Page:Philological Museum v2.djvu/324

314 314 On the Painting of an Ancient Vase. execute it in due form^ she is holding the vessels of the dTTov^Yj^ the charger, and the cup, in her hands. The boy, who seems about twelve years old, and who is busy with the chest which appears to be intended for the safe keeping of the ovXoxvTai and the implements pertaining to the sacrifice, is probably no other than Philoctetes himself, who, at the time of the expedition of Hercules against Troy, was about the age of the boy here represented, and who from his childhood accompanied the hero as his ministering attendant, just as he appears in the painting (Philostr. Jun. Im. 17). The little bvish of sprigs with pointed leaves, perhaps of laurel, which is just indicated above the boy's head, marks the place of the sacrifice, the ciKaXvcprj arjKoi/^ as Sophocles calls the roofless inclosure within which the altar of Chryse stood (Phil. 1328). The vase which contains this remarkable painting has the shape of an inverted bell, resting on one foot, with a han- dle projecting from each side. It is what the Greeks would have called a KpuTrjp. The figures are painted red, on a black ground ; the names, as well as some of the ornaments above described, white. The drawing is careless, particu- larly in the hands and feet. The vase, at the time when the painting was copied, belonged to a private person at Naples ^ 6 [The subject of this Memoir has been discussed both by the commen- tators on the Philoctetes of Sophocles, and by Dissen in Eoeckh's edition of Pindar, Explic. p. 511. where he communicates Welcker's view of Chryse, as nei- ther a nymph nor Minerva, but the ancient goddess Thia, whom Pindar invokes in his fourth Isthmian ode : MaTep 'AXtov, TroXvajuv/uLe Qela creo 7' eKan Kal fieyacrdevfj vofxia-av y^pvcrov dudpojiroL irepiuxTLov aXkoiVy and who is no other than the Lemnian goddess to whom human victims were sacrificed. (Steph. Byz. Aiiptvo^)* Welcker finds a confirmation of this opinion in the physiognomy of the goddess represented on the vase, Ociilorum ferocitas deam sigmjicat humanas hostias cupi- entem^ qiiales ei videntur olim ohlatcs. But it is difficult to decide, whether what is here described as ferocity, is any thing more than the want of any positive expression, which marks a rude essay of early art. Riickert Dienst der Athena p, 67. explains the epithet Upvcrn applied to Minerva, from the golden panoply with which she leaped from the head of Jove : so the chorus in the OEd. T. invokes her as XP^^^^ Ovyarep Ato9 : so she was represented in the Parthenon.]