layouts rivalling that of Samos; and only one small temple at Miletus stands out as a meagre creation of this century. The minor arts also were virtually at an end; and—whether in excavation or in surface reconnaissance—the archaeologist discovers scarcely any recognizable testimony of Ionic culture, or even of habitation, on the sites of the Ionic cities in this epoch. In material civilization the fifth century seems to have been the Dark Age of Ionia.