Commentary Prepared by Dr. Julia Lenaghan, Ashmolean Museum

B 217
Foot Fragment of Aristogeiton from the Tyrannicide Group. Baiae Cast

Plaster Cast
Statue Body Fragment
L. 14.3 cm x W. 8.2 cm

Found in a cellar room in the Baths of Sosandra at Baiae (modern Baia). It was found among dirt fill and other casts.
Italy, Baiae, Museo Archeologico dei Campi Flegrei,, 174.529
Roman copy of an early classical, ca. 480-470 BC, original

Preservation:
The foot fragment, made of fine plaster, depicts part of the left foot. The preserved area extends lengthwise from the instep to the end of the toes and in width from the left edge of the foot to the third toe. The big toe is missing its end, from before the nail to the tip, and the preserved second and third toes are battered and weathered. The grooves between the toes have plaster at the bottom. The underside of the foot is hollowed out in the central area and gives indications of having once been filled. The irregularity of the edge of the original bronze foot is evened out in the cast by a small platform-sockle below the foot.

Description:
The fragment belongs to a weight bearing left foot. The foot has an emphatically curved outline. From the instep to the big toe, the outline foot curves to the right, delineating a bunion. After the bunion the outline turns inward, making the initial knuckle of the large toe very narrow. The end of the toe, only partially preserved, then widens significantly. Between the first and the second toe is an empty area. The second toe, longer and straighter than the big toe, leans to the left. The third toe, shorter than the second and separated from it by a drill channel, follows the path of the second toe. The nails of the second and third toes are set apart from the toe by engraved lines which are U-shaped at the base of the nail but then flare outwards. The upper side of the foot is tightly modelled and muscular. The tendons of the toes are lightly indicated.

Discussion:
This fragment of a left foot belongs to the cast of a statue of Aristogeiton. Only two other replicas of Aristogeiton even partially preserve the feet. These are the the statue in Naples (National Museum, 6010) and the torso from the Conservatori Museum (Braccio Nuovo, 2404) to which the head in the Vatican storerooms (Vatican Mag.906) has been joined. For a discussion of the complete Tyrannicide group to which the head of Aristogeiton belongs, see Harmodios and Aristogeiton, the Tyrannicides. Naples (cat.no.C 5). The cast from Baiae, made from the original bronze statue, allows one to evaluate the accuracy of the Roman copies. According to Landwehr, the Naples copy in general preserves much of the original. It maintains the curved outline and the particular form of the big toe as well as the length and the separation between the toes. Although the second and third toes of the left foot of the Naples copy are restoration and cannot be compared to the cast, the fourth toe and the right foot are rendered like the Baiae cast; they feature the same form of the nail and the same lean aspect. The most obvious differences between the Naples copy and the Baiae cast are that the Naples copy widens the narrow part of the big toe, the foot is generally fuller, and the rendering is more skillful. The copy loses some of the individuality of the Baiae foot and makes the foot younger looking and better turned out. The Rome copy, which in other aspects of the body differs significantly from the Naples copy, is surprisingly similar in regard to the feet. Landwehr notes about it only that the precise form of the nail of the original vanishes in the copy.

Bibliography:
C. Landwehr, Die antiken Gypsabgüsse aus Baiae (Berlin 1985) 36-37 no.5 pls.9d, 10a-c, and 105 c.