A Guide to Scenes of Daily Life on Athenian Vases [1 ed.] 0299327205, 9780299327200

Table of contents :
Dedication
Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 At Home
2 In the Workshop
3 Around Town
4 In the Countryside
5 Education at School and Elsewhere
6 At the Sanctuary
7 Sport: At the Gymnasium and the Hippodrome
8 The Battleground
9 At the Wedding
10 The End of Life: At the Funeral
Glossary
Index

Citation preview

A GU I DE TO SC EN ES OF DAI LY LIFE ON AT H E NI AN VA SES

Publication of this volume has been made possible, in part, through the generous support and enduring vision of Wa r r e n G. Mo on.

A GUI DE TO SC E NE S OF DAI LY L IF E ON AT H E N I AN VA SE S John H. Oakley

The University of Wisconsin Press

The University of Wisconsin Press 728 State Street, Suite 443 Madison, Wisconsin 53706 uwpress.wisc.edu Gray’s Inn House, 127 Clerkenwell Road London EC 1 R 5DB, United Kingdom eurospanbookstore.com Copyright © 2020 The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System All rights reserved. Except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles and reviews, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any format or by any means—digital, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—or conveyed via the Internet or a website without written permission of the University of Wisconsin Press. Rights inquiries should be directed to [email protected]. Printed in the United States of America This book may be available in a digital edition. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Oakley, John Howard, 1949– author. Title: A guide to scenes of daily life on Athenian vases / John H. Oakley. Other titles: Wisconsin studies in classics. Description: Madison, Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press, [2020] | Series: Wisconsin studies in classics | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2019041251 | ISBN 9780299327200 (cloth) | ISBN 9780299327248 (paperback) Subjects: LCSH: Vase-painting, Greek—Greece—Athens—Themes, motives. | Vases, Greek—Greece—Athens—Themes, motives. Classification: LCC NK4645 .O235 2020 | DD C 738.3/8209385—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019041251

This book is dedicated to the memory of E r ika Simon

Contents

List of Illustrations ix Acknowledgments xix Introduction

3



1 At Home

7



2 In the Workshop

47



3 Around Town

71



4 In the Countryside

85



5 Education at School and Elsewhere

103



6 At the Sanctuary

113



7 Sport: At the Gymnasium and the Hippodrome

131



8 The Battleground

167



9 At the Wedding

189



10 The End of Life: At the Funeral

213

Glossary 231 Index 237

Illustrations

P L AT E S



1 Attic red-figure skyphos, storeroom 2 Attic white-ground oinochoe, woman spinning 3 Attic black-figure lekythos, playing ball 4 Attic white-ground lekythos, mistress taking baby from slave girl’s shoulders 5 Attic red-figure oinochoe, couple preparing to make love 6 Attic red-figure skyphos, mistress and slave girl 7 Attic white-ground lekythos, mourner at grave 8 Attic black-figure hydria, pottery 9 Attic red-figure cup, blacksmith at work 10 Attic red-figure cup, sculptors making a statue 11 Attic black-figure pelike, boy at the shoemaker 12 Attic red-figure lekythos, man butchering goat 13 Attic black-figure hydria, horses watering 14 Attic black-figure amphora, olive pickers 15 Attic black-figure skyphos, working an olive press 16 Attic black-figure amphora, man plowing field 17 Attic red-figure cup, shepherd herding sheep 18 Attic red-figure cup, woman making libation at altar 19 Attic red-figure column krater, dramatic performance ix

x



Illustrations

20 Attic black-figure amphora, chorus of knights 21 Attic red-figure bell krater, chorus of elderly satyrs 22 Attic red-figure amphora, hoplitodromoi 23 Attic red-figure cup, pankratinists 24 Attic black-figure amphora, chariot racer 25 Attic black-figure amphora, riders on horses casting spears at targets 26 Attic red-figure amphora, youth scraping himself 27 Attic black-figure amphora, courting scene 28 Attic black-figure plate, warrior playing salpinx 29 Attic red-figure cup, warriors besieging city wall 30 Attic black-figure cup, ships at sea 31 Attic black-figure pinax, prothesis 32 Attic one-handled black-figure kantharos, ekphora 33 Attic white-ground lekythos, mourners on way to grave FIGURES



1.1 Attic red-figure salt cellar, marriage procession 1.2 Attic red-figure chous, reveler 1.3 Attic red-figure cup, woman at well 1.4 Attic red-figure hydria, family scene 1.5 Attic black-figure lekythos, working wool 1.6 Attic red-figure cup, wool working 1.7 Attic red-figure kalathos, weaving 1.8 Attic white-ground pyxis, woman juggling balls of wool 1.9 Attic red-figure cup, boy with caged bird 1.10 Attic red-figure lekythos, woman feeding dog 1.11 Attic red-figure cup, man walking pet cheetah 1.12 Attic red-figure lekythos, women playing with tops 1.13 Attic red-figure column krater, girls on seesaw 1.14 Attic red-figure lekythos, woman balancing stick 1.15 Attic black-figure amphora, girl on swing

8 9 10 10 12 13 13 14 15 16 16 17 18 18 19



Illustrations

1.16 Attic red-figure chous, knucklebone players 1.17 Attic red-figure chous, boys playing ephedrismos 1.18 Attic red-figure bell krater, cock fight 1.19 Attic black-figure amphora, women grinding grain 1.20 Attic red-figure lekanis, women making wedding cakes 1.21 Attic red-figure squat lekythos, cooking on a grill 1.22 Attic red-figure lekythos, ladling soup 1.23 Attic red-figure cup, making bread 1.24 Attic red-figure lekythos, woman with bundled-up garment 1.25 Attic white-ground lekythos, woman stuffing pillow 1.26 Attic black-figure amphora, women preparing wedding bed 1.27 Attic red-figure chous, women perfuming clothes 1.28 Attic red-figure lekythos, woman laying clothes on chair 1.29 Attic red-figure stamnos, women washing 1.30 Attic red-figure cup, woman depilating 1.31 Attic red-figure pelike, woman dressing 1.32 Attic red-figure amphoriskos, woman looking in mirror 1.33 Attic red-figure Nolan amphora, youth gifting woman 1.34 Attic red-figure chous, baby on potty 1.35 Attic red-figure pelike, baby crawling 1.36 Attic red-figure chous, baby crawling 1.37 Attic red-figure column krater, symposium 1.38 Attic red-figure bell krater, armed dancer at symposium 1.39 Attic red-figure cup, booners 1.40 Attic black-figure cup, lovers 1.41 Attic red-figure cup, lovers 1.42 Attic red-figure cup, orgy 1.43 Attic black-figure lekythos, man and youth under a blanket 1.44 Attic red-figure cup, kissers 1.45 Attic red-figure hydria, Thracian slaves collecting water at spring 1.46 Attic white-ground lekythos, black maid at tomb

xi

19 20 21 22 22 23 23 24 25 26 26 27 28 28 29 30 30 31 32 33 34 35 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43

xii

Illustrations

2.1 Attic black-figure skyphos, preparation of clay for potting

48

2.2 Attic black-figure cup, potters at wheel

49

2.3 Attic red-figure cup, youth painting cup

50

2.4 Attic red-figure bell krater, pottery

51

2.5 Attic red-figure cup, blacksmith

52

2.6 Attic black-figure oinochoe, blacksmith at furnace

53

2.7 Attic black-figure amphora, blacksmith at anvil

53

2.8 Attic red-figure cup, sculptors working on statue

55

2.9 Attic red-figure cup, sculptor working on statue of a horse

56

2.10 Attic red-figure cup, hermoglyph

56

2.11 Attic red-figure lekythos, lumberjack

57

2.12 Attic red-figure cup, carpenter

58

2.13 Attic red-figure hydria, Perseus and Danae

59

2.14 Attic red-figure cup, man striking coin

60

2.15 Attic red-figure cup, youth buying vases

61

2.16 Attic red-figure belly amphora, man buying an amphora

62

2.17 Attic red-figure cup, youth tasting wine

62

2.18 Attic black-figure pelike, man selling perfume and dogs causing havoc in pottery

63

2.19 Attic red-figure pelike, man selling perfume

64

2.20 Attic red-figure cup, youth selling birds

65

2.21 Attic black-figure cup, man butchering fish

66

2.22 Attic black-figure amphora, merchants

67

3.1 Attic black-figure hydria, women at fountain

72

3.2 Attic red-figure phiale, school of music

73

3.3 Attic red-figure lekythos, girl’s dancing lesson

74

3.4 Attic red-figure hydria, school of dance and music

75

3.5 Attic red-figure skyphos, dancing dwarf

76

3.6 Attic red-figure pelike, dwarf with dog and youth

76

3.7 Attic black-figure amphora, horses frolicking

77

3.8 Attic red-figure cup, boy grooming steed

79



Illustrations

3.9 Attic red-figure pelike, horseman 3.10 Attic red-figure cup, boy reading an inscription 3.11 Attic red-figure cup, youth encounters a herm 3.12 Attic red-figure lekythos, sanctuary 3.13 Attic red-figure hydria, young men and women 4.1 Attic black-figure cup, men working fields 4.2 Attic red-figure chous, donkey threshing 4.3 Attic red-figure hydria, women gathering fruit from tree 4.4 Attic black-figure amphora, harvesting grapes 4.5 Attic black-figure cup, vintaging grapes 4.6 Attic red-figure cup, youth treading grapes 4.7 Attic black-figure kyathoid, shepherd herding goats 4.8 Attic white-ground oinochoe, cow nursing calf 4.9 Attic black-figure kyathos, youth driving bull 4.10 Attic red-figure pelike, swineherds with pigs 4.11 Attic black-figure amphora, men seeking honey 4.12 Attic red-figure cup, youth fishing 4.13 Attic black-figure amphora, bringing home catch of fish 4.14 Attic black-figure amphora lid, hunt 4.15 Attic black-figure cup, hare hunt 4.16 Attic black-figure cup, hunter carrying his catch 4.17 Attic black-figure hydria, hunt 4.18 Attic black-figure amphora, lime-twigged birds 5.1 Attic red-figure cup, school scenes 5.2 Attic red-figure cup, school scene 5.3 Attic red-figure cup, school scene 5.4 Attic red-figure hydria, dancing school 5.5 Attic red-figure hydria, women making music 5.6 Attic red-figure pelike, child attempting to stand 5.7 Attic red-figure column krater, boy mounting horse 5.8 Attic black-figure lekythos, boy being beaten

xiii

79 80 81 82 82 86 87 88 89 89 90 91 92 93 93 94 95 96 97 98 98 99 100 104 106 107 107 108 109 110 111

xiv



Illustrations

5.9 Attic red-figure hydria, boy beaten 6.1 Attic red-figure cup, women reveling 6.2 Attic red-figure krateriskos, girls racing 6.3 Attic black-figure cup, procession to altar 6.4 Attic red-figure lekythos, sacrificial procession 6.5 Attic red-figure bell krater, sacrifice 6.6 Attic black-figure amphora, sacrifice 6.7 Attic red-figure cup, sacrifice 6.8 Attic red-figure column krater, sacrifice 6.9 Attic red-figure amphora, sacrifice 6.10 Attic black-figure amphora, hieroskopia 6.11 Attic red-figure chous, dwarf performing as Perseus on a stage 6.12 Attic red-figure pelike, actors dressing 6.13 Attic black-figure neck-pelike, aulodic contest 6.14 Attic black-figure amphora, rhapsode 6.15 Attic red-figure bell krater, torch racers 7.1 Attic black-figure amphora, stade race 7.2 Attic black-figure amphora, diaulos 7.3 Attic black-figure amphora, dolikos 7.4 Attic red-figure amphora, hoplitodromoi 7.5 Attic red-figure cup, hoplitodromos 7.6 Attic black-figure amphora, boxers 7.7 Attic black-figure amphora, boxers 7.8 Attic black-figure amphora, boxers 7.9 Attic red-figure cup, wrestlers 7.10 Attic black-figure amphora, wrestlers 7.11 Attic black-figure amphora, pankratinists 7.12 Attic black-figure amphora, jumper 7.13 Attic red-figure cup, long jumpers 7.14 Attic red-figure amphora, discobolos 7.15 Attic red-figure cup, discobolos

111 114 115 116 117 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 133 133 134 134 135 136 137 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 143



Illustrations

7.16 Attic red-figure cup, discobolos 7.17 Attic red-figure cup, athletes and others 7.18 Attic black-figure amphora, Pentathlon 7.19 Attic black-figure hydria, harnessing chariot’s horses 7.20 Proto-Attic krater, chariots 7.21 Attic black-figure amphora, horseback race 7.22 Attic black-figure amphora, mule race 7.23 Attic black-figure cup, apobates 7.24 Attic black-figure amphora, apobates 7.25 Attic red-figure pelike, kitharode 7.26 Attic red-figure amphora, kitharode and judge 7.27 Attic red-figure calyx krater, aulos player 7.28 Attic black-figure cup, victor with tripod 7.29 Attic red-figure doubleen, victor 7.30 Attic red-figure cup, youths bathing 7.31 Attic red-figure cup, youth massaging another 7.32 Attic red-figure skyphos, preparations for athletic contests 7.33 Attic red-figure cup, man courting youth 7.34 Attic black-figure amphora, courting 7.35 Attic red-figure cup, courting 7.36 Attic red-figure amphora, courting 8.1 Attic red-figure cup, youth mounting a horse 8.2 Attic red-figure cup, Dokimasia 8.3 Attic red-figure cup, pyrrhic dancer 8.4 Attic black-figure amphora, warrior arming 8.5 Attic red-figure cup, warriors arming 8.6 Attic red-figure stamnos, warrior’s departure 8.7 Attic red-figure cup, warrior sacrificing 8.8 Attic red-figure lekythos, warrior cutting hair 8.9 Attic black-figure tripod kothon, hoplites battling 8.10 Attic red-figure volute krater, hoplites fighting cavalry

xv

144 145 146 148 148 149 150 151 151 153 154 155 156 157 157 158 159 161 162 162 163 168 169 170 170 171 172 173 174 176 176

xvi

Illustrations

8.11 Attic black-figure lekanis lid, hoplites advancing

177

8.12 Attic black-figure lekythos, ambush

177

8.13 Attic black-figure olpe, hoplite fleeing

178

8.14 Attic red-figure kyathos, hoplite retreating

179

8.15 Attic red-figure plate, Scythian archer

179

8.16 Attic red-figure cup, Scythian bowmen

180

8.17 Attic black-figure amphora, knight with squire

181

8.18 Attic red-figure cup, Thracian peltast

181

8.19 Attic red-figure amphora, Greek fighting Persian

182

8.20 Attic black-figure cup, fight over corpse

183

8.21 Attic red-figure cup, Achilles bandaging Patroclos

184

8.22 Attic red-figure pelike, Nike erecting trophy

185

8.23 Attic black-figure oinochoe, prisoners

185

8.24 Attic red-figure loutrophoros or amphora, inscribed stelai at tumulus 186 9.1 Attic red-figure loutrophoros, engye and groom leading bride to thalamos 190 9.2 Attic red-figure loutrophoros, wedding procession

191

9.3 Attic red-figure loutrophoros, sacrificial procession

192

9.4 Attic red-figure lekythos, Artemis and bride

194

9.5 Attic red-figure loutrophoros, procession from Enneakrounos fountain house to home

195

9.6 Attic red-figure pyxis, bridal preparations

196

9.7 Attic red-figure hydria, bathing bridegroom

197

9.8 Attic red-figure lebes gamikos, bridal preparations

197

9.9 Attic red-figure lebes gamikos, bridal preparations

198

9.10 Attic red-figure lebes gamikos, bride with baby boy

199

9.11 Attic red-figure lebes gamikos, wedding dance

201

9.12 Attic red-figure loutrophoros-hydria, anakalypteria and katachysmata 201 9.13 Attic black-figure lekythos, wedding procession

203



Illustrations

xvii

9.14 Attic red-figure loutrophoros, wedding couple departing

204

9.15 Attic red-figure loutrophoros, bride and groom arriving home

205

9.16 Attic white-ground pyxis, groom leading bride to altar

206

9.17 Attic black-figure tripod kothon, women preparing wedding bed

207

9.18 Attic red-figure pyxis, three moments in wedding

208

9.19 Attic red-figure calyx krater, wedding procession

209

10.1 Attic Geometric amphora, prothesis

214

10.2 Attic white-ground lekythos, woman with young boy’s corpse

215

10.3 Attic white-ground lekythos, prothesis

216

10.4 Attic black-figure bail-handled oinochoe, burial

217

10.5 Attic one-handled black-figure kantharos, ekphora

218

10.6 Attic black-figure loutrophoros, coffin placed in grave

220

10.7 Attic white-ground lekythos, women preparing funerary basket

221

10.8 Attic white-ground lekythos, women mourning at grave

222

10.9 Attic white-ground lekythos, offerings placed at grave

223

10.10 Attic white-ground lekythos, libation at grave

224

10.11 Typology of grave monuments on white lekythoi

226

10.12 Attic white-ground lekythos, youths at grave

227

10.13 Attic white-ground lekythos, visitors to inscribed grave monument

228

Acknowledgments

For help with obtaining images for this book, I thank the following: G. JurriaansHelle (Amsterdam); George Kavvadias, Katharina Brandt, Olga Alexandri, Angelika Kouveli, Sylvie Dumont, Kalliopi Christophi, Vicki Sabetai, Nassi Mala­ garides (Athens); Ji Mary Seo (Baltimore); Danielle Wieland-Leibundgut, Laurent Gorgerat, Lillian Bartlett Stoner, J. Robert Guy (Basle); Ines Bialas, Nina Zimmermann-Elseify (Berlin); Cornelia Weber-Lehmann (Bochum); Laura Minarini (Bologna); Kornelia Kressirer (Bonn); Phoebe Segal, Carolyn Cruthirds, John Herrmann (Boston); Fourcroy Florence (Boulogne-sur-Mere); Michelle Henning (Bowdoin); Johan Van Heesch, François de Callatay, Athena Tsingarida (Brussels); Robert Sutton, Marianne Weldon (Bryn Mawr); Giada Giudice (Catania); Claire Iselin (Compiègne); Frederik Vingaard Rasmussen, Nora Petersen (Copenhagen); Jolanda Zonderop (Den Haag); Thierry Theurillat, Petros The­ melis, Sylvian Fachard (Eretria); Elena Bottoni, Francesca Curti, Paola Desantis (Ferrara); Mario Iozzo (Florence); Jacques Chamay (Geneva); Frank Hilde­brant (Hamburg); Isabella Donadio, Suzanne Ebbinghaus (Harvard); Bob Sutton, Sarah Horowitz (Haverford); Rachael Beyer, Victoria Garagliano, Mary Levkoff (Hearst Castle); Laura Libert (Ithaca, New York); Angelika Hildenbrand (Karlsruhe); Robbert Jan Looman (Leiden); Lucia Rinolfi (London); Maria F. P. Saffiotti Dale, Ann Sinfield (Madison, Wisconsin); Anna Provenzali (Milan); Irene Boesel, Astrid Fendt, Florian Knauss (Munich); Andreas Dobler (Museum Schloss Fasanerie); Laura Forte, Paolo Giulierini, Anna Pizza (Naples); Robbi Siegal, Thomas Haggerty, Shelby White, Joan Mertens, Richard Keresey, Gaia Lettere (New York); Franziska Boegehold (Oldenburg); Marianne Bergeron, Thomas Mannack, Michael Vickers (Oxford); Melanie Antonelli (Oxford, Mississippi); Alexandra Kardianou, Nassi Malargardis (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale xix

xx

Acknowledgments

and Louvre); Machi Kapetanopoulou (Peiraeus); Kostadin Kisyov (Plovdiv); M. Padgett (Princeton); Howell Perkins, Peter Schertz (Richmond); Rosanna di Pinto (Rome, Vatican); Alessia Argento, Daria Lanzuolo, Massimiliano Piemonte (Rome, Villa Giulia); Svetlana Adaxina, Anna Petrakova, Anastaia Mikliaeva (St. Petersburg); Ulrike Klotter (Stuttgart); Maria Musumeci, Maria Letizia, Marcella Accolla (Syracuse); Julia Hayes, Seth Pevnick (Tampa); Florian Kugler, Franz Pichorner, Georg Plattner (Vienna); Alfred Twardecki, Mikolaj Machowski (Warsaw); Heidi Stover, Barbara M. Walsh (Washington, DC); Andrew Ward (Williamsburg); Jochen Griesbach (Würzburg); Susan B. Matheson (Yale). Crucial financial help was first given by Dean John Donahue and Dean Kate Conley of the College of William and Mary, who supplied the funds to collect the images. Later, my department, the Department of Classical Studies, helped the cause with a generous publication subsidy to help fund the production of the book. Much of the writing was done over several summers in the Blegen Library of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens and while on sabbatical in Williamsburg. I thank my summertime colleagues for their good company and stimulating discussions over glasses of ouzo, and I thank my colleagues here at home who supported me in various ways during the writing of this book, having to put up with many a query. Particularly fruitful and helpful have been my discussions with Alan Shapiro, Robert Sutton, Andy Stewart, and most of all, Sheramy Bundrick, who gave crucial help in solving some of the mysteries of the new world of publishing images. A special thanks is due to the series editors for the Wisconsin Studies in Classics: Laura McClure, Matthew Roller, and Mark Stansbury O’Donnell. I was amazed at the speed in which they had this book accepted for their series. An oral version of this study was given in various places, including the Art Institute, Chicago, several Australian universities while I was the Visiting Pro­ fessor of the Australian Archaeological Institute at Athens, the University of Tennessee, the University of Cincinnati, Amherst College, and most recently the University of Vienna. I thank my hosts at these various venues not only for their attentiveness and questions but also for their superb hospitality. For help with all things computer, I thank Joe Cunningham, our information technologist at William and Mary who never failed to supply the correct answer, and Joyce Holmes, our departmental administrator who processed all sorts of paperwork connected with this book (and I thank her for her good humor). And not to be overlooked is the department’s work-study student Madelyn Little, who keyed the Excel files.



Acknowledgments

xxi

The staff at the University of Wisconsin Press were a great help during the publication process, particularly Amber Rose Cederström, Adam Mehring, Mary Magray, and Jennifer Conn. Much appreciated were the many excellent comments and suggestions made by the outside readers. This book is all the better for them. Finally, I have undoubtedly forgotten somebody, for which I beg forgiveness for uninten­tionally doing so.

A GU I DE TO SC EN ES OF DAI LY LIFE ON AT H E NI AN VA SES

I N T R OD U CT ION

Greek painted vases from Athens are our richest and most complex source of images from ancient Greece. Traditionally, they have been grouped together as either scenes of myth or pictures of daily life, and although there are several comprehensive studies of mythological scenes, such as Tom Carpenter’s volume in the World of Arts Series (Art and Myth in Ancient Greece [London 1991]), there is no overview of the daily-life scenes, only studies that cover a select portion of them. To rectify this situation, I have written the first-ever comprehensive, synthetic overview of Athenian daily-life scenes, a study that brings together material from a wide range of disparate sources and investigates the scenes on primarily Attic black-figure, red-figure, and white-ground vases (ca. 630–320 BC). Blackfigure was the earliest of the three techniques, having been adopted from Corinth by the Athenians around 630 BC and continuing in frequent use on Athenian pottery until ca. 450 BC. Red-figure started being employed around 530 BC, and after a long life it died out ca. 320 BC, around the time of the death of Alexander the Great. White-ground, so-called because of the white slip used to color the background upon which the figures and ornament were painted, often in color, ceased being used ca. 400 BC, around the end of the Peloponnesian Wars. The range of shapes made by Athenian potters is astounding, which is all the more remarkable when one considers how practical many of the shapes are, such as the symposium ware of mixing bowls, cups, skyphoi, and jugs and hydriai for fetching water. Or oil and perfume containers such as lekythoi, aryballoi, and alabastra. Others, as wedding and funerary vases, are tied to Athenian ritual. Still others are special commissions made for foreign markets, particularly Etruria, but also southern Italy and Thrace. The glossary provides definitions of each shape considered in this book 3

4

Introdu ct ion

Traditionally the images on Attic vases were thought to render either scenes of myth or pictures of everyday life, with far more attention being paid to the former than to the latter. This division was sparked by the excavations in Etruria in the late nineteenth century that brought hundreds of Greek, particularly Athenian, painted vases to light, a situation reflected in Theodor Panofka’s Bilder Antiken Lebens (Berlin 1843). The division between scenes of myth and those of everyday life con­tinued to be the norm during the remainder of the nineteenth century and first seventy years of the twentieth century. Important publications from this time include Erika Götte’s groundbreaking dissertation, “Frauengemachbilder in der Vasenmalerei des fünften Jahrhunderts” (Munich 1957), which examined the numerous scenes on the vases that show women at home involved in actions that cannot be tied to any myth or story, and T. B. L. Webster’s Potter and Patron in Classical Athens (London 1972), which featured lists of Attic vases showing various everyday subjects. But soon after, studies such as Herbert Hoffman’s Sexual and Asexual Pursuit. A Structuralist Approach to Greek Vase Painting (London 1979) turned to new theoretical approaches, namely the use of semiotics and structuralism. The 1980s saw the equally groundbreaking work of François Lissarrague, Claude Bérard, François Frontisi-Ducroux, Alain Schnapp, and others of the socalled Paris-Lausanne School: A City of Images: Iconography and Society in Ancient Greece (Princeton, NJ, 1989; first published in 1984 in French). Their work changed the picture dramatically, however, for they saw all the images as constructs of different elements, not as renditions of reality. Thus, to them these images of daily life were all made-up pictures, not accurate renditions or reflections of daily life. Other scholars followed in their path, most notably the Czechoslovakian Jan Bažant, whose monograph Les citoyens sur les vases athéniens du 6e au 4e siècle av. J.- C. (Prague 1985) first reviews the vases in the traditional manner of scenes of myth and everyday life and then turns to consider the problems of methodology, where he argues against the traditional division between myth and everyday life scenes. His arguments were later followed and expounded upon by Gloria Ferrari (“Myth and Genre on Athenian Vases,” ClAnt 22 [2003] 37–54). One other member of the Paris-Lausanne School, M.-C. Villanueva-Puig, published a slim coffee table book on the subject, one without notes and bibliography, and including pictures of other types of artefacts than vases such as sculpture and architecture: Images de la Quotidienne dans l’Antiquité (Paris 1992). Its subject matter is not inclusive. Other scholars have accepted the approach of the Paris-Lausanne School fully. Judith Barringer, for example, in her monograph on scenes of hunting states that



Int rodu ct ion

5

“Greek vase-painting and Greek Art in general are cultural constructs, selective, manipulated images that employ their own language to reflect societal values and beliefs” ( J. M. Barringer, The Hunt in Ancient Greece [Baltimore and London 2001], 2). Still other scholars have a different approach and read the vases more literally. Susan Matheson in her study of the depictions on Classical Attic vases of ephebes, warriors, and ritual reads them as “depicting real people doing real things, thinking real thoughts, and feeling real emotions. Pictures of symposia, children playing, weddings, drunken revelry, funerary ritual, athletics, and arming for battle, for example, convincingly portray these activities, and through gesture, pose, and composition suggest the cultural attitudes and individual feelings behind them” (“Beardless, Armed, and Barefoot: Ephebes, Warriors, and Ritual on Athenian Vases,” in D. Yatromanolakis [ed.], An Archaeology of Representations: Ancient Greek Vase-Painting and Contemporary Methodologies [Athens 2009], 374). My own opinion as to the origin and nature of these pictures stands somewhere in the middle between these two extremes. Anyone having seen a baby crawl or sit on a potty, as shown on figs. 1.34–36, for example, would have no doubt that these images are not constructs but reflections of real life. On the other hand, some of the wedding scenes, particularly those from the last forty years of the fifth century and later, clearly combine elements from different moments in the three-day ceremony into one image. A pyxis in Berlin (fig. 9.18) that we shall see in chapter 9 on the wedding shows elements from the preparations of the bride, the groom leading his bride to the door of the thalamos (bridal chamber), and the Epaulia, the final day of the ceremony: so three moments shown in one image. It is my contention, therefore, that both types of images, those that are constructs and those that more closely reflect reality, give us insight into everyday life in Athens, and for this reason both are included in this handbook. This book features ten chapters that follow this introduction. The subjects covered by each chapter are arranged mainly by where they took place. Thus we start off in chapter 1 at home, where we consider scenes of the family, followed by images of wool working, play, pets, food preparation, housework, women washing and dressing, child care, the symposium, and the komos. Chapter 2 covers scenes in the workshop, including potters, metal workers, sculptors, shoemakers, woodworkers, coin makers, fowlers, and butchers, and scenes of commerce. Chapter 3 turns to consider scenes featuring life elsewhere in the city other than those in the places that we will consider in chapters 4–10. A visit to the fountain for water, a popular scene on black-figure hydriai, is one of the most

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controversial. Dancing schools, stables, brothels, small sanctuaries, and inscribed monuments are others. In chapter 4 we move outside the city to consider scenes of activities in the countryside—agriculture, herding, apiculture, fishing, hunting, and mining. Chapter 5 is a short chapter on scenes connected with education, both at home and at schools elsewhere in the city. In chapter 6 we consider scenes connected with the sanctuaries of the city and the activities that took place in them: these include processions, sacrifices, libations, examination of the entrails, and the roasting of the viscera. Since dramatic performances, mainly tragedy and comedy but also others, took place in sanctuaries, they are included here. Chapter 7 takes us to the gymnasium and the sporting events that took place there and elsewhere. A separate section on pederasty is included since it was at the symposium that many a relationship was started or fostered. War is the subject of chapter 8. Warriors arming and departing, hoplite warfare, foreign allies (Scythians and Thracians), trophies, ships, and the battlegrounds on land and on the sea are considered, in addition to the types of weapons and armor used. The wedding and the funeral are the subjects of chapters 9 and 10, respectively. The various stages of their rituals are considered along with a consideration of how best to interpret the depictions of them. Thus the wedding preparations featured, among other things, the procession to obtain water for the bride’s bath from the Kallirrhoe Spring, the adornment of the bride, the wedding feast, the unveiling of the bride (the anakalypteria), the wedding procession to the bride’s new home, and the Epaulia, the last day of the wedding. The funeral featured the prothesis (lying in state), the ekphora (procession to the grave), the burial, and most importantly, later visits to the graves by relatives and others. A basic bibliography follows each chapter. Since the volume is a guide, only the most important references are included, and since the book is written in English, there is some preference for sources in that language. The abbreviations are those used by the American Journal of Archaeology (https://www.ajaonline.org/author-guide-print).

chapter one

AT HOM E

THE HOUSE

The home was where the oikos (family unit) resided and where a wide range of activities took place. Archaeological evidence tells us that the normal Athenian home in the city was one or two stories tall, irregular in plan, and small in size and shape (some were Π-shaped). Normally each had a doorway, a narrow passage into a courtyard, the floor of which often had hard-packed earth topped with clay but was sometimes paved with stone, and with an internal colonnade. Many had a well, drain, and (or) cesspool in the courtyard. Several rooms were the norm, whose mudbrick walls had a stone socle. The roof was tiled. External balconies were rare, and sometimes the houses had a shop that opened onto a street and/or a workplace in the unroofed courtyard, as is the case with what appears to be the workshop of Simon the Cobbler (a friend of Socrates). Marble, pottery, and metal workers are other attested professions working in Athenian houses of the Archaic and Classical periods. The most important room was the andron, the men’s dining room, which was sometimes decorated with a mosaic floor. Athenian streets, with the exception of the Panathenaic Way, were irregular, narrow, and tortuous and normally had a packed gravel surface and a width of five to six meters. Cross streets made for small, compact blocks. Windows, when used, occur mainly on the second floor. Stairways and ladders provided access to the upper story. The house’s contents were simple and sparse. Furniture consisted of chairs, stools, beds, and tables. Objects such as vases, musical instruments, baskets, bags, mirrors, shoes and sandals, weapons, armor, and occasionally shelves were hung on the wall, and clothing and blankets were often stored in wooden chests or large baskets. There was normally a family hearth. Not all houses were used solely for 7

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habitation. The literary sources mention ones used as brothels, inns, taverns, gambling dens, training schools, factories, and tenement houses. A somewhat different form of house was used in the Classical countryside. Principally rectangular with an entrance in the middle of the south side, these farmhouses had a solid outer stone socle, an open interior courtyard with the main rooms on the north, and a tower for storage and defense. As for depictions of a house, a view of the entire structure, such as that on a small red-figure salt cellar in Bonn (fig. 1.1), is very rare. In this case we see the entire house of the bride from which the wedding procession has departed. The structure has a peaked roof, door, and wedding decorations that hang on the exterior walls. Normally the interior of the house is indicated by objects hanging in the black background on red-figure vases and black on a red-orange background on black-figure vases. The occasional column occurs on both, and rarely, part of the roofing is shown, such as the tiled roof on a red-figure chous of 430 BC. It shows a reveler pounding the door of a concerned woman holding a lamp (fig. 1.2). Doors are a common architectural element shown, and a single one often serves two functions, as the place of departure and as the place to be entered (for example, see fig. 9.13a). Sometimes a bed is partially visible through an open door (fig. 1.26). A unique view of a storage room is found on a red-figure skyphos of

Fig. 1.1.  Attic red-figure salt cellar. Marriage procession. Bonn, Akademisches Kunstmuseum, 994. Unattributed. Ca. 420 BC. After CVA Germany 1, Bonn 1, p. 30.



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Fig. 1.2.  Attic red-figure chous. Reveler pounding door as woman with lamp inside apprehensively waits. Unattributed. Ca. 420–410 BC. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 37.11.19. Fletcher Fund.

460 BC (pl. 1). On the left is a stand with a ladle, sieve, and small oinochoe hanging from it; a large skyphos sits atop, and a bail-handled amphora rests on the floor by it. On the right a large wooden chest has a basket and oinochoe on top, and a transport amphora leans against it. A chyrta and grill hang at top in the middle. A rare depiction of a well in a courtyard is found on a cup by the Brygos Painter (fig. 1.3), where a woman holds a rope that she used to haul up the kados, which she holds in her left hand, having pulled it out of the well visible by her. The wall of sundried brick with a thatched roof on the left may be part of the courtyard. TH E FA MI LY

Depictions of the various elements of the family in one vase painting are very rare, but several good examples exist. One is a red-figure hydria of 440–430 BC showing from left to right a loom, a woman reaching for a child being offered by

Fig. 1.3.  Attic red-figure cup. Woman in courtyard at well. Brygos Painter. Ca. 490–480 BC. Milan, Civico Museo Archeologico, 266. Courtesy of the Civico Museo Archeologico, Milan.

F ig. 1.4.  Attic red-figure hydria. Family scene at home. Circle of Polygnotos. Ca. 440–430 BC. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, 1960.342. Bequest of David M. Robinson. Height 34.6 × diameter 24.6 cm (13⅝ × 911/16 in.), diameter with handles 30.2 cm (11⅞ in.). Photo: Imaging Department. © President and Fellows of Harvard College.



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another woman seated on a klismos, and a young man observing the action from the right (fig. 1.4). Wool working, taking caring of children, the preparation of food, and cleaning and straightening up were a woman’s main occupations at home and the ones most often depicted on the vases. More menial chores, such as cleaning bathrooms, dusting, sweeping, or scrubbing floors, are not depicted, nor are the making of household repairs. WOOL WORKING

Of these chores, wool working is by far the most common to be shown or referred to and involves a number of activities, including those shown on the body of a black-figure lekythos by the Amasis Painter (fig. 1.5a), where in the center two girls work a warp-weighted loom shown in its entirety. The one on the right moves the shuttle between the vertical threads, the bottoms of which are tied to loom weights, while the other girl beats the newly placed horizontal thread into place. To the right of the loom a woman weighs balls of thread on a handheld scale, while another places unworked balls of wool into a basket. To the left of the loom (fig. 1.5b), one woman performs the rough working of the thread while another spins it. Behind them two more women fold finished blankets, which they will place on the stool set between them, while two other women, one seated and one standing, work the rough wool also. Wool working symbolically represented a woman’s virtue and represented a contribution that she could make to the family’s income, hence part of the reason for its popularity on Athenian vases. These scenes also have been interpreted by Bundrick as exalting the role of women in keeping the household (oikos) harmonious. Other moments in the process shown on other vases include making roves on an exposed leg, as shown in the tondo of a red-figure cup by Douris in Berlin (fig. 1.6), spinning thread with a distaff and spindle as on a white-ground oinochoe by the Foundry Painter (pl. 2), and working a hand loom as on a red-figure kalathos (wool basket) in Newcastle upon Tyne (fig. 1.7). These hand looms were portable and were used to produce smaller pieces of cloth than the standing, warp-weighted looms. Objects made with hand looms include hairnets, belts, and fillets. P L AY A N D P ETS

Sometimes play is intermingled with work. On a white-ground pyxis by the Painter of London D 12 (fig. 1.8), a seated woman juggles three balls of wool (that

F ig. 1.5a–b.  Attic blackfigure lekythos. Women working wool. Amasis Painter. Ca. 550 BC. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 31.11.10. Fletcher Fund, 1931.

Fig. 1.6.  Attic red-figure cup. Woman working wool and female companion. Douris. Ca. 490 BC. Berlin, Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin—Preussischer Kulturbesitz, F 2289. Photo: Johannes Laurentius.

Fig. 1.7.  Attic red-figure kalathoid. Woman weaving on hand loom and others looking on or dressing. Unattributed. Ca. 440 BC. Newcastle upon Tyne, Shefton Collection, 853. After Daremberg and Saglio, Dictionnaire des antiquités grecques et romaines II, 2, fig. 3684.

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F ig. 1.8.  Attic whiteground pyxis. Woman juggling balls of wool. Painter of London D 20. Ca. 470–460 BC. Toledo, Museum of Art, 1963.29. Purchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment. Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey. Wheel-thrown, slip-decorated earthenware, height 423/32 in., height (to lip) 311/32 in., diameter (lid) 41/9 in., diameter (body at base) 49/16 in.

they are apples, as some suggest, is unlikely), while another woman standing across from her appears to catch another. A kalathos rests on the ground between them. Other objects commonly shown being made or hanging in the background include wreaths, small wooden chests, sakkoi, mirrors, phormiskoi, alabastra, and sandals. The occasional bird, often a demoiselle crane or a goose, is rendered walking around in what must be conceived of as the courtyard of the house, while other birds, both caged and not, serve as pets. The namepiece of the Cage Painter (fig. 1.9), on which a seated boy opens a bird cage, is a good example. The feeding of pets, as is the case of a woman nurturing a dog standing on its hind legs on a red-figure lekythos in Rome (fig. 1.10), is rarely shown. Maltese dogs, though, are a very common pet. Cats of various types, including cheetah cubs, are more rarely depicted. A grown cheetah on a leash is shown being walked by a man with a walking staff in the tondo of a red-figure cup by Apollodoros (fig. 1.11). He is showing off to his fellow Athenians, just as modern day sports car owners do. Even pigs, as those on the namepiece of the Pig Painter, a red-figure pelike in Cambridge (fig. 4.10), are shown. There is a chance that they are mythological figures: Odysseus and his pig herder, Eumaios. Other types of animals depicted



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Fig. 1.9.  Attic red-figure cup. Boy holding a cage with bird. Cage Painter. Ca. 485–480 BC. London, British Museum, 1901.5-14.1. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

include cocks, hares, goats, fawns, and rarely monkeys and weasels. Various types of ball games, as that shown on a black-figure lekythos by the Edinburgh Painter in Oxford (pl. 3) exemplifies, are popular. A broad range of toys and games are also depicted, almost all involving children, male and female, and/or women. Men appear only rarely in these scenes. Toys shown on the vases include hoops, puppets, yo-yos, swings, rattles, amulets, tops, kites, balls, dolls, animals, and miniature pots, furniture, and wheeled carts and chariots. A good example is found on a red-figure lekythos by the Bosanquet Painter in John Hermann’s collection (fig. 1.12), where a pair of women are involved in spinning tops. The left-hand one is still actively whipping the toy that spins before her, while that of the other has fallen over. The way she holds her whip in the middle rather than at the end indicates that she has stopped playing for the moment. Some other games are also only rarely shown, such as the girls on a

F ig. 1.10.  Attic red-figure lekythos. Woman feeding dog. Unattributed. Ca. 470–460 BC. Rome, Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, 2478. After S. Lewis, The Athenian Woman: An Iconographic Handbook (London and New York 2002), 71, fig. 2.13.

Fig. 1.11.  Attic red-figure cup. Man walking his pet cheetah. Apollodoros. Ca. 490 BC. London, British Museum, 1836.2-24.230 (E 57). © The Trustees of the British Museum.



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Fig. 1.12a–b.  Attic red-figure lekythos. Women playing with tops. Bosanquet Painter. Ca. 440–430 BC. Private collection, John J. Herrmann Jr. Photo: Owner.

seesaw decorating a red-figure krater by the Leningrad Painter (fig. 1.13) or the girl balancing a long stick on the ends of her fingers as she moves forward (fig. 1.14). Morra, a hand game of counting fingers, is still played today and occasionally shown on the vases. A black-figure amphora by the Princeton Painter in Stuttgart (fig. 1.15) shows a girl swinging with the aid of a woman pushing from behind. A boy runs with hands out, obviously urging that he come next. Meanwhile, another youth extends his arms toward another woman, behind whom stands a bearded man with staff. The action at these swings is similar to what we see today. A number of games involve knucklebones—the anklebones of sheep and goats. These can be thrown for distance, tossed up and caught on the back of one’s hand, or used like dice, having different values assigned to different sides. A red-figure chous in Malibu (fig. 1.16) shows three youths playing knucklebones, but the game they play is uncertain. It may possibly be eis omillan, where the goal

F ig. 1.13.  Attic redfigure column krater. Girls on a seesaw. Leningrad Painter. Ca. 470–460 BC. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. James Fund and by Special Contribution, 10.191a–b. After J. D. Beazley, Attic RedFigured Vases in American Museums (Cambridge, MA, 1918), 119, fig. 75.

Fig. 1.14.  Attic redfigure lekythos. Woman balancing a stick on her right fingers. Manner of the Meidias Painter. Ca. 420 BC. Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 57.41.1. Minneapolis Institute of Arts, the Miscellaneous Works of Art Purchase Fund/Bridgeman Images.

Fig. 1.15.  Attic black-figure belly amphora. Girl on a swing. Princeton Painter. Ca. 520 BC. Stuttgart, Württembergisches Landesmuseum, 65/1. Landesmuseum Württemberg, Bildarchiv.

Fig. 1.16.  Attic redfigure chous. Boys playing knucklebones. Group of Boston 10.190. Ca. 420 BC. Malibu, J. Paul Getty Museum, 96.AE.28. Digital image courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program.

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F ig. 1.17.  Attic redfigure chous. Boys playing ephedrismos. Painter of Munich 8742. Ca. 420 BC. London, once Sotheby’s, 7–8 July, lot 323. Photo courtesy of Sotheby’s, Inc. © 2018.

of the thrower is to knock his opponent’s bones out of a defined area. One easily identifiable game is that of ephedrismos, which involves carrying one’s opponent piggyback; the rider normally covers the other’s eyes with their hands to make it more difficult to strike a stone, the goal of the rider as on a red-figure chous by the Painter of Munich 8742 (fig. 1.17). A few vases show cocks fighting, as does a red-figure bell krater by the Menelaos Painter (fig. 1.18). Here the birds square off in the middle between two youths, likely their owners. Cock fights were as popular in antiquity as they are today. P R E PA R AT I O N O F F O O D

Far less common are scenes connected with food preparation, a frequent subject in Greek literature and on non-Athenian-figured pottery and terracottas but rarely found on Athenian vases. A good example showing two women working a mortar with two pestles is found on a black-figure amphora by the Swing Painter

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Fig. 1.18. Attic red-figure bell krater. Cock fight. Menelaos Painter. Ca. 440 BC. Warsaw, National Museum, 198512.

(fig. 1.19). A unique scene on a lekanis in St. Petersburg (fig. 1.20), meanwhile, has two girls forming wedding cakes of sesame on a round table, while another appears to knead the dough in a louterion (basin). The hydria on the ground nearby holds the water for the operation. Meanwhile, a seated woman cooks cakes on an eschara on a red-figure squat lekythos in Vienna (fig. 1.21). More complicated is the image on a red-figure lekythos by the Pan Painter at Haverford College, which has been interpreted as showing a standing woman ladling soup into the large skyphos held by the woman seated before her (fig. 1.22). Between them on the ground is a psykter, a vessel used for cooling liquids, primarily wine, so the liquid here may be wine, not soup. Even more complicated are the two scenes on the outside of a cup by the Akestorides Painter (fig. 1.23). On one side of the vessel two women are posed on either side of a mortar, each holding a pestle. They appear to be in the process of being instructed by a gesturing woman on the right. On the other side of the vase are three women by an oven. Again, the woman on the right appears to instruct. In the background hangs what appears to be a spatula.

F ig. 1.19.  Attic blackfigure amphora. Women working a mortar with pestles. Swing Painter. Ca. 530 BC. St. Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum, 2065. Photo: Natalia Antonova, Pavel Demidov, Inna Regentova. © The State Hermitage Museum.

Fig. 1.20.  Attic red-figure lekanis. Women making wedding cakes. Eleusinian Painter. Ca. 360–350 BC. St. Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum, 1791. Photo: Natalia Antonova, Pavel Demidov, Inna Regentova. © The State Hermitage Museum.

Fig. 1.21.  Attic red-figure squat lekythos. Woman cooking cakes on a grill. Unattributed. Ca. 430 BC. Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum, 4.1921. © KHMMuseumverband.

F ig. 1.22.  Attic red-figure lekythos. Woman ladling soup into skyphos of a seated woman. Pan Painter. Ca. 470 BC. Haverford College. Quaker and Special Collections.

Fig. 1.23a–b.  Attic red-figure cup. Women learning how to make bread. Akestorides Painter. Ca. 470–450 BC. New York, Christie’s Antiquities, 29 April 2019, 40–41, lot 141. © 2019 Christie’s Images Limited.

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HOUSEWORK

Housework also is only occasionally depicted, as, for example, the image of a woman on a red-figure lekythos at Yale (fig. 1.24) who is about to place a bundledup mantle into a large wooden chest. On another white-ground lekythos we see a woman stuffing a pillow case with balls of wool (fig. 1.25). A few other vases show a woman or women making the bedding on a kline. On a black-figure amphora in St. Petersburg (fig. 1.26) the bridal bed is being prepared for the approaching bride, groom, and guests. The perfuming of clothes is rendered on an oinochoe by the Meidias Painter (fig. 1.27). Folded pieces of cloth are resting on a stool hanging in the air, while a woman bends over pouring perfume on a fire below the stool. More garments are draped on the klismos on the right, while a young boy stands on the left looking on.

Fig. 1.24.  Attic redfigure lekythos. Woman holding a bundled-up garment before a wooden chest. Painter of the Yale Lekythos. Ca. 460 BC. New Haven, CT, Yale University Art Gallery, 1913.146.

F ig. 1.25.  Attic whiteground lekythos. Woman stuffing pillow. Pan or Brygos Painter. Ca. 470 BC. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, 1991.28. Gift of Schimmel Foundation, Inc. Height 37.1 × diameter 13.4 cm (14⅝ × 5¼ in.). Photo: Imaging Department. © President and Fellows of Harvard College.

Fig. 1.26.  Attic black-figure amphora. Woman preparing wedding bed. Castellani Painter. Ca. 570–560 BC. St. Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum, 1403. After E. Pfuhl, Malerei und Zeichnung der Griechen, vol. 3 (Munich 1923), 48.205.

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Fig. 1.27.  Attic redfigure chous. Women perfuming clothes. Meidias Painter. Ca. 420 BC. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 75.2.11. Gift of Samuel G. Ward 1875. After G. M. A. Richter and L. F. Hall, RedFigured Athenian Vases in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New Haven, CT, 1935), pls. 158 and 177.159.

WOMEN WA SHING A ND DR ESSING

Women washing and/or dressing becomes a very popular subject in the fifth century, but it is not possible to say if the scenes represent reality or imagination. For example, is the nude woman on a red-figure lekythos in Syracuse (fig. 1.28) who leans over to place a bundled-up mantle on a klismos a hetaera or not? A variety of activities are represented as taking place at a louterion, a subject most popular in the third quarter of the fifth century; these include scenes of washing both clothes and bodies. On a red-figure stamnos in Munich from the Group of Polygnotos (fig. 1.29) three nude women are arranged around a louterion. The central one perfumes her hair, the one on the left holds a bundled-up mantle, while the one on the right washes her hands in the vessel. A similar ambiguity exists about whether we are looking at a courtesan or an everyday woman in the few scenes of women who depilate their pubic areas, such as the nude woman in the tondo of a red-figure cup in the Manner of Onesimos (fig. 1.30). She raises a lit lamp in her left hand toward her genitals to singe the hair, and a sponge is in the other, should it be necessary to dampen the area.

F ig. 1.28.  Attic red-figure lekythos. Nude woman laying down her clothing on chair. Recalls the Alkimachos Painter. Ca. 470–460 BC. Syracuse, Museo Archeologico Regionale Paolo Orsi, 21972.

F ig. 1.29.  Attic redfigure stamnos. Women washing. Group of Polygnotos. Ca. 440–430 BC. Munich, Staatliche Antikensammlungen, AS 2411. After E. Pfuhl, Malerei und Zeichnung der Griechen (Munich 1923), fig. 564.



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Fig. 1.30. Attic red-figure cup. Woman depilating her pubic region with a lamp. Onesimos (ARV2 320,10). Ca. 500 BC. Oxford, MS, University of Mississippi, 1977.3.112. David M. Robinson Memorial Collection. Museum and Historic Houses.

One striking type of image of dressing involves a woman tying her girdle. Often she holds up the overfold of her garment with her teeth, so that she can tie her belt more easily, as does the mistress on the right-hand side of a pelike in Berlin by the Syriskos Painter (fig. 1.31). Another striking view is on an amphoriskos by the Eretria Painter, where a seated young woman (bride?) dreamily looks at herself in a mirror (fig. 1.32). A man offering a gift to a woman and vice versa is a very popular scene in the Early Classical period. Later depictions from the High Classical period show figures that are less concerned with action and display a sense of reflection and contemplation. A good early example is by the Oinokles Painter in Vienna on a red-figure Nolan amphora (fig. 1.33). Here a youth bends over and offers what appears to be a piece of fruit to a woman seated on a klismos. The question arises, then, if these women receiving gifts are meant to be hetaerai, or prostitutes, or are they just happy couples? Or are they some combination thereof? The gift-giving scenes between males and females show women receiving flowers, fruits, wreaths, birds, games, jewelry, and other types of toiletries. In addition, other vases show both males and females receiving purses, coins, and

F ig. 1.31.  Attic redfigure pelike. Woman dressing assisted by a slave girl. Syriskos Painter. Ca. 480 BC. Berlin, Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin—Preussischer Kulturbesitz, V.I. 4496. Photo: Johannes Laurentius.

Fig. 1.32.  Attic red-figure amphoriskos. Maiden contemplating as she looks into a mirror. Eretria Painter. Ca. 430–425 BC. Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, V 537. After J. D. Beazley, Attic RedFigured Vases in American Museums (Cambridge, MA, 1918), 179, fig. 110 bis.

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Fig. 1.33.  Attic redfigure Nolan amphora. Youth gifting seated woman. Oinokles Painter. Ca. 470 BC. Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum, 846. © KHMMuseumsverband.

uncooked meat. Different situations and outcomes are shown: some vases show competition for a lover, others indicate a haggling over a price, still others, an outright rejection of the potential lover and/or a clear attempt to seduce. WOMEN MAKING MUSIC AT H O M E A N D D A N C I N G

See chapter 5. CHILD CARE

Child care is the fourth major duty of women in the household, but breast feeding, surprisingly, is only shown on one very fragmentary red-figure loutrophoros

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from the Nymphe Shrine in Athens (although there are many other types of scenes showing adults and children). A splendid white-ground lekythos in Athens (pl. 4) by the Timokrates Painter has the moving scene of a child seated atop the shoulders of a maid who faces us frontally. A well-dressed woman, likely the child’s mother, stands on the left by a Doric column that indicates an interior setting in the house, as does the oinochoi hanging from the wall in the background. She reaches out to grab the child, who reaches out for her in turn with its right hand; the left hand is set upon the maid’s head for support. A rare but not unique scene of a baby seated in a potty occurs on a red-figure squat lekythos in London (fig. 1.34). The child sits frontally and looks at the rattle he holds out in his right hand. On the left sits an oinochoe, while a toy roller is propped against the frame of the image on the right. Terracotta potties like this have been found in the Agora excavations. Another infant is rendered learning how to stand on a red-figure pelike by the Washing Painter (fig. 1.35). He pushes up his upper body with extended arms while looking at the woman standing before him. She is mostly likely his mother,

F ig. 1.34.  Attic redfigure chous. Baby with rattle seated in a potty (lasana). Unattributed. Ca. 440–430 BC. London, British Museum, 1910.6-15.4. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

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Fig. 1.35.  Attic red-figure pelike. Baby learning to crawl or walk. Manner of the Washing Painter. Ca. 430–420 BC. London, British Museum, E 396. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

who encourages him on with gesturing hands and arms. Behind the young boy stands a bearded male, probably his father. Various games, toys, pets, and other types of play normally involving children in the house, both male and female, are rendered on red-figure choes, small jugs that may have held a child’s first drink, given at the Anthesteria festival when he/ she was three years old. Many of the images on the choes are clearly inventions of the painters, but some do accurately reflect daily life activities, such as the perfuming of clothes, as shown above (fig. 1.27), crawling babies like that found on a choes in Princeton (fig. 1.36), games involving knucklebones, and children playing with pets, particularly goats, hares, cocks, geese, Maltese dogs, and birds of various breeds. Another rarely depicted subject is child punishment. The namepiece of the Sandal Painter, a black-figure lekythos in Bologna (fig. 5.8), features a boy fleeing from a man who grabs the boy by the arm with his left hand while wielding with his right a sandal that he will strike the boy with shortly. The boy runs toward a woman on the right (his mother almost certainly), who extends her arms out to protect the boy.

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F ig. 1.36.  Attic red-figure chous. Baby crawling toward a chous. Crawling Boy Workshop. Ca. 420 BC. Princeton, Princeton University Art Museum. Museum Purchase, Caroline G. Mather Fund y1953-22.

SYMPOSIUM AND KOMOS

The symposium was the male banquet held normally in the andron, the men’s room of the house, and the komos was the riotous procession after the party either home or to the next party after the meal. Pictures of symposiasts reclining, drinking, and dining start first around the end of the seventh and beginning of the sixth centuries BC on Corinthian pottery and appear later, around 580–570 BC, on Attic pottery, where it became a very popular motif that continued to be used into the fourth century BC. The men lie alone on beds (klinai) or mattresses, or with male or female company, and they are shown drinking, singing, dancing, vomiting, playing drinking games as kottabos, and on rare occasions, performing lewd acts. Entertainment shown includes a flute girl, as on a column krater by the Florence Painter (fig. 1.37), a pyrrhic dancer, as the one on a bell krater in Naples (fig. 1.38), and booners, men dressed up as easterners wearing a chiton, himation, and turban headgear, as on a cup in Malibu (fig. 1.39). The booners also often

Fig. 1.37.  Attic redfigure column krater. Flute girl entertaining male symposiasts. Florence Painter. Ca. 450 BC. Baltimore, Walters Art Museum, 48.66. Courtesy of the Walters Art Museum.

F ig. 1.38.  Attic redfigure bell krater. Pyrrhic dancer entertaining male symposiasts. Lykaon Painter. Ca. 450 BC. Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli, 281. © Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo—Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli.

Fig. 1.39a–b.  Attic red-figure cup. Flute girl and “booners.” Briseis Painter. Ca. 480 BC. Malibu, J. Paul Getty Museum, 86.AE.293. Digital image courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program.



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carry a parasol, and sometimes they wear earrings. They may or may not represent followers of the poet Anacreon, who, after the death of the Samian tyrant Polykrates in 522 BC, visited Athens at the Peisistradid tyrant Hipparchos’s bequest. Komasts, meanwhile, can be shown frolicking alone or as part of a group party. They were a popular subject in the Late Archaic period, when the combination of a komast in the tondo and a komos on the exterior was popular. Heterosexual lovemaking is illustrated primarily in scenes connected with the symposium. The earliest depictions of lovemaking are in black-figure, appearing first in the second quarter of the sixth century BC (565–550 BC) on amphorae of the Tyrrhenian Group and a little later on cups. These black-figure vessels feature public, group activity by couples that is good humored, not like the abuse and hostility sometimes displayed in red-figure. A Droop cup in Malibu is typical (fig. 1.40). On the side we show here there are three couples involved in lovemaking: the central pair employ a stool to facilitate

Fig. 1.40.  Attic black-figure Droop cup. Lovers in pairs. Wraith Painter. Ca. 520 BC. Malibu, J. Paul Getty Museum, 77.AE.54. Digital image courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program.

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a rear approach, the outer two are composed of a standing male who balances a woman on his thighs as he penetrates her frontally. The subject, though, is found most frequently on Late Archaic red-figure cups and occurs almost exclusively on vessels connected with drinking wine. The first depictions of isolated pairs of lovers appear on these red-figure cups, and the range of subjects in red-figure is greater than on the black-figure vases. Rear entry, whether vaginal or anal, is the preferred position, in a standing pose, often with a pillow for support, and the action can involve a solitary couple, or couples, or a group—an orgy. A cup in Malibu (fig. 1.41) shows a wineskin being used in place of a pillow atop a diphros (backless stool). The hetaera bends over, as her lover, having penetrated her from behind, squeezes her buttocks together to make the fit even snugger (one can make out his fingers on her right thigh). This rear approach shows women being used impersonally.

Fig. 1.41.  Attic red-figure cup. Male lover penetrates a woman bending over on a diphros (stool) from behind. Foundry Painter. Ca. 470 BC. Malibu, J. Paul Getty Museum, 86.AE.294. Digital image courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program.



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On a cup in Berlin by the Thalia Painter of 520–500 BC (fig. 1.42) we see an orgy taking place. On the left atop pillows a youth masturbates with his right hand while looking down at a reclining woman who, entwined with her bearded lover, is about to apply to him the slipper she holds up in her right hand, in order to stimulate their lovemaking. Below them lies a woman who is masturbating with eye closed. Rarer activities on the red-figure vessels include fellatio, kissing, hand jobs, breast fondling, the use of a dildo (olisboi), voyeurism, defecation, urination, vomiting, and possibly cunnilingus. Most, if not all, of the women are hetaerai. How much of this action actually took place is very questionable: one would think not regularly. Nevertheless, affection between the participants is sometimes shown, or even a sense of romance and/or tenderness, especially when the partners face each other. Only pictures of the young show these emotions. Perhaps the most famous example of this is a red-figure oinochoe by the Schuvalov Painter in Berlin (pl. 5) on which a couple are about to make love. A youth with an erection sits

Fig. 1.42.  Attic red-figure cup. Orgy. Thalia Painter. Ca. 520–500 BC. Berlin, Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin—Preussischer Kulturbesitz, V.I. 3251, and Florence, Museo Archeologico Etrusco, I B49. Photo: Johannes Laurentius.

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back in a chair grasping at its sides as a naked girl with raised right leg is about to mount him. The intensity of the moment is augmented by their touching heads and their direct gaze at one another, as she has wrapped her arms around his shoulder and grasps the back of the klismos (backed chair). The subject disappears by the last quarter of the fifth century BC. Boys and their lovers reclining on klinai, however, is a very common symposium scene. The couple, erastes and eromenos, are occasionally shown wrapped in a common mantle, as on a black-figure lekythos of ca. 550–525 BC in St. Petersburg (fig. 1.43). Meanwhile, an excellent example of kissing is found in the tondo of the cup by the Carpenter Painter (fig. 1.44). In general, then, these scenes are best perceived of as obscene, reflecting everyday humor and the types of things that happen in ancient Greek comedy, but they should not be classified as pornographic.

F ig. 1.43.  Attic black-figure lekythos. Man and youth under a blanket. Superficially related to the Pharos Painter. Ca. 550–525 BC. St. Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum, 1440. Photo: Natalia Antonova, Pavel Demidov, Inna Regentova. © The State Hermitage Museum.



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Fig. 1.44.  Attic red-figure cup. Man and sitting youth about to kiss. Carpenter Painter. 515–500 BC. Malibu, J. Paul Getty Museum, 85.AE 25. Digital image courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program.

PEDERASTY

See chapter 6. S L AV E S

Slaves were a major component of an Athenian household, and although there is no way to accurately calculate their number, three to four per household is a reasonable conjecture, as is approximately one hundred thousand for the entire city. The duties and chores of these servants varied and included not only household activities such as cooking, washing, and helping to take care of their masters and their children but also outside activities such as fetching water from the fountains, working in the mines, fields, and workshops, visiting the graveyard, grooming the horses, and helping at the symposium.

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Identifying slaves on Athenian vases can sometimes be difficult and uncertain. The nature of the activity that a figure performs is often a clue. Thus the young girl laden with a full wineskin on her head, a hydria in her right hand, and a sack over her left shoulder (pl. 6), shown on a skyphos we saw earlier (see pl. 1 for the backside of this vase), is without doubt a young slave girl who follows her thirsty mistress. The girl has a short, pageboy-like hairstyle that has often been viewed as typical of female slaves. The young maid carrying a small boy on her shoulders that we saw on the white-ground lekythos by the Timokrates Painter (pl. 4) also features this hairstyle, and from the girl’s expression she appears to be none too happy to carry this load (see also figs. 1.22 and 1.31). A figure’s non-Greek ethnicity can also be an indication that she/he is a slave. Tattoos were typical of Thracians, who were particularly renowned as nursemaids. These servants are found in scenes of the prothesis (lying in state) and of a visit to the grave. For example, on a white-ground lekythos in Athens (pl. 7) an elderly

F ig. 1.45.  Attic redfigure hydria. Thracian slaves at a spring. Aegisthus Painter. Ca. 470 BC. Paris, Musée du Louvre, CA 2587. Photo: Hervé Lewandowski. © RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource, New York.

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Thracian woman kneels by the grave and mourns vociferously with one hand to her head, the other extended nearly straight up. This slave’s mistress stands on the left holding a pet hare, while a loutrophoros sits atop the mound of the grave. Meanwhile, on a red-figure hydria by the Aegisthus Painter three Thracian women are shown fetching water from a spring (fig. 1.45). The one on the left steadies her vessel, the middle one carries hers on her head, and the third is in the process of filling hers at the spring. Ethiopians, meanwhile, can be recognized by their African features (thick lips and rounded, snub noses). The Ethiopian girl on a white-ground lekythos in Berlin (fig. 1.46) carries a diphros on her head and an alabastron in her right hand to the tomb monument before her. Note the profile of her face and the young woman’s stature.

Fig. 1.46. Attic white-ground lekythos. Black maid at tomb. Sabouroff Painter. Ca. 440 BC. Berlin, Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin— Preussischer Kulturbesitz, V.I. 3291. Photo: Johannes Laurentius.

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For Athenian homes most recently, see B. Tsakirgis, “What Is a House? Conceptualizing the Greek House,” in A. Glazebrook and B. Tsakirgis (eds.), Houses of Ill Repute: The Archaeology of Brothels, Houses and Taverns in the Greek World (Philadelphia 2016), 13–35; A. Smith, “Looking Inside on the Outside of a Pot,” in Glazebrook and Tsakirgis (eds.), Houses of Ill Repute: The Archaeology of Brothels, Houses and Taverns in the Greek World (Philadelphia 2016), 143–168. See also R. E. Wycherley, The Stones of Athens (Princeton, NJ, 1978), 237–252. For Simon’s house, see D. B. Thompson, “The House of Simon the Shoemaker,” Archeology 13 (1960): 234–240. For depictions of the family (oikos) in vase painting, see R. F. Sutton Jr., “Family Portraits: Recognizing the Oikos on Attic Red-Figure Pottery,” in XAPIS: Essays in Honor of Sara A. Immerwahr (Hesperia, suppl. 33) (2004): 327–350. For women, see S. Lewis, The Athenian Woman: An Iconographic Handbook (London and New York 2002). For scenes of wool working with a catalog of vases, see G. Ferrari, Figures of Speech: Men and Maidens in Ancient Greece (Chicago 2002); see also E. W. Barber, Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years: Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times (New York and London 1994); S. D. Bundrick, “The Fabric of the City: Imaging Textile Production in Classical Athens,” Hesperia 77 (2008): 283–334. For hand looms most recently, see S. Waite, “An Attic Red-Figure Kalathos in the Shefton Collection,” in J. Boardman, A. Parkin, and S. Waite (eds.), On the Fascination of Objects: Greek and Etruscan Art in the Shefton Collection (Oxford and Philadelphia 2016), 31–62; and S. D. Bundrick, “Reconsidering Handlooms on Athenian Vases,” in T. H. Carpenter, E. Langridge-Noti, and M. D. Stansbury-O’Donnell (eds.), The Consumers’ Choice: Uses of Greek Figure-Decorated Pottery (Boston 2016), 1–21. For mortal children, see most recently, J. Neils and J. H. Oakley, Coming of Age in Ancient Greece: Images of Childhood from the Classical Past (New Haven and London 2003); L. A. Beaumont, Childhood in Ancient Athens: Iconography and Social History (London and New York 2012); M. and D. Sommer, Care, Socialization, and Play in Ancient Attica: A Developmental Childhood Archaeological Approach (Aarhus 2015). For potties, see K. M. Lynch and J. K. Papadopoulos, “Sella Cacatoria: A Study of the Potty in Archaic and Classical Athens,” Hesperia 75 (2006): 1–32. For scenes of women bathing and dressing, see R. Ginouvès, Balaneutikè (Paris 1962); S. Lewis, The Athenian Woman: An Iconographic Handbook (London and New York 2002), 130–171, 150, fig. 4.13. For choes, see G. van Hoorn, Choes and Anthesteria (Leiden 1951); R. Hamilton, Choes and Anthesteria: Athenian Iconography and Ritual (Ann Arbor, MI, 1992); G. L. Ham, “The Choes and Anthesteria Reconsidered: Male Maturation Rites and the Peloponnesian War,” in M. Padilla (ed.), Rites of Passage in Ancient Greece: Literature, Religion, Society, Bucknell Review 49 (Lewisburg, PA, 1999), 201–218; L. A. Beaumont, Childhood in Ancient Athens: Iconography and Social History (London and New York 2012), 69–84.



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For rattles, see most recently V. Dasen, “Le hochet d’Archytas: un jouet pour grandir,” Annales de Bretagne et des Pays de l’Ouest 124, no. 3 (2017): 89–107. For Morra, see H. A. Cahn, “Morra: Drei Silene bein Knobeln,” in H. Froning, T. Hölscher, and H. Mielsch (eds.), Kotinos: Festschrift für Erika Simon (Mainz 1992), 214–217. For toys and games, see E. Schmidt, Spielzeug und Spiele der Kinder im klassischen Altertums (Meiningen 1971); R. Schmidt, Die Darstellung von Kinderspielzeug und Kinderspiele in der griechischen Kunst (Vienna 1977). For pets, see A. Ashmead, “Greek Cats: Exotic Pets Kept by Rich Youths in Fifth Century B.C. Athens, as Portrayed on Greek Vases,” Expedition 20 (Spring 1978): 38–47; for birds, see J. Pollard, Birds in Greek Life and Myth (London 1977); R. Lamberton and S. I. Rotroff, Birds of the Athenian Agora (Agora Picture Books) (Princeton, NJ, 1985). For preparing flour and bread, see N. Malagardis, “Images du monde rural attique à l’époque archaïque,” ArchEph (1988): 122–123. Also for animals most recently, see L. Calder, Cruelty and Sentimentality: Greek Attitudes to Animals, 600–300 BC (Oxford 2011); K. F. Kitchell, Animals in the Ancient World from A to Z (London and New York 2014); S. Lewis and L. Llewellyn-Jones, The Culture of Animals in Antiquity: A Sourcebook with Commentaries (London and New York 2018). For the symposium and komos most recently, see T. J. Smith, “Guess Who Is Coming to Dinner? Red-Figure Komasts and the Performance Culture of Athens,” in J. H. Oakley (ed.), Athenian Potters and Painters (Oxford 2014), 3:231–241; W. Filser, Die Elite Athens auf der attischen Luxuskeramik, Image & Context 16 (Berlin 2017), 127–277; R. Osborne, The Transformation of Athens: Painted Pottery and the Creation of Classical Greece (Princeton, NJ, 2018), 168–187; see also A. Schäfer, Unterhaltung beim griechischen Symposion. Darbietungen, Spiele und Wettkämpfe von homerischer bis in spätklassische Zeit (Mainz 1997); and K. Topper, The Imagery of the Athenian Symposium (Cambridge 2012), with the unlikely view that these scenes represent ancestral customs. For red-figure scenes of lovemaking, see R. F. Sutton Jr., “The Interaction between Men and Women Portrayed on Attic Red-Figure Pottery” (dissertation, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1981); M. F. Kilmer, Greek Erotica on Attic Red-Figure Vases (London 1993). For black-figure scenes of lovemaking, see R. F. Sutton Jr., “Love-Making on Attic Black-Figure Pottery: Corpus with Some Conclusions,” in S. Schmidt and J. H. Oakley (eds.), Hermeneutik der Bilder. Beiträge zur Ikonographie und Interpretation griechischer Vasenmalerei, Beihefte zum Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum (Munich 2009), 4:77–91; T. J. Smith, Komast Dancers in Archaic Greek Art (Oxford 2010). For depictions of orgies, see R. F. Sutton Jr., “The Good, the Base, and the Ugly: The Drunken Orgy in Attic Vase-Painting and the Athenian Self,” in B. Cohen (ed.), Not the Classical Ideal: Athens and the Construction of the Other in Greek Art (Leiden 2000), 180–202.

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For further scenes of sex, see E. C. Keuls, The Reign of the Phallus (New York 1985); I. Peschel, Die Hetäre bei Symposion und Komos in der attisch-rotfigurigen Vasenmalerei des 6.-4. Jahrh. v. Chr. (Frankfurt 1987); C. Reinsberg, Ehe, Hetärentum und Knabenliebe im antiken Griechenland (Munich 1989), 98–215; R. F. Sutton Jr., “Pornography and Persuasion on Attic Pottery,” in A. Richlin (ed.), Pornography and Representation in Greece and Rome (Oxford 1992), 3–35; H. A. Shapiro, “Eros in Love: Pederasty and Pornography in Greece,” in A. Richlin (ed.), Pornography and Representation in Greece and Rome (Oxford 1992), 53–72. For the common mantle motif, see G. Koch-Harnack, Erotische Symbole. Lotusblüte und gemeinsamer Mantel auf antiken Vasen (Berlin 1989), 109–166. For clothes most recently, see M. M. Lee, Body, Dress, and Identity in Ancient Greece (Cambridge 2015). For the image of breast-feeding, see V. Sabetai, “The Transformation of the Bride in Attic Vase-Painting,” in R. M. Gondek and C. L. Sulosky Weaver (eds.), The Ancient Art of Transformation: Case Studies from Mediterranean Contexts (Oxford 2019), 39, fig. 2.4. For slaves, see N. Himmelmann, Archäologisches zum Problem der griechischen Sklaverei. Akademie der Wissenschaften und Literatur in Mainz. Abhandlungen des Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaftichen Klass 13 (Mainz 1971); J. H. Oakley, “Some ‘Other’ Members of the Athenian Household: Maids and Their Mistresses in Fifth-Century Athenian Art,” in B. Cohen (ed.), Not the Classical Ideal: Athens and the Construction of the Other in Greek Art (Leiden 2000), 227–247.

chapter two

I N T HE WOR K S HOP

POTTERIES

Athenian vases provide a rich source of images of men, and occasionally of women, involved in commercial activity and at work in various types of workshops. Some of the workshops are found in architectural settings, which may be either domestic or commercial, or a combination of the two. None of the scenes appear in any substantial number, with perhaps the exception of potteries. So the quantity of types of scenes is low but the variety large. As for dress, the workmen are sometimes clothed and have the physiques of other Athenians, but at other times they wear workmen’s garb, such as the perizoma or pilos, and their faces and heads can be foreign looking or bear the markings of manual labor. Athena is the one god to appear on occasion in some of these scenes, her presence suggesting the support of the goddess in the workmen’s endeavors. The pottery industry itself provided subject matter for several handfuls of Attic vases and was the most popular subject among the workshop scenes. Although the digging for clay and the firing of the kiln are subjects found on Corinthian pinakes (painted clay plaques), to date the subject has not been found on Attic pottery. Rather, the earliest stage of pottery production shown on Attic vases is found on a black-figure skyphos of ca. 500 BC by the Theseus Painter at Harvard University (fig. 2.1). Here a mound of clay occupies the center of each side, and a bent-over man on the left seems to be putting some of the clay into a basket while another man already carries a full basket on his shoulders. The texture of the clay as rendered on this side is different from that on the other, sug­ gesting that two different moments in the preparation of the clay are shown. Under each handle a seated man puts the finishing touches on an amphora, and a herm stands nearby. 47

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Fig. 2.1.  Attic black-figure skyphos. Preparation of clay for potting. Theseus Painter. Ca. 510–500 BC. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, 1960.321. Bequest of David M. Robinson. Height 17.4 × diameter 22 cm (6⅞ × 811/16 in.), diameter w/ handles 29 cm (117/16 in.). Photo: Imaging Department. © President and Fellows of Harvard College.

The actual potting and decoration of a vessel is rendered on several vases, with two stages in the process shown on a black-figure lip cup in Karlsruhe of 540–530 BC (fig. 2.2). On one side a standing potter centers the vase on the potter’s wheel while a youth sits frontally on a block turning the wheel with his right hand. More often the potter is shown seated as he works. On the other side of the cup, the painter, seated on a diphros (stool), appears to be decorating the vessel with a white implement as a mantled man—customer or owner of the workshop—looks on. Perhaps the fullest depiction of a pottery workshop is that given on the shoulder of a black-figure hydria from the Leagros Group in Munich of the late sixth century BC (pl. 8). On the far left a seated youth appears to be examining an amphora that he holds on his lap as another youth looks on from the right— only the latter’s head is preserved. Next, a potter fashions a large white jar as a seated youth turns the potter’s wheel. This demanding task was often given to the youngest. What may be measuring rods hang above. Next to a Doric column

Fig. 2.2a–b.  Attic black-figure lip cup. Potter making vase on a wheel and potter removing potted vessel from wheel as man (customer?) looks on. Perhaps the Taleides Painter (Circle of Lydos). Ca. 540–530 BC. Karlsruhe, Badisches Landesmuseum, 67/90.

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another man walks to the right holding a jar, as another white jar sits on the ground by the column. A bald man who stands to the right supporting himself with a staff is likely the workshop’s owner. Before him comes a man holding more fuel for the kiln, which is being cleaned out by a young man. A more detailed view of the vase painter at work is given in the tondo of a red-figure cup by the Antiphon Painter in Boston of 480 BC (fig. 2.3). The craftsman holds his drawing instrument in his right hand, and in his left he holds the foot of the vase and what may be a stick for the wet gloss that he is applying to the vessel. There are other Attic red-figure vases with pictures of potters or painters at work, but we do not consider them here because they are either very fragmentary or Athena, a mythological figure, appears in the image, thereby implying the assistance of the goddess in their work. The one exception is a bell krater in Oxford by the Komaris Painter of 430 BC (fig. 2.4). Here, the seated painter on the left decorates the bell krater that he holds. On the small table by him sits a

Fig. 2.3.  Attic red-figure cup. Seated youth painting kylix. Antiphon Painter. Ca. 480 BC. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 01.8073. Henry Lillie Pierce Fund. Width 14.2 cm (59/16 in.). © 2020 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.



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Fig. 2.4.  Attic redfigure bell krater. Komaris Painter. Ca. 430 BC. Pottery. Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, V 526. Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford, UK/Bridgeman Images.

skyphos, which likely holds the wet gloss that he is applying to the vase. In the center of the picture is a youth holding another bell krater. Further right is a partially preserved youth who goes right carrying a skyphos. Before him on the ground is yet another bell krater. The column and the host of objects hanging on the wall indicate an interior setting. M E TA LW O R K

Second in popularity on Athenian vases, after the images connected with pottery production, were scenes of metalworkers. Interestingly, a major metalworking area of Athens was in the northwest Agora and not far from the Kerameikos, the potters’ quarters, so that the painters did not have far to look for inspiration. Several of the metalworking scenes are mythological, showing Thetis and/or Hephaistos or Athena, and occasionally satyrs, so they are not included here. Armor is the most common object being worked on by the smiths, with a helmet, as in the tondo of a red-figure cup in Oxford by the Antiphon Painter of 480 BC (fig. 2.5), being the most popular object. Seated on a diphros, the smith holds out a Corinthian helmet in his left hand and a file/rasp in his right. Other tools, five files/rasps of different sizes, hang above him in the background; a furnace

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Fig. 2.5.  Attic red-figure cup. Blacksmith working on a helmet. Antiphon Painter. Ca. 480 BC. Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, 518. Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford, UK/Bridgeman Images.

stands behind him and an anvil, an akmotheton, is set in a mound before him. On other vases, greaves, tripods, statues, and swords are shown being worked on. Earlier stages in the working of metal are shown on several Attic black-figure vases. On an oinochoe in the British Museum of ca. 510–500 BC (fig. 2.6), a seated smith prepares to insert the metal object he holds in his tongs into the fire at the bottom of the furnace by an anvil, while apparently shielding himself from the fire and heat with the other hand. His companion on the right stands supporting himself with a hammer. Part of the bellows is visible, and other tools hang in the background. Most of the inscriptions are nonsense, except for the one reading “Mys seems beautiful to me.” The actual pounding of the hot metal with a hammer is shown on a blackfigure neck amphora in Boston of 520–510 BC (fig. 2.7) and in the tondo of an Attic red-figure cup of ca. 490 BC in Berlin (pl. 9) belonging to the Proto-Panaition Group. On the first, a smith squats by a partially shown furnace on the left holding

Fig. 2.6.  Attic black-figure oinochoe. Smith and assistant at furnace. Keyside Class. Ca. 500–510 BC. London, British Museum, B 507. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

F ig. 2.7.  Attic black-figure neck amphora. Blacksmith and assistant working hot metal on anvil as two men look on. Plousios Painter. Attributed by von Bothmer to the same hand as the black-figure pelikai New York MMA 68.27, Vatican 413 and a third on the Swiss Market. Ca. 515–510 BC. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 01.8035. Henry Lillie Pierce Fund. Overall 36.1 × 26 × 27 cm (143/16 × 10¼ × 10⅝ in.). © 2020 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

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out a piece of hot metal in his tongs over an anvil. Another pair of tongs and a hammer lie on the ground before him. Meanwhile, a compatriot with bent legs is about to strike the hot metal from the other side of the anvil with the hammer that he swings over his head. Two seated, bearded, mantled men look on from the right; the one in back is getting up and pointing with his right hand. A bevy of objects hang in the background, including hammers, a knife, a sword, an oinochoe, a sheathed sword with baldric, a garment, and possibly a chisel. On the second, the smith (kalkeus) wears a distinctive hat, a pilos, a tightfitting cap that is probably made of leather and there to protect his head and hair from sparks. In addition, he has a mantle slung around his waist. He sits on a diphros making ready to hammer the hot metal piece he holds in his tongs with the hammer that he has raised over his head. Another set of tongs and a file (or drill?) hang in the background. The finest and most detailed depiction of metalworkers is on the outside of the namepiece of the Foundry Painter in Berlin, where a workshop producing bronze statues is rendered. On the left of one side (pl. 10), a furnace with workers is shown. A capped man seated on a low stool stokes the fire with a long rod ending in a curl, while a man partially visible behind the furnace works the bellows. To the right, an assistant leans on his hammer with his right hand, awaiting his time to hit the heated metal, in a manner as on the other cup in Berlin (pl. 9). Hanging in the background are various hammers, a saw, votive plaques, horns marking a sanctuary, and models of feet and heads. On the far right, a lifesize statue of a man, perhaps an athlete, is being put together by another worker who is attaching the statue’s right hand with the aid of a mallet. Different in size and pose is the monumental, muscular statue of an advancing warrior on the other side of the vase (fig. 2.8). Two bearded male sculptors, the seated one of whom wears the smith’s pilos and has distinctive facial features that include a snub nose suitable for a workman, are putting the final touches on the statue with their rasps. Two large, bearded, mantled men leaning on their staffs flank the statue and may be the owners of the workshop or customers. A rasp and hammer along with aryballoi and strigils (scrapers) hang in the background. SCULPTOR S

Depictions of sculptors on Attic vases are rare, and even more so when one does not include vases featuring Athena, such as a red-figure cup in Munich by the Foundry Painter of ca. 480 BC (fig. 2.9). In the center of one side of it stands a



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Fig. 2.8.  Attic red-figure cup. Sculptors working on a statue of a warrior. Attributed to, and the namepiece of, the Foundry Painter. Ca. 480 BC. Berlin, Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin—Preussischer Kulturbesitz, F 2294. Photo: Johannes Laurentius.

sculptor with hammer and chisel next to the statue of a horse that he has made. Athena Ergane stands behind him gesturing with her left arm toward the animal, while a bearded man stands behind her. Another man is seated by a tree in front of the statue. The single Attic example showing a sculptor without a god nearby is in the tondo of a red-figure cup by Epiktetos in Copenhagen of 515 BC (fig. 2.10). A wreathed and seated youth sculpts a herm that he holds between his legs with a hand pick/chisel, suggesting that the herm is of wood. Bronze and marble statues/statuettes made in and near the Agora have been discovered, and houses near to the Agora served as both residences and workshops for sculptors, especially marble workers. The house of the sculptors Mikion and Menon, active from 475–275 BC and located at the edge of the industrial and residential district just outside the Agora, is a good example. SHOEMAKERS

Four Attic vases show a shoemaker: two black-figure pelikai and two red-figure vases (a cup and a fragment). Three of the four show the artisan working on the

Fig. 2.9.  Attic red-figure cup. Athena Ergane, sculptor working on a statue of a horse, and two men looking on. Foundry Painter. Ca. 480 BC. Munich, Staatliche Antikensammlungen und Glyptothek München, 2650. Photo: Renate Kühling.

F ig. 2.10. Attic red-figure cup. Hermoglyph. Attributed to Epiktetos. Ca. 515 BC. Copenhagen, National Museum, 119. After J. D. Beazley, Attic Red-Figured Vases in American Museums (Cambridge 1918), 17, fig. 9 bis.



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Fig. 2.11.  Attic red-figure lekythos. Lumberjack chopping down tree. Unattributed. Ca. 430–420 BC. Peiraeus, Archaeological Museum of Peiraeus, MP 7073. © Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports.

sole of a sandal, fitting it to a customer’s foot (one is male, the other two female); on the cup, the customer is not present as the shoemaker cuts the leather. A black-figure pelike in Oxford (pl. 11) shows a mantled boy standing on a table as the shoemaker cuts the leather, which is set on a wooden block with a knife for the sole of the sandal. The mantled boy supports himself by placing his hand on the craftsman’s head. His guardian, probably his father, leans on a staff and looks on from the right. Knives of various types hang in a rack above him in the background. The pot (lekane) by the table may contain water for softening the leather. Pelikai were often decorated with banausic scenes, such as this one, and a shoemaker’s shop, such as the excavated house/shop of Simon the Shoemaker, which is set just outside the entrance to the southwestern Agora, may have served as the source of inspiration for these scenes.

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A single Attic red-figure lekythos of 430–420 BC in the Peiraeus Museum shows a lumberjack dressed in pilos and chitoniskos cutting down a tree with an axe (fig. 2.11). The top half of the tree is bent over and nearly cut through as he prepares to separate the tree into two parts with another blow. A carpenter is shown working a thick wooden beam of uncertain length with an adze (skeparnon) in the tondo of a red-figure cup of ca. 510 BC, the namepiece of the Carpenter Painter (fig. 2.12). A square projection with a hole for a tenon joint is attached to the bottom of the beam, suggesting that the wood might possibly be for a piece of furniture. For carpenters working with a drill, however, we have to turn to a scene of myth, namely that of Danae and Perseus. A good example in Boston is the namepiece of

Fig. 2.12.  Attic red-figure cup. Carpenter working large piece of wood. Namepiece of the Carpenter Painter. Ca. 510 BC. London, British Museum, GR 1836-24.231. © The Trustees of the British Museum.



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Fig. 2.13.  Attic red-figure hydria. Carpenter drills into a large chest as Akrisios, Danae, and maid with baby Perseus look on. Namepiece of the Gallatin Painter. Ca. 490 BC. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 13.200. After J. D. Beazley, Attic Red-Figured Vases in American Museums (Cambridge 1918), 51, fig. 32.

the Gallatin Painter, a red-figure hydria (fig. 2.13) of ca. 490 BC. King Akrisios, Danae’s father, stands gesturing on the left behind a carpenter drilling a large chest (possibly he is making holes to let in air for the mother and child to breath when exposed on the sea), while on the right a nurse stands holding the baby Perseus. In the middle Danae gestures to her father. She and the child will be put into the chest and exposed on the sea. COIN MAKERS

Two fragmentary Attic red-figure cups show a workman striking coins. The best preserved by Douris dates to ca. 470 BC and is in a Swiss private collection (fig. 2.14). On the right a nude, balding, seated man raises his hammer in order to hit

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F ig. 2.14.  Attic redfigure cup. Standing man with purse and seated man striking coin. Douris. Ca. 470 BC. Private collection, Geneva.

the punch he holds in his left hand, which in turn will strike the flan and other die on the anvil. Opposite him stands a bearded man leaning on a staff and holding out a money bag in his left hand. What may be a key hangs in the background. COMMERCE

Five Attic vases show the sale of vases. The most famous is a red-figure cup signed by Phintias in Baltimore (fig. 2.15) featuring a mantled youth standing by a diphros, leaning on his staff, and holding a purse in his left hand while bending over and extending his arms toward a group of stacked vases before him, including a cup, amphora in a stand, and lekane. It looks like he has made a choice, but which vase is unclear. The actual exchange of a purse of money for an amphora is shown on the back of a red-figure amphora in the Louvre by the Boreas Painter of 450 BC (fig. 2.16).



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The sale of liquids, primarily wine, olive oil, and olive oil–based perfumes, is the subject of around eighteen vases, although the exact nature of the exchange and action is in many cases unclear. The picture in the tondo of a red-figure cup of 480 BC by Douris in a private collection is a good example (fig. 2.17). In the center a youth stands between two large vases, a huge pithos on the right, above which hangs an oinochoe, and a pointed amphora in a stand on the left. From the latter he takes out what appears to be a sponge that he will use to taste the wine. The purse that he holds by his waist in the other hand indicates the commercial nature of the image’s subject. In some cases, though, the exact actions of the figures in the scene can be garnered. A black-figure pelike in Florence (fig. 2.18a) shows a seated old man who dips a short rod into a perfume-filled amphora on the ground before him while touching the mantle of the woman in front of him with another short rod imbued with perfume. She pulls her now-scented mantle up to her nose to smell it. The

Fig. 2.15.  Attic red-figure cup. Youth purchasing vase(s). Phintias. Ca. 520–510 BC. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University, Archaeological Collection, B4. Image courtesy of the Johns Hopkins Archaeological Museum.

F ig. 2.16.  Attic red-figure belly amphora. Man buying an amphora from another. Boreas Painter. Ca. 450 BC. Paris, Musée du Louvre, CA 1852. Photo: Les Freres Chuzeville, Musée du Louvre. © RMNGrand Palais/Art Resource, New York.

Fig. 2.17.  Attic red-figure cup. Youth holding purse, tasting wine from amphora. Douris. Ca. 480 BC. Private collection.

F ig. 2.18a–b.  Attic blackfigure pelike. Elderly man dips rod into a pelike with perfume and chats up the woman standing across from him; she smells her nowperfumed garment. Dogs wreaking havoc in pottery. Unattributed. Ca. 520–500 BC. Florence, Museo Archeologico Etrusco, 72732. Su concessione del Ministero per i beni e le attività culturali—Polo Museale della Toscana—Firenze.

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inscription by their heads reads, “You are a beautiful thing,” indicating that he is chatting her up. On the other side of the pelike (fig. 2.18b), two fighting dogs have knocked over a pair of lekythoi as their master raises a rod to them. They are labeled as dogs. Perfume is also the product shown being dispensed by a bearded, seated man on a red-figure pelike in the Schloss Fasanerie (fig. 2.19). He holds a funnel in his left hand and an alabaston in his raised right. Note how he employs his left pinkie to close off the funnel. A pelike for the perfume sits on the ground between him and his customer, the woman standing opposite him and gesturing with her hands.

F ig. 2.19.  Attic redfigure pelike. Seated man with funnel and alabastron dispensing perfume as woman stands gesturing before him. Group of Vienna 895. Ca. 460–450 BC. Fulda, Adolphseck, Schloss Fasanerie, 42. © Kulturstiftung des Hauses Hessen, Museum Schloss Fasanerie, Eichenzell bei Fulda, Germany.



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FOWLER

Birds are not an uncommon element in Greek vase paintings. Only one vase, however, is known to show the actual sale of birds: a red-figure cup in a private collection in London from the beginning of the fifth century BC (fig. 2.20). On it a kneeling young man holds out a bird in his right hand, offering it to the bearded man leaning on his staff across from him. The youth has just taken a bird out of the net-like cage on the ground before him. His left hand is still in the cage, perhaps making ready to grab one of the other three birds visible in it. On the left a bearded man leaning on his staff reaches out toward the bird that the youth holds out, while another bird flies above, probably a duck, as are likely the other birds. Another net and a sponge (?) hang in the background. BU TCHER S

Butchers of fish or other animals are rare subjects on Athenian vases. Some nine examples are known, three with fish and six with animal meat. On one side of a black-figure type C cup in Malibu of ca. 500 BC, a man is shown carrying a large fish on one side while on the other a butcher raises a large knife over his head,

Fig. 2.20.  Attic red-figure cup. Youth taking bird from cage for man standing across from him. Unattributed. Ca. 500 BC. Private collection. Photo: E. Böhr.

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Fig. 2.21.  Attic black-figure type C cup. Man butchering fish. Painter of Nicosia C 975 (Near the Theseus Painter). Ca. 500 BC. Malibu, J. Paul Getty Museum, 96.AE.96. Digital image courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program.

making ready to cut up another fish that he holds on a biconical butcher’s block by him (fig. 2.21). The garment he wears tucked in around his waist is a typical way for butchers to dress. The table next to him has what appears to be steaks cut from an earlier butchered fish, and what might be the same fish’s head lies on the ground. A goat is the animal being slaughtered on a petite red-figure lekythos in Munich of ca. 470 BC (pl. 12). A young butcher with a mantle tucked in at the waist holds his large knife up to further cut up the shanks of the animal, the blood from which empties into the krater on the ground before him. The dead animal’s horned head sits at the left end of a long table. WEIGHING GOODS

Very rare are scenes of weighing produce. Only two Attic black-figure vases do, while a third, a cup in Amsterdam, features a man carrying a set of scales over his left shoulder. On a type B amphora in New York of ca. 540–530 BC (fig. 2.22),



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Fig. 2.22.  Attic blackfigure type B amphora. Man and youths weighing goods. Taleides Painter; signed by the Taleides Potter. Ca. 540–530 BC. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art 47.11.5. Purchase, Joseph Pulitzer Bequest.

attributed to the Taleides Painter and signed by the Taleides Potter, a seated youth in chiton holds on to steady each side of a set of scales as a bearded man in chiton appears to empty some produce from the container he holds out into the container of the youth on the right, causing the scale to dip down a little bit lower on this side. REFERENCES In general for craftsmen on vases, see J. Ziomecki, Les représentations d’artisans sur les vases attiques (Wroclaw 1975); M. Vidale, L’idea di un lavoro Lieve. Il lavoro artigianale nelle immagini della ceramica greca tra VI e IV secolo a. C. (Padova 2002); A. Chatzidimitriou, Parastaseis Ergasterion kai Emporiou sten Eikonographia ton Archaïkon kai Klasikon Chronon

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(Athens 2005), 31–84, 205–212, and 227; A. Chatzidimitriou, “Distinguishing Features in the Rendering of Craftsmen, Professionals and Slaves in the Archaic and Classical Vase Painting,” in V. I. Anastasiadis and P. N. Doukellis (eds.), Esclavage Antique et Discriminations Socio-culturelles. Actes du XXVIIIe Colloque International du Groupement International de Recherche sur l’Esclavage Antique (Mytilène, 5–7 Décembre 2003) (Bern 2005), 131–145; A. Haug, “Handwerkerszenen auf attischen Vasen des 6. und 5. Jhs. v. Chr. Berufliches Selbsbewußtsein und sozialer Status,” JdI 126 (2011): 1–13; A. Chatzidimitriou, “Craftsmen and Manual Workers in Attic Vase-Painting of the Archaic and Classical Period,” in A.-C. Gillis (ed.), Corps, travail et statut social. L’apport de la paléoanthropologie funéraire aux sciences historiques (Lille 2014), 63–92; W. Filser, Die Elite Athens auf der attischen Luxuskeramik (Berlin 2017), 111–126. For a second skyphos by the Theseus Painter with a similar scene of clay preparation, see S. Fritzila, O Zographos tou Thesea. H Attiki angeiographia stin epochi tes Neosystates Athenaïkis Demokratias (Athens 2006), whose interpretation of both scenes, as winnowing of the grain in the field, is unlikely. For pottery workshops, see also Vidale, L’idea di un lavoro Lieve, 237–306; D. Williams, “Picturing Potters and Painters,” in J. H. Oakley and O. Palagia (eds.), Athenian Potters and Painters II (Oxford 2009), 306–317; and E. Hasaki, “Workshops and Technologies,” in T. J. Smith and D. Plantzos (eds.), A Companion to Greek Art (Oxford 2012), 1:255–272. For metal workers, see Vidale, L’idea di un lavoro Lieve, 173–209. For the Foundry Painter’s namepiece, see C. C. Mattusch, “The Berlin Foundry Cup: The Casting of Greek Bronze Statuary in the Early Fifth Century B.C.,” AJA 84 (1980): 435–444; J. Neils, “Who’s Who on the Berlin Foundry Cup,” in C. C. Mattusch, A. Brauer, and S. E. Knudsen (eds.), From the Parts to the Whole: Acta of the 13th International Bronze Congress Held at Cambridge, MA, May 28–June 1, 1996 (Cambridge, MA, 2000), 75–80; A. P. Kozloff, “Looking at the Foundry Cup with an Egyptological Eye,” in A. J. Clark and J. Gaunt (eds.), Essays in Honor of Dietrich von Bothmer (Amsterdam 2002), 165–170; see Vidale, L’idea di un lavoro Lieve, 211–236. For bronze and marble workshops, see C. Lawton, Marbleworkers in the Athenian Agora (Agora Picture Books) (Athens 2006). For the namepiece of the Carpenter Painter, see D. Williams, CVA British Museum 9 Great Britain 17, 24–25, no. 9, pl. 14. For shoemakers, see Vidale, L’idea di un lavoro Lieve, 135–148. For the coin makers, see J. Chamay, “La frappe de la monnaie,” in A. J. Clark and J. Gaunt (eds.), Essays in Honor of Dietrich von Bothmer (Amsterdam 2002), 63–67; for an unconvincing interpretation of the figures as carpenters, see A. Chatzidimitriou, Parastaseis Ergasterion kai Emporiou sten Eikonographia ton Archaïkon kai Klasikon Chronon, 217–218, nos. Ξ 6 and Ξ 7, 100–103. For woodworkers, see Vidale, L’idea di un lavoro Lieve, 149–168; for a man sawing a piece of wood, see a Campanian red-figure bell krater by the Painter of Louvre K 491:



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A. Chatzidimitriou, Parastaseis Ergasterion kai Emporiou sten Eikonographia ton Archaïkon kai Klasikon Chronon, 103 and 218, no. Ξ 10 and pl. 39 Ξ 10. For the sale of vases, see A. Chatzidimitriou, Parastaseis Ergasterion kai Emporiou sten Eikonographia ton Archaïkon kai Klasikon Chronon, 104–106 and 218, nos. E1–E6. For the sale of liquids, namely oil, wine, and perfume, see A. Chatzidimitriou, Parastaseis Ergasterion kai Emporiou sten Eikonographia ton Archaïkon kai Klasikon Chronon, 106–121 and 219–222, nos. E7–E23. For a possible scene of the making of wine and its purchase, see A. Chatzidimitriou, Parastaseis Ergasterion kai Emporiou sten Eikonographia ton Archaïkon kai Klasikon Chronon, 219, no. E9; H. R. Immerwahr, “New Wine in Ancient Wineskins: The Evidence from Attic Vases,” Hesperia 61 (1992): 121–132. For the sale of birds, see E. Böhr, “Catching and Caging Birds in Greek Vase Painting,” in R. F. Docter and E. M. Moormann (eds.), Proceedings of the XVth International Congress of Classical Archaeology, Amsterdam, July 12–17, 1998 (Amsterdam 1999), 78–79; A. Chat­ zidimitriou, Parastaseis Ergasterion kai Emporiou sten Eikonographia ton Archaïkon kai Klasikon Chronon, 123–124, pl. 54, no. E28. For butchers, see A. Chatzidimitriou, Parastaseis Ergasterion kai Emporiou sten Eikonographia ton Archaïkon kai Klasikon Chronon, 222–224, nos. E25–E27 and E30–E35. Note also her E36, which is the namepiece of the Campanian red-figure artist the Tunny-Seller Painter. Add: a red-figure pelike of ca. 470 BC by the Syleus Painter: The Painter’s Eye: The Art of Greek Ceramics: Greek Vases from a Swiss Private Collection and Other European Collections (New York n.d.), 62–65, no. 14, and a black-figure lekythos in the Archaeological Museum on Thasos. For scenes of weighing produce, see A. Chatzidimitriou, Parastaseis Ergasterion kai Emporiou sten Eikonographia ton Archaïkon kai Klasikon Chronon, 224–225, nos. E38–E40. The subject is also found on a Laconian black-figure cup of ca. 560 BC featuring the Cyrenaic king Arkesilas watching over the weighing and packing of what is probably a now extinct and rare plant, silphion: see 224–225, no. E37, pl. 57.

Pl at e 1.  Attic red-figure skyphos. Storeroom. Unattributed. Ca. 460 BC. Malibu, J. Paul Getty Museum, 85.AE.265. Digital image courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program.

Pl at e 2.  Attic white-ground oinochoe. Woman spinning thread with distaff and spindle. Foundry Painter. Ca. 490 BC. London, British Museum, D 13. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

Pl at e 3.  Attic black-figure lekythos. Man and youths mounted on other youths playing ball. Edinburgh Painter. Ca. 500–490 BC. Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, 250. Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford, UK/ Bridgeman Images.

P l ate 4.  Attic white-ground lekythos. Mistress taking baby from slave girl’s shoulders. Timokrates Painter. Ca. 460 BC. Athens, National Archeological Museum, 12771. Photo: Irini Miari. © Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports/ Archaeological Fund.

Pl at e 5.  Attic red-figure oinochoe. Couple preparing to make love. Schuvalov Painter. Ca. 430–425 BC. Berlin, Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin—Preussischer Kulturbesitz, F 2414. Photo: Johannes Laurentius.

Pl at e 6.  Attic red-figure skyphos. Mistress chugging wine accompanied by a heavily laden slave girl. Unattributed. Ca. 470–460 BC. Malibu, J. Paul Getty Museum, 86.AE.265. Digital image courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program.

Pl at e 7.  Attic white-ground lekythos. Thracian maid kneeling and mourning at grave of her mistress holding a hare; a loutrophoros atop the tomb. Phiale Painter. Ca. 435–430 BC. Athens, National Archeological Museum, 19355. Photo: Irini Miari. © Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports/Archaeological Fund.

Pl at e 8.  Attic black-figure hydria. Shoulder: Pottery. Leagros Group. Ca. 520–510 BC. Munich, Staatliche Antikensammlungen und Glyptothek München, 1717. Photo: Renate Kühling.

Pl at e 9.  Attic red-figure cup. Blacksmith working a piece of metal over an anvil. Proto-Panaition Group. Ca. 490 BC. Berlin, Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin—Preussischer Kulturbesitz, 1980.7. Photo: Ingrid Geske.

Pl at e 10.  Attic red-figure cup. Sculptors working on a statue of a warrior. Attributed to, and the namepiece of, the Foundry Painter. Ca. 480 BC. Berlin, Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin—Preussischer Kulturbesitz, F 2294. Photo: Johannes Laurentius.

Pl at e 11.  Attic black-figure pelike. Boy visiting the shoemaker while a man looks on. Attributed to the Eucharides Painter. Ca. 500 BC. Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, G247. Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford, UK/Bridgeman.

Pl at e 12.  Attic red-figure lekythos. Man butchering a goat. Manner of the Bowdoin Painter. Ca. 470 BC. Munich, Staatliche Antikensammlungen und Glyptothek München, Schoen 62. Photo: Renate Kühling.

Pl at e 13.  Attic black-figure hydria. Horses (probably two quadriga teams) watering at a louterion. Painter of Toledo 1950.261. Ca. 520 BC. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 01.8060. Henry Lillie Pierce Fund. © 2020 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Pl at e 14.  Attic black-figure neck amphora. Olive pickers. Antimenes Painter. Ca. 520 BC. London, British Museum, 1867.0508.941. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

Pl at e 15.  Attic black-figure skyphos. Men working an olive press. Unattributed. Ca. 520– 510 BC. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, 99.525. © 2020 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

P l ate 16.  Attic blackfigure neck amphora. Man plowing a field. Bucci Painter. Ca. 540–530 BC. Private collection, New York.

Pl at e 17.  Attic red-figure cup. Shepherd herding sheep. Onesimos. Ca. 490– 480 BC. Now on loan to Hamburg, Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Zimmerman Collection, Bremen Inv. 32. Onesimos (H. Hoffman), Tarquinia Painter (D. von Bothmer), height 9.2 cm, diameter with handles 31.4 cm, diameter 24.4 cm. © Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe. Photo: Joachim Hiltmann.

P l ate 18.  Attic redfigure cup. Woman libating at altar. Makron. Ca. 490–480 BC. Toledo, Museum of Art, 1972.55. Purchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment. Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey. Wheel-thrown, slip-decorated earthenware, height 47/16 in., diameter at lip 115/16 in., diameter with handles 14¼ in.

Pl at e 19.  Attic red-figure column krater. Dramatic performance of chorus before cult image of Dionysos. Unattributed. Ca. 480 BC. Basel, Antikenmuseum und Sammlung Ludwig, BS 415. © Antikenmuseum Basel und Sammlung Ludwig.

Pl at e 20.  Attic black-figure belly amphora. Chorus of knights. Painter of Berlin 1696. Ca. 550–540 BC. Berlin, Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin— Preussischer Kulturbesitz, F 1697. Photo: Johannes Laurentius.

Pl at e 21.  Attic red-figure bell krater. Chorus of elderly satyrs playing kitharai before an aulist. Polion. Ca. 425 BC. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 25.78.66. Fletcher Fund, 1925.

Pl at e 22.  Attic red-figure Nolan amphora. Hoplitodromoi. Phiale Painter. Ca. 435–430 BC. Hamburg, Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, 1897.222. © Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg. Photo: Luther & Fellenberg.

Pl at e 23.  Attic red-figure cup. Pankratinist fouling opponent, as judge flogs him. Foundry Painter. Ca. 490 BC. London, British Museum, E 78 (1850.3-2.2). © The Trustees of the British Museum.

Pl at e 24.  Attic black-figure Panathenaic prize amphora. Chariot racer making a turn. Kuban Group. Ca. 410–390 BC. London, British Museum, B 606. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

Pl at e 25.  Attic black-figure Panathenaic prize amphora. Riders on horseback casting spears at target (shield on post). Kuban Group. Ca. 410–390 BC. London, British Museum, 1903.2-17.1. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

Pl at e 26.  Attic red-figure amphora. Youth scraping himself with strigil. Near the Kleophrades Painter. Ca. 500 BC. Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum, 3723. © KHMMuseumsverband.

Pl at e 27.  Attic black-figure belly amphora. Courtship of man and youth. Phrynos Painter. Ca. 540–530 BC. Würzburg, Martin von Wagner Museum der Universität Würzburg, L 241. Photo: Peter Neckermann. © Martin von Wagner Museum der Universität Würzburg.

Pl at e 28.  Attic black-figure plate. Warrior playing salpinx. Psiax. Ca. 520–510 BC. London, British Museum, B 590. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

Pl at e 29.  Attic red-figure cup. Warriors besieging city wall. Apollodoros. Ca. 500 BC. Malibu, J. Paul Getty Museum, 84.AE.38. Digital image courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program.

Pl at e 30.  Attic black-figure cup. Merchant ship pursued by a warship. Unattributed. Ca. 520–510 BC. London, British Museum, B 436. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

Pl at e 31.  Attic black-figure pinax. Prothesis. Sappho Painter. Ca. 500–490 BC. Paris, Musée du Louvre, MNB 905. Photo: Hervé Lewandowski. © RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource, New York.

Pl at e 32.  Attic one-handled black-figure kantharos. Ekphora. Class of the One-Handled Kantharos. Ca. 510 BC. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, BN 353.

P l ate 33.  Attic whiteground lekythos. Mourners with funerary baskets on their way to the grave. The Timokrates Painter (Near) (Greek, Attic, active ca. 470 to ca. 460 BC). Madison, Chazen Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin, 70.2. Edna G. Dyar and Fairchild Foundation Fund Purchase. Oil Jar (lekythos) with two women carrying funerary gifts, ca. 460 BC. Earthenware with colored figures on white ground. At shoulder 15⅞ × 5¼ in.

chapter three

A R O UN D TOW N

We started our survey of daily life scenes with a look at the oikos and the types of activities that normally took place at home. From there we moved on in chapter 2 to consider workshops, some of which were located in private houses, although many were in other locations. Later we will consider images connected with the theater, schools, potteries, sanctuaries, athletics, fighting, and funerary rituals. But let us turn our attention now to other types of images not directly connected with the Athenian house but to life elsewhere in the city, hence the sobriquet “Around Town.” F O U N TA I N S

One of the most popular around-town images is that of women fetching water at a fountain. This subject was particularly popular in the last thirty years of the sixth century BC on black-figure hydriai. Early on these images were interpreted to be scenes of everyday Athenian women going to fetch water to bring back home, possibly from the Enneakrounos fountain that was fed by the Kallirrhoe Spring, but later it was noted that many of these fountain scenes feature elements that are not realistic, such as satyrs, gods, and children who sometimes perform actions not normally connected with fetching water, such as using fillets and flowers. This indicates that many, but not all, of the fountain scenes are constructs. Some of the scenes, however, are clearly modeled on real fountains and the activities that take place at them. A good example is a black-figure hydria in New York (fig. 3.1) attributed to the Class of Hamburg 1917.477. On the right water pours from a lion’s mouth into a hydria seated on the fountain’s floor and attended to by a woman. Behind her two other women have taken their leave, one of whom 71

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F ig. 3.1.  Attic blackfigure hydria. Women at a fountain house. Attributed to the Class of Hamburg 1917.477. Ca. 510–500 BC. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 06.1021.77. Rogers Fund, 1906.

carries a hydria on her head. Approaching them are two more females with hydriai, the first with the vessel in hand, the second with it on her head. A particularly realistic and unique image is found on a red-figure hydria in Paris by the Aegisthus Painter that we looked at in chapter 1 (fig. 1.45). Here Thracian slaves, identified by the tattoos on their arms, are shown gathering water at a rocky fountain spring. The woman on the left places her jug on a base, gripping the ves­ sel’s handles at the sides. Before her another carries a jug on her head and goes left, while looking back at a third Thracian who is filling her vessel at a rocky spring. DANCING SCHOOLS

Scenes with young dancing girls performing for men and/or being taught by their mistress is a favorite subject of the Phiale Painter, who takes his name from a phiale in Boston showing what appears to be images from a school of music and



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dance (fig. 3.2). At the bottom a dancing girl with krotola (castanets) performs for an appreciative youth, as her teacher with a narthex looks on, instructing with her right hand. Another girl plays the auloi for a seated man whose bent head indicates that he is deeply affected by the music. Between these two groups is a muffled dancer who bends over toward a seated youth and a woman holding a stack of phialai and an oinochoe, the implements needed for a liquid libation. The picture is simpler on other vases, such as a lekythos at Bowdoin College by the same vase painter that shows only a girl being trained by her mistress (fig. 3.3). The girl is nude, less her cross-girt apparatus. She moves quickly, as indicated

Fig. 3.2.  Attic red-figure phiale. School of music. Attributed to the Phiale Painter. Ca. 440–435 BC. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 97.371. After J. D. Beazley, Attic RedFigured Vases in American Museums (Cambridge, MA, 1918), 167, fig. 103.

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F ig. 3.3.  Attic red-figure lekythos. Dancing girl being instructed by her mistress. Attributed to the Phiale Painter. Ca. 440–430 BC. Brunswick, ME, Bowdoin College Museum of Art, 1913.11. After J. D. Beazley, Attic Red-Figured Vases in American Museums (Cambridge, MA, 1918), 169, fig. 105.

by her crossed legs and extended arms, with hands clasped in front, and her slightly thrown-back head and kicking legs. Meanwhile, her mistress instructs with an extended right arm, while leaning on her staff of narthex (a fennel staff used to pound out the beat and to deliver corporeal punishment when needed). A hydria by Polygnotos (fig. 3.4) presents a wide variety of entertainers performing, including two kalathoi (wool baskets) dancers, a female aulos player, a pyrrhic dancer, a woman with castanets, another performing gymnastics over a cup on a table, and a woman playing an aulos for a sword-dancing girl, one who in appearance is much like that in fig. 3.3, less the swords. Dancing dwarfs were another source of entertainment, and they occur on several vases, most of which are shapes connected with drinking wine and the symposium. There are more red-figure examples than black-figure, and the dwarfs are characterized by oversized heads and undersized bodies. Some have balding heads, snub noses, and beards. Their attempts to perform various activities such as dancing, acrobatics, and juggling caused great laughter among the symposiasts. A skyphos at Yale (fig. 3.5) shows one on each side of the vessel dancing before a skyphos on the floor in front of them.

A

B

C

Fig. 3.4a–d.  Attic red-figure hydria. Female musicians and dancing girls. Attributed to Polygnotos. Ca. 440 BC. Naples, Museo Nazionale, 81398 (3232). Rome, German Archaeological Institute, D-DAI-ROM 71.337–340. Photo: G. Singer

D

Fig. 3.5.  Attic red-figure skyphos. Dancing dwarf. Unattributed. Ca. 450–440 BC. New Haven, CT, Yale University Art Gallery, 1913.160.

F ig. 3.6.  Attic red-figure pelike. Dwarf, dog, and youth out for a stroll. Namepiece of the Dwarf Painter. Ca. 440 BC. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 76.45. Gift of Thomas Gold Appleton. Height 24.2 cm (9½ in.). © 2020 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.



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On the namepiece of the Dwarf Painter (fig. 3.6), a dwarf is shown walking a large dog around town behind a youth walking before them, much like the man walking his cheetah that we looked at earlier (fig. 1.11). Other vases show dwarfs training to box or performing acrobatics. S TA B L E S

No recognizable part of an Athenian stable survives, nor a plan for one. The literary sources, however, indicate that they were normally either attached to the owner’s house in town or they stood not far from the owner’s house, whether in town or out of town. Mares and their foals, meanwhile, were often left free to run in meadows. This setting is illustrated by a black-figure amphora by the Swing Painter (fig. 3.7), which shows a horse rolling on its back beneath two

Fig. 3.7.  Attic black-figure amphora. Horses frolicking. Swing Painter. Ca. 535 BC. Richmond, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 62.1.2. Adolph D. and Wilkins C. Williams Fund. Photo: Travis Fullerton. © Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.

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others rearing above him. Both are true-to-life images of horses running wild in the meadows, as any horse lover knows. A few other scenes show a horse or horses quenching their thirst at a louterion. Horses being attended to is not a rare image. Unique is a black-figure hydria in Boston (pl. 13) where eight steeds, the equivalent of two quadriga teams, water at a louterion, while two grooms work on them. The one on the right holds a curry comb in his right hand. A groom cleaning a horse in its stable is shown on a few black-figure and red-figure vases. The most famous one is in the tondo of a red-figure cup in New York by Onesimos (fig. 3.8) of ca. 490 BC. The boy’s facial features and stubby hair indicate that he is African, so most likely a slave. He examines the curry comb he holds up in his left hand, suggesting that he has just about finished, while a whisk broom hangs on the wall in the background, indicating an interior setting in the stable. The horse lifts two of his legs restlessly, eager to go, although he is still tethered to the wall in front. BOY LE ARNING TO RIDE A HOR SE

Horse riding took place both in town and in the country and for leisure, war, and work. A single male rider or rider and groom or several riders together are not uncommon images on both black- and red-figure vases. A nice example of a solitary rider is found on a red-figure pelike by the Westreenen Painter in Tampa (fig. 3.9). He wears a chlamys and petasos and carries a spear. Other solitary riders include hunters, foreigners, and warriors, and in some cases the hunters are accompanied by their dog. A charming, unique scene of a young boy learning to ride is found on a column krater by the Naples Painter of 440 BC (fig. 5.7). The horse appears nervous as the youth, with the aid of his bald father, pulls himself up over the animal’s back, while another older youth, possibly the boy’s older brother, looks on. OTHER ENCOUNTER S AROUND TOWN

A rare picture of a mantled youth bending over to read an inscription on an inscribed stele is found in the tondo of a red-figure cup by the Ancona Painter of 470 BC in Adolphseck (fig. 3.10). Likely the image is connected with the palestra, but this is not certain. The seven rows of letters appear to be imitations written in a stoichedon style.

Fig. 3.8.  Attic red-figure cup. African stable boy grooming a nervous steed. Onesimos. Ca. 490 BC. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1989.281.71. Gift of Norbert Schimmel Trust, 1989.

Fig. 3.9.  Attic red-figure pelike. Young horseman out for a ride. Westreenen Painter. Ca. 430 BC. Tampa Museum of Art, Joseph Veach Noble Collection, 1986.064. Ceramic 9½ × 6⅝ × 6⅝ in.

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Fig. 3.10.  Attic red-figure cup. Boy leaning over to read an inscribed stele. Ancona Painter. Ca. 470 BC. Fulda, Adolphseck, Schloss Fasanerie, 134. © Kulturstiftung des Hauses Hessen, Museum Schloss Fasanerie, Eichenzell bei Fulda, Germany.

A youth’s or man’s encounter with a herm is found on several other vases, including in the tondo of a red-figure cup in Berlin (fig. 3.11). Herms—pillars with a sculpted head atop and a phallos attached below—were used to guard and ward off evil and are found often at crossroads, entrances and boundaries, as well as out­ side houses and many public places. The youth’s extended right hand appears to touch the beard of the herm. Several other vases render a small sanctuary, including not only a herm but also several other elements such as an altar, column, pinakes with figural decoration, plants, horns, a dead animal, and even a laver. A red-figure lekythos by the Bowdoin Painter in Karlsruhe (fig. 3.12) is a good example.



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Fig. 3.11.  Attic red-figure cup. Youth’s encounter with a herm. Penthesilea Painter. Ca. 450 BC. Berlin, Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin—Preussischer Kulturbesitz, F 2541. Photo: Antikensammlung.

Walking around the city of Athens in Archaic and Classical times one would have come across foreigners, both those who were permanent residents (metics) as well as slaves and visitors. In vase paintings it is sometimes possible to identify slaves and folks of various nationalities, thanks to their dress and actions. Tattoos, for example, as we saw (fig. 1.45), help us to identify Thracians. In other cases, it is the action performed by the men or women that indicates their servile position. Such is the case with the bibulous woman on a skyphos in Malibu (pl. 6) who is followed by a diminutive helper (slave) burdened with a full wineskin on her head, a sack on her back, and a pot in her right hand. The maid’s short hairstyle is a type frequently employed by slaves.

F ig. 3.12.  Attic red-figure lekythos. Small sanctuary. Bowdoin Painter. Ca. 470 BC. Karlsruhe, Badisches Landesmuseum, 85/1.

F ig. 3.13.  Attic red-figure hydria. Women and youths kissing. Leningrad Painter. Ca. 460 BC. Chicago, The Art Institute, 1911.456. Gift of Martin A. Ryerson through the Antiquarian Society. Photo: The Art Institute of Chicago/ Art Resource, New York.



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BROTHELS

Brothels existed in various locations in Athens and took various forms, and it is often difficult to say for sure whether or not one has been discovered archaeologically. So, too, with vase paintings, for a sexual scene with onlookers could be either just a domestic scene or a scene in a brothel. Such is the case on a red-figure hydria by the Leningrad Painter in Chicago (fig. 3.13), where a young man is warmly greeted by a woman (his wife or a customer?) as others look on from either side, including one woman who carries a portable loom. The objects hanging on the wall indicate an interior setting. REFERENCES For fountain scenes, see most recently E. Manakidou, “Athenerinnen in schwarzfigurigen Brunnenhausszenen,” Hephaistos 11/12 (1992/1993): 51–91; S. Pfisterer-Haas, “Mädchen und Frauen am Wasser. Brunnenhaus und Louterion als Orte der Frauengemeinschaft und der möglichen Begegnung mit einem Mann,” JdI 117 (2002): 1–79; V. Sabetai, “The Poetics of Womanhood: Visual Constructs of Womanhood in Vase-Painting,” in S. Schmidt and J. H. Oakley (eds.), Hermeneutik der Bilder—Beiträge zur Ikonographie und Interpretation griechischer Vasenmalerei, Beihefte zum Corpus Vasorum Antiqourum Deutschland (Munich 2009), 103–114. For images of dwarfs, see V. Dasen, Dwarfs in Ancient Egypt and Greece (Oxford 1993), 214–248; R. Garland, The Eye of the Beholder: Deformity and Disability in the GraecoRoman World (Ithaca, NY, 1995), 84–86, 116–117, and 157. For horses in Greek art, see E. Simon, Pferde in Mythos und Kunst der Antike (Ruhpolding and Mainz 2006); P. Schertz and N. Stribling (eds.), The Horse in Ancient Greek Art (Middleburg, VA, 2017); W. Filser, Die Elite Athens auf der attischen Luxuskeramik (Berlin 2017), 398–565. For readers of an inscribed stele, see H. R. Immerwahr, Attic Script: A Survey (Oxford 1990), frontispiece and 100, no. 671; CVA Schloss Fasanerie (Adolphseck) 2 Germany 16 p. 26; F. Chamoux, “L’Athéna Mélancolique,” BCH 81 (1957): 141–159. For images of small sanctuaries, see H. Collard, Montrer l’invisible. Rituel et présentification du divin dans l’imagerie attique (Kernos, suppl. 30) (2016). For slaves, see J. H. Oakley, “Some Other Members of the Athenian Household: Maids and Their Mistresses in Fifth Century Athenian Art,” in B. Cohen (ed.), Not the Classical Ideal: Athens and the Construction of the Other in Greek Art (Leiden 2000), 227–247. For brothels in vase painting most recently, see A. Glazebrook, “Porneion: Prostitution in Athenian Civic Space,” in A. Glazebrook and M. M. Henry (eds.), Greek Prostitutes in the Ancient Mediterranean, 800 BCE–200 CE (Madison, WI, 2011), 34–59; see also A. Glazebrook and B. Tsakirgis (eds.), Houses of Ill Repute (Philadelphia 2016).

chapter four

IN THE CO UN TRY S I DE A G R I C U LT U R E

Scenes of agriculture are rare on Athenian vases, which is perhaps surprising since it and husbandry were the two most important factors in the Athenian economy. Most Athenian men were farmers, and the class to which each belonged was based on the amount of grain each produced per year. The olive, a staple of the Athenian diet, is pictured being harvested on only two vases, both black-figure neck amphorae of ca. 520 BC by the same artist, the Antimenes Painter. The better known of the two is in London (pl. 14) and shows three olive trees, indicating a grove of trees. Only the central tree is being picked in the traditional manner of striking the branches with long sticks so that the fruit falls to the ground, where it can be picked up and placed in a basket, as here. Note that one of the harvesters has climbed up high in the tree to get at the fruit near the top. Rare are scenes of an olive press, such as that on both sides of a black-figure skyphos in Boston (pl. 15). The more well-preserved side shows a man on the left adjusting the ropes, holding bags probably filled with stones, as another man hangs onto the beam to add to the pressure. The liquid that is being produced flows into an open-mouthed vessel and is almost certainly olive oil. Likewise, only a few vases show plowing. Perhaps the finest is on a black-figure neck amphora by the Bucci Painter of 540–530 BC (pl. 16). On one side of the vase a plowman in outdoorsman attire guides the plow with his right hand while applying the goad with the other. Two oxen pull the plow. Meanwhile, a black-figure band cup in Paris (fig. 4.1) shows agricultural workers performing several tasks, including plowing. Oxen pull one plow, urged on by a youth with staff on one side, and a bearded man goads on another plow, pulled by mules on the other side. 85

Fig. 4.1a–b.  Attic black-figure band cup. Men working the fields: seeding, plowing, and driving a wagon with two large amphorai. Unattributed. Ca. 540 BC. Paris, Musée du Louvre, F 77. Photo: Hervé Lewandowski. © RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource, New York.



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Workers include a man who picks the earth, one who sows, and another who drives a cart with two large jars. After the grain had been harvested from the field, it was brought to a threshing floor where the chaff was removed from the seed. A red-figure oinochoe in Hamburg (fig. 4.2) shows a donkey standing partially on a pile of grain left on the thrashing floor. He is being urged to get off it by a workman with a pestle. Between the figures is an inscription meaning “you deserve a beating.” The scene is unique. Fruit from trees were another source of food for Athenians. Several vases show women picking or gathering fruit—most likely apples—from trees. More than ninety black-figure vases and fourteen red-figure ones show this activity, making it a popular scene. The women stand, sit, or climb a tree while collecting the fruit. A red-figure hydria in San Simeon (fig. 4.3) shows three women. The one on the left stands reaching toward the tree with one hand while holding an apple in her left hand. A second woman sits on a block while placing fruit in a hemispherical basket, and a third leans over, apparently also placing a piece of fruit in the basket.

Fig. 4.2.  Attic red-figure chous. Donkey being chased from threshing floor by man with pestle. Niobid Painter (Sir John Beazley). Ca. 460 BC. Hamburg, Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, 1962.124. Acquired with assistance of Campe’sche Historische Kunststiftung. Height 22.6 cm. © Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe. Photo: Maria Thrun.

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F ig. 4.3.  Attic red-figure hydria. Women gathering fruit from tree. Painter of the Yale Oinochoe. Ca. 450 BC. San Simeon, Hearst Historical State Monument, 9936 (5486). Photo: Victoria Garagliano. © Hearst Castle/ California State Parks.

The most common agricultural food shown was grapes, which after being picked were turned into wine, a staple of the Athenian banquet but also drunk by the lower classes, not just the elite. A host of vases have vintage scenes connected with their production, but most of these involve Dionysos or his helpers, the satyrs and maenads, so they are not everyday life scenes per se. A few, however, do not employ any divinities. One of the best is on a black-figure amphora in Paris of 540 BC (fig. 4.4). There, three youths climb about in the upper parts of the vine to haul in bunches of grapes, while two more standing on the ground do the same. The bearded man on the left also does likewise, but his companion on the other side is taking a now-full basket away to be turned into wine. Wine was a staple at the symposium, which numerous vase paintings attest to, as we have seen in chapter 1. The production of wine from the harvested grapes is also often a scene that employs Dionysos, satyrs, and maenads, but a black-figure Siana cup in Bochum from the mid-sixth century limits the actions to humans (fig. 4.5). On the left a man stands by two large baskets filled with bunches of grapes, while a smaller basket is carried on the shoulder of another man to the grape press (lenos), in



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Fig. 4.4.  Attic black-figure amphora. Harvesting grapes. Unattributed. Ca. 540 BC. Paris, Musée du Louvre, AM 1008. Photo: Eric Lessing/Art Resource, New York.

Fig. 4.5.  Attic black-figure Siana cup. Vintaging grapes. Euergides Painter. Ca. 550 BC. Bochum, Kunstsammlungen der Ruhr-Universität, S 1075.

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F ig. 4.6.  Attic red-figure cup. Youth treading grapes in tub. Euergides Painter. Ca. 510 BC. Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge, 37.15. After J. D. Beazley, Attic Red-Figured Vases in American Museums (Cambridge, MA, 1918), 19, fig. 11.

which a poorly preserved male figure treads on the grapes while holding onto two of the three handles of the basket. Grape juice pours from the spout of the press into the mouth of another vessel, a pithos, mostly submerged into the ground. Next comes a man pouring juice from a large jar on his shoulder into a large vessel that is partly submerged into the ground. Sitting opposite him is a man seated on a folding stool, possibly the owner of the vineyard. Sometimes the scene is limited to a youth treading in a tub or bending over in a tub. We see just that in the tondo of a red-figure cup in Cambridge (fig. 4.6). These vintage scenes are found on black-figure and red-figure vases for a little over a century from 540–430 BC. There are, however, no scenes of the drying of grapes, which are mentioned in the literary sources (Hesiod, Works and Days 612–614, and Homer, Odyssey 7, 123–125). HERDING

The herding of both goats and sheep is rendered on a few vases. A lively goatherd in humble clothing is shown on one of the earliest depictions of husbandry, a black-figure kyathoid in Paris of ca. 540 BC by the potter Theozotos (fig. 4.7). The shepherd with his crop raised high, and his dogs interspersed among the herd, tries to maintain control of this very active group of animals, some of whom are black and others white. A shepherd and some of his sheep, meanwhile, are rendered in the tondo of a red-figure cup by Onesimos (pl. 17). The shepherd wears

Fig. 4.7a–b. Attic black-figure kyathoid. Shepherd herding goats. Theozotos. Ca. 540 BC. Paris, Musée du Louvre, F69. Photo: Hervé Lewandowski. © RMNGrand Palais/Art Resource, New York.

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a stripped pilos and furry pelt (difthera), holds a crop in his right hand, and stands beside one of his critters (a shorn lamb). The tail and part of the hindquarters of another is visible before them. Cattle and swine are also pictured. One of the finest and most moving images of cattle is the mother nursing her calf on a white-ground oinochoe in Brussels (fig. 4.8). She turns back to check that all is going properly as the calf feeds. A tree and flying bird indicate the outdoor setting. A fragmentary black-figure kyathos by Painter N in Bryn Mawr has a mantled youth driving a bull (fig. 4.9). The namepiece of the Pig Painter (fig. 4.10) gives us a rare scene of swineherds with animals. A pig and piglet stand facing one another and are accompanied by two rustic men,

F ig. 4.8.  Attic white-ground oinochoe. Cow nursing calf. The Painter of London B 620. Ca. 470 BC. Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale Belgique, 5. © 2018 KBR.

Fig. 4.9. Attic black-figure kyathos. Youth driving a bull. Painter N. Ca. 520 BC. Bryn Mawr, PA, Bryn Mawr College Special Collections.

F ig. 4.10.  Attic redfigure pelike. Swineherds (Odysseus and Eumaios?) with a baby and mother pig. Namepiece of the Pig Painter. Ca. 470 BC. Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge, GR 9.1917. UK/Bridgeman Images.

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both bearded. One in a perizoma carries a long pole (anaforon) with a basket on each end over his shoulder; the other goes left, looking back holding a sack over his left shoulder. His right arm is raised, perhaps in greeting. Some have thought they may be Odysseus and Eumaios. A P I C U LT U R E

Beekeeping was important in ancient Athens, and terracotta hives have been discovered in the excavations of Classical Attic farmhouses. Nevertheless, only two Attic black-figure amphorae show bees. On an amphora in London (fig. 4.11) in the manner of the Princeton Painter, two of the men use branches to swipe the bees away; having been disturbed, they wildly attack the men who are bothering them, including the one on the right who holds the disturbed nest in both hands. The squatting fourth employs his hands.

Fig. 4.11.  Attic black-figure amphora. Men seeking honey are attacked by a swarm of bees. The Manner of the Princeton Painter. Ca. 520–510 BC. London, British Museum, B177. © The Trustees of the British Museum.



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FISHING

Fishing scenes are very rare, and all date to the Late Archaic period. Perhaps the finest and most well-known is in the tondo of a cup of 500 BC by the Ambrosias Painter in Boston (fig. 4.12). The fisherman crouches on a rock hanging over the water, his fishing rod in his extended right hand, a basket for holding his catch in the other. In the water below is an octopus, a lobster pot (basket-like net), and six fish, one of which the fisherman has just caught. A black-figure amphora in Berlin (fig. 4.13) shows the catch being brought back; on one side small fishes are carried in two baskets and others lie in a pile on the ground between two men. On the other side of the vase a large fish hangs from either end of a pole carried by a fisherman over his shoulder. These poles were also used for carrying amphorae.

Fig. 4.12.  Attic red-figure cup. Youth fishing. Ambrosias Painter. Ca. 500 BC. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 01.8024. Henry Lillie Pierce Fund. Height 11.2 cm (47/16 in.), diameter 27.7 cm (10⅞ in.). © 2020 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

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Fig. 4.13.  Attic black-figure amphora. Youths bringing back catch of small and large fish in baskets. Unattributed. Ca. 500 BC. Berlin, Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin—Preussischer Kulturbesitz, V.I. 4860. Photo: Fotowerkstatt SMB.

HUNTING

Hunting scenes primarily feature boars, deer, and hares. Nonmythological ones featuring deer or boars as their prey start already ca. 580 BC but peak in popularity in 560–550 BC and again in 520–470 BC. The former may reflect an aristocratic response to the new government of the tyrant Peisistratos, which cut back on the political power of aristocrats; the latter is likely a response to the democratic reforms of Cleisthenes and the change from an aristocracy to democracy. Hunting scenes in general disappear on Attic vases at the end of the fifth century. Their iconography stays static until 520 BC when the dress of the hunters varies much more and a number of changes take place, including the introduction of martial weapons as the sword, club, and rocks replace the spear. Typically, the prey is in the middle of symmetrically placed hunters. Those hunting deer tend to be mounted, those hunting boars, on foot. The deer tend to be wounded, stumbling, or down, the boar wounded but standing. The lid of a black-figure amphora



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in London attributed to Group E (fig. 4.14) shows both a boar hunt and a deer hunt in this manner. After 510 BC these scenes are found primarily on cups. Hares, another prey, are normally shown being hunted by youths, who use lagabola (hare-hunting clubs/sticks) and often are accompanied by their hunting dogs. In some instances, as on a black-figure band cup of ca. 525 BC in London (fig. 4.15), they chase a hare into a net. In general hares can add a homoerotic air to a scene, since they are common love gifts of an erastes to an eromenos (see chapter 7).

Fig. 4.14.  Attic black-figure amphora lid. Hunt for deer and boars by men on horseback. Attributed to Group E. Ca. 550 BC. London, British Museum, B 147. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

Fig. 4.15.  Attic black-figure band cup. Youths hunting hares. Unattributed. Ca. 525 BC. London, British Museum, B 386. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

Fig. 4.16.  Attic black-figure cup. Hunter carrying his catch—a hare and a fox—on a pole over his shoulder accompanied by his dog, which he holds by the leash. Tleson. Ca. 550– 540 BC. London, British Museum, 1867,058.946. © The Trustees of the British Museum.



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The hunters, meanwhile, are sometimes shown coming back home, carrying their catch attached to a pole over their shoulders. The bearded hunter in the tondo of a cup by Tleson of 550–540 BC (fig. 4.16) has a dead hare and fox attached to his pole, and he pulls on the leash of his white hunting dog. Departure scenes for the hunt show youths and men on horseback accompanied by their hunting dogs making ready to leave. An unattributed black-figure hydria of 510 BC (fig. 4.17) has three mounted hunters with spears and one on foot along with two dogs. A little over a handful of vases show birds being caught by lime glue twigs on the branches of a tree. As the birds die, they fall off and were grabbed by alert hunters. The other side of the Bucci Painter’s amphora with a scene of plowing (fig. 4.18; see pl. 16 for the backside of this vase) shows two men eagerly posed and ready to pounce on the dead birds falling from the tree between them. The left-hand man appears to be whistling. Twelve from the thirty-one birds have

Fig. 4.17.  Attic black-figure hydria. Youths and men with their hunting dogs departing for a hunt. Unattributed. Ca. 510 BC. Paris, Musée du Louvre, CA 4716. Photo: Hervé Lewandowski. © RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource, New York.

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F ig. 4.18.  Attic blackfigure neck amphora. Men observing and interacting with limetwigged birds. Bucci Painter. Ca. 540–530 BC. Private collection, New York.

been lime-twigged. An owl atop a rod is meant as a decoy to attract birds. Probably we are meant to surmise that freshly sown seeds have attracted the birds, which will be cooked later and eaten. REFERENCES For agriculture, see J.-L. Durand, Sacrifice et labour en Grèce ancienne: Essai d’anthropologie religieuse (Paris and Rome 1986), 175–193; S. Isager and J. E. Skydsgaard, Ancient Greek Agriculture: An Introduction (London and New York 1992); W. Filser, Die Elite Athens auf der attischen Luxuskeramik (Berlin 2017), 122–126. For orchards and fruit picking, see H. Fracchia, “The San Simeon Fruitpickers,” ClAnt 5 (1972): 103–111; S. Pfisterer-Haas, “Mädchen und Frauen im Obstgarten und beim Ballspiel. Untersuchungen zu zwei vorhochzeitlichen Motiven und zur Liebssymbolik des Apfels auf Vasen archaischer und klassischer Zeit,” AM 118 (2003): 139–195; P. Persano, “Syriskos a Chiusi: Un ‘nuovo’ stamnos del Pittore di Copenhagen fra Atene e l’Etruria,” BABesch 90 (2015): 43–61.



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For olive oil, see L. Foxhall, Olive Cultivation in Ancient Greece: Seeking the Ancient Economy (Oxford 2007). For vintage scenes, see B. A. Sparkes, “Treading the Grapes,” BABesch 51 (1976): 47–64; G. Hedreen, Silens in Attic Black-Figure Vase-Painting: Myth and Performance (Ann Arbor, MI, 1992), 85–88. For herding, see N. Himmelmann, Über Hirten-Genre in der antiken Kunst (Opladen 1980); N. Malagardis, “Images du monde rural attique à l’époque archaïque,” ArchEph (1988): 107–109. For beekeeping, see H. M. Fraser, Beekeeping in Antiquity (London 1951); N. Mala­ gardis, “Images du monde rural attique à l’époque archaïque,” 130–132; M. Giuman, Melissa. Archeologia delle api e del miele nella Grecia antica (Rome 2008). For fishing, see N. Malagardis, “Images du monde rural attique à l’époque archaïque,” 114–116; W. Filser, Die Elite Athens auf der attischen Luxuskeramik, 105–110. For hunting, see A. Schnapp, Le chasseur et la cité. Chasse et érotique en Grèce ancienne (Paris 1997); J. M. Barringer, The Hunt in Ancient Greece (Baltimore and London 2001); J. Fornasier, Jagddarstellungen des 6.-4. Jhs.v.Chr. Eine ikonographische und ikonologische Analyse (Münster 2001). For hunting birds, see N. Malagardis, “Images du monde rural attique à l’époque archaïque,” 110–114; E. Böhr, “Vogelfang mit Leim und Kauz,” AA 107 (1992): 573–583; E. Böhr, “Catching and Caging Birds in Greek Vase Painting,” in R. F. Docter and E. M. Moormann (eds.), Proceedings of the XVth International Congress of Classical Archaeology, Amsterdam, July 12–17, 1998 (Amsterdam 1999), 78–79.

chapter five

ED U C AT ION AT S C HO OL A ND EL S E W H E R E Formal schooling in ancient Athens involved either physical training of the body, what the Greeks termed gymnastics (gymnastike), or training in things connected with the Muses, namely music, literacy, and literature. Physical training for boys took place in a number of places, most notably in the gymnasium and palestra. We will consider them in chapter 7. Letters (grammata), reading, and music (mousike), meanwhile, were taught in private educational schools to Athenian boys from age seven and up, while the girls stayed at home where they learned domestic activities such as cooking, cleaning, weaving, and taking care of children, primarily under the guidance of their mother (see chapter 1). They also learned morality, common sense, and restraint (sophrosyne) and how to take part in rituals and games. There were no public schools. The private schools normally belonged to a grammatistes (letter teacher) and/or a kitharistes (music teacher), and the boys were taken to them under the care of a paidagogos (male caretaker). Instruction could take place outside, in private homes, in a rented room, or in the palestra and gymnasium. Later, starting around the middle of the fifth century, further training in advanced subjects such as science, philosophy, and rhetoric was available in private, philosophical schools, and during the fourth century in institutes of higher education such as Plato’s Academy. Instruction could continue for the youths until their late twenties. A number of Late Archaic and Early Classical (ca. 500–450 BC) red-figure vases feature scenes of boys at school. The most famous is a red-figure cup in Berlin by Douris (fig. 5.1). This vase painter specialized in painting school scenes. On both sides of the cup’s exterior we see two young boys involved in learning. On one side in the center a bearded teacher sits on a klismos holding up a book 103

Fig. 5.1.  Attic red-figure cup. School scenes. Douris. Ca. 490–480 BC. Berlin, Staatliche Museen, Antikensammlung, F 2285. After J. C. Hoppin, A Handbook of Attic Red-Figure Vases by or Attributed to the Various Masters of the Sixth and Fifth Centuries B.C. (Cambridge, MA, 1919), vol. 1, 214.



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roll so that we, as well as the boy/student standing opposite him, can read the four lines of Greek verse written on the roll—they comprise an invocation to a Muse and a verse mentioning the Scamander River by Troy. Recently, the mistakes in the verse, meant to be an epic hexameter, have been argued to be by the student who stands across from the man and whose assignment is now being reviewed. The seated man behind the youth is the paidagogos. On the left side of the scene, a seated boy receives instruction in playing the lyre from a seated man, the kitharistes. Writing appears to be the subject again in the center of the other side of the cup, as a boy stands before a seated assistant teacher (hypodidaskalos) who holds a writing tablet and stylus. Chairs and/or stools were one mark of a teacher. Another paidagogos sits on the right, while on the left a boy sings to the music made by a seated aulos (flute) player. A range of implements hang in the background, some of which are clearly connected with the schooling taking place: lyres, a writing slate, and a flute case. The function of the cross-shaped object is uncertain but may be connected with tuning. The Douris cup shows young boys, but on other vases the male students shown are more mature, indicating that, as the literary sources indicate, Athenian education continued until the early twenties. A good example is a red-figure cup by the Akestorides Painter in Washington, DC (fig. 5.2). On one side we see in the center a young man carrying a writing tablet with stylus who communicates with the bearded man leaning on his staff on the left. The latter is one of his teachers, perhaps the grammatistes. Perplexing are the scenes on a red-figure cup by the Painter of Bologna 417 in New York (fig. 5.3). In the tondo a woman in chiton and mantle carrying a writing slate with stylus is led forward by another woman, as if she is going off to school. On the outside of the cup are three other pairs of women who actively engage in conversation. A writing slate with stylus hangs in the background on one side in addition to slippers and ribbons, while on the other side krotala (castanets), sandals, and a ribbon hang. Did some girls also go to school as did the boys? Or are these courtesans in training? There is a series of vases that show young dancing girls performing before their female teacher or men. Sometimes the teacher holds a narthex, a staff of fennel teachers used to beat time and punish, and sometimes she or one of the men holds a bag of money, indicating the commercial nature of the performance. On a red-figure hydria by the Phiale Painter in London (fig. 5.4), who specialized in this type of scene, two young girls richly dressed in ependytes and chitoniskoi dance with hands on hip for a youth on the left. On the right their

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Fig. 5.2.  Attic red-figure cup. School scene. Akestorides Painter. Ca. 460 BC. Washington, DC, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, 136373. Photo: Department of Anthropology, Smithsonian Institution.

mistress instructs with a gesture of the right arm and holds a money pouch in the other hand. The payment has been received, and the customer now rests on his staff and enjoys the entertainment. Women in an interior setting, playing musical instruments and reading from a book roll, becomes a popular subject on red-figure vases of the Early and High Classical periods. That most of these women are not Muses or hetaerai, as some have proposed, is made certain by a red-figure hydria in Plovdiv in the Manner of the Niobid Painter (fig. 5.5), which features a woman holding a child as part of the group. The nurse stands across from a seated female barbiton player behind whom stands a woman reading from a book roll. Further left stands a woman playing an aulos, while the women on the other side of the scene observe and react subtly to what they hear. This large group of over one hundred vases give proof that some Athenian women were educated in music, reading, and writing

Fig. 5.3.  Attic red-figure cup. School scene with girl and woman. Painter of Bologna 417. Ca. 460 BC. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 06.1021.167. Rogers Fund, 1906.

Fig. 5.4.  Attic red-figure hydria. Girls dancing to instructions from their mistress as a young man looks on. Phiale Painter. Ca. 435–430 BC. London, British Museum, E 185. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

Fig. 5.5a–b.  Attic red-figure hydria. Women making music as other women read, listen, and hold a baby boy. Manner of the Niobid Painter. Ca. 450 BC. Plovdiv, Regional Archaeological Museum, IV-13. After K. Kisyou, Thrace and Greece in Ancient Times. Classical Age Tumuli in the Municipality of Kaloyanovi (Plovdiv 2005), 30, fig. 16, and 32, fig. 18.



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and that they employed these arts at home. Weaving and spinning, as we have seen in chapter 1, were in the women’s domain. The basic education of the very young in life also involved observation and imitation and took place mainly at home, but family scenes showing it are rare on Athenian vases. A red-figure pelike in the Manner of the Washing Painter in London (fig. 5.6) is one such rare example. On it we see a young boy on the ground in the middle of the scene between his father on the left and mother on the right. The boy appears to be making an attempt to get up and/or crawl at the urging of his mother, who stands with outstretched hands while his father looks on from behind the boy. The sakkos hanging in the background indicates an interior setting: home.

Fig. 5.6.  Attic red-figure pelike. Child attempting to stand up. Manner of the Washing Painter. Ca. 430–420 BC. London, British Museum, E 396. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

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Later in life rich boys would learn how to ride horses. A unique vase, a redfigure column krater by the Naples Painter in the British Museum (fig. 5.7), shows a boy awkwardly attempting to mount a steed with the aid of a balding man who must be his father. The mantled, older youth may well be the boy’s brother. The horse, whose head is pulled back partially, appears to be uneasy with its new rider. Finally, punishment played a role both in formal and informal education, but it is only rarely illustrated on Attic vases, both red-figure and black-figure. L. Beaumont knows of only five examples involving only mortals. A sandal is normally the instrument used to punish the offender, as on the Sandal Painter’s namepiece, a black-figure lekythos in Bologna of ca. 550 BC (fig. 5.8). In the middle a boy flees from a man on the left who grabs the boy by the arm and prepares to whack him with a sandal. From the right comes a woman, almost certainly his mother, to the rescue with outstretched arms. The results of such a whacking are marks such as the sandal prints on the back of a boy on a red-figure hydria in Würzburg of ca. 500 BC (fig. 5.9).

F ig. 5.7.  Attic red-figure column krater. Young boy mounting a horse with the aid of his father while a youth looks on. Naples Painter. Ca. 440 BC. London, British Museum, E 485. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

Fig. 5.8.  Attic black-figure lekythos. Boy being beaten as punishment. Sandal Painter. Ca. 550 BC. Bologna, Museo Civico Archeologico di Bologna, MCABo (PU 204).

Fig. 5.9.  Attic red-figure hydria. Boy with five sandal marks after having been beaten and a girl imploring a reclining man. Unattributed. Ca. 500 BC. Würzburg, Martin von Wagner Museum der Universität Würzburg, L 530. Photo: Christina Kiefer. © Martin von Wagner Museum der Universität Würzburg.

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For scenes of a child’s education, see the richly illustrated monograph by F. A. G. Beck, Album of Greek Education (Sydney 1975); and L. A. Beaumont, Childhood in Ancient Athens: Iconography and Social History (London and New York 2012), 134–152. For education, see also R. Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind: Greek Education in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt (Princeton and Oxford 2001); D. M. Pritchard, “Athens,” in W. Martin Bloomer (ed.), A Companion to Ancient Education (Hoboken, NJ, 2015), 112–122; and for women, see also A. Wolicki, “The Education of Women in Ancient Greece,” in Bloomer (ed.), A Companion to Ancient Education, 305–320; and M. Joyal, I. McDougall, and J. C. Yardley, Greek and Roman Education: A Sourcebook (Oxford 2009). For the verse on Douris’s cup, see D. Sider, “Greek Verse on a Vase by Douris,” Hesperia 79 (2010): 541–554. For scenes of women musicians, see A. G. Voutira, “Observations on Domestic Music Making in Vase Paintings of the Fifth Century B.C.,” Imago Musicae 8 (1991): 73–94; J. H. Oakley, “Classical Athenian Female Musicians at Home,” in P. Valavanis and E. Manakidou (eds.), Essays on Greek Pottery and Iconography in Honour of Professor Michalis Tiverios (Thessaloniki 2014), 271–277; E. Walter-Karydi, “Häusliche mousike techne der Frauen im klassischen Athen,” Jahrbuch des Kunsthistorischen Museums Wien 13/14 (2011/2012): 220–235. For book rolls recently, see also A. Glazebrook, “Reading Women: Book Rolls on Attic Vases,” Mouseion 5 (2005): 1–46. For earlier important studies, see H. R. Immerwahr, “Book Rolls on Attic Vases,” in C. Henderson (ed.), Classical, Medieval and Renaissance Studies in Honor of Berthold Louis Ullman (Rome 1964), 17–48; H. R. Immerwahr, “More Book Rolls on Attic Vases,” AntK 16 (1973): 143–147; H. Kotsidu, Die musischen Agone der Panathenäen in archaischer und klassischer Zeit: Eine historisch-archäologische Untersuchung (Munich 1991); A. G. Voutira, “Observations on Domestic Music Making in Vase Paintings of the Fifth-Century B.C.,” Imago Musicae 8 (1991): 73–94; J. McIntosh Snyder, “Sappho and Other Women Musicians in Attic Vase-Painting,” in A. Buckley (ed.), Hearing the Past: Essays in Historical Ethnomusicology and the Archaeology of Sound, Études et Recherches Archéοlogiques de Ľ Université di Liège 86 (Liège 1998), 165–190; A. Vazaki, Mousike Gyne: Die musischliterarische Erziehung und Bildung von Frauen im Athen der klassischen Zeit (Möhnesee 2003); S. D. Bundrick, Music and Image in Classical Athens (Cambridge 2005), 35–42; M. J. P. Dillon, “Engendering the Scroll: Girl’s and Women’s Literacy in Classical Greece,” in J. Evans Grubbs and T. Parkin (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Childhood and Education in the Classical World (Oxford 2013), 396–417. For punishment, see F. A. G. Beck, Album of Greek Education, 44–46; L. A. Beaumont, Childhood in Ancient Athens, 119–120; W. M. Bloomer, “Corporal Punishment in the Ancient School,” in Bloomer (ed.), A Companion to Ancient Education, 184–198.

chapter six

AT T HE S ANCTUARY

Sanctuaries in Athens varied in size and complexity from an outside altar or small, single-room structure to the full-sized, richly decorated sanctuaries of Athena on the Acropolis, with its numerous buildings, monuments, dedications, and cults. Many of the types of cult activities that took place in sanctuaries are shown on Athenian vases, as is the ritual paraphernalia associated with them, such as phialai and oinochoai for libations, baskets and trays for carrying offerings, and lustral branches and ribbons as some of the offerings themselves. Occasionally the presence of a temple key allows us to identify a priestess. The ritual/sacred space itself is most often indicated by an altar, the most essential element for religious purposes, and the place where ancient Greeks most often communicated directly with the gods. There are both high altars (βώμος) and low ones (ἐσχάρα). A masonry style is used primarily on black-figure vases of the Archaic period, but there are many more red-figure vases with altars than blackfigure. Columns, doors, lustral basins, herms, tripods, statues, groves of trees, an omphalos, figured plaques hanging in the background, and incense burners can also indicate ritual space. Many times the identity of the cult shown and its participants are uncertain. A good example is in the tondo of a red-figure cup by Makron in Toledo (pl. 18) where a female holding a kanoun (a basket for carrying sacrificial implements) in her left hand pours a libation from an oinochoe onto the fire on an altar. Behind her is a base and thymiaterion (incense burner). Is she a priestess? Or is she a goddess, for on other vases gods are shown pouring libations both at altars and not? Indeed, libations are the most frequently depicted ritual in Attic vase painting, and they are shown occurring in a wide range of circumstance, both at the divine and human levels. Often they affirm the ties between mortals and divinities as 113

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well as between the dead and the living, but there is no indication of how the participants benefited from the rite. Sometimes the elements of the scene clearly indicate the divinity associated with it. A good example is on the outside of another red-figure cup by Makron (fig. 6.1) where female revelers and worshippers connected with the worship of Dionysos are represented by an altar, and a column-like image of a draped, bearded man, a xoana of Dionysos, stands near the altar. This scene and others having such a xoana have sometimes been thought to be connected with the Lenaia or Anthesteria, but which of the two Dionysiac festivals, if either, was the source of inspiration for the scenes is uncertain. At other times the shape and provenience of the vase help to indicate the divinity to which the vase is associated. A good example is a special form of vase called a krateriskos (small krater) (fig. 6.2). There are both red-figure and black-figure ones that have been found, primarily in Athenian sanctuaries of Artemis, most notably the sanctuary of Artemis at Brauron. On many of these krateriskoi, running girls, often in the presence of a priestess(es), are shown. These scenes are thought to reflect the Athenian rite of “playing the bear,” a premarriage ritual for Athenian girls held at Brauron, although there is disagreement about exactly how some of the details of the scenes are to be interpreted.

Fig. 6.1.  Attic red-figure cup. Women reveling at an altar and image of Dionysos. Makron. Ca. 490–480 BC. Berlin, Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin—Preussischer Kulturbesitz, F 2290. Photo: Johannes Laurentius.



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Fig. 6.2.  Attic red-figure krateriskos. Girls racing, holding wreaths, and a bear. Brauron, Archaeological Museum of Brauron. After L. Kahil, “L’Artémis de Brauron: Rites et mystère,” AntK 20 (1977): 86–87, figs. A and B (drawings I. Athanassiadou).

There are numerous other vases with scenes taking place at an altar. Some imply either a sanctuary or a public setting, like the palestra, marketplace, or roadside shrine, but other altars are represented in a domestic setting, such as before a house or in its courtyard. Normally the scenes with altars either involve a libation or imply that one will take place soon, and the altars often have blood stains on them from previous sacrifices. The sacrifice itself (thysia) is the most common single, identifiable subject of scenes connected with the sanctuary. The major moments shown are the pompe (procession to the sanctuary), shortly before the killing of the sacrificial animal, the killing itself, and the moments after the killing. A number of black-figure and red-figure vases show the pompe, a subject that was employed for a long period of time (570–400 BC). The fullest depiction and one of the earliest occurs on a large black-figure band cup (fig. 6.3). Athena, either the goddess herself making an epiphany or her statue, stands on the far left by a burning altar (bomos) that is framed by a priestess shaking the hand of a man, most likely the Royal Archon. Behind him comes the rest of the procession, led by a kanephoros whose basket

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Fig. 6.3.  Attic black-figure band cup. Pompe (procession) to altar of Athena. Unattributed. Ca. 560–550 BC. Once Basel, Cahn and Paris, Niarchos Foundation. Photo D. Widmer.

holds the unseen paraphernalia for the sacrifice. Thalloi (olive branch bearers) follow, leading a cow, pig, and goat to be sacrificed, the so-called τρίττοια (trittoia). After this, musicians follow, two playing an aulos, another a kithara, more thalloi, and warriors—three walking and one mounted. The man facing right might be a marshal, like the ones shown on the Parthenon Frieze. The occasion for the sacrifice is uncertain, and possibilities include the Greater Panathenia, which was possibly newly reorganized by the tyrant Peisistratus around the time that this cup was made. Other depictions give only a part of the procession, as, for example, the picture on a red-figure lekythos by the Gales Painter (fig. 6.4) showing a kanephoros approaching a column decorated with a ribbon and followed by two young men, each leading a cow; or they feature other elements not shown on the cup, including a skyphe (a large round shallow basket), tripod, amphora, lamp, ship mounted on wheels carrying Dionysos, wineskin, drinking cup, thymiaterion, salpinx (war trumpet), herm, or torches. The identity of the festivals to which each



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belongs is not possible to say with certainty, but the presence on some of Athena, Apollo, or Dionysos suggests the festival shown is theirs. A number of other vases from the Early and High Classical periods (480–400 BC) illustrate the moments immediately before the animal is killed at the altar. Indeed, the number of Attic vases with religious scenes increases significantly starting around 500 BC. On a red-figure bell krater in The Hague of ca. 440 BC (fig. 6.5) a youth leads forth a ram to an altar to be sacrificed. There a priest stands

Fig. 6.4.  Attic red-figure lekythos. Procession to sacrifice. Gales Painter. Ca. 520–510 BC. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 13.195. Francis Bartlett Donation of 1912. Height 31 cm (123/16 in.). © 2020 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

F ig. 6.5. Attic red-figure bell krater. Making ready to sacrifice a ram. Unattributed. Ca. 440 BC. The Hague, Gemeentemuseum, OC(ant) 5-71.

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cleansing his hands in a chernips (a metal container for cleansing the hands) held by another youth who balances a kanoun in his other hand. Above the altar in the background hangs a cattle skull (boukranion), further designating the sanctuary setting for this sacrifice. Vase paintings showing the actual killing of the sacrificial animal are not common. A black-figure belly amphora in Viterbo (fig. 6.6) has a dynamic, action-packed picture of a group of men holding an ox aloft, some on their shoulders, while others pull on the animal’s front and rear, as a robed priest seeks to begin to slice the creature’s neck. Soon the blood will be collected in the large basin (sphageion) held by the man facing and assisting him. The struggle between animal and man, and the group effort needed to perform the sacrifice, is realistically rendered here. Once the animal was killed, it had to be prepared to be cooked. There are a number of Late Archaic and Early Classical black-figure and red-figure vases that

Fig. 6.6.  Attic black-figure belly amphora. Men sacrificing an ox. Unattributed. Ca. 560–550 BC. Viterbo, Museo Archeologico Nazionale della Rocca Albornoz. After F. T. van Straten, Hierà Kalά: Images of Animal Sacrifice in Archaic and Classical Greece (Leiden 1995), no. 115.



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show men preparing dead animals or carrying slabs of meat, particularly leg joints, but whether or not this meat is from a sacrifice is in most cases unclear (see chapter 1 for cooking). A possible exception is a fragmentary red-figure cup in Florence (fig. 6.7) on which two youths each carry a piece of raw meat slung over their shoulder. They are part of a scene that also shows a man pouring a libation at an altar and youths carrying a skyphe and kanoun. Meanwhile, another youth is about to cut the meat held by the lead youth with the instrument he holds up in his right hand. The most popular post-killing scene is the roasting of the viscera (heart, lungs, liver, spleen, and kidneys) on long spits held by youths (splanchnoptai) over a burning altar. The subject was favored on High Classical kraters, and the exact setting—major festival, lesser festival, or private sacrifice—is uncertain. Often visible on the burning altars is the osphys, the ox’s tail, which curls from the heat, thereby indicating a favorable acceptance by the gods of the sacrifice. A good example is on a red-figure column krater by the Pan Painter (fig. 6.8), where the youth on the right holds a spit with splanchna (inner parts of body) over a flaming altar. The curling osphys sits among the flames. Another spit with

Fig. 6.7.  Attic red-figure cup. Men sacrificing. Epeleios Painter. Ca. 500 BC. Florence, Museo Archeologico Etrusco, 151589. Su concessione del Ministero per i beni e le attività culturali—Polo Muscale della Toscana-Firenze.

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Fig. 6.8.  Attic red-figure column krater. Post-killing scene at sacrifice. Pan Painter. Ca. 470–460 BC. Naples, Archeologico Nazionale, 127929. After E. Pfuhl, Malerei und Zeichnung der Griechen (Munich 1923), fig. 477.

splanchna stands upright and is ready to be roasted shortly. Marking the sanctuary is a pair of garlanded horns and a herm whose frontal face draws in the viewer. A bearded priest on the left pours a libation over the altar with a cup, as a youthful assistant with kanoun looks at him. On a red-figure amphora of Panathenaic shape from the Group of Polygnotos (fig. 6.9), both the well-dressed priest in chiton and ependytes and his assistant pour a libation at a hearth (eschara) with a curling osphys upon it, and they both hold pellet-like objects in their left hands. These may be thulemata, barley meal added to the god’s portion, or they are astragoloi (knucklebones) to be used in post-sacrifice divination. Intimate pictures as these of profane and solemn activities involving several generations characterize the vase paintings connected with sacrifice from the High Classical period, and the emphasis on the meat that would be distributed to Athenian citizens would seem to underscore one of the advantages of being a citizen at a time when Pericles’s citizenship law of 451/450 BC was defining who were citizens and who were not, and what the benefits of being a citizen were. And the increase in popularity of both the pre- and post-kill scenes



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Fig. 6.9.  Attic red-figure amphora of Panathenaic shape. Post-kill sacrifice with priest and attendant. Group of Polygnotos. Ca. 430–420 BC. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Art Museums/ Arthur M. Sackler Museum, 1960.371. Bequest of David M. Robinson. Height 34 cm (13⅜ in.). Photo Imaging Department. © President and Fellows of Harvard College.

may be because they reassured Athenians of divine favor at the time when the plague was ravaging their city and they were questioning the nature of their gods. One other post-killing activity is hieroskopia—the examination of the entrails of sacrificed animals to divine the future. A short-lived phenomenon on Attic black-figure vases from the end of the sixth and start of the fifth centuries BC, scenes of hieroskopia typically are connected with a warrior’s departure and show a youth holding the entrails as a warrior examines them, with other figures looking on. On a black-figure neck amphora in Boulogne (fig. 6.10), only a whitehaired, elderly man is shown; other vases have other figures such as women, Scythians, and more hoplites. These scenes may have been specially produced for the Etruscan market, for Etruscans were fond of divination.

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Fig. 6.10.  Attic black-figure neck amphora. Hieroskopia—examination of entrails. Antimenes Painter. Ca. 520 BC. Boulogne sur-Mere, Musée des Beaux-Arts et Archéologie, 100.R3. © Xavier Nicostrate.

Theater performances, primarily tragedy and comedy, took place in Athens in sanctuaries as part of two Dionysiac religious festivals, the Greater Dionysia and the Lenaia. Although there are a number of pictures on Attic vases of actors offstage, only two appear to show an actual performance. The best preserved is a column krater in Basel of ca. 480 BC (pl. 19) on which a chorus of fancily dressed dancers with masks advance in step, as pairs with extended arms, toward an image of a bearded man emerging from a stone monument. He may represent the cult image of Dionysos or a dead king or hero being conjured up from the underworld, as the Persian emperor Darius was in Aeschylus’s Persians. The stage itself is often shown on South Italian red-figure vessels but not on Athenian vases. One rare exception is a fragmentary chous in Athens (fig. 6.11) on which an infibulated (foreskin tied at end of penis), dwarf-like dancer vigorously performs for two seated males. Outfitted as if he were Perseus, the actor holds the harpe (scythe for cutting the Gorgon’s head off) in his left hand, and the kibisis (bag for holding Medusa’s head) hangs from his left arm. He prances on the edge



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Fig. 6.11.  Attic redfigure chous. Dwarf outfitted as Perseus performing on stage before two seated males. Group of the Perseus Dance. Ca. 420 BC. Athens, German Archaeological Institute, D-DAI ATH-Athen Varia 1088. Photo: Hermann Wagner.

of a low stage accessed by a ladder. It is unclear if he performs part of a comedy or, less likely, a mime. As for offstage, an action-packed picture of actors dressing and practicing their parts is found on a red-figure pelike in Boston by the Phiale Painter (fig. 6.12). The actor on the right bends over, putting on one of his kothornoi, his actor’s boots. His mask—that of a female—lies on the ground between him and his fellow actor. The band around his head is to prevent chafing when the mask is in place. The other actor is already dressed and practices his part with raised right arm. They may be part of a chorus of maenads or Thracian women. Choruses are clearly featured on a number of black- and red-figure vases, some of which date earlier than the introduction of tragedy and some of which may be connected with dithyrambic competitions of men and boys held at the City Dionysia. A black-figure amphora of ca. 550–540 BC (pl. 20) is a good example of a choral performance and shows a youth playing the aulos on the left, standing

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F ig. 6.12.  Attic red-figure pelike. Actors dressing. Phiale Painter. Ca. 440–435 BC. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 98.883. Henry Lillie Pierce Fund. Height 24.1 cm (9½ in.), diameter 18 cm (71/16 in.). © 2020 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

before three helmeted warriors riding bent-over men having their hands on their knees in horse costumes—the chorus. Other vases feature other types of choruses, including those of padded dancers, men on stilts, men riding dolphins, old men standing on their heads, and men riding ostriches. Since music was an important element of religious activities, not surprisingly we have a wide variety of scenes connected with music in the sanctuary and outside of it on both black- and red-figure vases, including scenes of a procession, revelry, sacrifice, athletes training, and musical competitions. A moving example occurs on a black-figure neck-pelike in New York (fig. 6.13). At the front of the platform we see a bearded man, an aulist, playing the double flute for the boy standing behind him, an aulode, who sings to the music of the aulos. The boy’s head is thrown back and his mouth is wide open as he puts his all into his song. There was no standard positioning for the musician and singer in these scenes,



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and sometimes they are shown standing on a bema (speaker’s platform), which can vary in size; at other times no bema is shown at all. The contest for aulodes and auletes may have become part of the reorganized Greater Panathenaia festival in 566 BC, possibly influenced by the Pythian Games at Delphi. Kitharodes singing to the music they make with a kithara are shown in a similar head-thrown-back pose. Perhaps the most famous is an amphora by the Berlin Painter in New York (fig. 7.26). On one side the musician-singer belts out his song, while on the other a trainer or judge holding a bifurcated staff in his left hand gestures with extended fore and middle fingers of the right. The time and place of

Fig. 6.13.  Attic black-figure neck-pelike. Aulodic contest. Unattributed. Ca. 500 BC. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 07.286.72. Rodgers Fund, 1907.

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both performances are unknown, and only sometimes with these musical scenes do we have evidence that we are seeing a musical competition connected with the Greater Panathenaic Games. A good example is the chorus of three kitharaplaying men dressed as satyrs on a red-figure bell krater of ca. 425 BC by Polion (pl. 21). Before them stands an aulist in rich costume. The inscription above them labels them as “singers at the Panathenaia.” Interestingly, there was a sudden increase in depicting musical contests and victors around 440 BC, perhaps reflecting a reorganization of the musical contests by Pericles, whom Plutarch credits (Life of Perikles 13.5–6) with the introduction of musical contests at the Panathenaia and the construction of the Odeion bearing his name in which the contests were held. Kithara players and kitharodes are somewhat more popular than aulodes and auletes, suggesting that the former were more prestigious than the others.

F ig. 6.14.  Attic blackfigure amphora of Panathenaic shape. Rhapsode on low base reciting before two men. Unattributed. Ca. 520 BC. Oldenburg, Stadtmuseum Oldenburg. Photo: A. Gradetchliev.



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A few vases, mainly black-figure ones from the sixth century, depict rhapsodes who are recognizable not by a specific costume but by their setting and the lack of any costume or instrument. On a black-figure Panathenaic-shaped amphora in Oldenburg (fig. 6.14) a rhapsode wrapped in his mantle stands atop a low base reciting. The staff in his left hand is possibly the rhabdos—a long walking stick that served to identify these performers. The man behind him holds a bifurcated staff, suggesting that he is a judge. The other listener stands before him leaning on a staff. The term rhapsode means literally “one who stitches together a song.” The tyrant Hipparchos (Plato, Hipparchos 228B) is credited with compelling the rhapsodes to recite Homer at the Panathenia, but by the late fifth century BC rhapsodes appear not to have been held in high esteem and to have performed solo without musical instruments at public festivals. Athletic contests connected with sanctuaries are also sometimes shown as if taking place there. For example, a torch race connected with the Greater Panathenaia is rendered on a red-figure bell krater of 430–420 BC (fig. 6.15). The spiked headdresses of the two runners holding out torches may indicate they are from different Athenian tribes. They sprint toward an altar, the finishing line, beside which stand the Archon Basileus, a hydria (one of the prizes for the winning runner), and Athena’s olive tree, the one near the Temple of Athena Polias on the Acropolis. Fig. 6.15.  Attic red-figure bell krater. Torch racers running to altar and a priest beside it. Manner of the Peleus Painter. Ca. 430–420 BC. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, 1960.344. Bequest of David M. Robinson. Height 36.1 × diameter 39.6 cm (143/16 × 159/16 in.). Photo: Imaging Department. © President and Fellows of Harvard College.

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For scenes of sacrifice with comprehensive lists of vases, see F. T. van Straten, Hiera Kala: Images of Animal Sacrifice in Archaic and Classical Greece (Leiden 1995); H. Laxander, Individuum und Gemeinschaft im Fest. Untersuchungen zu attischen Darstellungen von Festgeschehen im 6. und frühen 5. Jahrhundert v. Chr (Münster 2000), 7–55, 159–178; J. Gebauer, Pompe und Thysia. Attische Tieropferdarstellungen auf schwarz- und rotfigurigen Vasen (Münster 2002); S. D. Bundrick, “Selling Sacrifice on Classical Athenian Vases,” Hesperia 83 (2014): 653–708. See also J. L. Durand, Sacrifice et labour en Grèce ancienne. Essai d’anthropologie religieuse (Paris 1986); S. Pierce, “Death, Revelry, and Thysia,” ClAnt 12 (1993): 219–266; A. Hermary and M. Leguilloux, Thesaurus Cultus et Rituum Antiquorum 2 (2004): 59–134; J. H. Blok, “Sacrifice and Processions on Attic Black- and Red-Figure Pottery: Reflections on the Distinction between ‘Public’ and ‘Private,’” in E. Moormann and V. V. Stissi (eds.), Studies on Attic Black-Figure and Related Topics in Honor of Herman A. G. Brijder (Leuven 2009), 127–135; T. J. Smith, Religion in the Art of Archaic and Classical Greece (University Park, PA, forthcoming). For scenes of animal joints, see V. Tsoukala, “Honorary Shares of Sacrificial Meat in Attic Vase Painting: Visual Signs of Distinction and Civic Identity,” Hesperia 78 (2009): 1–40. For scenes of altars, see G. Ekroth, “Why (Not) Paint an Altar? A Study of Where, When and Why Altars Appear on Attic Red-Figure Vases,” in V. Nørskov, L. Hannestad, C. Isler-Kerényi, and S. Lewis (eds.), The World of Greek Vases (AnalRom, suppl. 41) (Rome 2009), 89–114; G. Ekroth, “Blood on the Altars? On the Treatment of Blood at Greek Sacrifices and Iconographical Evidence,” AntK 48 (2005): 9–29. For priestesses, see J. B. Connelly, Portrait of a Priestess: Women and Ritual in Ancient Greece (Princeton 2007). For theatrical scenes, see A. D. Trendall and T. B. L. Webster, Illustrations of Greek Drama (London 1971); O. Taplin, Pots and Plays: Interactions between Tragedy and Greek Vase-Painting of the Fourth Century B.C. (Los Angeles 2007). For the Vlastos chous, see H. Froning, “Comedy and Parody: Some Reflections on the ‘Perseus’ Jug of the Vlastos Collection,” in P. Valavanis and E. Manakidou (eds.), Essays on Greek Pottery and Iconography in Honour of Professor Michalis Tiverios (Thessaloniki 2014), 303–320. For the krateriskoi, see L. Kahil, “Mythological Repertoire of Brauron,” in Warren G. Moon (ed.), Ancient Greek Art and Iconography (Madison, WI, 1983), 235–238; E. Simon, Festivals of Attica: An Archaeological Commentary (Madison, WI, 1983), 81–88; E. D. Reeder, Pandora: Women in Classical Greece (Princeton, NJ, 1995), 321–327; N. Kaltsas and A. Shapiro (eds.), Worshipping Women: Ritual and Reality in Classical Athens (New York 2008), 102–105. For torch racers, see M. Bentz, “Torch Race and Vase-Painting,” in O. Palagia and A. Choremi-Spetsieri (eds.), The Panathenaic Games (Oxford 2007), 73–80.



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For musical scenes, see S. D. Bundrick, Music and Image in Classical Athens (Cambridge 2005); H. A. Shapiro, “Mousikoi Agones: Music and Poetry at the Panathenaia,” in J. Neils (ed.), Goddess and Polis: The Panathenaic Festival in Ancient Athens (Princeton, NJ, 1992), 53–75. For a list of vases with a tail(s) on an altar, see F. T. Straten, “The God’s Portion in Greek Sacrificial Representations: Is the Tail Doing Nicely,” in R. Hägg, N. Marinatos, and G. C. Nordquist (eds.), Early Greek Cult Practice: Proceedings of the Fifth International Symposium at the Swedish Institute at Athens, 26–29 June 1986 (Stockholm 1988), 51–67. For the cook (mageiros), see G. Berthiaume, Les rôles du mágeiros. Étude sur la boucherie, la cuisine et le sacrifice dans la Grèce ancienne (Mnemosyne, suppl. 70) (Leiden 1982). For the sacrificial knife and basket, see P. Bonnechere, “La machaira était dissimulée dans le kanoun. Quelques interrogations,” RÉA 101 (1999): 21–35. For divination, see J. L. Durant and F. Lissarrague, “Les entrailles de la cité: Lectures de signes. Propositions sur la hiéroscopie,” Hephaistos 1 (1979): 92–108; Thesaurus Cultus et Rituum Antiquorum 3 (2005): 6–8 (W. Burkert). For altars, see G. Ekroth, “Altars on Attic Vases: The Identification of Bomos and Eschara,” in C. Scheffer (ed.), Ceramics in Context: Proceedings of the Internordic Colloquium on Ancient Pottery, Held at Stockholm, 13–15 June (1997) (Stockholm 2001), 115–126; G. Ekroth, “Blood on the Altars? On the Treatment of Blood at Greek Sacrifices and Iconographical Evidence,” AntK 48 (2005), 9–29; “Why (Not) Paint an Altar? A Study of Where, When, and Why Altars Appear on Attic Red-Figured Vases,” in V. Nørskov, L. Hannestad, C. Isler-Kerényi, and S. Lewis (eds.), The World of Greek Vases (AnalRom, suppl. 41) (Rome 2009), 89–114. For libations, see Thesaurus Cultus et Rituum Antiquorum 2 (2004): 237–253 (E. Simon); M. Gaifman, The Art of Libation in Classical Athens (New Haven, CT, 2018). For processions, see Thesaurus Cultus et Rituum Antiquorum 2 (2004): 1–20 (M. True, J. Daehiner, J. B. Grossman, and K. D. S. Lapatin). For rhapsodes, see H. A. Shapiro, “Hipparchos and the Rhapsodes,” in C. Dougherty and L. Kurke (eds.), Cultural Poetics in Archaic Greece (Oxford 1993), 92–107; S. D. Bundrick, “Reading Rhapsodes on Athenian Vases,” in J. Ready and C. Tsagalis (eds.), Homer in Performance: Rhapsodes, Characters, and Narrators (Austin, TX, 2018), 76–97.

chapter seven

SP ORT At the Gymnasium and Hippodrome

Sport (athletics) was an integral part of Athenian civic life, particularly for the male upper (and in some scholars’ view middle) class. The Athenians, as did the citizens of other Greek states, considered sports a necessity, with physical training being an important part of a boy’s education. Training, competing, and especially winning were all essentials to an Athenian male, as they were to all Greeks. Training often took place in a gymnasium, which consisted of a running track (dromos), wrestling ground (palestra), and places for storing, changing, and bathing. The most important gymnasia in Athens were the Academy (west of the city), Lyceum (southeast of the city), and Kynosarges (outside the city walls by the Ilissos River). The running events took place first in a stadium whose location in Athens is unknown. Later they took place in a permanent stadium built by Lycurgus in the fourth century BC, which is where the modern Old Panathenaic Stadium (nineteenth century AD) is today. Horse races took place in a hippodrome, no traces of which are preserved, but one may have been located near the coast in Phaleron, the old port of Athens. Athletic competitions were part of several Athenian festivals, but by far the most important of them were the Greater Panathenaic Games, held every four years to mark the birthday of the city’s patron deity Athena. Unlike the four great Panhellenic Games (Olympic, Pythian, Isthmian, and Nemean), which awarded to its winners only wreaths of olive, laurel, pine, and celery, respectively, the winners of the Greater Panathenaic Games were awarded amphorae filled with olive oil from the sacred groves of Athena, a financially worthwhile and substantial prize. These prize Panathenaic amphorai are decorated in the black-figure technique and characterized by a narrow short neck, bulbous body, and small disc-like foot. 131

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An image of a striding Athena, with shield and raised spear, between columns and an inscription labeling the vase as “a prize from the games at Athens” are on the front, and an athletic event is rendered on the back: often very likely the one for which the vase was awarded as a prize. The earliest prize amphorai date to the 560s BC when the festival may have been reorganized by the tyrant Peisistratus, and they continue to be made into the Late Hellenistic period. Many other black-figured vases, however, as well as red-figure ones also have sporting scenes. Indeed, athletes are rendered on more than a thousand red-figure vases. The solo athlete displaying vigor was a motif favored on early red-figure cups; on later red ones the scenes displaying vigor were replaced by ones lacking action. Let us turn now to the contests presented on Athenian vases, starting with the running events: the stade, diaulos, dolichos, and hoplitodromos. The stade (a sprint for one length of the stadium), the most prestigious of these events, and the diaulos (a sprint for two lengths, so up and back) are difficult to tell apart, for the runners in both are shown with widespread legs and extended arms. There is no doubt, however, which event is rendered on a very early Panathenaic prize amphora in New York (fig. 7.1), for the race showing three men is labeled in the top right corner as the stade race for men. The same is the case with a fragmentary prize amphora of ca. 550 BC (fig. 7.2) preserving a single runner on which an inscription says: “I am a diaulos runner.” The stadion race was held alone and again as part of the Pentathlon, a five-event competition that also included wrestling and three field events: discus, javelin, and long jump. Wrestling, like the stade, was both a separate event and part of the Pentathlon. The runners in the long-distance race, the dolichos, are easy to recognize (fig. 7.3) for their arms do not extend out but are kept at their sides, and they do not lean their torsos forward but stay erect. On one prize amphora by the Achilles Painter runners going in both directions are shown (see Bentz, Panathenäische Preisamphoren, 5.164 pl. 75), and on another a victorious youth holding branches is shown with both a judge and with running racers (see Bentz, Panathenäische Preisamphoren, 5.163 pl. 75). Because of the shields they carry, the hoplitodromoi are also easy to recognize. They are normally shown running left, rather than right, so that the viewer can see the outside of their shields with their designs. Two are shown mid-race on a red-figure Nolan amphora of ca. 435–430 BC by the Phiale Painter in Hamburg (fig. 7.4, pl. 22). They wear Chalcidian helmets and carry a shield with an alpha for Athenian as the device. The one in the lead looks back over his shoulder at his pursuer. This is a tactical mistake occasionally shown in race scenes. In earlier,

Fig. 7.1.  Attic black-figure Panathenaic prize amphora. Stade race. Lydos. Ca. 560–550 BC. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1978.11.13. The von Bothmer Purchase Fund, 1978.

F ig. 7.2.  Attic blackfigure Panathenaic prize amphora. Diaulos. Unattributed. Ca. 550 BC. Athens, National Archeological Museum, 2468. Photo: Socratis Mavrommatis. © Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports/ Archaeological Receipts Fund.

F ig. 7.3.  Attic black-figure Panathenaic prize amphora. Dolikos. Unattributed. Ca. 320 BC. Malibu, J. Paul Getty Museum, 76.AE.5. Digital image courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program.

Fig. 7.4.  Attic red-figure Nolan amphora. Hoplitodromoi. Phiale Painter. Ca. 435–430 BC. Hamburg, Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, 1897.222. © Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg. Photo: Luther & Fellenberg.



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pre-450 BC depictions, the hoplitodromoi wear greaves. Other moments during and after the race are shown, such as the start when the runner can take a variety of poses: one hand to the ground, two hands to the ground, and the most popular, with both hands out in front, feet spread slightly, knees bent slightly, the body leaning a little forward. In the tondo of a red-figure cup in Leiden by the Alkimachos Painter of ca. 470 BC (fig. 7.5), a hoplitodromos assumes this position, but only one arm is extended because his shield is on the other. In front of him is what is most likely a kampter (turning post), as the race was for two laps. Part of the starting mechanism known as the hysplex, composed of cords and wooden elements, is rendered on one fourth-century Panathenaic amphora (see Miller, Ancient Greek Athletics, 40 fig. 52). And finally, mention should be made here of the red-figure and black-figure krateriskoi found at the sanctuary of Artemis at Brauron (see fig. 6.2). They depict both nude and clothed girls in a foot race, who most likely are participants in an athletic competition. They comprise the only visual evidence that we have for women’s sport in Athens.

Fig. 7.5.  Attic red-figure cup. Hoplitodromos runner in starting position. Alkimachos Painter. Ca. 470 BC. Leiden, National Museum of Antiquities (Rijksmuseum voor Oudheden), PC 89. Photo: Robert Jan Looman.

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Boxing was a bloody affair, and black-figure depictions of the event, such as that on a small black-figure neck amphora by the BMN Painter (fig. 7.6), are often highlighted by blood pouring forth from one or both contestants, who wore hand protection known as himantes: soft leather straps about thirteen feet long wrapped around each hand. These protected the hands and allowed the fingers both to clench and to open, so that the boxer could hit or grab with his hands. In the middle of the fourth century the soft himantes were replaced by the hard himantes (oxys). They are a fleece-lined covering from the knuckles to the forearm with extra padding for the knuckles, all held in place by a leather harness and strips. The earliest depiction of these is on a Panathenaic prize amphora of 336/335 BC in the British Museum (fig. 7.7). Two young men fight it out in the center, while on the left a third boxer fastens his himantes by holding the cord in his teeth, and Nike (Victory) stands on the other side holding a branch. The end of the match is shown on other vases. On a Panathenaic prize amphora in St. Petersburg (fig. 7.8)

F ig. 7.6.  Attic blackfigure neck amphora. Boxers. Nikosthenes Potter. Ca. 540–530 BC. London, British Museum, B 295. BMN Painter. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

Fig. 7.7.  Attic black-figure Panathenaic prize amphora. Boxers and Nike. Nikomachos Series. 336/335 BC. London, British Museum, B 607. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

F ig. 7.8.  Attic black-figure Panathenaic prize amphora. Boxers and judge. Kuban Group. Ca. 410– 400 BC. St. Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum, Ku.1913.4/389 (17553). Photo: Natalia Antonova, Pavel Demidov, Inna Regentova. © The State Hermitage Museum.

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a fallen boxer signals submission by raising the single finger of his left hand, as his victorious opponent stands over him ready to add another blow. On the right stands a judge and on the left the next boxer makes ready to compete. There were no rounds, and the match was over when one of the boxers could not or did not want to continue. Another combat sport was wrestling, the goal of which was to throw one’s opponent to the ground three times before your opponent did the same to you. It occurred as a separate event and also as part of the Pentathlon. Not infrequently the starting pose (systasis) is shown, where the wrestlers lean in toward each other touching heads, as on a Panathenaic prize amphora in Munich (see Bentz, Panathenäische Preisamphoren, 5.068 pl. 58). A judge stands on the left with his rod, while another contestant moves away and looks back. Different throws and holds are illustrated on different vases. The over-the-shoulder throw on the outside of a red-figure cup by the Codrus Painter in London (fig. 7.9) shows an opponent in midair flight, while a judge with staff looks on. Grappling on the ground is found on a black-figure prize Panathenaic amphora (fig. 7.10), where one contestant has

Fig. 7.9.  Attic red-figure cup. Wrestler throwing another. Codrus Painter. Ca. 430 BC. London, British Museum, E 94. © The Trustees of the British Museum.



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F ig. 7.10. Attic black-figure Panathenaic prize amphora. Wrestlers with judge and Nike. Painter of Athens 12592. 360/359 BC. Eretria, Archaeological Museum of Eretria, 14815e.

his arms around the waist of another, who reaches back with his right arm trying to loosen his opponent’s hold. A judge bends over examining the situation, while another contestant looks on from the other side, as a Nike descends upon the competitors from above. The most violent of the combat events was the pankration, where all holds and maneuvers were allowed except for biting and gouging. This led to brutality, including broken fingers and limbs, punches, kicking, strangulation, twisted joints, and bloody cuts and bruises of all sorts. The fragment of a red-figure cup by Onesimos, once on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art (L 2002.21) and now returned to its owner (see Miller, Ancient Greek Athletics, 58 fig. 96), shows bloody handprints and gouges on each of the contestants, and the left-hand one, who appears to be winning, pulls back on the right leg of his opponent, whose cheek he has grabbed with his other hand. The contest will continue until one gives up or is unable to continue, just as was the case with boxing. A palestra scene on a red-figure cup in London by the Foundry Painter (pl. 23) shows a pair of pankratists struggling in the center of the picture. The left-hand one is having his right eye gouged by his opponent’s fingers. A trainer on the right prepares to beat

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the offender so that he will stop. Filling out the scene on this side of the vessel are a pair of boxers, a discus hanging in a bag, cords for the himantes, and a kampter. A black-figure Panathenaic prize amphora in London of 332/331 BC (fig. 7.11) shows one pankratinist in a headlock being pummeled by his bearded opponent. A judge on the right holds out a branch in his right hand and has a wreath in the other, while another contestant waits his turn on the left. The three field events, the long jump (halma), discus, and javelin (akon), were all part of the Pentathlon, together with a stade race and wrestling. The last two were separate contests from the main ones. The primary difference between today’s long jump and the ancient one was that jumping weights (halteres) were used in antiquity. These weights were of two main types: spherical (fig. 7.12) and long (fig. 7.13). Both could be used contemporarily. The former were normally of stone and carved to fit the individual hand. The latter were made of lead, rectangular in form, and reduced in size slightly at the center. There was no standard weight for

F ig. 7.11.  Attic black-figure Panathenaic prize amphora. Pankratinists and judge. Niketes. 332/331 BC. London, British Museum, B 610. © The Trustees of the British Museum.



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Fig. 7.12.  Attic black-figure amphora. Jumper with judge and comrade looking on. Tyrrhenian Group. Ca. 565–550 BC. London, British Museum, B 48 (1847.8-6.26). © The Trustees of the British Museum.

them, nor was each member of a pair necessarily of equal weight, but the range was normally between 3.3 and 5.5 pounds. Different stages in the jump are shown by the vase painters (see Miller, Ancient Greek Athletics, 67 fig. 129) so that the jump can be reconstructed. The athlete stands with the weights held out in front in extended arms, then breaks into a run, takes off at the bater (starting line or place), swings the halters to help him go forward and airborne where he goes into an aerodynamic tuck, followed by stretching out his hands and feet in front and giving a final swing backwards with the weights for a final thrust. He drops the weights as he lands in the skamma (pit with softened earth). Music played an important role in keeping rhythm and timing in the event, and an aulos player is often shown in the vase paintings. The jumper on a black-figure amphora from the Tyrrhenian Group in London (fig. 7.12) is making his landing as a judge and fellow pentathlete with javelins look on. The semeia marking former

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jumps are visible beneath the jumper. Another jumper in midflight, during an earlier moment when he has gone into his aerodynamic tuck, is found on a cup by Douris in Basel of 470 BC (fig. 7.13). An aulos player provides the music while other jumpers, an onlooker, and a judge fill out the scene. The winner of the discus was determined by who had the longest throw. Each contestant had three (or possibly five) attempts. The weight and size of the discs preserved and the material they were made of vary. The owl on some may indicate that they belong to Athens. The start of the throw is rendered on a red-figure neck amphora in Madrid of ca. 490 BC by the Berlin Painter (fig. 7.14). The contestant stands with left foot forward, holding the weight of the disc with the bottom of his left hand as he prepares to pull it back and throw it with his right hand. A throw in process can be seen in the tondo of a fragmentary red-figure cup from the Agora Excavations in Athens (fig. 7.15). The thrower is shown in midcast standing on his right leg and about to spin and shift his weight from his right leg to his left foot while letting the discus loose. Later, after the throw, he will place his marker, just as the thrower bending over on a red-figure cup by Pheidippos of ca. 510 BC does (fig. 7.16).

Fig. 7.13.  Attic red-figure cup. Long jumpers training with aulos player and trainer. Douris. Ca. 470 BC. Basel, Antikenmuseum und Sammlung Ludwig, Kä 425. © Antikenmuseum Basel und Sammlung Ludwig.

F ig. 7.14.  Attic redfigure neck amphora. Discobolos. Berlin Painter. Ca. 490 BC. Madrid, Museo Arqueológico Nacional, 11118. Drawing from the Beazley Archive, courtesy of the Classical Art Research Center, University of Oxford.

Fig. 7.15.  Attic red-figure cup. Discobolos. Unattributed. Ca. 500 BC. Athens, American School of Classical Studies at Athens: Agora Excavations, P 2698.

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Fig. 7.16.  Attic red-figure cup. Discobolos placing marker where his throw landed. Pheidippos. Ca. 510 BC. Würzburg, Martin von Wagner Museum der Universität Würzburg, L 467. Photo: Christina Kiefer. © Martin von Wagner Museum der Universität Würzburg.

Various moments in the javelin throw are rendered. The winner was determined by who had the longest throw. Five casts per contestant were allowed. Each throw was aided by a thin leather throwing thong (ankyle), which was wrapped around the shaft, thereby producing a loop into which the index and second finger were placed to provide leverage in making the throw. Scientific testing has proved that the ankyle increased the distance of the throw considerably. The javelins were a little under two meters long, thin (about as thick as a thumb), and bronze tipped. The thong was not attached to the spear but wrapped in such a fashion that as it unraveled it produced a spiraling, rifling effect as the spear was cast, thereby aiding the throw. One side of a red-figure cup by the Carpenter Painter of 515–510 BC (fig. 7.17a) shows four different moments in the throw. On the left, the first man fixes the throwing thong by pressing down on the shaft, the second releases the tip of the spear and brings it to shoulder height, the third creates torsion by twisting his body, and the last extends the javelin back while untwisting his body and shifting the weight forward onto his left leg. Filling out the palestra scene on this side of the cup is a man carrying a disc decorated with an owl and an altar, above

Fig. 7.17a–b.  Attic red-figure cup. Javelin throwers, a disc thrower, and others: jumpers, man raking, and aulos player. Carpenter Painter. Ca. 515–510 BC. Malibu, J. Paul Getty Museum, 855.AE.25. Digital image courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program.

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which hang a sponge and an aryballos. These two implements are commonly shown with a strigil to indicate a palestra setting. The figures on the other side continue the scene (fig. 7.17b): two disc throwers, a long jumper, two pairs of crossed javelins, and two other athletes, one of whom rakes the earth with a pick to soften the landing spot for jumpers. The other is a long jumper, and the one jumping weight that he holds is barely visible behind his body. An aulos player provides music by which to exercise. Interestingly, the figures on one side are youths and on the other are bearded middle-aged men, reflecting the fact that the contestants practiced in groups determined by age. Various other stages in the preparation of the javelin for throwing are shown elsewhere, such as measuring the shaft to determine where best to place the throwing thongs. A youth on a red-figure amphora by Euthymides once in Malibu of 520–510 BC and returned to Italy is doing just that (see Miller, Ancient Greek Athletics, 70, fig. 133). Vases with athletes carrying javelins, diskoi, and halteres undoubtedly are showing pentathletes. One of the most famous examples of this is on a Panathenaic

Fig. 7.18.  Attic black-figure Panathenaic prize amphora. Athletes for the Pentathlon. Euphiletos Painter. Ca. 530 BC. London, British Museum, B 134. © The Trustees of the British Museum.



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prize amphora in the British Museum by the Euphiletos Painter (fig. 7.18), where we see from left to right pentathletes who carry jumping weights, javelin, discus, and javelin. As for how the victor of the Pentathlon was chosen, there is no agreedupon method. The equestrian events were another major part of the Panathenaic Games, and the king of all events, both equestrian and not, was the tethrippon, the four-horse chariot race, because of the significant wealth that was needed to afford to keep and train the animals. The race appears to have consisted of twelve laps around the hippodrome, but we do not know the racing course’s length and, thus, the overall length of the race. No ancient hippodrome in Athens has been yet excavated. Turning posts were used (kampter/nyssa), but there was no structure running down the middle as the spina in a Roman racetrack, so head-on collisions could and did occur. The vehicle, meanwhile, was a light structure consisting of a cage (made of wicker or metal), two wheels (each with four spokes), a yoke pole that was attached to the collars of the two central animals, and two traces for attaching the outside horses. The drivers were normally not the owners but professionals (both slave and nonslave) who wore a long, sleeveless chiton (xystis) and were equipped with a long rod. They normally held some of the reins in each hand to better negotiate the turns. The winners were not the drivers but the owners of the horses, just as is the case with horse races today. A prize Panathenaic amphora in London from the Kuban Group (pl. 24) catches the start of the move around the turning post, which is visible on the far right. Note how the driver is slowing the horses down with his right hand as he pulls back on the reins, while letting loose with the left so to let them speed up on that side. The speed of the race is underscored by the driver’s wind-blown xystis and hair. Some vases feature a row of racing chariots and the interactions between them, as, for example, a driver looking back at his immediate pursuer or a wreck at the moment when one vehicle passes another. Other vases feature a chariot being outfitted with horses, as is the case on a black-figure hydria by the Antimenes Painter of ca. 520–500 BC (fig. 7.19). The two inner horses are already attached to the yoke, while a third is being brought up. The harness for the fourth, which has not yet appeared, hangs loosely from the right inner horse, as the driver wearing a white xystis helps with the harnessing. Still other vases show the chariots being lined up for the start. This is an old scene going back to Geometric and Proto-Attic times (eighth and seventh centuries BC), as a section of the top frieze of the Analatos Painter’s krater of ca. 700– 690 BC in Munich demonstrates (fig. 7.20). In general, the scene was adapted in

F ig. 7.19.  Attic blackfigure hydria. Harnessing the horses of a chariot. Antimenes Painter. Ca. 520–500 BC. London, British Museum, B 304. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

Fig. 7.20. ProtoAttic krater. Chariots lined up for the start. Analatos Painter. Ca. 700–690 BC. Munich, Staatliche Antikensammlungen und Glyptothek München, 6077. After E. Pfuhl, Malerei und Zeichnung der Griechen, vol. 3 (Munich 1923), 84, pl. 41.



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different ways to the surface of the vase, with the racers appearing to be going around and around the vase, and the names of the horses are sometimes given. There were famous horses in antiquity as there are today. The same is true of the vases showing the keles, the horseback race. A prize Panathenaic amphora by the Eucharides Painter in London (fig. 7.21) captures the sprint well, as the youthful jockeys, small boys riding bareback, apply the goad to their animals. There were no saddles. The winner, as with the tethrippon, was not the rider but the owner of the horse. Most likely the contestants had to race up and back down the hippodrome once. There were a few other equestrian events that were part of the Panathenaic Games, including the apene, the mule race. A prize Panathenaic amphora in London attributed to Near the Kleophrades Painter (fig. 7.22) shows a driver seated and leaning forward in a two-wheeled cart-like structure while he applies the goad to the backs of a pair of mules. There are only a few depictions of this event.

Fig. 7.21.  Attic black-figure Panathenaic prize amphora. Keles—horseback race. Eucharides Painter. Ca. 500–480 BC. London, British Museum, B 133. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

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F ig. 7.22.  Attic black-figure Panathenaic prize amphora. Apene—mule race. Near the Kleophrades Painter. Ca. 500–480 BC. London, British Museum, B 133. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

The apobates event, runners jumping in and out of a moving chariot, was apparently an Athenian invention and is possibly first shown on the neck of a Geometric amphora of ca. 760 BC (see Schulz, “The Iconography of the Athenian Apobates Race,” 59 fig. 1). The scene is popular after 540 BC on a large group of Attic black-figure vases (mainly lekythoi), including this band cup signed by Hermogenes of ca. 530 BC in Oxford (fig. 7.23). Here a man in greaves and helmet, carrying shield and spear, hops into or out of a moving chariot. One of the best depictions is found on a prize amphora in Malibu of 340/339 BC by the Marsyas Painter (fig. 7.24). In the chariot we see a bearded driver and youthful jumper in helmet with a shield on his left arm. Also military in nature was the late-fifth- to mid-fourth-century equestrian event in which horse riders cast spears at a shield mounted on a post. One latefifth-century example on a Panathenaic prize amphora in London from the Kuban Group (pl. 25) shows riders to either side of a shield mounted on a post. The one

Fig. 7.23.  Attic black-figure band cup. Apobates. Hermogenes. Ca. 530 BC. Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, 231. After P. Gardner, Catalogue of the Greek Vases in the Ashmolean Museum (Oxford 1893), 15, fig. 20.

Fig. 7.24.  Attic blackfigure Panathenaic prize amphora. Apobates. Marsyas Painter. 340/339 BC. Malibu, J. Paul Getty Museum, 79.AE.147.

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on the left in chlamys and petasos pulls back his spear, readying to make his cast; the other has already made his throw successfully, for his spear sticks nearly dead center in the mounted shield. As a result of the throw his petasos was knocked back and now hangs from his neck. Other depictions of this event are rare. Several other events in the Greater Panathenaic Games were open only to tribal teams. For some, such as the euandria (a beauty contest for men), the boat race, and the anthippasia (a mock cavalry battle), we have no certain depiction. For two others we do: the pyrrhiche (armed dance) and the lampadedromia (torch race). There are nearly a hundred depictions of the torch race, so it was a very popular subject on the vases, and all phases of the event were pictured in eleven types of scenes: (1) preparations, (2) handing over the torch to the starter, (3) the start, (4) the race, (5) the handing over of the torch, (6) the finish, reaching the altar, (7) a lighting of the fire, (8) the victory ceremony with Nike, (9) Nike and victor without an altar, (10) the victor, and (11) an ox led to sacrifice. On a red-figure bell krater of ca. 430–420 BC at Harvard (fig. 6.15) we see the race to the finish line. Two runners holding their torches out in front with their left hands sprint to the altar of Athena, in front of which sits the prize hydria. They have run from the altar of Prometheus or Eros in the Academy to the Acropolis. Behind the altar stands the Archon Basileus, who is in charge of the event, with the sacred olive tree of Athena. The spiked headgear is that typically worn by the runners, and here two types are given, suggesting that they come from two different tribes. Pyrrhic dancers, meanwhile, appear performing coordinated movements both in groups and individually on the vases. None can be tied to the Panathenaic festival with certainty, though it would seem likely that some of those showing a dancer moving to the music of an aulos represent practice for the event at the Greater Panathenaia. There were at least four, and probably six, musical contests at the Greater Panathenaia for which prizes were awarded from Archaic to Hellenistic times. These were contests for kitharodes, adult aulodes, adult kitharists, auletes, boy aulodes, and boy kitharists. A red-figure pelike at Plovdiv (fig. 7.25) shows a kitharode named Alkimachos atop a raised stepped platform with four Nikai flying around him, who are labeled as victories at the Panathenaic, Nemean, Marathonian, and Ismean games. The kitharode was the most prestigious of these contests; solo aulos the least. Of interest is the sudden increase around 440 BC in the number of depictions of musical contestants and victors, which may be due to changes made by Pericles to make these contests more visible.

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Fig. 7.25.  Attic redfigure pelike. Kitharode and Nikai of Games. Epimedes Painter. Ca. 440 BC. Plovdiv, Regional Archaeological Museum, 1812.

Perhaps the finest and most famous of all depictions of kitharodes is the Berlin Painter’s type C amphora in New York of 490 BC (fig. 7.26). The young man stands to the right, his head rolled back, his mouth wide open, as he belts out his song. On the other side of the vase is a judge with bifurcated stick. Thus, we have scenes both of performance and of receiving a prize. Less popular were scenes with aulodes and auletes. One of the finest sits on the back of Euphronios’s red-figure calyx krater in the Louvre (fig. 7.27). A young aulos player in a long chiton mounts the platform upon which he will perform before the three seated youths, two on the right, one on the left. He holds his instrument in his left hand and raises his garment so as not to trip over its hem. We also have a few vases that, with some certainty, illustrate the contest for rhapsodes, performers of old poems before an audience. A Panathenaic-shaped

Fig. 7.26a–b.  Attic redfigure type C amphora. Kitharode and judge. Berlin Painter. Ca. 490 BC. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 56.171.38. Fletcher Fund, 1956.



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Fig. 7.27.  Attic red-figure calyx krater. Aulos player mounting platform and three seated youths. Euphronios. Ca. 520–510 BC. Paris, Musée du Louvre, C 103. Photo: Erich Lessing/ Art Resource, New York.

black-figure amphora in Oldenburg of ca. 520 BC (fig. 6.14) shows a bearded man, the rhapsode, standing on a low podium holding a crooked staff, the rhabdos, between two other bearded men; the left-hand one has a judge’s staff, the righthand one, a walking staff. Victors appear frequently in Attic vase painting (over two hundred examples are known), but only rarely the loser, who is normally shown walking away from the main action with a down-turned head. The earliest certain depiction of a victor in Attic vase painting is found on a black-figure Siana cup of ca. 570–560 BC by the C Painter in Heidelberg (fig. 7.28). Here the winner carries a tripod. Victors continue to be depicted in Attic vase painting until the end of the fourth century. Typically, they are nude and often bend to receive a victor’s crown. Nike sometimes is present and participates in the action. Wreaths, sprigs, branches, and ribbons can be handed over or worn, and an altar may mark a place of sacrifice or the terminal end of a race. Prizes sometimes are handed over to the victor, and a salpinx can be used to announce the event. Horses are shown wreathed or decked

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Fig. 7.28.  Attic black-figure Siana cup. Victor carrying tripod. C Painter. Ca. 570–560 BC. Heidelberg, Antikenmuseum der Universität Heidelberg. Photo: Hubert Vögele.

out in fillets, having received honors for their victory. One interesting group shows victors wearing strange-looking pointed helmets with fillets hanging from the top of them. A red-figure doubleen in the Hermitage by Douris (fig. 7.29) has such a figure standing to the left, holding out sprigs and with a ribbon tied around his left arm and leg while wearing a pointed, helmet-like cap, from the peak of which hangs a ribbon with a kalos inscription. A Nike bearing a fillet flies toward him from the other side of the vase. Some of the palestra scenes on Athenian vases illustrate various other aspects of the training besides the actual practice for the individual event itself. There are scenes of applying oil and the scraping away of oil and dirt with a strigil, as the youth does on a red-figure amphora of ca. 500 BC in Vienna (pl. 26), and there are pictures of washing, as on a red-figure cup by the Codrus Painter in London (fig. 7.30). Here we see three youths standing around a louterion (wash basin), to the right of which a youth crouches before a tub in a bathhouse as another pours water over him from a pail. Kynodesme, or the tying closed of the foreskin, and the moving of the penis to the side occurs and massages for weary muscles

Fig. 7.29.  Attic redfigure doubleen. Victor. Douris. Ca. 490 BC. St. Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum, 5576. Photo: Natalia Antonova, Pavel Demidov, Inna Regentova. © The State Hermitage Museum.

Fig. 7.30.  Attic red-figure cup. Youths bathing. Codrus Painter. Ca. 430 BC. London, British Museum, E 83. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

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Fig. 7.31.  Attic red-figure cup. Youth massaging another. Antiphon Painter. Ca. 490 BC. Rome, Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia, 50430. Photo: Mauro Benedetti. © MiBAC. Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia.

are illustrated, such as the back rub on the outside of a red-figure cup in the Villa Giulia by the Antiphon Painter (fig. 7.31). And some maintenance for the gym­ nasium is featured on a red-figure skyphos once in Zurich by the Lewis Painter, where a man attends to the track as a boy loosens the earth and the man softens it further by applying water from a large vessel (fig. 7.32a); the other side of the vase shows the water being drawn up from a well (fig. 7.32b). Having completed our survey of athletic scenes, there are some general observations that can now be made: (1) the first half of the sixth century showed an increased interest in athletics on black-figure vases, reflecting an increased interest in athletics in Athens; (2) the variety of black-figure scenes increased in the last quarter of the sixth century as red-figure develops and influences the scenes done in the older technique; (3) an earlier interest in depicting single events in scenes of competition in black-figure are replaced in the second quarter in black-figure and red-figure by scenes of practice, often taking place at the palestra; (4) runners are popular in Archaic black-figure but are almost nonexistent on later red-figure; (5) athletics/sport is the most popular type of scene from everyday life in Archaic Attic red-figure; (6) from the sixth to the fourth centuries there is a change of preference from chariot and horse scenes to those showing athletics; (7) scenes

Fig. 7.32a–b.  Attic red-figure skyphos. Boy loosening the earth of a track while a man applies water to it, and a man drawing water from a well. Lewis Painter. Ca. 440–430 BC. Private collection, USA. Photo: Archäologisches Sammlung der Universität Zürich, S. Hertig.

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of sport, the largest type of genre scene from 600–480 BC, almost disappear after 450 BC, with the exception of vase paintings showing youths holding strigils; (8) hoplitodromoi (racers in armor) are favored on early red-figure vases and lampadedromia (torch racers) later; (9) the war horse and javelin on horseback are fourth-century events, reflecting concern for the cavalry. PEDERASTY

Athenians practiced the custom of pederasty (i.e., erotic relationships between youths and older men) and the palestra was a common place for men and youths to meet and court, which is why we consider the courting scenes here. The evidence for pederasty is prevalent in both ancient Greek literature and on Athenian vase paintings. Indeed, there are more than six hundred black-figure and red-figure Athenian vases ranging in date from ca. 575 BC until well into the fourth century BC showing scenes of pederasty. The earliest attempt to catalog and iconographically separate them into groups was made in 1948 by Sir John Beazley, who divided them into three main types that he termed: α, courtship scene in which the erastes (the aggressive older lover) makes the “up and down gesture” to the eromenos (passive youth being courted); β, courting scenes with gift(s); and γ, scenes of intercrural intercourse (when the penis of one male is rubbed between the thighs of another) between the erastes and eromenos. Other types of scenes not covered by Beazley but recognized by other scholars are kissing scenes, those in which erastai compete for an eromenos or the opposite, and scenes of male lovers together at the symposium. Some scenes have a mixture of elements from all three initial types (e.g., fig. 7.36), and different scenes have different mixes of elements. How much these scenes reflect actual practice is unclear and hotly debated, but that some form of pederasty was practiced is certain, hence their inclusion in this guide. A good example of type α occurs on a black-figure, lidded belly amphora in Würzburg of ca. 540–530 BC by the Phrynos Painter (pl. 27). The bearded man on the left performs the up and down gesture—left hand to the chin of the youth, right hand to the youth’s genitals. A palestra setting is hinted at by the javelin that the youth holds upright and the wreath around the man’s left arm. Synecdoche— part for whole, as here—is common in these scenes. Type β is the most frequently represented type of the three. Fighting cocks and hares are the most popular gifts, but deer and foxes as well as nonanimal gifts like lyres, strigils, and flowers among many others appear. On a red-figure cup in



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Fig. 7.33.  Attic red-figure cup. Man courting youth with cock as a love gift. Euaichme Painter. Ca. 470 BC. Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, G 279. Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford, UK/Bridgeman Images.

Oxford by the Euaichme Painter of ca. 470 BC (fig. 7.33), a bearded man leaning on his staff offers a fighting cock to a mantled boy standing opposite him while gesturing with his right arm. A good example of type γ showing intercrural intercourse is on another black-figure amphora, this one in London and by the Painter of Berlin 1686 of ca. 540 BC (fig. 7.34). The third and fourth figure from the left are caught in the act. The erastes hunches over the eromenos and places and rubs his erect penis between the thighs of the eromenos. Other stages of courting occupy the others in the picture. Not uncommon are scenes of competition when one or more erastai compete for an eromenos, or the opposite. On one side of a kylix in the Vatican by the Brygos Painter (fig. 7.35), an erastes leaning on his staff in the center holds out a hare, which he seems to be pulling away from one eromenos and giving to another, so a competition between the two eromenoi for the erastes. Strigils with aryballoi hang in the background, indicating the palestra setting.

F ig. 7.34.  Attic black-figure belly amphora. Men and youths courting. Painter of Berlin 1686. Ca. 540 BC. London, British Museum, 1865.1118.39. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

Fig. 7.35.  Attic red-figure cup. Men and youths courting. Brygos Painter. Ca. 480 BC. Rome, Vatican, Musei dello Stato della Città del Vaticano, H 550. Photo: © Vatican Museums, all rights reserved.

Fig. 7.36.  Attic red-figure amphora. Courting at the palestra. Dikaios Painter. Ca. 510–500 BC. Paris, Musée du Louvre, G 45, F 318. Photo: Hervé Lewandowski. © RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource, New York.

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Boys and their lovers reclining on klinai is a common symposium scene, which we have considered earlier in chapter 1 when examining the representations of the symposium in relationship to the house. In addition, the couple—the erastes and eromenos—are occasionally shown wrapped in a common mantle, as on a black-figure lekythos of ca. 550–525 BC in St. Petersburg (fig. 1.43). Let us end by returning to the cup by the Carpenter Painter and the image in its tondo (fig. 1.44), which has a so-called courting scene between an older man, the erastes, and a younger, the eromenos. The youth appears to be the aggressor here, extending both arms around the head of the older man, who himself leans over to place his left arm around the boy so that they can exchange a kiss. The palestra was a common place for men and youths to meet and court, and courting images are thus often combined with athletic ones, sometimes on the same vase, as here, or in the same image. A red-figure amphora by the Dikaios Painter of ca. 510–500 BC (fig. 7.36) provides a good example of the latter. The boy on the left is being crowned, the one on the right does stretching exercises before a trainer, while the central couple are in an amorous pose. Scenes of consummation involving anal male sex bring us to the end of this section. They are very rare and do not represent the appropriate way to con­ summate a relationship, as far as the ancients were concerned, which should be done preferably through intercrural intercourse. One of the rare depictions of anal, male sex, with a youth bending over and being penetrated by another male from behind, is found on a black-figure hydria in a private collection (see Lear and Cantarella, Images of Ancient Greek Pederasty, 118, fig. 3.8). This vase also features a couple performing intercrural intercourse as well as another youth carrying a hare as a love gift. Thus in general, as we have seen, scenes of hunting, athletics, and the symposium frame the context of many courtship scenes, and the erastai are more muscular than the eromenoi, which implies athleticism and thereby the palestra. In addition, it can be noted that a return to displaying affection occurs frequently on late black-figure and red-figure vases. REFERENCES For sport in Athens, see D. G. Kyle, Athletics in Ancient Athens (Leiden 1987). For ancient Greek sport in general, see E. N. Gardiner, Athletics of the Ancient World (Oxford 1930); H. A. Harris, Greek Athletes and Athletics (London 1964); S. G. Miller, Ancient Greek Athletics (New Haven, CT, 2004). For a selection of literary sources, see S. G. Miller, Arete: Greek Sports from Ancient Sources, 2nd ed. (Berkeley 1991); W. E. Sweet, Sport and Recreation in Ancient Greece: A Sourcebook with Translations (Oxford 1987).



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For scenes of athletes on Attic vases, see R. Osborne, The Transformation of Athens: Painted Pottery and the Creation of Classical Greece (Princeton, NJ, 2018), 53–86. For images of victors, see E. Kefalidou, Niketes. Eikonographike melete tou archaiou ellenikou athletismou (Thessalonike 1996); J. H. Oakley, “A Unique New Depiction of a Panathenaic Victor,” in O. Palagia and A. Choremi-Spetsieri (eds.), The Panathenaic Games: Proceedings of an International Conference Held at the University of Athens, May 11–12, 2004 (Oxford 2007), 81–90. For Panathenaic amphoras, see M. Bentz, Panathenäische Preisamphoren. Eine athenische Vasengattung und ihre Funktion vom 6.-4. Jahrhundert v. Chr. (AntK Beiheft 18) (Basel 1998). For the hysplex, see P. Valavanis, Hysplex: The Starting Mechanism in Ancient Stadia: A Contribution to Ancient Greek Technology (Berkeley 1999); S. G. Miller, Ancient Greek Athletics (New Haven, CT, 2004), 38–43. For ancient depictions of sport, see J. Neils, “Picturing Victory: Representations of Sport in Greek Art,” in P. Christesen and D. G. Kyle (eds.), A Companion to Sport and Spectacle in Greek and Roman Antiquity (Chichester 2014), 81–97. For harnessing scenes, see M. B. Moore, “Exekias and the Harnessing of a Chariot Team,” AntK 29 (1986): 107–114. For apobates, see J. Neils and P. Schulz, “Erechtheus and the Apobates Race on the Parthenon Frieze,” AJA 116 (2012): 195–207; and P. Schulz, “The Iconography of the Athenian Apobates Race: Origins, Meanings, Transformations,” in O. Palagia and A. Choremi-Spetsieri (eds.), The Panathenaic Games (Oxford 2007), 59–72. For torch races, see M. Bentz, “Torch Race and Vase-Painting,” in O. Palagia and A. Choremi-Spetsieri (eds.), The Panathenaic Games (Oxford 2007), 73–80. For pyrrhic dancers, see J.-C. Poursat, “Les représentations de danse armée dans la céramique attique,” BCH 92 (1968): 550–615; P. Ceccarelli, La pirrica nell’antichità greco romana. Studi sulla danza armata (Pisa and Rome 1998). For the ankyle and javelin, see S. R. Murray, William A. Sands, N. A. Keck, and D. A. O’Roark, “Efficacy of the Ankyle in Increasing the Distance of the Ancient Javelin Throw,” Nikephoros 23 (2010): 43–55; S. R. Murray, William A. Sands, and D. A. O’Roark, “Recreating the Ancient Greek Javelin Throw: How Far Was the Javelin Thrown,” Nikephoros 25 (2012): 143–145. For the girls on vases from Brauron, see E. D. Williams, Pandora: Women in Classical Greece (Princeton, NJ, 1995), 321–328. For the musical contests at the Panathenaia, see H. A. Shapiro, “Mousikoi Agones: Music and Poetry at the Panathenaia,” in J. Neils (ed.), Goddess and Polis: The Panathenaic Festival in Ancient Athens (Princeton, NJ, 1992), 53–75. For rhapsodes most recently, see S. D. Bundrick, “Recovering Rhapsodes: A New Vase by the Pantoxena Painter,” ClAnt 34 (2015): 1–32. For exhibitions with good illustrations, see S. Mercouris (ed.), Mind and Body: Athletic Contest in Ancient Greece (Athens 1989); R. Wünsche and F. Knauss, Lockender

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Lorbeer (Munich 2005); N. Kaltsas, Agon: The Spirit of Competition in Ancient Greece (Athens 2008). For a short overview of the Greater Panathenaia, see J. Neils and S. V. Tracy, The Games at Athens (Agora Picture Book) (Princeton, NJ, 2003). For Beazley’s seminal study of male courtship scenes on Attic vases, see J. D. Beazley, Some Attic Vases in the Cyprus Museum, edited by D. C. Kurtz (Oxford 1989; revised version of 1948 edition). For pederastic scenes in general and a catalog of vases with pederastic scenes, see M. F. Kilmer, Greek Erotica on Attic Red-Figure Vases (London 1993); and A. Lear and E. Cantarella, Images of Ancient Greek Pederasty: Boys Were Their Gods (London 2008). For Greek homosexuality, see K. J. Dover, Greek Homosexuality (London 1978). For erotic scenes, see M. F. Kilmer, Greek Erotica on Attic Red-Figure Vases (London 1983); and R. F. Sutton Jr., “Lovemaking on Attic Black-Figure Pottery: Corpus with Some Conclusions,” in S. Schmidt and J. H. Oakley (eds.), Hermeneutik der Bilder. Beiträge zur Ikonographie und Interpretation griechischer Vasenmalerei, Beiheft zum Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum (Munich 2009), 77–91; and most recently with a list of vases, H. N. Parker, “Vaseworld: Depiction and Description of Sex at Athens,” in R. Blondell and K. Ormand (eds.), Ancient Sex: New Essays (Columbus, OH, 2015). For the common mantle motif, see G. Koch-Harnack, Erotische Symbole. Lotusblüte und gemeinsamer Mantel auf antiken Vasen (Berlin 1989), 109–166.

chapter eight

TH E BAT T L E GR O U N D Events connected with war are very common subjects on Athenian vases, and many types of warriors appear regularly already on black-figure vases dating between 560 and 510 BC. However, many of these fighting scenes are mythological or indeterminable as to whether or not they are mythological. Common mythological fight scenes include Centauromachies (Greeks fighting Centaurs), Amazonomachies (Greeks fighting Amazons), and Gigantomachies (Greeks fighting Giants). In these, and in other fight scenes, one or more of the participants is sometimes labeled as a mythological warrior. Among many, these include heroes such as Achilles and Hector and divinities such as Zeus and Athena. Other fight scenes show non-Greeks accompanying Greek hoplites, so they are not scenes of everyday life but made-up collages of different elements. But let us start with the events that took place before the fight. Training for fighting took on various forms. Several prize Panathenaic amphorai, for example, show youths on horseback casting javelins at mounted shields. On one amphora in London from the Kuban Group of ca. 400 BC (pl. 25), the leading rider has already thrown his spear and has nearly hit a full bull’s-eye, while the next in line makes ready for his cast. On other vases horsemen appear to be training their steeds, as, for example, on a red-figure cup in Munich by Onesimos (fig. 8.1), where one youth prepares to mount with the aid of a spear. To be as sure as possible that their horses were being well kept, the Athenians had an inspection of them known as the dokimasia. Several vases appear to show this event taking place, most notably the namepiece of the Dokimasia Painter, a red-figure cup in Berlin (fig. 8.2), on which youths with spears dressed in chlamys, petasos, and embades lead their horses to a standing man beside a seated man with a writing tablet. 167

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Fig. 8.1.  Attic red-figure cup. Youth mounting a horse with the aid of a spear. Onesimos. Ca. 500–480 BC. Munich, Staatliche Antikensammlungen und Glyptothek München, 2639. Photo: Renate Kühling.

The pyrrhice, the dance in armor, occurs on a red-figure cup by the Eucharides Painter in the Louvre (fig. 8.3), which also has an aulos player who provides the music for the dance. The race in armor (see figs. 7.4–5, pl. 22) also could aid hoplites and cavalry men in training. Next the warriors needed to arm themselves. Some black-figure vases beginning already around the middle of the sixth century show a warrior in the process of putting on a greave. An amphora in New York by the Amasis Painter (fig. 8.4) is a good example, as on each side of the vessel a bearded warrior—a Corinthian helmet on the ground beneath him—lifts his left leg to put on the greave he holds out. This is a very popular type of figure found in black-figure arming scenes. On one side of the vase a youth brings him a shield and a woman, his mother likely, his spear; on the other side of the vase youths bring a shield, sword, and spear. In other black-figure arming scenes, children, a dog, or Scythian archers can be present. Later, other steps in the process of arming are shown, as on a red-figure cup by Douris in Vienna (fig. 8.5). On one side we see on the left a bearded warrior having picked up his helmet and spear, another placing his sword in a scabbard, a third having picked up his helmet and spear, a fourth binding his hair, another adjusting his chitoniskos, and a sixth examining his spear. On the other side in the middle, a bearded warrior puts on his linothorax cuirass, while a young man to the

Fig. 8.2a–b.  Attic red-figure cup. Dokimasia. Dokimasia Painter. Ca. 480 BC. Berlin, Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin—Preussischer Kulturbesitz, F 2296. Photo: Johannes Laurentius.

Fig. 8.3.  Attic red-figure cup. Pyrrhic dancer. Eucharides Painter. Ca. 490 BC. Paris, Musée du Louvre, G 136. Photo: Hervé Lewandowski. © RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource, New York.

F ig. 8.4.  Attic black-figure belly amphora. Warrior arming. Amasis Painter. Ca. 560–550 BC. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 06.1021.69. Rodgers Fund, 1906.

Fig. 8.5a–c.  Attic redfigure cup. Warriors arming. Douris. Ca. 490 BC. Vienna, Kunsthistorishes Museum, 3694. © KHMMuseumsverband.

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left places a greave on his left leg, and one on the right places his baldric with sword in a scabbard over his chest. On the far right, a shield resting against his hip, a young warrior ties up his hair at back. Once the soldiers were dressed and armed, they made ready to leave. Departure scenes are very common, especially during the Classical period, particularly in the Achilles Painter’s and Niobid Painter’s workshops. They emphasize the family in a domestic context. Typically, they show a soldier (sometimes two, and/ or with a horse) standing in the middle of the scene, flanked by other figures, including a female (wife or mother) and middle-aged/old man (possibly the father of the warrior). A comrade can stand at the side. A libation is often shown taking place as the immediate prelude to the departure. These departures with chariots are not reflective of contemporary life, as chariots were no longer used in Greek warfare, but those with a horse can be. A fine example of a departure scene decorates a red-figure stamnos by the Kleophon Painter in Munich (fig. 8.6). Here, a warrior and woman stand in the

Fig. 8.6.  Attic red-figure stamnos. Warrior’s departure. Kleophon Painter. Ca. 430 BC. Munich, Staatliche Antikensammlungen und Glyptothek München, 2415. After E. Pfuhl, Malerei und Zeichnung der Griechen (Munich 1923), fig. 418.



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center preparing to make a libation and are flanked by a white-haired old man and woman who are probably his parents. Other warriors shown on occasion, besides a hoplite, are a lightly armed man (pilos for a helmet, spear[s], and sometimes a shield, both round and crescent shaped), a cavalry man with a horse, and an ephebe, a youth, bearing minimal arms, chlamys, and/or chitoniskos. On some vases the domestic space is indicated by a column(s), chairs/stools, door and altar, or other minor objects. In general, Classical red-figure depictions emphasize the home and not the battleground. Before battle, a sphagia (blood animal sacrifice) was made. An armed warrior in the tondo of a red-figure cup by the Chairias Painter in Cleveland (fig. 8.7) performs this, sacrificing a ram by stabbing it at the neck. Sometimes a warrior would cut a lock of his own hair to sacrifice, just as the one on a red-figure lekythos by the Oinokles Painter of ca. 480–470 BC (fig. 8.8). His shield and spear lean against a folding stool with a folded mantle and Thracian helmet on it. A good range of armor and weapons are worn and employed by the fully armed Greek warriors, the hoplites, whose basic outfit was a helmet, shield, and sword.

Fig. 8.7.  Attic red-figure cup. Warrior sacrificing a ram. Chairias Painter. Ca. 490–480 BC. Cleveland, OH, Cleveland Museum of Art, 1926.242. Dudley P. Allen Fund. Diameter 10.1 cm (315/16 in.).

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F ig. 8.8.  Attic red-figure lekythos. Warrior cutting a lock of hair. Oinokles Painter. Ca. 480–470 BC. Cleveland, OH, Cleveland Museum of Art, 1928.660. Charles W. Harkness Endowment Fund. Overall 43.5 × 16.5 cm (17⅛ × 67/16 in.).

Almost all of these implements are based on and reflect actual implements, for we have examples of them preserved in the archaeological record. In respect to helmets, the most common form was the Corinthian replete with nose, cheek, and neck guards. Other popular types are Attic (a cap with and without a neck guard and cheek pieces), Chalcidian (curved cheek pieces and opening for the ear), and Thracian (hinged cheek pieces and pointed peak). Metal examples of the petasos (sun hat) and pilos (pointed cap) served as helmets, and some of the ones depicted on the vases may be of metal. The two most common types of upper body armor are the all-metal bell cuirass and the linothorax cuirass. Both of these are normally worn over a chitoniskos. Greaves, lower leg armor, are common; thigh and arm guards are very rare. Round shields displaying a wide range of shield devices are the most common, but the oval Boeotian shield with cutouts



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is also popular and thought possibly to imply heroic connections rather than being an actual device. Aprons hanging from the bottom of the shield to ward off arrows are rare. Spears and swords are the most common weapons, the latter often shown in a sheath that is held by a baldric that hangs across the warrior’s torso. The former sometimes has throwing thongs and often occur in duplicate. Common are both the straight-edged sword and the machaira (cutlass with curving blade). Archers are mainly rendered as foreigners. Warriors in chariots are popular, but they also do not reflect reality, for by the Archaic period chariots were not normally employed in Greek warfare. Thus, the weapons and armor often reflect reality, but many of the scenes of fighting do not. The call to battle was sometimes initiated by the playing of a salpinx, a longtubed instrument with a wide opening at one end. Starting in the late sixth century, male warriors are depicted with them, such as the one on a black-figure plate by Psiax in London (pl. 28). Later, in both black-figure and red-figure, Amazons and satyrs often have one, but they are mythological figures. A large group of other scenes show hoplites fighting, but it is unclear who the warriors and their opponents are, unless they are dressed as non-Greek foreigners, such as Persians, Thracians, or Scythians. These scenes are nonmythological and, therefore, can be considered as reflecting everyday life, but just how true to life these depictions are is sometimes uncertain, for easterners, especially Persians, were not seen regularly walking the streets of Athens. Battle scenes involving multiple groups of fighting warriors are common subjects on Attic vases already by ca. 570 BC. A good example is the frieze of fighters found going around the top of a tripod kothon of ca. 570–560 BC by the C Painter in Paris (fig. 8.9). Twelve groups of fighting hoplites, consisting of two or three combatants each, show individual hoplites in a variety of poses. A falling warrior with shield and spear between a warrior advancing from either side with shield and spear is a very common composition for these fight scenes, as is the simpler arrangement of just two hoplites facing off. Sometimes the cavalry takes part in the struggle, as on a volute krater by the Chicago Painter in Ferrara of ca. 450–440 BC (fig. 8.10). On rare occasions the warriors are rendered advancing in a row, as on a lekanis by the C Painter in Naples (fig. 8.11). These may reflect the Greek use of a formation known as the phalanx, in which the warriors are closely packed together in rows. One almost certain depiction of the phalanx is found on the “Chigi Vase,” a Proto-Corinthian jug of ca. 640 BC, on which opposing phalanxes of hoplites

Fig. 8.9.  Attic black-figure tripod kothon (exaleiptron). Battle of hoplites. C Painter. Ca. 570–560 BC. Paris, Musée du Louvre, CA 616. Photo: Stéphane Maréchalle. © RMNGrand Palais/Art Resource, New York.

Fig. 8.10.  Attic red-figure volute krater. Hoplites and cavalry fighting. Chicago Painter. Ca. 450–440 BC. Ferrara, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, 42685 (3031). Photo courtesy of the Polo Museale dell’Emilia Romagna.

Fig. 8.11.  Attic black-figure lekanis lid. Hoplites advancing in phalanx formation. C Painter. Ca. 570–560 BC. Naples, Museo Nazionale. Photo courtesy of the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli.

Fig. 8.12.  Attic black-figure lekythos. Ambush. Painter of Vatican G 49. Ca. 500 BC. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 26.60.76. Fletcher Fund, 1926.

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close, as a boy supplies flute music for the army on the left. Rarely is an ambush shown, as on a black-figure lekythos by the Painter of Vatican G 49 (fig. 8.12), where an archer and four hoplites squat behind shrubbery. Sometimes a hoplite is shown fleeing the scene, as does the one on a blackfigure oinochoe of ca. 510–500 BC (fig. 8.13). He, as the Greek poet Archilochus (fr. 5W), has lost his shield, which sits on the ground by his feet. At other times one hoplite retreats either standing or crawling on hands and knees, as on a kyathos in the Manner of the Oinophile Painter in London (fig. 8.14). Others are shown wounded and falling back. The fighting scenes on other vases show archers, who are commonly Scythians, identifiable by their clothing consisting of a hat having cheek and neck flaps along with a long-sleeved jacket and trousers. In the tondo of a red-figure plate by Epiktetos in London (fig. 8.15), a Scythian so dressed pulls an arrow with his right hand from his gorytos at his side while holding out a red bow in his left. On other

F ig. 8.13.  Attic black-figure olpe. Hoplite fleeing battlefield. Unattributed. Ca. 510–500 BC. Ex. Basel, Cahn. Photo: D. Widmer (Basel 1979).

Fig. 8.14.  Attic red-figure kyathos. Hoplite retreating from battle scene. Manner of the Oinophile Painter. Ca. 500–490 BC. London, British Museum, E 808. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

F ig. 8.15.  Attic redfigure plate. Scythian drawing arrow while fleeing. Epiktetos. Ca. 520–510 BC. London, British Museum, E 135. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

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vases an archer is shown stringing his bow and/or examining the shaft of an arrow. Both are performed by Scythians, nude, less their caps, in the tondo of a cup in Boston (fig. 8.16). Not infrequently a mounted knight is shown accompanied by his squire on horseback, as the pair of riders on a black-figure amphora by Lydos in Naples (fig. 8.17). Thracian peltasts were another important element of the Athenian military forces who are depicted on the vases. They can be recognized from the wicker, crescent-shaped shields (pelta) that they carry, their alopekis (pointed cap), their heavy zeira (long, patterned cloak), their low boots with turned down upper border, and their long, thrusting spear. The tondo of a cup of ca. 480–470 BC by Onesimos (fig. 8.18) shows one who is fully outfitted. Less common are Persians, such as the one fighting a Greek on a red-figure Nolan amphora of ca. 480–470 BC in New York (fig. 8.19). Hoplite engagements on a mainly level surface are shown taking place on the vast majority of Athenian vases connected with war. One cup of ca. 500 BC by Apollodoros (pl. 29), however, shows siege warfare. Filling most of the tondo is a

Fig. 8.16.  Attic red-figure cup (tondo). Scythians examining a bow and arrow. Onesimos. Ca. 500 BC. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 10.207. Julia Bradford Huntington James Fund and Museum purchase with funds donated by contribution. Diameter 23.6 cm (95/16 in.). © 2020 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Fig. 8.17.  Attic black-figure belly amphora. Knight and squire on horseback. Lydos. Ca. 550 BC. Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli, 2770. Photo: Universal Images Group/Art Resource, New York.

Fig. 8.18.  Attic red-figure cup. Thracian peltast. Onesimos. Ca. 480–470 BC. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, 1959.219. Bequest of David M. Robinson. Photo: Imaging Department. © President and Fellows of Harvard College.

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F ig. 8.19.  Attic red-figure Nolan amphora. Greek and Persian fighting. Unattributed. Ca. 480–470 BC. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 06.1021.117. Rogers Fund, 1905.

crenellated city wall with two defending hoplites on the battlements. They are being attacked by two others on the ground below; the right-hand one below is about to cast a stone at those on the battlements above. Cavalry engagements with other cavalry or foot soldiers were also common on the battlefield, and a number of vases show this. War also took place on the seas, and Athens’s military might was owing to its superior navy, featuring the ships known as triremes. Depictions of ships with warriors—alive and dead—occur already on Attic Geometric pottery, but ships have their heyday on Attic black-figure vases of the sixth century BC, where they are effectively placed around the inside of the rim of dinoi and kraters so that the ships look as if they are sailing on a sea of wine. They also are used with a similar effect on the inside and outside of cups. The number of banks of rowers and the number per bank varies. Mainly warships are shown, but occasionally other types of ships can be recognized, as the merchant ship on the left that is being pursued by a warship on the outside of a black-figure cup in the British Museum (pl. 30).



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Fig. 8.20. Attic black-figure eye cup. Fight over a dead body. Exekias. Ca. 530 BC. Munich, Staatliche Antikensammlungen und Glyptothek München, 8729. Photo: Renate Kühling.

Once the military action started, wounding and death resulted on both sides. The corpse of a dead comrade is sometimes rendered being fought over by warriors from opposing sides, as is the case underneath the handles of Exekias’s famous black-figure eye cup in Munich (fig. 8.20). In other scenes, including both mythological and nonmythological ones, the corpse is carried off the battlefield on a comrade’s back. As for the wounded, scenes showing them tended to are very rare in Attic vase painting and involve mythological characters. Sosias’s red-figure cup showing Achilles bandaging Patroclos is the best example (fig. 8.21). After the battle and cleanup, the winning side (and sometimes also the loser’s side) erected one or more trophies from the arms that they had overcome and captured. This is normally where a crucial turning point in the battle took place. Probably the most well-known ones in sculpture are those rendered on the Nike Temple Parapet on the Acropolis. Only a small number of red-figure vases, ten in total, show a trophy (tropian), which is normally being tended to by a Nike, the personification of victory. All date from the middle of the fifth century to the middle of the fourth. Perhaps the finest and most well-known is the namepiece of the Trophy Painter, a red-figure pelike of ca. 450–440 BC in Boston (fig. 8.22). Here Nike nails a Corinthian helmet in place on a wooden stump, which is also dressed in a chitoniskos and linothorax cuirass; a sword in scabbard hangs from a baldric by its side. Occasionally prisoners who have been taken are shown, as the two with hands tied behind their backs on a black-figure oinochoe of ca. 530–520 BC in Compiègne (fig. 8.23).

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Fig. 8.21.  Attic red-figure cup. Achilles bandaging Patroclos’s wounded left arm. Sosias. Ca. 510–500 BC. Berlin, Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin—Preussischer Kulturbesitz, F 2278. Staatliche Museen, Berlin, Germany/Bridgeman Images.

During the Classical period, the Athenian dead were brought home—those who died at Marathon were an exception—and a state funeral took place once a year when the war dead were buried in the Demosion Sema, the state burial ground. Normally a funeral oration was given by a prominent citizen: Perikles, for example, as recorded by the historian Thucydides (II, 34–47), gave the oration for the dead in the first year of the Peloponnesian War. A few vases may show part of these special grave monuments, such as an amphora or loutrophoros fragment in

Fig. 8.22.  Attic redfigure pelike. Nike erecting trophy. Namepiece of the Trophy Painter. Ca. 450–440 BC. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 20.187. Francis Bartlett Donation of 1912. Height 35.45 cm (1315/16 in.). © 2020 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

F ig. 8.23.  Attic black-figure oinochoe. Prisoners being led away. Unattributed. Ca. 530–520 BC. Compiègne, Musée Antoine Vivenal, 124 (inv. L.1031).

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Fig. 8.24.  Attic red-figure loutrophoros or amphora. Stelai with casualty lists before a white tumulus. Unattributed. Ca. 450 BC. Amsterdam, Allard Pierson Museum, University of Amsterdam, 2455.

Amsterdam (fig. 8.24), which appears to render stelai with casualty lists before a white tumulus. REFERENCES For scenes connected with war, see R. Osborne, The Transformation of Athens: Painted Pottery and the Creation of Classical Greece (Princeton, NJ, 2018), 87–121. For scenes of violence in general, see S. Muth, Gewalt im Bild. Das Phänomen der medialen Gewalt im Athen des 6. und 5. Jahrhunderts v. Chr. (Berlin 2008). For armed dancers, see J. C. Poursat, “Les représentations de danse armée dans la céramique attique,” BCH 92 (1968): 550–615; J. C. and P. Ceccarelli, La pirrica nell’ antichità Greco romana. Studi sulla danza armata (Pisa and Roma 1998). For departure scenes, see W. Wrede, “Kriegers Ausfahrt in der archaisch-griechischen Kunst,” AM 41 (1916): 221–374; A. Spieß, Der Kriegerabschied auf attischen Vasen der archaischen Zeit (Frankfurt am Main 1992); S. B. Matheson, “A Farewell with Arms: Departing Warriors on Athenian Vases,” in J. M. Barringer and J. M. Hurwit (eds.), Periklean Athens and Its Legacy: Problems and Perspectives (Austin, TX, 2005), 23–35; S. B. Matheson, “Bearded, Armed, and Barefoot: Ephebes, Warriors, and Ritual on Athenian



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Vases,” in D. Yatromanolakis (ed.), An Archaeology of Representations: Ancient Greek Vase-Painting and Contemporary Methodologies (Athens 2009), 373–413; E. Moignard, Master of Attic Black-Figure Painting: The Art and Legacy of Exekias (London and New York 2015), 37–53. For libations, see M. Gaifman, The Art of Libation in Classical Greece (New Haven, CT, 2018). For the salpinx, see J. Neils, “‘Bronze-Belled Braying’: The Salpinx in the Athenian Art,” in P. Valavanis and E. Manakidou (eds.), EGRAPHSEN kai EPOIESEN: Essays on Greek Pottery and Iconography in Honour of Professor Michalis Tiverios (Thessalonike 2014), 257–270. For the Chigi Vase, see J. Hurwit, “Reading the Chigi Vase,” Hesperia 71 (2002): 1–22; M. D’Acunto, Il mondo del vaso Chigi. Pittura, guerra e società a Corinto, Guerra e società a Corinto alla metà del VII saecolo a.C. (Berlin 2013), with earlier bibliography. For scenes of hoplite fighting, see P. A. L. Greenhalgh, Early Greek Warfare: Horsemen and Chariots in the Homeric and Archaic Ages (Cambridge 1973); J. Boardman, Athenian Black Figure Vases (New York and Oxford 1974), 207–209 and 239; J. Boardman, Athenian Red-Figure Vases of the Archaic Period (New York and Oxford 1975), 217–218 and 240, with bibliography; J. Boardman, Athenian Red-Figure Vases of the Classical Period (London 1975), 220 and 243 with bibliography; F. Lissarrague, The World of the Warrior, in C. Bérard et al., A City of Images: Iconography and Society in Ancient Greece, translated by D. Lyons (Princeton, NJ, 1989), 39–51; S. Muth, Gewalt im Bild. Das Phänomen der medialen Gewalt im Athen des 6. und 5. Jahrhunderts v. Chr. (Berlin 2008), 141–238. For scenes of archers, peltasts, and cavalry in Attic vase painting, see F. Lissarrague, L’autre Guerrier: Archers, peltastes, cavaliers dans l’imageries attique (Paris and Rome 1990), 35–53 for arming scenes and 82–96. For Scythian archers, see M. F. Vos, Scythian Archers in Archaic Vase-Painting (Groningen 1963); J. Barringer, “Scythian Hunters on Attic Vases,” in C. Marconi (ed.), Greek Vases: Images, Contexts and Controversies (Leiden 2004), 13–25. For Thracian peltasts, see J. G. P. Best, Thracian Peltasts and Their Influence on Greek Warfare (Groningen 1969). For barbarians, see W. Raeck, Zum Barbarenbild der Kunst Athens im 6. und 5. Jh. (Bonn 1981); and F. Giudice and R. Panvini (eds.), Il greco il barbaro e la cermica attica, vols. 1–4 (Rome 2003–2010). For Persians, see A. Bovon, La représentation des guerriers perses et la notion de Barbara dans la première moitié du Ve siècle 87 (1983): 579–602; S. Muth, Gewalt im Bild. Das Phänomen der medialen Gewalt im Athen des 6. und 5. Jahrhunderts v. Chr. (Berlin 2008), 239–267. For Thracians, see D. Tsiaphaki, H Thraki sten attike eikonographia tou 5°u aiona p.X. Proseggiseis stis, Scheseis Athenas kai Thrakes (Komotini 1998); and D. Tsiaphaki, “The Allure and Repulsion of Thracians in the Art of Classical Athens,” in B. Cohen (ed.), Not the Classical Ideal: Athens and the Construction of the Other in Greek Art (Leiden 2000), 364–389.

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For weapons, armor, and fighting, see A. M. Snodgrass, Early Greek Armor and Weapons from the End of the Bronze Age to 600 BC (Edinburgh 1964); A. M. Snodgrass, Arms and Armor of the Greeks (Ithaca, NY, 1967); P. A. L. Greenhalgh, Early Greek Warfare: Horsemen and Chariots in the Homeric and Archaic Ages (Cambridge 1973); P. Ducrey, Guerre et guerriers dans la Grèce antique (Fribourg 1985); E. Jarva, Archaiologia on Archaic Greek Body Armor (Rovaniemi 1995); A. Schwartz, Reinstating the Hoplite: Arms, Armor and Phalanx Fighting in Archaic and Classical Greece (Historia, suppl. 207) (Stuttgart 2009); G. S. Aldrete, S. Bartell, and A. Aldrete, Reconstructing Ancient Linen Body Armor: Unraveling the Linothorax Mystery (Baltimore 2013); H. Frielinghaus, Die Helme von Olympia. Ein Beitrag zu Waffenweihungen in der griechischen Heiligtümern (Olympische Forschungen) (Berlin 2011). For a list of Attic red-figure and white-ground vases with equestrian scenes, see I. G. Spence, The Cavalry of Classical Greece (Oxford 1993), 231–260. For horses, see also W. Filser, Die Elite auf der attischen Luxuskeramik (Berlin 2017), 298–580. For ships, see J. S. Morrison and R. T. Williams, Greek Oared Ships 900–322 B.C. (Cambridge 1968), with a catalog; L. Casson, Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World (Princeton, NJ, 1971); J. S. Morrison and J. F. Coates, The Athenian Trireme (1986); J. H. Oakley, “An Attic Black-Figure Eye-Cup with Ships around the Interior,” AA (1994): 16–23; J. S. Morrison, J. F. Coates, and N. B. Rankov, The Athenian Trireme: The History and Reconstruction of an Ancient Greek Warship, 2nd ed. (Cambridge 2000). For trophies, see B. Rabe, TROPAIA. Τροπή und σκúλα—Entstehung, Funktion und Bedeutung des griechischen Tropaions (Rahden/Westf. 2008). For the Demosion Sema, see most recently N. T. Arrington, Ashes, Images, and Memories: The Presence of the War Dead in Fifth-Century Athens (Oxford 2015), 55–90. See also C. W. Clairmont, Patrios nomos: Public Burial in Athens during the Fifth and Fourth Centuries B.C.: The Archaeological, Epigraphic-Literary, and Historical Evidence (Oxford 1983); and R. Stupperich, Staatsbegrabnis und Privatgrabmal im klassischen Athen (Münster 1977).

chapter nine

AT T HE W E DDI NG

In ancient Athens the wedding took place most frequently in the month of Gamelion (roughly our January), a name derived from the Greek word for the wedding, gamos. Already in the epics of Homer, the wedding plays a role in the narrative, which gives us much information about it, as do many later authors and genres of Greek literature. Inscriptions and vase paintings supplement these and confirm much of this evidence. The wedding (gamos) proper was a ceremony celebrating the marriage of a couple, but it was not a legal act, for technically the couple was married once the engye (meaning, literally, “in the hand”) took place. That is the agreement between the groom and the bride’s father or legal guardian, which included, among other things, the size and nature of the dowry. On the back of a red-figure loutrophoros in Boston, a richly dressed young man (shown on the left of fig. 9.1), the groom, grasps the hand of a bearded man, the bride’s father, who holds a scepter, thereby sealing the deal. Often the groom was about twice the age of the bride—he in his early thirties, she in her late teens—but not always. Here, as on many other vases, the groom is idealized as a young man; only rarely is he shown bearded as a man in his thirties (e.g., fig. 9.19a). The bearded man in fig. 9.1 is the bride’s father, the young man the groom. The wedding scene on the other side of the vase shows a later part of the ceremony, the groom leading his bride to the thalamos (bridal chamber). We will return to it later. The wedding ceremony itself was traditionally a three-day affair in Athens but could vary in length. On the first day, called the proaulia, primarily preparations were made for the gamos proper on the second day. The gamos itself featured a wedding feast, often at the home of the bride’s father, and the transfer of the bride to her new home with the groom. The third day, the Epaulia, saw 189

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Fig. 9.1.  Attic red-figure loutrophoros. (1) Groom and bride’s father shake hands sealing the wedding agreement in the act known as the engye. (2) Groom leading bride to thalamos (bridal chamber), from which an Eros has emerged, surprising one of the bride’s companions. Unattributed. Ca. 440–430 BC. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 03.802. Francis Bartlett Donation of 1900. Height 75.3 cm (29⅝ in.), diameter of lip 25.3 cm (915/16 in), diameter of body 18 cm (71/16 in.). © 2020 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

the bride safely incorporated into her new home and able to receive guests and more gifts. On the first day the bride was offered the progamia dora, the pre-gamos gifts, an event possibly shown on a recently published red-figure loutrophoros by the Washing Painter (fig. 9.2) from the Nymphe Shrine on the southern slope of the Acropolis in Athens. The primary scene on this vessel shows a torchlit pro­cession of females, young and older, carrying both wedding vases (a red-figure loutrophoros and lebetes gamikoi) and other gifts—hydria, kanoun (ritual basket), and other small baskets and caskets filled most likely with jewelry and other small items. Most Athenian wedding vases were made for the Athenians themselves and were found in Athenian graves and sanctuaries. Loutrophoroi served to indicate the unwed nature of a grave’s inhabitant; the lebetes gamikoi indicate a dead matron and battle loutrophoroi, a dead soldier. The tall-necked amphora called the loutrophoros comes in two forms, the loutrophoros-amphora with two long handles, one on each side running from the upper neck to the shoulder, and the loutrophoros-hydria with three handles, a short one at each side and a long one at the back. The former is normally associated with males, the latter with females. The loutrophoros had two primary functions. The first was to convey water from the Kallirrhoe Spring for the bride’s bath; the other use was to mark the

Fig. 9.2a–b.  Attic red-figure loutrophoros. Women of various ages carry pre-gamos gifts—small boxes, baskets, kanoun, hydria, loutrophoroi, lebetes gamikoi, torches. Washing Painter. Ca. 430 BC. A. Delivorrias, G. Despinis, and A. Zarkadas (eds.), ΕΠΑΙΝΟΣ Luigi Beschi (Μουσείο Μπενάκη, suppl. 7) (Athens 2011), 204– 205, figs. 1–2. Athens, Acropolis Museum, NA-57-Aa792. © Acropolis Museum. Photo: Vangelis Tsiamis.

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graves of the unmarried, thereby allowing them to have in death something that they missed in real life. The lebes gamikos may have belonged to the bride’s dowry and contained unmixed wine and foods such as grain, thereby alluding to her safekeeping of food supplies for the home. The shape of the vessels speaks against the old interpretation that they contained bath waters. That they are sometimes shown or found as pairs may indicate that each refers to one member of the couple. In any case, they were clearly ceremonial objects meant to be displayed, for they are shown in some of the vase paintings with wedding scenes, where they are set on the ground holding branches. Other shapes that sometimes have wedding scenes include cups, kraters, epinitra, pyxides, amphorae, skyphoi, salt cellars, lekythoi, hydriai, and lekanides. The earliest red-figure loutrophoros of ca. 520–510 BC is possibly by the redfigure Pioneer, Phintias, and was found as a dedication on the Acropolis (Athens, Acropolis 636; fig. 9.3). On its neck is a sacrificial procession of males and females

Fig. 9.3.  Fragmentary Attic red-figure loutrophoros. A sacrificial procession accompanied by an aulist, men and women carrying branches, and a pig. Possibly by Phintias. Ca. 520–510 BC. Athens, National Archeological Museum, 636. After N. Kaltsas and H. A. Shapiro (eds.), Worshipping Women: Ritual and Reality in Classical Athens (Athens 2008), 257, bottom.



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holding branches and leading a pig to sacrifice. They are accompanied by a flute player. This may show the proteleia, a sacrifice that the couple offered on the eve of the first day to ensure their fertility. Deities to whom sacrifices were made on this day include Artemis, Aphrodite, Hera, the Tritopatores, the Furies, the first couple (Ouranos and Ge), and Athena. Bridal dedications could also include a lock of hair, wreaths, and the bride’s maiden belt. The latter may be what is referred to on a red-figure lekythos by the Achilles Painter in Syracuse (fig. 9.4). Artemis stands on the left holding bow and arrows in her left hand and a burning torch in the other, while across from her a woman unties her belt. This vase is a good example of where a mythological figure is joined to a scene from everyday life, thereby uplifting the scene to a heroic and/or divine level. On the evening of the first day the water for the bridal bath was brought in a procession to the bride’s home from the Enneakrounos fountain house for the Kallirrhoe Spring. This procession is featured already on a Proto-Attic loutrophoros from the last third of the seventh century BC and is also found later on both black-figure and red-figure loutrophoroi. One of the finest is on a red-figure loutrophoros in Karlsruhe attributed to Near the Naples Painter. Leading the procession here toward a herm, lit altar, and door is a boy playing auloi who is followed by a girl carrying a large loutrophoros (fig. 9.5a). Another woman with a torch follows, leading a young girl by the hand (fig. 9.5b). They are followed by a woman with krotola and another who leads the bride by the hand (fig. 9.5c). At the end stands a woman eyeing the procession before a column and wall with spout near the top, from which water in a difficult-to-see, faded white falls upon a base (fig. 9.5d). This is the Enneakrounos fountain house. The door from the start of the procession is joined in the picture to the fountain house wall, thereby completing the circuit. Doors are often used on vases to serve as both the starting and end points of a procession. The actual bath itself is very rarely depicted. On a red-figure pyxis in New York (fig. 9.6), it is combined with other moments and mythological figures, such as Eros, who pours water from a hydria over the head of the kneeling bride as she massages her wet hair. Thus, human and divine are here combined as they are elsewhere in the frieze decorating this vessel. In the next section, the bride ties her girdle as she puts on her dress. Meanwhile, further right, two women decorate a loutrophoros with ribbons. Next is a woman binding her hair. She may be the bride again, as might also be the case with the first of the three seated women in the architectural façade who has Eros seated on her lap. The middle-seated figure wearing a crown could be Aphrodite. The final woman bears no attributes, so it is

Fig. 9.4.  Attic red-figure lekythos. Bride adjusting her belt before Artemis, who holds a torch, bow, and arrows. Achilles Painter. Ca. 450–445 BC. Syracuse, Museo Archeologico Regionale, 21186. After MonAnt 17 (1906) pl. 8.

A

B

C

D

F ig. 9.5a–d.  Attic red-figure loutrophoros. The bride’s bathwater is being carried in a procession from the Enneakrounos fountain house to her home. Near the Naples Painter. Ca. 430 BC. Athens, German Archaeological Institute, D-DAI ATH-Athen Varia 752–755.

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Fig. 9.6.  Attic red-figure pyxis. Bride assisted by Eros bathes and then dresses in presence of gods. Unattributed. Ca. 430–420 BC. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1972.118 and 148. Bequest of Walter C. Baker, 1971. After J. H. Oakley and R. H. Sinos, The Wedding in Ancient Athens (Madison, WI, 1993), 58, fig. 13. Drawing reprinted from D. von Bothmer, Ancient Art from New York Private Collections (New York 1961), pl. 91.243.

uncertain who she is, but the vase painting as a whole combines the real and divine, as is often the case in wedding scenes. Only one vase, a hydria by the Leningrad Painter in Warsaw (fig. 9.7), shows the male’s nuptial bath. In the middle the groom crouches by a washing basin. On the far right a loutrophoros sits in a biconical container before a woman making a libation with her phiale. A chyrta (cooking vessel) heating water sits on a stand between her and another woman. The meaning of the latter’s gesture is not known. Behind the groom comes a woman with a mantle over her shoulder holding up an exaileptron, a vessel used for holding oil and perfume-based oil. This groom will be clean, well dressed, and nice to the smell. The final two women behind her carry lit torches, indicating that it is night. The next day, the gamos, saw the adornment of the bride, one of the two most popular scenes on the vases. She needed to be attractive to the groom so that their wedding night and marriage would be successful. The production of male children to carry on the oikos (family unit) was the goal. Various stages and elements in the adornment are shown on the vases, including the binding of her special bridal sandals (nymphides), the arrangement of her hair, the putting on of jewelry, and the placement of her veil and bridal crown (stephane). Often different moments in the adornment are combined into the same vase painting. The Washing Painter specialized in nuptial imagery and produced a line of wedding vases. One of his lebetes gamikoi in Athens (fig. 9.8) focuses on a seated bride in the center of the picture who binds her hair. An assistant supports herself on the back of the bride’s chair and another behind her carries a loutrophoros.

Fig. 9.7.  Attic red-figure hydria. A bridegroom bathes before the wedding ceremony. Leningrad Painter. Ca. 470 BC. Warsaw, National Museum, 142290.

Fig. 9.8.  Attic red-figure lebes gamikos. A bride binds her hair in the presence of Erotes and mortal assistants. Washing Painter. Ca. 430–420 BC. Athens, German Archaeological Institute, D-DAI ATH-Athen Varia 4712. Photo: Eva-Maria Czakó.

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Before the bride a third female companion stands holding a basket and ribbons. Two Erotes flutter about assisting in the adornment. The divine and mortal worlds are mixed here again. Interestingly, although the groom was dressed specially for the wedding ceremony, there are no depictions of him being adorned. It was very much the bride’s day in antiquity as it is today. On other of this vase painter’s wedding vases he shows the bride and her companions involved with music, an element that certainly helped ease any qualms that the bride might have about her wedding night and soon-to-be change in status in her new home. A good example in New York features the seated bride playing a harp (fig. 9.9) surrounded by other females carrying boxes, baskets, and a loutrophoros.

F ig. 9.9.  Attic red-figure lebes gamikos. A seated bride plays the harp surrounded by her assistants, one of whom holds a loutrophoros, the others a basket and/or chest. Washing Painter. Ca. 430–420 BC. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 07.286.35. Rogers Fund, 1907.



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A few lebetes gamikoi, such as one in Munich by the Washing Painter (fig. 9.10), show a seated bride among companions handling a young baby boy, one of whom receives the boy from the seated bride, and the one behind the latter holds a loutrophoros. The handling of the baby boy may have been meant to help encourage fertility and the production of male children. Behind the bride is another woman who pulls up a veil behind herself. She may be the nympheutria (maid-of-honor) or the bride again, for in some wedding scenes the bride appears several times at different moments of time in a composite (as on the pyxis in New York, fig. 9.6). The wreath and ribbon hanging in the background indicate that the house is decorated for the gamos. The unidentified, flying winged female deity underneath each handle is a common figure on lebetes gamikoi.

Fig. 9.10.  Attic red-figure lebes gamikos. A seated bride holds a baby boy with the hope that she will bear one herself. Washing Painter. Ca. 430–420 BC. Munich, Staatliche Antikensammlungen und Glyptothek München, 7578. Photo: Renate Kühling.

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Her exact identity is uncertain. The actual act of decorating the house is only very rarely depicted. The main event of the gamos was the wedding feast for relatives and friends, which was similar in form to the symposium except that males and females did not dine together at the same tables but separately. The feast was held most often in a house and sometimes at a shrine, and one or both families could sponsor it. Interestingly, despite its importance, we have no depictions of it, except in connection with the mythological wedding of Perithous and Hippodameia that resulted in a battle—the Centauromachy—between the drunken guest centaurs and the Lapiths, comrades of Perithous. One unique scene connected with the feast that we do have is on a fourthcentury BC red-figure lekanis lid (see fig. 1.20), which shows the preparation of the traditional sesame cakes for the feast amid pictures of bridal preparations. A young girl in chiton and sakkos mixes the dough in a white basin, beside which stands a hydria that holds the water for making the dough. On the right two well-dressed women flatten the paddies on a table. The one on the right examines a paddy that she holds up in her right hand. Eros flies above, holding a wreath and bracelet (?), thereby once again mixing the divine world with the real in nuptial iconography. Dance was an important part of the wedding ceremony, and wedding dances are shown on several vases. We have already seen a dancer with krotala among the members of the procession connected with the loutrophoria (fig. 9.5c). Other dancers appear in scenes connected with the wedding feast, the procession to the couple’s new home, the bridal chamber, and the Epaulia. The most complicated scene of a wedding dance occurs on a red-figure lebes gamikos in Myconos by the Syriskos Painter of ca. 470 BC (fig. 9.11). This multifigured image shows a line dance of fifteen led by the bride, who holds out her veil. The line goes right first, then doubles back to the left toward a woman playing a lyre. In the center, a young girl appears to have broken through the line. Is she lost, or is this part of the dance pattern? At the end of the feast, after the bride’s father had presented the groom with his bride, is probably when the anakalypteria took place, the ritual unveiling of the bride, when the groom saw her for the first time and when he presented her with his own gifts, the anakalypteria dora. A fragmentary red-figure loutrophoroshydria by the Phiale Painter (fig. 9.12) shows the event. In the center, seated across from each other, are the bride and youthful groom. The nympheutria, her prin­ cipal attendant, lifts her veil as she looks demurely down. The groom and pais

Fig. 9.11.  Attic red-figure lebes gamikos. Women at the wedding, dancing in a line to the music of a female lyre player. Syriskos Painter. Ca. 470 BC. Myconos, Museum, 970. After J. H. Oakley and R. H. Sinos, The Wedding in Ancient Athens (Madison, WI, 1991), 81, fig. 58.

F ig. 9.12a–b.  Attic red-figure loutrophoros-hydria. The seated bride and groom are showered with figs and other offerings in the rite known as the katachysmata as the bride is unveiled in the rite known as the anakalypteria. Women on the left bring the anakalypteria dora, the gifts of the groom to his bride. Phiale Painter. Ca. 430–425 BC. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 10.223. Julia Bradford Huntington James Fund and Museum purchase with funds donated by contribution. Height 18 cm (71/16 in.). © 2020 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

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amphithales (a boy with living parents) look on. In the center Eros descends from above with a ribbon. On the far right a woman holds up a basket of small objects and is in the process of pouring them over the couple. This is the katachysmata, a ritual pouring of dates, nuts, dried fruit, and figs marking the couple’s arrival at their new home. Thus, two moments in time are shown that immediately precede and follow the procession to their new home. The two women carrying a small wooden chest and basket decorated with ribbons, respectively, are probably holding part of the anakalypteria dora, the gifts of the groom to his bride. The wedding procession between the home of the bride and that of the groom was the most popular wedding scene, and it marked the transition in the life of the couple from bride and groom to husband and wife. The scene appears already in the seventh century and is by far the most popular wedding scene on black-figure vases. The red-figure scenes start in the late sixth century and continue into the fourth century. Often divine figures compose part of the image, and the couple is conveyed in a chariot, an element that was almost certainly not used in real weddings but one that further allows the scene to hover between mortal and divine. Different moments in the procession are shown, from start to the finish, culmi­ nating with the couple’s arrival at their new home. A marvelous black-figure lekythos of ca. 550 BC by the Amasis Painter in New York (fig. 9.13) shows a true-to-life country wedding, where the couple are seated in front beside each other on the first of two mule-drawn carts. The male seated behind them may be the parochos (best man) or the pais amphithales, who we saw on the loutrophoros with the anakalypteria and katachysmata (fig. 9.12a). This young boy was the son of living parents and played the role of an accompanier. What he holds is uncertain. A second cart following carries four men seated by twos, back to back, while other men and women accompany on foot. Most important is the woman with torches at front. She is the bride’s mother, who is about to be greeted by the woman with torches coming out the door of the house—the groom’s mother, the bride’s mother-in-law. Occasionally some of the red-figure procession scenes continue to employ a chariot or cart as the vehicle carrying the couple, but the most popular arrangement was the procession on foot called the chamaipous, where the groom is about to grab or already holds the wrist of the bride in the gesture referred to as the cheir’ epi karpo. A fragmentary red-figure loutrophoros by the Washing Painter in Athens (fig. 9.14) shows the groom about to grab the wrist of his bride, who stands facing him as the nympheutria behind her adjusts her veil. Eros playing a flute hovers between the bride and groom, while a woman carrying torches stands

F ig. 9.13a–b.  Attic blackfigure lekythos. Country wedding procession employing carts. Amasis Painter. Ca. 550 BC. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 56.11.1. Purchase, Walter C. Baker Gift, 1956.

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on the right. This must be the start of the procession after the anakaylypteria. The end, when the procession has arrived at the couple’s new home, is illustrated on a red-figure loutrophoros by the Sabouroff Painter in Copenhagen (fig. 9.15). The architectural structures pictured around each of the small handles, in coordination with the column and ribbons hanging on the walls, indicate the interior setting of their new home. The seated male aulos player provides music for the wedding songs, while the woman with torches, the groom’s mother, leads the couple. The groom holds his bride by the hand, and the nympheutria behind her adjusts the bride’s mantle. The added white for the face and feet of the bride is an unusual touch. A girl and woman carrying gifts complete the procession. Once inside their new home, the groom escorted his bride to the hearth of the house, where the katachysmata and other incorporation rituals took place. We have already seen the loutrophoros-hydria in Boston by the Phiale Painter on

F ig. 9.14.  Attic red-figure loutrophoros. Groom taking hold of his bride’s hand making ready to depart to their new home. Washing Painter. Ca. 430–420 BC. Athens, German Archaeological Institute, D-DAI ATH-Athen Varia 3840. Photo: Hermann Wagner.

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Fig. 9.15a–b.  Attic red-figure loutrophoros. Groom leading bride into new home where a seated youth plays auloi and the groom’s mother holding torches prepares to lead the way to the bridal chamber. Sabouroff Painter. Ca. 450–440 BC. Copenhagen, National Museum of Denmark, 9080. Photo: Nora Petersen. © National Museum of Denmark.

which the anakalypteria and katachysmata are rendered (fig. 9.12). An Attic whiteground pyxis in London of ca. 470–460 BC by the Splanchnopt Painter (fig. 9.16) shows a groom leading his bride cheir’ epi karpo toward a lit altar. Guiding them with lit torches is the groom’s mother. A youth playing the aulos provides music. Two scepter-holding women, most likely goddesses, provide a divine element, one of whom (Hestia) holds out a fruit, very likely the quince or apple eaten by the bride to freshen her breath before entering the bridal chamber (Plutarch Mor. 138d; Quaest. Rom. 279f.; Sol. 20). Filling out the scene are two more women, one of whom also bears torches. Their identities are uncertain. After the incorporation rituals were concluded, mainly at the hearth, the groom’s mother led the couple to the wedding chamber, the thalamos, which had been specially prepared for the couple. The actual preparation of the chamber is

Fig. 9.16a–b.  Attic white-ground pyxis. Groom leading bride to altar. Splanchnopt Painter. Ca. 470–460 BC. London, British Museum, D 11. © The Trustees of the British Museum.



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shown on two Attic black-figure vases, the more elaborate of which is a tripod kothon in Warsaw with the marriage of Herakles and Hebe (fig. 9.17). On one leg two women arrange the pillows of the marriage bed, while a third, most likely Hera, stands at the door holding torches. Let us return now to the unattributed red-figure loutrophoros in Boston showing the engye on the back of the vase with which we began this chapter (fig. 9.1). The main scene on the front and sides shows the groom leading his bride cheir’ epi karpo toward the bedroom door, the right half of which is partially open, revealing the marriage bed inside. A scabbard hangs on the wall, indicating this is a male’s bedroom. Between the couple and door is the groom’s mother who holds torches. Eros has popped out of the door and hovers by it, while the woman to the right raises her hands in surprise at the sudden appearance of this winged deity. Two more Erotes decorate the bride with a wreath and a necklace, and the nympheutria adjusts the bride’s veil. Behind her, two other women carry a range of

Fig. 9.17.  Attic black-figure tripod kothon. Women preparing Herakles’s wedding bed. Unattributed. Ca. 500 BC. Warsaw, National Museum, 142319.

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objects, including a small chest, bowl, fan, and exaileptron. Once the couple has entered and the door is closed, it was guarded by the thyrosos, who prevented any of the wedding guests from entering. They often were singing, telling jokes, and making movements as if they were going to break into the bedroom and disturb the couple. The next, and final, day of the wedding, the Epaulia, hopefully saw a successful wedding night and the cycle of procreation successfully initiated. Feasting along with songs and dances continued, and special gifts known as the Epaulia, from which the day gets its name, were presented to the bride and, in some accounts, to the groom as well. Eustathius’s commentary on Iliad 24.29, which quotes the lexicographer Pausanias, indicates that they were gifts to the bride in her new home brought by her father in a parade-like procession. He tells us that a child wearing a white cloak and carrying a lit torch led the procession, followed by a girl carrying a basket, and others who bore lekanides, unguents, clothing, combs, chests, alabastra, sandals, boxes, myrrh, soap, and sometimes the dowry. Many of these objects appear in scenes of the bride’s preparation, and often it is difficult to tell if a scene is one of bridal preparation or the Epaulia. Part of the scene on a red-figure pyxis in Berlin (fig. 9.18), however, corresponds closely with this description, as behind a seated bride stands a youth with a torch, a woman with a basket and chest, and another with a lekanis and lebes gamikos. They are followed by Eros carrying a loutrophoros, a female playing auloi, and another carrying two lebetes gamikoi. Filling out the rest of the frieze are two other moments in the wedding: the bearded groom leading his bride to the thalamos door and a shortened version of her bridal preparation, showing her seated and being adorned with a necklace by another Eros.

Fig. 9.18.  Attic red-figure pyxis. Three moments in the wedding: (1) adornment of the bride, (2) the Epaulia, and (3) the groom leading his bride to the thalamos door. Unattributed. Ca. 360–350 BC. Berlin, Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin— Preussischer Kulturbesitz, 3373. Drawing reprinted from JdI 15 (1900), pl. 2.

A

B Fig. 9.19a–c.  Attic red-figure calyx krater. A man seated in the upper register throws sandals after the wedding procession shown in the lower register, while a chariot is being prepared for the couple. Painter of the Athens Wedding. Ca. 410 BC. Athens, National Archeological Museum, 1388. Photo: Irini Miari. © Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports/Archaeological Receipts Fund.

C

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Wedding scenes that are combinations of different moments in the ceremony, as this, are very popular on Attic vases starting around 440 BC and continuing into the fourth century BC (e.g., figs. 9.1, 9.6, 9.12, 9.18). This is also the time when Eros becomes a popular figure in wedding pictures—indeed, sometimes he is the only figure shown with the bride—and a much wider range of wedding subjects are used. In general, the wedding is viewed more romantically, with the couple often looking demurely at one another, and sometimes the bride and groom even hold hands. The modesty and calm, dignified acceptance of the red-figure brides contrasts with the stiff, stately appearance of the couple in the black-figure scenes. Occasionally the vases show us something not mentioned in the literary sources. The best example of this is on the namepiece of the Painter of the Athens Wedding, a red-figure calyx krater of ca. 410 BC (fig. 9.19). The lower level of the picture shows the groom in a foot procession led by a woman with torches. She is the bride’s mother. He leads his bride by the wrist toward a flaming altar, and a chariot being outfitted with pillows stands by awaiting the couple. On the upper register are a female auloi player and three bearded men, the upper left most of whom has already thrown one sandal at the couple. He is in the process of letting loose a second. The first sandal is visible behind the bearded man at the end of the procession in the lower frieze. This is much like our modern custom of throwing rice or tying old shoes to the back of the couple’s getaway car. This vase is the only evidence for this custom. Thus not only can the vase paintings confirm what the literary sources tell us, but they can also add to the picture given in the literary sources, helping us to visualize events more clearly. And as a final observation, it is important to note that wedding motifs are often used in nonwedding scenes. So women being pursued by gods, for example, can be dressed as brides. REFERENCES For the Athenian wedding and vases, see J. H. Oakley and R. H. Sinos, The Wedding in Ancient Athens (Madison, WI, 1993). See also J. H. Oakley, “The Anakalypteria,” AA 97 (1982): 113–118; R. F. Sutton Jr., “On the Classical Athenian Wedding,” in R. F. Sutton (ed.), Daidalikon: Studies in Memory of Raymond V. Schoder, S.J. (Wauconda, IL, 1989), 331–359; R. Rehm, Marriage to Death: The Conflation of Wedding and Funeral Rituals in Greek Tragedy (Princeton, NJ, 1994), 11–21 and 30–42; A.-M. Vérilhac and C. Vial, Le marriage grec du VIe siècle av. J.C. à l’époque d’Auguste (BCH, suppl. 32) (Paris 1998); V. Sabetai, “Marriage Boiotian Style,” Hesperia 67 (1998): 323–334; S. Blundell, “Scenes from a Marriage: Viewing the Imagery on a lebes gamikos,” in S. Keay and S. Moser (eds.), Greek Art in View: Essays in Honor of Brian Sparkes (Oxford 2004), 39–53; A. C. Smith,



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Thesaurus Cultus et Rituum Antiquorum 6 (2011): 83–94; V. Sabetai, “Women’s Ritual Roles in the Cycle of Life,” in N. Kaltsas and A. Shapiro (eds.), Worshipping Women: Ritual and Reality in Classical Athens (New York 2008), 289–297. For loutrophoroi, see also J. Bergemann, “Die sogenannte Lutrophoros: Grabmal für unverheiratete Tote?,” AM 111 (1996): 149–190; Ch. Papadopoulou-Kanellopoulou, Ιερó της Νύμφηϛ. Μελανόμορφες Λουτροφόροι (Athens 1997) with an addenda in AAA 35–38 (2002–2005): 205–222; M. Kyrkou, Η Πρωτοτοαττική πρόκληση. Νέες κεραμικές μαρτυρίες, in J. H. Oakley, W. D. E. Coulson, and O. Palagia (eds.), Athenian Potters and Painters (Oxford 1997), 423–434; R. Mösch-Klingele, Die loutrophoros im Hochzeits- und Begräbnisritual des 5. Jahrhunderts v. Chr. in Athen (Bern 2006); V. Sabetai, “Marker Vase or Burnt Offering? The Clay Loutrophoros in Context,” in A. Tsingarida (ed.), Shapes and Uses of Greek Vases (7th–4th Centuries B.C.) (Brussels 2009), 291–306; K. KokkoVyridi, Μελανομορφα γαμήλια αγγεια από τις Πυρéς Θυσιών στο ιερό της Ελευσίνας (Athens 2010); R. Mösch-Klingele, Braut ohne Bräutigam: Schwarz- und rotfigurige Lutrophoren als Spiegel gesellschaftlicher Veränderungen in Athen (Mainz 2010); P. Hannah, “The Warrior loutrophoroi of Fifth-Century Athens,” in D. M. Pritchard (ed.), War, Democracy and Culture in Classical Athens (Cambridge 2010), 266–303; Μ. Κyrkou, “Πρωτοπορία και τέχνη στον αττικό Κεραμεικό,” in A. Delivorrias, G. Despinis, and A. Zarkadas (eds.), ΕΠΑΙΝΟΣ Luigi Beschi (Μουσείο Μπενάκη, suppl. 7) (Athens 2011), 201–211; V. Sabetai, “The Wedding Vases of the Athenians: A View from Sanctuaries and Houses,” Metis n.s. 12 (2014): 51–79. For wedding dances, see J. H. Oakley, Thesaurus Cultus et Rituum Antiquorum 2 (2004): 312–331; M. H. Delavaud-Roux, Les danses pacifiques en Grèce antique (Aix-enProvence 1994), 91–93; S. D. Bundrick, Music and Image in Classical Athens (Cambridge 2005), 180–184. For wedding motifs in nonwedding scenes, see J. H. Oakley, “Nuptial Nuances: Wedding Images in Non-Wedding Scenes of Myth,” in E. D. Reeder, Pandora: Women in Classical Greece (Baltimore and Princeton 1995), 63–73. For winged figures on lebetes gamikoi who may be divine messengers, having an apotropaic character, there to bless the marriage and serve as legendary bridal attendants, see G. Kavvadias, O Zographos tou Sabouroff (Athens 2000), 124–125; V. Sabetai, “Woman’s Ritual Roles in the Cycle of Life,” in N. Kaltsas and H. A. Shapiro (eds.), Worshipping Women: Ritual and Reality in Classical Athens (Athens 2008), 296; A. Aggelis, “Red-Figure Pottery of Ambracia in North-Western Greece,” in S. Schierup and V. Sabetai (eds.), The Regional Production of Red-Figure Pottery: Greece, Magna Graecia and Etruria (Aarhus 2014), 162.

chapter ten

T HE E N D OF L I F E At the Funeral

The funeral took place at three different locations. It started at home, then moved through the streets of Athens and Attica, and finally into the graveyards that lay alongside the major roads outside the city walls and gates. The home of the deceased was where the body was cleaned, scented, wrapped, and placed on a bier so that relatives could pay their last respects in the ceremony known as the prothesis (lying in state or wake). Where this took place exactly inside the house is uncertain, possibly in the main dining room (andron) or in the courtyard of the house, or perhaps in different locations depending on the season of the year and size of the house. The subject exists already on Late Mycenaean thirteenth-century BC painted clay larnakes from nearby Tanagra in Boeotia but starts in Athens on eighth-century Geometric vases. The most famous Geometric example is the nearly life-size, so-called Dipylon amphora (fig. 10.1), where on the front side, in the central panel between the handles, a silhouette corpse lies stiffly on a bier being revealed by stick figures raising up a checkered, covering cloth. Mourners of both sexes stand, sit, or kneel to either side with one or two hands to the head, the two most typical mourning gestures. The two figures with swords on the far left are clearly males, the two kneeling figures with dresses by the bier, females, but the sex of the others and the deceased is uncertain; the latter may be a woman wearing a dress or a male tightly wrapped in a funerary cloth (endyma). The small figure standing at the head of the bier and holding onto it is a child of uncertain sex. Other mourners on the vase and not shown here are by the handles and on the back panel. One senses that not only is the whole immediate family present but also many other friends and relatives. Later in the sixth century BC, sumptuary laws credited to the great lawgiver Solon greatly limited the size and expense of the funeral, as did 213

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Fig. 10.1.  Attic Geometric amphora. Prothesis. Namepiece of the Dipylon Master. Ca. 750 BC. Athens, National Archeological Museum, 804. National Archeological Museum, Athens, Greece/Bridgeman Images.

apparently another sumptuary law at the end of the sixth century and start of the fifth. Thus, on later Proto-Attic, black-figure, red-figure, and white-ground representations of the prothesis, the cast depicted is more limited. The actual handling of the corpse before being laid out is shown only on one white-ground lekythos in Berlin that is attributed to Near the Inscription Painter (fig. 10.2). On it a woman stands nearly frontally, holding the stiff corpse of a young boy nearly horizontally in her hands at her waist. Her head is turned to her left as she eyes the dead boy, who wears a red cloak and diadem. The sakkos hanging in the background indicates an interior setting. The simple two-figure composition underscores the loneliness of death in this emotionally packed picture. The black-figure representations of the prothesis far outnumber the red-figure and white-ground ones, and the subject was particularly popular on funerary vases, such as loutrophoroi, phormiskoi, and pinakes. A black-figure pinax in the Louvre by the Sappho Painter (pl. 31) gives us one of our fullest depictions. The dead man laid out on a kline is surrounded by his relatives, and the exact relationship to the



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Fig. 10.2.  Attic white-ground lekythos. Woman carrying the corpse of a young boy. Near the Inscription Painter. Ca. 460 BC. Berlin, Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin—Preussischer Kulturbesitz, F 2247. After CVA, Berlin 8, Germany 62, p. 24, fig. 2.

deceased is inscribed for many of the figures. At the head of the bed stand his mother, who touches the dead man’s head with her right hand, his grandmother, who cradles her own head, and his little sister, who mourns with raised arms as do all the other women: three aunts, one of whom is labeled as coming from the father’s side, along with a teenage woman near the foot of the bed. At the foot also stands a young boy and the father of the deceased, who faces left, greeting the other approaching male participants with raised and extended arm: the valediction, or farewell gesture, is also made by the other bearded males approaching. One of them is labeled as brother. On white lekythoi (also referred to as white-ground lekythoi) with the pro­ thesis the number of figures shown surrounding the bier is greatly reduced and normally number from one to three. A large lekythos from the Group of the Huge Lekythoi (fig. 10.3) with polychrome painting has three figures surrounding a dead youth. An old man, the boy’s father, stands gesticulating at the head of the

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Fig. 10.3.  Attic white-ground lekythos. Prothesis. Group of the Huge Lekythoi. Ca. 400 BC. Berlin, Staatliche Museen, Antikensammlung, F 2684. After E. Pfuhl, Malerei und Zeichnung der Griechen (Munich 1923), fig. 553.

bed, his right arm bent over his head, his left extended toward the dead youth. The boy’s mother in the middle bends over, extending both hands toward the boy’s head, while a second woman carrying a funerary basket in one hand gestures with the other. Near to the ribbon hanging in the background flies a small stick-like figure, an eidolon representing the departing soul of the deceased. An interesting detail is the white-ground lekythos sitting on the floor by the bed, just as related in Aristophanes’s Ecclesiazousae 537–38 and 1030–1032. It reminds the viewer also of the oil and perfume used to anoint the dead. A black-figure bail-handled oinochoe (one with an overarching handle) by the Sappho Painter (fig. 10.4) is the only vase known to show the corpse being placed into the coffin, the next stage of the funeral to be represented on Attic vases. In the middle of the figural decoration a woman and bearded man lower the corpse of a bearded man wrapped in an endyma into a wooden coffin shaped as a chest. A shield hanging above indicates that the action is most likely taking place in the andron of the house, and the two lit lamps hanging from the ceiling indicate that it is still night. Mourners stand to either side of the chest, and behind them on

A

B

Fig. 10.4a–c.  Attic black-figure bail-handled oinochoe. Male corpse being placed into his coffin. Sappho Painter. Ca. 500–490 BC. Brunswick, ME, Bowdoin College Museum of Art, 1984.023.

C

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the left stands a carpenter with an axe over his shoulder and a woman bending over to pick up a funerary basket loaded with four lekythoi. These are to be placed on the tomb or buried with the man. The carpenter is there to put on the lid. Meanwhile, behind her a young girl attempts to comfort an elderly, seated man (her grandfather?) who leans over, mourning with raised left arm. Near them are two other mourning women, the left one of whom appears to be crying. A final group of figures consisting of two male vessel holders and a woman standing before them follows. One carries a hydria, but what exactly the other male carries is uncertain. Possibly these figures are to be connected with the perideipnon, the funerary feast that took place the day after the burial, but more likely they are to be associated with the prosphagma, a sacrifice made at home before going to the grave or at the grave. The inscriptions filling much of the background are mainly unintelligible, except for the one by the head of the man lowering the corpse into the coffin. He appears to be saying “hold me very gently.” Before daybreak on the third day after death, the corpse was brought to the graveyard in a procession known as the ekphora through the city or deme’s streets. The subject first appears on Late Geometric vases and later in black-figure, but it

F ig. 10.5.  Attic onehandled black-figure kantharos. Dancing warriors. Class of the One-Handled Kantharoi. Ca. 510 BC. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, BN 355.



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is rare. A pair of unique black-figure, one-handled kantharoi show an ekphora on one side and dancing warriors on the other (fig. 10.5, pl. 32). On one kantharos the corpse is borne on a cart drawn by mules toward a large block-shaped, white grave monument, with a mourning man and women accompanying the vehicle; on the other the corpse is carried on the shoulders of four straining men toward a similar grave monument, accompanied by two mourning women, a youth on horseback, and an old man. Perhaps the first represents the procession on the way from home to the cemetery and the other the last bit from roadside to the grave proper. The warriors dancing to the flute music may be meant to symbolize the city’s last homage to a deceased fellow warrior. The actual lowering of the corpse into the grave is shown only on a black-figure loutrophoros by the Sappho Painter of ca. 490 BC (fig. 10.6). Visible at the bottom of the scene are the arms and heads of two men in the ground who reach up to guide the coffin into the hole of the grave in which they stand. Two other men, one to either side of the hole, let the coffin down gently. The right-hand one holds out a cloth (a ritual gesture? a shroud or a funerary gift?) in his right hand. Once the corpse was laid to rest in the ground, gifts such as wreaths, ribbons, lekythoi, and other vessels were placed at the grave on regular visits. Preparing to visit the grave or visiting it were by far the most popular images on white lekythoi, but the earliest picture of mourning at the grave is found on the neck of the Sappho Painter’s loutrophoros. Here, a mourning woman stands to either side of a large tymbos (grave mound of earth) with a loutrophoros atop it. A snake slithers at the bottom of the mound and a now mostly lost inscription running around it gives us an epigram: “I lie here a wretched rag of a dead man.” Four eidola painted white fly about. A procession of mourning women carrying containers fills the neck on the other side of the vessel. They are probably best thought of as part of the same scene. Filling out the vase’s full funerary program is the prothesis of a youth shown on the other side of the body. About a quarter of a century later the visit to the grave first appears on white lekythoi, and by the middle of the century it is by far the most popular scene on this funerary vase par excellence. It replaces the prothesis as the preferred moment to show on Athenian funerary vases. A few red-figure vases also display the subject. The white lekythoi cease being made around the end of the fifth century when Athens lost out to Sparta and her allies in the Peloponnesian War (431–403 BC), perhaps because of the immediate post-wartime conditions. Different moments are shown on the lekythoi, including preparations in the home for the visit to the grave, as is the case with the outfitting of a funerary basket with ribbons, wreaths,

F ig. 10.6a–b.  Attic black-figure loutrophoros. Coffin being placed in grave. Sappho Painter. Ca. 490 BC. Athens, National Archeological Museum, 450. Photo: Irini Miari. © Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports/Archaeological Receipts Fund.

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Fig. 10.7.  Attic whiteground lekythos. Two women preparing a funerary basket. Timokrates Painter. Ca. 470– 460 BC. Athens, National Archeological Museum, 450. Photo: Irini Miari. © Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports/Archaeological Receipts Fund.

and vases pictured on a white lekythos by the Timokrates Painter (fig. 10.7). Mourners on their way to the grave are shown both alone—as the two women with funerary baskets rendered on a white lekythos attributed to Near the Timo­ krates Painter, whose colors are beautifully preserved (pl. 33)—and as they mourn at the grave. On one of the Inscription Painter’s namepieces (fig. 10.8), a weeping woman dabs away the tears from her eye with her mantle while holding out a sakkos that she offers as a grave gift in the other hand. The woman to the right of the stele, which stands in the middle and has stoichedon-like strokes imitating an inscription, holds out a funerary basket decked out with ribbons and pomegranates. In some cases the visitors are shown decorating the grave, as the youth and woman do to the two graves on a white lekythos attributed to the Vouni Painter (fig. 10.9): the woman on the left is preparing to attach a ribbon, the boy on the

F ig. 10.8a–b.  Attic whiteground lekythos. Woman crying at the grave. Inscription Painter. Ca. 460–450 BC. Athens, National Archeological Museum, 1958. Photo: Irini Miari. © Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports/ Archaeological Receipts Fund.

Fig. 10.9a–b.  Attic whiteground lekythos. Woman and youth placing offerings at graves. Vouni Painter. Ca. 460 BC. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 35.11.5. Purchase, Anonymous Gift, 1935.

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other side makes set to finish making the wreath that he holds by tying the ends. He will then attach it to the grave. Other offerings have already been made there: a strigil, aryballos, halteres, ribbons, and wreaths. In a few cases the figures are rendered in the act of libating, as on a white lekythos by the Woman Painter (fig. 10.10), where a woman with disheveled hair makes ready to pour liquid from the hydria she holds out into the phiale in the extended right hand of the woman across from her on the other side of the grave. The latter holds a funerary basket in her other hand. One of the major problems with interpreting these grave scenes is determining whether or not one of the figures represents the deceased making an epiphany at the grave. In some cases the answer is clearly yes, and in others, as on the Inscription Painter’s vase, the answer is clearly no. The occasional white lekythos

F ig. 10.10.  Attic whiteground lekythos. Women making a libation at a grave. Woman Painter. Ca. 420 BC. Karlsruhe, Badisches Landesmuseum, B 1528.



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has a mythological scene and/or figures, and a fair number show the mythological ministers of death: Hermes, Charon, Hypnos, and Thanatos. But these are not scenes of daily life, so we will not review them here. As for the scenes of a visit to the grave, some are also combined with other daily life activities such as hunting, arming, games, and pouring libations, subjects discussed elsewhere in this volume. On these, the past and present are represented, reflecting the type of memories one might have when visiting a family member’s or friend’s grave. Another major problem with the white lekythoi is determining the visual sources for the grave monuments depicted on them. Large-scale gravestones as on the lekythoi ceased marking the graves of private Athenians around 490– 480 BC and do not appear again in Athens until ca. 440 BC, a fact that some scholars would like to connect with the so-called post aliquando law mentioned by Cicero (De Legibus 2.26 and 64–65). This decree limited the size, cost, and decoration of funerary monuments and is of uncertain date, falling between the reforms of Solon in the early sixth century BC and those of Demetrios of Phaleron in 317 BC. Grave scenes showing a tymbos, as that in the first column on the left of fig. 10.11, appear to be based on actual graves of the type found and excavated in Athenian graveyards. Others, however, seem to be fanciful constructs of the vase painters, like those in the column on the far right of fig. 10.11. Other possible explanations that have been offered are that they are based on monuments made of wood and now lost or modeled on grave monuments in the state burial ground, the Demosion Sema; or they may have been based on gravestones from the Cycladic islands or earlier, Archaic Attic ones that were still preserved; or some combination of the above. Also pictured on occasion are funerary altars, sarcophagi, statues, and stone vases. A good example of the latter is the large lekythos on a base visited by a warrior and his companion and rendered on an unattributed lekythos of 420 BC (fig. 10.12). Large stone lekythoi were now marking some graves in Athens, and this vase painting appears to show one of them. Unique is the image on a lekythos of ca. 464 BC in Athens (fig. 10.13) showing two men at a very broad stele with a partially preserved three-line metrical inscription, apparently a funerary elegiac couplet with the theme of air and earth and referring to two and possibly more men buried in the grave (brothers or close friends?). The man to the right of the tomb holds a diptych in his right hand and writes on it with a stylus. He is probably meant to be conceived of as copying the inscription on the stele: a fascinating image of the interplay between reader/visitor and the inscription on the tomb.

Fig. 10.11.  Nakayama’s typology of Attic grave monuments on white lekythoi. After J. H. Oakley, Picturing Death in Classical Athens: The Evidence of the White Lekythoi (Cambridge 2004), 193, fig. 154.

Fig. 10.12a–b.  Attic whiteground lekythos. Youths by a grave with a large lekythos atop. Unattributed. Ca. 420 BC. Ithaca, NY, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, 77.052. Transferred from University Collections. Photo courtesy of the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University.

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Fig. 10.13.  Attic white-ground lekythos. Visitors to a grave, one of whom is copying the inscription on a grave stele. Unattributed. Ca. 464 BC. Athens, Third Ephoreia, 2569. After a drawing by Th. Kakarougka: see Olga E. Tzachou-Alexandri, “Πέντε αθηναïκές λήκυθοι της πρώιμης κλασικής περιόδου,” in E. Konsolake-Giannopoulou (ed.), EΠAΘLON. Αρχαιολογικο Συνέδριο προς τιμήν του Αδώνιδος Κ. Κύρου. Πόρος, 7–9 Iouνiou 2002 (Athens 2007), 448, drawing 3.

REFERENCES For the funeral and vases in general, see D. C. Kurtz, “Vases for the Dead, an Attic Selection, 750–400 BC,” in H. A. G. Brijder (ed.), Ancient Greek and Related Pottery: Proceedings of the International Vase Symposium in Amsterdam 12–15 April 1984 (Amsterdam 1984), 314–328; J. H. Oakley, “Women in Athenian Ritual and Funerary Art,” in N. Kaltsas and A. Shapiro (eds.), Worshipping Women: Ritual and Reality in Classical Athens (New York and Athens 2008), 335–341; J. H. Oakley, “Death and the Child,” in J. Neils and J. H. Oakley (eds.), Coming of Age in Ancient Greece: Images of Childhood from the Classical Past (New Haven, CT, 2003), 163–194. For Greek burial customs in general, see D. C. Kurtz and J. Boardman, Greek Burial Customs (Ithaca, NY, 1971). For mourning, see H. A. Shapiro, “The Iconography of Mourning in Athenian Art,” AJA 95 (1991): 621–656. For the painted Mycenaean larnakes, see V. Aravantinos, The Archaeological Museum of Thebes (Athens 2010), 100–123; see 114 for the prothesis. For the prothesis and ekphora, see G. Ahlberg-Cornell, Prothesis and Ekphora in Greek Geometric Art (Göteborg 1971); H. Laxander, Individuum und Gemeinschaft im Fest.



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Untersuchungen zu attischen Darstellungen von Festgeschehen im 6. und frühen 5. Jahrhundert v. Chr (Münster 2000), 75–124, 189–205. For mourning in Greek art, see I. Huber, Die Ikonographie der Trauer in der griechischen Kunst (Manheim and Möhnsee 2001). For bail oinochoai, see J. H. Oakley, “Bail Oinochoai,” in J. M. Barringer and J. M. Hurwit (eds.), Periklean Athens and Its Legacy (Austin, TX, 2005), 13–21. For the loutrophoros by the Sappho Painter, see W. E. Closterman, “The Sappho Painter’s Loutrophoros Amphora,” The Classical Bulletin 83, no. 1 (2007): 49–63; E. Stasinopoulou-Kakarouga in N. Kaltsas and A. Shapiro (eds.), Worshipping Women: Ritual and Reality in Classical Athens (New York and Athens 2008), 344–345, cat. nos. 153–154. For the one-handled kantharoi, see C. Bérard, “The Order of Women,” in C. Bérard et al., A City of Images: Iconography and Society in Ancient Greece, translated by D. Lyons (Princeton, NJ, 1989), 104–105, figs. 145–146. For white lekythoi, see D. C. Kurtz, Athenian White Lekythoi: Patterns and Painters (Oxford 1975); and J. H. Oakley, Picturing Death in Classical Athens: The Evidence of the White Lekythoi (Cambridge 2004). For grave monuments, see N. Nakayama, Untersuchung der auf weissgrundigen Lekythen dargestellten Grabmaeler (Freiburg 1982). For the lekythos with the funerary epigram, see O. E. Tzachou-Alexandri, “Πεντε Αθηναϊκες Ληκυθοι της Πρωιμης κλασικης Περιοδου,” in Eleni Kovsolaki-Giannopoulou (ed.), ΕΠΑΘΛΟΝ. Αρχαιολογικο Συνεδριο προς Τιμήν του Αδώνιδος Κ. Κύρου Πορος, 7–9 Ιουνιου 2002 (Athens 2007), 421–431, 447–448 drawings 2 and 3, 454–460 figs. 8–15, and 475–477, with an addendum by A. P. Matthaiou and G. K. Papadopoulos on the inscription.

Glossary

Agora—marketplace and civic center of Athens akmotheton—anvil akon—javelin alabastra—cylindrical oil/perfume container alopekis—fox-skinned Thracian hat amphora—transport/storage jars amphoriskos—small amphora anaforon—long pole anakalypteria—ritual unveiling of the bride anakalypteria dora—groom’s gifts to his bride andron—men’s dining room ankyle—leather thong for throwing javelin Anthesteria—an Athenian spring festival of Dionysos anthippasia—a mock cavalry battle apene—mule race apobates—runners who jumped in and out of a moving chariot Archon Basileus—the royal archon aryballos—small oil container astragoloi—knucklebones aulete—player of the double pipes aulist—one playing an aulos (double pipes) aulode—singer to double pipes aulos—double pipes baldric—belt for sword placed across chest and running from a shoulder to the opposite hip bater—starting line bema—speaker’s platform 231

232

Glossary

bomos—altar booners—symposiasts dressed as easterners boukranion—cattle skull chamaipous—wedding procession on foot cheir’ epi karpo—gesture of groom taking bride by the wrist chernips—metal container for cleansing one’s hands before a sacrifice chitoniskos—short, light garment chlamys—short cloak chous—jug chyrta—kettle for heating water cuirass—upper body armor diaulos—foot race of two stadium lengths die—one of two metallic pieces used to strike a coin difthera—furry pelt dinos—ovoid mixing bowl diphros—backless stool distaff—stick or spindle around which wool is wound dokimasia—Athenian inspection of horses dolichos—long-distance race on foot doubleen—amphora with double handles dromos—race track eidolon—stick-like figure representing the soul of the deceased ekphora—funerary procession to the grave embades—Thracian fawn-skin boots endyma—funerary cloth for wrapping the body engye—marriage agreement between the groom and the bride’s father Enneakrounos—a nine-headed fountain house with spring whose exact location in Athens is debated Epaulia—final day of the wedding ependytes—short, fancy female dress ephedrismos—game involving carrying one’s opponent piggyback erastes—older male lover eromenos—younger male lover eschara—shallow brazier with stand euandria—beauty contest for men exaileptron—vessel for perfume-based oil flan—flat disc of metal onto which dies of a coin are impressed gamos—wedding gorytos—Scythian bow case grammata—letters grammatistes—teacher of letters and writing



Glossary

greaves—armor for shins gymnastike—gymnastics halma—long jump halteres—jumping weights harpe—scythe herm—statue having head of Hermes and square pillar for a body, to which male genitals are attached hetaera—prostitute/female companion hieroskopia—examination of entrails himantes—hand guards for boxers hippodrome—race track for horses hoplitodromos—race of men wearing armor hydria—water jug hypodidaskalos—assistant teacher hysplex—starting mechanism for both horse and foot races kados—one-piece pot with bail handle and wide mouth kalathos—wool basket kalkeus—smith Kallirrhoe Spring—spring that fed the Enneakrounos fountain house kampter—turning post in hippodrome for a chariot race kanephoros—person carrying a basket kanoun—basket used for carrying sacrificial implements katachysmata—marriage ritual where a basket of fruits and nuts is poured over the wedding couple keles—race on horseback Kerameikos—potters’ quarters in Athens kibisis—bag for holding Medusa’s head kithara—a stringed musical instrument with a wooden body that is related to the lyre kitharistes—music teacher kitharist—kithara player kitharode—singer accompanying himself on the kithara kline—bed, couch klismos—backed chair komasts—participants in a komos komos—riotous procession home or to the next party kothornoi—actor’s boots kottabos—male drinking game involving the casting of wine dregs krater—vessel for mixing wine and water krateriskos—small krater krotola—castanets

233

234

Glossary

kyathoid—shaped like a kyathos, a ladle-like dipper with a looping handle and tapering bowl kyathos—a cup-shaped ladle kynodesme—the tying closed of the foreskin of a penis lagabolon—club used for hunting hares lampadedromia—torch race lebes gamikos—wedding bowl lekane, lekanis—flat bowl with two horizontal handles that is often lidded lekythos—oil/perfume container lenos—tub-shaped press for grapes linothorax—upper body armor made from linen louterion—water/washing basin loutrophoros—ovoid-bodied vessel with tall neck and two or three handles machaira—sword with a curved blade mageiros—cook metic—resident alien mousike—music narthex—staff of fennel employed to punish and to beat musical time nympheutria—primary bridal attendant nymphides—bridal sandals oikos—Greek home, including the house, its family members, and possessions oinochoe—jug osphys—ox’s tail paidagogos—caretaker of young, male children pais amphithales—a boy with living parents who played an accompanying role in the wedding palestra—grounds for wrestling Panathenaic Way—most important Athenian road that runs through the Agora up to the Acropolis pankration—a fight with no holds barred, except for biting and gouging parochos—best man in wedding pelike—amphora with a sagging body pelta—crescent-shaped shield peltast—lightly armed troops pentathlete—participant in the pentathlon pentathlon—an athletic competition consisting of five events perideipnon—funerary banquet perizoma—loin cloth petasos—a broad-brimmed hat phalanx—a body of ranks and files of heavily armed infantry phiale—libation bowl



Glossary

235

phormiskos—vessel in form of a small sack/bag pilos—tight-fitting cap pinakes—painted clay plaques pithos—storage jar pompe—sacrificial procession proaulia—first day of the wedding progamia dora—pre-gamos gifts prosphagma—sacrifice made at home before visiting the grave proteleia—sacrifices by the bride and groom on the eve of the first day of the wedding prothesis—the lying in state of the deceased psykter—wine cooler pyrrhic dancers—dancers dressed in military garb doing a war dance pyrriche—armed dance pyxis—small container/box for holding jewelry or cosmetics rhabdos—rod or staff rhapsode—a professional reciter of epic poetry; one who stitches a song together roves—slightly worked piece of wool sakkos—snood salpinx—war trumpet salt cellar—small bowl or dish for holding salt semeia—marker skamma—pit with softened earth for athletes to land in when jumping skeparnon—adze; ax-like cutting tool skyphe—large flattish basket used to carry offerings skyphos—two-handled deep drinking cup sophrosyne—morality, restraint, common sense sphageion—large basin used to collect blood at a sacrifice sphagia—animal blood sacrifice spindle—rod around which wool/flax are worked splanchnoptai—youths holding long spits for cooking meat and innards at a sacrifice stade—foot race covering one stadium’s length; the sprint stamnos—jar for mixing wine and water stephane—bridal crown stoichedon—style of writing inscriptions on stone with capital letters aligned vertically and horizontally strigil—implement for scraping sweat, dust, and oil from athlete’s body after exercising symposiast—participant at a symposium symposium—a male drinking party systasis—starting pose of a wrestler tethrippon—four-horse chariot race thalamos—bridal bed chamber

236

Glossary

thalloi—bearers of olive branches thulemata—barley meal thymiaterion—incense burner thyrosos—guardian of the door to the bridal chamber thysia—sacrifice tondo—round, normally decorated area on the inside of a cup tripod kothon—vessel with three legs for holding perfumed oil trittoia—sacrifice involving three animals: cow, pig, and goat tropian—trophy tymbos—mound of earth covering grave xoana—simple, column-like cult image xystis—charioteer’s garb zeira—long, patterned Thracian cloak

Index

AT H E N I A N VA S E PA I N T E R S A N D P OT T E R S

Cage Pt, 15, fig. 1.9 Carpenter Pt, 41, 164, fig. 1.44; 144–146, fig. 7.17; 58, fig. 2.12 Castellani Pt, 26, fig. 1.26 Charias Pt, 173, fig. 8.7 Chicago Pt, 82, fig. 3.13; 175–176, fig. 8.10 Circle of Polygnotos, 10, fig. 1.4 Class of Hamburg 1917.477, 72, fig. 3.1 Class of the One-Handled Kantharoi, 219, fig. 10.5, pl. 32 Codrus Pt, 138, fig. 7.9; 156–157, fig. 7.30 Crawling Boy Workshop, 34, fig. 1.36

Achilles Pt, 172, 193, fig. 9.4 Aegisthus Pt, 42, fig. 1.45 Akestorides Pt, 24, fig. 1.23; 105–106, fig.5.2 Alkimachos Pt, 28, fig. 1.28; 135, fig. 7.5 Amasis Pt, 12, fig. 1.5; 168, 170, fig. 8.4; 202–203, fig. 9.13 Ambrosias Pt, 95, fig. 4.12 Analatos Pt, 147–148, fig. 7.20 Ancona Pt, 80, fig. 3.10 Antimenes Pt, 85, pl. 14; 122, fig. 6.10; 147– 148, fig. 7.19 Antiphon Pt, 50, fig. 2.3; 52, fig. 2.5; 158, fig. 7.31 Appollodoros, 14, 16, fig. 1.11; 180, pl. 29 Berlin Pt, 142–143, fig. 7.14; 153–154, fig. 7.26 Boreas Pt, 62, fig. 2.16 Bosanquet Pt, 17, fig. 1.12 Bowdoin Pt, 82, fig. 3.12 Briseis Pt, 36, fig. 1.39 Brygos Pt, 10, fig. 1.3; 26, fig. 1.25; 161–162, fig. 7.35 Bucci Pt, 85, 99, pl. 16; 99–100, fig. 4.18 C Painter, 155, fig. 7.28; 175–177, fig. 8.9, fig. 8.11

Dikaios Pt, 163–164, fig. 7.36 Dipylon Master, 213–214, fig. 10.1 Dokimasia Pt, 167, 169, fig. 8.2 Douris, 13, fig. 1.6; 60, fig. 2.14; 62, fig. 2.17; 104, fig. 5.1; 140, 142, fig. 7.13; 156–157, fig. 7.29; 168, 171, fig. 8.5 Dwarf Pt, 76, fig. 3.6 Edinburgh, Pt, 15, pl. 3 Eleusinian Pt, 22, fig. 1.20 Epeleios Pt, 119, fig. 6.7 Epiktetos, 56, fig. 2.10; 178–179, fig. 8.15 Epimedes Pt, 152–153, fig. 7.25

237

238 Eretria Pt, 30, fig. 1.32 Euaichme Pt, 160–161, fig. 7.33 Eucharides Pt, 57, pl. 11; 139, pl. 23; 149, fig. 7.21; 168, 170, fig. 8.3 Euergides Pt, 89, fig. 4.5; 90, fig. 4.6 Euphiletos Pt, 146–147, fig. 7.18 Euphronios, 153–155, fig. 7.27 Exekias, 183, fig. 8.20 Florence Pt, 35, fig. 1.37 Foundry Pt, 11, pl. 2; 38, fig. 1.41; 52, 54, pl. 10; 54–56, fig. 2.8, fig. 2.9 Gales Pt, 117, fig. 6.4 Gallatin Pt, 59, fig. 2.13 Group E, 97, fig. 4.14 Group of Boston 10.190, 19, fig. 1.16 Group of Polygnotos, 28, fig. 1.29; 121, fig. 6.9 Group of the Huge Lekythoi, 215–216, fig. 10.3 Group of the Perseus Dance, 123, fig. 6.11 Group of Vienna 895, 64, fig. 2.19 Hermogenes, 150–151, fig. 7.23 Inscription Pt, 221, fig. 10.8; Near the Inscription Pt, 214–215, fig. 10.2 Keyside Class, 53, fig. 2.6 Kleophon Pt, 172–175, fig. 8.6 Kleophrades Pt, 149–150, fig. 7.22; Near the Kleophrades Pt, 156, pl. 26 Komaris Pt, 51, fig. 2.4 Kuban Group, 137, fig. 7.8; 147, pl. 24; 150, 167, pl. 25 Leagros Group, 48, pl. 8 Leningrad Pt, 18, fig. 1.13; 196–197, fig. 9.7 Lewis Pt, 158–159, fig. 7.32

Index Lydos, 132–133, fig. 7.1; 180–181, fig. 8.17 Lykaon Pt, 35, fig. 1.38 Makron, 113, pl. 18; 113–114, fig. 6.1 Manner of the Bowdoin Painter, 66, pl. 12 Manner of the Meidias Painter, 17, fig. 1.14 Manner of the Niobid Painter, 108, fig. 5.5 Manner of the Peleus Painter, 127, fig. 6.15 Manner of the Princeton Painter, 94, fig. 4.11 Marsyas Pt, 150–151, fig. 7.24 Meidias Pt, 27, fig. 1.27 Menelaos Pt, 21, fig. 1.18 Naples Pt, 110, fig. 5.7; 193, 195, fig. 9.5 Niketes, 140, fig. 7.11 Nikomachos Series, 137, fig. 7.7 Nikosthenes Potter, 136, fig. 7.6 Niobid Pt, 87, fig. 4.2 Oinokles Pt, 31, fig. 1.33; 173–174, fig. 8.8 Oinophile Pt, 178–179, fig. 8.14 Onesimos, 29, fig. 1.30; 79, fig. 3.8; 90, pl. 17; 167–168, fig. 8.1; 180–181, fig. 8.16, fig. 8.18 Painter N, 93, fig. 4.9 Painter of Athens 12592, 138–139, fig. 7.10 Painter of Berlin 1686, 23, pl. 20; 161–162, fig. 7.34 Painter of Bologna 417, 107, fig. 5.3 Painter of London B 620, 92, fig. 4.8 Painter of London D 20, 14, fig. 1.8 Painter of Munich 8742, 20, fig. 1.17 Painter of Nicosia C 975, 66, fig. 2.21 Painter of the Athens Wedding, 209, fig. 9.19 Painter of the Yale Lekythos, 25, fig. 1.24 Painter of the Yale Oinochoe, 88, fig. 4.3 Painter of Toledo, 78, pl. 13 Painter of Vatican G 49, 177–178, fig. 8.12

Index



Pan Pt, 23, fig. 1.22; 26, fig. 1.25; 120, fig. 6.8 Penthesilea Pt, 81, fig. 3.11 Pharos Pt, related to, 40, 164, fig. 1.43 Pheidippos, 142–144, fig. 7.16 Phiale Pt, 42, pl. 7; 73, fig. 3.2; 74, fig. 3.3; 107, fig. 5.4; 124, fig. 6.12; 134, fig. 7.4; 132, 168, pl. 22; 201, fig. 9.12 Phintias (possibly), 61, fig. 2.15 Phrynos Pt, 160, pl. 27 Pig Pt, 93, fig. 4.10; 192–193, fig. 9.3 Plousios Pt, 53, fig. 2.7 Polion, 126, pl. 21 Polygnotos, 75, fig. 3.4 Princeton Pt, 19, fig. 1.15 Proto-Panaition Group, 52, 54, pl. 9 Psiax, 175, pl. 28 Sabouroff Pt, 43, fig. 1.46; 204, fig. 9.15 Sandal Pt, 111, fig. 5.8 Sappho Pt, 214, pl. 31; 216–217, fig. 10.4; 219–220, fig. 10.6 Schuvalov Pt, 39, pl. 5 Sosias, 183–184, fig. 8.21 Splanchnopt Pt, 205–206, fig. 9.16 Syriskos Pt, 30, fig. 1.31; 200–201, fig. 9.11 Swing Pt, 22, fig. 1.19; 77, fig. 3.7 Taleides Pt, 49, fig. 2.2; 67, fig. 2.22 Thalia Pt, 39, fig. 1.42 Theozotos, 91, fig. 4.7

239

Theseus Pt, 47–48, fig. 2.1 Timokrates Pt, 32, 42, pl. 4; 221, fig. 10.7; Near the Timokrates Pt, 221, pl. 33 Tleson, 98, fig. 4.16 Trophy Pt, 183, 185, fig.8.22 Tyrrhenian Group, 141, fig. 7.12 unattributed: 8, fig. 1.1; 9, fig. 1.2; 13, fig. 1.7; 16, fig. 1.10; 23, fig. 1.21; 32, fig. 1.34; 32, 42, pl. 1, pl. 6; 57, fig. 2.11; 63, fig. 2.18; 65, fig. 2.20; 76, fig. 3.5; 85, pl. 15; 86, fig. 4.1; 89, fig. 4.4; 96, fig. 4.13; 98, fig. 4.15; 99, fig. 4.17; 111, fig. 5.9; 115, fig. 6.2; 116, fig. 6.3; 117, fig. 6.5; 118, fig. 6.6; 122, pl. 19; 125, fig. 6.13; 126, fig. 6.14; 133, fig. 7.2; 134, fig. 7.3; 143, fig. 7.15; 178, fig. 8.13; 180, 182, fig. 8.19; 182, pl. 30; 183, fig. 8.23; 186, fig. 8.24; 189–190, fig. 9.1; 193–196, fig. 9.6, fig. 9.8; 198, fig. 9.9; 199, fig. 9.10; 207, fig. 9.17; 208, fig. 9.18; 225, 227, fig. 10.12; 228, fig. 10.13 Vouni Pt, 221, fig. 10.9 Washing Pt, 33, fig. 1.35; 109, fig. 5.6; 190– 191, fig. 9.2; 204, fig. 9.14 Westreenen Pt, 79, fig. 3.9 Woman Pt, 224, fig. 10.10 Wraith Pt, 37, fig. 1.40

GENERAL INDEX

Academy, 131 Achilles, 167, 183, 184 Acropolis, 127, 190, 192 actors, 122, 123, 124 adornment of bride, 6 adze, 58 Aeschylus, 122 African, 78, 79 Agora, 55, 57

agriculture, 6, 85 Akrisios, 59 alabastra, 14, 208 Alkimachos, 152 alopekis, 180 altar, 80, 82, 113, 114, 115, 119, 120, 128, 129, 193, 206, 210, 225 altar of Athena, 152 altar of Eros, 152

240 altar of Prometheus, 152 Amazonomachies, 167 ambush, 178 amulets, 15 Anacreon, 37 anakalypteria, 6, 200, 201, 202, 202, 204, 205 andron, 7, 34, 213, 216 animal joints, 128 animals, 45 ankyle, 144, 165 Anthesteria, 114 anthippasia, 152 Aphrodite, 193 apiculture, 6 apobates, 150–151, 165 apple, 87 archers, 175, 180, 187 Archilochos, 178 Archon Basileus, 127, 152 Aristophanes, 216 Arkesilas, 69 armed dancers, 186 arming, 168–172, 187, 225 armor, 6, 51, 188 Artemis, 135, 193, 194; sanctuary of, 114 aryballoi, 146, 161 astragoloi, 120 Athena, 167 Athena Ergane, 55, 56 Athena Polias, Temple of, 127 athletes training, 124, 165 Attic helmet, 174 auladic contest, 125 auletes, 152, 153 aulist, 124, 126, 192 aulode, 124, 125, 152, 153 aulos, auloi, 73, 74, 106, 123, 142, 145, 146, 152, 153, 155, 193 aulos player, 204, 208, 210

Index balancing stick, 18 baldric, 172, 175, 183 ball game, 15 barbarians, 187 Barringer, J., 4–5 baskets, 7, 9, 87, 88, 113, 218, 219, 221, 224 bater, 141 bathing, 44, 156, 157, 193 battle loutrophoroi, 190 Bažant, J., 4 Beazley, Sir John, 160 bed, 8, 26, 207 bee-keeping, 94, 101 bell cuirass, 174 bema, 115 Bérard, C., 4 bier, 213 bird cage, 14 birds, 29, 33, 65–69, 101 black-figure, 3 and passim blacksmith, 52, 53, 54 boat race, 152 Boeotian, 174 bookroll, 106, 112 booners, 34, 36 boukranion, 118 box, 77 boxes, 208 boxing, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140 boy learning to ride horse, 78 Brauron, 114, 135, 165 bread-making, 20, 21 breast-feeding, 31 bridal chamber, 205, 207 bridal dedications, 193 bridal preparations, 208 bridal procession, 209, 210 bride, 190, 202, 204, 205, 210; bath, 190; maiden belt, 193; with baby boy, 199 bronze workshop, 68 brothel, 5, 6, 8, 83

bull, 92 burial customs, 228 butchers, 5, 65, 56, 69 cage, 14–15 calf, 92 carpenter, 58, 59, 68–69, 218 carts, 15, 87, 202, 203 casualty list, 186 cat, 14 cattle, 92 cavalry, 173, 182, 187 Centauromachy, 167, 200 Chalcidian helmet, 132, 174 chamaipous, 202 chariot, 15, 147, 158, 172, 175, 202, 209, 210 Charon, 225 cheetah, 14, 77 cheir’ epi karpo, 202, 205, 207 chernips, 118 chests, 208 Chigi Vase, 175, 187 child care, 5, 31, 32, 103, 106, 108, 109 choes, 44 chorus, 122, 124 chyrta, 196 Cicero, 225 city wall, 182 clay, 48, 68 cleaning, 11, 103 clothes, 46 cock fighting, 15, 160, 161 coffin, 217, 220 coin, 29 coin-making, 5, 59, 60, 68 combs, 208 cooking, 103 41, 45 Corinthian helmet, 174, 183 corpse, 183, 215 courtesan, 27, 105 courting, 160, 162, 163, 164, 166

Index

241

cow cooking, 103 cow nursing calf, 92 craftsmen, 67–68 crying woman, 221, 222 cunnilingus, 39 curry comb, 78 Danae, 59 dances, wedding, 211 dancing, 76, 105, 107, 122, 152, 200, 201, 219 dancing dwarf, 73, 74, 76 dancing girls, 75; muffled, 73 dancing school, 6, 72 Darius, 122 decorating grave, 221 deer, 96–97, 160 defecation, 39 Demetrios of Phaleron, 225 demoiselle crane, 14 Demosion Sema, 184, 188, 225 departure, 172, 173, 186 depilate, 27, 29 diaulos, 132, 133 dildo, 39 Dionysos, altar and image of, 114, 122 diphros, 38 diptych, 225 Dipylon amphora, 213 discus, 132, 140, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147 distaff and spindle, 11 dithyrambic competition, 123 divination, 121, 129 dogs, 14, 63–64, 76, 77, 90, 98, 99 dokimasia, 167, 169 dolichos, 132, 134 doll, 15 dolphins, men riding, 124 donkey, 87 door, 8, 113, 193 dowry, 189, 192, 208

242 dramatic performances, 6 dressing, 5, 27, 28, 29, 44 drill, 58 dromos, 131 dwarf, 74, 76, 77, 83, 122, 123 earrings, 37 education, 6, 103–112 eidolon, 216, 219 eis omillan, 17 ekphora, 6, 218, 219, 228 endyma, 213, 216 engye, 189, 190, 207 enneakrounos, 71, 193, 195 entrails, examination of, 6 Epaulia, 5, 6, 189, 200, 208 ependytes, 105, 120 ephebe, 173 Ephedrismos, 20 epigram, 219, 229 equestrian events, 147 equestrians, 188 erastes, 40, 97, 160, 161, 164 eromenos, 40, 97, 160, 161, 164 Eros, Erotes, 190, 193, 197, 198, 200, 202, 207, 208, 210 erotic scenes, 166 eschara, 21, 23, 120 Ethiopians, 43 Etruscans, 121 euandria, 152 Eustathius, 208 exaileptron, 196, 208 factories, 8 farmhouse, 8 fawns, 15 fellatio, 39 Ferrari, G., 4 fighting, 188 fish, 77

Index fishing, 6, 95–96, 101 flowers, 29, 160 flute case, 105 food preparation, 5–11, 20–24 footrace, 135 foreigners, 78 fountain, 5, 41, 71–72, 83 fowler, 5, 65 fox, 98, 99, 160 Frontisi-Ducroux, F., 4 fruits, 29, 87, 88, 100 funeral, 6, 213, 228 funeral oration, 184 Furies, 193 furnace, 52, 53, 54 furniture, 7, 15 gambling dens, 8 Gamelion, 189 games, 29, 45, 225 gamos, 189 Ge, 193 geese, 33 gift-giving, 29, 31, 160 gifts, 208 Gigantomachy, 167 girdle, 193 goatherd, 90 goats, 15, 66 goose, 14 gorytos, 178 Götte, E., 4 grain, 87 gramatistes, 103, 105 grammata, 103 grapes, 88, 89, 90 grappling, 138 grave monuments, 229 gravestones, 225, 226 graveyard, 41, 42, 43 Greater Dionysia, 122



Index

Greater Panathenaic Games, 116, 126, 131, 152, 166 greaves, 174 grill, 9 groom, 189, 202, 204, 205; bathing, 197 groom, cleaning horse, 78, 79 groves of trees, 113 gymnasium, 6, 103, 131 gymnastics, 103 halteres, 140–141, 146, 224 hares, 15, 33, 97, 98, 99, 160, 161, 164 harnessing, 148, 165 harpe, 122, 198 Hector and Hebe, 207 herding, 6, 90, 91, 101 herm, 47, 80, 81, 82, 113, 116, 120, 193 Hermes, 225 hermoglyph, 56 Hestia, 205 hetaera, 27, 29, 38, 106 hieroskopia, 121, 122 himantes, 136, 140 Hipparchus, 37, 127 Hippodomeia, 200 hippodrome, 131, 147, 149 Hoffman, H., 4 Homer, 127, 189 homes, 44 homosexuality, 166 hoops, 15 hoplite, 173, 175, 176, 178, 179, 180, 182–187 hoplitodromos, 132, 134, 135, 160 horns, 80 horses, 77, 78, 83; drinking from louterion, 78; learning to ride on, 110; races, 131, 149; horse riders, 78, 79 house, 7–9 housework, 5, 25–27

243

hunters, 78, 96–100 hunting, 6, 96, 97, 99, 101, 164, 225 husbandry, 85, 90 hydria, 72 Hypnos, 225 hysplex, 135, 165 incense burners, 113 infibulated, 122 inscribed monuments, 6 inscriptions, 78, 80, 218, 221, 225, 228 intercrural intercourse, 160, 161, 164 Ismean Games, 152 javelin, 132, 140, 141, 144, 145, 146, 147, 165, 167 jewelry, 29 judge, 132, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 153, 154, 155 juggling, 11, 14, 74 jumper, 141, 142 kalathoi, 74 kalathos, 11, 13, 14, 71 Kallirrhoe Spring, 6, 71, 190, 193 kalos inscription, 156 kampter, 135, 140 kanephoros, 116 kanoun, 113, 118, 119, 120, 190, 191 katachysmata, 201, 202, 204, 205 key, temple, 113 kibisis, 122 kiln, 47 kissing, 40, 41, 160, 164 kite, 15 kitharistes, 103, 105, 152 kitharodes, 125, 152, 153, 154 kline, klinai, 34, 214 knight, 181 knucklebones, 17, 19, 33 komasts, 37

244

Index

komos, 5, 34, 37 kothornoi, 123 kottabos, 34 krateriskos, 114, 115, 128, 135 krotala (castanets), 73, 74, 105, 193 kynodesme, 156 Kynosarges, 131 ladder, 7 lamp, 8 lampadedromia, 152, 160 Lapiths, 200 lasana, 32 laver, 80 lebes gamikos, lebetes gamikoi, 190, 192, 197, 199, 208 lekythos, 193, 227 Lenaia, 114, 122 lenos, 88 libation, 6, 73, 113, 115, 119, 120, 129, 172, 173, 187, 224, 225 lime glue, 99–100 linothorax cuirass, 168, 174, 183 liquids, sale of, 69 lock of hair, cutting, 173, 193 long jump, 132, 140, 142, 145, 146, 147 loom, 9, 10, 11, 22, 44, 83 louterion, 27, 156 loutrophoria, 200 loutrophoros, 190, 191, 192, 193, 195, 196, 198, 199, 200, 208, 211, 214, 219, 229 lovemaking, 37, 38, 39, 45 lumberjack, 57, 58 lustral basin, 113 Lyceum, 131 Lycurgus, 131 lyre, 105, 160 machaira, 175 maintenance of track, 158 Maltese dog, 14, 33

Marathon, 152, 184 marble workshop, 68 marriage, 8 marshal, 116 mask, 123 massage, 158 masturbate, 39 Matheson, S., 5 meat, 31 Menon, 55 merchant ship, 182 metalwork, 51–55, 68 Mikion, 55 mines, 40 mining, 6, 41 mirror, 14 money pouch, 106 monkey, 15 Morra, 45 mortar and pestle, 22, 24 mosaic, 7 mourning, 213, 221, 228, 229 mousike, 103 muffled dancer, 73 mule race, 149, 150 music, 106, 108, 124, 141, 198 musical competitions, 124, 126, 152, 165 musical instruments, 7 musical scenes, 129 musicians, female, 75 Mycenaean larnakes, 228 myrrh, 208 narthex, 73–74, 105 Nemean, 152 Nike, 136, 137, 139, 152, 155, 156, 183 Nike Temple Parapet, 183 nursing calf, 92 Nymphe Shrine, 190 nympheutria, 199, 200, 202, 204, 207 nymphides, 196

offerings at grave, 223, 224 oikos, 7, 44 olive oil, 85, 101 olive press, 85 olive tree of Athena, 127, 152 omphalos, 113 orchards, 100 orgy, 39, 45 osphys, 119, 120 ostriches, men riding, 124 Ouranos, 193 owl, 100 paidagogus, 103, 105 pais amphithales, 200–202 palestra, 78, 103, 115, 131, 139, 144, 146, 156, 160, 161, 163, 164 Panathenaia, 126, 127, 147, 152 Panathenaic amphorai, 131–132, 165 Panathenaic Stadium, 131 pankration, 139, 140 Panofka, Theodor, 4 parasol, 37 Paris-Lausanne School, 4 parochos, 202 Parthenon, 116 Patroclos, 183, 184 Pausanias, 208 pederasty, 6, 160, 166 Peisistratos, 116, 132 Peloponnesian Wars, 30, 184, 219 pelta, 180 peltast(s) 180, 187 pentathlete, 141 Pentathlon, 132, 138, 140, 146, 147 perfume, 27, 33, 61, 64, 63, 64 perfuming clothes, 33 Pericles, 126, 152, 184; citizenship law, 120 Pericles Odeion, 126 perideipnon, 218 Perithous, 200

Index perizoma, 47, 94 Perseus, 59, 122, 123 Persians, 175, 180, 182, 187 pestle, 9, 11, 21–22, 24, 87 petasos, 174 pets, 5, 14, 33, 45 phalanx, 175 Phaleron, 131 phormiskoi, 14, 214 physical training, 103 pick, 146 pig, 14, 92–94; sacrifice, 193 pillow stuffing, 26 pilos, 47, 54, 92, 174 pinakes, 47, 80, 82, 214 plants, 80 plaques, 113 Plato’s Academy, 103 playing the bear, 114, 115 plowing, 85, 99 Plutarch, 126 Polykrates, 37 pompe, 115 post aliquando law, 225 potteries, 47–51 potters, 5 potter’s wheel, 48–49 pottery workshops, 68 potty, 32, 44 pre-gamos gifts, 191 press for grapes, 88 priestess, 113, 128 prisoners, 183, 185 proaulia, 189 processions, 15 progamia dora, 190 prosphagma, 218 proteleia, 193 prothesis, 6, 42, 213, 214, 215, 219, 228 punishments, 33, 110, 112 puppet, 15

245

246

Index

purse, 29, 61 pyrrhic dancers, 34, 35, 74, 152, 165, 168, 170 quince, 205 rattle, 15, 45 reading, 106 red-figure, 3 and passim revelry, 124 rhapsode(s), 126, 127, 129, 153, 155, 165 riders, 78, 79 roofing, 8, 9 Royal Archon, 115 sacrifice, 6, 115–117, 118, 119, 120–121, 128, 129 sacrificial procession, 192 sakkos, 14 sale of vases, 60, 61, 62 salpinx, 116, 155, 175, 187 sanctuary, 6, 80, 82, 83, 113, 115, 118 sandal prints, 14, 110, 111 sandals, 208, 210 sarcophagi, 225 satyrs, 126 scales, 66, 67 Schnapp, A., 4 school, 103, 104, 106, 107 sculptors, 5, 54, 55, 56, 68 Scythians, 121, 168, 175, 178, 179, 180, 187 sea, 182 seeding, 86 seesaw, 18 semeia, 141, 142 sesame cakes, 200 sex, 46 shapes of vases, 3, 231–236 sheep, 90 shepherd, 90, 91 shield apron, 175 shields, 132

ship mounted on wheels, 116 ships, 6, 182, 188 shoemakers, 5, 55, 57, 68 shop, 7 shrine, 115 silphion, 69 Simon the Cobbler (Shoemaker), 57 skamma, 141 skyphe, 116, 119 slate, 105 slaves, 41, 42, 46, 78, 81, 83 smith, 52, 54 Socrates, 7 Solon, 213, 225 sophrosyne, 103 soup, 23 sowing, 87 spears, 150, 152 sphageion, 118 sphagia, 173 splanchna, 119, 120 splanchnoptai, 119 sponge, 146 sport, 164 squire, 180, 181 stables, 6, 77, 78 stade race, 132, 140 stage, 123 stairways, 7 stand, learning how to, 109 statues, 54, 55, 56, 113, 125, 225 stele, 83 stephane, 196 stilts, 124 stoichedon, 78 storage room, 8–9 streets, 7 strigil, 156, 160, 161 stylus, 106 sumptuary laws, 213, 214 swine, 92



Index

swineherd, 92, 93 swing, 15, 17–19 sword, 175; in scabbard, 183 Syleus Painter, 69 symposiasts, 34–35, 74 symposium, 5–6, 34, 37, 40, 41, 45, 88, 160, 164 tails, on altar, 129 Tanagra, 213 tattoos, 42, 72, 81 taverns, 8 Temple of Athena Polias, 127 tenement houses, 8 tethrippon, 147 thalamos, 5, 189, 190, 205, 208 thalloi, 116 Thanatos, 225 theatrical performances, 122, 128 Thracian helmet, 173, 174 Thracians, 43, 72, 81, 123, 175, 180, 181, 187 threshing, 87 Thucydides, 184 thulemata, 120 thymiaterion, 113, 116 thyrosus, 208 thysia, 113 tongs, 51, 54 tools, 51 top, 15 torches, 116, 191, 193, 196, 204, 205, 207 torch race, 127, 128, 152, 165 toy roller, 32 toys, 45 trainer, 164 training horses, 167, 168 training schools, 8 transport amphora, 9 treading grapes, 90 tribal teams, 152

247

tripod, 113, 155 trireme(s), 182 tritoia, 116 tritopatores, 193 trophy, 6, 183, 185, 188 tub, 90 Tunny-Seller Painter, 69 turning post, 147 tymbos, 219, 225 unguents, 208 unveiling of the bride to be, 6 urination, 39 valediction, 215 vase painter, 48, 50 vases, selling, 69 victors, 152, 155, 157, 165 Villanueva-Puig, M.-C., 4 vine, 88 vintaging grapes, 89, 90, 101 visit to grave, 219, 225 vomiting, 34, 39 wagon, 86 war, 167, 186 warhorse, 160 warriors, arming and departing, 6, 78, 121 warship, 182 washing, 5, 27, 28, 41, 156 water, 41 watering, 159 weapons, 6, 188 weaving, 103, 109 Webster, T. B. L., 4 wedding, 189–211; cakes, 200; dances, 211; feast, 6, 189, 200, 208; procession, 202, 203, 209; songs, 204 weighing goods, 66–67, 69 well, 158, 159

248

Index

white-ground, 3 white lekythoi, 229 windows, 7 wine, 88; making and selling, 69; skin, 116; tasting, 62 winged figures on lebetes gamikoi, 211 women musicians, 112 wooden chests, 7 wood workers, 5, 68–69 wool working, 5, 11–13, 44 workshop, 5, 41 wounded warrior, 178, 183 wreaths, 14, 29, 224

wrestling, 132, 138, 139, 140 writing, 105, 106 writing tablet, 105 xoana, 114 xystis, 147 Yatromanolakis, D., 5 yo-yo, 15 zeira, 180 Zeus, 167

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