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A Rhyton in Form of a Sphinx
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 December 2013
Extract
The rhyton here published was found in a tomb at Capua in 1872, as described briefly in the Bullettino of that year (p. 42); it was acquired in the following year by the British Museum, and was soon thereafter included, but only in one view, among the ‘Photographs of the Castellani Collection,’ pl. 12. Always much admired for its beauty, both in the modelling of the Sphinx and in the drawing of the figures which encircle the cup above her head or occupy the spaces under her body, this vase has been seen at a certain disadvantage, as I believe, from a defective interpretation of the subject painted round the cup. In the Bullettino this subject was called ‘Triton, Nike and other figures,’ and this description has remained unchallenged. But obviously the figure here named Triton does not end in the tail of a fish, as a Triton should end. It is the tail of a serpent, and therefore he must be identified with some legendary person possessed of this combination—a human body ending in the coils and tail of a serpent. There can be no doubt that he is Kekrops, Κέκροπα σπείραισιν εἱλίσσοντα as he is described by Euripides, or as he appears in a Berlin terra-cotta, representing the birth of Erichthonios. On the terra-cotta Athene receives the infant Erichthonios from Gaia, who rises from the earth holding him up.
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- Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1887
References
page 1 note 1 Ion, 1163. It should here be stated that the subject represented on this vase was rightly identified by Hartwig at a meeting of the Roman Institute last year. I had not however seen the abstract of his paper in the Mittheilungen of the Roman Institute, I. p. 190, till after my article was set up in type.
page 2 note 1 Arch. Zeit. 1872, pl. 63. Mr.Head, , Hist. Num. p. 452Google Scholar, fig. 277, gives a stater of Cyzicus with Gaia holding up Erichthonios, and on the same page he speaks of a figure of Kekrops, also on a Cyzicene stater. A vase in the British Museum, which has generally passed as a representation of the birth of Erichthonios, is now described as Athene receiving the infant Dionysos from the nymph Dirke. See Robert, , Arch. Maerchen, p. 190.Google Scholar It is the vase engraved in Gerhard's, Auserlesene Vasenbilder, iii. pl. 151.Google Scholar
page 2 note 2 In the Berlin terra-cotta Kekrops places a finger on his lips to indicate that he was aware of the secrecy which was to be maintained.
page 2 note 3 Ion, 1163.
page 3 note 1 Mon. dell' Inst. Arch. ix. pl. 43: Annali, xliv. p. 226. Now in the British Museum.
page 3 note 2 Mon. dell' Inst. Arch. ix. pl. 46: Annali, xliv. p. 294. Now in the British Museum.
page 3 note 3 Welcker, , Alte Denkmäler, i. p. 169.Google Scholar
page 4 note 1 Brönsted, , Voyages dans la Grèce, ii. p. 151Google Scholar, had argued from this silence as to the subjects of the pediments that there had in fact not been sculptures in them at the date of the Ion, the groups by Praxias and Androsthenes, as we know them from Pausanias, x. 19, 4, having been later additions according to Brönsted. But Welcker, seems to be right in rejecting this view, Alte Denkmäler, i. p. 169.Google Scholar
page 4 note 2 Engraved in Heydemann, 's Gigantomachie (1881).Google Scholar