Vase Catalog Number: Mississippi 1977.3.57

Decoration:

Side A: Herakles and three Amazons. In the center of the composition, Herakles, at the left, attacks a fallen Amazon. Herakles wears his lion skin with the head drawn up and a chitoniskos. He carries a sword and quiver, but wields a club in his right hand against the amazon. The Amazon wears a short chiton, a helmet, greaves, and perimeridia on her thighs. She carries a Boeotian shield decorated with two panther heads, and aims her spear at Herakles. At the left of this group, another amazon runs away from the action to the left. She wears a short chiton, a corslet and a helmet. She is armed with a sword, a spear and a round shield. On the right, the third Amazon, dressed and armed like the second, rushes toward the central group.

Apollod. 2.5.9.7-8 relates a mythic tradition that as his ninth labor for King Eurystheus Herakles had to bring him the belt of Hippolyte, the queen of the Amazons. Herakles' conflict with the Amazons was a very popular theme in Attic black figure, numbering nearly 400 examples. These depictions differ, however, from the literary tradition preserved in Apollodorus in that the vases label the queen of the Amazons as Andromache, and there is no sign of the belt. In Attic black figure the battle of Herakles and the Amazons reaches its greatest popularity circa 525. The Antimenes Painter decorates four other vases with such scenes. Both Robinson in the CVA and Burow 1989 identify the central Amazon on the Mississippi vase as Andromache, but she is not labelled.

Side B: Combat, two warriors parted by a bearded man. The warrior on the left wears a corslet over a chitoniskos, greaves, a sword at his waist, and a Corinthian helmet. He carries a round shield on his left arm and a spear in his upraised right hand. The warrior on the right is similarly dressed and armed, with the exception being that he carries a Boeotian shield. In the center of these two figures, a bearded man wrapped in a mantle rushes in with both arms raised to stop the fighting.

Robinson in the CVA interpreted the scene as Agamemnon separating Odysseus and Ajax, who are fighting over the arms of Achilles. Once again, however, there is a problem between generic and specific depictions in Archaic art. In the last third of the sixth century, apparently generic scenes of quarreling warriors being separated were very popular with black figure painters. Similar compositions with the figures labelled as Ajax and Odysseus are not found until the first quarter of the fifth century. Therefore, it is probably best to interpret the scene on the Mississippi vase as general rather than specific.

The secondary decoration of the vase follows the standard usage of the Antimenes Painter. The neck carries addorsed palmettes. The lower body has a running meander over a zone of lotus buds, over rays. The area under the handles is filled with a palmette and lotus bud motif.

The Antimenes Painter continues the black figure technique in the period when red figure is beginning to dominate. He decorated mainly neck amphorae and hydriae, and favored scenes with Herakles.

Graffiti:

NEOS is incised under the foot of the vase. Robinson in the CVA read this as a graffito. Johnston 1979, 59, note 1, however, points out that this is a common way of indicating a plaster restoration.

Collection History:

Once in the Robinson collection. Harvard Inv. no. 123.

Sources Used:

CVA, Robinson I, pl. 28-29; Burow 1989; LIMC, I, Amazones no. 45 and 636-653; Carpenter 1991; von Bothmer 1957, no. 164; LIMC, I, Aias I, 325-326; Johnston 1979

(Anne Harrison)