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The Scene on the Panagjurischte Amphora: a New Solution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

E. K. Borthwick
E. K. Borthwick
Affiliation:
University of Edinburgh
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Extract

In JHS xciv (1974) 38 ff. (with Plates IV–V), J. G. Griffith discusses the subject-matter of the scene on the late fourth-century amphora discovered in 1949 at Panagjurischte in Bulgaria, in which a group of four determined-looking men armed only with swords attacks a house-door which has just been half-opened by a startled servant of diminutive stature. Connected, apparently, with the assault is a trumpeter, and finally there is another pair (not obviously involved in the action) consisting of a bearded figure, taken to be a seer since he holds ‘a liver, lobe and all’, which he shows to his more youthful companion.

Griffith has little difficulty in exposing the improbability of earlier attempts to identify a mythological scene—Achilles discovered at Scyros, the Seven against Thebes, or the preliminaries to the murder of Neoptolemus at Delphi, and proposes a novel view that the attackers are komastai, whether the occasion is a ‘genre-scene’ from comedy, or a characteristic scene from real life, in either of which cases help in identifying the individuals would be unnecessary and irrelevant. But I must confess that I find this proposal far-fetched: the attempts to account also for the trumpeter and seer are desperate enough, but he really fails to make a credible case for the use of swords in such escapades, even granted the violence often referred to in literary evidence about the komos, whether fisticuffs among rivals for the favours of the courtesan or mistress, or the use of cudgels, levers and torches to break down, or burn, the door by the ‘exclusus amator’.

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Type
Notes
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 96 , November 1976, pp. 148 - 151
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1976

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References

1 Headlam's note on Herodas ii 34 provides a convenient list of appropriate Greek examples.

2 The contrast of the equipment of war and the komos is made in similar language by Posidonius (ap. Athen. 176c) describing a disorganized rabble going to war with κώμων, οὐ πολέμων, ὄργανα. The elaborate contrast of the ‘komos of Ares’ with a true revel in Eur. Phoen. 784 ff. (σùν ὁπλοφόροις … κῶμον ἀναυλότατον προχορεύεις) loses much of its piquancy if one does not notice the Greeks' firm recognition of the incongruity. Cf. also Ar. Ach. 978 ff.

3 It is true that Antiph. fr. 199 K, cited by Griffith, envisages the possibility of a komos started precipitately without torches and garlands, but note the significance of the surprised reaction to such a proposal of the second speaker in the fragment.

4 In his recent book on Plutarch (London, 1973), D. A. Russell rightly places this narrative as ‘among the best in Plutarch’ and showing ‘a clear eye for action, a powerful technique of suspense, the natural skill of the born story teller’ (p. 37).

5 The Life version (ch. 11 ) implies not less than four in Pelopidas' party (οί μὲν περὶ Πελοπίδαν καὶ Δαμοκλείδαν).

6 Cf. Xen. Hell. v 4.3 (Note Griffith's comment on the ‘scanty unmilitary attire’ of the attackers on the amphora). In the Life (ch. 8) the exiles from Athens arrive with only χλαμύδια and hunting equipment, and later (ch. 9) they are clad in ἐσθῆτας γεωργῶν. In Charon's house, as the other group chosen to attack Archias sallies forth, they are said to have θώρακες (cf. de genio 596d ἡμιθωράκια) as well as their μάχαιραι.

7 He is mentioned only once in the Life (ch. 22) and apparently not elsewhere, and seems to have been ignored in Pauly-Wissowa.

8 There are other references to omens, oracles and portents in connexion with the dramatic events at 577d, 594e. The briefer version of the Life refrains entirely from such detail.

9 Plutarch's possible sources have been recently assembled and admirably discussed in the introduction to Corlu, A.'s recent Plutarque, Le Démon de Socrate (Paris, 1970)Google Scholar.

10 See, however, his comment on the previous invincibility of the Spartans, and how (Hell. v 4.1). Cf. Nepos, , Pel. 2Google Scholar.

11 Another minor indication of the celebrity of even minor details of the story in the Greek world at large is the origin of the popular proverb εἰς αὔριον τὰ σπουδαῑα from the fatal negligence of Archias (Plut., Pel. 10Google Scholar, Mor, 596 f, 619d, Nepos, , Pel. 3Google Scholar, Paroem. Gr. i p. 404).

12 The celebrated mural in the Stoa Poikile also contained a picture of a lesser-known engagement of Athenians v. Spartans at Oenoe (Paus. i 15), although Jeffery, L. H. (BSA lx [1965] 41 ff.)Google Scholar thinks that the actual picture was of a mythical subject: see also Meiggs, , The Athenian Empire (Oxford, 1972), 469–72Google Scholar.

13 Dr A. M. Snodgrass, to whom I am grateful for much helpful advice and information in compiling this article, draws my attention to Craterus' memorial of Alexander's, lion-hunt (Plut. Alex. 40)Google Scholar and a similar work, together with a cavalry battle scene, by Lysippus', sons (Plin. N.H xxxiv 66)Google Scholar.

14 On the whole, subject, see the recent book by Hölscher, T., Griechische Historienbilder des 5 und 4 Jahrhunderts v. Chr. (Würzburg, 1973), especially p. 112Google Scholar ff.

15 I know of no evidence for the liberation of Athens by Thrasybulus having been a theme for the artist, although Paus ix 11.6 refers to Thrasybulus setting up a dedicatory relief in Thebes. The δωρεά given to ‘the men from Phyle’ mentioned in Aeschin. iii 187 was a written record of monies given for various dedications: see Wycherley, , The Athenian Agora iii 151Google Scholar, no. 466.

16 See the article by Anderson, J. K. in AJA lxvii (1963) 411–310.2307/501624CrossRefGoogle Scholar, who, however, denies the common view that Chabrias was represented in a kneeling position as he awaits the foe.

17 Paus, i 3.4, Plut. Mor. 346b, etc.