1

Epic stories in black and red. Narrative techniques and

authorial voice in four Attic black-figure vases in Portugal
(ABF 02, 03, 07, and 17)

Carlos A. Martins de Jesus

University of Granada
carlosamjesus@ugr.es

1. Myth, literature, and pottery: how to read a Greek vase?

Literature and plastic arts constituted inseparable realities right from the very first
centuries of what we call Greek culture, being our only means to access and understand
the Greeks, in particular their myths. In relation to Greek-painted pottery, the amount of
information it can provide is even more crucial, if only one considers how these artefacts
were, in many cases, part of every-day routine, both in private and public contexts:
symposia, athletics, weddings, funerals, and other social and religious ceremonies. As R.
Buxton (1994: 9), Greek society was made of histories (i.e., narratives) and images, being
both of them, in their own manner, texts that were supposed to speak truthfully, or at least
pretend to be truth.
The scenes depicted in vases are, as early as Mycenaean times, essentially
narrative, as proved by well-known examples such as the Warriors Krater (Athens,
National Archaeological Museum, Π 1426), from the twelfth century BC, depicting a
group of men armed with helmets, cuirass, greaves, shields, and spears as they are
departing for battle. The men have a sack of supplies that are hanging from their spears,
and a woman, on the side, raises her hand probably saying goodbye to them. Already in
such early examples, one can wonder if it is daily live or myth that is being painted on
the clay surface. A question that keeps facing the spectator of a vase and its modern and
contemporary interpreter, in cases deprived of inscriptions or any other element that
identifies the characters (and consequently, the scenes) represented. Furthermore, as
recently summarized by Rodríguez Pérez (2022: 266), “painted vases are not innocent
 2

photographs, not snapshots of the daily lives of the Athenians, but cultural constructions
that make use of a well-thought language to convey cultural values and beliefs.1”
As far as the retelling and even transmission of Greek myths is concerned, vase
painters (plastic artists in general) can no longer occupy a secondary place in comparison
with poets and other artists of the word. Both must be considered –and actually are, at
least since the last decades of the twentieth century– full-fledged creators and recreators
of myths, poietai working each of them with their specific media – the words, in the case
of poets, and the images, in the case of vase painters. This doesn’t mean that, in some
cases, the plastic representation of a mythic episode cannot coincide with or even be
inspired by (know or lost) a textual version of the same myth, as this is particularly
common in relation to epics and tragedy in different moments of Greek culture. What is
wrong is to assume that the painter feels somehow obligated to respect the text. In the
words of Snodgrass (1998: 152), when referring to the presence of Homeric epics in
Greek art from the eighth to the sixth century BC, “the fact that both the oral poet and the
visual artist were crucially concerned with this factor of composition helps to bring out
the fact that their activities were parallel in nature, rather than the latter being in any way
dependent on the former.”
Deeply influenced by structuralism and its ramifications in anthropology and
literary studies, this method started to develop in the eighties of the previous century by
a group of French-speaking scholars around J.-P. Vernant and C. Bérard, the so-called
Paris-Lausanne school2. It consists of a combination of iconography and iconology by
collecting the greatest number of actualizations of the same myth or episode and analyse
its evolution over time, considering also the historical, social, political, and simply artistic
reasons that determined that change. Within a post-structuralist spirit, mythic vase
painting is taken as a social and subjective construct based on structures and archetypes
that facilitate its understanding by detecting both similarities and oppositions. It is about
transferring the perspective from the artist to the spectator, aiming for an interpretation
that might be as close as possible to the one made by the original users of these artefacts3.

1
See the mentioned paper (Rodríguez Pérez 2022: 265-269), with footnotes, for the most recent approaches
to the study of Greek pottery.
2
On this school and its methods regarding the interpretation of Greek myth, see Bérard 1983: 5-37, Bérard
and Durand, in C. Bérard et alii (1987: 23-38), Lissarrague and Schnapp (1981: 257-297), and Beard, in
Rasmussen and Spivey (1991, repr. 1993: 12-35).
3
In M. Beard’s words (in Rasmussen and Spivey 1991, repr. 1993: 17): “to study Athenian pottery in this
way is to attempt to reconstruct in our own terms (for we cannot do otherwise) what was like to be an
Athenian viewer”.
 3

In relation to literature, whatever its genre and chronology might be, one must no longer
talk about source but rather testimony.
Several decades before, Dugas (1937: 5-26) already stressed the existence of a
graphic tradition developing autonomously from its literary counterpart. He concluded
that, while both traditions are in most cases coincident, depending on the same mythical
repertoire shared by both kinds of artists, in other cases they are quite different, let alone
on occasions when a given graphic version simply fails to find any literary treatment with
which it could agree or disagree, or even seems to disagree with it on purpose. As the
case studies in continuation are to prove, a mythic episode can actually develop within a
network of iconographic relations, by sharing, borrowing, or even confusing a group of
elements outside the scope of literary versions that may exist –even if the artist is aware
of them.
Nonetheless, the truth is that Greek vase painters were frequently and for too long
accused of ignoring (and therefore misquoting) the literary versions of a myth, being that
an easy (too easy) way of explaining the differences between a literary and a plastic
version of some episodes. For instance, in relation to the depiction of Patroclus’ funerary
games in the Vase François (Florence, Museo Archeologico Etrusco 4209; ABV 76.1,
682; Para. 29; BAPD 300000), a column-krater signed by the painter Kleitias dated ca.
570, John Beazley (1986: 32) believed that Kleitias had failed inscribing the names (and
the order) of the participants in that episode, as told by Homer. It seems that the tyranny
of philology took too much time to be defeated, after all.
With some of these coordinates in mind, the following pages try to read the plastic
representation of epic episodes in a group of four Attic black-figure vases held in different
Portuguese collections, all of them united in a recent exhibition and its comprehensive
catalogue4. While the necessary relation with literary sources is expected and needed, it
is my aim to underline the originality creative autonomy of these vases’ painters, mostly
within the iconographic tradition of the episodes they portray. Literature will no longer
serve as a potential source, but rather as a parallel that may help to enlighten the mythical
tradition implied in these vase depictions, as well as the pictorial details that support the
identification of their painters’ authorial voice.

4
Morais et alii (coords.) 2022, vol. III. The Portuguese vases will be referred to by the abbreviations given
to them in this catalogue. When the permission for reproducing some vases failed to be obtained, the reader
must look for their images by their reference number in the Beazley Archive Pottery Database (BAPD) –
whenever it includes that vase– available online at https://www.carc.ox.ac.uk/carc/pottery.
 4

2. Epic myths in black and red: four case studies

What we were used to call Homeric poems are only two of a large group of epic
narratives, two of the many poems that, at some point, were chosen to be edited and
transmitted into western culture. Several equally-length and equally-elaborated poems
were known and performed to Greek people over archaic and classical times, dealing not
only with the Trojan cycle (Cypria, Aethiopis, The Little Iliad, The Sack of Ilion, the
Nostoi), but also others on the Theban Cycle (Oedipodea, Thebaid, Epigoni, Alcmeonis)
and other heroes like Herakles or Theseus. Alongside these larger narrative poems, other
poetic forms, still closely connected to the themes and the formulaic verses of epic, were
responsible for the reshaping of Greek myth in literature and plastic arts. Names such as
Stesichorus and his Ilioupersis, or Ibycus, are the first ones to come to mind, but every
archaic poet –the ones we inaccurately use to call lyric– could be given as an example of
the perpetuators of Greek archaic epics. Several centuries before the cultural impact of
Attic tragedy, with its consequences mostly in the decoration of red-figure pottery, these
texts were responsible for the transmission and reshaping of most Greek myths, by means
of oral performances, leaving their marks in the huge amount of black-figure pottery that
portrays mythic episodes.
One must only think of the aforementioned Vase François. Probably meant as a
wedding gift that, it depicts, besides the main myth of the wedding of Peleus and Thetis,
dozens of other episodes all around its surface, which allow us to consider it a true
mythical encyclopaedia of images: Theseus’ returning from Crete, the Calydonian boar
hunt, the Centauromachy, Patroclus’ funerary games, the ambush of Troilus by Achilles,
among several others.
As said before, myth was part of a Greek’s everyday life. Mythic stories could be
heard in several public contexts, but they could also be seen in different social and private
places. In this sense, mythic representations in ceramics were probably more frequently
seen, as they were part of both social and private spheres. Therefore, it is usually possible
to establish some sort of connection between the mythic episodes portrayed in Greek
vases and these artefacts’ primary function. A connection that, although not always easy
to decipher, was immediate for any Greek from the archaic and the classical periods. Such
an interpretation of Greek pottery from the user’s perspective and within the post-
 5

structuralist theories summarized before in this chapter5, allows us to better understand

the painters’ choices in terms of the mythic themes and the ways they portrayed them.
Sometimes, mythic representations of episodes, scenes, or simply characters in
some vases so traditional that they dismiss further explanation for the reasons of their
choice. That would be the case for ABF 17 (BAPD 7281), apparently the oldest artefact
to be commented on in this chapter (ca. 540-530 BC). It is a precious sample of the so-
called Attic Little-Master cups, mostly produced around the middle and third quarters of
the sixth century BC. As for their decoration6, these cups are known for painting only the
small upper frieze above the carination and on a few occasions also the lip or handle areas.
They are usually signed (more often indicating the potter’s name, not the painter’s), which
is not the case for the Portuguese specimen. For the purposes of the reading I am
conducting, the mythic decoration of the cup, even if minimal, fits perfectly with its
(obvious) use in a banquet. On each side of the upper frieze, a central figure is portrayed,
flanked in both cases by two draped figures: a Nike on the one side, and Herakles fighting
the Nemean Lion7, on the other (Fig. 1). Both are, if not more, symbols of victory, hope,
and even youth, the qualities the banqueters are to be identified with, or at least feel like
their own, once the drinking starts to operate its work over the body and the mind.
What I believe is worth noticing about both figures is the way their representation
dismisses the need for inscriptions or any other element in order to identify them, as they
are usually depicted with their proper formulaic attributes and within a formulaic scheme
of representation8. Nike –or any other winged female figure that represents the same– is
usually portrayed like this, running with wide-opened wings. Just as anyone is able to
identify Athena by her aegis, helmet, and spear, Zeus by his thunderbolt, or Hermes by
his winged sandals. And the same goes in relation to Herakles, usually depicted with the
cub and, most unequivocally, the skin of the Nemean Lion9. An attribute that he was to

5
Following this method, I performed a first reading of some specimens held in Portuguese collections. See
Jesus (2022: 278-289).
6
On these cups’ shapes, functions, and types of decoration, see Heesen (2022: 199-203). The author studies
ABF 17 in pp. 201-202.
7
The oldest vase depicting Herakles’ fighting the Nemean Lion seems to be another black-figure cup
attributed to the Heidelberg Painter, ca. 560 BC. (LIMC ‘Herakles’ 1762).
8
I take both concepts (formulaic attribute and formulaic scene) from E. A. Mackay (1995: 282-303).
Focussing on the comparison between poetic (oral) and iconographic traditions, the author stands for the
development of narrative vase painting as influenced by the rich patrimony of oral epics in relation to the
use of formulae and conventional scenes. For instance, as Odysseus is often πολύµητις, Herakles is usually
depicted with his lionskin; or, both in poetry and plastic arts, a prothesis scene must obey a series of
elements and rules of composition.
9
Megacleides, in a scholium to Athenaeus 512-513a (= Stesich. fr. 229 PMG), considered that the lionskin
first appeared in Stesichorus (ca. 632-556 BC). Mackay (1995: 288 sqq.) first identifies it, in Greek pottery,
 6

use after his first labour, the defeat of that animal, as represented in the small scene of the
vase. Some lines are due in relation to this story.
Episodes of a hero fighting a lion start to be painted in pottery and other objects
from the eighth century BC onwards, imported from the East during the Geometric
period10. The specific episode involving Herakles and the Nemean Lion11 shows no deep
variations, both in literature and plastic arts, even if some differences can be noticed in
relation to the means by which the hero killed that beast. As its skin was invulnerable to
iron –the very reason why Herakles chose to keep it as a shield–, literary and iconographic
testimonies mostly agree on considering that the hero defeated it without any weapons12,
being therefore common the scenes of strangulation (Erastosthenes, Cat. 12; Pseudo-
Theocritus 25.266-267; Diodorus 4.11.4; Apollodorus 2.5.3), or that other with the cub,
used as a first attempt to neutralize the animal before actually killing it (Pseudo-
Theocritus 25.255-266; Apollodorus 2.5.3), a scheme also known to vase painters13.
Less common is the use of the sword within a first (failed) attack to the beast, as
seems to be the case in the cup we are commenting on14. It appears only in two other
black-figure vases that, interestingly enough, are contemporary of the Portuguese cup.
One is the column-krater from Thespiae, ascribed to the Painter of Louvre F6 (Athens,
NM 440; ABV 124, 19; LIMC ‘Herakles’ 1787; BAPD 300915), dated between 550-540
BC; the other the pseudo-Chalcidian neck-amphora from Caere, ca. 530 BC (Paris,
Louvre E812; LIMC ‘Herakles’ 1809). Later on, around 470 BC, the painter Geras
portrayed the same scene in an Attic red-figure stamnos (ARV2 287, 26; LIMC ‘Herakles’
1843; BAPD 202597), in what constitutes the single specimen of the red-figure technique
that combines both strategies of strangulation and the use of a sword. All of these vases,
the Portuguese included, seem to portray the moment before the killing of the beast, and
one cannot help recalling the testimony of Bacchylides’ ninth ode, impossible to date but

on a black-figure Siana Cup attributed to Painter C (London, British Museum B379; ABV 61, 8; LIMC
‘Nereus’ 30; BAPD 300525), depicting Herakles’ fight with Triton, in a date close to Stesichorus’
Geryoneis (frs. 8-87 SLG).
10
See J. Carater (1972: 45).
11
Hesiod (Th. 362-327) says it was the son of Ortos and Equidina (or Quimaera), even if the animal was
soon to be known as the son of Hera (Bacchylides 9.7-8). Normally associated to the Nemean valleys
(Hesiod, Th. 331), it was to become related also to other regions. Later must be the traditions that made it
the son of Typhon (Apollodorus 2.5.1), the Sky (FGrHist 31 F4) or the Moon (e.g. Plutarco, De facie 937F).
12
This plastic scene is studied by Bérard (1987: 177-186).
13
E.g. LIMC ‘Herakles’ 1810 and 1891.
14
While the drawing of the sword is not entirely clear (maybe only the hand of that weapon is to be seen),
the position of the hero’s right arm, particularly the elbow, suggests that Herakles is trying to hit the animal
with the sword, while strangulating him with his left arm. Also common is the lion turning back its face,
when trying to escape his attacker.
 7

considered to have been premiered around the times of (or slightly after) the Persian
Wars. When commenting on the aetiology of the Nemean Games and the pankration, both
the circumstances where the Aeginetan Pyteas obtained his victory, he goes as follows
(Ba. 13.50-54):

οὐ γὰρ] δαµαϲίµβροτοϲ αἴθων

χαλ]κὸ̣ϲ ἀπλάτου θέλει
χωρε]ῖν διὰ ϲώµατοϲ, ἐ-
γνά]µφ̣ θη δ’ ὀπίϲϲω
φάϲγα]νον·

since] the man-slaying and gleaming

bron]ze the unapproachable body
refuses to pierce,
and bent backwards
the sw]ord.

If indeed a sword is to be seen in the central scene of our cup, we are in possession
of yet another sample of that reduced group of vases that, as in Bacchylides’ poem,
represent the moment before the actual killing of the lion. In both cases –the poem and
the vase– the focus seems to more on trying than on achieving. In the case of Bacchylides,
some fifty or sixty years after the painting of the cup, the aim of the episode in the
epinicion to Pytheas was to establish the aetiology of the pankration, to which plastic
representations of the fight between Herakles and the Nemean Lion are actually very
similar. Moreover, scenes of real pankration must have been the ones to inspire plastic
representations of the first labour of Herakles15. In the same way, the painting of the scene
in this cup must pursuit an aura of competition, being even possible –although totally
impossible to prove– that it might have been use in a banquet celebrating a similar athletic
triumph. The identification of the central figure on the other side as Nike would, without
any doubt, reinforce such a possibility.
The formulaic scene we have just considered, the first of the hero’s works in every
list, was furthermore responsible for one of the formulaic attributes that was more often
used to identify him, especially when no inscriptions were used. I am talking about the
skin of the Nemean Lion, which already Pseudo-Theocritus (25.272-279) says that the
hero took from the animal with his bare hands and afterwards began to use as a means of
protection – due, of course, to its invulnerability to iron.

15
We developed this possibility of iconographic transposition, from reality to myth, in Jesus (2017: 437-
441). With the footnotes for the bibliography.
 8

Some thirty or forty years after, the so-called Red-Line Painter decorated side A
of ABF 03 (Para. 301; GVP 10; Fig. 2), an Attic black-figure neck amphora, with another
famous work of Herakles: that of the fight and capture of the Cretan Bull. As far as the
literature on this episode is concerned, there is no consensus in relation to this animal or
the development of the labour itself. Akusilaos (FGrH 2 F29), for instance, identifies it
as the one that brought Europe to Zeus in Crete, while Diodorus (4.77) considers it Minos’
herd, and Apollodorus (2.5-7), followed by several late authors, says the animal emerged
from the Cretan sea at Poseidon’s order. Diodorus (loc. cit.), Apolodorus (loc. cit.), and
Ovidius (Met. 7), among others, still identify it with the bull loved by Pasiphae and the
one from Marathon that was defeated by Theseus.
A confusion that is also noticeable in Greek pottery, as it is sometimes hard to
decide whether the scene portrays the confrontation between Herakles and the Cretan Bull
–as it seems to be the case– or Theseus and the Bull of Marathon. In the case we are
focussing on, confusion could arise due to the painting of the hero as a young naked man,
furthermore without the lionskin, but the presence of the bow and the quiver, hanging
above the animal and usually absent from Theseus’ depictions, seems to resolve any
doubts in favour of Alcmena’s son. The aforementioned is nevertheless an evidence of
the frequent process of iconographic communication, i.e., when the same pictorial scheme
(again, a formulaic scene) is used by vase painters for the depiction of more than one
mythic episode.
The scene, as we see it in the Portuguese amphora, with the hero trying to
neutralize the animal without any weapons or even a rope to tie it up, is actually the less-
frequent among the preserved ceramics, having one of its few parallels in an Attic black-
figure hydria from Vulci ascribed to the Leagros Group (London, BM B 309; ABV 364,
56; LIMC ‘Herakles’ 2323; BAPD 302051). In this vase, the scene occupies the centre of
the upper frieze above the carination, sided by Hermes, Athena, Iolaos, and a woman, all
of them seated and watching. Nevertheless, in that case, the hero is fully dressed and
wears the lionskin, making his identification straightforward. More similar –as it shows
no attendants and occupies an entire face of the vase–, is the scene in another
contemporary black-figure neck amphora from Vulci, ascribed to the Michigan Painter
(London, BM B 277; ABV 343, 8; Add2 94; LIMC ‘Herakles’ 2340; BAPD 301910), with
the single difference16 that the hero is portrayed as a bearded old man, although also naked

16
As stated by the LIMC record (‘Herakles’ 2340, p. 62), Herakles is wearing a sword, but in no way is he
using it to attack the bull.
 9

(Fig. 3)17. Just another example of this scene’s fortune –alongside Herakles’ labours in
general– in the decoration of this kind of vases, whose primary use must be ascribed to
the world of sports. The celebration of a victory in the pankration, as it was said in relation
to ABF 17, is again to be taken into consideration.
But the truth is that the mythic subject was so universal, one may say, that we
actually find it in other vases, meant for other uses. That would be the case of an Attic
black-figure lekythos from ca. 480–470 BC (Louvre F 455 = Fig. 4), clearly with a less-
detailed drawing, where Herakles is once again portrayed as a young, naked, and
beardless man, with his armour hanging and neutralizing the bull without recurring to any
kind of weapon18. In this case, a funerary use must be considered, mostly due to the shape
of the vase.
I move on to ABF 02 (GVP 82-83; BAPD 9034209), a black-figure neck amphora
slightly contemporary to ABF 03 (some ten years earlier, at the most) ascribed to an
unknown artist in the manner of the Antimenes Painter (Fig. 5). Side A depicts two deities
facing, namely Apollo (weirdly accompanied by a panther) and Athena, and side B
reproduces what has as a representation of the removal of Sarpedon’s body from the battle
field by the twin brothers Thanatos (Death) and Hypnos (Sleep) to his homeland in Lycia,
following the orders of his father Zeus19. This vase, which failed to be included so far in
most recent scholarship dealing with the episode20, deserves to be interpreted as part of a
not so-large group of vases21 depicting the episode that the Iliad summons in only a few
lines (16.678-683):

αὐτίκα δ' ἐκ βελέων Σαρπηδόνα δῖον ἀείρας

πολλὸν ἀπὸ πρὸ φέρων λοῦσεν ποταµοῖο ῥοῇσι
χρῖσέν τ' ἀµβροσίῃ, περὶ δ' ἄµβροτα εἵµατα ἕσσε·

17
Side B of the vase has also a Dionysian thematic, as in the Portuguese amphora, showing two Maenads
dancing, hair gathered up, wearing long-embroidered chitons and himatia.
18
See also the Attic black-figure mastoid, ca. 500–475 BC (Louvre F 475; ABV 558.471; BPAD 331572),
where the scene is watched by a seated Athena on the left.
19
The amount of literature on the subject, both in terms of literary and iconographic actualizations, is huge,
being almost impossible to mention. Some seminal works that are worth mentioning are von Bothmer
(1981: 63-80), Turner (2003/2004: 73-79), and González Zymla (2021: 107-127).
20
Mentioning the Portuguese amphora, I could only find González Zymla (2021: 115), who cites the
unpublished PhD dissertation of Rebeca Georgiades, Deadly Depictions and Descriptions. Understanding
Attic representations of the deceased in the afterlife in text and image during the 5th and 6th centuries BC,
Sidney University, 2016 (at page 41).
21
D. von Bothmer recalls ten Attic vases from the 6th and 5th centuries BC, in both black and red-figure
techniques (LIMC ‘Sarpedon’ 3-12). Other lists can be found in Shapiro (1993: 132-147), and Mintsi (1991:
10.) Neither of these lists include the Portuguese amphora nor a black-figure olpe held at Sydney (Nicholson
Museum 98.150, which can be seen online (https://weblimc.org/page/monument/2124861). On it, see also
Oakley (2002: 243-248 pl. 66a-b), and M. Turner (2003/2004: 72-74, fig. 6a-b).
 10

πέµπε δέ µιν ποµποῖσιν ἅµα κραιπνοῖσι φέρεσθαι,

ὕπνῳ καὶ θανάτῳ διδυµάοσιν, οἵ ῥά µιν ὦκα
κάτθεσαν ἐν Λυκίης εὐρείης πίονι δήµῳ.

Forthwith then he lifted up goodly Sarpedon forth from out the range of darts, and
when he had borne him far away, bathed him in the streams of the river, and
anointed him with ambrosia, and clothed him about with immortal raiment, and
gave him to swift conveyers to bear with them, even to the twin brethren, Sleep
and Death, who set him speedily in the rich land of wide Lycia22.

The subject of the Iliadic lines is Apollo, fulfilling Zeus’ wishes regarding his son
Sarpedon, the Trojan ally who fell fighting Patroclus. The identification of the scene in
side B as that of Sarpedon’s prothesis, besides the remaining inscriptions Θ(?).ΟΣ and Η
Ο, suggesting the identification of Thanatos on the left and Hypnos on the right, is also
supported when looking at the iconographic tradition of the representation of the episode
in Attic pottery. As recalled by Rocha Pereira (2007: 82), the auction catalogue already
advertised the vase by suggesting the painter’s inspiration in the famous calyx-krater
signed by Euphronios (Add2 396.404; LIMC ‘Sarpedon’ 4; BAPD 187; Fig. 6). Dated ca.
515-510 BC, this masterpiece of Greek pottery was held by the Metropolitan Museum of
New York from 1972 to 2008, the year it was returned to Italy to be exhibited first at the
Museo Regionale Etrusco of Rome, and later at the the Cerveteri Museum, where it
remains23.
But not only the sellers of the vase considered it the model for later depictions of
the scene. A. Tsingarida (2009: 135-142), in what I believe to be one of the best
iconographic studies of the motif of Sarpedon’s death in Attic pottery, convincingly
argued for the influence of Euphronios’ scene in a number of painters, going deeper on
the establishment of the links between different workshops when dealing with that
subject. While not mentioning the Portuguese amphora, the author fairly concludes that
“painters did not simply copy an appealing scene or composition from a famous
contemporary painter but drew their inspiration from a companion with whom they
shared, at least occasionally, workshop’s connections” (Tsingarida 2009: 141).
Nonetheless, I cannot be convinced by the idea that the painter of the Portuguese
amphora, whoever he might have been, got inspired by Euphronios. At least not by

22
Transl. by Murray (1924).
23
The most complete analysis of this vase, its history, iconography, and meanings, is the one by Spivey
(2018).
 11

Euphronios’ masterpiece on that subject (Fig. 6), which is actually his second depiction
of Sarpedon’s death. If one is to look for a parallel, the Portuguese vase actually shares
more characteristics with another earlier vase also signed by Euphronios, namely the
decoration of a red-figure kylix from ca. 520 BC, nowadays held at the Museo Nazionale
di Villa Giulia, in Rome (Add2 404; LIMC ‘Sarpedon’ 2; BAPD 7043). Both this earlier
version and the Portuguese amphora share a feature that is not to be seen in any other
identified representation of the scene, namely the fact that the twin brothers carrying the
body of the deceased (both labelled, as well as the remaining characters) are wingless
and, once compared to the Cerveteri calyx-krater and the remaining vases that might have
been inspired by it, carry the body more elevated from the ground, transmitting the
sensation that, instead of the moment of its removal, it is actually its moving from the
battle field that is being depicted.
More than an issue of technique or pictorial artistry, I believe this difference is
once again related to the moment chosen to be painted. The amphora we are commenting
on is, furthermore, the only example that reduces the scene to the three main characters,
with no other deity present –neither Apollo or Hermes, even if the first one appears on
the other side of the vase –, in what constitutes a strategy of dramatic concentration. A
similar formulaic scene is to be found, for instance, in two black-figure amphorae by the
Diosphoros Painter from the first years of the fifth century, where the painter still added,
in the centre above the corpse, a flying εἴδωλον representing the deceased’s soul24. A final
aspect seems to isolate the pictorial scene in the Lancastre amphora. That is the position
of Thanatos and Hypnos, if indeed we are to identify both warriors with the twin
messengers of Zeus and read their names in the fragmentary inscriptions. It seems to be
the only case where Thanatos holds the corpse by the feet and Hypnos by the shoulders,
in what might, nonetheless, be a meaningless variation.
Whatever the case is, the formulaic scene of side B –two warriors carrying the
corpse of another one fallen in combat–, the partial inscription of the characters, and even
the two deities in the illustration of side A –Apollo and Athena, being the former
responsible for the preparation of the Sarpedon’s corpse in the Iliad, and the latest symbol
of the homeland of the painter and also of the actual deceased being honoured– reinforce
the identification of the scene as the one also described in the Homeric poem. But, as

24
Louvre F 388; LIMC ‘Sarpedon’ 7 and New York, MMA 56.171.25; ABV 509, 137; Para. 248; Add2 127;
LIMC ‘Sarpedon’ 8) This would be the sixth pattern of representation of the scene, within the seven
established by González Zymla (2021: 113-119).
 12

usual, the creative autonomy of vase painters seemed to impose itself from the very
beginning.
As seen before, Apollo had been commanded to remove Sarpedon’s corpse from
the battle, wash it in the river, anoint it with ambrosia, and clothe it with immortal
garments, thus fulfilling the most crucial part of funeral rites –the laying out of the body
(prothesis). These are the same rites that are due in any aristocratic burial, specifically
when the deceased passed fighting away from his homeland. Therefore, it does not
surprise that the episode soon became a frequent depiction in funerary pottery, used in
the burial process (lekythoi) and banquets (krateres, kantharoi, and cups), particularly in
times of war. That might explain the frequency of the scene in vases dating from the late-
sixth and fifth centuries BC, particularly for the celebration of aristocratic soldiers killed
fighting abroad and whose bodies could not be recovered25. The same real-life men that,
at some point in the fifth century BC, vase painters began to depict in white-ground
lekythoi26, where, furthermore, the centre of the illustration is occupied by a tomb, absent
from any preserved black or red-figure vase.
Where vase painters seem to differ from Homer is in the way they all depict
Sarpedon’s corpse, by no means cleansed, anointed, or clothed with immortal garments,
as it had been prescribed by Zeus himself to Apollo. What we see in every vase-depiction
is rather a naked (only occasionally wearing the greaves, as to identify him with a fallen
soldier), wounded, and still bleeding corpse, an example of what Neils (2009: 212-219)
called an “unheroic body”. By comparing Euphronios’ scene with other representations
of the removal of a dead mythic warrior from the battle field27, the author concludes that
the depiction of a wounded, uncleansed, and bleeding body was to be interpreted by the
original users and spectators of the vase as representing the barbaric enemy, instead of
being a symbol of grief and a means of honouring an actual fallen Greek warrior. Neils
goes further on ascribing the nobility associated to Sarpedon’s scene, as well as others28,
to the influence of western Christian meanings of the naked body of Christ as a symbol

25
See González Zymla, H. (2021: 114 and notes 60 and 61).
26
Some examples in LIMC (‘Thanatos’ 15-20).
27
That would be the case, for instance, of the recovery of Patroclus’ corpse in the Attic red-figure calyx-
krater of the Pezzino Group, ca. 500 BC (Agrigento, Museo Archeologico C 1956; ARV 32.2; Para. 324;
BAPD 200177), where the same formulaic scheme of two warriors – mortals in this case – lifting the
deceased’s body is followed, being the latter is fully dressed.
28
Another example would be the naked body of Ajax, a suicidal, as it appears being covered by Tekmessa
in an Attic red-figure cup attributed to the Brygos Painter, ca. 480 BC (Malibu, J. Paul Getty Museum
86.AE.286; Para. 367.1 BIS; BAPD 275946).
 13

of redemption and sacrifice, ideas that would not have been among a Greek’s concepts29.
While convincing, such an interpretation would perhaps compromise the funerary use of
this and other aforementioned vases, unless one accepts the mocking as part of these
celebrations of death.
Be that as it might, in cases like this, where it is more obvious that the vase painter
is responding to (again, not simply illustrating) an epic poem, what he is actually doing
is offering his own version of an epic story, without being necessarily following that
poem. As recently stated by R. Osborn (2022: 224-225), when commenting on some vase
paintings portraying Priam’s supplication to Achilles for Hector’s corpse (told in the Iliad
24.468-551), these epic scenes in Greek pottery “are not in the place of the text, they are
supplements to the texts, as a commentary is a supplement to the text.” In the same way
are we to interpret the unusual characteristics of the traditional representation of
Sarpedon’s scene in the available vases, as well as the ones found only in the Lancastre
amphora. Wether intending to portray an heroic or unheroic fallen hero, the painter made
a clear effort at dramatization of the scene, a feature that can be seen in aspects such as
the position of the corpse being carried –with his right hand in his forehead, as if not even
dead yet– or the much-commented face of Thanatos, in the left, looking forward with
large and threatening eyes, as if reminding each and every one of us that he shall come
for us too, when we least expect.
The last case-study I am focussing on is ABF 06 (Fig. 7a-b), first published by
Rocha Pereira (1959/1960: 18-20; 1962, 22010: 41-47; 2008: 3-10; 2010: 41-47) and
already part of the more important catalogues of Greek pottery (ABV 362, 26; Para. 161;
LIMC ‘Achilleus’ 362; BAPD 302021). This black-figure hydria ascribed to the Leagros
Group, produced ca. 520-500 BC, has additional historical interest, as the first
descriptions of it already mentioned that it had been subjected to an excessive restoration,
which, up until 1964 –when D. von Bothmer travelled to Lisbon to clean it– did not allow
to see the original layout of its decoration30. The attribution of the vase by Beazley to an
anonymous painter within the Leagros Group must surely have considered the similarities

29
The same misinterpretation, according to the author, would have occurred in relation to the famous scene
of Eos holding the corpse of Memnon in the inner bottom of an Attic red-figure cup, ca. 490–480 BC, from
Capua (Paris, Louvre G 115; ARV 434.74, 1653; Para. 375; BAPD 205119), interpreted as the ancient
version of the pietà.
30
See M. H. Rocha Pereira (2008: 3-10) for the history of conservation, the restoration, and the differences
between the amphora’s prior and actual conditions.
 14

to another one, in the same shape and technique, held in London (British Museum B 326;
ABV 362, 28; LIMC ‘Achilleus’ 363; BAPD 302023; Fig. 8).
It takes no expert to see that the formulaic composition of the scene is precisely
the same, as is the very organization of the vase in terms of decoration. Both vases are
related to the killing of Troilus31, the Trojan prince mentioned only once in the Iliad
(24.257: Τρωΐλον ἱππιοχάρµην –literally, ‘warrior who fights from a chariot’32), when
Priam regrets the deaths of all his sons. Nonetheless, a closer look reveals important
differences between both vases. While the Lisbon hydria shows a young male apparently
still alive, at the top of an altar towards which moves Achilles right before killing him,
the London vase portrays a more violent scenario: the shield of the soldier at right hides
the terrible vision of the already-headless corpse, while Achilles uses its head as a weapon
to keep attacking it33. Both painters, apparently within the same workshop, chose to paint
different moments of the episode. But the differences can be otherwise motivated.
The story of the end of Troilus, not told in the Homeric tradition, must have been
part of other epic poems, especially the Cypria, and was also to be the subject of a lost
tragedy by Sophocles (frs. 618-635 Radt). This is assumed especially from a scholium to
the aforementioned line of the Iliad (24.257, s.v. Τρωΐλον ἱππιοχάρµην): ἐντεῦθεν
Σοφοκλῆς ἐν Τρωίλῳ φησὶν αὐτὸν <λοχηθῆναι> ὑπὸ Ἀχιλλέως ἵππους γυµνάζοντα παρὰ
τὸ Θυµβραῖον καὶ ἀποθανεῖν (“on this, Sophocles says in his Troilus that he was
ambushed by Achilles once he was exercising his horses by the Tymbraios and died”).
The theme of the ambush, generally considered a different version of the hero’s death,
can actually be no more than a previous moment of the same story, one that was
extensively cultivated by vase painters when depicting the ambushing of Troilus and
Polyxene by a fountain, where the brothers had gone to water the horses34.

31
The literary and iconographic testimonies of this episode, as well as its motivations and main
interpretations, were deeply studied by González González (2014: 229-246), who mostly deals with the
sacrificial readings of the story.
32
Transl. by Rocha Pereira (2008: 7).
33
A scene that, at some point, ichnographically merged with that other of the killing of Astyanax, Priam’s
grandson and the ultimate heir of Troy, from which it must have derived. See LIMC ‘Astyanax’ I 7-14 +
18-25, where the dead body of Astyanax (in any case, a child) is used as a weapon to attack Priam, lying in
an altar.
34
The scene appears in black-figure pottery at least since 560-540 BC (LIMC ‘Polyxene’ 8-15). The more
specific scene by the fountain must not be earlier than the second half of the sixth century BC (LIMC
‘Polyxene’ 2-7). On the subject of Troilus’ ambush in general, see A. Cambitoglou 1988: 1-21 and Grillo
(2021: 5-18), who presents a mostly-unknown lekythos held at Montevidéu (Uruguai), a vase he attributes
to the Haimon Painter. The frequency of the representation of fountains in pottery, often showing the head
of a lion, has been interpreted as a reflection of the investment of Pisistratids in that kind of public building.
 15

Rocha Pereira already stressed the strangeness of the Lisbon hydria portraying a
still-living Troilus, against the more frequent depiction of his already-dead body. That,
as said before, can be explained by the choice of the moment to depict, of which the
Portuguese vase is actually not the only sample. Indeed, González González (2014: 235-
238) identifies at least two other vases where it is possible to see a still-living Troilus: a
black-figure amphora from ca. 550 BC by the Tityos Painter (Ure Museum 47.6.1; LIMC
‘Achle’ 18), and a Corinthian black-figure pyxis from the first half of the sixth century
BC35. To these, I add yet another vase, a red-figured kylix signed (again) by Euphronios
(ARV² 320, 8; Para. 359; Add² 214; LIMC ‘Achilleus’ 370; BAPD 203224) that depicts,
in one of its outer faces, the hero being dragged in to an altar, and, in the inner bottom of
the cup, Achilles about to kill him with a sword.
In this particular case, the choice for painting the moment when Troilus is still
alive in the Portuguese hydria, as well as his depiction as a young boy –almost a child,
one could say– can also tell us something about the available archaic versions of the
episode. In the aforementioned paper, González González (2014: 231-233) connects this
scenario of the sacrifice of Troilus with what must have been an older tradition, at least
as old as the first half of the sixth century BC, that justified the killing of the Trojan prince
as a consequence of his refusal to accept Achilles’ erotic approaches. Remains of this
version might be hidden in a fragment by Ibycus (P. Oxy. 2637, fr. 12 = S 224 Page):

[ ].[
[ ]τ̣ου[
[ ]αν.η̣.[
[ Τρ]ω̣ίλ̣ου εκ..[
[ ].στον φόνον 5
[ ].αι ἐπιτηρ̣ή̣σα̣σ̣
παίδα] θ̣εοῖσ̣ ἴ̣κ[̣ ελον τῶ]ν περγάµω̣ν
ἔκτοσ̣θεν Ἰλίο̣[υ κτάνε·] ἀνεῖ̣λεν τὸν
Τρωίλον ἐκτ[ὸς τῆς πό]λεως ἐν τῶι
τοῦ Θυµβραίου ἱ[ερῶι· οὕτ]ω̣ οὖν παῖδα 10
θεοῖσ̣ ὅµοιον θ̣ε̣[οὶ οἱ ἐ]κ̣τὸς Ἰλίου ἱ-
δρυµένοι το[ ].νω δι̣ατα[
[ ]α̣ προειρ[η- ] ἀδελφ.[
[ ]θαισα̣.[ ]νων οι.[
.ε̣ρεσαδε[ Ἕ]κτορο̣[ς 15
.].ι̣ Τρωίλ̣[- ].τουπ[
[ ]κ̣ασι.[ . . .

35
On this vase, not collected in LIMC, see Bukina (2010: 53: 3-13). It can be seen online, at
https://www.hermitagemuseum.org/wps/portal/hermitage/digital-
collection/10.+porcelain%2c+faience%2c+ceramics/600875 (accessed 05/01/2024).
 16

[ ]α̣δελ[
[ ].[

The mention of Troilus as παίδα] θ̣εοῖσ̣ ἴ̣κ̣[ελον (“godlike boy”) in line 7 of the
fragment, considered alongside the poetics of Ibycus, could indeed suggest that the story
was being told within an erotic context, in a time (the late-sixth century BC) coincident
with the iconographic data previously recalled. A context that could also have inspired
Phrynicus’ lost tragedy Troilus (slightly contemporary), as mentioned by Athenaeus’
Deipnosophistae (13.81.14) when telling how Sophocles –himself the author of a lost
tragedy entitled after the Trojan prince (frs. 618-635 Radt), as previously mentioned–
tried to hit on a handsome servant in a banquet by quoting a line from an unidentified
Phrynicus’ tragedy that could as well be his Troilus (λάµπει δ' ἐπὶ πορφυρέαις παρῇσι
φῶς ἔρωτος: test. 13-25 Snell)36.
But the truth is that such an erotic understanding of the motivations hidden behind
Achilles’ killing of Troilus can be even older. Once again, literary and iconographic
arguments can be given. Kunze (1950: 140-142), when studying a group of bronze
bracelets from Olympia that depict the episode (LIMC ‘Achilleus’ 375-377), suggested
Stesichorus’ lost Ilioupersis as a possible source for what would already be an erotic
interpretation of the story. These bracelets take us back to the first quarter of the sixth
century BC, a time frame coincident with the divulgation of what might have been
Stesichorus’ version in the Ilioupersis. Particularly one of them (LIMC ‘Achilleus’ 377;
Fig. 9), mostly due to the inclusion of a cock on the top of the altar –a usual ἐρωτικὸν
δῶρον– seems to be a clear indicator of how old that version of the story truly is. More
importantly, put side-to-side with the Lisbon hydria, one can easily recognise the same
formulaic scheme of representation for the two main characters. If indeed this is to be
considered the iconographic model of the scene, Achilles’ gesture as depicted in the
Portuguese vase does make sense37, as he would be trying to neutralize with his left arm
Troilus’ right one, no longer visible in the deteriorated decoration.
That being said, what could have been the primary use of the Lisbon hydria? I can
only imagine it as a centrepiece at an aristocratic banquet, recalling an epic episode that
could even be sang –why not imagine it– in the aftermath of the meal. Its entire decoration
(the scene we have analysed and also the quadriga depicted on the shoulder) could indeed

36
For a deeper analysis of these literary testimonies, see González González (2014: 229-233).
37
Pace Rocha Pereira (1962, 22010: 46).
 17

belong to the same epic story or cycle. If the erotic interpretation is somehow correct, its
main goal would have been to amuse the banqueters, to whom the story told in images
should be immediately understood, with no need to read the labels of which only the name
of the greatest of the Greeks, Achilles, is nowadays preserved.

3. Final remarks

In the last pages, I revisited the mythic decoration of four Attic black-figure vases
kept in Portuguese museums or private collections, moving in between literary and plastic
(iconographic) actualizations of myths in archaic Greece, particularly Athens. The case
studies I focussed on proved how vase painters were by no means dependent on the
literary versions of the mythic episodes they chose to depict, even if they could (and most
probably did) have acquaintance with them. If the scenes of ABF 17 and ABF 13 stood
out as examples of the universality of the greatest of all Greek heroes, Herakles and his
labours, the cases of ABF 02 and ABF 06 demanded a deeper consideration in relation to
the very identification of the depicted scenes and the search not as much for their models
as for their parallels.
Let alone Herakles and the Nemean lion –used mostly to demonstrate the use of
formulaic attributes in plastic arts in the same way epithets are used in poetry, connected
to a particular character (or group of characters) –, the scenes of yet the same Herakles
fighting the Cretan bull, the removal of Sarpedon’s body to Lycia, and the killing of
Troilus by Achilles proved to be extremely ancient. Subjects as they were of the songs of
several poets – Homer, Stesichurus, or Ibycus were some of the ones brought to collation
–, they also came to demonstrate their painters’ departure from those literary versions,
following more often – when they follow anything at all – formulae built within plastic
tradition. In every and each one of the cases, a closer look at the vases revealed what
cannot be considered other than these artists originality, their authorial voice. They are,
in a word, precisely like poets, unable to tell a story without adding something of their
own.
 18

Abbreviations

[ABV] Beazley, J. D. (1959), Attic Black-Figure Vase-Painters. Oxford, Oxford

University Press.
[Add2] Carpenter, T. H. (1989), Beazley Addenda: aditional references to ABV, ARV2 and
Paralipomena. 2nd edition. Oxford, Oxford University Press.
[ARV2] Beazley, J. D. (1984), Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters. 2nd edition. Oxford,
Oxford University Press.
[BAPD] Beazley Archive Pottery Database (https://www.carc.ox.ac.uk/carc/pottery).
[FGrHist] Jacoby, F. (1926-1958), Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker. Leiden,
Brill.
[LIMC] AAVV, Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae.
[Page] Page, D. L. (1974), Supplementum Lyricis Graecis. Oxford, Oxford University
Press.
[PMG] Page, D. L. (1962a), Poetae Melici Graeci. Oxford, Oxford University Press.
[Para.] Beazley, J. D. (1971), Paralipomena: Additions to ‘Attic Black-figure Vase-
painters’ and ‘Attic Red-figure Vase-painters’ (second edition). Oxford, Oxford
University Press.
[Radt] Radt, S. (1991, 21999), Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta. Vol. 4: Sophocles.
Göttingen.
[Snell] Snell, B. (1971), Tragicorum Graecorum fragmenta, Vol. 1. Göttingen,
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
[VGP] Rocha Pereira, M. H. et alii (2006), Vasos Gregos em Portugal. Aquém das
Colunas de Hércules. Lisboa, Instituto Português dos Museus, Museu Nacional de
Arqueologia.

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