GREEK AND ETRUSCAN VASES

The decoration is in black glaze, sometimes of fine quality, with added purple-
red and white; white applied directly on the clay is often used for the flesh of
women and other accessories, and at times the faces of men as well as other
details are painted red. The great change takes place in the scheme of decoration,
in that the friezes of animals are relegated to a subordinate place either on the
shoulder or on the lower part of the body, and the field is no longer crowded with
rosettes, etc. Larger vases are still decorated with friezes on the body, a main
frieze in the new manner and usually an animal frieze below, between rays at
the bottom of the body and a tongue pattern or similar decoration at the top;
on the neck of the amphora a reversing lotus-palmette ornament is usual. On
smaller vases one or two figures of men, or more commonly two animals facing
each other in a heraldic scheme, constitute the main decoration. There is also a
marked change in the subjects and the arrangement of the main frieze on larger
vases. Where it continues to be an animal frieze, the old procession from left to
right is replaced by animals grouped in pairs, or approaching the centre from
each side; a lotus-palmette ornament may occupy the centre, as on Rhodian
vases, with animals symmetrically arranged on either side. But on larger and
finer vases the main frieze depicts human figures arranged in a definite scene
from mythology or daily life. The best examples are the large column-kraters
(kelebai) mainly found at Cervetri. The main frieze depicts a scene from human
life (a banquet, a burlesque dance, a departure for battle, a scene of combat, a
boar hunt, athletic games), or these same scenes are transferred to the world of
myth (banquet of Heracles, departure of Amphiaraus, Calydonian hunt) by the
inscribed names of heroes, or scenes peculiar to myth like the death of Ajax are
represented. In such scenes the inscriptions in a measure take the place of the
old rosettes and other field ornaments, though occasionally a small animal is
introduced primarily as a field ornament. The inscriptions in the Corinthian
alphabet serve to connect these vases directly with Corinth, although they are
found mainly in Italy and perhaps are for the most part the product of Greek
potters working in Italy.
The technique of the decoration has this interest, that it seems to be derived
from inlaid work in wood or metal. The white may represent ivory or silver, the
red some red wood or copper, the black a wood like ebony. Apart from such
definite suggestions which are hardly justified by facts at our command, the
representation by three or four somewhat arbitrary colors in contrast with the
simple method of silhouettes is exactly what could be expected if inlaid work
were imitated in pottery; and the frieze disposition as well as the particular sub-
jects chosen seems to be based on the inlaid work for which Corinth and its
vicinity were famous in this period.1 The late Corinthian vases may be dated
approximately at the end of the seventh century b.c. and in the first half of the
sixth. No very sharp line can be drawn between late Corinthian products, and
other wares of the period — the Attic-Corinthian or Tyrrhenian, Boeotian ori-
entalizing wares, and the early black-figured products of Euboea and of the east —
1 Cf. H. Stuart Jones “The Chest of Cypselus,” Jour. Hell. Stud. XIV (1894) p. 30f.
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