Vase Catalog Number: Mississippi 1977.3.70

Decoration:

Side A: Herakles and the lion. Herakles moves to the right, naked, with a chlamys draped over his left arm, attacking the lion which springs at him. He holds a club in his left hand, pulled back behind his body ready to bludgeon the animal. Side B has the same general scene but with differing details. On this side, Herakles holds the club in front of his body, and the lion is not leaping.

The first labor of Herakles was to subdue a lion living near Nemea. Diodorus Siculus (Diod. Sic. 4.11.3-4) stresses that the lion was invulnerable to iron weapons. Most artists choose to illustrate Herakles strangling the lion, as a variety of literary sources relate the myth: the Diodorus passage cited above, Theok. 25, 266-271, and Apollod. 2.5.1. The painter of this skyphos chose to illustrate an episode related by Theok. 25, 253-261, that before Herakles strangled the lion, he knocked it senseless with his club. The schema with the lion prepared to spring and Herakles with his club finds its greatest popularity in the last quarter of the sixth century. In such scenes, the general composition for a fight or battle, as on Mississippi 1977.3.75, is applied to Herakles and the lion.

Collection History:

Once in the Robinson collection. Harvard Inv. no. 150.

Shape Description:

The Hermogenean skyphos has a deep bowl tapering at the foot, low flaring foot, and an offset lip. The lip is glazed, as is the body, except for two reserved bands. As on a band cup, decoration is limited to the handle zone, and generally consists of a small figural scene flanked by palmettes growing from the handles.

Sources Used:

CVA, Robinson I, pl. 24; LIMC, V, Herakles, no. 1898, and 31-33; Moore & Philippides 1986, 59; Boardman 1974

(Anne Harrison)