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(b Pella, Macedonia, 356 bc; reg 336–323 bc; d Babylon, June 10, 323 bc).

Macedonian monarch and patron. Having inherited the kingdom from his assassinated father, Philip of Macedon (reg 359–336 bc), he invaded Asia in 334 bc and twice defeated the Persians. After invading Egypt, he founded Alexandria in 331 bc and was hailed by the oracle of Amun at Siwah as ‘Son of Zeus’. He then moved into Persia, crushed the main Persian army at Gaugamela, occupied Persepolis, Susa and Pasargadae and declared himself Great King. Advancing via Afghanistan into India, he founded en route several other Alexandrias. However, after his defeat of the Indian king Porus in 326 bc, his army mutinied, compelling his return to Babylon. Increasingly alcoholic and devastated by the death of his lover Hephaistion but still planning further conquests, he died of a fever in 323 bc. Alexander’s patronage of major artists and his conquest of the Near East were major catalysts for change in Greek art, so that within a generation of his death the parochial artistic styles of the Classical city states had given way to the cosmopolitan art of the Hellenistic world....

[Greco-BactriansIndo-Greeks]

A number of Hellenistic kingships that ruled portions of Afghanistan, Central Asia and India in the last three centuries bc. In ancient times the region of Bactria was bounded on the north by the Oxus and on the south-east by the Hindu Kush mountains. The western frontier remained ill-defined and in constant flux. Following the death of Alexander the Great in 323 bc, Bactria and adjoining Sogdiana were controlled by the Seleucids until c. 250 bc, when the governor Diodotus asserted independence. A large body of coins, Hellenistic in style and iconography and with Greek legends, was minted by the Greco-Bactrian rulers. This style of coinage, but with bilingual Greek and Kharoshthi legends, continued into the Kushana period (1st to 3rd century ad). With the exception of Ai Khanum, a Greek-style city, few remains of the Greeks in Bactria have yet been uncovered. Control of Sogdiana was lost to the local kings in the late ...

(reg 377–352 bc). Ancient Greek ruler. He was the Satrap (i.e. vassal of the King of Persia) of Caria in Asia Minor, now western Turkey, and a member of the Hekatomnid dynasty. Although Carian by birth, Mausolos greatly admired Greek culture and art. He was famous for having moved his capital from Mylassa to the coastal site of Halikarnassos, where there was a good harbour. He laid out the new capital in the natural hollow by the harbour, as described by Vitruvius (On Architecture II. 811ff), with his tomb, the Mausoleum, at the centre. He employed the most famous Greek architects and sculptors of his time to build and decorate this, but he died before it was completed. The Mausoleum was finished by his wife and half-sister, Artemisia, who reigned after him. A fine portrait statue from the Mausoleum (London, BM, 1001) has been thought to represent Mausolos, though there is no proof of this....

(b Kilmarnock, Aug 18, 1835; d Edinburgh, July 3, 1900).

Scottish soldier, archaeologist, diplomat and collector of Iranian art. He was educated at Glasgow University, and in 1855 he obtained a commission in the Royal Engineers. The following year he joined the expedition of Charles Newton to Halikarnassos, which resulted in the discovery of the Mausoleum and the acquisition of its sculptures for the British Museum. In 1860 with E. A. Porcher, Murdoch Smith formed at his own expense an expedition to Cyrene in Libya. From this expedition he returned with Greek sculptures and inscriptions (London, BM). In 1863 he was selected for service on the Iranian section of a proposed telegraph line from Britain to India, and in 1865 he became its director in Tehran, holding that post for the next 20 years. He initiated his collecting activities for the South Kensington (later Victoria and Albert) Museum in 1873 when he offered his services as an agent. From 1873 to 1885...

(d Athens, 527 bc).

Greek tyrant and patron of the arts. His policies and those of his sons, Hippias and Hipparchos, produced an increase in trade that made Attic Black-figure pottery (see Greece, ancient §V 5.) the most widely used vessels in the Greek world and Attic coinage one of the foremost currencies. The Peisistratid building programme at Athens included the rebuilding of the Temple of Athena (identified as the Hekatompedon or ‘Hundred-footer’) on the Acropolis; the Enneakrounos (‘nine-headed’) fountain-house by the Ilissos river, south of the Acropolis; the foundation of the Temple of Olympian Zeus, finally completed by the Roman emperor Hadrian (reg ad 117–38; see Athens §II 4.); and a temple to Dionysos at the foot of the Acropolis (for general discussion see also Athens §I 2.). He also enlarged the Panathenaic festival to Athena and established the Greater Dionysia, from the choral performances of which developed Classical Greek drama....

[Perikles]

(b c. 495 bc; d Athens, 429 bc).

Athenian statesman. He was the son of Xanthippos and Agariste, niece of Kimon, and was the leading political figure of his generation. Though an aristocrat by birth, he appears to have courted the people in the Assembly. He is credited with persuading the Athenians to move the Treasury of the Delian League to Athens and convincing the people that this money should be used for lavish rebuilding of the temples on the Acropolis destroyed by the Persians. It was apparently said that he advocated ‘tarting up the city with thousand-talent temples’ (Plutarch: Pericles xii); his friend Pheidias, who had worked on the cult statue of Athena for the most celebrated and ambitious of these, the Parthenon, was subsequently exiled. Pericles’ lasting attachment to the courtesan Aspasia also attracted considerable criticism. He was reputed to have had an onion shaped head and was thus usually shown wearing a helmet, as in a Roman bust (London, BM), possibly a copy of a portrait statue by ...

(b 382 bc; reg 359–336 bc; d Aigai [Vergina], 336 bc).

Greek monarch. The son of Amyntas III, King of Macedon (reg c. 393 bc), of the Argead family, he learnt the art of war as a hostage at Thebes. Subsequently he brought the whole of Greece under his control in a series of military campaigns culminating in the Battle of Chaironeia (338 bc), thereby laying the foundation on which his son, Alexander (Alexander III; reg 336–323 bc) was able to embark on the rapid conquest of Persia. Philip was murdered by a disaffected noble during a festival at Aigai (Vergina). A vaulted tomb there, sumptuously provided with armour and weapons, vessels of gold and silver, jewellery and other items (Thessaloniki, Archaeol. Mus.), discovered by Manolis Andronicos in 1977, is now generally accepted to be Philip’s tomb (see Vergina). The partly cremated bones in a solid gold casket include a skull with an injury to the right eye socket, surely the result of the arrow wound Philip sustained at the siege of Methone (...

Term for the return of lost or looted cultural objects to their country of origin, former owners, or their heirs. The loss of the object may happen in a variety of contexts (armed conflicts, war, colonialism, imperialism, or genocide), and the nature of the looted cultural objects may also vary, ranging from artworks, such as paintings and sculptures, to human remains, books, manuscripts, and religious artifacts. An essential part of the process of restitution is the seemingly unavoidable conflict around the transfer of the objects in question from the current to the former owners. Ownership disputes of this nature raise legal, ethical, and diplomatic issues. The heightened tensions in the process arise because the looting of cultural objects challenges, if not breaks down, relationships between peoples, territories, cultures, and heritages.

The history of plundering and art imperialism may be traced back to ancient times. Looting has been documented in many instances from the sack by the Romans of the Etruscan city of Veii in ...