DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.808#0042
40 ARTHUR EVANS
The double lines beneath the design may in this case indicate a palace
floor or court, as in the last example they mark the road beneath the chariot.
The rocks round the upper margin would at any rate be appropriate to the
position of Mycenae. In considering the design itself it is always necessary
to bear in mind the simplifying and selective process that is an essential feature
in the art of gem-engraving. The strict limitation in the number of the actors
in the scene on the intaglio does not mean that in a fuller illustration of the
same subject there would not be others in a secondary plane. The absence
of a throne or palatial furniture is by itself of no great import; that such
were at hand is indeed connoted by the truly royal attire of the female
personage.
In the Odyssey attention is concentrated on the usurper Aigisthos, who,
after reigning seven years in Mycenae, ' rich in gold,' is slain by Orestes to
avenge his father, Agamemnon.108 But as we are further told that, ' having
slain him, he made a tomb both for his hateful mother and for the cowardly
Aigisthos,' there does not seem to be any good reason for supposing
Homer to have been ignorant of the tradition of the double vengeance.
"AvoAkk is certainly the fitting epithet for the prostrate figure in the scene
before us.
On the other hand, in the form in which the death of Aigisthos and
Clytemnestra is set forth in later Greek art it is impossible to trace any con-
nexion with the earlier presentment of a similar tragedy as seen in the Thisbe
intaglio. Greek renderings of this subject only appear late, under the influence
of the tragic poets, and though the paintings such as Pausanias saw in the
Picture Gallery of the Propylaea at Athens,109 or the ^rpoKTovia 'Opeorov
of Theon of Samos referred to by Plutarch,110 may have left an uncertain echo
in sarcophagus relics of Roman date,111 it is to the designs of a series of red-
figured vases that we have to turn for our earliest evidence. On these we
see Aigisthos as a bearded man stabbed, usually on his throne, by Orestes,
who at the same time seizes the hair of his head and is in the act of hurling
him down. Clytemnestra is depicted as a truculent virago, who has seized a
double axe—the weapon of her previous murder—and is only prevented from
dispatching Orestes by the intervention of his companion, Pylades, or of the
herald Talthybios.112
One link between the story itself as it appears in Greek tradition and pre-
Hellenic times cannot at any rate be ignored. The name of the villain of the
108 Od., iii. v. 306 seqq. : Altertums, ii. p. 1112 seqq. The archaising
t£ 8^ oi oySodrct! Kanbv $J\u0e S7os 'Opeffrijs relief from Arieia, in which Clytemnestra
fill. 0.* 'Afhjvauiv, Kara 5' taTave iraTpotpovna, simply tries to hold back Orestes {Arch.
AlyifTdoj/ 8o\6firirif, os ol irarepa KAvrbv itna- Ztg., 1849, PI. XI.), stands quite by itself.
^Toi 6 rhy Kreivas Salyv T&tyov 'hp-ydoayiv 112 The best representation {where
fitlrpSs re GTvyeprjs «at avdAKiSos AlyltrOoio. Talthybios intervenes) is on the Vienna Vase
109 I., o. 22, 6. (Man. Inst., viii. PI. XV; Reinaoh, Beper-
110 And. Poet. 18 A. toire, Vol. I. p. 169, 1, 2). Baumeister,
111 As, for instance, the Barbarini Sarco- op. cit. ii. p. 1114, observes that the situa-
phagus (Viseonti, Mus. Pio-Clem., v. 22. tion shown in this design ' dem alten
Compare on this subject A. Baumeister's ahnlichenDarstellungenzuGrundeliegenden
art. ' Oresteia ' in his Denkmdler d. Mass. Originale ohne Zweifel amnachstenkommt.'
The double lines beneath the design may in this case indicate a palace
floor or court, as in the last example they mark the road beneath the chariot.
The rocks round the upper margin would at any rate be appropriate to the
position of Mycenae. In considering the design itself it is always necessary
to bear in mind the simplifying and selective process that is an essential feature
in the art of gem-engraving. The strict limitation in the number of the actors
in the scene on the intaglio does not mean that in a fuller illustration of the
same subject there would not be others in a secondary plane. The absence
of a throne or palatial furniture is by itself of no great import; that such
were at hand is indeed connoted by the truly royal attire of the female
personage.
In the Odyssey attention is concentrated on the usurper Aigisthos, who,
after reigning seven years in Mycenae, ' rich in gold,' is slain by Orestes to
avenge his father, Agamemnon.108 But as we are further told that, ' having
slain him, he made a tomb both for his hateful mother and for the cowardly
Aigisthos,' there does not seem to be any good reason for supposing
Homer to have been ignorant of the tradition of the double vengeance.
"AvoAkk is certainly the fitting epithet for the prostrate figure in the scene
before us.
On the other hand, in the form in which the death of Aigisthos and
Clytemnestra is set forth in later Greek art it is impossible to trace any con-
nexion with the earlier presentment of a similar tragedy as seen in the Thisbe
intaglio. Greek renderings of this subject only appear late, under the influence
of the tragic poets, and though the paintings such as Pausanias saw in the
Picture Gallery of the Propylaea at Athens,109 or the ^rpoKTovia 'Opeorov
of Theon of Samos referred to by Plutarch,110 may have left an uncertain echo
in sarcophagus relics of Roman date,111 it is to the designs of a series of red-
figured vases that we have to turn for our earliest evidence. On these we
see Aigisthos as a bearded man stabbed, usually on his throne, by Orestes,
who at the same time seizes the hair of his head and is in the act of hurling
him down. Clytemnestra is depicted as a truculent virago, who has seized a
double axe—the weapon of her previous murder—and is only prevented from
dispatching Orestes by the intervention of his companion, Pylades, or of the
herald Talthybios.112
One link between the story itself as it appears in Greek tradition and pre-
Hellenic times cannot at any rate be ignored. The name of the villain of the
108 Od., iii. v. 306 seqq. : Altertums, ii. p. 1112 seqq. The archaising
t£ 8^ oi oySodrct! Kanbv $J\u0e S7os 'Opeffrijs relief from Arieia, in which Clytemnestra
fill. 0.* 'Afhjvauiv, Kara 5' taTave iraTpotpovna, simply tries to hold back Orestes {Arch.
AlyifTdoj/ 8o\6firirif, os ol irarepa KAvrbv itna- Ztg., 1849, PI. XI.), stands quite by itself.
^Toi 6 rhy Kreivas Salyv T&tyov 'hp-ydoayiv 112 The best representation {where
fitlrpSs re GTvyeprjs «at avdAKiSos AlyltrOoio. Talthybios intervenes) is on the Vienna Vase
109 I., o. 22, 6. (Man. Inst., viii. PI. XV; Reinaoh, Beper-
110 And. Poet. 18 A. toire, Vol. I. p. 169, 1, 2). Baumeister,
111 As, for instance, the Barbarini Sarco- op. cit. ii. p. 1114, observes that the situa-
phagus (Viseonti, Mus. Pio-Clem., v. 22. tion shown in this design ' dem alten
Compare on this subject A. Baumeister's ahnlichenDarstellungenzuGrundeliegenden
art. ' Oresteia ' in his Denkmdler d. Mass. Originale ohne Zweifel amnachstenkommt.'