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A New Pontic Amphora

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

P. N. Ure
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Extract

The amphora here published (Plates XLIII–XLIV) was acquired for the Reading University collection on the London market in 1947. Nothing is known of its provenance. A detailed description with full illustrations will be given in the first Reading fascicule of the Corpus Vasorum, but so notable an addition to the Pontie series (to keep this convenient and generally used name for these vases which are now universally agreed to have been made in Etruria) calls for more comment than is desirable in a Corpus publication. The vase has a triple interest: it has unique pictures of scenes from the Troilus story, it affords new material for the study of the Pontic series, and it helps to connect Etruscan vase paintings with the wall paintings of Etruscan tombs. It thus provides a new item in a group of monuments which I have long believed to have been the source of a whole series of statements about the history of the Tarquin family which were dismissed by historians of the last century as obvious inventions, but which are in all probability the only statements about them which are in fact based on contemporary sources, that is to say, the archaeological material of which we can now speak with some assurance thanks to the work of Beazley and members of his school.

To begin with the pictures on our vase. When I first saw it the gaily coloured pictures at once recalled the painting of Achilles lurking behind the fountain on the wall of the Tomba dei Tori at Tarquinia. The interpretation of the actual scene I owe to Beazley, who has described it with his usual pregnant brevity in Etruscan Vase Painting2 as ‘a unique representation, in a furious style, of Achilles carrying Troilos to the altar of Apollo’ (Plates XLIII, b and XLIV, a). This final scene of the Troilus tragedy appears comparatively seldom on vase paintings, and, where it does occur, never, as far as I am aware, depicts this precise moment. Generally Achilles has reached the altar and Troilus is either being killed or has been killed already.

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Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 71 , November 1951, pp. 198 - 202
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1951

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References

1 CAH Plates I 330 b; Weege, Etrusk. Malerei pl. 96.Google Scholar

2 P. 295 (Addenda to chap. II p. 12).

3 So e.g. Thiersch pl. I (‘Tyrrhenian’ amphora); British Museum CV VI pl. 86.Google Scholar 2 (Attic B.F. hydria); Munich 63 (Attic B.F. hydria); Perugia, , Hoppin, R.F. Handbook I 403Google Scholar (Beazley, ARV 222Google Scholar no. 56); Palermo, CV pl. 10.Google Scholar 1 (Beazley op. cit. p. 315, very early Makron).

4 So e.g. Florence, , Hoppin, B.F. Handbook 153Google Scholar (François vase); Louvre, CV VIII pl. 75.Google Scholar 5 (Siana cup); Hoppin, B.F. Handbook 430–1Google Scholar (cup by Xenokles); Copenhagen, CV III pl. 123.Google Scholar 4 (B.F. hydria); Brit. Mus. CV VI pl. 80. 1 (B.F. hydria); Bibl. Nat. CV II pl. 54. 6–7 (late B.F. rimless kylix); Brit. Mus. JHS XXXII (1912) 171 and pl. II (R.F. hydria by the Troilus, painter, ARV 191, no. 14Google Scholar); Louvre, CV VI pl. 46. 5, 7Google Scholar (early classical R.F. pelike ARV 382 no. 3) Berlin inv. 4497 (R.F. calyx krater ARV 401 no. 8 by the Villa Giulia painter).

5 So Louvre G154, Hoppin, Handbook R.F. I 137Google Scholar (cup by Brygos, , ARV 246Google Scholar).

6 For example Louvre, CV I pl. 7. 3Google Scholar (Laconian deinos); Louvre, CV II pl. 22.Google Scholar 1 (Attic B.F. deinos); Brit. Mus. CV VI pll. 84. 4 and 87. 2 (Attic B.F. hydriai); Copenhagen, CV III pl. 110.Google Scholar 10 a, b (Attic B.F. lekythos); Athens 12481 Haspels ABL pl. 41. 5 b, c (Attic B.F. lekythos).

7 Its first appearance on an Etruscan vase seems to be that on the post-Pontic amphora in the Villa Giulia CV I pl. 2. 1–4 (Dohrn, Schwarzfig. Etrusk. Vasen 154Google Scholar no. 239, by his Siren painter). Its occurrence on the wall of the Tomba dei Tori has already been noticed.

8 Sieveking-Hackl no. 827 pl. 33, Pfuhl MuZ figs. 155–6, Ducati, Pontische Vasen pl. 1 and 2Google Scholar, Dohrn no. 58, Mingazzini, Gnomon XI 71Google Scholar no. 1, Beazley, Etruscan Vase Painting pl. 1.Google Scholar 3, 4.

9 Albizzati, Vasi del Vaticano no. 231 pl. 21Google Scholar, Ducati pl. 8 a, Dohrn no. 65, Mingazzini no. 2, Beazley pl. 1. 1, 2.

10 Ducati pl. 9 b, Dohrn no. 74.

11 Ducati, who places the Munich and Vatican vases in two different groups (I and III), places it in yet another group (IV). Mingazzini, still more rashly, excludes it (with many others of Ducati's list) altogether from the Pontic series.

12 Sieveking-Hackl no. 984 pl. 41 and fig. 194, Dohrn no. 122. Cf. also the chevron palmettes on Ducati pl. 27 a, Dohrn no. 100 ‘from the Paris painter's workshop’.

13 Sieveking-Hackl say ‘rubbing her muzzle with her paw’. No tongue is visible in the Munich illustrations, but the lioness has her mouth open. In any case her attitude and action recall that of the Reading animal.

14 See e.g. Munich Sieveking-Hackl no. 850 pl. 35 (Dohrn no. 280, by his Perseus painter; Beazley, Racc. Guglielmi p. 80Google Scholar no. 1 ‘very near the Micali painter’) lion. Sieveking-Hackl no. 863 pl. 35 (Dohrn no. 187 by his Siren painter; Beazley op. cit. p. 78 no. 27 by his Micali painter) round flower. Würzburg Langlotz pl. 234 no. 798 (Dohrn no. 196 by his Siren painter; Beazley op. cit. p. 78 no. 20 by his Micali painter) three large round flowers on branching stalks.

15 Beazley, Etruscan Vase Painting 1.Google Scholar

16 Op. cit. 79 f.

17 Gnomon XI 73 f.

18 Op. cit. 21.

19 Op. cit. 1.

20 Antike Denkmäler II pl. 42 A fig. 5.

21 Weege op. cit. pll. 2, 95.

22 Dohrn op. cit. 82 f.; Webster, JHS XLVIII (1928) 205.Google Scholar

23 Op. cit. 108.

24 Pittura Etrusca pp. vi–vii.

25 Mon. Ant. XXXVI 341.

26 Caeretan hydriae are by general consent attributed to Caere, where they have been exclusively found. For the Pontie vases Ducati op. cit. 22 f. argues that the choice is between Caere and Vulci.

27 Livy I 45, Dion. Hal. IV 26. The cult statue in Servius' temple is said by Strabo, IV i 5, to have resembled that of the Ephesion at Massalia, which again is stated by Strabo, IV i 4, to have resembled and been derived directly from that at Ephesus.

28 For Vulca and other Etruscan fictores see Buren, E. Douglas VanFigurative Terra-cotta Revetments in Etruria 32 f.Google Scholar and the sources there quoted.

29 JHS XLI (1921) 213, fig. 6; 215, fig. 7.

30 Payne, NC no. 1072 pl. 34. 5Google Scholar; Hoppin, Handbook B.F. 12–13.Google Scholar

31 Found also on other mid-Corinthian vases, e.g. AJA XXXIII 543 fig. 22, from Corinth.

32 NC 314.

33 NC 189, 206–9.

34 Pp. 239–45. Since then the evidence has been immensely strengthened by Payne's, convincing arguments, NC 35–42Google Scholar, that Protocorinthian pottery was produced at Corinth and not at Sicyon or elsewhere.

35 JRS XXV 129–49.

36 Note that we already find inscriptions on the Tomba dei Tori and the Corinthian vase of Timonidas and that Corinthian artists were already using them on architectural revetments in the seventh century (Payne, BSA XXVII 124–32Google Scholar; Pfuhl MuZ III fig. 481).

37 Payne, and Young, Archaic Marble Sculpture from the Acropolis pl. 51Google Scholar; Dickens, Catalogue of the Acropolis Museum I 229.Google Scholar

38 Hoppin, Handbook B.F. 172–6Google Scholar; Richter, AJA XXXVI (1932) 272–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

39 Hoppin op. cit. 365–405 (Tleson), 80 (Ergoteles) and 380 (both).

40 Hoppin op. cit. 81–3 and 148–55.

41 Hoppin op. cit. 85–7.

42 Richter op. cit.

43 I have assumed that Pliny's Eucheir is a Latinised form of The Athenian potter was singularly uncertain about the spelling of his name. He gives us and (if the cup without any patronymic Clara Rhodos III 34 is by him)

44 E.g. Seeley, Livy I 46.Google Scholar

45 It is typical of the pre-archaeological attitude that Mommsen, (Hist. Rome I 133Google Scholar, cf. Seeley, Livy I 175Google Scholar) in discussing the temple of Diana on the Aventine, while admitting the possibility of Ionian influence, is preoccupied with the evidence of institutions and festivals that survived into later times, and that one of the few statements on early Roman history in Livy not challenged by nineteenth century historians (see e.g. Seeley op. cit. 53) is that which he makes (vi 1) about the destruction of records by the Gauls in 390 B.C.