In the Classical Period (480-322 B.C.) Greek artists began to illustrate personifications of political entities--places, events, institutions, and abstract concepts. This study is an investigation of why and how such personifications were used by Classical Athenian artists working in all media. The evidence for visual personifications is considered in relation to literary and historical sources for Classical Athens.;In the introductory chapter I investigate the use of personification and related symbolic techniques in ancient Greece and the range of personifications found in Greek literature, and consider their relevance to visual personifications. This is followed by a survey of previous scholarship on personifications in Greek art and a synopsis of the present work.;In chapters two through four I consider whether or not political personifications reflected contemporary ideas and events in Athenian society and politics. The study is divided into three periods distinguished by important historical events: before the Peloponnesian War (chapter two); until the institution of the Second Athenian League (chapter three); and until the Battle of Krannon (chapter four). Many personifications were illustrated in several of these periods but I have generally treated each personification in only one chapter, in the period in which it was most commonly used.;Other themes in the evolution of political personifications at Athens are considered. In chapter two I address pre-Classical precedents and the types of symbolic figures that played evolutionary roles in political personification--proto-personifications (mythological figures used in a politically relevant, symbolic manner), humanized representations of geographical entities, and maenads. In chapter three I investigate the different audiences for privately and publicly commissioned works in which personifications were illustrated during the Peloponnesian War, although it is in the middle of the fourth century (treated in chapter four) that the majority of political personifications were used in explicitly political public art. A partisan nature of some political personifications is also evidenced in the fifth century. Cult status for most political personifications is attested in the fourth century, and in chapter four I consider these cult personifications and the divinities with whom they were associated.
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