ABSTRACT

Many features of this outstanding pot contrast with geometric art: the polychromy, the concern for detailed depiction of bodily forms, the use of writing and inclusion of an identiable scene of myth, the sense of compositional focus, and the productive juxtaposition of discrete scenes. While historians debate whether shield-forms in geometric art should be interpreted as descriptive of contemporary reality or as symbolic, there is little doubt here that the painter was concerned not merely to evoke ‘warriors’ but to evoke soldiers of a particular kind: this is indeed the earliest unequivocal representation of what is known as ‘hoplite warfare’ (below, pp. 164-5). e artist’s decision to show the moment at which the armies meet suggests that he is less concerned with who wins than with the fact that battle takes place and with showing o this new style of battle. e use of writing in the central frieze, by contrast, suggests that the artist regarded the identication of this particular scene as vital: the viewer is not to take this as any encounter between men and women, this is a particular man’s verdict on women and a verdict which matters. However, nothing is done to make lion hunt, cavalcade, or fox and hare hunt specic. e oriental overtones of the lion hunt, in particular, suggest that display may be intended to be a keynote of the central frieze; the focusing of attention on the boy restraining dogs in the bottom frieze seems similarly to point to timing and prowess.