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)

PSYCTERS. 363

with his 1. hand he seems to strike himself under the 1. thigh ; he wears a wreath
of olive; the other two, wreaths of vine. In the field is inscribed, KVAIAJ +Alf>E
+ai|>e, KuoYa? x<a,ipe vcupe.

[The form of kylix seems to belong rather to the style with black than with red figures.]

E 768. PSYCTER. Ht. ni in. Cervctri. Castellani, 1868. Wiener Vorlegebl. vij pi. 4 ; Bull.

dcir lust. 1S66, p. 185 ; Wernicke, Lieblingsn. p. 59, no. 1 ; Klein, Meistersig? p. 161, no. 23 ;
Licblingsinsclir. p. 53, no. 1 ; Hartwig, Meistersch. p. 226. The design forms a frieze around
the shoulder and body of the vase, 4f in. broad. Finest style of Duns. Purple fillets, wreath,
wine, inscriptions, and cord of petasos. Brown inner markings and hair up centre of body;
edge of hair in thinned black. Eye of usual Duris type, with dotted pupil against inner angle,
smaller than usual. Round the fiat part of the shoulder, a band of tongue pattern ; below the
design, a band of alternate key and red cross square {ci.Ant. Denkm. i, pi. 29). At the junction
of the base to the body, a band of alternate palmette and flower (silhouette) laid horizontally.

Revels of Seileni. The central figure appears to be that of a Seilenos,
dressed as a herald, in chlamys (Thracian ?) with heavy horizontal patterns,
petasos at back, and high endromides with flaps, turned over, of skin ; he moves
to 1. looking back, with caduceus inverted in his 1. hand, and holding up his r.
in surprise. The rest of the figures fall into four groups, proceeding to the
r. as follows : (i) Two Seileni infibulatcd, advancing from each side towards
one who has fallen backwards to r. on fingers and toes, with a cantharos
before him ; the Seilenos on the r. pours wine from an oinochoe into
the cantharos, the other holds forward with both hands a second cantharos.
(ii) Two Seileni dancing on each side of a cantharos on the ground ; the one on
the 1., resting on his 1. leg, has thrown his r. foot back and upward, as if to kick
his back with his heel ; his body is en face, and this r. foot is a bold attempt at
foreshortening ; with body and arms bent to r., his attitude seems to suggest
plunging head first into the cantharos. The other, who is wreathed with ivy,
balances himself, with arms extended behind him, on his 1. leg, and flourishes
his r. foot over the cantharos. (iii) A Seilenos, with legs in air, supports himself
on r. hand and 1. forearm, and lowers his mouth into a kylix resting on the
ground. The other (ithyphallic) strides towards him from r., holding a kylix
by the foot in his 1., and extending his r. with a gesture of admiration, (iv) A
Seilenos has fallen backwards to 1. upon his hands, with his 1. leg bent under
him (foot in foreshortening), and into his open mouth has wine poured from a
wine-skin by a Seilenos on L, and from an oinochoe by another. Above
group (ii) is inscribed AFIJTAAOFAS KAVOJ, 'ApiaTayopas fcaXos. Below it,
AOFIJ EAPAffiJEN, Aovpi^ eypaefxrev. All the Seileni, except the herald and the
one last described, are bald on the crown ; and all except the one wreathed have
a fillet fastening the hair in a knot behind ; in the case of the reclining figure
in (iv) the hair is knotted, but the fillet is omitted. The tumbler in (iii) has the
end of his beard recurved in a small tuft.

[Robert, Bild und Lied, p. 28, note 29, suggests that the figure of the Seilenos-herald is an
evidence of the influence of the drama in this composition ; and that here and in the Naples
vase {Naples Cat. no. 3240) we may recognise the Coryphaeos of the Satyric chorus ; cf. Athen.
v. p. 198 A.]