Apotropaism in Greek Vase-Paintings

Apotropaism in Greek Vase-PaintingsAuthor(s): W. L. HildburghSource: Folklore, Vol. 57, No. 4 (Dec., 1946), pp. 154-178Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of Folklore Enterprises, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1257502 .

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APOTROPAISM IN GREEK VASE-PAINTINGS.* BY W. L. HILDBURGH

(A condensed version was read before the Folk-Lore Society at Oxford, 2oth February, 1943.)

OF the multitude of Greek painted vases which have been recovered, mainly from Etruscan tombs, in modern times, a very considerable number embody what seems to be clear evidence of an intention to introduce into their decoration an element, or elements, of an apotropaic character. The occult evil against which defence could thus have been sought might have been formless and impercipient (e.g. " evil eye ", " fascination ",

envy, jealousy, and the like), or it might have been more or less in the

shape of a sentient being of some sort (e.g. an unappeased or inherently

malignant ghost of a dead person, a demon of the earth or the air or the

sea, a local godling, or even one of the semi-deified personifications created by frightened imaginations) such as the ancients believed moved

in the same world with them, capable both of influencing the actions of

animate beings and of affecting the natures or the qualities of inanimate

things. Consequently, where we find painted upon a vase a representation of a gorgoneion,1 or of an eye,2 although we may rest pretty well

* No attempt has been made, in the following communication, to list all.the available details illustrative of a topic; citation of examples has in general been restricted to a minimum or but little more, and citation of references to a few of

those most easily consultable. 1 There is no lack of printed material on the utilization of an image of a gorgon,

and more particularly of a gorgon's face-a gorgoneion-for protection against occult evils. Extensive resumes are in the Classical lexicons; Daremberg and

Saglio's Dictionnaire, s.v. 'Gorgones', for example, devotes more than fourteen

pages to the gorgons and, in detail, to employments of a gorgoneion apotropaically. F. T. Elworthy's The Evil Eye, London, 1895, has nine pages of its chap. v, 'The

Gorgoneion', on gorgon-masks as preservative against evil eye and the like; and

S. Seligmann's Der b6se Blick, Berlin, 19Io, contains a large number of references

(cf. his index) to gorgons and the gorgoneion. J. Tuchmann gives, in M61usine, ix

(I898-9), cols. 155-65, in one of the sections of his extended series 'La fascination', a comprehensive bibliography of the gorgoneion and a long list of examples.

t On the use, in Classical antiquity, of representations of eyes as protections against injury calusable by evil eye, fascination, and the like, cf. C. Jahn, 'Ober den Aberglauben des b6sen Blicks bei den Alten', in Berichte uiber die Verhand-

lungen der k6niglich siichsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig: Philolog.-hist. Classe, xvii (1855), pp. 63 ff. Seligmann, op. cit., ii, pp. 144-64, gives much on the same matter, followed by many citations of apotropaic employments of representations of eyes in other periods; his figs. 85-1o2, 105-19, 133 f., reproduce Classical representations of eyes in apotropaic connexions. A bibliography of 'eyed' vases, and lists of a large number of examples, are given by Tuchmann, op. cit., in

vol. viii, cols. 62 f. Various objects, such as shields and the appendages from shields,

or, less commonly, some piece of household furniture, or a musical instrument,

displaying an image of an eye, are sometimes depicted on the painted vases.

154



Apotropaism in Greek Vase-Paintings 155 assured that that representation has been drawn under some apotropaic motive, and not as a merely meaningless bit of ornament, we cannot always be positive whether it was intended as a protection particularly against evil eye and its analogues or against evil supernatural 3 beings. The frightful gorgoneion, for example, could have been thought to serve against an evil eye (or the eye of an envious or a jealous person or of a witch) either because of its power to strike terror into the heart of the dangerous evil-worker, or because it might by its striking appearance draw upon itself harmlessly the first (and consequently the assumedly most virulent) glance which otherwise would have fallen upon the potential victim ; while an image of an eye could have been supposed to have been preservative either because of the watchfulness symbolized by an open eye or because it was regarded as exercising some sort of homoeopathic influence upon an eye through, or by the agency of, whose glance evil might act.

Analogously, precisely what was the intention underlying the ornamentation of a vase with apotropaic subjects can often be a matter for no more than conjecture. It appears frequently to have been that of preserving the contents of the vessel from being spoilt, or being rendered injurious to a person partaking of them, through transference to them of an evil element; sometimes, possibly, that of protecting the vessel itself from damage (e.g. breakage) such as it was thought that an evil glance could bring about ;4 sometimes, conceivably, that of guarding (as for example, a piece of jewellery might guard) persons or things in the immediate vicinity of the vase. Judgment in the matter is made the more difficult by the circumstances that a large proportion of the subjects to which apotropaic virtues presumably could very well have been attributed were eminently fitted to meet the current taste, as displayed in literature as well as in art, for narratives of divine beings and of heroes- and especially for such as dealt with incidents wherein mortal combat had place-and for martial and other manly exercises. Conceivably it may be further complicated by our possibly imperfect comprehension of the motives which brought about the immuring of such seemingly extraordinary quantities of painted vases in the great Etruscan sepulchres;

3 I use here, and shall continue to use hereinbelow, 'supernatural' merely in our modern sense, since it is quite impossible for us, brought up in a milieu differing from that of the Classical peoples, to know where in each individual case they drew the line between natural and supernatural. 4 The notion that the glance of certain persons, or even of a normal person in

particular circumstances, falling upon an object may cause it to break is widespread; for some examples--whose number could easily be multiplied-cf. Seligmann, op. cit., i, pp. 227 ff., 231. Cf., further, n. 177 infra.



156 Apotropaism in Greek Vase-Paintings I surmise that the general view, to the effect that they were placed there

mainly because they had been among the most treasured possessions of the occupants of the tombs, and in part as containers for food deposited for those occupants, may not wholly explain the matter. In addition to those vases which we may reasonably presume to have been made

originally for the use of the living, there are others which obviously were made for merely sepulchral use.

That among the peoples for whom the painted vases were made there

was a widespread and undisguised dread of the harmful effects which

might be brought about through fascination, evil eye, envy, jealousy, and their analogues, and by vexatious activities on the parts of un-

appeased spirits or of other supernatural beings, is witnessed by a mass

of written evidence, corroborated by the testimony of innumerable material

objects, and seemingly supported by many traditional beliefs, still sur-

viving. Among such material objects were jewellery, gems, sculptures,

armour, clothing, mural decorations, doors and doorways, gates and

gateways, furnaces, lamps, cinerary-urns and sarcophagi and sepulchral

monuments, receptacles for food or drink, and-as shown in existent repre-

sentations-boats, large or small, furniture, and muscial instruments.5 A convenient introduction to apotropaism in the Greek painted vases

is provided by a group of kylikes of Attic black-figured ware made be-

tween about 550 and 450 B.c. The kylikes of that group are characterized

by two pairs (or, much less often, a single pair) of great eyes displayed

outside, while a considerable proportion of them have a gorgoneion

painted within. Such pairs of eyes have long been recognized as having had an apotropaic purpose; and the hideous gorgoneion was, like a

number of other terrifying objects, a generally-accepted expedient

against both evil eye and its analogues and sorcety. If a people believe, as did the Greeks and the Etruscans, in the power

for harm of envy, jealousy, evil eye, and the like, there is assuredly good reason why they should adapt their vessels made for use in the consump-

5 There have been suggestions (cf. L. Stephani, in Compte-rendu de la commission

imp&riale archgologique pour l'annge 1864, St. Petersburg, 1865, pp. 132, 135 ff., 143; or Seligmann, op. cit., ii, p. 312) that the utilizations of images of creatures

which, for one reason or another, were assumed to have an apotropaic character, as supports for the seats or for the arms of chairs or couches, or of images of the heads of such creatures for spouts or as supports for the wicks of lamps, were motivated by, respectively, an expectation that persons resting in those pieces of furniture would be kept from harm, a desire to preserve from occult contamination

liquids issuing from such spouts, and a hope that the wick's flame might remain unaffected by evil influences or by magic. Whether apotropaism had nearly so much to do with such utilizations as had the notably decorative value of such creatures, or the obvious suggestion of a mouth to represent an orifice, or of a head in the place of an unadorned knob, seems to me doubtful.



Apotropaism in Greek Vase-Paintings 157

tion, or in the storing, of food and drink so that they may afford protection to the provisions contained in them. A broad generalization to the effect that foodstuffs and beverages are so susceptible to such influences that they may be spoilt, and even rendered injurious to persons partaking of them, is of geographically widespread application, and

many exemplifications of it might easily be cited,6 both European and

extra-European. A few examples, from modern Morocco, so well illustrate what is believed may happen in the case of food that they are worth

quoting here: " To take food in the presence of some hungry looker-on is like taking poison; l-bas, or the evil, then actually enters into the

body with the food "; " When a person carries food he keeps it covered " ; and " At feasts the women are allowed to eat first, since otherwise they might injure the men with their evil eyes ".~ Even more

pertinent in relation to the decoration of the group of kylikes in question are the beliefs, still to be met with in various parts of the world, accord-

ing to which an evil can enter a person's body with liquid which he is

drinking. There are, for example, practices in the Congo region, for

preventing a demon from entering the mouth of a person drinking ;8 and

Crawley tells us that " When the Indian of Cape Flattery falls ill, he often ascribes it to a demon which entered his body when he was drinking at a stream. Bulgarians before drinking make the sign of the Cross, to prevent the devil entering the body with the drink. Devout Russians used to blow on the glass to drive Satan from the liquor ".9

It would seem natural, therefore, that the Etruscans and the Greeks, who were firmly convinced of the possibility of injury, not only through the unintentional agency of an intrinsic " fascinator " or through a

voluntary exercise of sorcery, but also through mere envy or jealousy, should adopt the two most obvious presumably effective measures for the avoidance of such injury; that is, by apotropaic devices on the exterior of a drinking-vessel to prevent contamination of its contents, and by some similar device (or devices) within it and in immediate contact with the liquid to prevent contamination during the act of drinking.10

6 Cf. Seligmann, op. cit., i, pp. 235-9; J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough: Taboo and the Perils of the Soul, 1914, chap. iii, ? 2, 'Taboos on Eating and Drinking'; etc.

SCf. E. Westermarck, Ritual and Belief in Morocco, London, 1926, i, pp. 422, 426, 420.

8 Cf. Frazer, Folk-Lore in the Old Testament, London, 1918, iii, p. 478. * Cf. A. E. Crawley, in Hastings' Encyclo. Religion and Ethics, s.v. 'Drinks,

Drinking', p. 77- 10 Cf. also Jahn, op. cit., pp. 64 ff., in his discussion of the several hypotheses advanced by other scholars to explain the presence, on Greek vases, of the images of eyes.



I58 Apotropaism in Greek Vase-Paintings For whatsoever precautions one might take to avoid the company of persons reputed to have inherently an " evil eye " or to have recourse to sorcery, it was quite impossible to make certain that one's attendants or one's companions at table were free from envy or jealousy. Indeed, it would have been strange if those who served rich wines and savoury foods had not envied those to whom they ministered; or had not some

guest been jealous of the wealth or other advantage of his host or of his

fellow-guests. Thus it seems clear why the kylikes, as well as other cups the ultimate receptacles for draughts about to be consumed, should in

particular have been rendered apotropaic ; and, furthermore, why divers other kinds of vessels analogously involved in the preparation, the keep- ing, or the distribution of beverages should, as we shall have ample opportunity to observe, have included in their decorations not alone

prophylactic pairs of eyes but also a number of other subjects which- to my mind at least-presumably had correspondingly protective functions.

Consideration of the black-figured " eyed " kylikes guides us to three

important inferences. The first, that when within the bowl of a black-

figured kylix there is some object other than a gorgoneion, there is a distinct possibility that that subject might have been given its position, as presumably would have been the case with the gorgoneion whose

customary situation it occupies, primarily with a view to prevent injurious action on the liquids to be contained within the bowl. The second, that when on a black-figured kylix the great eyes are replaced by some other subject, it may well be that to that subject, as to the eyes, pro-

phylactic virtues were attributed. Investigations along the lines of those two inferences bring us into touch with a considerable range of subjects which are recognized as having been, in other Classical contexts, looked

upon as apotropaic; with a number which, by analogous criteria, could

very well have been similarly regarded; and with a comparatively few

which, in view of my present lack of evidence either for or against the

possibility that preservative virtues were ascribed to them, I shall not discuss.

Our third inference is to the effect that where some other subject

accompanies the great eyes (or, more rarely, a gorgoneion), its addition

might well have been intended to strengthen the protective action that was presumed exercisable by the eyes or by the gorgoneion. That inference depends on the tendency, seemingly common to mankind, to accumulate apotropaic devices wheresoever it is thought that there may be evil occult influences to be guarded against. So it is that often, in



Apotropaism in Greek Vase-Paintings 159 ancient times as in modern, among savages as among the most advanced of peoples, some personal adornment-a necklace, for example-has served as support'for a number of amuletic objects, frequently diverse in kind, though by no means seldom all alike. So, too, is it that there are amulets-the Neapolitan cimatura," the Portuguese cinco seimlo,"1 the

Spanish jet compound fig-hand 13-combining in a single unit representations of a number of diverse objects which often appear separately as protections against evil eye. While it would indeed seem probable that the effects presumed to be producible through the agency of an evil eye, by envy or jealousy, by sorcery, or by the perverse attentions of malignant spirits of the dead or of other malevolent supernatural beings, were all regarded as of the same general nature and incapable of clear demarc- ation, it would also seem likely that some devices were looked upon as particularly efficacious against certain ones of those potential sources of occult evils, some against others of them. If such was in fact the case, we can perceive in it. a reason, supplementary to magnification of the protective power by mere multiplication of the number of preservative devices, for believing that the contents of a vessel such as one of our kylikes might be better guarded by several apotropaic subjects than by one alone.

There are large pairs of eyes, which we may very reasonably suppose to have had an apotropaic intention, on some of that painted pottery, formerly called " Rhodian " but now regarded rather as associable with a considerable part of Asia Minor and its vicinity, which was a precursor of the Attic black-figured wares whereon pairs of great eyes are quite common. This pottery, believed to have flourished mainly in the eighth century and the seventh, displays (as do other contemporary wares, such as the Corinthian, of Greece) very markedly effects of Oriental influences. On a pinax, found in Rhodes and now in the British Museum,14 which was made presumably about the end of the seventh century or the be- ginning of the sixth, a pair of large human eyes is depicted above the shields of a combat-scene of Trojan heroes-a subject which I have reason to think (cf. p. 162 infra) may have been looked upon as in at least some degree apotropaic-and in a field sown with small conventional designs,

11 Cf. R. T. Gunther, 'The Cimaruta', in Folk-Lore, xvi (1905). 12 Cf. W. L. Hildburgh, 'Notes on some Contemporary Portuguese Amulets', in

Folk-Lore, xix (1908), pp. 222 f. and passim. 13 Cf. id. in Man, 1942, xlii, pp. 77 ff. 14 Reg. no. 60.4-41; sometimes cited as 'A 268'. Cf. Seyffert's Dict. of Classical

Antiquities (Nettleship and Sandys's ed.), London, 1891, s.v. 'Vases', fig. 4; Guide to Dept. Greek and Roman Antiquities in British Museum, 6 ed. (1928), fig. 85.



160 Apotropaism in Greek Vase-Paintings

among them two elaborated swastikas 15 which I think were there with, not improbably, prophylactic intention.,1 The figures fighting are, furthermore, supported on a band resembling a twisted endless cord

which, too, conceivably might have been regarded as preservative because its convolutions are without definite terminations (cf. p. 176 infra)."1 Again, on an amphora likewise found in Rhodes and now in the British

Museum,18 there is on the neck-that is, in a place close to which all

liquid entering or flowing out had to pass-a large pair of eyes, and oh the

body a (now fragmentary) hare-hunt-a subject which, as we shall see,

very probably had apotropaic connotations. And a " Rhodian "

oinochoe in the Louvre Museum 19 has on its neck a large pair of eyes and

all round its body (i.e. where the liquid was retained) three bands of

animals, walking, the top one including a sphinx (cf. p. 167 infra), the

second composed of goat-like animals with very long horns, and the third

of large-horned spotted deer (cf. p. 167 infra).

Analogous bands of animals are very common on both the " Rhodian "

painted vases and those of other (e.g. Corinthian 20) contemporary Greek

manufacture. They are composed of just such creatures-pugnacious and powerful (stags, bulls, he-goats, lions) or fantastic (human-headed beasts or birds, probably largely Oriental in origin and of supernatural

import)-as we may see on the Attic wares of the second half of the

1i I recall no Classical reference to the swastika being considered preservative, though some of its appearances in ancient art do indeed suggest that Goblet d'Alviella's formulations (cf. Hastings' Encyclo. Religion and Ethics, s.v. 'Cross',

pp. 327 f.) concerning the use in general of that design applied to the Ancient Greeks as it applied to other peoples. He says that 'From the circumstances in which the gammate cross has been traced or employed, it follows that in every instance in which a symbolical meaning has been attributed to it, it is a signl of

good omen, of propitiation and benediction, an emblem of prosperity, of life, of

safety'. 16 I think that some confirmation of this view is to be found in the circumstance

that designs of this kiild, such as may be seen on many 'Rhodian' vases, are very much more commonly of the true 'swastika' type than of the reversed, 'sauvastika', type.

17 Attention may here be drawn to the dark-coloured circular spots enclosed by the twists, which, each within a ring of lighter colour, produce eye-like markings similar to those which on ancient beads, 'eye'-onyxes, and the like, have not

infrequently been thought (cf. Elworthy, op. cit., p. 136; Seligmann, op. cit., ii,

p. 159) to have served as amulets against evil eye. Eye-like markings of the same sort appear round the neck of a splendid (the 'L6vy') 'Rhodian' oinochoe (cf. G. Perrot, Hist. de l'Art dans l'Antiquit6, ix, Paris, 19I11, pl. xix; cf. also p. 167 infra) in the Louvre Museum, each enclosed in one of the interstices of a design picturing plaited (instead of twisted) ribbons or cords (compare infra); in this case a circle encloses, as the interstitial areas are not circular, the necessary light- coloured space round each dark spot.

1s Cf. Perrot; op. cit., fig. 218. 19 Ibid., fig. 212. 20 For many examples, cf. Humfry Payne's Necrocorinthia, Oxford, 1931.




sixth century and the first half of the fifth, both accompanying large pairs of eyes and on vessels whereon such eyes are not present. The introduction of such animals as subjects for the Attic vase-paintings may be presumed, therefore, to have been derived indirectly from those artistic productions of Asia and of northern Africa which had inspired the decorative motives of the " Rhodian " and the Corinthian painted pottery. That these creatures were apotropaic in intention is suggested, not alone by the apotropaic powers ascribed to them in Classical times

(cf. infra), but also by their appearance in the company of large pairs of

eyes and, even more certainly, by a zone formed of a gorgoneion between a lion and a sphinx, above two zones of animals, on a fine Early Corinth- ian alabastron, found at Vulci, now in the Pennsylvania University Museum.21

To what extent the notions-associable with " superstitious " rather than with religious beliefs-of apotropaic virtues which we shall (as I

think) find attaching to many of the animals were native to the then inhabitants of Greece, and to what extent they were introduced with the Oriental types of ornament, is now (since the principal hold of such notions is on the illiterate) difficult to determine. It would seem, how-

ever, very probable that at least some of those notions were Oriental in

origin. With regard to the large pairs of eyes on the Attic vases, although Furtwaingler says 22 that " undoubtedly " they came, by way of Ionian art, from Egypt, where representations of pairs of eyes served anciently, particularly on funeral stelae, as apotropaic symbols, I am inclined to think that their introduction may, like that of some of the apotropaic animals, perhaps be more immediately related to Phoenicia (cf. Elworthy, op. cit., p. 217). That the Etruscans, for whom it would appear that much of the black-figured Attic ware decorated with (as I suppose) apotropaic subjects was made, had an especial liking for bands of animals on their vases is indicated by certain Etruscan imitations, believed to date from about the late seventh century or the early sixth, of proto- Corinthian or Corinthian wares.

During the fifth century both apotropaic eyes and many of the terato- logical curiosities were dropped from the decoration of the Greek painted vases-the manufacture of which came in that century to be carried on mainly in Attica-presumably largely because by then the cultured

21 Cf. E. H. Dohan, Italic Tomb-Groups in the Pennsylvania University Museum, Philadelphia, 1942, pl. liii.

22 Cf. A. Furtwingler and K. Reichold, Griechische Vasenmalerei, Munich, 1904, Text, pp. 218 f. For a brief list of some apotropaic employments of eyes in Egypt, cf. Seligmann, op. cit., ii, p. 158.



162 Apotropaism in Greek Vase-Paintings Greek who could pay for such vases had in great part freed himself, both in matters intellectual and in artistic appreciation, from like remnants of a less critical past. It was, I imagine, the Greeks' predilection for

protraying the beauty of the human form, together with their admiration for physical prowess and bravery in combat, which led gradually to

preference being given, on a very considerable proportion of the painted vases, to scenes comprising figures partly or wholly human in shape rather than animals or animal-like forms, but still-if I am correct in

my assumptions-in at least some cases retaining apotropaic connotations. Although it would, indeed, appear not unlikely that, for some

time before they went out of fashion in Greece, the eyes and the obsol- escent monsters had lost for the Greeks (though perhaps not for the more

superstitious Etruscans) their apotropaic importance, retaining their

places in the decoration merely because they were traditional forms, I

think that we shall find good reason to accept the view that the course of

development of Greek vase-painting, certainly until well into the fifth

century, was directly influenced by an expectation that particular types of ornamentation and particular subjects would give occult protection to

those persons for whom the vases were made.

Apotropaic pairs of eyes may be seen quite commonly on the Attic

vases, especially on the black-figured kylikes, but occasionally on others ; often on amphorae, especially the black-figured ones; much less often, whether in black-figured or in some other technique, on a hydria, an

oinochoe, an olpe, a lekythos, a kyathos, a skyphos, or a krater. They

may be seen, too scratched on the necks of the black ware with orna-

mentation in relief, which seems to be purely Etruscan. The not-

infrequent appearances of eyes on objects (cf. n. 2 supra) depicted in the

vase-paintings, or in the wings of representations of certain Etruscan

divinities, lie beyond the scope of our present inquiry. There have been

repeated suggestions 22a that, as the pairs of eyes on the Greek vases are

occasionally accompanied by one or more other features of a face, they there represent, even when alone, vestiges of a gorgon's visage.23 I think

it much more probable, however, that their essential purpose was, as

was that of many other sorts of representations of eyes in antiquity, as

22a E.g. that of G. Dennis, in Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria, 3 ed., London, 1883, i,.p. 471, that 'these eyes may be those of Gorgons, for they are evidently intended to represent a face, the other features even being sometimes introduced'.

23 Compare Jane Harrison's remark (Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, 2 ed., Cambridge, 19o8, p. 196) that 'it is clear that the Gorgon was regarded as a sort of incarnate Evil Eye. The monster was tricked out with cruel tusks and snakes,

but it slew by the eye, it fascinated'.




symbols of the apotropaic eye, and that their occurrence in pairs was due either to a desire for symmetry or to a view that things which normally grew in pairs would be the more potent in pairs.

The great eyes on the Attic vases have in some, although comparatively very few, cases been turned into figures of human-headed avian monsters. Thus, on one of the British Museum's black-figured amphorae 24 there are two scenes in each of which the principal participants are two huge (as compared with the others) bird-bodied human-headed

creatures, one woman-faced the other bearded, each in the shape of a great eye to which have been added a head and legs.25 Again, a hydria, also in the British Museum,26 has on one side two huge eyes transformed into woman-headed avian monsters confronted, and on the shoulder a

corresponding, but unsophisticated, pair of eyes with a figure of Dionysos between them. It would seem very probable that the giving, as on these two vases, to the great eyes the forms of monsters morphologically related to sirens was not prompted by mere freakish fancy-even though allow- ance be made for the element of playful humour so clearly evident in many of the vase-paintings 27-but was inspired by a hope that the apotropaic potency of the eyes would thereby be enhanced. The resemblance of those embellished eyes to sirens-bird-like creatures more or less woman-like in their upper parts, which in Classical antiquity seem to have been regarded as apotropaic (cf. p. 174 infra)--presumably was assumed to intensify their apotropaic efficacy.

Through the garnishing of the eyes a further principle-one whereon depended many apotropaic devices of the Classical peoples-was enlisted. A closely similar application of that principle appears in certain representations of the phallus, an object which the very folk with whom we are here concerned looked upon as a powerful protection against evil

24 Cf. Cat. Greek and Etruscan Vases in the British Museum: II (The Black- figured Ware), by H. B. Walters, London, 1893, no. B215 (previously no. 509). Reproduced in Corpus Vasorum A ntiquorum (hereinafter abbreviated to C VA), Great Britain fascicule 5, Group III H.e., pl. 52.

25 Outline drawing of one pair of these creatures given by Dennis, op. cit., i, p. 467, with long note on p. 469; drawing reproduced by Elworthy, op. cit., fig. 25. Large half-tone reproduction of one of the female monsters given by G. Weicker, in Roscher's Lexikon der griechischen und r6mischen Mythologie, s. v.'Seirenen', fig. 21.

26 No. B 342 (previously no. 448); reproduced in CVA, G.B. fasc. 8, Group III H.e, pl. 94, I.

21 As, perhaps, in the fantastic utilization of a great pair of eyes on an olpe, in the University of California's collection (cf. CVA, U.S.A. fasc. 5, pl. xxv, I), painted with Dionysos accompanied by four silens, of whom two bear wine-skins shaped each as an eye. It should be observed, however, that here the Dionysiac subject, as well as the eyes, had apotropaic connotations; cf: p. 166 infra.




eye and its analogues, as winged and sometimes with legs in addition.28

It is expressed by Plutarch (Symposiaca, v. 7, 3) where he tells us that a

thing extraordinary (or marvellous) in appearance is defensive against sorcery and fascination,29 in that it may draw the attention of a con- ditional evil-worker upon itself in preference to his or her potential victim ; a remark seemingly corroborated by the strange or absurd (or even

laughable) figures to be seen engraved on many ancient gems or otherwise portrayed.30

So frequently, on the painted vases, is a gorgoneion associated in one

way or another with a pair of great eyes that a word on the matter seems

in order. Of the British Museum's thirteen black-figured " eyed "

kylikes reproduced in the Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum,31 six 32 have

within their bowls a design consisting, or mainly constituted, of a gor-

goneion, while analogously considerable proportions of such kylikes in

other collections similarly display a gorgoneion as central ornament.

Again, a kylix in the Fitzwilliam Museum 33 has a gorgoneion as pupil in

each of the four great eyes on the exterior, and a gorgoneion at the centre

of the interior. And at Munich is an " eyed " kylix 34 having a gorgoneion between the eyes of one of its two pairs, and a gorgoneion within its bowl.

Such frequent companionship seems to me to corroborate the opinion,

expressed above (pp. 162-3), that the pairs of eyes were not mere vestiges of a gorgon's face, since there would seem to have been but little purpose in displaying on a vase a fragmentary version of a design already there

in unabridged form. On the other hand, it is conceivable that there was 28 For a list of references to fantastic phalli of such kinds as amulets, see P.

Wolters, 'Ein Apotropaion aus Baden im Aargau', in Bonner Jahrbuch, I18 (1909),

pp. 266 f., n. 3. 29 In pictured representations of the baking of pottery there often appears on

the kiln a mask or other curious device, intended to keep the contents from being spoiled through envy or an evil eye; cf. Cat. Greek Etruscan and Roman Vases in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, 1893, p. 40. For a similar practice in bronze-

founding, cf. Pollux, Onomastikon, vii, io8. C.f, also, Phrynicus (I. Bekker, Anecdota graeca, Berlin, 1814, p. 30, 5).

30 Cf. Elworthy, op. cit., pp. 143 ff.; A. J. B. Wace, 'Grotesques and the Evil

Eye', in Annual of the British School at Athens, x (1903-4); P. Perdrizet, 'L'Hip- palektryon', in Revue des Itudes anciennes, vi (1904), p. 19; Jahn, op. cit.; Seligmann, op. cit.; etc.

31 G. B. fasc. 2, Group III H.e. 32 Cf. pl. 19, I (cf. Walters, op. cit., no. B 434), 2; pl. 20, I (B 428), 2 (B 427);

pl. 22, I (B 433), 6 (B 431).

33 C VA, G.B. fasc. 6, Group III H, pls. xviii, 2, xx, 4. 34 Cf. G. Micali, Monumenti inediti, Florence, 1844, pl. xliii, 5. The gorgoneion

accompanying the eyes has the usual protruding tongue and horrible teeth, but is bearded and wears a crown of ivy or of vine leaves, thus reminding us of the Bacchic heads sometimes to be seen between eyes on the vases (e.g., on a kylix illustrated ibid., fig. 4).



Apotropaismn in Greek Vase-Paintings 165

indeed some such mental association between the gorgoneion and the

great eyes as is implied in Jane Harrison's remark (cf. n. 23 supra) that " the Gorgon was regarded as a sort of incarnate Evil Eye... it slew by the eye, it fascinated ", even though we need, I think, hardly doubt that the gorgoneion in reality was merely a local expression of an instinc- tive feeling that an enemy may be frightened away by a display of a terrifying face. The use of hideous representations of faces, as preservative against occult evils, has been world-wide and is of immemorial antiquity, wherefore it would seem more reasonable to presume that it was an exaggeration of the notion that a person could be " petrified " by fear, than that Medusa or any of her gorgon breed could slay by the eye, that gave rise to the stories of beholders turned to stone. It should be observed, however, that we really need not look to any occult reason for the frequency with which a gorgoneion within the bowl of a kylix is accompanied by pairs, or a pair of great eyes on the exterior, since in form each of those apotropaic devices is in such cases eminently suitable for the area it occupies.

I have mentioned above the frequent presence, on " Rhodian " and on some of the other Greek pottery which immediately preceded the Attic, of bands of creatures-pugnacious and powerful, or fantastic- whose functions were apotropaic as well as ornamental. On the Attic vases the same creatures again appear, though in other decorative combinations, in situations which indicate, with a considerable degree of certainty, that on those vases also their purposes were in large part apotropaic in intention. They appear singly, for example, within the bowl of a kylix, in the stead of the gorgoneion we so often find there; or between the two eyes of a pair on an " eyed " vase, just as if they were intended to supplement those eyes in their apotropaic function; or in the place of each of the eyes of a pair. For most of them there is, in addition, corroborative evidence quite apart from the testimony of the vases-such evidence as may be derivable from Classical monuments or gems or other material objects, from literary records, or from tradition.

Of the material evidence, some of the most striking-even though it be Roman and some centuries later than the vases-comes from a series of curious representations 35--on discs of precious metal, on gems, on

35 A detailed list of thirteen of these is given by Seligmann, op. cit., ii, pp. 151-3, and sketches of eight of them in figs. 117-24; some Byzantine analogues are referred to ibid., p. 154. Cf., further, P. Biefikowski, 'Malocchio', in Eranos Vindobonensis (Vienna Eranos), Vienna, 1893, p. 288. Elworthy, op. cit., pp. 129-33, describes and discusses six of the examples cited, with line-drawings in figs. 14-9.



I66 Apotropaism in Greek Vase-Paintings

larger stone reliefs, in mosaic-of an eye (symbolizing the eye of a person inherently a " fascinator ", or of an envious or jealous person, or of a witch or the like) surrounded and held powerless by a number of things regarded, for one reason or another, as protective against evil eye and

analogous occult influences. Those things are in large part animals endowed by nature with exceptional strength, belligerency, or dangerous weapons, but they include also the phallus as emblematic of virility, and

symbols of the destructive lightning.. The representations provide us, I

think, with reasonably sound evidence that the particular animals which in them are shown in attitudes clearly inimical were, in Classical antiquity and in at least certain connotations, looked upon as apotropaic with reference to evil eye and its analogues.

The strength and ferocity of the great felines-lions, tigers, and panthers-which have brought about, from remote antiquity and among many different peoples, the use for protective purposes of parts of their bodies (e.g. claws, teeth, pieces of hide) or of representations of the

beasts themselves, are quite sufficient to account for the very frequent

presence of those animals in the zones of animals on the pre-Attic Greek

vases, as well as for their appearance on the Attic ones of the sixth and

fifth centuries. That they may indeed have been depicted on those vases

for apotropaic purposes finds corroboration in their inclusion among the

creatures threatening the eye on the amuletic objects to which I have

just referred. On the Attic vases representations of the panther may

perhaps in some cases have been inspired by its association with Dionysus,

for, as we shall see (cf. p. 163 infra), there is some reason to think that

apotropaic virtues were attributed to Dionysiac subjects. It is conceiv-

able, further, that the panther-like beast depicted on the vases may have

been confused with the animal concerning whose skin Pliny says 36

" pantheris in candido breves macularum oculi " and that, according to

some people, it " has, on the shoulder, a spot which bears the form of the

moon ; and that, like it, it regularly increases to full, and then diminishes

to a crescent ",37 and that because of those markings some degree of

apotropaic virtue may have been credited to the panther.

Stags, with great antlers, appear in the zones of animals round the

bodies of pre-Attic vases. Two such, already mentioned above, in the

Musee du Louvre, may serve as examples. One is the " Rhodian "

36 N.H., viii, 23. The animal to which he refers may perhaps have been the

leopard, and not the rdvOrlqp of the Greeks (cf. Bohn's ed., London, I857, ii, p. 272, n. I7).

3 Bohn's ed., ii, p. 274.



Apotropaism in Greek Vase-Paintings 167 oinochoe (cf. p. 16o supra) with a large pair of eyes on its neck and a body- zone composed of large-antlered spotted deer. The other is the magnificent " L6vy " " Rhodian " oinochoe (cf. n. 17 supra), which has round its body six zones composed of animals, the first of the zones including fanciful creatures; the second, fourth, and sixth composed of tall-horned goats; and the third and fifth composed of large-antlered stags. And stags appear in similar company on early Corinthian wares: e.g. with a goat and a human-headed bird, on a vase of about the middle of the seventh century B.C. (cf. Payne, op. cit., pl. Io, 5). It is in a presumably corresponding (that is, apotropaic) capacity that a stag appears on at least some of the black-figured Attic vases; for example, on a kylix (B 382) in the British Museum. Within the bowl-that is, in the place so commonly occupied by a gorgoneion-there is a stag; and on one side of the exterior a symposium, and on the other side six hoplites fighting in pairs, with devices respectively of the head of a lion, that of a ram, and that of a satyr, on the three shields whose outer surfaces are visible.38 The inference that in such cases the images of stags were looked upon as apotropaic is supported by testimony from sources other than the vases. Thus, the stag is depicted among the inimical creatures in two representations (one on a gem, the other in a mosaic) of an eye surrounded by foes,39 and as the leading animal on one of the faces of the well-known magical nail formerly in the Collegio Romano and now in the Museo delle Terme (inv. no. 65030) ;40 and pieces of the horns of stags, like pieces of the horns of certain other animals, were used in antiquity as amulets 4a presumably, if we may use as criterion their very frequent employment today, among peoples inheriting Ancient Roman traditions, against evil eye and the like. Perhaps, too (though here, due to the beauty of the prototype, we may be on somewhat questionable ground), jewellery embodying the shape of a stag's head had an apotropaic basis.

It would seem possible, however, that a notion quite other than one related to its notable physical powers could sometimes have served as basis for an apotropaic use of an image of a stag. The animal seems in ancient Italy to have been associated with feelings akin to jealousy, for Pliny tells us (N.H., viii, 50) " Cervis quoque est suo malignitas, quam-

38 Cf. C VA, G.B. fasc. 2, Group III H.e, pl. 9, I.

39 Cf. Seligmann, op. cit., ii, figs. 122, 124, and pp. 152 f. 40 Cf. Jahn, op. cit., pl. iii, 9, and p. Iog; Elworthy, op. cit., fig. 159; Seligmann,

op. cit., i, fig. 24 and ii, pp. 13 f.; G. Bellucci, I chiodi nell'Etnografia antica e contemporanea, Perugia, 1919, fig. 46 and p. 178.

41 Cf. J. (usually G.) Bellucci, Paralleles ethnographiques--Amulettes: Libye actuelle-Italie ancienne, Perugia, 1915, PP. 32 f.



168 Apotropaism in Greek Vase-Paintings quam placidissimo animalium ", and, of the horns they shed annually, "... et hi bono suo invidentes ", and it could, therefore, have been

thought to preserve, by a sort of homoeopathic action such as was involved in other prophylactic matters, from the effects of evil-working jealousy or envy. Perhaps it was because of some notion of the stag as a

symbol of envy that there are on vases pictures of a deer attacked by great felines, as, for example, on the exterior of a black-figured " eyed "

kylix at Florence.42 It is conceivable, furthermore, that apotropaism could have discerned in the dappling of the hide of a deer-the full-grown of some species, the fawn of others-either because of the indeterminability of the spots or because the spots were thought to bear some resemblance to eyes; cf., for example, the Louvre's " Rhodian " oinochoe referred to above (p. 16o), and the British Museum's kylix (B 423) having within it a deer whose hide is covered with small circles-43

Goats seem to be comparatively rarely pictured on the black-figured Attic vases, although on other Greek wares not much earlier in date they

appear quite commonly, in some cases very prominently-as on the Louvre's two " Rhodian " ewers cited (p. 167) above, whose decoration includes zones composed of goats furnished with exaggeratedly tall,

slender, sharp-pointed horns-in others (as on Corinthian vases illus-

trated by Payne, op. cit., pls. Io, 5, and II, I) less prominently. The ram, too, makes an appearance on vases in situations suggesting

strongly that it obtained them because of the apotropaic character

ascribed to it. Thus, for example, there is a fine ram pictured within the

bowl of a black-figured kylix (B 435), in the British Museum, com-

panioned by two pairs of great eyes, with Dionysaic subjects between

them, on the exterior.44 In that particular case it may be that the ram

was looked upon as a peculiarly suitable associate for the Dionysiac

subjects accompanying the great eyes, since Jupiter, father of Dionysus, was fabled to have appeared to him in the shape of a ram. And on the

British Museum's kylix (B 382) having a stag within it (cf. p. 167 supra), one of the combatants has a ram's head as device on his shield. It is

not surprising that powers of preservation, from occult evil influences, should in antiquity have been credited to the ram, and especially to its head,45 for it is a vigorous, virile, pugnacious animal, heavily horned.

42 Cf. J. C. Hoppin, Handbook of Greek Black-figured Vases, Paris, 1924, pp. 198 f.

43 Cf. C VA, G.B. fasc. 2, Group III H.e, pl. 11, 3. 44 Cf. C VA, G.B. fasc. 2, Group III H.e, pl. 22, 3. 4. Cf. Seligmann, op. cit., ii, pp. 312, 113, 136. Cf. also, n. 5 supra.




To me it seems somewhat strange that I have met with no example of a

black-figured kylix having within it an image of a wild-boar, a beast so

fitted, because of its exceptional strength and ferocity, to inspire terror that

representations of it, or parts (especially the deadly tusks) of its body, have been widely utilized as preservative against evils of occult origins. I find it the more strange inasmuch as it appears among the animals

composing the bands, which I take to have been of apotropaic import, on Greek immediate precursors of the black-figured Attic wares, as well as otherwise on such wares, e.g. on the neck of an Early Corinthian vase which has animal-zones round its body.46 Thus, there are, in the British

Museum, an oinochoe (no. 60.IO-24.14) of the so-called " Rhodian "

ware, ornamented with two zones of animals including among them a boar with a sort of distorted swastika-like marking on his side,47 and a

plate (no. 60.4-4-3), of the same ware, displaying a magnificent boar. In

Italy and in Greece boars' tusks were, in Classical times as they are still

today, worn as protections against evil eye;48 and in modern Italy small

figures of boars are (or at least until recently were) worn as amulets.49 To the war-elephant, with long sharp-pointed tusks and bearing a

tower containing armed men, followed by a young one in whose trunk its tail is held, to be seen on an Etruscan plate in the Villa Giulia,50 it

may well be that apotropaic virtues were ascribed. The elephant is a

mighty beast, and one to which powers against occult evils are ascribed

by the peoples of the lands where either it is native or parts of it are

easily obtainable ;51 it is among the inimical creatures on some of the Roman amulets depicting a threatened eye 52 (cf. p. 166 supra) ; at the

time-presumably about the first quarter of the third century B.c.-the plate was painted the elephant was still sufficiently strange to attract immediate attention and so to serve as a protection from evil eye and the

46 Cf. Payne, op. cit., pl. 23, 5; cf., also, the slightly earlier vase reproduced ibid., pl. io, 6.

47 Cf. Guide to Dept. Gr. and Rom. Ant., 1928, fig. 84. Concerning the swastika, cf. n. 15 supra.

48 For much on the using of boars' tusks as amulets, cf. W. Ridgeway, 'The Origin of the Turkish Crescent', in Journ. Royal Anthropological Institute, xxxviii (N.S. xi) (1908).

49 Cf. Elworthy, op. cit., p. 333. I do not recall any Classical references to such practices as we may see in being in Morocco and in Persia, where the presence of the living animal in a stable is considered to be of value in preserving the horses there from harm through evil eye (cf. Westermarck, op. cit., ii, p. 314).

50 Cf. C VA, Italy fasc. iii, Group IV Bq, pls. 3, 5. 51 Cf. Journ. R. Anthrop. Inst., xxxviii (N.S. xi), p. 197 (Ceylon); ibid., xxxix

(N.S. xii), pp. 392 f. (Himalayas), and 398 f. (Burma); etc. 52 Cf. Seligmann, op. cit., figs. 118, Ii9.

L



170 Apotropaism in Greek Vase-Paintings like (cf. p. 166 supra) ; and in the present representation the preparation of the beast for battle sets it in the same category with the armed warriors to whom, as being presumably apotropaic, I shall refer. Nevertheless, because of the tender baby (though its presence may conceivably have been intended to accentuate the strength and power of its enormous

companion), I hesitate to do more than suggest the possibility that the

representation had apotropaic significance in addition to the decorative function it discharges so delightfully.

A number of birds-among them notably cocks, swans, and partridges -appear in the Greek vase-paintings in what I presume to be apotropaic capacities. Of these the most familiar to us as preservative in aspect is the cock, whose greeting to the dawn signals the uncanny creatures who do evil in darkness to depart, and causes witches to lose their. power to do harm. There were Greek amulets in the shape of a cock's head ; and, as Perdrizet has, in recalling 53 sundry associations of the cock with

apotropaism, pointed out, the Greek terms dMXorwv

and aAeXrpvwdv are

equivalent to " celui qui 6carte le mal ", while Pliny refers (N.H., xxxvii,

54) to the " alectoria " as a stone which was thought to have made Milo

of Crotona invincible in his athletic contests. Pliny tells us elsewhere

(N.H., x, 24) that the cock inspires terror even in the lion,54 most courage- ous of beasts; that in certain parts of Greece cocks were " reared for

nothing but warfare and perpetual combats "; and-though possibly the allusion is too oblique for us to regard it as in any way associable with

the fowl's apotropaic virtues-that through the omens derivable from

them cocks " hold supreme rule over those who are themselves the rulers

of the earth ". Furthermore, the cock appears among the inimical

creatures grouped about an eye 55 in some of the symbolizations of an

evil eye held powerless by threatening things; and an image of a cock, in the round, surmounts so many Etruscan funerary vases that, as

Dennis remarks (op. cit., ii, p. 78), they " must have had a sepulchral reference ".

Swans appear so frequently on Greek vases in situations suggesting that their mission there was apotropaic that I think we can hardly doubt

that what they suggest was so in reality. We meet them among the

creatures whereof were composed the zones round vases of the Greek

wares which were the immediate forerunners of the black-figured Attic

ware; and on a plate, painted in the so-called " Rhodian " style, in the

53 'L'Hippalektryon', pp. 12-16.

64 Cf., also, viii, 19.

55 Cf. Seligmann, op. cit., figs. 117, 125, with text in ii, pp. 151, 153.



Apotropaism in Greek Vase-Paintings I 71 British Museum 56 we may see a swan held in each hand of a gorgon (cf. infra). A swan is the sole occupant-in the situation very commonly utilized for a gorgoneion-of the bowl in the case of a number of black-

figured kylikes; e.g. one in the British Museum whose exterior displays a swan between two lions and a lion between two swans ;57 and another

(B 383) in the same museum, whose exterior bears some strange monsters

(" gryphons ") with a pattern formed of lotus and palmette between them.58 Again, on a black-figured kylix in Prof. D. M. Robinson's

collection, in Baltimore, a hippalektryon (a creature which, as we shall

see, apparently was regarded as apotropaic) within the bowl was com- panioned, on the exterior, by a siren (which, also, seems to have been looked upon as apotropaic) between two swans and a swan between two sirens 59--the pair of swans on one side and the pair of sirens on the other

taking places corresponding to those commonly occupied by a pair of

great eyes on other black-figured kylikes. In the Berlin Antiquarium there is a very similar vase, by the same painter, which likewise has a

hippalektryon within it and on one side of its exterior a swan between two sirens, but with a deer between two panthers replacing the siren between two swans.W6 An inference that the swans on the vases were accounted as apotropaic is supported by the inclusion of a swan among the creatures on three or four of Seligmann's thirteen examples (cf. n. 35 supra) of a threatened eye ;61 and, further, by the depicting on some tombs of a gorgoneion with two swans (as on other tombs there are two cranes similarly placed) beside it with a view to supplementing its apotropaic power.62

That representations of partridges were deemed to possess apotropaic virtues is convincingly suggested by the ornamentation of certain vases. Notable in this respect is a black-figured amphora in the Fitzwilliam Museum having round its-neck a horizontal band displaying partridges walking; a band immediately below this showing two combat-scenes which may well have had apotropaic significance, on one side a combat

86 Cf. Guide cit., p. 167. 57 Cf. C VA, G.B. fasc. 2, Group III H.e, pl. 7, I. 58 Ibid., pl. Io, I.

50 Cf. CVA, U.S.A. fasc. 4, pl. xxi, 2; Hoppin, op. cit., pp. 41o f. 6o Cf. Hoppin, op. cit., pp. 412 f. 61 Cf. Seligmann, op. cit., figs. 117, (?) 18, IIg, and no. ii of his list; or Elworthy,

op. cit., figs. 14, 15 (in this a swan is drawn distinctly), 16; or Jahn, op. cit., pl. iii. Jahn suggests (p. 98) that perhaps the swan in such cases is 'a symbol of the Spring ... and otherwise of good omen', but I am inclined to think that it appears in them more probably because of its aggressive and combative nature.

62 Cf. A. Michaelis, in Archdiologische Zeitung, no. 207 (March, I866), col. 144.



172 Apotropaism in Greek Vase-Paintings of Lapiths and Centaurs with two partridges on the ground, and on the other warriors with a fallen Giant; and then a band composed only of

partridges walking.63 And on a black-figured kyathos, in the collection of the University of California, ornamented with a pair of large eyes having between them a youth on horseback, there is a partridge on either side of the handle.64 We need but recall Pliny's account (N.H., x, 51) of the pugnacity of the partridge, and of its use of thorns (which in Etruria were employed as protections against occult evil influences 65) to

fortify its nest, to perceive reasons why an image of it could well have been regarded as apotropaic.

Of the owl I shall speak below, in another connexion.

Turning now to the creatures of Greek or of Etruscan fancy which are

depicted on the vases and to whose portrayals it would seem that

apotropaic qualifications could have been, in greater or less degree, attributed, we find among them both semi-human birds and mammals, and strange combinations of parts taken from two or more different

animals. Of such creatures, one of the most frequently shown has a

bird's body and a human head. To it we may conveniently apply (as I

have already applied above) the general term " siren ", even though in

most cases we cannot be at all certain that it should be so specifically

characterized, because on a number of Greek vases Homer's Sirens are

represented as woman-headed birds.66

Although under the influence of Egypt the human soul was in Greece

symbolized in the form of a human-headed bird-and in later develop- ments as a creature whose lower parts were avian and upper human-

there is, so far as I know, nothing to indicate to us that the human-headed

birds on the Greek vases were regarded as in any respect particularly associable with the souls of the dead. And, curiously, although images of sirens (including those whose anthropoid characteristics are more

marked than their avian), graphic or sculptural, were fairly common in

63 Cf. C VA, G.B. fasc, 6, Groups IV B and III H, pl. ix, I. 64 Cf. C VA, U.S.A. fasc. 5, pl. xvii, 3. 65 Cf. n. 173 infra. 66 A notable example is a hydria, Attic-Corinthian in style, in the Mus6e du

Louvre, which shows two woman-headed birds, one of them accompanied by the

inscription, 'EIPEN EIMI, 'I am the Siren'; cf. Daremberg and Saglio, Dictionnaire, s.v. 'Sirines', p. 1353 and fig. 6468. The mermaid-like creatures which to us, as to other peoples of modern Europe, are known as 'sirens' would seem to have been known to the Classical peoples only under other names. I am preparing a paper dealing with the uses as amulets of images of sirens, in which I hope to present, in greater detail than here expedient, evidence relating to Classical notions of the

apotropaic virtues of such images.



Apotropaism in Greek Vase-Paintings 173 Classical antiquity, I am unable to recall any contemporary literary reference to the effect that apotropaic properties were ascribed to them. On the other hand, certain modern scholars have spoken-and I think

justifiably-of at least some of those images as presumably regarded as

preservative in nature.67 They cite as evidence particularly the sepulchral figures of part-avian women-Michel, for example, saying (loc. cit.) that such figures " constituent pour la tombe une protection contre les

entreprises des mauvais esprits, un puissant d-aorpo7ratov, comme les tetes de Gorgone ... "-and the sirens, alternating with ithiphallic (and presumably apotropaic) satyrs in a circle round a gorgoneion, on the famous bronze lamp at Cortona.68 It has also been suggested that scenes of the ordeal of Ulysses, in which Homer's Sirens are essential elements, may possibly have been inferred to be apotropaic ;69 but if that was indeed the case it was, I am inclined to think, rather because they represented a successful defense against an attack by evil creatures possessed of magical powers than because images of sirens appeared in such scenes.

It is from the vases themselves, however, that we get what I take to be perhaps the clearest evidence that images of human-headed birds were- whatever they symbolized-looked upon as apotropaic. Such images are conspicuous, replacing or intermingled with images of other creatures, most (if not indeed all) of which are shown by other evidence to have been regarded as apotropaic, painted on the Corinthian 70 and other wares precursory of the Attic black-figured ;71 and on the latter they ,occur significantly in the interior of the bowl (i.e. just where we may so often find a gorgoneion) of a considerable number of kylikes, some of them with two pairs of great eyes outside (e.g. one in the British Museum showing the creature flying,72 and another (inv. no. 761) in the Villa Giulia 73) and others without the great eyes (e.g. one in the Cabinet des M6dailles of the Paris Bibliotheque NationAle, whose siren is walking;74

67 Cf. Stephani, in Compte-rendu .. . pour l'annee 1866, pp. 65 f., 59; Michel, in Daremberg and Saglio, loc. cit., p. 1355; G. Weicker, Der Seelenvogel in der alten Litteratur und Kunst, Leipzig, 1902, p. 101 (I am not quite clear as to whether Weicker means that these particular sirens are to be considered to be apotropaic inherently or because of a certain gesture; cf. ibid., pp. 122, 185 n.).

68s Cf. A Neppi Modona, Cortona etrusca e romana, Florence, 1925, chap. 8, 'I1 lampadario bronzeo', pp. 128-37, with two views in half-tone; G. Micali, op. cit., pls. ix, x; etc.

69 Cf. Jane E. Harrison, Myths of the Odyssey, London, 1882, p. 170, n. I. 70 Cf. Payne, op. cit., pls. 10, 5; 21, 2; 23, I; 29, 3, 4, 6; 33, 1, 4, 11; 36, 6, 13. 71 Cf. Cf. Stephani, Compte-rendu ... 1866, p. 34. 72 C VA, G.B. fasc. 2, Group III H.e, pl. 22, 4. 73 C VA, Italy fasc. iii, Group III H.e, pls. 46, 45. 74.C VA, France fasc. io, Group III H.e, pl. 57-




another, also with the siren walking, in the Munich Antiquarium ;75 and a third, with the siren standing, at Copenhagen).76 We have already had occasion to observe them, on black-figured kylikes, associated (cf. p. 171 supra) with the hippalektryon and with the swan-both of them creatures whose images appear to have been regarded as apotropaic-or (cf. p. 167 supra) as fantastic metamorphoses of great eyes. They are to be

seen, too, on many other vases, though in situations which perhaps are not quite so eloquent as those I have cited-e.g. on an amphora at

Munich, which has four sirens in line in a frieze round its body," and on a hydria ornamented with two sirens confronted.78

And so closely allied, in nature, to the sirens were two other kinds of

supernatural creatures, the harpies and the gorgons, of Greek and Etruscan fancy, that it is in many cases difficult, in the absence of an allusive inscription, to decide with assurance which of the three the

artist intended to represent.79 Harpy and siren alike had shapes part

bird, part human; harpy and siren alike seem, in at least some circum-

stances, to have been accepted as forms of the souls of the dead ; and in

literature, as in art, confusion occasionally occurred in the attributions

to sirens of traits more proper to harpies. And that, as Jane Harrison

has remarked,s0 " Harpy and Gorgon are not clearly distinguished is

evident from .. . the vase-paintingsl ... in which the Gorgon sisters of

Medusa are inscribed in the dual, 'Harpies' ('ApErrvia). Broadly

speaking the Gorgon is marked off from the Harpy by the mask-face ".

Sometimes, indeed, we may see in a vase-painting a winged creature

with a gorgon-face, a creature which has been presumed to represent the

winged soul in a gorgon-like shape.82 Correspondingly, the winged women portrayed on vases may, I imagine, in many instances have been

regarded (as doubtless almost invariably they were when their faces were

gorgon-like) in at least particular circumstances as apotropaic. There is, for example, in the British Museum a black-figured kylix (B 431), ob-

viously-since it has within it a gorgoneion and two pairs of great eyes outside-meant to be strongly apotropaic, which has a youth between

the eyes of one pair and between the eyes of the other pair a winged

75 Cf. Hoppin, op. cit., p. 390. 76 Ibid., pp. 380 f. 77 Cf. Micali, op. cit., pl. xliii. 78 Ibid., pl. xli.

79 Cf. V. Berard, in Daremberg and Saglio's Dict., s.v. 'Harpyia', p. 14. so Prolegomena, p. 225. 71 Ibid., p. 176 with fig. 18. 82 Cf. Weicker, Seelenvogel, p. 128, and 'Seirenen', col. 627.



Apotropaism in Greek Vase-Paintings 175 woman tentatively identified as Iris,83 a divinity to whose likeness

apotropaic powers might well have been ascribed by reason of her associations with death, both through her cutting of the tenuous thread of life in the dying and through her conducting of the defunct to their places in the afterworld. And within the bowl of another of the British Museum's

black-figured kylikes (B 425) there is a winged female figure, presumed to represent Nike, running, while on the exterior there are divinities and

winged horses 84 (cf. p. 178 infra). The hippalektryon, a fantastic monster made up of the front part of a

cock and the rear part of a horse,85 appears on a goodly number of black-

figured Attic vases. Lechat, who in his article " Hippalectryon ", in

Daremberg and Saglio's Dictionnaire, gives much concerning the creature, there states that in Greek art it had only an ephemeral vogue, that it did not enter Greek legend and the like, and that in his opinion it was no more than a creation of fancy-he does not refer to the possibility that

any apotropaic significance attached to it. But Perdrizet, who in his learned paper, " L'Hippalektryon " (cf. n. 30 supra), written some years later, expresses disagreement with several of Lechat's pronouncements, takes the view-with which my own, independently arrived at, harmon- izes completely-that it was as an drrorpod'atov that the hippalektryon appeared on the Attic vases. He points out that its strange shape quali- fies it as one of those objects which the Classical peoples considered

preservative against evil eye, envy, jealousy, and the like, because of the

probability that they would attract the first glance of a potentially evil-

working eye and would draw the attention of the eye's owner harmlessly upon themselves; he suggests that the presumably apotropaic applica- tions of the hippalektryon were due largely to beliefs in the cock as itself

apotropaic (a conclusion to which I had come before seeing his paper) ; and he cites (pp. I I f.) as corroborative testimony the very frequent associations, on the Attic vases, of a hippalektryon with such unques- tioned apotropaic subjects as the gorgoneion and the pairs of great eyes.

We have already touched, in passing (cf. p. 171 supra), upon two

kylikes, one in the Robinson collection, the other at Berlin, which have within their bowls respectively a hippalektryon-in each case ridden by a

youth. A kylix (B 433) in the British Museum has within it a gorgoneion, and on either side of its exterior a pair of large eyes with between them

83 Cf. C VA, G.B. fasc. 2, Group III H.e, pl. 22, 6. 8 C VA, G.B. fasc. 2, Group III H.e, pl. 13, I. 85 Another monster, much less common in Greek art, was composed of a horse's

fore-part and the hinder part of a cock.



176 Apotropaism in Greek Vase-Paintings a hippalektryon ridden by a bearded man.86 And in the Compiegne Museum is a black-figured kyathos whose decoration consists of a pair of

great eyes having on each side of it a hippalektryon ridden by a man.87

We may reasonably suppose that apotropaic powers were accredited to the Chimaera, monster compound of savage beasts, and a belcher forth of flames, on- the one hand because of its reputed fierceness-cf., for

example, the magnificent Etruscan bronze at Florence-and on the other because of its very extraordinary appearance. And I think we may well believe that it was largely due to the presumption of its possession of those powers that it was depicted on vessels of earthenware, e.g. on a " Rhodian " plate in the Louvre Museum, where it stands on a sort of twisted endless cord (like the one on the British Museum's pinax cited on

p. 16o supra), below which is a large dolphin;88 and on the British Museum's black-figured kylix (B 417), with only palmettes and a signature on its exterior.89

The image of a sphinx-a creature part lioness, part woman, very often

represented as winged, of the family of the complex monster, cruel and

ferocious, of myth, which presumably it symbolizes-doubtless was

assumed to terrify malevolent entities on evil bent. Sphinxes appear, elsewhere than on the vases, in situations which suggest strongly that

they may there have had an apotropaic function." They appear fre-

quently on such pre-Attic wares as the Corinthian,91 while on Attic vases

they are still quite common. One often occupies the centre of a black-

figured kylix (e.g. one in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, another at

Naples, and a third at Cambridge 92); they appear on the exterior of a

kylix at Civitavecchia ;93 as a pair confronted, with an armed youth

advancing behind each of them, on an amphora (B 297) in the British

Museum;"94 and on a kyathos, associated with a pair of great eyes having Herakles and the Cretan Bull between them, at Cambridge.95

Perhaps regarded as apotropaic for some reason which at present I am

86 C VA, G.B. fasc. 2, Group III H.e, pl. 22, I. 87 C VA, France fasc. 3, Group III H.e, pl. 7, 6 and 7, pl. 9, I. ?' Cf. Perrot, op. cit., fig. 213-

"9 Cf. Hoppin, op. cit., pp. 86 f.; C VA, G.B. fasc. 2, Group III H.e, ii, i. 90 Cf. Stephani, Compte-rendu... 1864, pp. 132, 143. 91 Cf. Payne, op. cit., pls. 10, 2; 11, I; 21, 7; 33, I; etc. 92 Cf. Hoppin, op. cit., pp. 416 f.; ibid., p. 394; id. p. 376 or CVA, G.B. fasc. 6,

Group III H, pl. xx, 4. 93 Cf. Hoppin, op. cit., p. 380.

9 Ibid., p. 204; C VA, G.B. fasc. 5, Group III H.e, pls. 72, 73. 95 CVA, G.B. fasc. 6, Group III H, pl. xxi, 2.



Apotropaism in Greek Vase-Paintings 177 unable to particularize, but though less fantastic than the Chimaera or than its own cousin (once removed) the hippalektryon, yet still perhaps sufficiently monstrous to draw an evil-worker's first glance upon it, was the hippocampos, a creature part equine, part piscine, shining silver effigies of which (but winged) until quite lately were in current use at Naples, under the name of " cavalli marini ", as preservative against jettatura.96 Consequently, where we find-as, for example, on one of the British Museum's black-figured kylikes (B 428),97 which has on either side a large hippocampos ridden by a bearded man flourishing a trident,98 and a gorgoneion within it-on a vase a hippocampos closely associated with a pair of great eyes, it would seem fair to presume that the connota- tion of the creature was apotropaic. At times we may see the hippocampos as an individual, apart from any personality, divine or human, as, for example, on one side of an amphora (B 68, presumed to be an Etruscan imitation of the Greek) in the British Museum, balanced on the other side by an analogous monster whose forepart is that of an open-mouthed lion instead of that of a horse.99

Of a nature similarly mixed wero the centaurs, of whom images appear often on the painted vases, While perhaps it is doubtful whether such images embodied enough of the monstrous to be thought of as likely to attract the initial glance of an evil-working eye, the reputedly wicked characters of centaurs as a class, their occasional situation at the centre of a kylix,100 and their frequent portrayal as vanquished, or about to be vanquished, by divinities whose roles normally are protective (cf. infra), together are enough to suggest that they could have been-and very probably indeed were-looked upon in at least some circumstances as apotropaic.

The winged horse, like his cousin the semi-piscine hippocampos, is among the less fearsome monsters, and consequently perhaps not in general regarded as inherently apotropaic. Winged horses are fairly

96 Cf. Elworthy, op. cit., figs. 166, 168, 169; E. Neville Rolfe, Naples in the Nineties, London, 1897, figs. 3, 4, and p. 42.

97 C VA, G.B. fasc. 2, Group III H.e, pl. 20, I.

9s Although the rider in this example has been assumed to be Nereus I think it quite possible that he may not have been meant to represent any divinity, but to have been analogous to the rider we noted on the hippalektryon, and his trident to have served as a threat-of the same nature as the threats to be discussed infra- towards the evilly-disposed.

99 The lion-fish seems to have been a creation of Etruscan fancy, and not to have followed an earlier Greek type; cf. Katharine Shepard, The Fish-tailed Monster in Greek and Etruscan Art, New York, 1940, p. 34.

100 E.g. one, which has on its exterior merely a signature, in a private collection in Paris; cf. Hoppin, op. cit., p. 399.



178 Apotropaism in Greek Vase-Paintings common on what have been taken to be Etruscan imitations of Greek

wares; in the British Museum's group of such pottery there are five vases (B 45, 62, 63, 65, 71) whereon are winged horses. On the British Museum's black-figured kylix (B 425), with a winged woman running within it, which I have mentioned (p. 175) above, there is a group of three divinities between two winged horses. And on a kylix, black-

figured within, red-figured without, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, there are two pairs of great eyes, with a winged horse between the eyes ofone pair and a nose between those of the other pair.'0' Although I am

not prepared to give a definite opinion concerning whether such representations were in general considered preservative, I think that those

particular ones which are recognizable as of Pegasos, most famous of

winged horses and the one from whom the others derive their generic name " pegasoi ", almost certainly must have been looked upon as in at

least some degree inherently apotropaic, because Pegasos was of the very breed of the fear-inspiring gorgons, being sprung from the blood of the

decapitated Medusa, and he had served Bellerophon as steed in the over-

coming of the terrifying Chimaera. We may with assurance count among such particularized representations those portraying Bellerophon upon

Pegasos-e.g. one showing also the Chimaera, on a situla (B Io5) in the

British Museum, and another, lacking the monster, in the bowl of a

kylix (B 454) in that same museum. Probably we should count amongst

them, too, the images of a winged horse which sometimes are displayed on the shields of warriors on the vases, as on the British Museum's two

vases, B 13I, B 132.

10o Cf. G. M. A. Richter, Red-figured Athenian Vases in the Metropolitan Museum

of Art, New Haven (Conn.), pl. 179 (Cat., no. 1).

(To be continued)



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Apotropaism in Greek Vase-Paintings