Apotropaism in Greek Vase-Paintings (Continued)

Apotropaism in Greek Vase-Paintings (Continued)Author(s): W. L. HildburghSource: Folklore, Vol. 58, No. 1 (Mar., 1947), pp. 208-225Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of Folklore Enterprises, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1256701 .

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APOTROPAISM IN GREEK VASE-PAINTINGS

BY W. L. HILDBURGH

(continued from Vol. LVII, p. 178)

Quite another concept-a concept which I take to resemble more or less closely the one whereon are based the numerous representations of an eye surrounded by antagonistic creatures or objects-finds, I think, expression in the way certain other animals appear in the vase-paintings. That concept is to the effect that the picturing of the mastering of an

embodiment, or of a symbolization, of some particular evil influence will

keep that influence from producing the effect which normally it would

prodtice if free to exercise its power. The reasoning (if rationalization be attempted) supporting an expectation of such consequences is likely to depend on the way in which a person has been brought up . Thus, it

may be thought that the source of the evil influence is so to be warned of a fate which may overtake it; or that, in a general sense, " like will follow like " ; or that some helpful divinity may in that way be instructed as to an outcome desired ; or, since from the selection of a subject as one of good omen to its application as presumably apotropaic is but a short

span,102 that the portrayal has the character of an omen foreshadowing an

actual event. The concept in question is, as I take it, exemplified on the

vases by groups whose constituent members may be either normal

animals, mythical monsters, human beings, or divinities. The essence of

such groups, which are to be found on both the precursors of the Attic

vases and the Attic vases themselves, is the representing of an attack on, or the overcoming of, a creature of evil import.

On Corinthian vases, for example, we may see an owl between two

lions,103 or a hare between two lions 104 or two panthers ;105 and on Attic,

accompanying pairs of great eyes, a deer attacked by a lion and a tiger, and by a tiger and its cub.106 Concerning the deer in such groups, little

102 We may reasonably believe that much the same conditions existed in Classical Etruria as Westermarck found in modern Morocco, expressed in his 'the difference between prognostication and magic causation is often extremely vague, and something which from one point of view is regarded as an omen may from another point of view be looked upon as a cause of the foreshadowed event'; cf. op. cit., ii, p. 129, and, further, ibid., pp. i ff.

103 Cf. Payne, op. cit., pl. i8, 5. 104 Ibid., pl. 15, 7, 8; p]. 17, 2, 3. 105 C VA, U.S.A. fasc. 5 (University of California), Group C, pl. v, 7, 10o. 106 On a kylix at Florence; cf., Hoppin, op. cit., pp. 198 f.

208



Apotropaism in Greek Vase-Paintings 209

further need be said, for we have observed (cf. pp. 167 f. supra) that although the stag was regarded as an apotropaic animal, it had a reputation, according to Pliny, as an envious and jealous one-wherefore it could have been looked upon as a symbol of those potentially harmful pas- sions.107

To the Romans, and presumably to their forbears, the owl was a bird of ill omen,108 as, analogously, among modern European peoples it is

regarded as possessed of an evil eye 109 and as a bird whose shape witches often took when on evil bent.110 The owl is among the creatures shown in connexion with the threatened eye in the fine mosaic found on the Coelius in 1889 ;111 but, instead of being among those be'setting the eye, it is perched upon the eyebrow. This exceptional situation led Perdrizet to suspect (cf. op. cit., p. 166) that in the mosaic the owl was represented, because of its sinister reputation, as an associate of the evil-working eye, and was in consequence threatened in company with it. In support of his suspicion he cites (p. 168), very appositely, a Late Roman amulet which has on one side an owl surrounded by seven stars (i.e. probably the

Planets) and on the other a long inscription, in Latin, saying that the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, Jesus Christ, " hath vanquished thee, and the arm of God has bound thee, and the Seal of Solomon. Bird of the

night ! ... that thou art ". We may recall, too, that in many parts of modern Europe it has been customary to fasten the body, or the head alone, of an owl to the door of a dwelling or of a barn, or to bury an owl under the threshold of a stable, against bewitchment and evil eye112 observances reminding us of the common practice of nailing the bodies of vermin to a door with a view to keeping their like from the vicinity.113 There thus seems to be more than ample justification for a view that the portrayal of an owl between two great cats was an apotropaic expedient based on the concept enunciated above.

107 This seems to be an exemplification of Jahn's observation (op cit., p. Ioo) to the effect that the contingent significance pertaining to a representation of an animal might vary according to the environment wherein it appeared.

108 Cf. J. G. Frazer, The Fasti of Ovid, London, 1929, ii, p. 284; Pliny, N.H.,

x, 16; and, further, P. Perdrizet, 'La chouette dans l'antiquite', in Bull. de la Societ6 Nationale des A ntiquaires de France, 1903, pp. 166 f.

109 Cf. Perdrizet, loc. cit., p. 169; Seligmann, op. cit., ii, pp. 463 f. 110 Perdrizet, p. 170.

111 Cf. Bienfkowski, op. cit., p. 286; Harrison, Prolegomena, 1908, pp. 196 f., with fig. 35; sketch given by Seligmann, op. cit., fig. 124.

112 Cf. Seligmann, op. cit., ii, p. 117.

113 It could, of course, be argued-but I think much less plausibly-that such usages had a sort of homoeopathic basis.



210 Apotropaism in Greek Vase-Paintings The hare,u4 besides being depicted on many vases as a victim of strong

and ferocious animals, appears not infrequently on black-figured vases as hunted, or as already killed, by men. So far as I know, the hare-hunt has not hitherto been recognized as an apotropaic subject, although more than one scholar has spoken as though he found it strange company for some apotropaic subject with which he was dealing.115 To me it is

extremely suggestive that on a very early Attic oinochoe, in the British

Museum, a presumably apotropaic cock on the neck is accompanied by a hare-hunt on the body ;116 that on an early amphora found in Rhodes

a pair of great eyes on the neck is similarly accompanied by a hare-hunt on the body (cf. p. 16o, with n. 18, supra) ; that a hare-hunt is one of four scenes, any one of which could presumably have been looked upon as apotropaic, framing a bearded gorgoneion within one of the Ash- molean Museum's black-figured kylikes;117 and that in one of the British Museum's kylikes (B 421),118 situated where we so commonly may see a gorgoneion or some other subject which we may reasonably suppose was apotropaic, there is a hunter accompanied by his dog and carrying a dead hare and a dead fox. I feel that in all these hunting-scenes the basic intention is to represent the overcoming of something noxious and so to embody the concept to which I have directed attention on p. 208

supra. I think it may well be that in the scenes in question the hare

symbolized witchcraft (and not improbably, by mental association there-

with, fascination and its analogues), because in many parts of Europe witches were reputed regularly to assume the shape of a hare-a belief so deep-seated that in a number of them organized hare-hunts were until

recently conducted for the suppression of witches-as occasionally that

of a fox.119 But we may recall further, that Elworthy refers to a " Graeco- 114 There would seem a possibility that among the Classical peoples the hare

was, for some reason, in certain circumstances regarded as itself apotropaic. An animal which has been presumed to be a hare is depicted, on the same face as the stag, on the magical nail to which I have already referred (cf. p. 167, with n. 40, supra). Whatever may have been the reason-conceivably it may have been a belief, mentioned by Seligmann without localization, to the effect that a hare

sleeps with its eyes open-virtues preservative against evil eye have been attributed to a hare's head by Turks, and to the small bones of a hare's joints by Algerian Arabs (cf. Seligmann, op. cit., ii, p. 122). Incidentally, we may recall the belief of some negroes in a rabbit's foot as a bringer of 'good-luck'.

115 E.g. Perdrizet, 'L'Hippalektryon', p. 16. 116 Cf. id., loc. cit. 117 Cf. Hoppin, op. cit., pp. 298 f. The other three subjects are a sphinx, a silen

with a maenad, and Herakles with a centaur; on the first of these cf. p. 176 supra, and on the others pp. 216 f. and 214 infra.

118 Cf. CVA, G.B. fasc. 2, Group III H.e, pl. II, 2; Hoppin, op. cit., p. 387. Exterior plain, but for a signature.

119 Cf. The Golden Bough: Balder the Beautiful, 1914, ii, p. 41; The Magic Art,

i, p. 212, and ii, pp. 53 f. Cf. also Westermarck, op. cit., ii, p. 326, on Moroccan beliefs associating hares with old women. I regret that my records of analogous




Italian vase " in the Naples Museum, on which the hare appears " as an emblem of ill-luck ";120 and that elsewhere he speaks of some beliefs, ancient or modern, concerning the hare as a portent of evil.121

So far as the significance of the fox, in the British Museum's kylix, is

concerned, I think it hardly a chance coincidence that, in the Circus

Maximus, foxes with burning brands attached to their tails were set loose on the last day of the Ludi Ceriales, and at the Floralia hares and roes were hunted.122 If those several animals were indeed looked upon (for roes, cf. pp. 167 f. supra) by the Romans as inherently evil, or at least " unlucky "-and not, as a number of scholars have presumed, as sym- bols of fertility 123-it would have been but natural for the killing or the

recapture of them to have been regarded as in some way associable with the mastering of evil supernatural influences. We may recall, in connexion with the presence at the ludi of the animals in question, that at the Floralia vetches and beans were thrown among the people at the Circus, where as on other similar occasions " medals with obscene representations on them " were thrown,124 that in Ancient Rome beans would seem to have had prophylactic and analogous associations,125 and that (as is

commonly known) representations related to phallism were often assumed to be apotropaic.

It is conceivable, too, that in view of the " envious " or " jealous " character attributed to the stag (cf. pp. 167 f. supra), representations of

stag-hunts may have been regarded as embodying apotropaic virtues. But in any consideration of such representations, or of those of other scenes of the chase,126 due allowance should be made for the inclination of the virile Classical peoples towards sports, and especially towards such as involved cruelty and bloodshed.

As the Oriental predominance of animals on the Corinthian, the

" Rhodian ", and other of the wares immediately preceding the Attic

beliefs do not include such Classical and modern Italian ones as I suspect exist. C. G. Leland records, in his Etruscan Roman Remains, London, 1892, p. 203, that in the Tuscan Romagna it is believed that witches attend their meetings, and thereafter go forth to do evil, in the shapes of dogs, cats, mules, or goats; his information seems not to have included hares or foxes.

120 In Hastings' Encyclo. Rel. and Ethics, s.v. 'Evil Eye', p. 6Io. 121 Cf. Evil Eye, p. 31, and pp. 328 f., n. 536. The particular examples to which

he directs attention are British, not Continental. 122 Cf. Ovid, Fasti, iv, 681 ff., and v, 371 f. 123 Cf. W. W. Fowler, The Roman Festivals, London, 1916, pp. 78, 94- 124 Ibid., p. 94. 125 Id., p. IIo; Frazer, The Fasti of Ovid, cf. Indexes, s.v. 'Beans'. 12s Even on pre-Attic vases such scenes, representing the hunting of lions, of

boars, or of wild-goats, as well as of hares or of stags, appear; cf. Payne, op. cit., p. I16, n. 9.



212 Apotropaism in Greek Vase-Paintings

black-figured vases, yielded to the Greek preference for delineation of human form, the animal-groups, in which an animal presumably (as I take it) representative, or at least symbolic, of some noxious occult influence was depicted as being (or having been) overcome by animals whose images had an apotropaic character, were displaced by scenes of combat wherein heroes or divinities were represented as overcoming a

being-sometimes human, sometimes animal-which often was in some

way associable with evil. Consequently, if we are indeed entitled to presume that the animal-combats were regarded, more or less generally, as

possessing apotropaic virtues, then it would seem no more than reasonable to think that the combats which replaced them on the vases also were regarded as at least in some degree apotropaic in character. It is true that the admiration and esteem of the Greeks and the Etruscans for martial prowess, and their taste for tales and scenes of bloodshed picturing in extenso details of the carnage, are amply sufficient to account for the frequency of combats in the vase-paintings. Nevertheless, although I am not prepared to venture an opinion as to how far the selection of such scenes as subjects for those paintings was influenced by an expectation that they might operate apotropaically, the inherent nature of such

scenes, and more particularly of certain types of them, so well qualified them for apotropaic applications that it is easy to believe that, at least where they appear associated with subjects-a pair of great eyes, or a

gorgoneion, or a combination of both, for example--presumably essenti-

ally apotropaic in purpose, to those scenes as well apotropaic potency was ascribed. Thus, scenes of single combat or of battle could well have been thought to remind evil supernatural beings of the play of weapons, sharp or pointed, of which they stood in dread,127 of the terrifying clash of metal 128 and the shoutings, and of brave warriors who might frustrate their designs.12sa Furthermore, it would seem not unlikely that the depicting on vases of scenes of combat was favoured because of some reason connectible with the common practices of holding contests at funerals 129 and at the times of certain festivals-whether to satisfy the long-dead

127 Beliefs that evil supernatural beings fear such weapons are world-wide; cf. The Golden Bough: The Scapegoat, 1914, p. 233 (with long list of references in n. 3); Taboo, chap. v, ? 3, 'Sharp Weapons Tabooed'. It would be easy to multiply the European (i.e. those which most concern us) examples cited by Frazer.

12s Cf. Frazer, Folk-Lore in the Old Testament, iii, pp. 472 f., where Classical Greek practice is specifically referred to, and The Scapegoat, loc. cit.; A. B. Cook, 'The Gong at Dodona', in Journ. Hellenic Studies, xxii (1902), pp. 17,.20, 25.

12sa Compare 'An old heathen house-benediction... "Here lives the all-powerful Herakles, the son of Zeus; may no evil enter!" ' L. Deubner, 'Charms and Amulets (Greek)', Encyclo. Rel. and Ethics, iii, p. 436.

129 For a large number of examples of contests at funerals, etc., cf. The Golden Bough: The Dying God, 1914, chap. ii, ? 5, 'Funeral Games'.




or for the advantage of the living-when conceivably malevolent demons of ghosts might be expected to be about.'30

I am strongly inclined-even though I feel there may be an element of doubt in the matter-to think that apotropaic significance was attached to such representations of human combats as we have seen on the " Rhodian " pinax (cf. pp. 159 f. supra) showing Menelaus and Hector, in a field containing a pair of large eyes and a number of designs including two elaborated swastikas, and on the black-figured kylix (cf. p. 167 supra) displaying on its exterior a triple conflict between three pairs of hoplites and within its bowl a stag. And that representations of the kind were indeed looked upon as preservative is further suggested by their close

association, on vases, with such woman-headed avian creatures (" sirens ") as we have already observed (cf. pp. 172 ff. supra) to have been ac- cepted, seemingly, as apotropaic;l31 and perhaps also by the devices- e.g. the head of a Gorgon, of a lion, of a ram, or of a satyr, or an eye, among a number of others-depicted on the warriors' shields.132 Further- more, I think that we need hardly question that apotropaic virtues were credited to representations, such as those referred to below, of combats in which certain divinities were directly involved.

That portrayals of individual warriors in the vase-paintings were looked upon as apotropaic is also strongly suggested both by their situations on the vases and by the parallels afforded by many peoples other than those of Classical antiquity.133 Thus, round a Corinthian column- crater in the University of California's collection there are two bands, the upper one of armed warriors, the lower of apotropaic animals, while in the space enclosed by each handle is a woman-headed bird.134 And armed warriors appear, significantly, within the bowls of a number of kylikes-e.g. in a fragmentary one (black-figured within, red-figured without) at Bonn,135 in one of Prof.,Robinson's which has its warrior in barbarian costume and carrying a crescent-shaped shield on which are two large eyes and a rudimentary nose,'36 and in one belonging to the

130 For some examples-to which many more could easily be added-cf. The Scapegoat, chap. iv, ? i, 'The Expulsion of Embodied Evils'.

131 Cf. Stephani, Compte-rendu... 1866, p. 35, n. I. 132 Thus, on a Protocorinthian vase, of the first half of the seventh century, in

the Louvre Museum, warriors in combat have on their shields, a swan, a mythical creature with a man riding it, a bird flying, and a bull's head; cf. Payne, op. cit., pl. I.

133 Some examples, European or Asiatic, of pictures of armed men which are regarded as apotropaic, are given by Seligmann, op. cit., ii, pp. 304'f.

134 Cf. C VA, U.S.A. fasc. 5, Group III C, pl. vii. 135 Cf. C VA, Germany fasc. I, pls. i, 2-4, and ii, 4. 136 Cf. CVA, U.S.A. fasc. 6, pj. x, I. In connexion with this are cited many

references to crescent-shaped shields, and shields ornamented with eyes, on the painted vases.




Metropolitan Museum of Art, which has a very similar warrior whose

crescent-shaped shield bears an image of an eye.137 Analogously, a kylix (of mixed type, black-figured within, red-figured without) in the Villa Giulia displays in its bowl a running archer, turning and about to loose his arrow, and on its exterior two pairs of great eyes.138 Furthermore, on a kylix at Madrid a warrior is associated with each of two pairs of

great eyes on the exterior,139 while on an amphora (B 297 ; cf. n. 94 supra) in the British Museum there is on either side an armed youth advancing behind a sphinx, and on other vases we may see women-headed birds with single warriors.140

There are many vase-paintings in which a powerful divinity is shown

overcoming an enemy-often a mythological personage, or a monster, of evil import-which I consider that we may very reasonably suppose to have been intended either to intimidate evilly-disposed supernatural beings through the representing of a mighty divinity clearly victorious or to operate through a sort of " homoeopathic " magic. As examples, out of the many available for citation, a few selected from the British Museum's black-figured kylikes on which they appear associated with

pairs of great eyes, will suffice. On one (B 434) we find Herakles and the Nemean Lion, and Athena and a Giant ;141 on another (B 426), Herakles and Gereon, and Herakles and Amazons ;142 and on a third, two representations of Athena and a Giant.143 It would seem likely, in addition, that in the representations (a large number of which, on the vases, are associated with a pair of great eyes) of Athena in the Gigantomachy the

image itself of the goddess was regarded as apotropaic, because there were certain more or less local beliefs concerning the power of her gaze, some of which even went so far as to assign to her (apart from the Medusa- head on her shield or on her breastplate) gorgon-like attributes ;144 and, too, as we may recall, it was thought that she could wield the lightning (which appears as one of the safeguards in the apotropaic representations of a threatened eye 145) of Zeus.

We may, I think, similarly presume that closely analogous reasons 1'7 Cf. Richter, Red-figured Athenian Vases, pl. 5. 138 C VA, Italy fasc. iii, Group III H.e, pl. 45. 139 C VA, Spain fasc. I, Group III H.e, pl. 2. 140 Cf. Stephani, Compte-rendu... 1866, p. 35, n. 2. 141 C VA, G.B. fasc. 2, Group III H.e, pl. 19, I; a gorgoneion occupies the interior. 142 Ibid., pl. 21, I; a Dionysiac subject within. 143 Ibid., pl. 22, 5; a potter (cf. p. 217 infra) within. 144 For some assembled references to these matters, cf. Seligmann, op. cit.,

i, pp. 150 f. 145 Cf. Seligmann's list, op. cit., ii, pp. 151 f., nos. I, 2, 3, 4, (?) 5, 8, 9.




were among those which determined the depicting of Artemis, the mighty archer and the assailant of monsters and of Giants, as on the University of California's " eyed " kylix with a gorgoneion inside, where, in four- winged form, she is shown twice.146 We have, indeed, clear evidence that even to some of her effigies powers resembling those of " fascination " were credited, as at Pallene, where trees past which her local image happened to be carried became barren and their fruit blasted, while people feared to look upon it lest harm be thereby brought on them;147 and as at Lacedaemon, whose image of Artemis Orthia was reputed to have driven mad the two men who found it, and to have brought disasters upon certain persons sacrificing to it, until they were told by an oracle to wet the altar with human blood.14s And in her form of Hecate Artemis presided over enchantments and sorcery. Consequently, we may well suppose that where, in vase-painting, she appears as huntress of one of the (presumably) " evil " animals, e.g. a stag or a hare, singularly potent apotropaic virtue was ascribed to the representations.

Perhaps, too, a somewhat analogous notion may sometimes have been associated with a vase-painting, such as the one of those to which I have alluded (p. 173) above, of Ulysses safely passing the magic-exercising Sirens, for it would have been easy to perceive in the scene a symbolic defeat of magical, or even other supernatural, malign influences.

Reference has been made above (cf. pp. 165 f.) to a group of Classical objects characterized by some representation of an eye-which we may presume to symbolize an eye by or through the agency of which evil might be worked-surrounded by a number of creatures prepared to attack it. The most notable among the objects composing that group is a marble relief149 whereon appears, in addition to animals, birds, and a scorpion, a gladiator holding a trident. Although I have no record of any vase-painting similarly showing an isolated eye about which are threatening enemies, I am able to refer to several in which a destruction of eyesight is either represented or implied, whose subjects might well, therefore, have been looked upon correspondingly as preservative against evil eye or against one of its analogues. I am much inclined to think that scenes of the sort often were regarded as having apotropaic significance ; and I feel that support for a view to that effect appears in the company which a number of them keep. For example, on a kylix in the Cabinet des M6dailles of the Paris Bibliotheque Nationale, having within its bowl a gorgoneion and on its exterior two pairs of great eyes,

146 CVA, U.S.A. fasc. 5, pl. xvii, 2. 147 Cf. Plutarch, Vitae, A ratus. 14s Cf. Pausanias, Description of Greece, Bk. III, chap. xvi. 149 Cf. J. Millingen, in Archaeologia, xix (1821), pl. vi; Jahn, op. cit., pl. iii;

Elworthy, op. cit., fig. 24; Seligmann, op. cit., fig. 123.



216 Apotropaism in Greek Vase-Paintings one of the pairs is accompanied by a representation of the combat between Herakles and Alkyoneus, wherein Herakles is shown putting out one of the Giant's eyes.150 Then, on an amphora (B 154) in the British

Museum, displaying on its neck a pair of large eyes, there is on one side a combat of Herakles and Amazons and on the other Ulysses and his com-

panions blinding Polyphemos 151-a subject depicted also within a kylix found at Nola,152 on a krater (now at Rome, in the Palazzo dei Conserva-

tori) found at Caere,153 and elsewhere.154 And on a kylix in the Mus6e du

Louvre, with a gorgoneion inside and two pairs of great eyes outside, there is between the eyes of one pair a combat of three warriors and between those of the other pair Aeneas carrying Anchises 155-who, accord-

ing to one of the several stories of the source of his infirmities, Zeus had blinded by lightning (cf. n. 145 supra).

A considerable proportion of the black-figured kylikes which we may very reasonably, because of the pairs of great eyes on them, regard as

having been supposed to have apotropaic virtues, include Dionysiac

subjects in their ornamentation. For ample illustration of the application of such subjects we need go no further than the British Museum's

group of " eyed " kylikes, in which we may meet them within the bowl, either isolated (as in B 426) 156 or round a gorgoneion (B 427) ;157 or on

the exterior between the eyes, as on B 427, on one having a gorgoneion within it, on one (B 435) 158 having a ram (cf. p. 168 supra) within, and

on one having an ithiphallic satyr within. I am much disposed to believe

that many of the Dionysiac subjects-although by no means necessarily

all, whether or not associated with pairs of great eyes-on Greek or

Etruscan vases had their eminent suitability for application, in such

situations, reinforced by a presumption that they possessed apotropaic

efficacy in at least some degree. Due to the nature of Dionysus and of the rites attending his worship,

the special appropriateness of Dionysiac subjects for the adornment of

kylikes and vessels of certain other kinds would, even had the scenes been

150 Cf. C VA, France fasc. 10, pls. 52, 53- 151 Rough sketch given by Harrison, Myths of the Odyssey, pl. Io. 152 Similar sketch given ibid., pl. 4. 153 Cf. ibid., pl. Io; Hoppin, op. cit., p. 7, with extensive bibliography of vase on

p. 6; Roscher, Lexikon, s.v. 'Polyphemos', fig. I. 154 It may be observed that several of the examples cited were found near

Vulci, so testifying to an Etruscan liking for the subject. 155 Cf. Hoppin, op. cit., pp. 258 f. 156 Cf. CVA, G.B. fasc. 2, Group III H.e, pl. 21, I. 157 Ibid., pl. 20, 2; cf. n. 117 supra. 158 Id., pl. 22, 3-




much less inherently pleasing, have been copiously adequate to secure their employment in that way. But many of those subjects embody elements so vividly recalling certain beliefs or practices which, in associations other than Dionysiac, were considered to be apotropaic, that I feel that we may well presume their mere presence, apart from any Dionysiac connotations, to have been thought to promise protection against harm of occult origin. We know that Dionysus himself was often

represented by a phallus-a symbol anciently looked upon as one of the most powerful preservatives against evil eye, fascination, sorcery, and the like-and that a phallus was a prominent feature of Dionysiac pro- cessions; in the vase-paintings the satyrs frequently are depicted with

phallus exaggerated and erect, and the mules or asses in the Dionysiac scenes commonly are ithiphallic. There was a close relation, too, between Dionysus and the bull,159 an animal whose image, either as a whole or signified by only its head (which in amuletic pendants often was com- bined with phalli 160), was regarded as apotropaic.161 Then, he was believed to " attire a sa suite tous les demons ' demi animaux des forets et des solitudes sauvages " 162-creatures who, if well disposed towards a

person or a thing could be expected to defend him or it against inimical evil occult influences. Ahd finally, the flaming torches swaying through the darkness, the unwonted noise, and the uncontrolled running about of the votaries, which accompanied the Dionysiac festivals, all could be

paralleled in popular non-religious practices carried out for the purpose of driving away evil supernatural beings.163

Among the British Museum's black-figured kylikes is one (B 432) having on its exterior two pairs of great eyes, with a combat of Athena and a Giant between the eyes of each pair, and within its bowl-where in the circumstances we should expect most commonly to find a gor-. goneion-a potter beside his wheel,164 a subject which I think may well be of quite exceptional interest in our inquiry. Although representations of potters engaged in one or another of the operations of their craft are

by no means uncommon on the painted vessels,e.5 they would seem in 159 For a series of references to Dionysus in the shape of a bull, cf. The Golden

Bough: Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild, 1914, i, pp. 16 f. 160 For two examples, cf. Jahn, op. cit., pl. v, 4, 5; or Seligmann, op. cit., figs.

6o, 61. 161 Cf. Seligmann, op. cit., ii, pp. 127 f. 162 Cf. F. Lenormant, in Daremberg and Saglio's Dict., s.v. 'Bacchus', p. 617. 163 Cf. p. 212 supra. 164 Cf. C VA, G.B. fasc. 2, Group III H.e, pl. 22, 5. "65 Cf. G. M. A. Richter, The Craft of Athenian Pottery, New Haven (Conn.),

1923, passim. O




general to have had no function other than that of decoration. In the

present instance, however, the subjects on the exterior suggest strongly that the subject in the interior had likewise an apotropaic significance. That significance I take to derive from the potter's wheel,'66 due to a certain concept deeply rooted in Classical Italy (as it is in Modern, and

elsewhere), and there expressed in many ways. That concept is to the effect that sentient evil beings cannot work

harm upon a person or an object guarded by something intimately associated with an unascertainable quantity.167 In the case of the kylix under discussion, I presume it to be involved in the unascertainable num-

ber of turns that the potter's wheel has made, for a presumption to that

effect is supported by a current Umbrian belief, recorded by Bellucci

(Gli Amuleti, pp. 52 f.), that the flakes of iron, originating in splinters detached from the shaft of a grain-mill and flattened by the action of the

millstones, are excellent protections for children (upon whose garments

they are sewn) against the harmful attentions of witches, because they have been collected while the stones were still, and it is impossible ever

thereafter to know how many revolutions the stones had made while the

flakes were in contact with them. Furthermore, in Umbria a hedge-

hog's jawbone is worn, on the same principle, as a pendant, under

the impression that a witch cannot bring harm to its bearer unless

she knows precisely the number of spines the irrecoverable animal

had.168

As testimony to the existence in Classical Italy of the notion that

something involving indeterminability could confer protection from

occult evil influences, there may be recalled certain verses of Catallus,

who in them speaks (cf. " Ad Lesbiam, 5 ") of giving so many kisses to

his adored Clodia that their number will be undiscoverable and no one's

166 I doubt that the wheel here was, as was a wheel in some associations else-

where, regarded as apotropaic inherently because of its form and its consequent acceptance as, for example, a sun-symbol.

167 For a discussion of this concept in some detail, see W. L. Hildburgh, 'Indeterminability and Confusion as Apotropaic Elements in Italy and in Spain', in Folk-Lore, Ivi (1944-5), PP. 133-49, and 'The Place of Confusion and Indeter-

minability in Mazes and Maze-Dances', in id., pp. 188-92. The inverse of the con-

cept appears in the fear, lest harm befall them, of counting persons or things-a fear not only widespread in distribution (cf. Frazer, Folk-Lore in the Old Testament, ii, pp. 555-63 [= Part III, chap. ix]), but still present in Umbria (cf. Bellucci, Gli A muleti: Un Capitolo di Psicologia popolare, Perugia, 1908, p. 56).

16s For a number of other still (or until recently) current Umbrian and/or Tuscan

exemplifications of that principle, cf. my 'Indeterminability and Confusion as

Apotropaic Elements.. .', pp. 135 f., 138 f., 141 f.




envy shall be able to harm him and his beloved; and again (" Ad

Lesbiam, 7 ") of exchanging kisses " as many as the grains of sand of the

Libyan Desert round Cyrene ", so that no evil tongue shall, by the exercise of " fascination ", part him from his darling. In transposition, the same concept appeared in the profound secrecy observed concerning both the name of the guardian deity of Rome and that of the city itself, for it was thought that knowledge of the one would give an enemy power to influence the deity, and knowledge of the other power to take the city.369 Something of the same sort seems to underlie ancient stories (such as that of the Sphinx) in which lack of a certain piece of knowledge renders a person liable to harm which, should he know that piece, recoils on the

potential assailant. Further evidence of the belief in indeterminability or confusion as

apotropaic, in ancient Umbria, seems to lie in Dennis's description (op. cit., i, pp. 40 f.) of a very ancient tomb called "La Grotta Campana". Referring to the inner chamber of this tomb, he says that its walls "are

unpainted, save opposite the doorway, where six disks ... are represented as suspended. They are fifteen inches in diameter, and are painted with a mosaic-work of various colours, black, blue, red, yellow, and grey, in such small fragments, and with such an arrangement, as if they were

copies of some kaleidoscopic effect'". The situating of these disks directly facing the entrance, seen in the light of Dennis's remark, some pages earlier, that on entering the outer chamber of that same " Grotta " the visitor's eye " is at once riveted on the extraordinary paintings . .. facing the entrance ", suggests very strongly that those disks were intended as an apotropaic device based on the inability of a potentially evil-working glance (which would fall first upon them) to determine accurately the number and the precise nature of their component elements.170

Leland, in his Etruscan Roman Remains, mentions (p. 168) the employment, in the Tuscan Romagna, as preservative against sorcery, evil eye, and the like, of interlaced and interwoven cords and of " braids beautifully made of silk of all colours ". Such mention brings to mind the representations of twists or interlaces on some vessels of the so-called " Rhodian " ware cited, in connexion with other matters, above. On one of those vessels, the pinax (cf. pp. 159 f.) whose decoration includes a Trojan combat and a large pair of eyes, the warriors stand on a band resembling a twisted endless cord, a thing to which apotropaic virtues

169 For some ancient references to these matters, see The Golden Bough: Taboo (a large part of whose chap. vi is devoted to the tabooing of names), p. 391.

170 For a fuller note on this, cf. Hildburgh, op. cit., p. 143.




conceivably could have been ascribed not alone because of its twists but also because, it being without visible ends, there would have been diffi-

culty both in determining precisely the number of convolutions and in

tracing them. On the other vessel, the " L6vy " oinochoe in the Louvre

(cf. n. 17 and p. 160), with its series of zones of presumably apotropaic animals, there is round the neck a pattern resembling plaited ribbons or cords. The predominance, in the ornamentation of these two vessels, of elements which we may well believe to have been looked upon as apotropaic, sanctions us (cf. pp. 158 f. supra), I think, in assuming the possibility that to the intricacies mentioned apotropaic virtues may, too, have been credited. The above-cited beliefs with respect to twists and turns suggest that the meanders, which appear commonly, and often (especially on the

geometrical vases) in highly complicated forms, in the ornamentation of Greek vases may have to some extent owed the development of their

complexities to an assignment to them of apotropaic potency. On a well-known Etruscan oinochoe, believed to be of about the sixth

century B.C., found at Tragliatella171, there is scratched a representation of the sort of performance which Virgil, centuries later, described (Aeneid, v. 545) as " the game called Troy " and in a way suggesting strongly that

its purpose was apotropaic and the means whereby that purpose was to be

achieved involved to a great extent the production of confusion and a

sense of indeterminability.172 While there were other, and obvious, reasons

for ornamenting a pottery vessel with a representation of the " Troy Dance ", the apotropaic connotations of such a representation might-in view of what we know concerning a number of the designs used for the

adornment of other wine vessels made for Etruscan use-well have been

meant as a protection for the oinochoe's contents. We have now seen that, of the subjects depicted in the Greek vase-

paintings, a very considerable number could, in conformity with what we

may reasonably assume to have been current beliefs, when so depicted have had ascribed to them a power of warding off evils of occult origin. That at least some of them owed their places on the vases mainly to

beliefs that they would there exert such power has, indeed, seemed pretty

clearly evident. Of the others, the particular situations they occupy on

the vessels, or special circumstances associated with them, have appeared to indicate that they as well very probably, and in some cases almost

171 Cf. W. H. Matthews, Mazes and Labyrinths, London, 1922, pp. 157 ff. with

figs. 133-5; Daremberg and Saglio, Dict., s.v. 'Troja, Trojae Ludus', with fig. 7102.

172 Cf. my 'The Place of Confusion and Indeterminability in Mazes and Maze- Dances', p. 189.




certainly, owed their representations to an expectation that they too could, if needful, act protectively. That is, right through the decoration of the black-figured vases, and extending its influence into the decoration of the red-figured vases, there seems to run a strong element of apotropaism, which to some extent affected both the style of decoration and the choice of subjects embodied in that decoration.

It is, I think, indirectly due to the apotropaic features incorporated in the vase-paintings that we owe in large part the survival of the vases themselves in such surprising quantities in the Etruscan tombs. The Etruscans considered as of primary importance that the spirits of the dead should be kept well-disposed towards those persons with whom they might, whether through kinship or through some other proximity, still be in potential contact. And from the general contents of the Etruscan tombs it may be presumed that it was actively desired, not merely to limit the occupancy of a tomb to the revered dead for whom it had been prepared, and to reserve for the service of their manes the material possessions placed therein, but also to keep the tomb's rightful tenants- and especially those who in life were in one way or another exceptionally influential-from molestation by just such occult forces as were presumed to afflict the living. In a world haunted by unappeased and vengeful spirits of the dead-hungry, homeless, envious of the shelter and the gifts of food and drink and the more durable comforts spread for the content- ment of the legitimate inmates of the sepulchre-and peopled by in. herently malevolent demons and other creatures of the darkness, it is reasonable to suppose that all practicable means were enlisted for securing the benefits of a tomb to its proper occupants. Of such means, one of the most obvious lay-if I am justified in my view of the significance which it was possible to attach to details of the painted ornamentation of the vases-firstly in the employment, as containers for the food and drink set out, of vessels whose decoration included apotropaic elements, and secondly in a display of the painted vases.

In Dennis's description, from which I have quoted extracts (cf. p. 219) above, of the Etruscan tomb known as " La Grotta Campana ", he tells us, incidentally and seemingly without recognition of the pregnant inference to be drawn from it, something which appears to show pretty clearly that at least certain of the vases placed in that tomb had been expected to exercise an apotropaic function of some sort. Continuing from his surmises (quoted above) regarding the disks painted on the wall directly opposite the doorway of the inner chamber, he says that " Above them [i.e. the disks] are many stumps of iron nails, formerly [that is,



222 Apotropaism in Greek Vase-Paintings before the tomb had been plundered] supporting vases, the originals, it

may be, of these painted disks; and around the door between the two chambers are many similar traces of nails ". That is, the vases which hung from those nails had been installed in precisely those places in which we should expect to find them had they been intended for guarding the

occupant of the tomb (and such of the accompanying objects as needed

protection) from harm originating in or inflictible through an evil-

working eye, or causable by malevolent beings-the virulence of the one should be spent harmlessly in its first glance through the

doorway, and the evilly-inclined should be indisposed to pass, in the

presence of the things about the doorway'73 and opposite the door-

way, or should be stripped of their harmful powers should they succeed

in passing. In view of the apotropaism so markedly evident in some of the subjects

of the vase paintings, presumable in many others, and very probably assumable by the Etruscans in a further considerable number, it would be

but natural for us to suppose that it was because such subjects were

depicted on them that vases were placed in the situations mentioned by Dennis. But while I feel convinced that the apotropaism of the subjects was the dominant factor in the positioning of the vases (and thus corro-

borative of the deductions we have made respecting that feature of those

subjects), I think it should be noted that one of several other conceivable

factors may possibly, and compatibly, have been involved. With the

first of these, which is concerned with the nails whereon the pottery vessels hung, I take it that we need little occupy ourselves; suffice it to

mention that the nails in themselves could have been regarded as amuletic, both because of their substance-i.e. the iron which so anciently and so

widely has been credited with apotropaic powers-and by virtue of their

173 In the Classical Romans' use of images of Medusa's face for door-knockers, and in Janus, their very ancient divinity protective of entrances, we may see

exemplified their belief in the need to prevent the ingress of evil occult influences. Cf. Ovid, Fasti, vi, 155, where he tells how, to keep certain vampire birds (perhaps transformed witches) from re-entering a child's room, the nymph Crane touched the door-posts with arbutus leaves, marked the threshold with them, sprinkled the entrance with water which had been medicated (i.e. presumably given magical properties), and put a twig of white thorn (a 'rod of Janus') at the little window which gave light to the inner rooms. (Compare the very similar modern story, including arbutus and white thorn, from the Tuscan Romagna, recorded by Leland, op. cit., pp. 107 ff.) For several further references to Greek or Roman uses of thorny plants to keep evil influences from entering a dwelling by door or by window, cf. Frazer, The Fasti of Ovid, iv, 142 f., and The Golden Bough: The Magic Art, ii, p. 191 n. Beliefs of the same sort exist among practically all peoples who both assume the reality of supernatural beings and possess enclosed places which

they wish to keep free of such beings.




penetrative form;174 and, even more appositely, that nails driven into doors have in some places been assumed to prevent evil occult influences from passing the doorway.175

On the other hand, there is a possibility which I think by no means remote, that the vessels themselves, essentially as pieces of pottery attrac- tive to look at and quite apart from the particular subjects painted upon them, may have been regarded as preservative against evil conditional on sight.176 Although I have no conclusive Classical evidence in the matter, I can refer to a number of modern beliefs, presumably carrying on tradi- tional ones, which suggest that it might have been thought the vases would by their striking appearance draw upon themselves the first (and supposedly therefore contingently the most harmful) glance of a potential evil-worker, and then, themselves breaking, would so divert harm from an otherwise destined victim.177

Furthermore, I think possible that a basis, or at least some measure of support, for apotropaic applications of the painted vases might have been

174 On nails as amulets, cf. Bellucci, I chiodi . . . , section 'I chiodi come amuleti', pp. 106-33, and pp. 260 f.

175 Ibid., pp. 251 f. A particularly pertinent example, reported from the 'South Slavs', is cited in The Golden Bough: The Magic Art, ii, pp. 339 f.

176 Of the uses of pots, qua pots, as protections against evil eye and its analogues, there appear to be a number of examples (although none of them are Classical) available for citation, but unfortunately no record of such that I have is completely unambiguous. Seligmann's examples (op. cit., ii, 40 f.) all (with perhaps one obscure exception) refer to pots either coloured in particular ways or set inverted, so that we cannot be certain just what notion underlies the practice.

177 Unless, perhaps, Pliny's words (N.H., xxviii, 4) " multi figlinarum opera

rumpi credunt tali modo ", among remarks on magic, refer rather to evil eye or the like. There are many records, from various parts of the world, of beliefs that objects in use as amulets may break when exposed to the influence of evil eye or one of its analogues (cf. n. 4 supra). In a number of these I think it is to be inferred that the amulet protects its bearer by taking upon itself an injury which otherwise would have come upon him. Tuchmann cites (in M6lusine, viii, col. 181) a custom, among modern Greeks, for young girls to wear bangles of blue glass, 'which break when anyone wishes to throw evil eye on them'. From Spain I have sundry records (the earliest of them printed in the middle of the seventeenth century) of things- pieces of jet, the little horn-shaped pendants commonly worn by children against mal de ojo, the apotropaic bells for infants, religious medals-being believed to break, and in so breaking protecting their wearers, should the latter be exposed to evil occult influences; and since these come from both north-western parts of the Peninsula (never under Moslem domination) and Andalusia (which in Classical times was thoroughly Romanized), I think it fair to presume that the notion probably was a survival from Roman Spain, and quite possibly existed in--if indeed it was not derived from-Classical Italy. A somewhat similar, and not improbably related, notion is a Moroccan one to the effect that 'the accidental breaking of an object, especially of a glass or earthenware vessel' can take away misfortune from its owner, whence arises an idea that it is a bad omen if such a vessel falls and does not break (cf. Westermarck, op. cit., i, p. 608). Probably analogously related are, also, certain practices, of Jews and Arabs, involving the breaking of pottery (cf. R. Campbell Thompson, Semitic Magic, London, 19o8, pp. 30 f.).



224 Apotropaism in Greek Vase-Paintings educed from their constitution of pottery shaped on the wheel. We have seen (cf. pp. 218 ff.) supra that in Classical Italy there was, as there is in

Italy today, a robust belief in indeterminability as a potent means of

protection; and we have remarked in particular a modern Umbrian

exemplification wherein an indeterminable number of revolutions is involved. It is conceivable, therefore, that pottery made on the wheel, and so endowed with an inherent element of indeterminability, might have been looked upon as in some degree apotropaic. Perhaps corrobo- rative of such an application of the principle was the Vestals' use of

" vessels of coarse earthenware ", " moulded in the most primitive fashion

by the hand without any mechanical contrivance ", for the presentation of their offerings.178 It is most generally assumed that perpetuation of the use of such primitive vessels was conditioned by religious conservatism- which in fact often is a potent influence for the retention in matters pertaining to the gods of practices long obsolete in common life-but I think it almost equally consistent with what we know of the Romans to believe that it was based on the notion that things incorporating an indeter-

minable number were distasteful to supernatural beings, and consequently unsuitable as containers for offerings to divinities.

The question whether the Attic vases were intended for such actual household purposes as their shapes suggest, or whether their functions were mainly ornamental, has received considerable attention from

scholars.179 Their fragility, their porosity, and the possible instability of their painted decoration if subjected to repeated cleansings, have been

urged against their employment for utilitarian purposes; but such

objections have been met by arguments that those factors had not the

force some scholars have ascribed to them, and by evidence indicating that in at least some cases the vessels had indeed served such purposes. The apotropaism so strongly-as I see it-displayed in many of the vase

paintings would seem to afford us striking testimony in the matter.

Doubtless subjects apotropaic in character might have been, and quite

possibly actually were, applied to vases whose functions were essentially ornamental, either to protect those vases themselves from harm or to

provide protection from evil occult influences for persons or things in the

vase's immediate vicinity. But if that had been the principal end of the

apotropaic decorations, it is unlikely that so much care would have been

exercised in applying such decorations precisely in the places where we

178 Cf. The Golden Bough: The Magic Art, ii, pp. 202 f. 179 Cf. Richter, The Craft of Athenian Pottery, pp. 59-63, 'Were Athenian vases

made for everyday use?'.




should expect to find them had the primary intention been the protection of substances within the vases. The pairs of great eyes, and the presumably apotropaic subjects commonly accompanying them, on the exteriors of

kylikes, and the gorgon masks or other apotropaic devices within those same kylikes, are so nicely calculated to remove, and thereafter to ward

off, evil influences that I find it hard to believe that they did not have just that intention. Then, too, it is fair to presume that a pair of great eyes on the neck of a vase was situated there as a sort of filter to extract harmful influences from a liquid entering the vase; and that the zones of protect ive creatures round the body were to prevent renewed contamination. When we observe that as one type of apotropaic subject-the therio-

morphic-went out of fashion it was replaced by such other types as I have segregated above, it seems reasonable to presume that the advisa-

bility of guarding the contents of a vessel from occult evil continued to be

recognized. And if that were indeed so, then we have in the persistence of

apotropaism in the vase-paintings testimony indicating that the painted vases were largely meant for utilitarian service, even though some of them in utilitarian shapes may, paralleling some of our own vases, have been made for merely ornamental use.s80

1so The first section of the above paper had already appeared, and the present section was actually in the press, when Dr. Otto Kurz brought to my notice a lecture, " Urspriinge der bildenden Kunst " (see Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien : Almanach fiur das Jahr 1930, pp. 275-295 ; or offprint, pp. 1-2I), delivered by the late Dr. Emanuel L6wy, Emeritus Professor of Classical Archaeology in the University of Vienna, concerned mainly with the role of magic in Greek art. Prof. L6wy's approach to the subject of Greek vase-paintings is from a direction opposite to mine. Beginning with the proposition that decorative art originates in crude attempts to represent actual objects regarded as apotropaic upon, or in the immediate vicinity of, inanimate objects or living creatures thought to require protection, he turned to Greek art, and more particularly to its vase-paintings, as a specific example. He set forth reasons-a number of them coinciding with those I have advanced above, but in general terms instead of particularized-for thinking that motives essentially magical, apotropaic or conceived to be pleasing to supernatural beings, underlay all archaic Greek design. Although I believe some of his opinions to be quite sound, I am inclined to think that on the whole his views are too broad ; that the magical content he thought to detect in certain types of subjects was, if indeed perceived by the Greeks, accidental and not intentional. I have not learned of any more particularized publication of his on the subject, although I have been told that it was one of his major preoccupa- tions in the years just preceding his death early in the 'thirties.

ERRATA

Folk-Lore for December, 1946 Page 159, line 5, for cimatura read cimaruta.

Page I66, line 25, for (cf. p. 163 infra) read (cf. pp. 216 f. infra).



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Apotropaism in Greek Vase-Paintings (Continued)