Agora Object: Agora XXX, no. 256
Chronology:   Ca. 480 B.C.
Deposit:   E 15:6
Published Number:   AV 30.256
References:   Object: P 6103
Object: P 18278
Object: P 19582
Fifteen non-joining fragments of wall, P 18278 b--c and P 19582 a--d of torus rim with zone of ornament below. Glaze mottled here and there; has a greenish cast in places; abraded in part on rim. Max. dim. P 6103: 0.117; P 18278 a) 0.11, b) 0.111, c) 0.085, d) 0.069; P 19582 a) 0.136, b) 0.09, c) 0.078, d) 0.065, e) 0.083, f) 0.05, g) 0.033, h) 0.055, i) 0.072, j) 0.138. Est. diam. of rim 0.52. A. Ashmead, Hesperia 35, 1966, pl. 9 (P 19582 j and P 6103); pl. 10: on this plate, a =P 19582 a; h =P 19582 h; g =P 19582 i; k =P 18278 d; m =P 19582 e; n =P 19582 f; l (mispoised)=P 18278 a); G. Neumann, Gesten und Gebärden in der griechischen Kunst, Berlin 1965, p. 143, fig. 72 (P 6103, P 19582 a, c, and j); LIMC I, 1981, pp. 111--112, no. 462 and p. 127, no. 541a, both s.v. Achilleus (A. Kossatz-Deissmann).

A, Achilleus Mourning. P 19582 j (illustrated) shows the filleted head of the hero bent downward, his right hand resting against his forehead, the elbow on his thigh. His eyeball has slipped up a little bit beneath the upper eyelid. Achilleus wears a himation, which is pulled up to cover the back of his head, then swings down across his chest and around his right forearm. His left arm and hand are hidden beneath the garment, the hand probably clasping a bunch of the material (his covered fist overlaps his right elbow at the break); this would account for the fall of folds at the far left of P 6103 (see below). At the far right of P 18278 d (illustrated) there are drapery folds that ought to belong to the drapery that falls over the hero's knee. P 6103 (illustrated) preserves part of the klismos (a little of the seat and part of two legs) and a few folds of the himation. Near the bottom of the fragment there is the head of a spear pointed downward, not touching ground; at the very bottom is the ground line and start of the cul. The only other fragments that seem for certain to belong to this side are P 19582 g and i. Fragment i (illustrated) preserves the upper part of a woman to right wearing a long garment decorated with a lozenge pattern, the intersection of each lozenge being a dot of glaze, the rest in dilute. At the bottom right is the thumb of her right hand. Fragment g (illustrated) probably gives the top part of her head with diadem and forelock, or that of another, perhaps Thetis (see below: discussion of composition and subject). B, fight. P 19582 e (illustrated) shows part of a bent right arm of a warrior about to deliver a death blow to an opponent whose helmet crest appears above the lower break. It is difficult to be certain from which side the rest of the figured fragments come and where they fit in the composition (see below). P 18278 a (illustrated) preserves part of a round shield seen in three-quarter view from the inside and the shaft of a spear. Confronted pairs of figures placed in metopes decorate the shield band, and above the band is a shield cord from which the tassel hangs. P 19582 h (illustrated) shows the left shoulder draped with a himation and part of the chest of a man as well as his lower lip and the end of his beard. He stands frontally, head turned to right. P 19582 f, from just below the start of the rim, preserves a little bit of a curved object. The remaining six fragments (P 18278 b and c, P 19582 a--d) come from the rim with the frieze of upright encircled palmettes below the torus. Preliminary sketch. Relief contour. Dilute glaze: lozenges on woman's garment; inside of shield; muscles. Red: fillet.

Corbett and Edwards recognized that P 18278 and P 19582 were from the same krater, and Shefton added P 6103. The character of the glaze and clay confirms this, but placing the fragments is problematic. It would seem obvious that the shield fragment, P 18278 a, should come from Side A, the shaft of the spear continuing on down to the spear point on P 6103. But there are objections to this. First of all, the thickness of the wall between the shield fragment and the two Achilleus fragments differs by one to two millimeters, a difference that does not seem much in print but is important if one considers that the thickness of the wall of a well-potted calyx-krater, like this one, is usually consistent horizontally, although it may vary considerably from top to bottom. Secondly, if the positioning of P 18278 d as part of Achilleus' himation is correct, then the shield fragment would have to be placed quite high in the picture, about level with the hero's head. This would help with the thickness problem but would raise the question of how the shield, as well as the spear, was supported. One would like to imagine that the shield rested on the ground, steadied by the hand of a standing figure, perhaps the man on P 19582 h. But the thickness of the shield fragment as well as the glaze of the wall requires that it belong rather high in the composition. A technical feature links these two fragments with the fight fragment, P 19582 e, namely, the presence of very thin lines incised in the glaze on the inside, a rather common occurrence on such vases, but which does not appear on the three fragments assigned to Side A (such lines do not always continue around the entire inside). Thus, it would appear that P 19582 h and P 18278 a come from Side B. P 19582 f may come from either side. Ashmead (Hesperia 35, 1966, p. 26) thought it was the crest of a helmet, but the two incised concentric lines at the contour suggest instead the narrow rim of a shield. Perhaps it is one hanging on the wall above the head of Achilleus or slightly in front of him.

The composition of Side A, from what remains, seems to be as follows: at the left, a woman, probably Thetis or a Nereid, stands to right, surely holding something in her now missing left hand, perhaps a helmet or a greave (see below). At the right, Achilleus sits dejectedly to left. Between the two, there has to be someone who holds the spear, the point of which appears on P 6103. He (or she) must hold it rather tightly, otherwise its point would touch ground. The woman on P 19582 i cannot hold the spear because, if she did, part of the shaft would appear in front of her, and here there is only black glaze (as already noted by Ashmead, Hesperia 35, 1966, p. 29).

If this arrangement is correct, it remains to determine the subject. What comes to mind immediately, of course, is the Achaeans' mission to Achilleus described by Homer in Book IX of the Iliad and illustrated by the Kleophrades Painter on his hydria in Munich, inv. 8770 (Paralip. 341, 73 bis; Addenda 189). The problem with this identification, as others have recognized (see Ashmead, Hesperia 35, 1966, p. 29; A. Kossatz-Deissmann in LIMC I, 1981, pp. 111--112, no. 462 where P 6103 is included with uncertain representations of the Mission; P. Hellström, "Achilles in Retirement," Medelhavsmuseet [The Museum of Mediterranean and Near Eastern Antiquities, Stockholm] 25, 1990, pp. 19--31), is that a woman should not be present, at least not as we know it from Homer and from the representations (see LIMC I, pp. 106--114). Occasionally, the Mission Scene is combined with a representation of the leading away of Briseis, as on the Louvre skyphos by Makron (G 146: ARV2 458, 2; Paralip. 377, 2; Addenda 243; Denoyelle, Chefs-d'oeuvre . . . Louvre, pp. 132--133, cat. no. 61), but there each subject appears on a different side of the vase. On the namepiece of the Briseis Painter (London, B.M. GR 1843.11--3.92 = E 76: ARV2 406, 1; Paralip. 371, 1; Addenda 232; CVA, London 9 [Great Britain 17], pl. 73 [849]), Briseis is led away while Achilleus sits in his tent wrapped in his himation, but this is not comparable to 256 because the woman on 256 faces Achilleus and she does not wear traveling clothes, although this might not be necessary for movement from one tent to another within the Greek camp.

A better possibility for the scene on Side A, although not without problems, is the Second Arming of Achilleus, a theme suggested by Ashmead (Hesperia 35, 1966, pp. 29--30) but rejected by Boardman (AK 19, 1976, p. 4), chiefly because the subject is only popular in red figure somewhat later than 256. In red-figured representations of the second arming, Thetis and her sisters, the Nereids, present the new set of armor to Achilleus, a contradiction with Homer, who has Thetis act alone, but which may have been inspired by a different version. In the Nereids (fr. 237 = H. J. Mette, Der verlorene Aischylos, Berlin 1963, p. 118), Aischylos introduces a chorus of Nereids mounted on dolphins, and they bring Achilleus his new set of armor, but since the date of the trilogy of which the Nereids was the second play is not assured, it cannot be proven that the early-5th-century illustrations of this story depend on the play. For a discussion of the trilogy in relation to Attic vases, see B. Döhle, "Die `Achilleis' des Aischylos in ihrer Auswirkung auf attischen Vasenmalerei des 5. Jahrhunderts," Klio 49, 1967, pp. 63--143, esp. pp. 125--136; more briefly, Kossatz-Deissmann in LIMC I, pp. 122--128, where on p. 127, no. 541 a, 256 is included as an uncertain example of the Second Arming: it is unclear to me how she arrives at a date of 490 B.C. for the trilogy (p. 127).

If the Second Arming is the correct identification of the scene on 256, then the woman on P 19582 i is a Nereid and stands at the left of the composition with someone (Thetis[?]) between her and Achilleus. It is tempting to suggest that she held a piece of Achilleus' armor in her right hand, of which only the thumb is preserved in the lower right of P 19582 i. But when one tries to reconstruct any piece of the set (helmet, corslet, sheathed sword), part of the weapon or armor would have to appear in front of her, where all there is is black glaze. More likely, either her right hand was empty or a pair of greaves may have been suspended from her wrist, and her outstretched left hand held something else, perhaps the hero's helmet or his sword. Since the woman on P 19582 g wears a stephane, just as Thetis does on an unpublished fragmentary stamnos in Malibu, the J. Paul Getty Museum, 81.AE.220.5 (only there the band is decorated with dots), this might argue for keeping this fragment separate from P 19582 i. (Iris wears a similar headdress on Munich 2426: ARV2 189, 76; Paralip. 341, 76; Addenda 189.) Thus, the composition might have looked like this: (1) a Nereid holding a helmet or sword and perhaps the greaves; (2) Thetis with shield and spear, facing (3) Achilleus.

This interpretation is not without problems. First of all, it would be more compelling if we could include in this composition P 18278 a, the fragment with the shield, but for the reasons given above, this does not seem possible. For sheer size and impressiveness, there does not seem to be another shield quite like it in the rest of the Kleophrades Painter's work, and it fulfills well the requirements for a shield crafted by Hephaistos to be given to the best of the Achaeans. Secondly, if what remains on P 19582 f represents a shield hanging on the wall, it would be inappropriate in a scene that shows the Second Arming, because at that time Achilleus was without armor and weapons.

If the scene on 256 represents the Second Arming of Achilles, it would be the earliest known red-figured example, and it would show once again the ability of the Kleophrades Painter to depict a Trojan theme imaginatively and powerfully.

For the decoration on the shield band, see E. Touloupa in New Perspectives [ pp. 241--271], pp. 257--261.

The Kleophrades Painter (ARV2 185, 39; Paralip. 340, 39).