On the viewer’s left is a ship that looks very stereotypical as a “Greek” warship. It is one of the earliest depictions of a Homeric scene which is in-line with the poems as we have them.īut on the other is a fight at sea between two ships or at least a scene immediately before they come to blows. The Aristotonothos Krater, now in the Capitoline Museums in Rome, depicts on one side of its only register the blinding of Polyphemos by Odysseus and his men. Of course, through the circumstances of survival we cannot assume that it was unique, but for us in the modern world it is.
But this one piece – probably a product of a Western Greek workshop – is different. The majority of Greek pottery that made its way to Italy was decorated with easily (I think?) interpreted mythological scenes, an element of the pan-Mediterranean koiné that had developed by then. That is, inscriptions (with any narrative quality), written sources (there are none for the seventh century BC), or even other vases of this nature. While we have a plethora of written sources for the relationship between Greeks and Etruscans in the early years of Aegean settlement in the waters around Italy, we have few first-hand accounts. But for others it may seem very odd.īut there is a good reason why I have devoted so much time to thinking about this vessel. For anyone interested in the globalizing world of the central Mediterranean in the period before Roman domination, this may not be a shock. I have spent fewer hours thinking about things that I lust after than about the so-called Aristonothos Krater. It is archived on this website with the kind permission of the author.
7 years.This article was originally published on Ancient World Magazine. Single territory rights for trade books worldwide rights for academic books. Print and/or digital, including use in online academic databases. Web display, social media, apps or blogs.
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