Clay; fired
circa 490 BCE
Greece, Italy
Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
Details
Culture/Civilisation
Greek civilisation
Theme
Later Civilisations of Land and Sea
Subtheme
The Mediterranean
Case Title
The Mediterranean World
Display Location
Coomaraswamy Hall
Findspot
Made in Athens; Found in Orvieto
Measurements
36 x 26 cm
Accession Number
VI 3228
Description
The unprivileged ‘others’ of the society are caricatured on the second vase. An enslaved man, his body very different from the refined youths on another jar displayed in this exhibition (F 1695), draws wine from a large jar. A drunk satyr (part horse, part man) and a maenad, female follower of the God of Wine, show the excesses of drunkenness. On the back is the hero Herakles (Roman Hercules).
This wine vessel from around 500 BCE, along with the other Greek amphora (F 1695) shows a fundamental contradiction in ancient Greek society: free citizens, committed to the ideal of individual liberty, who yet owned slaves.
Politics and philosophy were frequently discussed in gatherings and banquets (symposia).
