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Caeneus and the Centaurs: A Vase at Harrow
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 December 2013
Extract
The vase that is here published, by the kind permission of the authorities of the Harrow School Museum, is the gem of the collection of antiquities presented to that Museum by Sir Gardner Wilkinson; it is described by Mr. Cecil Torr as No. 50 in his catalogue. It had been repainted and restored in such a way as to suggest that it had been through the hands of an Italian dealer; and this conjecture as to its provenance is confirmed by the fact that a tracing of the design exists in the apparat of the German Institute at Rome; the vase comes from Vitorchiano and had been seen in the possession of Depoletti: the tracing was communicated by Gerhard. Dr. Wernicke describes the vase from this tracing in the Archaeologische Zeitung, 1885, p. 262; but it is clear that the tracing was not accurate enough to give him any adequate notion of the beauty and character of the drawing; though he notices the extraordinary foreshortening of the Centaur on the right, he suggests that the design is a variant derived from a vase signed by Polygnotus at Brussels, a suggestion that could not have been made by any one who had seen the vase or a good drawing of it; the style, as we shall see, points unmistakably to an earlier and finer stage in the history of vasepainting.
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- Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1897
References
page 295 note 1 These lighter markings have to a great extent disappeared, owing chiefly, no doubt, to the destruction of the surface when the vase was repainted.
page 296 note 1 The top of his ear has been lost in a small fracture of the surface.
page 297 note 1 See below.
page 297 note 2 The name is a convenient one for the identification of this set of vases; in using it, of course no opinion is expressed as to the correctness of his restored name.
page 298 note 1 This comparison was suggested to me by Mr. J. C. Hoppin.
page 298 note 2 Baumeister, Tal, xxi.
page 298 note 3 See Murray, , J.H.S. ii. 318Google Scholar and Pl. xv.
page 298 note 4 Bonner Studien, p. 252.
page 299 note 1 Throughout this mythological discussion I am indebted to valuable hints given me by Mr. J. G. Frazer. At the same time I cannot hold him responsible for the application I have made of them, though I am glad to be able to quote his general approval of my conclusions.
page 299 note 2 The most important passages are: Homer, , Il. i. 264Google Scholar and Scholia; Hesiod, , Asp. Her. 179Google Scholar; Pindar, p. 168; Apoll. Rhod. i. 57; Verg., Aen. vi. 448Google Scholar; Ovid., Met. 12Google Scholar, 489; Hyginus, p. 14; Orph., Argonaut. 168Google Scholar.
page 300 note 1 Ant. Wald- und Feldkulte.
page 301 note 1 Op. cit. p. 96.
page 302 note 1 See Bather, , J. H. S. xiv. 251Google Scholar.
page 302 note 2 Paus. II. 32 2. A good deal of this evidence about stone-throwing is quoted verbatim from a letter of Mr. Frazer.
page 302 note 3 Herod. v. 82–87.
page 303 note 1 Compare however the practice of the Khonds, quoted above, in which the burial of the victim is associated with a battle. But this may be a coincidence due to a similar contamination of two distinct rites.
page 303 note 2 See Frazer, Golden Bough, passim.
page 304 note 1 Mannhardt, , W. F. K. p. 265Google Scholar.
page 304 note 2 Epod. v. 32.
page 304 note 3 Burial in these cases was up to the arm-pits or to the shoulders. The motive is recorded to be in one case to produce pining, in the other the mortification of the flesh; but in both cases the practice is probably earlier than its explanation.
page 304 note 4 A curious analogy is offered by the crop of warriors who come up when Jason sows the dragon's teeth, Ap. Rhod. iii. 1374, &c. Many of them are slain while still buried to the waist, like Caeneus; and the first comparison, which may well be traditional, is to ‘pine-trees or oaks, that are hurled down by the blasts of the storm.’ If this is only a coincidence, it is a very curious one.
page 305 note 1 Schol. A on A 264.