Austin
1980.32
Attic Black-Figure Neck Amphora of
Panathenaic Shape
Collection of the Archer M. Huntington Art
Gallery, the University of Texas, Austin, James R. Dougherty, Jr. Foundation
and Archer M. Huntington Museum Fund Purchase (1980.32)
Ca. 540 B.C.
Height: 27.5 cm.
Diameter: 17.2 cm. Side A: Athena. Side B:
Flute player between two judges.
The vase is of the same shape as those given to victors in the
Panathenaic Games, and the pose of Athena on
side
A is similar to that on prize amphoras. But this is not a prize vase, for
it is too small and lacks the inscription
ΤΟΝ ΑΘΕΝΕΘΕΝ ΑΘΛΟΝ ("From the
Games at Athens") running alongside one of the columns that flank Athena.
On side A, Athena stands in the
pose of the
promachos ("who fights in the
forefront"), fully armed; she held a spear in her upraised left hand. She wears
an Attic helmet, with a high crest projecting from a simple cap, a necklet, long
belted peplos, and her aegis slung crosswise so that three snake heads are
visible behind. Her shield, with a wide rim painted in red, has as a device
three large white balls. She stands between two slender Doric columns, on top of
which perch owls, in place of the cocks which regularly stand atop the columns
on Panathenaic prize amphoras. The owl is Athena's (hence Athens') bird.
On side B, a young flutist
(auletes) stands on a three-stepped podium
(bema) and plays, while two seated figures
listen. The
auletes wears a loose fitting
chiton, a fillet around his head, and a
phorbeia, or leather mouthpiece which helps hold the flutes in place. One
of the listeners is beardless, the other bearded; both sit on folding stools and
wear a striped
himation over a
chiton.
Because of the Panathenaic context - the vase's shape and the Athena
of Side A - it seems likely that the seated listeners are judges and that the
scene refers to musical competitions which took place at the Greater Panathenaea
in Athens every four years. Literary and epigraphical sources do not confirm the
existence of such musical contests before the fourth century, but this vase and
several others suggest that in the sixth and early fifth centuries there may
have been as many as four musical events: flute-playing and lyre-playing, either
alone or accompanying a singer (a lyre player could accompany himself). These
musical competitions, along with contests for rhapsodes, who recited passages
from Homer, may have all been introduced with the major reorganization of the
Panathenaea in 566 B.C. The earliest of the vases, about 560, is an amphora of
Panathenaic shape in London (
London B 141), on
which a flute-player and a bearded man stand facing each other on a low
platform, between a young athlete and a seated judge. Perhaps this scene
represents the contest for
aulodia, singing to
the flute, while ours shows
auletria, or
unaccompanied flute-playing.
Bibliography
CVA, Castle Ashby (Great
Britain 15) 8-9 and pl. 15, 5-6;
Christie's Sale Catalog 1980, lot. 89, pp. 142-143,
ill;
E. Gerhard, in Archaeologische Zeitung 1846, 340, no.
2;
A. Furtwängler, ibid. 1881, 303;
H. Philippart, in L'Antiquité Classique 4 (1935) 212. On
musical contests at the Panathenaia:
J. A.
Davison, in Journal of Hellenic Studies
78 (1958) 36-42.
