[Fig. 80]. SPARTAN KYLIX.
PLATE XLIII.
[Fig. 81]. HERAKLES BRINGS CERBERUS TO EURYSTHEUS: CÆRETAN HYDRIA.
of Satyr life, of the Heraklean legend, of Hermes and his theft of the kine, of the drunk and lame Hephaistos, of Europa carried by the bull over the sea, leave nothing to be desired in the way of original invention, healthy vigour, and naive vividness, and in their aversion to the typical and abstract they are diametrically opposed to Attic painting. The stocky, strong man Herakles with the curly hair who dispatches the inhospitable Pharaoh, Busiris, and his cowardly throng (Fig. [79]), or who with the hound of hell frightens the Argive king into a wine jar (Fig. [81]), are cabinet pictures of vigorous humour. The local colouring is also unmistakeable. The altar with volute profiles is an East Ionic architectural shape, the knowledge of the Egyptian and black races, of Egyptian priestly dress, of monkeys, can only have been obtained in Africa; the origin of the Busiris legend is only conceivable in the neighbourhood of the kingdom of the Pharaohs. Thus though the Caeretan vases found a local continuation in Etruria, because of this local colouring one cannot imagine them made by Ionian colonists in Caere.
On the other hand one may assume origin on Etruscan soil for another class of East Ionic style, only known from Etruria, called ‘Pontic,’ as having been wrongly localized on the Black Sea. The Asiatic-Ionian origin of the style is based on the vase shapes as on the choice, technique, types and application of the ornamental and animal decoration; and also the figures, the lines of Tritons and Nereids, riders and Scythians, heralds and Centaurs, and the legendary scenes, which are often under ornamental influence (Figs. [82] and [83]) in execution and application, point to the same source. The ‘Pontic’ painters actually enrich our knowledge of East Ionic decorative motives by a series of combined lotus, palmettes, volutes, maeanders, by net patterns, leaf-friezes, etc., by a plentiful selection of animals, which includes the marine Centaur, with the Asiatic man-bull, and is fond of lines of guinea-fowls. But on the whole the class is very provincial and cannot be regarded as a clear source of evidence. It is questionable, whether obstinate persistence in stripe decoration, only reluctantly giving way to the picture field, would have been possible in the mother-country well on in the 6th century. The style is visibly departing further from its Greek starting point. Vases which represent Lanuvian Juno (B.M. Cat. II. p. 66) or Etruscan winged demons, show in subject what the style of itself betrays.
Two classes with scanty decoration, fixed as East Greek by many finds, can only be named for completeness sake; one, the ‘Bucchero’ ware long known in Etruria, which perhaps originated in Aeolis and which owes its black lustre not to glaze colour but to impregnation with charcoal and to polishing; the other, the ware with a great extension in South Asia Minor and Italy, either unadorned, or only decorated with stripes, which give important conclusions as to the development of vase-shapes.