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South Italian Vases and Attic Drama

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

T. B. L. Webster
Affiliation:
Manchester University

Extract

In The Theatre of Dionysus in Athens Dr. Pickard-Cambridge includes a most useful and convenient collection of south Italian vase-paintings which have been held to throw light on the stage-settings of Greek tragedy. He concludes that they give no evidence for Athens in the fifth century and in particular do not justify the assumption that interior scenes were played in a porch in front of the central door. The second conclusion is true, but some of the vases do show that the central doors could be thrown wide open to display an interior scene. The first conclusion is formally correct, but it should be remembered that the “plays came from Athens, and it is at least possible that the south Italian producers modelled themselves on Athenian producers. In any case these vases are worthy of further consideration.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1948

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References

page 15 note 1 I quote, where possible, reference to pictures in Pickard-Cambridge, Theatre of Dionysus; Séchan, Études sur la tragédie grecque; Bieber, , History of the Greek Theater. The Eumenides vase (Leningrad)Google Scholar is figured PC, fig. 11; S, fig. 30.

page 15 note 2 PC, figs. 55–6.

page 15 note 3 B, fig. 216.

page 15 note 4 E.g. B, figs. 376, 395.

page 15 note 5 Watzinger, , F.R. iii. 368Google Scholar, dates this later than the Orestes krater in Naples (S, fig. 31, F.R., pl. 179) which he puts in the second quarter of the fourth century. He dates the Würzburg actor after 350. Bulle accepts this dating, Skenographie, 5, n. 6.

page 15 note 6 A very similar representation of the temple of Athena at Troy occurs on an early Lucanian pelike in Naples (PC, fig. 12; S, fig. 48; Watzinger, , in F.R. iii. 341Google Scholar, dates apparently in 375–350 B.C.), which probably recalls Sophocles' Lakainai Compare also the temple of the Tauric Artemis on a kalyx krater in Moscow (PC, fig. 16; S, fig. 114). For both, Dr. Pickard-Cambridge uses the adjective ‘conventional’ where I should say ‘derived from the theatre’.

page 15 note 7 Lucanian, PC, fig. 9; S, fig. 19 (again according to Dr. Pickard-Cambridge ‘conventional’).

page 15 note 8 Early Apulian, Sarpedon painter, PC, fig. 30; B, fig. 200;Trendall, , Frühitaliotische Vasen, 27Google Scholar.

page 15 note 9 B, fig. 58; S, fig. 20; Trendall, , PaestanPottery, 91Google Scholar, fig. 53.

page 15 note 10 See n. 2 above.

page 16 note 1 PC, fig. 58; B, fig. 175; Beazley, , JHS, lxiii. 82Google Scholar; Trendall, , Paestan Pottery, IIIGoogle Scholar.

page 16 note 2 On an Apulian volute krater of the second quarter of the century (PC, fig. 19; S, fig. III; B, fig. 69; F.R. iii. 349, pl. 148) Orestes is sitting on the altar with the temple in the far background; Iphigenia comes forward as if to greet him. Here again the inspiration is the prologue of Euripides' J.T.; Iphigenia has to be in the foreground of the picture because it is her play and, having put her there, the painter made her see Orestes. He has proceeded with similar freedom in treating the Neoptolemus story (PC, fig. 18; S, fig. 75). These two vases tell us nothing about the theatre and should not be included in the discussion.

page 16 note 3 S, fig. 31; F.R. iii, pl. 179. Apulian volute krater; 375–350 B.C.

page 16 note 4 PC, fig. 22; S, fig. 123; F.R. iii, 200 n. 124. Apulian volute krater, rather later than (a).

page 16 note 5 PC, fig. 23; S, fig. 126; F.R., loc. cit., cf. Beazley, , EVP, 52Google Scholar. Apulian situla; same date as (a).

page 16 note 6 PC, figs. 83–4; B, fig. 351; S, fig. 155. Paestan kalyx-krater; soon after 350 B.C. Trendall, , Paestan Pottery, 31 fGoogle Scholar.

page 16 note 7 See below, p. 17.

page 17 note 1 Perhaps PC, fig. 14; S, fig. 112, is an intervening stage, as there a section of the colonnade containing the central door is cut short and given akroteria and pediments.

page 17 note 2 E.g. PC, figs. 25, 32.

page 17 note 3 PC, fig. 13; B, fig. 70; S, fig. 85.

page 17 note 4 PC, fig. 10; S, fig. 24; PC, fig. 32, cf. fig. 25.

page 17 note 5 PC, fig. 29; S, fig. 161. This must also, I think, be the explanation of the column and entablature top left in PC, fig. 24.

page 17 note 6 PC, fig. 15; S, fig. 113. Dr. Pickard-Cambridge says ‘a temple and not a porch’, but surely it is the porch of a temple through which the cult image can be seen; the altar is also inside because the painter had no room for it outside.

page 17 note 7 PC, fig. 20; S, fig. 103. See Pickard-Cambridge in Powell, , New Chapters in: Greek Literature, Third Series, 125Google Scholar f. ‘Amphiaraus, who had appeared at the very moment of her need, bids Eurydice stay her hand’. This is the scene represented and should qualify Dr. Pickard-Cambridge's statement on p. 92: ‘Clearly the painting does not depict any one scene as performed on the stage, but gives reminiscences of several parts of the story.’

page 17 note 8 PC, fig. 21; B, figs. 72–5; S, pl. vIII. See Page, D. L., Euripides' Medea, lxGoogle Scholar.

page 17 note 9 PC, fig. 17; S, fig. 156. Again Dr. Pickard-Cambridge says that ‘the aedicula represents a building in the manner conventional in these vase-paintings’, but where was the convention in this case derived from except from theatre sets?

page 17 note 10 See above, p. 16, n. 6.

page 17 note 11 Heydemann, listed these in Jb. 1886, 260 f.Google Scholar, giving them capital and small letters. Zahn, added to the list in F.R. iii. 180Google Scholar, giving his additions small letters. I quote these as Heydemann M, n, Zahn q, etc.

page 18 note 1 (I) B, fig. 368 = Heydemann I; Trendall, , Paestan Pottery, 39Google Scholar. (2) B, fig. 387 = Heydemann, b; Trendall, loc. cit. (3) CV A, British Museum, 84/8 = Heydemann f. (4) B, fig. 365 = Zahn 0.

page 18 note 2 B, fig. 385 = Zahn 1; cf. (with flat roof) B, fig. 388 = Heydemann d.

page 18 note 3 B, fig. 358 = Heydemann M; B, fig. 360 = Zahn e.

page 18 note 4 B, fig. 362 = Heydemann X.

page 18 note 5 B, fig. 355 = Heydemann q; Trendall, loc. cit. 37, cf. Heydemann, K = Annali, 1853Google Scholar, AB.

page 18 note 6 B, fig. 381; Trendall, , Frühitaliotische Vasen, pl. 28Google Scholarb (Tarporley painter).

page 18 note 7 B, fig. 374 = Heydemann D; fig. 373 = Heydemann P; fig. 356 = Heydemann R; fig. 365 = Zahn 0.

page 18 note 8 E.g. Heydemann A = B, fig. 389; Heydemann, H = Annali, 1871Google Scholar, I; Heydemann k = B, fig. 384; Heydemann, i = JHS, vii, pl. 62Google Scholar, 1; Heydemann r = B, fig. 383; Zahn, p = B, fig. 393. Also the only Athenian example (late fifth century), see below, n. 14.

page 18 note 9 E.g. all quoted in last note, with the exception of Heydemann t, where the supports cannot be seen.

page 18 note 10 Zahn n = B, fig. 369.

page 18 note 11 Heydemann D = B, fig. 374; Heydemann P = B, fig. 373; Heydemann g = B, fig. 391; Zahn l = B, fig. 385.

page 18 note 12 Heydemann X = B, fig. 362; Zahn l = B, fig. 385; Zahn q = B, fig. 392; Zahn n = B, fig. 369; Zahn r = B, fig. 371; Zahn o = B, fig. 365; Zahn s = B, fig. 378; this I think is also the explanation of the curtain on the Athenian vase mentioned below.

page 18 note 13 Heydemann M = B, fig. 358; Heydemann X = B, fig. 362; Heydemann a = B, fig. 370; Zahn e = B, fig. 360; Zahn l = B, fig. 385; Zahn q = B, fig. 392; Zahn r = B, fig. 371.

page 18 note 14 Bulle, , Theater zu Sparta, pl. VGoogle Scholar; JHS, lxv, pl. 5; PC, 74 (the vase is, however, undoubtedly Attic). Professor Beazley explains as a dancing dwarf (cf. JHS, lix, 11, no. 30). Brommer, , Satyrspiele, 70Google Scholar, compares for stage Tillyard, , Hope Vases, no. 136Google Scholar and regards as rehearsal for satyr-play, but the Perseus is not a satyr.

page 19 note 1 The bearded and beardless figures on the back of Heydemann R = αζ, 1849, pl. 3, may be poet or actor and choregos; ‘tragoidos’ (actor or poet?) watches the comedy on B, fig. 381; the cloaked young man on the Cheiron vase (Heydemann X = B, fig. 362) may also be poet or producer rather than Achilles. The choregos on a vase in Barcelona (Curtius Corolla, pl. 56) is young; the poet is young on the Pronomos vase (B, fig. 20). Our watchers also look to me as if they had some official character.

page 19 note 2 Heydemann E and s (B, fig. 379) belong to the last fifteen years of the fourth century (Trendall, , Paestan Pottery, 92Google Scholar) and are perhaps the latest of the Phlyakes.

page 19 note 3 Kürte, , Jb, viii, 1893, 62Google Scholar; Pickard-Cambridge, , Dithyramb, etc., 268Google Scholar.

page 19 note 4 Op. cit. 71.

page 19 note 5 RE, xi. 1261 (Komödie).

page 20 note 1 B, fig. 223, cf. 225. On New Comedy masks, see now Simon, Comicae tabellae.

page 20 note 2 Cf. Skutsch, in Rh. Mas. 1900, 82Google Scholar, n. 2 (I am indebted to Dr. Otto Skutsch for the reference).

page 20 note 3 Heydemann F = Bulle, , Festschrift für Loeb, 32Google Scholar, fig. 20 (shape later than anything from Olynthus and not unlike Kertch of 330/320 B.C.); Heydemann V = B, fig. 394 (shape with transitional Paestan, e.g. Trendall, no. 241). I am not certain about the date of Heydemann c = B, fig. 402. The picture of Zahn q = B, fig.392, does not show whether the old man wears the phallus or not.

page 20 note 4 B, fig. 121. Cf. AJA, 1946,132.

page 20 note 5 Pfuhl, , MuZ, fig. 572Google Scholar; Beazley, ARV, 848/22 Nikias painter. For snub-nosed Herakles cf. Heydemann M = B, fig. 358, 0 = B, fig. 357 and terra-cottas, B, figs. III, 124. For Nike cf. Heydemann D = B, fig. 374, U = fig. 390, the right-hand nymph on X = B, fig. 362; for the dancing phlyax cf. Heydemann B = B, fig. 400.

page 20 note 6 Körte, , Jb, 1893, 70Google Scholar, notes that pieces found in south Russia are dated by the vases with which they are found. The New York sets (B, figs. 122–35) from a grave in Athens look as advanced as any, but cannot be later than 348 B.C. because four replicas were found in Olynthus (iv. 364, 404; vii. 297, 308).

page 20 note 7 E.g. Bieber, , Denkmäler, nos. 73Google Scholar, 80, 82 (with B, figs. 99 and 127), 89, 98.

page 20 note 8 Terra-cotta, B, fig. 103; vases, Heydemann M = B, fig. 358; B, fig. 381.

page 20 note 9 Terra-cotta, B, fig. 94; vases, Heydemann X = B, fig. 362; Zahn n = B, fig. 369; Zahn p = B, fig. 393.

page 20 note 10 Bieber, , Denkmäler, no. 88Google Scholar, pl. 73/3; cf. the vases mentioned above in n. 3.

page 21 note 1 Körte, op. cit., 86.

page 21 note 2 B, fig. 111; 113 (need not be interpreted as Odysseus; Oedipus wears a pilos on the phlyax vase,Philol. 1897, pl. 1Google Scholar); Bieber, Denkmäler, pl. 75/2. According to Bieber, , Denkmäler, 130Google Scholar, 136, examples of all three found in the same grave in south Russia which she dates about 400 B.C. (Compte-Rendu 1869, 146, 152); an example found in Delphi, (Fouilles de Delphes, v. 163Google Scholar) she dates in the fifth century.

page 21 note 3 B, figs. 122–8 (cf. above, n. 2).

page 21 note 4 Heydemann M = B, fig. 358; Beazley, , JHS, lxiii. 107Google Scholar, cf. 93 (350–325 B.C.).

page 21 note 5 If his Nannion is about the hetaira Nannion, it cannot be before the forties, since Nannion is also mentioned by Menander (524 K).

page 21 note 6 Zahn e= B, fig. 360; Rizzo, , Röm. Mitt. xv, 1900, 261 ffGoogle Scholar.

page 21 note 7 Heydemann O = B, fig. 357.

page 21 note 8 Heydemann R = B, fig. 356; Neugebauer, , Führer, 141Google Scholar.

page 21 note 9 Heydemann f = CV A Gt. Br. 84/8; Heydemann p = B, fig. 354; Heydemann q = B, fig. 355 (Trendall, , Paestan Pottery, 37)Google Scholar.

page 22 note 1 Heydemann I = B, fig. 368; Trendall, , Paestan Pottery, 39Google Scholar, pl. IX.

page 22 note 2 Zahn m = Leroux, , Vases in Madrid, pl. XCIXGoogle Scholar; B, fig. 395 = CV A Italy, 743/3; Zahn n = B, fig. 369 (style and shape suggest a date before 350 B.C. and preclude Bieber's interpretation as Alexander's visit to Zeus Ammon; his cult was public in Athens before 370 B.C.).

page 22 note 3 Zahn o = B, fig. 365.

page 22 note 4 Zahn l = B, fig. 385. (I think the young man probably holds a child in swaddling-clothes and suggest the same interpretation for CV A British Museum pl. 87/5.) Comparison of the old man with ‘Aleus’ in B, fig. 358, and Hermes in B, fig. 360, suggests a date in the third quarter of the fourth century. On the Samia see Rylands Bulletin, xxx. 134.

page 22 note 5 Heydemann A = B, fig. 389. Bieber, (Denkmäler, 150Google Scholar) interprets as fight for a woman, but the woman clearly wants to get away and father -son rivalry, though a well-known comic theme, never took this form as far as I know. Professor Beazley suggests Odysseus and Diomede threatening Theano; but should not Diomede be characterized as a soldier (cf. Heydemann h)? Heydemann quotes an Etruscan mirror for Elpenor helping Odysseus to deal with Circe.

page 22 note 6 Heydemann m = B, fig. 363.

page 22 note 7 Heydemann h, figured on his p. 296.

page 23 note 1 See Wilamowitz, , Sappho u. Simonides, 35 fGoogle Scholar.

page 23 note 2 Philohgus, 1897, pl. I. Silenus questions the Sphinx on a Paestan vase which Trendall, following Crusius and Watzinger, thinks may be inspired by play, Aeschylus' satyrSphinx (Paestan Pottery, 68Google Scholar; B,fig.22).

page 23 note 3 Zahn g = B, figs. 366–7; Trendall, , Paestan Pottery, no. 32Google Scholar.

page 23 note 4 Dioniso IV, 284, fig. 5.

page 23 note 5 Theophilos' Neoptolemus is undated.

page 23 note 6 Heydemann Q = B, fig. 361; Heydemann t = B, fig.364 (an earlier stage in the same scene perhaps on Moscow 735— Trendall, , Paestan Pottery, 93)Google Scholar.

page 23 note 7 Heydemann a = B, fig. 370.

page 23 note 8 Heydemann X = B, fig. 362; Trendall, , Paestan Pottery, 106Google Scholar.

page 23 note 9 Zahn r = B, fig. 371; see Zahn, , Die Antike, 1931, 90Google Scholar f. Professor Beazley notes as an objection that Alcaeus is not characterized as a poet, A laurel spray alone means poetry on two other vases on which I am inclined to see the same subject: Heydemann U = B, fig. 390, cf. also CV, Taranto, 743/2. Heydemann H = Annali, 1871, pl. I, has not, as far as I know, been fully interpreted; the tripod must mean Delphi and the long laurel staff must mark its aged owner as Apollo. Who then is the man with the lyre who stands as if corrected? Nicostratus wrote a Hesiod and it seems to me possible that this is Hesiod being warned by Apollo (like Callimachus later) not to copy the thunder of Homer.

page 24 note 1 Heydemann D = B, fig. 374.

page 24 note 2 Heydemann e = CV British Museum, 38/2; Heydemann l = B, fig. 396.

page 24 note 3 Zahn s = B, fig. 378.

page 24 note 4 Heydemann k = B, fig. 384.

page 24 note 5 Heydemann S = B, fig. 375; for the parasite mask cf. B, fig. 249 (New Comedy, but the parasite was already established in Attic comedy by the time of Eupolis). For the woman cf. B, fig. 398, and perhaps the Cassandra of Zahn g (see p. 23, n. 3).

page 24 note 6 Heydemann g = B, fig. 391; Trendall, , Paestan Pottery, no. 139Google Scholar; Zahn, , F.R. iii. 183Google Scholar.

page 24 note 7 Heydemann N = B, fig. 380.

page 24 note 8 See Rylands Bulletin, xxx. 373 f.; cf. also Tierney, J. J., Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, 1945Google Scholar, 54, on slave punishments in New Comedy.

page 24 note 9 Page, Greek Literary Papyri, no. 48.

page 25 note 1 CV A Italy 745.

page 25 note 2 B, fig. 381 = Trendall, , Frühitaliotische Vasen 26Google Scholar (further literature is quoted there); Messer-Schmidt, , Röm. Mitt, xlvii, 1932, 134 ffGoogle Scholar.

page 25 note 3 Another beating scene in Middle Comedy, Antiphanes 74 K. Professor Beazley suggests ‘tragoidos’ is a tragic actor waiting his turn.

page 25 note 4 DrSkutsch, O. refers me to Pl. Epid. 716Google Scholar, 727, which is a later variation on th e same theme.

page 25 note 5 Harvard Studies, 1928, 3 f.

page 25 note 6 Zahn p = B, fig. 393.

page 25 note 7 Trendall, , Paestan Pottery, no. 16Google Scholar, fig. 10.

page 25 note 8 Heydemann W = Bulle, , Festschrift für Loeb, fig. 18Google Scholar; Trendall, , Paestan Pottery, 70Google Scholar.

page 25 note 9 Heydemann F (cf. above, p. 20, n. 3); Heydemann V = B, fig. 394 (cf. above p. 20, n. 3, and for the pose the rather earlier terracotta, B, fig. 91); Heydemann c = B, fig. 402 (Xanthias may be a mistake of the painter).

page 26 note 1 Heydemann, i = JHS, vii, pl. 62Google Scholar. 1 (a slave looks on in astonishment); Zahn i = B, fig. 377.

page 26 note 2 Zahn q = B, fig. 392. See above, p. 20, n. 3.

page 26 note 3 Heydemann d = B, fig. 388.

page 26 note 4 Heydemann b = B, fig. 387.

page 26 note 5 B, fig. 122 (cf. p. 21 above); Körte, , Jb. 1893, 79Google Scholar, no. 26.

page 26 note 6 Bieber, , Denkmäler, no. 89Google Scholara, pl. 73, 1.

page 26 note 7 Bieber, , Denkmäler, no. 89Google Scholarb, c, pl. 73, 2–3.

page 26 note 8 Heydemann n.

page 26 note 9 See p. 22, n. 4, above.

page 26 note 10 Heydemann r = B, fig. 383.

page 26 note 11 Heydemann P = B, fig. 373; Trendall, , Paestan Pottery, no. 31Google Scholar.