early as the fifth millennium BCE; tin, arsenic, and antimony added both color and strength to the finished products. Alloys could have made Herodotus’ Egyptian drinking cups GOLD or SILVER in color (2.37.1); annealing and hammering would make bronze helmets, arrows, and spearheads even more resilient and deadly (1.215; 2.151.3; 7.63, 84). Herodotus’ bronzes include jewelry (4.168.1), cauldrons (1.47.1), a world MAP (5.49.1), weapons, statues (5.77.4; 9.81), and architecture (1.80.4); they are found among the Libyans (4.168.1), Egyptians (2.37.1), Assyrians (7.63), and Persians (7.84) as well as the Greeks (5.49.1; 4.179; 6.50). The ubiquity of bronze makes its exclusion from royal Scythian burials notable—the more so given their mastery of its technology (4.71.4, 81).
The semantic range of Herodotus’ bronzes, however, includes the exceptional. Bronze objects worthy of notice include the animal‐feeding trough of MARDONIUS (9.70.3) and the oversized bowls created by the Spartans (1.70), the Samians (4.152.4), and the SCYTHIANS (4.81), which TRAVEL great distances and communicate political alliance (1.70), PIETY and divine favor (4.152.4), or the size of the Scythian population (4.81.1–6). The wonder derives in part from the sheer size of the artifacts, which have analogy in the Vix Krater and the monumental kraters dedicated with griffin protomes which appeared in Greek sanctuaries some 200 years before Herodotus. Further impact comes from the associations and aesthetics of bronze itself, which participates in the heroic and military spheres, and reflects an “aesthetics of radiance” with Near Eastern roots. Homeric HEROES fight with gleaming bronzes and themselves shine, flash, and blaze in battle like the material that covers them—a poetic reality echoed in the Egyptian view of the Ionian and Carian MERCENARIES as “bronze men” (2.152.4). The bronze TRIPOD which Herodotus’ Argonauts offer TRITON suggests that Herodotus shared with HOMER a sense for the archaizing potential of bronze artifacts linked with legendary heroes (4.179.1). Bronze arms offered significant practical benefits as well: the helmets Herodotus notes on Assyrian (7.63), Persian (7.84), and Egyptian (2.151.3) heads were half the weight of their IRON counterparts, combining lightness, strength, and visual impact. These military associations for bronze translated into other spheres. The bronze vessel, conveniently at hand for CROESUS’ concoction of lamb and tortoise to test the ORACLES (1.47.2), has analogy in the kitchen gear included in the booty of war by late Assyrian kings: Shalamaneser III took 1,000 bronze casseroles from Neo‐Hittite Carchemish alone, and war reliefs from Sargon’s palace at Khorsabad show troops carrying off vessels as well as shields. Ebbinghaus (2014) has suggested that the protective associations of bronze armor may have translated into amuletic qualities for bronze jewelry, a type Herodotus knows among the ADYRMACHIDAE of LIBYA (4.168.1). The four‐horse CHARIOT at the Athenian ACROPOLIS (5.77.4) and the serpent column at DELPHI (9.81) show the Greeks translating the bronze of battle into the monumental bronzes of victory, which simultaneously warn and remind. The semantic density of Herodotus’ bronze encourages us to consider its communicative potential in tales in which it may otherwise seem incidental. Among these are the blacksmith of BARCA who used a bronze shield to locate Persian tunnels (4.200.2–3), and PSAMMETICHUS I’s use of a bronze helmet to make a LIBATION—a choice which confirmed his future as the sole king of EGYPT (2.151.3).
SEE ALSO: Bodily Adornment; Dedications; Heroic Age; Hoplite; Sculpture; thōmata; Vessels (drinking); Weapons and Armor
REFERENCE
1 Ebbinghaus, Susanne. 2014. “Men of Bronze—Cups of Bronze.” Ancient Bronzes through a Modern Lens: Introductory Essays on the Study of Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Bronzes, in Honor of David Gordon Mitten, edited by Susanne Ebbinghaus, 141–69. New Haven: Yale University Press.
FURTHER READING
1 Branscome, David. 2010. ”Herodotus and the Map of Aristagoras.” ClAnt 29.1: 1–44.
2 Neer, Richard T. 2010. The Emergence of the Classical Style in Greek Sculpture, 73–109. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
3 Stewart, Andrew. 2015. “Why Bronze?” In Power and Pathos: Bronze Sculpture of the Hellenistic World, edited by Jens Daehner and Kenneth D. S. Lapatin, 34–47. Florence: Giunti.
BRUNDISIUM (Βρεντέσιον, τό)
ALISON LANSKI
University of Notre Dame
A still‐important port city in the “heel” of ITALY along the ADRIATIC coast (BA 45 G3; modern Brindisi). Herodotus uses Brundisium (the Latinized form of the name; Gk. Brentesion) and its position on the Iapygian peninsula as an example during his explanation of the GEOGRAPHY of the Scythian coast (4.99.5); his choice signals that Brundisium was a place known to his AUDIENCE. The city was named either for a son of HERACLES, Brentus, or for the deer‐antler shape of its HARBORS (Steph. Byz. s.v. Βρεντέσιον (Β 168)). It appears to have been a Messapian community originally, Hellenized by the fifth century BCE. A Roman colony was established at Brundisium in 244 BCE, and it remained a crucial link between Italy and the East (Strabo 6.3.7/C282–83).
SEE ALSO: Analogy; Iapygia; Messapians; Scythians; Taurians
FURTHER READING
1 IACP no. 78 (329–30).
2 Lamboley, Jean‐Luc. 1996. Recherches sur les Messapiens, IVe–IIe siècle avant J.‐C., 58–79. Rome: École française de Rome.
BRYGI (Βρύγοι, οἱ)
CHRISTOPHER BARON
University of Notre Dame
Thracian tribe, location unknown. The Brygi inflicted heavy losses on the Persian army of MARDONIUS, during its campaign in MACEDONIA in 492 BCE, with a night‐time attack; nevertheless they were conquered and enslaved by the Persians (6.45). Later, in his CATALOGUE of peoples in EUROPE who fought for XERXES in 480, Herodotus includes the Brygi separately from the Thracians (7.185.2). Scholars commonly conflate the Brygi with the Briges—the name of the PHRYGIANS before they migrated to ASIA (7.73)—but Herodotus gives no hint of this. Stephen of Byzantium places a Macedonian tribe named Brygai (s.v. Βρύξ (Β 182)) near the Illyrians, and he lists Brygias and Brygion as Macedonian CITIES.
SEE ALSO: Conquest; Thrace
FURTHER READING
1 Papazoglou, Fanoula. 1988. Les villes de Macédoine à l’époque romaine, 270–72. Athens: École française d’Athènes.
BUBARES (Βουβάρης, ὁ)
PIETRO VANNICELLI
Università di Roma–La Sapienza
Son of the high‐ranking Persian Megabazus, Bubares was sent to MACEDONIA in search of the seven missing Persian envoys who had been killed there (c. 515 BCE). According to Herodotus, ALEXANDER I, son of the Macedonian king Amyntas I, ensured that this search would fail by giving Bubares a large sum of MONEY and his sister GYGAEA in MARRIAGE (5.21.2). These local connections explain XERXES’ choice of Bubares as one of the supervisors (along with ARTACHAEES) of the ATHOS‐canal excavations (7.22.2). Bubares’ son Amyntas, whom Herodotus refers to as “Amyntas of Asia,” was named after his maternal grandfather and received from Xerxes “the great city of ALABANDA IN PHRYGIA” (8.136.1).
SEE ALSO: Amyntas son of
