95. 10.184 NOLAN AMPHORA (with triple handles) from Suessula PLATE L, 95
Formerly in the Spinelli collection near Cancello. The drawings are by Caskey. Height 0.255. A,
RM., 2 p. 240 fig. 9; A, FR. pl. 159, 1, whence (corrected by the omission of the upper border added by Reichhold)
Panm. pl. 18, 1; A,
International Studio 88 (Dec. 1927) p. 71, above, left (D. C. Rich); the shape, Hambidge p. 78 and Caskey
G. p. 64. A, Zeus and Ganymede; B, a boy running with a leg of meat in his hand. About 470, by the Pan Painter (
VA. p. 115;
Att. V. p. 101 no. 21;
Panm. p. 14 and p. 22 no. 26:
ARV. p. 364 no. 32).
This is an unusually small Nolan amphora:
Naples 3137, one of the Berlin Painter's earliest Nolans, is smaller (height 0.233:
ARV. p. 135 no. 48); some of the Nolans by the Painter of
London E 342 and his companions are also small, but they are later and of very poor quality. A band of floral pattern, palmettes sideways, takes the place of the more usual maeander below the pictures. The handle-palmettes have relief-contour, and the petals are ribbed. The figures on A are contoured with relief-lines; there is little relief-contour on B — for face, neck, and right shoulder only. Brown lines on the arms in A, and raised dots for the forehead-hair. Red for wreaths. Dietrich von Bothmer tells me that there are two 'ghosts' (see
ii p. 55): to left of Zeus, upright, part of a palmette-strip like that below the figures; to left of the boy on B, a piece of maeander, diagonal.
'Zeus pursuing Ganymede' is a favourite subject in the late archaic and early classic periods: see G. Koerte in
Annali 1876 pp. 49-62; Paul Friedländer in Pauly-Wissowa s.v. Ganymedes; Buschor in FR. iii p. 254;
Panm. p. 14; Kunze
Zeus und Ganymedes;
EVP. index, p. 313. The Pan Painter himself has left three pictures of it. On the Boston vase Zeus is in the act of laying hand on Ganymede. He holds a sceptre in his left hand and is dressed in a himation: Ganymede also wears a himation, and holds hoop and hoop-stick. Both have long hair and are wreathed. On the reverse, a boy, dressed in a himation, and wreathed, runs off, looking round, with a piece of meat, leg and side of an animal, in his left hand: he may be an older companion of Ganymede. On an unpublished lekythos, from Novoli, in Taranto (
ARV. p. 366 no. 59) Ganymede runs to left, his left leg frontal, with hoop and hoop-stick in his left hand, and looks round at Zeus, who grasps him with his right hand and holds the sceptre in his left; both wear wraps only. On the ground, to left of Ganymede, is his pet cock, which he has let fall. Inscription
ΚΑΛΟΣ. The third vase is an oinochoe in New York (
AJA 1926 p. 36;
Panm. pl. 18, 2; Richter and Hall pl. 69, 65 and pl. 177, 65:
ARV. p. 367 no. 76): Ganymede alone is represented, wreathed, and wearing the himation (drawn much as in the Boston picture); as he runs he holds not only hoop and hoop-stick, but also the cock.
1
Nearly all the Attic red-figure pictures of Zeus pursuing Ganymede are mentioned in
ARV.: see the index of subjects, p. 987, where, however, references to pp. 137, 166, 367 should have been added and 441 changed to 443. The Simkhovitch lekythos (p. 647 no. 26) is now
Indianapolis 47.35 (
Bulletin of the Art Association of Indianapolis 34 p. 19, 2). The Curtius fragment (p. 332 no. 25) in all probability represents Zeus and Ganymede. The following are not mentioned in
ARV.:
- Delos, rf. fragment (of a calyx-krater?). (Forearm with cock.)
- Athens, Acr. 731, fragment of a rf. calyx-krater. Langlotz pl. 58.
- Louvre G 183, rf. stamnos. A, Annali 1876 pl. B; CV. pl. 15, 2 and 5 and pl. 16, 6.
- Oxford 278, small rf. neck-amphora. CV. pl. 15, 5-6.
- Athens, Ceramicus Museum, fragment of a white bobbin. Anz. 1940 p. 335. Inscription [ΓΑΝ]ΥΜΕΔΕΣ. By the Penthesilea Painter.
- Ferrara, rf. pelike. A, Zeus and Ganymede. B, Eos with Kephalos in her arms.
- Gela, Cav. Cesare Navarra-Salonia, rf. lekythos. Described by Benndorf in Bull. 1867 p. 232 no. 1; Koerte no. 1.
Add the black-figure alabastron on a white ground,
Berlin 2032 (
Annali 1876 pl. A; Haspels
ABL. pl. 37, 1), by the Diosphos Painter (Haspels
ABL. p. 100 and p. 237 no. 108), and the small black-figure standlet, with a figure of Ganymede holding hoop and cock, in the University of Chicago (
AJA 1943, 399 fig. 16).
On a red-figured cup by Douris in the Louvre (
Louvre G 123: Hartwig pl. 68; Beazley and Ashmole fig. 51:
ARV. p. 286 no. 83), the figure in the arms of Zeus is probably not female but male — Ganymede: Kunze hinted at this, and it seems to me extremely probable: see
EVP. p. 297, foot, and compare a cup in Nicosia (
Nicosia C 654:
Cypr. pl. 4, 1).
2
We have counted the
single figures of a boy running, looking back, with cock and hoop, as meant for Ganymede: on the Pan Painter's oinochoe in New York, and on the Chicago standlet. So they probably are: but it should be said that the pursuer of such figures is not always Zeus: on a pelike by the Syleus Painter in the Faina collection at Orvieto it is a youth (A, phot. Alinari 32491, whence Zadoks-Jitta p. 87, 11 and Tarchi pl. 121, 4:
ARV. p. 165 no. 17), and on a psykter by the Painter of the Yale lekythos in Berlin it is Eros (
Berlin 3407:
ARV. p. 444 no. 15). G. Koerte thought that the youth on the interior of a cup formerly in the collection of Simmaco Doria was Ganymede (Helbig in
Bull. 1865 p. 163: Koerte in
Annali 1876 p. 163): but there is no reason to think so. The cup is now in the Louvre (
Louvre G 271:
ARV. p. 303, Makron no. 23). The bird is a dove not a cock. The provenience may now be added, Capua.
Kunze thinks that the cock on these vases is a present from Zeus (
Zeus und Ganymedes p. 38, middle; see also his
Olympische Forschungen ii p. 42). Must this be so? Ganymede was a king's son, and doubtless received plenty of playthings from the family, was not dependent on well-to-do suitors. Or is the hoop, too, a present from Zeus? The piece of meat held by the boy on the reverse need not be a gift either.
On a neck-amphora, close to the Alkimachos Painter, in Leningrad, a boy with a hoop is pursued by Hermes (
Leningrad 611: A, Waldhauer
Antichniya raspisniya Vazi fig. 15:
ARV. p. 358 no. 1). The boy is possibly Ganymede, in another version of the story. The Basseggio stamnos by Hermonax is difficult (
B.Ap. 22, 84:
ARV. p. 318 no. 14): for in the continuous picture that runs right round the vase, while Zeus pursues Ganymede, Hermes lays hands on another youth. Buschor (in FR. iii p. 254) finds Ganymede in two figures which I take for Paris: on a neck-amphora by the Oionokles Painter in the Cabinet des Médailles (
Paris, Cab. Méd. 373: de Ridder p. 273 and pl. 12:
ARV. p. 439 no. 29) and on a Nolan amphora by the Sabouroff Painter in the British Museum (
London E 330:
Mon. 1 pl. 5 fig. 1; A,
El. 2 pl. 51;
CV. pl. 63, 3:
ARV. p. 559 no. 69). The youth pursued by Hermes on a cup by the Penthesilea Painter formerly in the Vitet collection (
El. 2 pl. 53, whence Overbeck
KM. pl. 24, 17:
ARV. p. 584 no. 21) may also be Paris.
Lastly, to return to the neck-amphora in Leningrad: in the unique picture on the other side of the vase Hermes stands facing a boy who holds a sceptre and looks down (Waldhauer
K.O. pl. 10 fig. 8): the boy is Paris rather than Ganymede. Paris often has a sceptre in pictures of the Judgement: bf. amphora in Lyons, Group of London B 76; bf. neck-amphora by the Antimenes Painter in Würzburg (
Würzburg 186: Langlotz pl. 57); bf. neck-amphora in Oxford (
Oxford 510: Gerhard
AV. pl. 172;
JHS. 24 pp. 299-300); bf. neck-amphora in London (
London B 236:
CV. pl. 57, 4), Group of Würzburg 189; bf. neck-amphora in Munich (
Munich 1544, J. 1250); bf. amphora in Copenhagen, Thorvaldsen Museum; bf. hydria in Bristol (
Bristol H 801: the Judgement is on the shoulder; the chief picture represents Memnon with three negro attendants); bf. lekythos by the Edinburgh Painter in Taranto (Haspels
ABL. p. 217 no. 32); rf. cup by the Briseis Painter in the Louvre (
Louvre G 151: Hoppin
Rf. i p. 116; Pottier pl. 120:
ARV. p. 268 no. 22), rf. stamnos by the Syleus Painter in Berlin (
Berlin 2182:
AZ. 1883 pl. 15;
Jb. 31 p. 203:
ARV. p. 166 no. 27); lost rf. lekythos (Welcker
A.D. pl. A, 1).
An early representation of Zeus and Ganymede, though not in the form of a pursuit, is on a small black-figured amphora with Greek inscription, or inscription in an alphabet that may be Greek,
ΓΑΝΥΜΕΔΕΜ, in Munich (
Munich 834: Sieveking and Hackl pl. 33 and pp. 95-6). The only provenience given by Hackl is 'Italy', but since speaking of it in
EVP. (pp. 57 and 295) I find it described by Heydemann in
Bull. 1869 p. 146 no. 3: it was then at Naples in the Torrusio collection and was therefore found at Nola. This does not tell us where the vase was made but it detaches it from Etruria and Latium; it may be Campanian.
3 On Etruscan Ganymedes see
EVP., index.
Duhn has left a circumstantial account of the grave in which the Boston vase was found (
RM. 2 pp. 236-41). It was a thick-sided stone box (cubo di tufo) consisting of two blocks placed one on top of the other, a cavity in the one corresponding to a cavity in the other. Inside, the box was painted red. It contained, first, a bronze dinos of archaic Campanian style with a statuette of a naked youth on the lid and statuettes of horses on the rim (ibid. p. 237 and p. 238 figs. 5-6): no. 14 in Riis's list,
From the Coll. 2 p. 157. This in its turn contained the ashes of the dead, and a black squat lekythos roughly reeded (
RM. 2 p. 238 fig. 4). In each corner of the receptacle there stood a clay vase: in one corner, the Boston Nolan; in the second, a small oinochoe or mug 'blackened as if by smoke' (ibid. p. 240 fig. 12); in the third, a skyphos covered with lustrous black glaze (ibid. fig. 11); in the fourth, a janiform head-kantharos — two archaic or sub-archaic female heads (ibid. fig. 10). Since the head-vase is 'of excellent make' it is no doubt Attic. I confess to being a little surprised by the other three vases: I have only the small cuts to go by, but I should have guessed that the squat lekythos and the little mug with the ring-handle were Campanian of the fourth century, and that the skyphos was not earlier than the late fifth.
G. M. A. Richter, AJA 30 (1926), p. 37;
Sichtermann 1955, p. 76, no. 28, pl. 2, 2;
idem, AntK 2 (1959), p. 13, pl. 8, 4;
ARV2, p. 553, no. 39;
Follmann 1968, pp. 37, 110, no. 39;
L. Byvanck-Quarles van Ufford, BABesch 44 (1969), pp. 130, 132;
Boardman 1975, pp. 180, 190 (fig. 339), 224, 247;
B. S. Ridgway, Hesperia 46 (1977), p. 317, note 7;
V. Webb, 1978, Archaic Greek Faience, Warminster, Aris and Phillips, p. 160, note 35;
A. Balomenou, ArchDelt 33 (1978), p. 338, note 4;
Kaempf-Dimitriadou 1979, pp. 9, 77, no. 9, pl. 2, 3-4;
Brommer 1979a, p. 20;
Brommer 1980, p. 48, no. B 20;
Beazley Addenda 1, p. 126;
Koch-Harnack 1983, pp. 136, 254, cat. no. 104;
Images 1984, p. 32, fig. 45 (J.-L. Durand);
Bilderwelt 1984, p. 48, fig. 45 (J.-L. Durand);
Keuls 1985, pp. 286, 288, fig. 257;
M. Robertson, in Greek Vases in the J. Paul Getty Museum 3 (1986), p. 72, note 4;
LIMC, IV, 1, p. 156, no. 31, IV, 2, pl. 78 (H. Sichtermann);
Koch-Harnack 1989, pp. 65, 67, fig. 47;
E. D. Serbeti, Boreas 12 (1989), pp. 21 (note 20), 37 (note 126);
Padgett 1989, pp. 11 (note 5), 64;
Beazley Addenda 2, p. 258;
Arafat 1990, pp. 69, 72, 189, no. 3.3.
