Haloa Festival

Kylix decorated with a scene representing the Haloa or Aloa (Ἁλῶα) festival in honor od Demeter. The interior decoration features a nude woman – presumably to be thought of as a “hetaira” – who is embracing or setting upright a massive phallus inscribed KALE - feminine adjective for ‘beautiful’ - around which another woman dances.

According to a recent proposal (J. Cotter, ‘ΟΡΧΙΣ: Testicle, Testiculate and Glans Penis’, CQ NS 67, 2017) some passages of Aristophanes, Plato, Athenaeus and others suggest that φαληρίς (feminine substantive used normally for the bird ‘coot’) had, via a folk etymology, become synonymous with the masculine noun φάλης, phallus. According to this proposal, the feminine adjective KALE would be referred to the phallus itself, and the noun the viewer is expected to supply with it would be φαληρίς = φάλης..

Contra: S.Douglas Olson, Hipponax’ testicle (ὄρχις; fr. 95.3 Dg. = 92.3 W.), Glotta 95 (2019).

 

Attic red figured kylix

Attributed to The Oedipus Painter

BC 480 ca.

Rome, Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia, inv No. 50404

 

Done