Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 1): Zeus god of the bright sky (Cambridge, 1914)

222 The Solar Wheel in Greece

attempts to connect it with the Triptolemos of Sophokles have
failed for lack of evidence1. These vases, of which four are known2,
regularly exhibit the departure of Triptolemos, though with con-
siderable variations and innovations as to the surrounding figures,
landscape, etc. A common feature is their treatment of the hero's
wheeled seat, which in three out of the four cases has become a
chariot facing us full-front and drawn by two monstrous snakes.
As the snakes increase in size, the wings diminish3 and on two of
the vases are absent altogether. One of these, an Apulian amphora
from the Pizzati collection now at St Petersburg, is here reproduced
(pi. xix)4. It shows Demeter, as on the earlier red-figured vases,
filling the phidle of Triptolemos, who richly clad in a stage costume
stands erect in his chariot. A trait new to the vase-painters is that
two ears of corn are visible in his hair, which is confined by a white
band5. Close to Demeter and Triptolemos are two Horai appro-
priately holding corn-stalks. The background is occupied by
figures frequent on Apulian vases and of no special significance
here, viz. a group of Aphrodite, Eros, and Peitho on the right, and
Pan with his syrinx leaning against a tree-trunk on the left. In the
foreground flows a river inscribed Nezios, 'the Nile.' The locality
is further indicated perhaps by the flora, certainly by the fauna.
Lotiform plants are growing on the river-bank, and a lynx-cat with
a bird in its mouth is decidedly reminiscent of Egypt6.

With the St Petersburg amphora F. Matz7 and O. Kern8 justly
compare two other monuments that exhibit Triptolemos in an
Egyptian setting—the tazza Farnese of the Naples Museum, a
magnificent sardonyx cup probably fashioned at Alexandreia in the
Ptolemaic period9, and the Petrossa cup of the Vienna collection, a
gold phidle of later, clumsier workmanship found in 1837 by a

1 See Overbeck op. cit. p. 552.

2 (1) Heydemann Vasensamml. Neapel p. 557 f. no. 3245, Overbeck op. cit. Atlas
pi. 16, 16. (2) Supra p. 126 n. 4. (3) Heydemann op. cit. p. 191!. no. 690, C. Strube
Supplement zu den Studien ilber den Bilderkreis von Eleusis Leipzig 1872 pi. 2, Overbeck
op. cit. Atlas pi. 16, 14 and .pl. 13, 15. (4) Stephani Vasensamml. St. Petersburg i.
162 ff. no. 350, id. Compte-rendu St. Pet. 1862 p. 54 ff. Atlas pi. 4 f., Overbeck op. cit.
p. 551 f. Atlas pi. 16, 13, Harrison Myth. Mon. Anc. Ath. p. liii fig. 10, supra p. 127 n. 1.

3 Supra p. 126 fig. 96.

4 Supra n. 2 no. (4).

5 Cp. the head of Triptolemos on an ' Underworld ' vase at Munich (Jahn Vasensamml.
Miinchen p. 273 ff. no. 849, Furtwangler—Reichhold Gr. Vasenmalerei \. 48 pi. 10).

6 O. Keller £>ie anlike Tierwelt Leipzig 1909 p. 71 ff.

7 F. Matz ' Goldschale von Pietraossa' in the Arch. Zeit. 1872 xxix. 136.

8 O. Kern ' De Triptolemo aratore' in the Geitethliacon Gottingense Halis Saxonum
1888 p. 103 f.

9 Furtwangler Ant. Get7imen i pis. 54—55, ii. 253—256.