Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 December 2013
The vase of which an illustration is given on Plate IV. is one that has lately been acquired by the British Museum, and is in many ways of exceptional interest. It is a specimen of a peculiar class of local vases, which first became known through excavations made in 1888 on the site of the Kabeirion at Thebes. A full account of these excavations and their results was given by Dr. Winnefeld and other writers in the Athenische Mittheilungen for 1888, Vol. xiii. pp. 81, 412 ff.
The vase under discussion is not the only one of this kind in the Museum; two similar vases were acquired in 1889, one of which is illustrated in the Museum Catalogue of Vases (1893), p. 75. These two vases (numbered B 77—8) are skyphoi of the same shape and technique as our present one, and bear designs of a very similar character, though not of such great interest.
The remains of pottery discovered in the Kabeirion are not confined to this local class; vases and fragments covered with plain black varnish were found, and a fair number of examples of Athenian pottery or imitations of the same, mostly with red figures.
1 See also , 1888, p. 14, and Athen. Mittheil. xii. (1887), p. 269.
2 For these I would refer the reader to Dittenberger, 's Inscriptiones Graeciae Septentrionalis, Vol. i. 3575—4126Google Scholar, and Athen. Mittheil. 1890, p. 396 ff.
3 See Journal, Vol. xi. p. 348.
4 Athen. Mittl. xiii. (1888), Pls. 9—12.
5 Od. x. 234.
6 ibid. 322.
7 Horace, , Epist. i. 2Google Scholar, 23.
8 Od. x. 221.
9 See Art. ‘Tela’ in Smith, 's Dict. Ant. 3 II. p. 764Google Scholar.
10 In the frieze of the choragic monument of Lysikrates the transformed pirates still retain their human legs, though their bodies are converted into dolphins.
11 As on (4) and (5) in the list given below.
12 This head-gear may however be meant for the petasos, and the same doubt arises as to whether he is wearing a petasos or pileus on the van Branteghem vase. According to Pliny, , N. H. xxxv. 108Google Scholar, Nikomachos was the first to represent Odysseus with the pileus. His date is 360 B.C.
13 See also Bolte, , de Monum. ad Odyss. pert. p. 21Google Scholar.
14 Some authorities derive the name from (); and there seems to be authority for the form
15 Cf. coin of Hephaistia, with two Kabeiroi on rev. and head of Hephaistos on obv.
16 Gerhard, Ant. Bildw. pl. 41.
17 Lenormant's interpretation in Daremberg and Saglio, 's Dict. des Antiqs. i. p. 766Google Scholar, to which I am indebted for much information on this subject.
18 Hermes, 1890, p. 1 ff.
19 J.H.S. xi. p. 348; on this subject see also Crusius, O., Beitr. zur Griech. Mythol. u. Religionsgesch. (Leipzig, 1886), p. 10Google Scholar ff.