Περί Ιππικής: On Ancient Greek Horsemanship
Presented By
Hippos Lecture Series
American School of Classical Studies
Speaker(s)
Carol Mattusch,
George Mason University
Location
ASCSA Cotsen Hall - Hybrid Lectures, Anapiron Polemou 9, Athens 106 76Anapiron Polemou 9
Athens 106 76
The lecture will be in English
By registering you will be able to submit your questions through Q&A on Zoom.
** Guests attending Cotsen Hall events are required to wear a mask and to present valid COVID-19 vaccination certificates or certificates of recovery (valid for 180 days) along with ID.
About the lecture:
A horse-owner or cavalryman (ὁ ἱππεύς) was in the second of five classes established by Solon’s reforms of 592-591 B.C. Horses served in battle and in the sports of the wealthy. Xenophon’s Περὶ Ἱππικῆς is a practical manual for young men of means training for the cavalry. He addresses buying, stabling, grooming, training and equipping the horse; he writes about riding and training; and about body armor for the cavalryman. Ideally, Greek warhorses were supple, short-backed, with strong loins and flank, so as to be collected and balanced in movements. Carol Mattusch will show that many of Xenophon’s recommendations still hold true for today’s riders. For example, horses must be obedient: when your horse performs beautifully, end the lesson immediately.
About the speaker:
Carol C. Mattusch, Mathy Professor Emerita of Art History at George Mason University, specializes in Greek and Roman bronzes, and in the rediscovery of the classical world in the 18th century. Her books include Enduring Bronze, J. Paul Getty Museum, 2014; The Villa dei Papiri at Herculaneum: Life and Afterlife of a Sculpture Collection, Malibu: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2005; and Classical Bronzes: The Art and Craft of Greek and Roman Statuary, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996. She has won the College Art Association’s Charles Rufus Morey Book Award, and the Archaeological Institute of America’s James R. Wiseman Book Award. Mattusch curated Pompeii and the Roman Villa (National Gallery of Art, 2008), and she served as an advisor to Buried by Vesuvius: The Villa dei Papiri at Herculaneum (Getty, 2019), and Power and Pathos: Bronze Sculpture of the Hellenistic World (Getty and Palazzo Strozzi, 2015). She chairs the Committee on International Bronze Congresses, and she is a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and a corresponding member of the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut.