Fig. 3 (vid. p. [51] ff.).
The painting is, it would seem, more beautiful than that of fig. 2, although the publication of the latter is an old one, and may be more or less inaccurate. I have not seen the vase myself. The scene is abbreviated by one figure; Pylades would be expected.
Still another painting is given in fig. 4[[125]], showing a further step of simplification. Only the middle group, with the female attendant carrying the aryballos, occurs. Hermes’ position is the same as in fig. 2, but the artist has forgotten to draw the wreath in his right. His chlamys, too, is buttoned properly instead of being wrapped around his arm. The latter, however, has the same stumpy appearance seen in 2 and 3. As the scene is simpler, so the offerings on the tomb are fewer. Orestes’ libation is here in a kantharos. The painting is a careless piece of work, and cannot be ranked with the other two. It is, however, very interesting as giving another link to the chain of evidence.
There can be little doubt that these vases all belong to the same artist or that they come from the same locality. The marvellous agreement that runs through them is something quite extraordinary. I know of no other similar cases in vase paintings of the red figured ware. The popularity of this scene, and therefore of Aischylos’ Choephoroi, is attested by such a series of paintings as one cannot find in the case of any other work in Greek literature.
Fig. 4.
Since writing the above I have discovered in the Louvre another Lucanian vase that represents a further simplification of this scene[[126]]. The painting is practically identical with the middle group in fig. 3. Peculiar to the Louvre painting are the tomb with five steps and the rather tall column, Doric order, surmounted by a krater; an aryballos and strigil, in addition to the taenia, are fastened to the column. There is a further slight variation in Elektra’s position, for on her right is a krater. On her left is a lekythos; below are the two pomegranates, taenia, and black lekythos, just as in fig. 3. The only difference in the other persons is that Orestes holds out a kylix and not a pitcher.
The painting is evidently a product of the same studio as are those in figs. 2, 3 and 4. It forms another member of this remarkable class of pictures that stands alone, unique in Greek ceramics, and bears witness to the enormous popularity of this scene from Aischylos. In the face of this important chain of evidence one is safe, it seems to me, in claiming that Aischylos was acted in the fourth century B.C. and that considerably. What kept this scene before the public and induced the artist and his pupils to turn out so many copies of the same work? To have been thus so saleable the picture must have been popular, and this could have come about best through the acted drama. These vases and those following, based on the Eumenides, must impress the impartial student with the fact that Euripides and Sophokles did not by any means oust Aischylos completely in Lower Italy.
§ 3. Eumenides.
The various stories which may have been popularly told in regard to Orestes’ purification, and his reconciliation with the Furies, prior to March 458 B.C. were swept for ever into oblivion by the last member of Aischylos’ trilogy. The stamp of his genius has ever remained upon the myth, and no one ever attempted to repeat his work[[127]]. All the elements of the persecution were cast by him into their final mould. The immense influence of this work is attested in no way more forcibly than by the monuments of art to which one can point. There is a long line of vase paintings, dating from the fifth century, that bear witness to the wide popularity of the Eumenides, and that give the most direct and authoritative testimony of the influence of the play upon the masses of the people. A sharp distinction must be made, however, between paintings that illustrate the general myth and those that exhibit unmistakable Aischylean features. Orestes’ pursuit and expiation were universally known, and the tale was so popular that it often found its way into art where the artist had in mind no poetic version of the story. So it is that there is a number of paintings representing Orestes either pursued by the Furies or already having reached the omphalos, which do not represent any situation or combination of situations that can be traced to Aischylos[[128]]. Of the number whose subject is Orestes at Delphi, at least four, it seems to me, are to be explained as substantially under the influence of the Eumenides and representing the first scene of the tragedy in more or less modified form.