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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 December 2013
The only common factor shared by the fragments of vase and votive plaque discussed below is that all are Attic. The plaque fragments seemed to deserve individual treatment outside the general study of votive plaques from the Athenian Acropolis on which I am engaged. The vase fragment with the Marsyas scene which is published here with some comment on the possible literary treatment of the myth is in the possession of Mr. John Leatham. To him I am indebted for permission to study and publish the piece, and to Mme. S. Karouzou, Prof. O. Broneer, the Keeper of Antiquities in the Ashmolean Museum, and the Director of the Thorvaldsen Museum for permission to publish pieces in Athens, Oxford, and Copenhagen.
I. Marsyas and Melanippides
The fragment which is here Illustrated on Plate I, 1, 3 is at present in the keeping of Mr. John Leatham. Unfortunately its provenience can be defined no more nearly than as ‘from Greece’. On the photograph reproduced on Plate I, 3 I have added in white the painted details on the sherd which the camera could not record. It is from the rim and wall of a calyx crater, part of whose lip decoration, a palmette scroll, is preserved. From the figure scene below we see the upper part of an Athena who holds her spear upright in the right hand while her arm hangs at her side, perhaps with the hand on the rim of a shield which rested on the ground beside her. She wears an aegis over her peplos, and an Attic helmet with raised cheek-pieces. She is looking to her left and slightly down towards a figure before a tree with white painted leaves. The figure is apparently seated, and his snub nose shows that he is a satyr or silen, and not a young one to judge by his shaggy white hair.
1 The dimensions of the fragment are, length 11·5 cm., height 10·0 cm. The lip was slightly offset and there is a reserved line in, half-way down the fragment. The diameter of the vase at the base of the lip was about 28·5 cm.
2 ARV 786, no. 29, Mingazzini, Apoteosi, pl. 4, 1.Google Scholar
3 E.g. on his vases illustrated in CR VIII 212–22.
4 Especially AJA XLV 600, fig. 5 (ARV 785, no. 16).
5 Roscher s.v. ‘Marsyas’, Beazley, , EVP 75 f.Google Scholar, Metzger, , Les Représentations 158 ff.Google Scholar, Wegner, , Das Musikleben der Griechen 18 f., 166.Google Scholar For literary references RE s.v. ‘Marsyas’.
6 Lippold, , Griechische Plastik 139.Google Scholar
7 Metzger, op. cit. 163 n. 5.
8 Ibid. 161 f., nos. 11, 12, 15, 16.
9 Beazley, op. cit., Metzger, op. cit. 161 f., nos. 15–17.
10 The difference between lyre and cithara is, of course, important, but not significant in the argument I develop here. Except in descriptions of particular instances my use of the word ‘lyre’ should be taken to embrace both these stringed instruments.
11 As the Kleophon Painter's satyr cited above (note 4) who has thrown his head back while playing.
12 Metzger, op. cit. 1636. gives references.
13 Schmid-Stählin, , Geschichte der griechischen Literatur 492 f.Google Scholar
14 Ibid. 493, Pickard-Cambridge, , Dithyramb, Tragedy and Comedy 53–8Google Scholar and Dramatic Festivals 79 (where the argument about the introduction of lyric passages found in his former book is not mentioned). Buschor sees evidence of earlier rivalry in music and instruments in dithyramb or satyr play (Satyrtänze und frühes Drama 85).
15 As they are on the Mantinea relief (Lippold, op. cit. 238, RE s.v. ‘Marsy as’ 1990) and as, on vases, some of the spectators are identified. Other gods may also have been judges, as they attend also on the vases (Metzger, op. cit. 158–62 passim). The three women in the audience on the Paestan vase in the Louvre by Assteas, who was fond of taking his inspiration from the stage, may be Muses (Trendall, , Paestan Pottery 42 f.Google Scholar, fig. 23, pl. 11 C, BSR XX 6, no. 63).
16 First illustrated, so far as we know, by Zeuxis (Pliny, , NH XXXV 66Google Scholar, on a pinax taken to Rome); also on an Attic vase of around 330 (JHS LIX, pll. 4–6), and fourth-century Italian vases (Beazley, , Greek Vases in Poland 76Google Scholar, Trendall, , Paestan Pottery 43Google Scholar). The famous group of the bound Marsyas and the Scythian is Pergamene of the third century (Lippold op. cit. 321 f., Bieber, , Sculpture of the Hellenistic Age 110 f.Google Scholar).
17 Huchzermeyer, , Aulos und Kithara 60 f.Google Scholar, Roos, , Die tragische Orchestik 220 ff.Google Scholar, Metzger, op. cit. 167, Wegner, op. cit. 155 f.
18 Rizzo thought that the dithyramb might have suggested to the vase painters the subject of a lyre-playing satyr (MA XIV 61 f.).
19 Pickard-Cambridge, , Dithyramb, Tragedy and Comedy 14–18.Google Scholar
20 Page, , Greek Literary Papyri I 26 ff.Google Scholar
21 Cf. Preller-Robert, , Griechische Mythologie I 223.Google Scholar
22 ARV 698 Group of Polygnotos no. 56, Pickard-Cambridge, op. cit. 11 fig. 3.
23 Arias, , Illustrated London News December 4, 1954, 1015Google Scholar, fig. 8 (Beazley, , Paralipomena to ARV 2389Google Scholar: by the Boreas Painter). The scene on a crater in Erlangen, which Metzger interprets as of a ‘Dionysiac’ Apollo (op. cit. 188 no. 41a, Grünhagen, , Antike Originalarbeiten, pl. 14Google Scholar) may also be associated with the Marsyas story. It shows Apollo seated, with a lyre at his feet, attended by Eros and women, and with a white-haired silen seated below him and holding a flute in either hand. On cithara-playing satyrs see also Roos, op. cit. 227 ff.
24 Pickard-Cambridge, op. cit. 54–6. Plato's rejection of Marsyas' instrument (Rep. III 399e, quoted by Metzger, op. cit. 167) is in keeping with his apparent disapproval of mixed Dionysiac composition (Laws III 700d, quoted by Pickard-Cambridge, op. cit. 58 f.). Unpopularity of the flute in Athens around the middle of the fifth century is suggested by Wegner, op. cit. 103.
25 Metzger, op. cit. 161, no. 14. The vase in Serajevo (ibid. 159 n. 1, Bulanda, 39 fig. 54, Beazley, , EVP 76Google Scholar) shows Marsyas seated before a tree, his head on his hands, holding his flutes listlessly; at the left stands Athena, and over the silen's head a Nike flies towards the goddess (Apollo, no doubt, stood beyond her).
26 Metzger, op. cit. 159, no. 4, pl. 22, 2: Furtwängler thought he might also have been holding his flute (Beschreibung no. 2638).
27 Marsyas alone with his flute appears on a vase of about the same date (cf. Beazley, , EVP 76Google Scholar).
28 In Athenaeus XIV 616e. Anthologia Lyrica (Diehl) II2 196, no. 2.
29 We do not know whether the ‘Marsyas’ won a prize, though it is not unlikely. The usual dedication would be by the choregos, and would be a tripod, its position dependent on the festival involved. Some dithyrambs were performed in the Lesser Panathanaea (Pickard-Cambridge, op. cit. 10), which might involve a dedication on the Acropolis (for earlier citharode dedications there see Raubitschek, , Dedications from the Athenian Acropolis, nos. 84, 86Google Scholar). Others have thought Myron's group an ex-voto for a successful dithyramb, cf. Picard, , La Sculpture II 232.Google Scholar The presence of a tripod in one of the vase scenes of the contest may imply a stage success (Ruvo 1093, MonIned VIII pl. 42: on the neck of the vase the silen plays the flute, on the body he plays the cithara and a prize tripod stands between him and Apollo); cf. Metzger op. cit. 29 f.
30 Some general remarks on votive plaques can be found in BSA XLIX 183 ff.
31 The complete dimensions are, height 15·5 cm., width 18·0 cm. (original width around 23·0 cm.), thickness 1–1·2 cm. Red for the outline of the plume and helmet peak, brown for the spear and snakes, white for the arm, and chequer pattern on the crest. The white ground overlaps the edges. In Plate II 1 the lower part of the left-hand fragment is cut away; it bears no part of the figure drawing, and the inscription which continues on it is not well enough caught by the camera. The join is not quite exact in the photograph owing to a slight difference in the scales of the reproductions.
32 In Graef-Langlotz the final epsilon was not read.
33 Akr. 1037. I have mentioned this piece with further references in BSA XLIX 201, no. 8. The inscriptions on it are of no concern to us here, and their scale is, of course, much greater than those on the Athena plaque; both were painted in red. For a comparable treatment of the plume in red figure compare the Troilus Painter's amphora in the Vatican, (ARV 190Google Scholar, no. 1, Gerhard, AV, pl. 126Google Scholar: the plume is outlined in red).
34 Reproduced by Hoppin, in Euthymides and his Fellows 90Google Scholar, fig. 16.
35 The pointed elbows and profiles of the nape of the helmet are similar; they are not, of course, helmets of the same type.
36 JHS XII 380.
37 ARV 934, Rumpf, MuZ 65Google Scholar cites it as by the Bowdoin Eye Painter. Hoppin (op. cit. 91) quotes as a parallel the shield device on the Munich amphora (ibid., pl. 2); the other vase he mentions is not assigned by Beazley, (ARV 914).Google Scholar As well as on this plaque Megakles kalos appears on four vases, one of them by Euthymides, (ARV 26, no. 10)Google Scholar, who, so far as we know, did not honour any of the other youths he mentions on vases with the epithet.
38 ARV 24 ff. nos. 1, 4, 9, 15 (on no. 9 he also omits the first omicron).
39 Raubitschek, , Dedications from the Athenian Acropolis 522 f.Google Scholar discusses and gives references; on only one inscription is the double lambda extant, so one might argue that this could be a mistake and that the six examples painted by his son, with one lambda, are correct. He may be the sculptor of bronzes, Pollis, mentioned by Pliny, (NH XXXIV 91).Google Scholar Robert suggested that artists only mention their fathers' names if they were artists also (RE s.v. ‘Euthymides’, cf. Raubitschek, , ÖJh XXXI Beiblatt 38Google Scholar).
40 Compare the Munich amphora in its fine photographs in Lullies, and Harmer, Griechische Vasen, pll. 17–23Google Scholar, noting ears, earrings, Korone's hair, the forearm of Pirithous. Euthymides also regularly painted his vase inscriptions in red; the sigma on the Athena plaque is rather less angular than we might expect.
41 Just as, if Raubitschek's optimistic restoration is accepted, Euthymides himself may have been taught to sculpt by his father and dedicated one of his own bronzes on the Acropolis (op. cit. 168 f., no. 150). Pollias executed a dedication for Kriton, son of Skythes, who may be the known vase painter (ibid. 250 f., no. 220). The Etearchos of ibid., no. 221, which may have carried a statue by Pollias, could be the youth named on a vase by Phintias, (ARV 23, no. 8)Google Scholar, the companion of Euthymides.
42 That is to say, twice as large, and half as large again as the figures on his amphorae. The figures on his painted stand in the Agora, (ARV 26 no. 15Google Scholar, Hesp V 59 ff. figs, 1, 2) were about as tall as the Athena.
43 Boardman, , JHS LXXV 154 f.Google Scholar
44 Studien 56, cf. Rumpf, , MuZ 74.Google Scholar
45 Clairmont, , Das Parisurteil 47 K. 129.Google Scholar
46 Beazley, , Greek Vases in Poland 12Google Scholar n. 4, AJA LII 338.
47 Clairmont, op. cit. 106 lists five Judgements at which he wears a sword, and cf. ibid., 21 n. 47.
48 This carries the drapery covering her upper leg and bottom, and part of the characteristically decorated hem to her mantle.
49 The earliest appearance of Eros at the Judgement, except perhaps for the Etruscan vase, Clairmont, op. cit. 19 f. K. 9 bis (AZ 1883 307 f.), where one of the two Erotes present holds a wreath over Aphrodite's head; cf. Clairmont, op. cit. 112.
50 Alternatively, to restore HIMEP]OΗ makes the representation no less remarkable; but Himeros never operates on these occasions without his brother.
51 Cf. BSA XLIX 191 f.; Benndorf, , Griechische und Sicilische Vasenbilder, pl. 5Google Scholar, 3 has the profile.
52 The fragment 1042 a, which bears the letters ON I have not seen. A drawing of what appears on 1042 e is reproduced here in Fig. 1c. It could be restored …⊕EN, the final letter being rather cramped. This is not likely to be any part of ἀνατίθημι, or an Ἀθηναία foreshortened. It could be an ablatival ending as 
(Raubitschek, op. cit. Index 532 f., Graef-Langlotz, II no. 1324).
53 Hesp IV 239.
54 JHS LXX 32 n. 45, where it is seen as a link with the early Myson, vases (ARV 171 f.)Google Scholar, which it closely resembles, though it is apparently earlier than them.
55 ARV 23 bottom.
56 For the eyes cf. ARV 22, nos. 2 and 4 (Hoppin, op. cit., pl. 26, FR III 234).
57 Cf. ARV 22 nos. 1, 4 and 5 (Hoppin, op. cit., pll. 31, 28, FR III 234).
58 Cf. Apollo on ARV 22 no. 2 (Hoppin, op. cit., pl. 26).
59 Cf. ARV 22 nos. 1 and 7 (Hoppin, op. cit., pll. 31, 27).
60 Cf. ARV 22 nos. 5 and 7 (Hoppin, op. cit. 105 pl. 28).
61 Cf. ARV 22 nos. 5, 6 and 7 (Hoppin, op. cit. 118, pll. 28, 27).
62 Cf. ARV 22 nos. 1 and 2 (Hoppin, op. cit., pll. 31, 26): a feature of the more scrupulous work of several contemporary painters.
63 Cf. ARV 22 no. 2 (Hoppin, op. cit., pl. 26).
64 Prof. C. M. Robertson has suggested that the ‘bow’ may be the end of a helmet crest, the figure holding up the helmet rather as does a youth on a vase by the Chicago Painter (Beazley, , Greek Vases in Poland, pl. 22Google Scholar).
65 Akr. I 603 pl. 29 (an assembly of gods).
66 Akr. I 2526, pl. 104 and cf. 2494, pl. 101 (an assembly of gods). On Akr. 2526 see also Papaspyridi AΔ XI 106, Seltman, , BSA XXVI 89 f.Google Scholar, 104, Beazley, , JHS XLIX 262 f.Google Scholar (ibid., pl. 15, 24 for another Aphrodite carrying a child) and JHS LII 180. Cf. Robinson, , AJA LX 7.Google Scholar
67 Cf. BSA XLIX 192.
68 E.g. the outlined lock before Aphrodite's ear. The narrow opening to the chiton sleeve is not uncommon in the Kleophrades Painter's work (Beazley, , Der Kleophrades-Maler, pll. 27Google Scholar, 28.2, 30.7), and the hem pattern is unusual but similar to that on some of the same painter's vases (Hoppin, op. cit., pl. 12, Pfuhl MuZ III, fig. 330). The flying strands of hair in a reserved ground and not incised, the short curly hair over the forehead, the long beard whiskers, and the long drawn line of the jawbone are to be found in the work of the Berlin Painter, who seems to be more consciously copied by our artist (for the hair cf. Beazley, , Der Berliner-Maler, pll. 9–12Google Scholar, forehead and beard especially, ibid., pll. 27.3 and 32, chin, ibid., pl. 3 and AJA XXXIX, pl. 9: further on the Berlin Painter, Robertson, , JHS LXX 23 ff.Google Scholar).
69 Cf. BSA XLIX 187 ff.
70 Ibid. 192 n. 95; add a Corinthian, example Corinth XII, pl. 65, 888.Google Scholar
71 AE 1901 pl. 1.
72 UKV 119.
73 Kunst und Heiltum 111 ff. with earlier references.
74 Ibid. 159 n. 425, Nilsson, , Geschichte der griechischen Religion I 2382 f.Google Scholar
75 Cf. Beazley, , Development 40.Google Scholar
76 The earliest, Kerameikos IV, pll. 8, 27. Desborough is sceptical about their possible social significance (Protogeometric Pottery 301).
77 Agora P 9468 (ARV 14), P 380 (ARV 683); Pnyx PN P-87; cf. Berlin 2759 (Benndorf, , Griechische und Sicilische Vasenbilder, pl. 4, 2Google Scholar, ÖJh I 89, fig. 38, perhaps from the Hephaisteion) and 2760 (from Nola!).
78 Judeich, Topographie von Athen Plan I G. 2 (centre). Wolters, op. cit. describes the house as the second on the right coming down the street from the north.
79 Judeich, op. cit. F. 3 (centre).
80 Judeich, op. cit. 379 f. n. 7, Kutsch, , Attische Heilgotter 48–52Google Scholar, IG II2 839, 840; for the former see Kirchner, , Imagines no. 94, pl. 38.Google Scholar
81 AE 1910 267 ff.
82 Kutsch, op. cit. 2 ff., Nilsson, op. cit. 538 f., Hausmann, op. cit. 23 f.
83 Kutsch, op. cit. 7 f.
