Seven
Later Black-Figure
We now reach the point of time, momentous for the art of black-figure, when the new technique of red-figure was invented. For a while the older manner held its own, but before long it was forced into the second place, and by the end of a generation nearly all the finer work was being done in red-figure. It is not certain who invented the red-figure technique, but the claim of the Andokides Painter is strong.[1]Andokides was a potter; his signature appears on nine vases, always followed by the word epoihsen or epoiei : "made by Andokides." Five of the nine were decorated by one artist, who may or may not have been Andokides himself; it is to this artist that the conventional name of the Andokides Painter is given. He must have been a pupil of Exekias. Two were decorated by another artist, whose name is known, Psiax; one by a third, the famous red-figure painter Epiktetos; and one, the earliest of all, a small black-figured amphora which came to light a few years ago and is now in New York, by a fourth artist (pl. 79, 1).[2] A good many other vases can be assigned to the Andokides Painter besides the signed ones, and the list of his works is very varied; it includes black-figured vases, red-figured vases, vases half in black-figure, half in red-figure, and one vase in a unique, experimental technique—like red-figure, but the figures reserved on a white ground instead of on the native hue of the vase.2bis
In "bilingual" vases—that is, those in which part of the decoration is in black-figure, part in red-figure—the division varies. In a cup, the inside is usually in black-figure, the outside in red, but in the cup with the signature of Andokides, one half of the exterior is in the one technique, the other half in the other; in heraldic language, the design is counterchanged. In the bilingual amphorae, the picture on one side is in black-figure, the picture on the other in red-figure, the subject being sometimes the same and sometimes different. The unsigned amphora in Munich[3] is one of those that have the same subject on both sides: Herakles resting, visited by Athena. In the black-figure version the artist has added two figures: Hermes, and a boy cup-bearer (pl. 79, 2). The round krater, the dinos, at which the boy is busy, is of the same shape
[1] For numbered notes to chapter vii see pages 104–106.
as the much earlier vase by the Gorgon Painter,[*] and has a similar stand. Herakles, dressed in a himation, reclines on a couch, holding a kantharos, under a vine; bread, meat, and another drinking-vessel, a cup, are on a table beside him. His bow, quiver, and sword are hung up. On the red-figure side, only the two chief figures are given, and the attitudes are not quite the same as in the black-figure picture; Herakles holds his knee, and Athena, like the Leda of Exekias, offers a flower. The black-figure picture does not show the painter at his best; the composition is nerveless, the figures of Herakles and the boy languid, as if the artist had lost interest for the moment in the old technique. The red-figure version is better, but neither here nor in his other red-figure pictures does the Andokides Painter use the possibilities of the new technique to the full; that was reserved for younger men, Euphronios and his companions. In red-figure the Andokides Painter remains a fairly able forerunner, just as in black-figure the Lysippides Painter[**] remains a commendable successor of Exekias.
An all-black-figure amphora, of the somewhat simpler type B, in the Rothschild collection, Pregny,[4] is especially close to the Munich vase, less ambitious but more satisfactory. On the front, Herakles, kneeling, strangles the lion, while his nephew and squire Iolaos stands by, taking care of his master's club, and Athena steps out of range. The hero's bow, quiver, sword, and garment hang in the field, and do something to fill the void space above the main group, but the composition is still somewhat loose. On the reverse there is the old contrast between Dionysos, who stands solemn in the middle, holding vine, ivy, drinking-horn, and the satyrs dancing one at each side.
A novel aspect of Herakles is shown on an amphora in the Villa Giulia at Rome (pl. 79, 3–4).[5] Herakles, holding a cithara, mounts a platform, between Athena and Hermes seated on campstools. This is one of many black-figured pictures from this period and somewhat later in which Herakles is seen playing the cithara or about to play it, with the gods themselves for audience. It seems a strange rôle for the man of action, especially when the instrument is not the simple lyre, which boys learned to play at school, but the elaborate cithara, which could only be played by a virtuoso. This new conception of Herakles must be due to a poem that has not come down to us, in which he was depicted as not only brave, and patient of toil and hardship, but the friend of the Muses as well.[6] A late reminiscence of this Herakles is preserved in the Herakliskos of Theocritus,[7] where he is said to have been taught music by the famous Eumolpos; the words used show that the instruction went far beyond the elementary stage; Eumolpos made Herakles into a bard (aoidon eqhken ), and the instrument named is the boxwood phorminx (puxina enformiggi ), which must mean not the simple lyre, in which there was not much wood, but the elaborate cithara. There is an echo of Exekias, as often with our painter, in the scene on the other side of the vase. A youth wearing a woollen blanket-like cloak, with a petasos, carrying a pair of spears over his shoulder, and leading a horse, approaches an old man; a
[*] See pp. 15–16 and pl. 15, 1.
[**] See p. 104, note 2 bis .
woman offers a wreath. The question again arises whether the youth is returning or setting out. The rendering of Herakles on the Villa Giulia vase connects it with a larger and finer amphora in Boston (pl. 80, 1),[8] which has the same subject on both sides, once in black-figure and once in red-figure, Herakles driving a bull to sacrifice. In the Munich bilingual there was a good deal of difference between the two sides; here they repeat one another without much change. The bull wears a woollen fillet in token of consecration, and is held by a rope passing round the horns. Herakles strides forward with his club in one hand, and in the other, besides the rope, a bundle of spits (secured by slides), on which the meat will be roasted after the slaughter. Sword and quiver are at his side, and a pair of wineskins, containing wine for libation and consumption, hang from his shoulder. The space above the bull's back is filled by a tree. It is a simple, bold design, without the hesitation apparent in some of the painters' work.
The neck-amphorae of the Lysippides Painter, in point of form, are based on those of Exekias, slightly simplified. This version of the shape became extremely popular in the later archaic period, and the neck-amphorae of our artist stand at the head of a vast series in the late sixth century and the early fifth. The neck-amphora in Oxford[9] shows Dionysos in the familiar guise, standing still, holding kantharos and vine (pl. 80, 2). He looks round at Hermes who approaches; a maenad, seated on the back of a satyr, plays the flute; another satyr completes the composition, which is again a little loose. On the reverse of the vase the artist takes no risks; he chooses the old, highly decorative design of the chariot seen from the front (pl. 80, 3). On the better-preserved neck-amphora of the same shape in the British Museum[10] the chief picture is of Athena standing in her chariot with Herakles beside her, bound for Olympus, or arriving there, attended by Dionysos, Apollo, and Hermes (pl. 80, 4): the same subject as on the calyx-krater by Exekias. The other picture (pl. 80, 5) is a rather lifeless version of the Ajax and Achilles on Exekias' amphora in the Vatican. Echoes again. Even the handle-spirals are commonplace adaptations of an Execian motive. The shape, however, is majestic; and there is a drop of Execian solemnity in the chariot-scene.
The third great shape of vase in late sixth-century black-figure is the hydria. One of the best is in the British Museum (pl. 81, 1).[11] Dionysos, kantharos in hand, reclines on a couch, with food on a table beside him, as Herakles did on the amphora in Munich (pl. 79, 2); ivy takes the place of vine. Two couples trip towards the couch, one at the head, one at the foot. Hermes seizes the kantharos to fill it (Hermes as cupbearer is known from other sources, for instance from a fragment of Sappho).[12] A woman, whether Ariadne or a nymph, sets an ivy-wreath on Dionysos' forehead; there are other pictures of the crowning at the beginning of the party.[13] At the foot of the couch, a satyr and a nymph dance up, the satyr with his arm round the shoulder of the nymph, whose arms are both extended. Right in the middle of the picture is the music; between couch and table, a powerful satyr plays the cithara. Lastly, at the left edge, Hephaistos arrives, his hammer over his shoulder. This is a unique repre-
sentation, and not easily explained. It is not one of the usual episodes in the Return of Hephaistos, but perhaps a place may be found for it in the narrative all the same. Let us suppose that Dionysos finds Hephaistos busy in the workshop and persuades him to be his guest. Hephaistos—here we remember the somewhat similar situation in the eighteenth book of the Iliad[14] —asks for time to put his tools away carefully, wash, and dress, and tells Dionysos not to wait for him. When Hephaistos at last arrives in the house of Dionysos he finds that the god has already lain down on the couch and is being entertained with music and dancing. Overcome by the festal splendour, the simple Hephaistos raises his hand in wonder.[15]
Two of the remaining vases with the signature of the potter Andokides were painted by one artist, a black-figured neck-amphora now in London and a bilingual amphora in Madrid; neither bears the name of the painter, but two small red-figured vases are by the same hand as they, and are signed by the painter Psiax.[16] Psiax was another artist of the transition, who painted black-figure vases, red-figure vases, and vases combining the two techniques; further, black-figured vases on a white ground, black-figured vases on a coral-red ground,[17] and vases in a sort of imitation red-figure, the design being in added colour, not reserved. The finer of the two pieces with the signature of Andokides, in London (pl. 81, 2–4),[18] is a neck-amphora of a special model, one of four such vases. The body is black, and the decoration consists of two small pictures on the neck: a frontal chariot, between two boys, and Dionysos with two dancing satyrs. The subjects are old, but they are lightly carried out in a miniature style of much charm, and the vase as a whole is a happy creation. The pictures on the large bilingual amphora in Madrid[19] are delicately executed, but much less successful. The black-figure picture shows Dionysos with satyrs and maenads; the red-figure, Apollo with Leto, Artemis and Ares. The rather unstable figures have a child-like appearance, which would be better suited to small vases like the alabastron in Leningrad with Dionysos and a maenad, and a maenad and a satyr, in black-figure on a white ground (pl. 82).[20] Among the best of Psiax's large-scale works is the picture on a hydria in Berlin (pl. 83, 1).[21] The subject, the harnessing of a chariot, is a favourite at the time, and we saw earlier and abnormal versions of it[*] on vases by Nearchos and Exekias. The pole-horses are almost ready. A youth named Simon stands behind the car holding reins and goad. The actual harnessing is done by a man who stands on the far side of the horses. He wears the long robe of a charioteer and is the expert. These two persons, one holding the horses steady, the other, the older, engaged with the harness, are regular in pictures of the subject. There is normally, too, a third person at the horses' heads, often soothing them by holding or stroking their faces, here stooping and lending the expert a hand. Lastly, a youth leads up the off trace-horse, which is muzzled. At the shoulder of the hither
[*] See pp. 37, 64 and pls. 33, 1 and 71.
pole-horse, and below it, one sees the ends of the yoke, the yoke-pad, the headstall and breastband of the second trace-horse, and a small cross, set with prickles, to discourage boring.[22] An Athenian named Simon was the author of a standard work on horsemanship to which Xenophon acknowledges a debt, and one would like to think that this was an ancestor, but the name is common. The drawing is dainty, the incisions fine—the major lines thin, the minor lines still thinner. The small picture on the shoulder represents a fight, in three traditional groups; and, as often in hydriai, there is a still smaller picture, a predella, in lieu of a pattern-band, below the chief one: lion and bull, panther and ram, panther, the felines slender, the other animals almost drooping.
The Antimenes Painter,[23] so called after the name of a youth on his hydria in Leyden (pl. 83, 2), may be thought of as the brother of Psiax. There is no means of saying whether they were actually related, but their styles are so alike in important respects that the expression may serve. The number of his vases is very large: he is one of the chief painters of the standardised neck-amphora and hydria which are two of the three leading shapes in the black-figure of this time; the third, the amphora, was used by him, but less often. Besides his own vases, there are many in his manner by other artists, some of whom can be distinguished. He might have been expected to employ the red-figure technique on occasion, like Psiax, and he has much in common with early red-figure vase-painters, but no red-figure work by him has reached us. A certain kinship with Lydos suggests that he may have been a pupil of the older artist.
The relation of the Antimenes Painter to Psiax may be illustrated from his perfectly preserved hydria in London (pl. 83, 3),[24] which has the same subject as the Berlin Psiax (pl. 83, 1), the harnessing of a chariot. The elements of the composition are the same. The pole-horses are joined, a youth behind the car holds reins and goad, an older man, dressed in a long chiton, is busy with the harness, a youth stands at the horses' heads, another brings up one of the muzzled trace-horses. Here the youth with the reins plants one foot in the car, and this is more frequent in such scenes than standing with both feet on the ground. The youth at the horses' heads, too, is more normal: instead of bending with his head concealed by the horses, as in Psiax, he holds the face of one horse with both hands; but the former motive, bending with head concealed, occurs on other harnessing hydriai by the Antimenes Painter. The execution is less refined than in Psiax; there is less detail, and the incised lines are of a uniform thickness; but the movements are freer and better, the style broader and more natural, without the mincingness to which Psiax is prone. On the shoulder, a vigorous battle-scene, superior to Psiax's; as predella, a boar-hunt, with some of the hunters on horseback.
A favourite subject on hydriai, water-pots, of the later archaic period is appropriately the communal fountain, and there are several "fountain-hydriai" by the Antimenes Painter and his associates. One sees part of the fountain-house, women
filling their hydriai at the spouts, others approaching with empty hydriai on their heads, others returning, their hydriai filled. So for example on two vases by the painter in London (pl. 83, 4) and in the Vatican.[25] A very unusual fountain-picture is on the hydria in Leyden from which the artist takes his name (pl. 83, 2).[26] The scene is laid in the palaestra. In the middle is the fountain, seen from the front. The porch is supported by three Doric columns, over which there is a light architrave and a pediment decorated with a disc between two serpents. The raking cornice curls up into a volute at each end; the side-acroteria are in the form of prancing horses. At the panther-head spouts, a man and a boy are enjoying a shower. The boy seems to be Antimenes, at least the name is written beside him, with the word kalos above. On each side of the fountain there is a tree with clothes hanging on the branches, and two figures under it. On the right, a youth pours oil into his palm to anoint himself; a boy waits impatiently for his turn with the oil-flask. Under the other tree a youth takes down the oil-flask from the branch where it has been hanging, and a boy waits. The figures are comparatively small, and the picture comes a little nearer to being a real landscape than in the many vases where the figures dwarf the buildings. On the shoulder, a chariot-scene; in the predella, a hunt, as in the London hydria, but the quarry is a stag.
The prettiest of many neck-amphorae by the Antimenes Painter is in the British Museum.[27] Herakles, who has taken off his lionskin and hung it over his club, is welcomed by the centaur Pholos. The centaur carries the usual fir-branch over his shoulder, with his quarry tied to it—a fox, a hare, a bird,—and is accompanied by a pet fawn. Hermes, who has guided Herakles, now takes a seat. The other side of the vase gives a glimpse of ordinary life, of the olive-harvest (pl. 83, 5). Three trees are shown: a boy has climbed into the biggest one and strikes the boughs with a stick; two men also beat the tree, and a boy picks up the fallen olives and stows them into his basket. The boys and one of the men wear the hats of wool or goatskin often seen in pictures of countrymen. The figures are again comparatively small and the picture begins to approximate to landscape. There is only one other rendering of this subject, and that is also by the Antimenes Painter.27 bis
The Leagros Group[28] represents a somewhat later stage of vase-painting than the work of the Andokides Painter or Psiax and his "brother." The name of Leagros, usually followed by the adjective kalos , is inscribed on a great many late sixth-century vases, mostly red-figured, but half-a-dozen of them black-figured. Five of the six are hydriai, not all by one hand, but evidently from one workshop and closely interconnected in style; they, and a very large number of other vases that go with them, form the Leagros Group. It is the black-figure counterpart of what is called the Pioneer Group in red-figure—the works of Euphronios, Phintias, Euthymides and others, some of which were probably made in what may be called the Leagros workshop. The vases of the Leagros Group are not equal to the best contemporary
red-figure, but they have great vigour and power (sometimes even a touch of brutality), and, set beside them, much work by the Lysippides Painter or the Antimenes, not to mention Psiax, seems tame.
The favourite shape is the hydria. A perfectly preserved vase in the British Museum may introduce the Leagros Group (pl. 84, 1).[29] The chief picture, in the large rectangle on the body, represents a quarrel between two heroes. It is a frequent topic in later archaic vase-painting, both black-figure and red-figure. The quarrellers are often Ajax and Odysseus. After the death of Achilles, his armour was to go to "the best of the Achaeans"; the Achaeans awarded it to Odysseus, and Ajax flew at Odysseus, who was forced to draw in self-defence. Here, however, while the man on the left might well be Ajax, his opponent is a youth, and Odysseus could not have been depicted as a youth. Either, therefore, the painter has made a mistake, which is not very likely in a work of this quality, or he has no particular heroic quarrel in mind, but takes pleasure in the contrast between the youth and the middle-aged man, or he thinks of another quarrel, one of the many that took place before Troy or in other places. In Scheria, the bard Demodokos sang of a famous quarrel between Odysseus and Achilles,[30] but in any quarrel one would expect Achilles to be the aggressor,[31] and that would not be so here, where the young man is evidently the attacked. There are just seven figures in this and many other quarrel-scenes on archaic vases; perhaps they are the Seven against Thebes.[32] Friends hold the two back, and a man interposes. It is a well-composed and expressive crisscross, with much overlapping; the large figures, muscular and thickset, cover much of the background. The handsomest heads are those of the two disputants, the older man with a grand aquiline nose, the other of youthful comeliness. They do not shout, the others shout. Little white is used, and not much red; it is a very black picture. A solid platform for the figures is furnished by a border of thick palmettes; the predella picture, with its miniature, is discontinued in the Leagros Group. There is a small picture on the shoulder, Dionysos and Ariadne seated facing each other, with satyrs, maenads, and Hermes, but here also the drawing is broader than in most earlier shoulder-pictures.
The majority of the subjects in the Leagros hydriai are taken from the life of Herakles and from the Trojan War. Some of them are novel; others, while traditional, have novel elements, or show a new spirit. On a hydria in the British Museum (pl. 84, 2),[33] Herakles attacks the three-bodied Geryon at close quarters, seizing the crest of one helmet and raising his sword. There is nothing unusual in the chief group, but the attitude of the dying Eurytion, kneeling, eyes closed, spears in hand, as if turned to stone, makes a new centre-piece. Behind Herakles, Athena and Hermes stand side by side, she raising her hand, he turning his head away, not so much from squeamishness as to balance the outer, doddering head of Geryon at the other edge of the picture. Herakles has the long trunk-like nose which is often found in this group, especially in the work of one painter. On the shoulder, a hero carries off a woman; his comrade holds the chariot ready; the victim extends her arms towards her mother or guardian, and a sister or companion runs up, raising her skirt from her ankles.
This is a small black-figured counterpart to the contemporary scene on the great red-figured amphora by Euthymides in Munich,[34] and here also the hero may be Theseus carrying off Helen. His left leg, frontal and foreshortened, is in the taste of the late sixth century, as shown in the Euthymides amphora and in many other red-figured vases; the figures begin to break the profile rule freely and to turn large parts of their bodies towards the spectator.
The figure of Herakles on another Geryon hydria of the Leagros Group, in Munich,[35] is typical of the new policy towards the third dimension (pl. 84, 3). Herakles draws the bow; that is traditional; but his attitude breaks with tradition: the right leg is seen from the front, with the foot extended and viewed from above. The torso too is in front view, and the anatomy of the parts between chest and groin, long neglected by artists, is more fully carried out than before. It is the beginning of that systematic study of anatomy which, together with the new conception of the figure in its relation to space, transforms Greek drawing in the late archaic period. The new art finds its purest expression in red-figure, but something of it is seen in late archaic black-figure also, notwithstanding the weight of tradition in the older and less flexible technique. The archer in the attitude of our Herakles is one of what might be called the programmatic figures of the new movement; a good example in contemporary red-figure is the Herakles on a neck-amphora, close to Euphronios, in Leningrad (pl. 84, 4).[36]
Two of Geryon's three bodies are knocked out in the Munich hydria; one falls forwards, the other back. The white shield plays the same part in the design as on the London vase. Eurytion lies writhing on the ground. Athena stands behind Herakles, with his club resting against her thigh. The shoulder-picture is taken from the Iliad, and represents the dragging of Hector's body, a subject which comes in at this period and forms the chief decoration of another hydria in the group.36 bis
On a hydria in the British Museum (pl. 84, 5), Herakles is matched with Acheloös,[37] the combat best known from the description in the Trachiniae of Sophocles. The composition of the two figures recalls the Herakles and Nessos on the early vase in Athens. Herakles overtakes the bull-bodied, bull-eared, man-faced river-god and breaks off one of the magic horns in which his strength resides. Deities watch— Athena, raising a large hand, Ares, and Hermes.[38] Mortals also—the aged Oineus, and perhaps his daughter Deianeira. On the shoulder, Theseus and the Minotaur. The onlookers are not immediately recognisable as a selection of the fourteen youths and maidens, but that is what they are.
A subject that first appears at this time is the slaying of the giant Alkyoneus in his sleep by Herakles. On a hydria in the British Museum (pl. 84, 6), Alkyoneus sleeps in his cave, still grasping his enormous club;[39] Herakles strides up with his sword; Athena sits outside the cave, and part of a chariot-team, possibly thought of as belonging to Herakles, is seen at the edge of the picture. The half-seen chariot-team is a favourite motive in the Leagros Group. The horses have animated faces with large muzzles and open mouths. Another popular detail in the group is the huge wreath
worn by the giant. A second adventure of Herakles not depicted until this period is the struggle with the gigantic Antaios, which appears on a hydria in Munich (pl. 85, 1).[40] Both wrestlers have caught each other by the ankle; Antaios is under, and Herakles presses the head down. Athena and Hermes support Herakles; the two other persons must belong to the party of Antaios. This vase is one of those that bear the kalos-name of Leagros. Another is the Munich hydria with Herakles and Kyknos (pl. 85, 2).[41] Kyknos has fallen on one knee, and Herakles attacks him with a big stone. In this scene the chariots of the two combatants are regularly represented; here, characteristically, half of each team appears, with Athena partly visible behind the team of Herakles.
We now turn to some of the Trojan pictures. A hydria in the British Museum illustrates an episode in the legend of the boy Troilos (pl. 85, 3).[42] Achilles has slain him on the altar of Apollo, and in his fury cuts the head off and hurls it at the rescue party; there are earlier pictures of this brutal act, which must have formed part of the epic narrative. Here, as often before, the distance between the figures is not actual; the foremost Trojans—Hector and Aeneas are the names given in the earlier pictures—are naturally some way off. On the left is the usual half-chariot-team, one cannot be certain whose; Achilles has not arrived in a chariot; it may belong to the rescuers. The left hand of Achilles was originally open; then the painter closed it and made it hold a pair of spears. He may have painted the open hand out, but if so, any over-paint has now disappeared. On the shoulder, athletes: boxers, javelin-throwers, a discus-thrower, and a pair of runners.
A previous moment in the same legend is depicted on a hydria in Munich (pl. 86).[43] Achilles, at the altar of Apollo, has laid his spears by and holds Troilos by the ankle, as if about to dash him on the steps, or rather perhaps to hurl the whole body, not only the head, at the enemy.[44] Athena stands bolt upright, as if to protect Achilles' rear. The rescue party issues from the city gate: a chariot, half seen, at the gallop, a warrior in hoplite armour, an archer. Priam sits or crouches in the middle, grasping his neck in a gesture of despair.[45] The tree in front of the gate reaches into the picture on the shoulder, which for once forms part of the main scene. It represents the wall of Troy, with the battlements manned; two warriors are visible, and an archer who turns and draws his bow at Achilles; a third warrior rises and refreshes himself from a horn. There is also an old man, and three women stretch out their hands towards the cruel scene or beat their heads. It is clear that the apparent distances are not to be taken literally. Priam is not in the precinct of Apollo, but just outside the city gate (as on the François vase); that is to say, a wide gap is to be imagined—if it were necessary to translate the picture into actuality—between the lefthand portion of the picture, including Priam, and the group on the right; the painter has set the two side by side without thinking it necessary to consider the distance.
An excellent picture on a hydria, inscribed with the name of Leagros, in Würzburg, is taken from the Sack of Troy (pl. 85, 4).[46] Neoptolemos slays the aged Priam on the altar of Zeus. The group is framed by two figures of women. Female figures
are traditional in this scene, sitting or cowering near the altar in attitudes of despair; here they stand upright, and seem to be invoking divine vengeance, which did indeed follow: "for," in the words of Pindar, "Apollo swore that he who slew the aged Priam on the home-altar, should not return home himself, or reach old age."[47] Two half-chariot-teams once more close the picture at the sides. On the shoulder it is the familiar episode of Achilles and Ajax at their game (pl. 85, 5). Athena warns them, and two warriors, with an archer, eke out the strip to the requisite length. The heroes are not quietly absorbed as in Exekias, but so excited that they have almost left their seats.
A hydria in Munich figures another episode from the Sack of Troy (pl. 87, 2), Aeneas carrying his father Anchises to safety on his back;[48] this is a popular scene in the late sixth century, forming a kind of pendant to the group of Ajax retrieving the body of Achilles. Aeneas is accompanied by his young son, two fully armed warriors, and an archer. Part of the left-hand figure is missing, which obscures the composition; the figures in the middle were framed, as in the Würzburg vase, by the upright figures of two women, making lament;[49] they form the background of sorrow to the hopeful foreground. This hydria has a special interest because of the rare glimpse it gives, in the picture on the shoulder, into the potter's workshop (pl. 87, 1):[50] a potter fashions a large vessel on the wheel, which is spun by a boy; another vessel is being carried away to dry; a big porter brings fuel to the furnace, which a workman rakes out; a painter, unless it be an inspector, holds an amphora on his lap; in the middle is the white-haired master himself, very like Anchises, and holding a sceptre as Anchises does.
The latest Trojan scene, in order of the story, is on a hydria in Berlin (pl. 87, 3).[51] Neoptolemos leads Polyxena to the tomb of Achilles at which she is to be sacrificed. The tomb is a large white mound in a lonely place; a hare is seen beside it, and one of those large snakes that are often shown in the neighbourhood of graves. In the air above is a small winged warrior flying; it is the yuch or eidwloN , the soul or shade, of Achilles. On the left, two warriors stand side by side as if on guard, and a chariotteam is half seen, with a third warrior behind the horses.
A hydria in Munich presents a familiar pair (pl. 87, 4).[52] Ajax kneels and takes the body of Achilles on his shoulders. A small figure of a warrior is seen in the air, the spirit of the dead Achilles. Ajax has planted his two spears in the ground, to resume them when he has adjusted his burden. The spears bound the kernel-group on the left; the uprights of the spears are repeated by the line of Achilles' legs, and by his long hair falling over in front, a traditional element in the design. In the background the battle goes on: on the right, a Greek warrior(CH:151)perhaps Menelaos or Odysseus; on the left, two Trojans facing him. A chariot-team, half seen, gallops up. This is a very black vase; the figures cover nearly the whole surface. The theme is old, but rendered as if it were new, and the sense of weight and effort is well given.
A rarer counterpart to the time-honoured group of Ajax with the body of Achilles appears on a hydria in the British Museum (pl. 87, 5).[53] A Greek warrior has
hoisted the dead body of an Amazon on his back, and, dropping his shield, carries it out of the battle. The pair are usually taken to be Achilles and Penthesilea; others have thought of Theseus, with the body of the Amazon Antiope, who went over to his side and fell fighting against her own people. A warrior and an archer precede them, while another warrior rushes back into the fight, scrambling over a wounded Amazon who lies on the ground. This, like the last, is a memorable picture.
We have confined ourselves to the hydriai of the Leagros Group. The average quality is high; and if one is looking at photographs of vases, or even at vases themselves, there is something to be said for a picture that keeps still while one looks at it and does not need to be chased over a series of receding curves. The pictures being all of the same shape, and most of the subjects taken from one or other of two cycles, the deeds of Herakles, and the tale of Troy, we have had, more than elsewhere, the same feeling as when we look over a set of illustrations on a wall or in a book. In style, all these hydriai have much in common, and they must have been painted in the same workshop, but they are not all by the same hand. One would have expected that it would be fairly easy to parcel them out among the various artists, but it proves to be difficult, and has not yet been done. A few personalities, however, can be distinguished from the rest, and we may conclude with a glance at one of them, the Acheloös Painter,[54] so named after a neck-amphora in Berlin (pl. 88, 1).[55] Herakles overtakes the terrified river-god and breaks off his horn. Hermes sits watching and adds a touch of caricature to the scene: this painter has a comic vein and never shows the deep seriousness that characterises the Leagros Group as a whole. A shrub provides the branches which are almost obligatory in late black-figure backgrounds. The inscriptions are meaningless.
Serious, so far as the subjects allow, is the treatment of two Heraclean adventures on a neck-amphora by the Acheloös Painter in the collection of the Marchesa Isabella Guglielmi in Rome (pl. 88, 2–3). Herakles, armed with club and bow, rushes after the Erymanthian Boar. The same tree as before, but no inscriptions. The womanheaded bird, a siren, is probably a good omen. The other picture is unique; Herakles, having won the golden apples of the Hesperides, runs with them over rocky country.[56] That rough terrain is indicated, and not, as one might think, water, is shown by other vases and by the rendering of the rock on a neck-amphora by the Acheloös Painter in the London Market in 1968 (pl. 88, 4).56bis On each side, elderly revellers, one of them lifting a girl on to his shoulder. The same revellers appear on other vases by the painter, for example a volute-krater in Taranto which, like most early vases of the shape, is decorated on the neck only, the body being painted black. The upper zone of the neck has chariots, with the drivers mounting; in the lower, men and youths recline, holding long branches, while a woman sits on the couch and offers a flower; at each end of the couch a naked man dances; the dog has her bone. That finishes the group, which repeats with slight variations. The reclining man appears again, on an amphora in New York (pl. 88, 5).[57] Another man plays the flute, and the dancers are women. A special revel is depicted on one of the painter's largest vases, an
amphora of Panathenaic shape in the British Museum (pl. 88, 6).[58] Herakles, playing the flute, is preceded by Hermes playing the lyre and singing, and followed by the faithful Iolaos. Hermes is accompanied by a goat, Herakles by a lowing calf. There is a good deal of noise in the picture. Big wreaths, and the usual tree. One sees the painter's sinewy, middle-aged, rather sophisticated figures, with mobile necks, hogeyes, trunk-like noses, and receding foreheads.
The Leagros Group is the last great group of Attic black-figured vases. Large numbers of full-size black-figured neck-amphorae were still produced in the first quarter of the fifth century, but most black-figured vases were now small. Among these the lekythoi are important; they have much interest of subject, and the drawing, though slight, is usually lively and sometimes charming. Miss Haspels has given an admirable account of them in her Attic Black-figured Lekythoi . The last of them belong to the middle of the fifth century. The old technique continued to be used for the Panathenaic amphora, and this will be the topic of our concluding chapter.