ARCHAISM, CLASSICISM AND EPIGRAPHY IN COS: SOME REMARKS ON IG XII 4

Abstract

Classicism is a phenomenon in art history that encompasses not only manifestations of the plastic arts (where the concept arises) but also literature and, as in this contribution, epigraphy, a field of study where linguistic and plastic arts come together. Indeed, the recourse to past forms of expression is a well-known phenomenon of the Hellenistic and Roman Imperial times both in the plastic arts and in literature, which gave rise to movements such as, for example, Hellenistic art or, later, the second sophistic or archaism. In the epigraphy, this last trend has not received enough attention given the inherent difficulty of its study. However, the objective of this contribution is to present how archaism can be detected in epigraphy, specifically in the inscriptions of Cos. The immediate and unique antecedent of our work is that of Aleshire (1997), who establishes some conclusions about epigraphic archaism in Attic inscriptions. Her contribution will be taken into account and reviewed.