¹ The first part of these notes was originally drafted during my tenure of the School Studentship in Athens in 1968. I am very pleased to be able to recognize here the financial assistance given to me by the School, the Graven Fund of Oxford University, and the Roger Lancelyn Green Fund of Merton College. I am also most grateful for the help rendered by P. Devambez, Miss Ch. Koukouli, M. Moretti, W. Oberleitner, and M. J. Vickers.

² BCH lxxxvi (1962) 835 fig. 6; ADelt xvii (1962) B 238 pl. 281. The sherd is not mentioned by Arena, Le iscrizioni corinzie su vasi, Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, 1967 (hereafter, Arena).

³ Medusa is not found named on any Corinthian vase, while Sthenoi appears only on Florence 3755 (NC 1389, Arena 47). The name Euryale had already been given to the third gorgon by Hesiod, Theog. 274–6. There is no other closely parallel ‘convenience’ name on Corinthian vases, though the tired repetition of some names for warriors, revellers, and horses (notably Xanthos) shows the same attitude. The label on the Andromeda vase (Berlin 1652, NC 1431, Arena 57) belongs to a different category.

⁴ There are a few figures whose presence is nearly as questionable: on the Tydeus Painter's namepiece, Louvre E 640 (NC 1437, Arena 59); the two horsemen flanking Sthenoi on Florence 3755 (see n. 3), though here the ‘narrative’ is so abbreviated that the riders can scarcely be described as spectators or supernumeraries—with due deference to Beazley, not Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, but Waiting for Gorgo.

⁵ Vienna 3614 (ABV 106, q.v.); Schauenburg, Perseuspl. 10.1, gives both scene and inscription. The photograph shows that the fourth letter is an omicron rather than a dotted theta, and Dr. Oberleitner confirms from autopsy that this is the intended reading. In the unlikely event of the Kavalla sherd having a dotted theta in this position (see n. 6), with Poromos here being perhaps a miscopying of it, we should note that although Porthmos is a common enough place-name, it is found only once to my knowledge as a personal name, in the Hadrianic inscription, IG iii. 484. More to our purpose, no other Poromos is attested in the Greek world, nor indeed any other name beginning Poro- (whatever the value of the vowels), save Poros, which is only found once in the Archaic period as a personal name, if such it can be termed (Alkman, Partheneion 33–7); true, this usage is Peloponnesian, but could we envisage our spectator as the Provider?

We can deduce little from the likely length of the name on the Kavalla sherd; Πορομος would avoid the wing on the right boot of Gorgo and stop short of the heel, but a shorter or even longer name cannot be ruled out on these grounds.

⁶ For Attic and Corinthian during this period see especially Kleinbauer, AJA lxviii (1964) 355–70. An inscrip-tional oddity nearly as striking as ours seems to have been the result of Athenian influence on Corinth, the use of dotted theta on NC 1449, the vase which Kleinbauer makes the centre of his discussion; see also Jeffery, , BSA xliii (1948) 202Google Scholar, C. It would be speculative to suggest dotted theta on the Kavalla sherd also; the possibility has been imported into n. 5, but I retain Poromos as the most likely reading or supplement.

The classic example of interdependence of works of art is just a little earlier than this, the scenes on the Chest of Cypselus and the Amphiaraos krater, once in Berlin (Necrocorinthia 139–41, both compared and contrasted with Attic versions. Further variants are suggested by Yalouri, , AJA lxxv (1971) 269 ff.).CrossRefGoogle Scholar For the next century see the thought-provoking article by Barron, , JHS xcii (1972) 20 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁷ e.g. Richter, Korai 1–3; Raubitschek, Dedications from the Athenian Acropolis 479 ff. is still a most useful survey of Archaic sculptors, but one may suspect that further work in the field will appear now that for the first time a well-preserved statue has been united with apparent certainty with a base signed by a foreigner (Mastrokostas, , AAA v (1972) 298 fr.Google Scholar). We may ponder whether the clay beds of Corinth and Attica can be treated on the analogy of the marble quarries of Naxos and Paros.

⁸ Brommer, Vasenlisten zur Griechischen Heldensoge ² 207–14 and Schauenburg, Perseus 145–7 demonstrate the discrepancy clearly enough. However, the gorgons, with or without Perseus, appear on other Corinthian or Corinthian-inspired works—Thermon metopes, Corfu pediment, Chest of Cypselus.

⁹ Hesperia xl (1971) 410–12, 36.

¹⁰ On a further point, Biers does not think that the panther (leopard) on the Kavalla sherd is by the same hand as the main frieze; the panther on the unpublished fragment is better preserved and somewhat more competent. Though Kavalla and Phlius panthers differ in some details (whiskers, shoulder incision) their general structure is very similar.

¹¹ I note that there are two different forms of iota in the inscriptions, four-bar (Kavalla) and three-bar (Phlius), but this need not weaken the case for an attribution to the same artist. Only the latest vases regularly display the three-bar form; a little earlier there is considerable inconsistency among iotas. Three- and four-bar types are found, for example, on Leipzig, NC 1483, Arena 88, and Dresden, NC 1477, Arena 90. On Oxford 1965.99 (Arena 73) we find four-, three-, and two-bar versions, with the latter in the majority (there is a further example in a name in faint dilute glaze above the head of the horse on the right on B, Δ<0). Such mixing of forms is much more frequent than any similar phenomenon with Attic sigma, where the later Agora I 2352 (Hesperia xvii (1948) 45 n. 36; BSA lvii (1952) pl. 36a) is an eye-catching exception; earlier in the century we find a few four-bar sigmas among three-bar ones in inscriptions of the Tyrrhenian group (Berlin 1705, Louvre E 875, and Cerveteri, unpublished), as well as on the Sophilan lebes from Old Smyrna (no three-bar companions), BSA liii–liv (1958–9) 154–62. One wonders whether they are the result of any definite influence from Ionia or Corinth.

¹² Castellani Painter, Paraliponiena 40 top. Kleitias fragment: Beazley, The Development of Attic Black-figure pl. 12.3.

¹³ The list of provenances to be found in Necrocorinthia 185 and Benson, Die Geschichte der Korinthischer Vasen 137–40 demonstrate clearly enough that very little Corinthian pottery of quality reached Athens, or passed through, especially in the Late period.

¹⁴ For some remarks on the role of the Diolkos see Hodge, Phoenix xxiv (1970) 366; the basic publication of the excavations, Verdelis, , AM lxxiii (1958) 140 ff.Google Scholar Just to confuse the issues raised by Hodge we should note that the Phocaeans used pentekonters, not merchantmen, for carrying on their trading activities (Hdt. i. 163).

¹⁵ However, early Attic vases with merchant marks are not an instructive lot. Many of the dipinti are too worn to be read and there is little to be said about those that can be read other than that they show no obvious Corinthian characteristics in the script.

¹⁶ The mark runs round almost exactly half the foot, which has a field 5 cm. high. The individual letters are approximately 2, 4·5, 5, and 7·5 cm. wide respectively. I best read the mark when it was dampened with alcohol.

¹⁷ Some of the more careless examples on LC vases approach it (e.g. on the Oxford krater, n. 11). Yet none of them has the combination of equal-length strokes and slanting terminal ones.

¹⁸ No word begins in this way and I know of no elliptic abbreviation among mercantile marks, though it is impossible to be dogmatic in this respect; the case for an elliptic abbreviation could be argued in literally one or two marks on Attic vases of the mid fifth century, but I do not think that the possibility can be seriously entertained here.

¹⁹ Beazley, , AJA xxxi (1927) 350–1.Google Scholar The full word occurs on Louvre G 356 where, curiously enough, it is cut in letters of a size comparable to those of our dipinto and of no other graffito which I have seen; as Beazley surmised, the tau does have a horizontal.

²⁰ Jeffery, Local Scripts of Archaic Greece 325–6; pl. 66.61 is an excellent, if later, example of an inscription of this type on stone.

²¹ For Ionic numerals in general see Tod, , BSA xlv (1950) 126 ff.Google Scholar, Jeffery, op. cit. 327, and Metzger, , Fouilles de Xanthos iv. 171–2Google Scholar (where his interpretations are perhaps a little speculative).

²² E on the Selinus vase could represent ει, the regular usage in Corinthian. Payne has an inexact transcription of the London mark; it looks like a trident with an abbreviated shaft and an extended central prong; similar marks appear on East Greek (usually without any central prong) and Attic vases, and I am not convinced that they should bave an alphabetic interpretation. The Princeton pyxis is published by Amyx, , Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University xv. 8–10.Google Scholar

²³ Best placed in a footnote is a reference to the friendship between Miletus and Corinth under the tyrants (Hdt. i. 20; Frontinus, , Strat. xii. 9.7Google Scholar). Further speculation is possible over the role the Diolkos played in this relationship; see n. 14.

²⁴ For discussion and bibliography see Arias-Hirmer-Shefton, A History of Greek Vase Painting 282 and Arena 11.

²⁵ The marks on Basel Z 196, attributed by Amyx to the Painter of Vatican C 73, were brought to my attention by J-P. Descoeudres.

²⁶ Two other Corinthian vases, both Late, are reported to have black marks, Berlin 987 (MC 1321) and Ars Antiqua A.G., Luzern, Auktion iv. 126 (NC 1385), but I do not know whether they are in glaze or some other substance.

²⁷ I have based my arguments on two premisses which I have not argued and which may be questioned by some readers: that the marks are of some mercantile import and that their application is more or less contemporary with the manufacture of the vase. I have said something on the second point in section 2, where in fact I suggest that not all marks need be immediately contemporary with manufacture; the two amphorae in the Villa Giulia mentioned there seemed to me to be of about the same date, and I envisage that the Attic vase was exported direct to Etruria and marked on its arrival. From an examination of the whole range of mercantile marks I have found extremely little evidence which could be used to support the view that vases were marked for a second-hand trade, after a period of use in Greece; therefore, I do not seriously consider that the marks on the two kraters in the Louvre, Cp. 10479 and E 635, are other than closely contemporary with their manufacture.

I add briefly a few of the considerations which have led me to this general standpoint (most apply more obviously to Attic vases): (a) if the vases were marked in the shop before first being sold to local clients, why are no marks found on comparable vases discovered in Greece, and how is it possible that a fair proportion of marks (especially on Attic vases) are not in Attic script? Surely not all could be the work of metics and, besides, non-Attic graffiti are very rare in Athens at this period, (b) If the vases were marked for export at a later date, why do no prize Panathenaic amphorae have marks similar to those on normal vases? Why are there no clear examples of the script of the marks being later than the stylistic date of the vases? And why do individual types of mark tend to appear on vases issuing from one workshop to the exclusion of others, instead of appearing on a more haphazard selection of second-hand vases?

As for the mercantile significance of the marks, numerals and abbreviations of the type speak for themselves. Also it would be difficult to support the theory that marks in non-local scripts could have been owners' marks, and there appears to be close correspondence between the way in which marks in local and non-local scripts are used. Only in two rather dubious cases can an argument be made that a mark is the abbreviation of a potter's or painter's name: first, the mark (or rather variety of marks) on some Lydan vases cited by Beazley, , JHS lix (1939) 305Google Scholar, taken up by Webster, Potter and Patron in Classical Athens 279 (1). The full list of the relevant vases is: three by the Painter of Louvre F 6, Munich 1367 and 1368, and Vatican 314, one ‘Lydan’ amphora, Würzburg 169 (retrograde graffito), and one by Lydos himself, Louvre E 868 (Ionic lambda). Various forms of the mark appear on other vases which could have had nothing to do with Lydos, but they need not indicate the same person (e.g. Louvre E 633, cited above). ABV 121/14 (Louvre E 810) has no mark that could be considered related, pace Webster. The second mark, it is suggested, is that of Kleophrades (Webster, ibid. (4)); as well as appearing on the Compiègne psykter and Copenhagen pelike, it is found on a pelike from the circle of the Geras painter, recently on the London market (Sotheby); the mark on a later fifth-century pelike, Villa Giulia 46940 (NSc. 1937, 420 (43)), is very similar and that on a Panathenaic amphora by the Nikoxenos Painter, once in the Robinson collection (CVA 2 22), may be related. I saw only a kappa on the foot of Vatican 415 (ABV 388/3). Any interpretation should take into account all this material, the retrograde direction of the ligature on all save the ex-Robinson vase, and the added short strokes on the marks of the Copenhagen, Sotheby, and Villa Giulia pieces.