From Iliad – XV: Hector by the Underworld Painter
The central motif of the upper frieze is Cassandra leaning in despair against her mother Hecuba who is taking care of her. The young woman is depicted with a laurel wreath and a knotted and tasseled fillet around her head, holding a laurel branch, attribute shared with her twin brother Helenos painted in the right corner of the scene. The laurel branch points towards Hector’s helmet, held by a charioteer, in the lower register. Next to the woman, a filleted tripod standing on the top of an Ionic column confirms her prophetic and Apollonian characterization. The eagle flying on the top right side with a snake in its claws is another sign of her ability to see into the future. But Apollo, after giving her this gift, punished her refusal of his love: nobody would have believed her prophecies. So it is not surprising that neither her mother nor her father Priam on their left share her concern for Hector. Only another Trojan, her twin brother Helenos, who also had the same gift, can recognize the sign of her prophecy concerning the fate of Hector. The soldier between Cassandra and his brother is a trumpeter, probably ,signifying the imminence of battle.
In the center of the lower frame there is a quadriga. The charioteer holds the helmet of the warrior portrayed on foot near the chariot. His Phrygian cap points out the Eastern origins of the characters involved. To left a farewell scene between a man and a child hold in the arms of a woman. Both the man and the woman look dejected as if they knew their fate. A second woman partly lost is represented standing in the far left corner. It is just as clear that the lower scene is the farewell of Hektor, who is taking his leave of Andromache and his baby son, Astyanax, the moving episode immortalized in Iliad book 6 (vv 390-502). Yet, as soon as the great epic scene is recognized, a viewer who knows the poem will see a contraindication signaling that this is not precisely the Homeric narrative. Hektor's charioteer is holding the famous helmet, which is positioned, shining brightly, right in the center of the composition. In Homer, Hektor is at first wearing it, but then, when he holds out his arms to his son and the child cries, he takes it off and lays it on the ground. At the end of the meeting, Hektor picks up his helmet himself and sets off on foot. Given that this picture is not following Homer exactly, it is more likely that the woman holding the baby is Andromache herself, rather than the nurse (who holds the baby in the Iliad). The figure of a woman standing behind her is unfortunately incomplete; it might have decisively signaled that she was either Andromache or, more probably, the nurse (with white hair).
Here the artist combines two narrative episodes concerning the departure of Hektor to battle and the dire prophecies by Cassandra into a single composition. Some scholars suggest that the vase painter was inspired by the plot of a lost tragedy called “Hektor” by the fourth-century playwright Astydamas.
Sources:
Oliver Platin, “Pots and Plays – Interactions between tragedies and Greek Vase-painting of the Fourth Century B.C.”
Fabio Lo Piparo, “Torn Fillets and a Broken Sceptre: Cassandra’s Costume, Props and Attributes in Ancient Greek Drama and Vase-Painting”
Apulian Volute Krater
Height 107 cm
Attributed to The Underworld Painter
Ca. 340 BC
Berlin, Altes Museum – Inv. 1984.45
From Iliad – XV: Hector by the Underworld Painter
The central motif of the upper frieze is Cassandra leaning in despair against her mother Hecuba who is taking care of her. The young woman is depicted with a laurel wreath and a knotted and tasseled fillet around her head, holding a laurel branch, attribute shared with her twin brother Helenos painted in the right corner of the scene. The laurel branch points towards Hector’s helmet, held by a charioteer, in the lower register. Next to the woman, a filleted tripod standing on the top of an Ionic column confirms her prophetic and Apollonian characterization. The eagle flying on the top right side with a snake in its claws is another sign of her ability to see into the future. But Apollo, after giving her this gift, punished her refusal of his love: nobody would have believed her prophecies. So it is not surprising that neither her mother nor her father Priam on their left share her concern for Hector. Only another Trojan, her twin brother Helenos, who also had the same gift, can recognize the sign of her prophecy concerning the fate of Hector. The soldier between Cassandra and his brother is a trumpeter, probably ,signifying the imminence of battle.
In the center of the lower frame there is a quadriga. The charioteer holds the helmet of the warrior portrayed on foot near the chariot. His Phrygian cap points out the Eastern origins of the characters involved. To left a farewell scene between a man and a child hold in the arms of a woman. Both the man and the woman look dejected as if they knew their fate. A second woman partly lost is represented standing in the far left corner. It is just as clear that the lower scene is the farewell of Hektor, who is taking his leave of Andromache and his baby son, Astyanax, the moving episode immortalized in Iliad book 6 (vv 390-502). Yet, as soon as the great epic scene is recognized, a viewer who knows the poem will see a contraindication signaling that this is not precisely the Homeric narrative. Hektor's charioteer is holding the famous helmet, which is positioned, shining brightly, right in the center of the composition. In Homer, Hektor is at first wearing it, but then, when he holds out his arms to his son and the child cries, he takes it off and lays it on the ground. At the end of the meeting, Hektor picks up his helmet himself and sets off on foot. Given that this picture is not following Homer exactly, it is more likely that the woman holding the baby is Andromache herself, rather than the nurse (who holds the baby in the Iliad). The figure of a woman standing behind her is unfortunately incomplete; it might have decisively signaled that she was either Andromache or, more probably, the nurse (with white hair).
Here the artist combines two narrative episodes concerning the departure of Hektor to battle and the dire prophecies by Cassandra into a single composition. Some scholars suggest that the vase painter was inspired by the plot of a lost tragedy called “Hektor” by the fourth-century playwright Astydamas.
Sources:
Oliver Platin, “Pots and Plays – Interactions between tragedies and Greek Vase-painting of the Fourth Century B.C.”
Fabio Lo Piparo, “Torn Fillets and a Broken Sceptre: Cassandra’s Costume, Props and Attributes in Ancient Greek Drama and Vase-Painting”
Apulian Volute Krater
Height 107 cm
Attributed to The Underworld Painter
Ca. 340 BC
Berlin, Altes Museum – Inv. 1984.45