A fragment of a temple frieze from an Archaic temple at Assos, dating from the third quarter of the sixth century B.C., illustrates several aspects of Archaic sculpture of the middle period. The section of frieze sculpture is carved in medium high relief and pictures Herakles (Hercules) pursuing a group of centaurs. The block on which the figures are carved was broken roughly into halves. Beginning on the left-hand side of the composition a fragmented figure of a bearded man (now visible only from the waist up) holds a pot in his right hand and raises his left hand with a flattened palm and extended fingers. Immediately in front of this figure the naked Herakles bends forward in a striding stance and draws back the string of his bow. The first centaur appears to have been shot in the head by Herakles' arrow and he turns back to face him as he grasps the arrow. (Alternatively, the centaur could be throwing something at Herakles but this explanation works against the compositional flow of the narrative.) Two more centaurs flee, roughly in single file, to the right. Though all three centaurs are running, the relatively straight back and bent elbows of the wounded centaur contrast emphatically with the forward lean of the other centaurs' backs and their outstretched arms.
The centaurs in this frieze have the unusual form that is also found in a much older work, a bronze statuette (c. 750-730 B.C.) in the geometric style. This work, shown by Tansey and Kleiner, shows the centaur as a man in front (from head to foot) with the body of a horse beginning roughly at the bottom center of his back -- "a rather unhappy and unconvincing configuration that results in fore- and hindlegs belonging to different species" (121). In the frieze sculpture, where the centaurs are shown running, it becomes even clearer how poorly such a creature would function as the running human bodies simply seem to have strange appendages that function separa...