Smith, Cecil Harcourt; British Museum <London> [Hrsg.]: Catalogue of the Greek and Etruscan Vases in the British Museum (Band 3): Vases of the finest period (London, 1896)

INTRODUCTION. 39

narrative, the body is seized by a warrior of each opposing party : this will
perhaps explain why in the early scenes of the Memnon type (as E 12) the
winged figures are usually armed. On a black-figure vase in Berlin {Arch.
Anzeiger, 1893, p. 86) the dead body is merely carried by two bearded winged
warriors identical in appearance, and the tomb is not shown. On a black-figure
lekythos {Jahrbuch, 1892, p. 143) the type is curiously rationalised : here the
body of Memnon the Ethiopian is being carried along by two Ethiopians.
On the white lekythos D 58, as already too in E 12, there seems to be an
attempt to distinguish the personalities of Sleep and Death : and on D 59 the
same is done for Boreas and Zephyros : but later it seems likely that this dis-
tinction was not maintained, and that the strictly mythical idea was relaxed :
the ideal dead Athenian was himself depicted in place of Memnon or Sarpedon,
and the two winged figures became the typical messengers of death who carry
him to his long home.