This charming class has been called Euboic, but no Euboic find substantiates the name. It has hitherto come to light only on the islands of the Aegean, especially Delos-Rheneia, Thera and Melos. Delos also supplied the earlier Geometric stages, but as the central meeting place of the islanders, it received so many different elements that it appears venturesome to rename the ‘Euboic’ ‘Delian’ ware, since a closely-allied pottery, which would have the same right to this name, can be probably distinguished from it. This class, which has a predilection for decoratively applied horse-heads, and like the Protocorinthian, has the habit of putting red and white stripes on parts of the vase which are covered with black, at an early date supplied figured representations without field ornaments; it seems to have been occasionally imitated in the Euboic colony of Kyme, which otherwise is completely under Protocorinthian influence. The similarity of the animal representations to Cretan metal work and of the fine griffin head (Fig. [ 51]) to those of bronze cauldrons from Olympia, strengthens the above-mentioned relations of the Euboic-Delian style to the Cretan and Argive.
Thera is not in question as the home of these vases. This island had its own very important fabrication in Geometric times, which like the Attic sticks obstinately for a long time to the old style, and as long as it exists, never allows the new elements, which often are strongly suggestive of metal patterns, to get the upper hand. In Melos it has been perhaps correct to localize an important manufactory of which the products have been chiefly found in this island and in the neutral sphere of Delos-Rheneia. The heavy double spirals with gusset-like filling, which this style prefers to the other Orientalizing ornaments, and which it puts in to fill space, arranges in stripes, puts one on the top of another as ‘the volute-tree,’ or quadruples as ‘the volute-cross,’ give this pottery a peculiar stamp. The style is most finely represented by the big weighty amphorae which in shape and technique of the light ground for painting on are akin to the above-mentioned Cycladic vases, but are finely decorated on neck and body with representations, and also show the same feeling for rich decoration in the luxuriant filling ornamentation. The Melian delight in representation, like the Attic, gives us an insight into the growth of the figured style. The rows of geese (Fig. [52]), the big sphinxes and panthers, the horses ranged heraldically on either side of a volute-cross, the favourite framed horse-busts show the well-known partial silhouette; and the female busts, the confronted riders, the duellists flanked by women, the gods facing each other or driving in chariots, the ‘Persian Artemis’ carrying a lion, the free legendary scenes reflect in technique and drawing the same development which we followed at Athens. We can assign to about the date of later Phaleron vases a specimen like the Apollo vase (Fig. [52]), which colours light brown the male body, and in the drawing of animals leads from the old partial silhouette to the later technique. The fine ‘Marriage of Herakles’ (Fig. [53]) marks a great step in advance, not only by the complete taking over of the black-figured animal style, and the superposition of many details in white on horses and patterns of garments, but above all by the lively rendering of the paratactic composition and the removal of all Geometric traces in the rendering of
PLATE XXVI.
[Fig. 52]. ARTEMIS, APOLLO, ARGE AND OPIS: FROM A “MELIAN” AMPHORA.
PLATE XXVII.
[Fig. 53]. HERAKLES AND IOLE (?): FROM A “MELIAN” AMPHORA.