DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.807#0743
M. M. Ill: SEAL TYPES AND GREATER ART 697
4
\
moulded reliefs in faience and terra-cotta. In /, a pallium-like figure is
combined with three looped motives of early derivation, since they appear on
a painted pithos from Phaestos belonging to the closing phase of M. M. II.1
i\ with a border resembling- conventional rocks and horizontal bars above
crescent stands, is wholly enigmatic.
The nodding, tulip-like flower, /, with its wavy stem, which looks as if
it were taken from a group, suggests some such instantaneous expression of
the painter's art as has been illustrated above by
the Lily Fresco. It leads us to the still more
remarkable design reproduced in Fig. 519, in which
three leafless stems are seen bending before the
breeze beside what may be taken to be rippling
water. The eminently pictorial character of the
last mentioned designs strikes the eye.
But of all the types here exhibited the
most interesting is that of a man standing in
a light skiff and repelling—whether with oar or
spear is not clear—a dog-headed sea-monster who
raises her head from the waves that boil around
(Fig-. 520). The whole scene incidentally calls
up to us the Homeric picture of Skylla's surging
waters round Odysseus' bark, that seethed up
from the depths ' like those of a cauldron on a mighty fire':
XefirjS a>? irvpl tto\\S>
iracr dvafiopfxvpecrKe KVKOofxeyi].2
The clog's head, though in a multiple shape, is associated with Skylla in later
art. In the Odyssey she has already six heads. But that there was an
earlier and simpler form is made probable by the fact that down to late
classical times a sea-monster with a single canine head, the so-called
' pistrix ', was still believed to haunt her fabled abode, and was, indeed,
placed on his coinage by Gelon, as a symbol of the great sea victory over
the Etruscans that gave him the mastery of the Sicilian Straits.3 It is
Instanta-
neous im-
pressions
of nature.
i
Prototype
of Skylla.
is.
Fig. 519. Stems bent in
the Wind. Gem-impres-
sion, Knossos (f).
' Pistrix'
of Sicilian
Straits.
1 Mori. Ant., xiv, PL XXXIV a.
2 Od. xii. 237, 238 ; cf. Knossos, Report,
1903, p. 58, Fig. 36.
:; Head, Coinage of Syracuse, p. 10, and cf.
Holm, Geschichte Siciliens, i, p. 572, and my
Contributions to Sicilian Numismatics (Arum.
Chron., 1894, p. 12). This 'pistrix' type
appears already on gems of the ' Melian ' class
belonging to the early part of the seventh
century b.c. On a specimen from Epidauros
Limera, in my collection (Furtwangler, Ant.
Gemmen, i, PI. VI, 34), it appears beneath the
prow of a vessel. Compare, too, the sea-
monster, half dog, half fish, on an Italic
' dinos' (Pottier, Vases antiques du Louvre, i,
PI. 40, E, 42), and that (labelled K-^tos) from
4
\
moulded reliefs in faience and terra-cotta. In /, a pallium-like figure is
combined with three looped motives of early derivation, since they appear on
a painted pithos from Phaestos belonging to the closing phase of M. M. II.1
i\ with a border resembling- conventional rocks and horizontal bars above
crescent stands, is wholly enigmatic.
The nodding, tulip-like flower, /, with its wavy stem, which looks as if
it were taken from a group, suggests some such instantaneous expression of
the painter's art as has been illustrated above by
the Lily Fresco. It leads us to the still more
remarkable design reproduced in Fig. 519, in which
three leafless stems are seen bending before the
breeze beside what may be taken to be rippling
water. The eminently pictorial character of the
last mentioned designs strikes the eye.
But of all the types here exhibited the
most interesting is that of a man standing in
a light skiff and repelling—whether with oar or
spear is not clear—a dog-headed sea-monster who
raises her head from the waves that boil around
(Fig-. 520). The whole scene incidentally calls
up to us the Homeric picture of Skylla's surging
waters round Odysseus' bark, that seethed up
from the depths ' like those of a cauldron on a mighty fire':
XefirjS a>? irvpl tto\\S>
iracr dvafiopfxvpecrKe KVKOofxeyi].2
The clog's head, though in a multiple shape, is associated with Skylla in later
art. In the Odyssey she has already six heads. But that there was an
earlier and simpler form is made probable by the fact that down to late
classical times a sea-monster with a single canine head, the so-called
' pistrix ', was still believed to haunt her fabled abode, and was, indeed,
placed on his coinage by Gelon, as a symbol of the great sea victory over
the Etruscans that gave him the mastery of the Sicilian Straits.3 It is
Instanta-
neous im-
pressions
of nature.
i
Prototype
of Skylla.
is.
Fig. 519. Stems bent in
the Wind. Gem-impres-
sion, Knossos (f).
' Pistrix'
of Sicilian
Straits.
1 Mori. Ant., xiv, PL XXXIV a.
2 Od. xii. 237, 238 ; cf. Knossos, Report,
1903, p. 58, Fig. 36.
:; Head, Coinage of Syracuse, p. 10, and cf.
Holm, Geschichte Siciliens, i, p. 572, and my
Contributions to Sicilian Numismatics (Arum.
Chron., 1894, p. 12). This 'pistrix' type
appears already on gems of the ' Melian ' class
belonging to the early part of the seventh
century b.c. On a specimen from Epidauros
Limera, in my collection (Furtwangler, Ant.
Gemmen, i, PI. VI, 34), it appears beneath the
prow of a vessel. Compare, too, the sea-
monster, half dog, half fish, on an Italic
' dinos' (Pottier, Vases antiques du Louvre, i,
PI. 40, E, 42), and that (labelled K-^tos) from