Here in the centre we have, in place of the sacred grove of Persephone, the palace of Hades and his Queen. He is seated, and holds a long sceptre; she carries a torch. The palace has not unnaturally taken the form of a chapel of the deities; the wheels hung up in the background seem to be votive offerings. The motive of the whole picture is curiously twofold. Two visits to Hades, which really took place at quite different times, are depicted as going on together, the quest of Orpheus for his lost Eurydice, and the attempt of Herakles to carry off the dog Cerberus and to rescue his friend Theseus.
FIG. 13. THE GREEK UNDER-WORLD.
Orpheus stands, lyre in hand, before the chapel of the nether deities. He is clad in the variegated embroidered robes of the Orientals, with sleeves down to the wrists and a Phrygian tiara. In the painting of Polygnotus Orpheus was, as Pausanias expressly states, clad in the ordinary Greek dress. Later art rejoiced in the picturesque costume of the Persians and Phrygians: and the Thracian home of Orpheus allowed artists to consider him as belonging to a semi-Greek, Anatolian race. Orpheus is evidently using his art to persuade Hades to restore Eurydice, and that dread deity seems, from the position of his uplifted right hand, to be addressing him; but Eurydice, in this as in most of the vase-paintings, is wanting; a curious fact, which may indicate that the motive of the quest of Orpheus was originally something different. It seems indeed, as will appear clearly later, that the vase-painter combines without much skill or purpose groups taken from the works of older and more thoughtful artists.
In the lowest line Herakles struggles with Cerberus, around whose three necks he has fastened a chain. Hermes, who carries a herald’s staff, points out to his brother the road to the upper air, and urges departure. A more terrifying figure behind Herakles also gives cause for haste. One of the Poenae or Furies, a female servant of Hades, wearing hunting-boots and holding over her arm a leopard’s skin, advances with a torch to defend the realm of the dead against rash invaders. In the upper line, on the right, a similar figure, with drawn sword, guards the captives whom Herakles has come to release. Peirithous sits and cannot rise, but Theseus is standing; so far as he is concerned, the attempt of the invincible Herakles is successful, and he is allowed to return to earth.
The other groups which make up the picture have no special connexion either with Orpheus or with Herakles, and are introduced merely to complete the picture of Hades. On some of these under-world vases the names are written over the various persons, so that we can identify them with ease and certainty. In the upper line to the left is Megara, the wife of Herakles, and the two children of hers whom their father slew in a fit of madness. They stand near a spring-house, where water flows from a lion’s-head fountain. Drops of blood still stand on their breasts. Why they alone should thus bear in Hades the marks of mortal calamity we cannot say; nor indeed why they should appear at all as prominent inhabitants of the land of shades. One is inclined to fancy that some tale or legend may have connected them with the voyage of their father to Hades.
Beneath them is a curious domestic group: a young husband who is in the act of crowning himself with a wreath, a wife, and their little son, who drags behind him a plaything. It is a veritable scene of the reconstitution, in the land of shades, of a family endued with perpetual youth and leisure. Who these people may be is quite uncertain; but it is reasonable to think that they are such as have undergone initiation, and whose future life is thus assured. Opposite are the three judges of the dead, Minos, Aeacus, and Rhadamanthys, or, as some give the name, Triptolemus. Bearded and venerable figures, they carry long sceptres, but do not look so stern as one would expect from their terrible function.
The other scenes, in the two corners below, are of not much more than geographical import. They show the place to be Hades by introducing some of the well-known inhabitants of that region. On the left is Sisyphus uprearing his rock; and lest he should loiter at the task, one of the Poenae with snakes in her hair urges him with a double-thonged whip; in her other hand she carries a javelin and leopard’s skin. On the right is Tantalus, in the dress of an Oriental prince, and still carrying his sceptre. The Homeric pains have ceased to trouble him; he no longer stands in water, nor reaches after fruit. But he is still threatened by the hanging rock.
On other vases of the class, while the general arrangement is the same, the groups are varied. Peleus and Myrtilus, the faithless charioteer who arranged his victory at Olympia, sometimes take the place of Theseus and Peirithous. In the place of Tantalus we have a group of women ever drawing water, whether they be the Danaides or women who died uninitiated.
It is likely that all these Apulian vase-paintings go back to some original of a great painter which was known throughout the Greek world. An original by Polygnotus it cannot be; the composition is quite unlike his, and the Oriental garments worn by some of the personages indicate a different and a later school than his. We know that Nicias, a contemporary of Praxiteles, made a great picture of the under-world; but as we know nothing of its details, the inquiry whether this was the original copied in Italy has no certain basis.