San
Antonio 75.59.15P
Attic Black-Figure Amphora
Collection of the San Antonio Museum
Association (75.59.15P)
Attributed to a painter of Group E [Bothmer]
Ca. 540-530 B. C.
Height: 40 cm. Side A: Herakles rescuing
Deianeira from the Centaur Nessos. Side B: Wheeling chariot.
One day when Herakles was out with his wife Deianeira, they came to
the River Evenos, in Aitolia, swollen with rain. The centaur Nessos offered to
carry Deianeira across, but as Herakles watched from the bank, Nessos tried to
take advantage of the woman in mid-stream. Herakles shot the centaur with an
arrow made more lethal by having been dipped in the blood of the Hydra. But
Nessos had his revenge, for with his dying words he persuaded Deianeira to save
the blood from his wound and use it as a love potion, should Herakles ever
wander in his affections. Years later, when Herakles brought home a concubine,
the princess Iole, his distraught wife spread the potion on a shirt, a gift for
Herakles, and thus unwittingly caused his agonizing death.
The death of Nessos was one of the earliest myth scenes to appear in
Greek art, on a Proto-Attic amphora of the early seventh century, now in New
York, and remained a popular subject in Attic black-figure. But the painted
scenes seldom follow the canonical version of the story as recounted above,
which is best known to us from Sophocles'
Trachiniae (
Soph.
Trach.). Instead, as on side A of this vase, Herakles' weapon is
usually a sword, instead of bow and arrow, and there is no indication that the
encounter takes places in or near a river. Herakles wears only a short
chiton with a patterned hem; his scabbard
hangs from a baldric across his chest. He puts his arm around his wife's
shoulder, a protective gesture, as he advances toward the centaur.
Deianeira wears a belted
peplos and
a short shawl-like mantle over it. Nessos looks back as he runs off to the
right, holding a stone in each hand. The centaurs live in the wild and regularly
fight with whatever weapons are ready to hand - tree branches and rocks.
On side B, a four-horse chariot
wheels sharply around, the rear horses animatedly kicking their forelegs high in
the air. The chariot is driven by a bearded man in a pointed cap. He wears a
short-sleeved
chiton and over it a spotted
animal hide, a frequent attribute of charioteers in black-figure. Beside him in
the car stands a warrior in high crested Corinthian helmet, carrying a spear.
Such lively chariot scenes are an especially common motif in later black-figure
(compare
Sarasota 1600.G4).
The San Antonio amphora has been assigned by Dietrich von Bothmer to
Group E, a large but closely related group of black-figure painters of the third
quarter of the sixth century. The E refers to the great master Exekias, for, in
Beazley's words, this group is "the soil from which the art of Exekias rose, the
tradition which he absorbs and transcends" (
Beazley 1951, 63). This vase exemplifies the one-piece or
belly-amphora, with continuous curve from lip to foot. This type of amphora is
generally earlier than that with offset neck, or neck-amphora, especially
popular in later black figure (e.g.
Sarasota
1600.G4,
Richmond 60-11,
Shapiro 1981a, no. 2).
Bibliography
Para., 56, 38 bis;
Cat. Sotheby 1974, Lot 227, ill. On
Herakles and Nessos:
Fittschen
1970. On the New York Nessos amphora:
Schefold 1964, 36 and pl. 23.
