South Italian Vases (British Museum).
1, 2, Apulian Vases; 3, Campanian.
There are a few peculiar fabrics which we may also attribute to a Campanian origin, including rude imitations of the B.F. style, chiefly small amphorae with single figures; imitations of Nolan amphorae, reproducing both their form and their scheme of decoration[[1484]]; and bell-shaped kraters imitating the Attic style, which Signor Patroni has associated with Saticula. The imitations of Nolan amphorae have a slim body, twisted handles, and a sharply set-off shoulder forming a right angle with the neck instead of a graceful curve. As in their prototypes, the subjects are confined to one or two figures each side. The lustrous black glaze of the Attic vases is admirably reproduced. There is also a class of vases with designs painted in opaque red on the black ground, reproducing the method of the transitional vases described on p. [393].[[1485]] They are very rude in character, with roughly incised details and subjects of a simple kind; the red pigment appears to have been made from fragments of pounded pottery (testa trita). There is, however, one remarkable exception—a small phiale in the British Museum,[[1486]] dating from the third century, with the subject of a shepherd-boy with his dog. The design is carefully painted in opaque red and white in the style of the Pompeian wall-paintings, and the effect of light and shade produced by hatched lines is both remarkable and unique. A krater found at Civita Castellana (Falerii),[[1487]] the paintings on which are in Campanian style, is unique in having Latin inscriptions over the figures, a group consisting of Zeus (... SPATER, Die]spater), Ganymede, Eros (CVPIDO), and Athena (MENERVA). The subject is conceived rather in the style of the Etruscan mirrors than that of the painted vases, and is obviously under local influence. As Falerii was destroyed in 243 B.C., a terminus ante quem may be obtained for the date of the vase, as for others found on this site (see p. [75]).
The vases of Apulia are not only more numerous, but of more merit and greater interest than those of the other two classes. In them may be observed two or three stages of development, beginning with a fifth- or early fourth-century group of Attic type, consisting of large amphorae with two friezes of figures.[[1488]] Both in shape and method of decoration these form the prototype of the large kraters and amphorae which comprise the second class; they are distinguished from the latter by severity of treatment and absence of colour. The second class includes the large vases with mythological and tragic subjects, the Under-world vases, and those with sepulchral scenes; they are all richly decorated from head to foot, with two main rows of figures, smaller subjects on the neck, and ornamentation over every available space. The theatrical characteristics of which we have spoken above (p. [472]) are best illustrated by some of this series.
The third class includes some large vases, such as the so-called pelikae and the large phialae, and the smaller forms, the oinochoë and its varieties, and kanthari, rhyta, and other kinds of drinking-cups. Some shapes are peculiar to this class. In spite of the great variety of shape, there is a remarkable poverty of conception in the subjects, which show a tendency to become purely decorative, and are mainly confined to the vague “courting” scenes or “toilet” scenes, or to single figures of Eros and Nike. On the smallest vases the commonest subject is often that of a female head covered with a cap, sometimes of a relatively colossal size, and this also occurs, surrounded by foliage, on the necks of the large vases. The shapes, as in the case of the epichysis (p. [179]), often tend to ugliness and over-refinement.
The conception of Eros on the later Apulian vases is one of their chief characteristics (cf. Plate [XLIV].). An almost invariable participant in every scene, his form assumes an androgynous character; his hair is arranged in feminine fashion, and his person adorned with necklaces, earrings, and other jewellery. Among other peculiarities we may note the double line of white or yellow dots for ground-lines; the characterising of Oriental figures by tiaras and cross-belts; the general treatment of the hair of women, at first long, thick, and wig-like, but later gathered up in a cap, from which the ends float out behind; the thick but effeminate proportions of the men; and the small heads of the horses.
PLATE XLV
To face page 486.
