I discuss first the scene on the St. Petersburg krater[[129]], fig. 5. The painting belongs to the latest period of ceramic art, and is in nearly every detail a hasty and careless piece of work. In an Ionic temple on four columns, all painted white, Orestes, flesh dark red, sits en face with his left arm around the omphalos which is covered with a white net. He holds the sword in the right and the sheath in the left, and wears boots and chlamys. On the steps of the temple lie five sleeping Furies. They are painted, flesh black, only in rough outline. Their dress is a short chiton. On the right, hastening from the temple, is the Pythia in long chiton and veil. She carries the big key—emblem of her office as κλῃδοῦχος[[130]]. Her flesh is white.
Fig. 5.
The addition of the temple strikes one at once as being in harmony with the poet. To be sure, this need not mean a particularly close relation with the actual production of the play in a Greek theatre. Our temple is merely one of the numerous buildings of this class found upon the vases of Lower Italy, some of which were intended evidently as suggestions of the stage setting. In the present instance the coincidence is a happy one. The Agamemnon and the Choephoroi, which had just been produced, were both played before the palace at Argos, and this scenery was changed to represent the Apollo temple at Delphi for the third play. There can be no question as to this σκηνή for the Oresteia, at least, even though one does not allow an extensive background for the earlier plays. The painting is well adapted, therefore, for placing the opening scene vividly before us. It brings one closer to the meaning of the text than is apparent at first sight. In v. 1048 ff. of the Choephoroi Orestes saw the Furies. They wore bright chitons, and had snakes in their hair. He calls them hounds from whose eyes oozed ugly drops of blood. The chorus evidently did not see them, for Orestes cries, ‘You do not behold them here, but I do’.[[131]] At these words he is away to Delphi to seek Apollo’s protection. During the intermission which followed between the two plays the necessary alterations were made in the σκηνή and the costumes were changed. The chorus in particular, which had represented Argive maidens, underwent considerable transformation in order to appear again as Furies. The Eumenides is opened by the Pythia, who comes from the temple. She recounts the nature of her duties, and mentions various gods in her address until v. 30, at which point she turns from the orchestra to re-enter the temple and attend to the delivery of responses. In a moment she reappears in great fright, and begins to relate the cause of her alarm. The sight described is exactly that which the painter had in mind. One is able, however, to get behind the scenes with the aid of the picture, for the front of the temple is removed so that the interior is plainly in view. To compare the words of Aischylos and the painting more closely—the Pythia says that a terrible sight drove her ἐκ δόμων τῶν Λοξίου[[132]]. The artist has expressed this with some action, for she is actually represented as leaving ‘the house of Loxias.’ She adds further—
ὁρῶ δ’ ἐπ’ ὀμφαλῷ μὲν ἄνδρα θεομυσῆ
ἕδραν ἔχοντα προστρόπαιον, αἵματι
στάζοντα χεῖρας, καὶ νεοσπαδὲς ξίφος
ἔχοντ’ ...
The picture shows the man upon the omphalos, and in his hand the drawn sword. One may imagine that the suppliant’s hands are stained with blood, when but a short time before he had fled from the scene of the murder in Argos. Even greater explicitness characterizes the next words of the priestess:—
πρόσθεν δὲ τἀνδρὸς τοῦδε θαυμαστὸς λόχος