Wall Decorations and Polychromy in Hellenistic Houses

Wall decorations, which originated most likely in Athens towards the end of the 5th cent. B.C., are characteristic of a new type of Greek residence. They contributed to the ‹noble› character of such houses by equipping the main rooms with features reminiscent of the exterior of public buildings, but with added polychromy; the result was a coloured and modelled stucco work, which reflected the structural logic of its walls. These walls never featured large paintings; instead, they sometimes displayed scenes with small‑scale figures on the string course: childish Erotes, Nikai, and myths mostly related to Dionysos dominated the imagery of the ‹noble› houses (including mosaics), as well as unexpected subjects such as the Battle of Marathon. In these string course scenes, we find a great variety of colouring, but their red or dark ground shows that they were considered secondary zones; large wall paintings always had a white ground. It seems that even in the Hellenistic palaces only wall decorations, not large wall paintings, existed. Consequently, the wall decorations were the product of groups of craftsmen, rather than the painters responsible for the renowned pinakes, whose names are frequently cited in the written sources. These ‹Hellenistic wall decorations› spread out from Greece across the Mediterranean and maintained a consistent character until the early 1st cent. B.C., despite local variations over time.