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Tithonus on a Red-Figured Vase
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 December 2013
Extract
The vase now published is a Nolan amphora (height, 14¼ inches). It was acquired by the Ashmolean Museum from Castellani, and is No. 275 in the published catalogue of Ashmolean vases. As however it is unfortunately not engraved in that catalogue, I give here a sketch by Mr. F. Anderson of the two sides.
On one side is Eos, clad in chiton, winged, running r. with outstretched arms: on the other side is Tithonus standing l., bald but for a thin line of hairs, and leaning on staff. Under the figures is a line of maeander pattern. An Ε is scratched beneath the foot.
The date of the vase is about the middle of the fifth century, or a little later. Its main interest lies in its subject, the love of Eos and Tithonus being almost unrepresented in ancient art. Eos appears frequently on vases pursuing or carrying off young men: her pursuit of Cephalus is an ordinary motive in art: but the artists avoid Tithonus, either because he is unfamiliar to them, or perhaps with the usual Greek dislike for the incongruous and undignified.
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- Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1893
References
1 See Roscher or Baumeister, s.v. Eos.
2 Gerhard, Etrus. Spiegel, Plate 232.
3 Gerhard, , Gesam. Akad. Abhandl., Plate VIII. 4Google Scholar. The aged man who sometimes appears (as in Luynes, Vases, pl. 38) in the scenes where Eos approaches a youth with a lyre, is no doubt not Tithonus, but a pedagogue. He is wanting in the dignity which marks the male figure on our vase.
4 Cf. Furtwängler, in Arch. Zeit. 40, (1883), p. 350Google Scholar.