Vase Catalog Number: Harvard 1972.39

Inscriptions:

Inscriptions with red letters in all three scenes. Interior: Diagonally and retrograde, from the athlete's hip to the helmet: hOPAIS ("The boy"; i.e. "The boy is handsome," as on side A). Side A: From the face of the left-hand athlete to the lower fork of the wand: hOPAIS; from the trainer's cloak to the top of the pick: KALOS. Side B: Below the left arm of the first runner: hOPAIS.

Parallels:

Cf. the hoplitodromoi and trainer on another, earlier cup by Onesimos, formerly in the Schweitzer collection, Arlesheim (ARV2, 323, 56); cf. also a cup fragment in the Cabinet des Médailles (ARV2, 323, 57). Similar scenes were represented by other contemporary cup painters, such as the Brygos Painter; e.g. Copenhagen, Thorvaldsen Museum 111 (ARV2, 401, 10). Beazley compared the stance of the athlete practicing his start in the interior to that of a hoplitodromos on a kylix by the Triptolemos Painter, Oxford 1947.262 (ARV2, 364, 42); see J. D. Beazley, "A Hoplitodromos Cup," BSA 46 (1951) 10. The race in armor, doubtless an outgrowth of military training, became an event at the Olympian games in 520 B.C., and is represented on Panathenaic prize amphorae of about 520-480 and of the fourth century. For the hoplitodromos, see Beazley 1951 (supra), 7-15; Gardiner 1930, 140-42; and D. G. Kyle, in Neils 1992, 88-89. For Onesimos, see A. Ashmead, A Study of the Style of the Cup Painter Onesimos (Dissertation, Bryn Mawr, 1959); Sparkes 1985; D. Williams 1985; and Robertson 1992, 42-51.

Collection History:

Joseph Brummer collection; Bequest of Frederick M. Watkins.

Condition:

Broken into 42 pieces; mended with some repainting, now discolored. The greatest damage is to the shield in the tondo and the shield and lower legs of the left-hand athlete on side A. The different tonality of the fragments in the tondo are the result of different conditions of erosion and salt absorption. Uneven firing in places, resulting in reddish color or iridescence. A reddish arc running through the legs of the figures on side B is from the rim of another vessel which touched the cup during firing.

Shape Description:

Kylix of type B, with continuous profile from bowl to foot; stem concave and relatively tall; offset ridge about a third of the way down the foot; two horizontal handles, roughly rectangular and tilted upward.

Sources Used:

Watkins 1973.

Other Bibliography:

Watkins 1973, 58-61, no. 22; Neils 1992, 89, fig. 55.

(Michael Padgett)