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

HYDRI/E. 153

jacket and anaxyrides decorated with small brown circles, and a short bordered
chiton with a vertical stripe of pattern and a black girdle. Her arms are firmly
held by an Ethiopian youth on either side, over whose shoulders they pass : each
of these wears a fillet, and a short bordered chiton with a broad brown girdle.
They stand en face, but look at each other. On the r. is a group of two
Ethiopians making a hole in the raised ground for the erection of two posts to
which Andromeda is to be fastened. One on the 1. stoops forward to r., lifting
upright with both hands a thick stake, which he drives vertically into the
ground : the other, kneeling on hands and knees to the 1., delves in the ground
with his r. arm half buried in a hole: by the side of the hole lies a heap of
earth which he has extracted: each figure wears a short girt bordered chiton,
and a fillet: the chiton on the 1. has a broad black vertical stripe : the other
. has two horizontal zigzag lines in brown. Their movements are directed by a
third Ethiopian, an old man with wrinkled forehead and short fringed chiton,
who stands en face, holding the second stake upright in his 1. hand : he looks to
1., pointing with his r. forefinger to the hole, as if giving directions to the others.
Next on the r. is Kepheus, a bearded figure in a long chiton, mantle, kidaris,
and shoes, who sits on a rocky elevation looking on, and leaning forward with
both hands resting on the point of a knotted staff and his forehead resting on
them, in an attitude of dejection. Last on the r. is Perseus, who seems to have
arrived unobserved, and who stands en face looking on and striking his forehead
with his r. palm in despair: he is a beardless youth, with wavy hair falling to
his shoulders, and has a chlamys, the winged petasos (of the archaic form)
fastened by a cord under his chin, high boots, and two spears held upright in
his 1. hand. [The black marks at the top of his boots seem to be accidental
splashes of paint and not details inserted purposely.] On the 1. of Andromeda
three Ethiopians stand, holding preparations for a toilet. The one on the r.
looks at her, holding up on his 1. arm a square box, in his r. an alabastron
hanging by a cord. The next one looks to the 1., holding in his r. a mirror, in
his 1. a pyxis with cover, and on his 1. arm a bordered mantle hangs : like the
last, he stands en face, but looks to 1. towards the third who advances, carrying
on his head a diphros with a striped cushion, holding the leg in his 1., and with
his r. holding out a taenia decorated with key pattern. All these three have a
fillet, and a short chiton, decorated above the waist with horizontal pairs of
wavy lines and dots, and below it with pairs of vertical lines : the one on the
1. has a fringe at the lower edge. All the chitons, except those of the last three
Ethiopians, have a row of dots around the armholes and neck: that of the old
Ethiopian has a pattern of zigzags instead of dots.

[For the figure with a diphros on his head, cf. the diphrophori in the Parthenon frieze :
and Cat. of Satlptwe, vol. i, p. 157, fig. 10, where a cut is given of this figure. Vogel, lo.\ cit.
p. 44, note, suggests that this scene is derived from a Satyric drama, possibly the Andromeda
of Sophocles. For the subject, cf. F 185.]

E 170. HYDRIA. Ht. i8f in. Capua. Castellani, 1873. Mon- del1' Inst- ;x> pL 28; Ami.

dcW Inst. 1871, p. 107 ; Overbeck, Kunstmyth. Atlas, pi. 26, no. 8 ; (Apollo) p. 485, nc. 3 ;