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From: "Terrence Lockyer" <lockyert@mweb.co.za>
To: "Classics List" <classics@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: Ajax & Achilles
Date: Sun, 18 Nov 2001 11:19:00 +0200
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On Sun, 18 Nov 2001, Didrik Schiele quoted a reference to

: the image on several pots of Ajax & Achilles playing
: some kind of game

and asked

: Can it be that Odysseus and Ajax from Salamis are
: playing a game to conclude whom of them are most
: worthy of winning the dead achilleus armour?

The most famous, and perhaps the best (yes, I know that is a subjective
judgement, which I make on the basis of structure, composition, detail, and
a more intangible overall atmosphere), of these images, by Exekias (the vase
is signed, and traditionally dated c. 540-30 BCE on the relative
chronology), must be Akhilleus and Aias, for they are so labelled ("AXILEOS"
on the left, "AIANTOS" on the right).  Akhilleus seems to be winning:  he is
the more statuesque figure (for he wears his plumed helmet, while Aias does
not), is facing right to left (as victors usually do in Attic painting:
Herakles usually wrestles lions from left to right, for example), and seems
to be saying "four" to Aias' "three".  There is also an "Onetorides kalos"
inscription, by the way:  this is quite a literate vase.

The piece is an amphora from Vulci, is now Vatican Museums No. 344, and is
listed as ABV 145.13 (that is, J. D. Beazley, Attic Black-figure
Vase-painters [1956], but don't go to Beazley for illustrations:  there are
none).  It is conveniently illustrated in:

- John Boardman, Athenian Black Figure Vases:  A Handbook (London : Thames
and Hudson 1974 [and reprints]) [half-page black-and-white photograph of the
scene at fig. 100]

- Nigel Spivey, Greek Art (London : Phaidon 1997) [excellent full-page
full-colour photograph of whole side of vase at fig. 91 on page 153]

- John Boardman (ed.), The Oxford History of Classical Art (Oxford :  Oxford
University Press 1993) [full-page black-and-white photograph of whole side
of vase at fig. 70, on page 75, and discussed on page 73]

There will be many, many other photographs of this.


Terrence Lockyer
Johannesburg, South Africa

.