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TERRACOTTA SARCOPHAGI 
 
 GREEK AND ETRUSCAN 
 
 IN THE 
 
 BRITISH MUSEUM 
 
 BY 
 
 A. S. MURRAY, LL.D., F.S.A. 
 
 Keeper of Greek and Roman Antiqidties 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED BY ORDER OF THE TRUSTEES 
 
 AND SOLD AT THE BRITISH MUSEUM 
 
 And by Longmans and Co., 39 Paternoster Row 
 Hernard Quakitch, 15 Piccadilly; Asher and Co., 13 Bedford Street, Covent Garden 
 Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Co., Paternoster House, Charing Cross Road 
 And Henry Frowde, Oxford University Press Warehouse, Amen Corner 
 
 1898 
 
 \All rights reserved^ 
 
I 
 
 
SARCOPHAGUS FROM CLAZOMENiE. 
 
 Pis. I.—VII. 
 
 I N the early records of painting in Asia Minor we have been accustomed to read of 
 a Battle or Destruction of the Magnesians painted by Bularchos/ a Fight at the 
 Ships by Calliphon of Samos,and a Passage of the Army of Darius over the 
 Bosporos, painted at the instance of Mandrocles of Samos, as a memorial of the bridge 
 he had constructed for Darius.® In the records of sculpture we know the details of 
 the Throne of Apollo at Amyclae by Bathycles of Magnesia, with which, because of its 
 strongly Ionian affinities, we associate the famous chest of Kypselos. In legendary 
 times we are told of Helena embroidering scenes of the Trojan war as they tran¬ 
 spired before her eyes/ Homer, in his description of the Shield of Achilles, gives 
 us an elaborate account of the work of the divine artificer, Hephsestos. From these 
 actual or legendary statements we have been led to expect two things as characteristic 
 of the early art of Asia Minor: first, compositions in which a multitude of figures 
 were engaged; and secondly, an occasional representation of actual, historical events. 
 It would seem that both these expectations are realised in a striking manner by 
 the sarcophagus from Clazomenae recently acquired by the British Museum. The 
 illustrations speak for themselves as to the multitude of figures. Nor can anyone 
 doubt that the scene in which a horde of barbarians (PI. I.) sweep down their Greek 
 opponents is other than a historical picture of one of those invasions of Cimmerians 
 into Asia Minor which Herodotus records.® It is not a battle scene in the ordinary 
 sense, where two sides are more or less evenly opposed. It is a raid, 
 
 ^ Pliny, vii. 126 and xxxv. 55. 
 
 * Pausanias, v. 19, i. Cf. x. 26, 2, where he 
 again mentions the picture by Calliphon which was 
 to be seen in the temple of Artemis at Ephesus. 
 In the former passage he describes the picture as 
 the Fight at the Ships {Iliads xiii.), but in the 
 second he mentions the arming of Patroclos {Iliad, 
 xvi.) as having been represented in the picture. 
 Robert, Iliupersis des Polygnot, p. 24, considers 
 these two passages as taken from Polemo. 
 
 ^ Herodotus, iv. 88. 
 
 * Iliad, iii. 125. 
 
 ® i. 15, an invasion of Cimmerians in the time 
 of Ardys, the successor of Gyges, in which Sardis 
 was captured, except the acropolis; i. 16, Alyattes, 
 
 the second in succession after Ardys, expelled 
 the Cimmerians from Asia Minor and invaded 
 Clazomenae; i. 6, describes the invasion of the 
 Cimmerians, which took place before the time of 
 Crcesus, as not involving the destruction of cities, 
 but as being apiray-q. The capture 
 
 of Sardis is attested also by Strabo, xiii. 627, where 
 he quotes Callisthenes, and he again the poet 
 Callinos, as the original authority; also xiv. 647, 
 where in addition he records the total destruction 
 of Magnesia by the Cimmerians at some date 
 between the poets Callinos and Archilochos ; in i. 20, 
 Strabo seems to have convinced himself that an 
 inroad of Cimmerians into Asia Minor had occurred 
 as early as the time of Homer, or a little before. 
 For examples of Scythian costume, see AntiquiUs 
 du Bosphore Cimmtrien, pi. 33. 
 
apiray^, as Herodotus says expressly, in which the Cimmerians appear suddenly on 
 horseback, sitting well back on their horses, striking down their enemies with huge 
 swords, and sweeping across the field from one end to the other. It may be thought 
 that in costume and horsemanship these barbarians do not differ in a sufficiently 
 marked degree from the Persians on the frieze of the Niki: temple at Athens to 
 warrant our identification of them as absolutely Cimmerians. But the differences, 
 such as the use of a huge sword to strike down with, the characteristically Scythian 
 head-gear, the accompaniment of dogs of war, and the wild rush of the movement, 
 show that we have here to do with a barbarous people and not with Persians. 
 
 A few years ago the sarcophagi of Clazomenre had suggested to the present 
 writer a possible explanation of the statement of Pliny that the Magnesian 
 picture of Bularchos had been purchased for its weight in gold by Candaules, 
 the King of Lydia. It seemed that a picture painted on a slab of terra¬ 
 cotta in the manner of the sarcophagi would under the circumstances have 
 realised a price worthy of a Lydian king.' Since then M. Salomon Remach' 
 has taken a bolder step with the view of directly connecting the picture 
 of Bularchos with particular scenes on the sarcophagi. Observing that there 
 were to be seen on the sarcophagi occasionally warriors accompanied by dogs, 
 
 he produced certain passages of ancient writers which showed that the Magnesians 
 had in fact employed dogs of war." It was a reasonable inference that the warriors 
 accompanied by dogs on the sarcophagi were Magnesians. But his argument 
 
 would have been more conclusive if he could have shown that the Magnesians, alone 
 in Asia Minor, had used dogs for this service. Pliny* ascribes the same practice 
 to the Colophonians, associating them in this respect with the Castabalenses of 
 Cappadocia. We know that the Celtic peoples made liberal use of dogs in war,* and 
 
 the evidence of our new sarcophagus would go to show that this usage had been 
 
 more or less general in Asia Minor. Add to this the statement of Polyaenus that 
 
 Alyattes had employed powerful dogs in his final defeat of the Cimmerians. Nor 
 
 is this surprising when we see the great Asiatic goddess Cybele employing a yoke 
 of lions to tear down her enemies, as in the frieze of Knidos (?) at Delphi. In 
 the reliefs on our large terra-cotta sarcophagus from Caere one of the warriors is 
 assisted by a lion (PI. IX.). We are told that in the name Candaules, the first 
 syllable is equal to cams, dog, and in a fragment of Hipponax Kvpdyx"-, nn epithet 
 
 of Hermes, is explained as equivalent to Kai/daS\cc in the Maeonian tongue.’ 
 
 The object of M. Reinach was to prove that the picture of Bularchos had 
 represented a battle, frtelmm (as Pliny says in one passage), and not a destruc¬ 
 tion, exitimn (as he says in another). But whatever the truth of the matter 
 
 * Handbook of Greek Archaeology^ p. 358. It 
 is there suggested that the origin of painting on 
 terra-cotta panels was to be traced to Asia Minor, 
 and that the practice had thence passed to Corinth 
 and Etruria. 
 
 * Etudes Grecques, 1895, p. 161. fol. 
 
 ® Aelian, deNat. Animal, vii. 38, and Hist. Var. 
 xiv. 46; Pollux, V. 5, 47. 
 
 * viii. 143. It is true that this passage of Pliny 
 
 corresponds, as far as it goes, to that of Aelian 
 {Hist. Var. xiv. 46), quoted by M. Reinach, and it 
 is possible, no doubt, that Aelian may be the better 
 source of the two. This passage of Pliny was 
 pointed out to me by Mr. Hill, of the Coin Depart¬ 
 ment in the British Museum. 
 
 ® Strabo, iv. p. 200, 
 
 ® Strat. vii. 2, i. 
 
 ’ Bergk, Poet. Lyr. Gr.* ii., p. 460. 
 
3 
 
 may be, it is clear from Strabo (xiv. 647) that the Magnesian disaster was a 
 subject of contention, on which he himself had made up his mind to the effect that 
 it had taken place in the interval between the dates of the two poets Callinos and 
 Archilochos. The passage from Athensus," quoted by M. Reinach, seems to be at 
 variance with Strabo, since it gives Callinos as well as Archilochos as an authority for 
 the ruin of the Magnesians. There may have been numerous raids of Cimmerians 
 on Greek cities in Asia Minor, and there may have been many painters who 
 painted these raids, but at present we only know as a fact the raids on Sardis, 
 Magnesia, and Ephesus, the last mentioned having been disastrous to the barbarians.^ 
 Leaving the relationship between the sarcophagi and the painting of Bularchos 
 as perhaps uncertain, we may compare next the work of another Asia Minor artist, 
 
 Fig. I.—General View. 
 
 Bathycles of Magnesia, whose extensive series of reliefs on the throne of Apollo at 
 Amycte Pausanias^ has described. Allowing for the great difference in the task that 
 was set before Bathycles, and not expecting much community of subject, we can yet 
 conceive that his Sphinxes, panther, and lioness may have fairly resembled in artistic 
 type the Sphinxes and other animals on our new sarcophagus. But more to our 
 purpose is his scene of the funeral games held by Acastos on the death of his 
 father Pelias, because on our new sarcophagus perhaps the most prominent feature is 
 the repetition of what I believe to be funeral games, aOXa or It is true that in 
 
 this instance Pausanias gives us no details, but he is more explicit in his description 
 
 ^ xii. 525“': ’AttoiXoito Se xat MayvT^Tes 01 7rpo5 j ruin of Magnesia is referred to also by Theognis, 
 Tw MaidvBpM 8ta to TrXeot' dvedrjvaL, KaXXtvo? j 603 (Bergk). 
 
 iv Tois eXeyetois Kal ’Ap^tXoj^os' idXwcrav yap viro TOiv \ * Callimachus, Hymn to Artemis, 251 fol. 
 
 This excess of luxury which led to the 1 * iii. 18, 9. 
 
4 
 
 of the same contest o M pAia) on the /arnax of Kypselos/ and as tiis 
 
 famous work with its multitude of figures is now generally held to have preserved 
 many elements of Ionian art, we may fairly take it into account here, the more so 
 since our new sarcophagus may also be properly called a larnax. In passing I may 
 suggest that it might be a satisfactory explanation of the escape of the infant 
 Kypselos. if we could suppose him to have been hid in an urn or sarcophagus. 
 
 At this point it may be convenient to indicate briefly the position of the various 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 — 
 
 
 SIDE ELEVATIOW 
 
 END ELEVATION SECTION THf?00CH,C 0, 
 
 PLAN OF BOX 
 
 SIDE ELEVATION 
 
 END ELEVATION 
 
 0 
 
 Fig. 2.—Plans and Sections. 
 
 scenes on our sarcophagus (see Fig. i). On the cover are four bands, two on each 
 side, running parallel with each other ; the better preserved side is given in PI. I. The 
 other side of the cover, now much injured, appears under Fig. 3. The body or box of 
 the sarcophagus has four bands on the interior, two of them on the long sides 
 (Pis. II.-III.), and two on the short ends (Pis. IV.-V.). On the upper edge of the 
 body or box are chariot races (PI. VI.), and on the under edge of the cover are 
 
 Pausanias, v. 17, 4. 
 
5 
 
 scenes of combat, groups of Dolon, Sphinxes and Harpies (PL VII.). The ends of the 
 cover are shown in Figs. 4-5. 
 
 Beginning with the representation of funeral games on the long sides of the 
 sarcophagus (Pis. II., III.), we find the central group consisting of two combatants 
 with the spear, like Ajax and Diomede at the funeral games of Patroclos,^ but 
 having a youth playing on flutes between them. Corresponding to this group, we 
 observe on the larnax of Kypselos Admetos and Mopsos boxing, with a man standing 
 between them playing on the flutes, eV /leV® avrSiv av^p eVayXet. The whole 
 
 band, on PL II., repeated on PL III., is clearly one of mimic war, and this is 
 the more apparent when we are told by Pausanias in connection with the chariot race 
 on the Kypsele that there was a woman playing on the flutes, he having obviously 
 misunderstood the official costume of a flute player on such occasions. It has been 
 suggested by Benndorf that in this instance the flute player had been dressed as 
 a woman or girl, and his view has been rightly accepted. But we may venture 
 to modify it so far as to say that the flute player may only have had the head¬ 
 dress of a girl. That would have been enough to put Pausanias wrong and would 
 bring the larnax of Kypselos into direct relationship with our new sarcophagus. In 
 any case, the group on the sarcophagus disposes of the view of Mr. Stuart Jones 
 that the flute player on the Kypsele must have been represented en face^ 
 
 On each side of the central group are two bigas (o-yvcDp/Sey) ready for the race. 
 Between each pair of bigae is a youth dancing and shaking the cvotala to excite the 
 horses, while beside each biga stands a warrior holding up a whip to the driver, 
 apparently as a signal for the start." We do not remember having ever seen this 
 motive before, but we feel sure that the handing up of the whip is an artistic 
 indication that the race was about to commence. Obviously these groups on 
 Pis. II.-III. do not answer to the chariot race on the Kypsele, where the big^ 
 are in full course and the prizes are set out on view. For that we shall find a 
 better parallel on the sarcophagus presently. Meantime it may be suggested that 
 what had puzzled Pausanias and the interpreters at Olympia in explaining the third 
 band on the Kypsele was just some such scene as that on Pis. II.-III. What they 
 saw was two bodies of armed men approaching each other, but instead of fighting, these 
 armed men seemed to recognise and salute each other. So far as we know, no 
 attempt has ever been made to explain this curious and striking passage of Pausanias, 
 nor do we say that our two bands illustrate it so fully as could be wished. Yet 
 we cannot help thinking that, had Pausanias seen on the Kypsele a representation 
 of this kind, he would very probably have found himself in the very dilemma 
 which he describes. It may seem strange no doubt that the actual chariot race, prizes 
 and all, should be given on the first band of the Kypsele, while what appears like 
 an earlier stage of the games does not come on till the third band. But on our 
 sarcophagus we have much the same thing. On Pis. II.-III., as has been said, we 
 see a preliminary stage of the contest, while on PL VI. the chariot race is in full swing, 
 with the prizes set out at the ends. 
 
 ' Iliad, xxiii. 798. 
 
 * Hellenic Journal, xiv. p. 67. 
 
 * Soph. Ehctr. 711, the chariot race was started 
 
 by a trumpet ^aX.K^s inral o^aXTri^yos n^o-v. In 
 Iliad, xxiii. 362, the start is indicated by raising 
 the whip and shaking the reins. 
 
6 
 
 As regards PI. VI., it may here be observed that in the centre, where the two 
 sets of competing chariots appear to meet, stands a figure with raised hand, as if 
 to warn the drivers. Clearly this figure is an ordinary mortal. In the one case 
 he wears the regular helmet, and in the other the close cap with tresses escaping at 
 the crown like the charioteers, and is in fact identical with the figure similarly placed 
 on the Constantinople sarcophagus.^ It will be remembered that at the games of 
 Patroclos, Achilles erected a goal for the chariot race and placed Phcenix beside 
 it to “observe the courses and bring him a true report.”^ These two figures may, 
 we think, be taken as representatives of the part played by Phoenix. On one of 
 the Paris sarcophagi we see a winged and draped female occupying this position, 
 and warning the drivers with her hands and look. But we cannot regard her with 
 M. Joubin" as a Nikfe. She is rather a personification of an action usually performed 
 by mortals. It will be noticed that on the last chariot in each set of competitors 
 an armed man appears stepping up, whatever that may signify. 
 
 As regards the prizes, it will be observed that on the top of an Ionic column 
 is placed a lebes—a characteristic prize vase—the effect being as if we had before 
 us a combination of the Ionic and Doric capitals, the lebes representing the Doric 
 echinus. Against the column rests a shield. The strangest thing, however, is that 
 at the other side of the column appears a slight nude figure leaning on a staff, 
 with knees bent as if to indicate dejection. So insignificant a figure cannot be a 
 spectator, still less a judge of the games. We had thought of the female captive 
 who was given as part of the prize for the chariot race at the funeral games of 
 Patroclos,* and had supposed that in other circumstances a male captive may equally 
 have been part of the prize. But remembering that at the death of Achilles the 
 Greeks made a tumulus for him, and held an agon in which his arms were contended 
 for by Odysseus and Ajax,®- we now think it more probable that the column is meant 
 to indicate the tomb from which the race started, while the shield would be that of 
 the deceased set out as a prize. As the association of eidola with tombs is an accepted 
 fact, it may be suggested that the nude, insignificant, dejected figure leaning on 
 his staff and looking anxiously round may be the eidolon or shade of the deceased, 
 in whose honour the games were held, the column indicating his tomb. The fact that 
 this figure leans on a staff indicates a degree of dignity incompatible with the position 
 of a captive or slave. His being nude may be at variance with what we know for certain 
 of eidolal but if Loeschcke is right in regarding the nude figure on a fragment of 
 another Clazomenas sarcophagus as an eidolon^ the difficulty would be removed. In any 
 case we cannot forget that j^schylus, in the Persas (609-681), makes the shade of 
 Darius rise from his tomb at the offerings and hymns of Atossa and her friends. 
 
 ' Ettides Grecqties, 1895, pi. facing p. 161. 
 
 ® Iliad, xxiii. 358 ; cf Soph, .fi'/t’c/r., 709 : crTan-e? 
 S’o 0 ’ auTous ol Ts.Tayp. 4 voL ^pa^rj'S, k.t.X. 
 
 ® Bull. Corr. Hell., 1895, ph P- ^ 9 ’ 1 "°^- 
 * Iliad, xxiii. 259, 262. 
 
 ® Aethiopis (Kinkel, Epic. Gr. Frag. p. 34). 
 In the Iliad, xxiii. 798, Achilles sets forth the 
 spear, shield, and helmet of Sarpedon as the prize 
 of skill in the use of the spear. 
 
 ® The eidolon of Patroclos appears in Ger¬ 
 hard, A. V. iii. pis. 198-199, as a diminutive 
 armed figure hovering above his tumulus. The 
 eidolon of Polydoros, who speaks the prologue 
 to the Hecuba of Euripides, had not yet a 
 tomb. 
 
 ’ Aus der Unterwelt (Dorpat-Programm), p. 5. 
 Bull. Corr. Hell. 1895, pi. i, p. 71. 
 
7 
 
 On the Kypsele we are told of the combat of Ajax and Hector after the 
 challenge, irpoKKria-is, with the remark that between the combatants stood Eris, “ most 
 ill-favoured of aspect, resembling the Eris in a painting of the Battle at the Ships, 
 by Calliphon of Samos, which was to be seen in the temple of Artemis at Ephesus.” 
 But as there is no reference to Eris in the Battle at the Ships, in Iliad, xiii., nor 
 in the challenge of Ajax and Hector {Iliad, vii.), Calliphon must have introduced her 
 from some source other than the Iliad, and in any case it does not necessarily follow 
 that he had placed his Eris directly between the two combatants, though the comparison 
 of Pausanias and not a few representations on archaic vases would almost prove so 
 much. On one of the Clazomenae sarcophagi, as already said, stands a winged female 
 figure between the chariots who has been identified as Eris or Nik^.^ 
 
 Let us take next the Doloneia as represented on the upper band of PI. I., and 
 in two simple groups on the lower face of the cover (PI. VII.), a subject which has 
 already been made familiar by the Berlin sarcophagus.* In PI. 1 . we have a 
 striking variation of the theme. On each side of the central group of Dolon is a 
 set of racing big^ approaching the centre, in contrast to the Berlin sarcophagus, 
 where a winged personification of the Homeric kind steps into her chariot to drive 
 away from the centre. Whatever the explanation of that figure may ultimately be, 
 it would almost seem from our sarcophagus that the Doloneia, though in the Iliad 
 it is merely a remarkable episode, must have originally, in some pre-Homeric lay, 
 included funeral games on the death of Dolon. Be this as it may, we have in the 
 winged figures which fly above each chariot a type of being which deserves special 
 consideration. 
 
 Beginning with the first of these winged figures on the left of PI. I. (upper band), 
 we are at once struck with its resemblance, as an artistic conception, to these nude flying 
 beings which occur on the early red-figure vases, as on our Kylix E. 13, and under 
 
 the name of Eros continue to be represented on Greek vases to the end, with 
 
 characteristic modifications as time went on. No wonder: it is a very beautiful con¬ 
 ception. We can hardly be wrong in regarding the figure on our sarcophagus as the 
 prototype of the others. But we must take into account also the other figures which 
 fly above the chariots. It will be seen that one of them holds a branch, apparently 
 of olive, which would suggest Nik^. But these figures are nude and cannot be Nikae. 
 They would better represent Agon, the spirit of contest. On the other hand, if we 
 look to strictly archaic art for a comparison, we shall, perhaps, find it best in those 
 flying figures which occur on vases of the so-called Gyrene fabric, particularly on two 
 kylikes,'on which we see a horseman on a large horse® attended by one of these 
 winged beings. In one case the flying figure holds out a wreath, and this has led 
 
 to its identification as Nik^, especially so since the short chiton was suggestive of 
 
 a female. But on our well-known kylix from Naucratis,* figures, otherwise identical 
 
 ^ The vase in Gerhard, A. V. iii. 199, gives one 
 of these winged, female figures approaching the 
 chariot of Achilles to which Hector is bound beside 
 the tumulus of Patroclos. She is there inscribed 
 as KON150S { —Konisalos), and is supposed to per¬ 
 
 sonify the dust with which the body of Hector was 
 to be besmirched {Iliad, xxii. 401 ; xxiv. 17). 
 
 ® Ant. Denkmiiler, i. pi. 44. 
 
 Arch. Zeit. 1881, pi. 13, figs. 2-3. 
 
 * Naucratis, i. pi. 8. 
 
8 
 
 with these, are either bearded or beardless, so that we may fairly regard the two 
 winged beings attending the two horsemen on the kylikes as male. It has been 
 suggested that they were eidola of deceased persons.' But, whether that is right or 
 wrong, the suggestion would not apply to the chariot race on PI. I. of our sarcophagus. 
 These cannot all be “ spirits from the vasty deep,” even though the contest took place 
 at funeral games. Possibly they are personifications of the games {Agoti), and, as such, 
 must rank among the numerous other personifications which fill the air of archaic 
 Greece, like the Konisalos, already mentioned, who personified the besmirching of 
 Hector’s body. 
 
 In matters of armour and costume the sarcophagus raises some new questions. On 
 sarcophagi from Clazomenae two types of helmet had been previously remarked on. The 
 one was noticeable for the sort of hook rising above the forehead, as on one of 
 our fragmentary vases from Defenneh. Of this there is no example on our new 
 sarcophagus. The other type was characterised by having the crown of the helmet 
 formed of the skin of a bull’s head, horns and ears included, while the lower part was 
 painted purple to indicate bronze. This type is very frequent on our sarcophagus. It 
 reminds us of a fragment of Choerilos, the Samian poet, where he describes the Solymi 
 in the army of Xerxes as wearing on their heads the skin of a horses face flayed and 
 smoked.' Apparently the early Greeks had not had the experience of an enemy who 
 struck downward with a great sword like the Cimmerians on our sarcophagus, and 
 accordingly were free to treat the crown of the helmet more as an ornament than a 
 protection. The crest is common to both types. 
 
 More difficult to explain is the small shield, or whatever else it may be, which is 
 worn on the hips, on Pis. II. and III., not only by the musicians and charioteers, 
 but also by the warriors already provided with large shields. It appears to be 
 attached to a girdle or zoster^ and would thus be capable of being moved round to 
 the front of the body or the back, as danger suggested in actual war, the hips not 
 being vulnerable. Such a movement would answer to the term oiyKifeiK, literally “ to 
 steer,” which Herodotus' employs to describe the primitive shields of the Carians 
 before they had invented the or handles by which they carried the shield on 
 
 the left arm. It is true that he expressly says that these primitive shields were slung 
 round the neck, and his description may very well apply to the large square shields 
 seen on the primitive “ island gems ” of the Mycenaean age.* But it may equally 
 hold good of this hitherto unknown piece of armour. In another passage Herodotus,' 
 when speaking of the Scythian kings, says that they wore a golden phiali attached to 
 
 ' Loeschcke,/(i/i)'i. 1887, p. 277. In reference 
 to the two riders on these vases, it is impossible to 
 overlook the nude girls riding on huge horses 
 which occur on our fragmentary vases from 
 Defenneh, and on which the Ionian element is 
 strongly pronounced, as I had suggested in Tanis 
 II., p. 70, where one of those fragments is given, 
 pi. 29. It was subsequently published in colours, 
 Ant. Denktnaler, ii. pi. 21, fig. 2. My impression 
 is that these nude girls on horseback must represent 
 some funeral custom in Asia Minor. Lucian, Charon, 
 
 13, speaking of the Scythian Queen, Tomyris, says: 
 opas rqv %Kv 6 iBa rrjv iirl tov Ittitov tovtov tou Xeufcou 
 i^eXavvovcrav- 
 
 ^ Kinkel, Epic. Gr. Frag. i. p. 268, avrap v-rrepda/ 
 L 1 T 7 JCOV Sapra Trpocroin ei^dpew ia-KXrjKOTa Kaww. M. 
 Joubin, Bull. Corr. Hell. 1895, p. 85, compares the 
 helmet of Odysseus, Iliad, x. 263, on the outside of 
 which were white boar’s tusks. 
 
 ® i. 171. 
 
 * Reichel, Homer. Waffen, p. 33. 
 
 ® iv. 70. 
 
9 
 
 the zoster at the place of fastening, eVl a/cp??? a-vfijiaXris, with which we may perhaps 
 compare the phrase of Horace, “ Natis in usum laetitiae scyphis | pugnare Thracum est ” 
 (Car. I. 27). The metal disc on our sarcophagus is not unlike a phiale. But perhaps 
 more to the point is the warrior on our very archaic Lycian soros^ who both carries a 
 large circular shield on his left arm and holds up with his right hand a smaller disc 
 or targe. We are aware of the difficulties which surround the Homeric zoster and 
 mitr^, otherwise it would be tempting to suggest that this new piece of armour might 
 assist in solving the problem.^ Be this as it may, the rest of the armour on our 
 sarcophagus is manifestly subsequent to the time when the Carians introduced their 
 three famous improvements of a crest, handles for their shields and devices for the same- 
 
 As regards the spears, provided with a aavpoiTqp or butt-end, we have instances of 
 the same on one of our fragmentary vases from Defenneh." The cuirass is in use, as 
 are also the laiseton^ or pendant from the shield, and the greaves. The chariots are 
 of the regular Ionian type, with Homeric wheels, mAa. tiKTaKinjim.' The huge swords 
 of the Cimmerians and the action of striking downwards with them do not, so far as 
 we have observed, find any exact parallel in Greek warfare. Such instances as we 
 have noticed on the vases are associated with giants or oriental subjects. On the 
 other hand, we know that among the Scythian peoples the sword was regarded as a 
 god, and this is confirmed by Herodotus,® who says that an ancient iron sword placed 
 on a mound served as an image of Ares, to which they offered sacrifices. Dio 
 Chrysostom, on his visit to the Borysthenes, describes the friend who came to meet 
 him on horseback as carrying a large sabre (paxatpar peyaX-qv twv iinriKav), and as wearing 
 the anaxyrides with the rest of the Scythian costume.’ On the head the Cimmerians 
 wore galeris inmrvis’ which answers to the head-gear on our sarcophagus and to 
 other representations of this people, which need not here be specified. It is true that 
 this head-gear does not alone absolutely differentiate them from certain tribes which we 
 find among the Persians. None the less it is perfectly Scythian or Cimmerian, as is 
 also the huge bow-case, gorytos. 
 
 There remains to be mentioned the head-gear of the charioteers and musicians on 
 Pis. II.-III. These figures wear a close-fitting cap, which, from its being painted 
 purple, may be taken to have been of bronze, that being the colour employed on the 
 sarcophagus to indicate bronze. From an opening on the crown of the head a mass of 
 hair escapes, carefully cut at the ends like a horse’s tail. On the chariot frieze of the 
 Mausoleum is preserved a youthful driver, having not only the robe, but also the long 
 
 '■ Perrot and Chipiez, v. p. 394, where, however, 
 the disc held up in the right hand is much larger in 
 proportion than in the sculpture. 
 
 * If Helbig {Horn. £/>os^, p. 290) is right in the 
 example of a 7 }iitre which he there gives, the step 
 from it to our disc would not be great. Perrot and 
 Chipiez, iv. p. 741, give a figure of a warrior with a 
 buckler hanging from a belt round the neck, which 
 recalls our sarcophagus. 
 
 ® Ant. Denkmdler, i. pi. 46 ; Jalirbuch, 1895, 
 p. 40. Aristotle, Poetics, xxvi. it\, referring to the 
 dispute concerning the arms of Achilles, quotes, 
 
 Se cr(f)iv opff iirl cravporrjpo';, adding, “ so it 
 was then the custom as it is now among the 
 Illyrians.” 
 
 * Reichel, Homer. Waffen, p. 65. 
 
 ® Jahrbuch, 1890, p. 147. 
 
 ® iv. 62. Cf. Ammianus MarcelHnus, xxxi. 2, 23, 
 who says that they had no temples nor huts, “sed 
 gladius barbarico ritu humi figitur nudus eumque ut 
 Martem . . . colunt.” , 
 
 ' Orat. xxxvi. 
 
 * Ammianus Marcellinus, xxxi. 2, 5. 
 
10 
 
 hair of a girl. At present we are ignorant of the origin 
 of this curious custom of dressing up boys, and even 
 men, in female attire when they appeared in certain 
 public competitions. Possibly it had been Ionian. At 
 all events this peculiar treatment of the hair has been 
 noticed as occurring not only on the sarcophagi of 
 Clazomenae, but also in some other instances where 
 Ionian influence is unmistakable, as on a fragment of 
 a vase from Naucratis and a hydria from Civita 
 Castellana, both of which are in the British Museum.* 
 It does not seem that the expression irriBei, koixowvtc!, 
 which Homer'“ employs for the Abantes, need here 
 apply. Possibly it would be more appropriate to cite 
 a well-known passage of Athenmus,’ where the Samians 
 are described as celebrating the festival of Hera, 
 KaTSKTeviOfievot ras »fo/xay eVt to fieTa<ppevov km tovs oj/xovs. 
 But the most exact parallel we can find is a group of 
 Egyptian girls* engaged in gymnastic exercises, whose 
 hair is seen fastened at the crown and then escaping 
 in a square-cut mass. The only difference is that the 
 crown of the head is not there covered with a cap, as 
 on the sarcophagus. 
 
 Fig. 3 reproduces the two remaining parallel bands 
 on the cover of the sarcophagus. On the upper band 
 we recognise a central combat over a fallen warrior. 
 On each side stands a warrior looking on. Next on 
 the right an armed man holds up his hand to arrest 
 the advance of the chariots towards the centre. Beside 
 the first chariot a man holds up a whip to the driver, 
 while the hero steps up into the chariot leading by 
 the wrist a woman-captive, who, it is noticeable, also 
 wears her hair escaping in a tail at the crown of 
 
 ‘ B. 59 {Vase Catalogue, ii. pi. 2), and B. 103, 14 {3). 
 Studniczka, Jahrbuch, 1896, p. 268. Cf. the fragments of 
 sarcophagi published by Dennis in the Hellenic Journal, iv. p. 5. 
 
 ® Iliad, ii. 542. 
 
 ® xii. 30. Cf. the fragment of Asius on the same subject 
 (Kinkel, Epic. Gr. Frag. i. p. 206). Polyaenus, Strat. \. 23, 
 says that the Samians went armed to the temple of Hera. 
 
 * Rosellini, ii. pi. loi, fig. Z\cf. Krause, Plotina, pi. 3, figs. 
 33“-There is no possible question of the hair being shorn on 
 the sarcophagus, as is the case of the African tribe mentioned by 
 Herodotus, iv. 175 : ol X.d^ous Ketpovrai, to pev fiecrov tojj/ rpv)(0}v 
 a.vLevTi'5 clv^€(tOm to Se iydsv km EuOev Ketpoj/Tfs ev xpoi- Nor 
 of the kind of pig-tail which Mr. Flinders Petrie calls the Libyan 
 lock, Hellenic Journal, xi. p. 275. 
 
11 
 
 the head like the charioteers and musicians elsewhere. Behind follow a man with horse 
 and a chariot. On the lower band it [seems impossible to make out more than that 
 it is a battle. 
 
 On a technical point it may here be remarked that the interior panels, Pis. II.-III. 
 and Pis. IV.-V., resemble each other so closely as to suggest at first sight that they 
 
 might have been executed by some mechanical process in the nature of a stencil 
 
 plate, such as Theodoric^ is said to have used in signing his name. But on closer 
 
 examination there are too many small varieties of detail to allow of this in any true 
 
 sense. What is probable is that the painter had before him an exact sketch of certain 
 of the groups and figures, which he set himself to reverse and reduplicate as occasion 
 offered. In the centre of PI. II. the warrior moving away to the left seems to carry 
 his shield wrongly on the right arm, thus exposing the inside of the shield, which 
 is precisely what would happen in reversing the corresponding warrior on the right. 
 It is therefore fairly conclusive that the painter had reproduced the one figure by 
 simply reversing the other. The mistake of placing a shield on the right arm is so 
 extraordinary that this alone would justify the suspicion that a mechanical process of 
 reversing the figures had been employed. In any case it is certain that in both 
 these figures it is the inside of the shield which is shown. Add to this the general 
 correspondence which pervades Pis. II. and III and Pis. IV. and V. We shall 
 then hardly escape the conclusion that the artist has had before him only a limited 
 number of figures or groups, which he has, in a more or less free manner, reversed 
 and reduplicated. 
 
 On the upper edge of the body of the sarcophagus (PI. VI.) are a series of 
 chariot races to which we have already referred. The two long sides correspond 
 with each other so far as they have been preserved; apparently this had also been 
 the case with the two short ends, though one of these has been much defaced. It 
 is noticeable that on the two short ends the designs have been placed so as to be 
 seen from one point of view, and thus seem to indicate the head and the foot of the 
 sarcophagus. 
 
 On the under edge of the cover is a design which we give under PI. VII. The 
 main part is a battle scene. Above this are two groups of Odysseus and Ajax slaying 
 Dolon, the one group being a simple repetition of the other without even the reversing 
 of the attitude of Dolon, which would have been expected. Immediately above are two 
 groups of two Sphinxes confronted, each group being a reversal of the other. These 
 Sphinxes have each a long curl escaping at the crown of the head, as on the 
 Sphinxes on the pottery from Naucratis, and on objects in gold and ivory from the 
 Mycenaean tombs of Enkomi in Cyprus.’' Higher up have been preserved a group 
 of two Harpies and a man beside a horse. It will be observed that the Harpies 
 resemble those on the Harpy tomb in having human arms and egg-shaped bodies, 
 which apparently was the more archaic manner of representing them. 
 
 • Ammianus Marcellinus, excerpta, 79, laminam 
 auream jussit interrasilem fieri, quattuor litteras regis 
 habentem, Theod., ut si subscribere voluisset, posita 
 
 lamina super chartam per earn penna duceret et 
 subscriptio ejus tantum videretur. 
 
 Compare the gold ornament from Cyprus in 
 the Revue Arch., 1897 (xxxi.), p. 333. 
 
12 
 
 At each end the cover takes the form of a pediment, having within it a painted 
 group. At the one end (see Fig. 4), on each side of a central column, is a man running 
 beside a horse inwards towards the column; while in an upper field of the design, 
 
 I'lG. 4. 
 
 separated by a broad masander border, are two figures also running inwards towards 
 the column. In the opposite pediment (Fig. 5) is a central column between two 
 Centaurs who appear to be attacking each other, armed with a branch of a tree, but this 
 
 group is very much destroyed. 
 
 The shape and dimensions of our sarcophagus are indicated in Figs, i and 2, but, 
 
 as this is the first instance in which a cover has been found among the sarcophagi of 
 Clazomen^, we may cite, as a sort of prototype, the two terra-cotta urns which were 
 discovered in Crete some years ago.* These also have covers, with sloping roofs, on 
 which patterns of the Mycense kind are painted. At the other extreme, in point of 
 time, we have the Alexander sarcophagus from Sidon, and, as a variation, the Lycian 
 
 tombs, with sculptured designs along 
 the roof and in the pediments. But 
 there is this difference, that the top 
 edge of our sarcophagus and the 
 under edge of the cover have been 
 elaborately decorated with paintings, 
 which must have been entirely con¬ 
 cealed from view when the cover was 
 finally placed in position. 
 
 From a technical point of view, 
 the production of these two huge masses of painted terra-cotta must have involved 
 extraordinary skill. The sarcophagus was found broken in many pieces, and from the 
 fractures we see that it had been first constructed in very thick masses of a rough 
 terra-cotta with which pounded brick had been mixed, such as now goes by the 
 
 Mon. Ant. dei Lined, i. pi. i, p. 201. 
 
13 
 
 name of “ pot-earth.” At this stage the body and the cover would each be slightly 
 fired (biscuit). The next stage was to cover the whole with a thin coating of fine 
 clay, upon which the various mouldings were impressed, probably from wood moulds. 
 After this the whole surface, both of body and cover, received a very thin white 
 slip, upon which, when it was dry, the figured designs and the patterns were executed 
 in a colour which, under firing, would become a black glaze. Meantime upon this 
 black colour the painter had added his numerous details of white and purple. We 
 understand from men of the greatest practical experience that the firing had most 
 probably been effected by building a kiln round the sarcophagus, and that this firing had 
 been at a low temperature, extending probably from four to six weeks. As regards the 
 present effect of the colours, it is noticeable that in the interior the designs (Pis. II. and 
 IV.), with their two counterparts, Pis. III. and V., are quite red, while the patterns 
 on the exterior are in parts black, in other parts shading off rapidly into red. On 
 the cover there is very little trace of this change of colour under firing. The designs 
 are almost continuously black upon white, which possibly was the original intention, 
 notwithstanding the charming effect of colour which the interior presents with its red 
 figures against a white ground. 
 
 Last year, M. Salomon Reinach, in discussing the eighteen sarcophagi from Clazo- 
 menae known to him at that time, arrived at the conclusion that they all belonged to 
 a date anterior to E.c. 540. So far as we can see, our sarcophagus introduces no new 
 elements which would assist in defining its date more precisely, unless the Cimmerian 
 invasion may serve as a reason for carrying the date backwards, nearer to B.c. 600. 
 
SARCOPHAGUS FROM CAMEIROS. 
 
 PI. VIII. 
 
 B etween i860 and 1864 the Museum made several important purchases of 
 antiquities from MM. Saizmann and Biliotti, the fruit of their excavations 
 among the tombs of Cameiros in Rhodes. The most extensive of these purchases 
 was that of 1864. In one respect it was also the most important, because these 
 antiquities were accompanied by a careful and detailed Diary of the Excavations, 
 compiled by Mr., now Sir Alfred, Biliotti, describing the contents of each tomb as it 
 was opened. Unfortunately we possess no similar record of the previous acquisitions. 
 We are told nothing of the finding of the sarcophagus now before us, nor of a 
 series of vases painted in the same manner, which also were acquired previous to 
 1864. The probability is that a careful account had been kept of the earlier 
 excavations also, and that it had been reserved by M. Saizmann among his papers 
 with a view to his projected work, the Ndcropole de Camiros, the plates of which 
 appeared in 1875. He, however, did not live to issue the text, nor have we been told 
 in what state of preparation he had left it. 
 
 It is known that a series of gold ornaments acquired by the Museum in 1861 from 
 this source, and familiar because of their figures of the so-called Artemis Persik^ and 
 winged bulls, had been found in a tomb with a large porcelain scarab of Psammetichos 
 (b.c. 666-612). In addition to this express statement there is a letter from Mr. Vice- 
 Consul (afterwards Sir Charles) Newton, dated Oct. i, 1859, stating that when in Rhodes 
 he had examined the antiquities which had been found by Messrs. Saizmann and 
 Biliotti, and were then being offered to the Museum for purchase. The letter proceeds 
 to specify some of the objects in detail as follows :— ' 
 
 ” I. A pair of pendants for earrings, ornamented with winged bulls, embossed in relief, and 
 picked out with filagree [granulated patterns ?]. The style of these bulls is very Assyrian, but 
 perhaps it would be more exact to say Phoenician. 
 
 “ 2. A number of pendants of earrings, embossed with a figure, perhaps intended to represent 
 the sun-god, with a nimbus round the head. These pendants are in quite a different style from the 
 preceding, and seem to be executed under Egyptian influence. 
 
 “3. A necklace from the centre of which hangs a bull’s head as pendant. This rather resembles 
 in style the pendants No. i. 
 
 " The interest of these gold ornaments is much enhanced by the fact that they were found in 
 the same graves with the vases which are chiefly of the class known as Nolan-Egyptian, or 
 Phoenician, the subjects being animals and monsters painted in brown and crimson on a cream- 
 coloured ground, semi with flowers. Among the vases is a series of pinakes, or platters, remarkable 
 for their size and the freshness and beauty of their designs. One in particular deserves notice as a 
 specimen of early drawing. The picture represents a Sphinx.” 
 
i6 
 
 So far as concerns the last-mentioned vase (pinax representing a Sphinx, now 
 in Brit. Mus., A. 745), it is obvious that the figure of the Sphinx has been executed 
 in exactly the same manner as the animals on the sarcophagus. And if we could 
 be sure that this vase had actually been found in a tomb with gold ornaments of 
 the time of Psammetichos, we should then have absolute certainty as to the date of 
 this particular method of painting on terra-cotta, instead of only an extreme degree 
 of probability such as is now generally accepted. 
 
 On the other hand, it appears from a consular note of Sir Charles Newton, of 
 the same year (1859), that he classified the vases found up to then by MM. Salzmann 
 and Biliotti as falling into four categories:—(i) Vases of the class brought by Lord 
 Elgin from Athens, and now known as of the geometric and Dipylon style. Of these 
 the Museum acquired several important specimens from Cameiros on that occasion. 
 (2) Vases with subjects painted in black and crimson, with incised lines on a cream- 
 coloured ground. The incised lines, like the “field semd with flowers” above quoted, 
 would, if taken literally, point to a stage of painting later than the sarcophagus and 
 its kindred vases. (3) Vases which he describes as of the style called “affected 
 Tyrrhenian,” having black figures, with, incised lines on a red ground. (4) Vases 
 in a conventional style, thought to be an imitation of the archaic. In this style 
 the figures are painted in black, with accessories in crimson and white with incised 
 lines. This class of vases we have never seen except from Italy, where they are 
 found in great abundance. The explanation of this difference between the consular 
 note and the letter may be this, that in the note the whole of the vases are classed 
 in these four categories, while in the letter only those are specified which were 
 found with the gold ornaments. On this view the pottery of the Dipylon style to 
 which he refers could be regarded as having come from older tombs, the vases of 
 the third and fourth categories from later tombs. That would be in harmony with 
 what is otherwise known of the development of vase painting. On the other hand, 
 there is always, and nowhere more so than at Cameiros, the possibility of an extensive 
 overlapping of different archaic styles of painting, and in particular the continuance 
 of a primitive style of pottery side by side with a more advanced style. It is 
 necessary to lay stress on this point, because in the Diary of Excavations of 1864 
 we find that on the site called Papas Loures by Biliotti, the results derived from the 
 sixteen tombs there opened point consistently to a late stage of the Dipylon period. 
 Yet from these tombs were obtained an oenochoe identical in technique with the sarcophagus 
 and a kylix (A. 698), with conventional faces of lions executed in the same manner. In 
 the tomb with the oenochoe (bands of goats and deer) nothing else survived. In the 
 tomb with the kylix the following objects:—(i) Part of a large vase painted with figures 
 of Centaurs and patterns of the Dipylon class (A. 439). (2) A fragmentary cup of red 
 
 ware with geometric patterns incised. (3) Part of a vase similar to last. (4) A number 
 of bronze fibulae of a geometric type (Catalogue of Bronzes, Figs. 7-9). (5) Glass beads. 
 
 (6) Rosettes of pale gold. From these circumstances it is reasonable to conclude that the 
 geometric and Dipylon systems of vase decoration, consisting in the main of patterns of a 
 geometric order, with animals and human figures in secondary parts, had in Rhodes 
 at least survived for a time side by side with the subsequent Asiatic system, in which 
 animals assume the leading parts, and patterns are relegated to secondary places. 
 
17 
 
 The peculiar phase of painting on terra-cotta, to which we have referred as 
 characteristic of this sarcophagus, has of late years attracted much attention from 
 specialists in this department of archeology, each seeking to arrive at a definite 
 classification, and all coming to more or less the same conclusion. The latest, and 
 at the same time one of the best qualified, is M. Pettier.^ With PI. VIII. before us 
 we shall be able to follow his classification of the Rhodian technique so far as 
 concerns the three methods which he distinguishes in it;—(i) The representation of the 
 head and sometimes the paws of an animal by means of painted lines, which he 
 truly says is a very ancient method, dating back even to the Mycenaean age. (2) The 
 representation of the body of the animal as an opaque silhouette, but with the inner 
 lines which mark the anatomy of the animal vacant (traits reserves) on the ground 
 colour of the vase, a process which, he adds, makes its first appearance when the 
 Dipylon style of vase-painting began to develop into new fields. As, however, both 
 these methods are invariably combined on the vases in question, it would be an 
 advantage if one term could be found which would describe them both. It is, in 
 fact, the same combination of drawing and painting with which we are confronted on 
 the Cameiros sarcophagus and the kindred vases. (3) His third method, the substitution 
 of incised for vacant or left lines, only concerns us here in so far as the presence 
 of this method is an indication of the stage of painting which followed immediately 
 upon that of our sarcophagus. It is, however, of some importance to note that 
 both these methods (2 and 3) are combined on a sarcophagus from Clazomenae, which 
 has recently been acquired for America. 
 
 It will be seen from PI. VIII. that the animals on the Cameiros sarcophagus present 
 an obvious combination of the first two methods described by M. Pettier, that is to say, 
 the heads of the animals are in each case examples of line drawing with a brush, while 
 the bodies are painted in with a full brush. Certain inner lines indicating anatomical 
 structure are left to show in the white ground of the vase, while in the case of the bull 
 a large patch of the white ground represents the piebald colour of the creature. In 
 the lions the feet and lower part of the legs are filled in with colour and not 
 drawn in line. 
 
 In this strange combination of drawing and painting we are struck with the amount 
 of care which must have been necessary in painting round the inner lines, so as to 
 leave them reserved or vacant, especially so on the kindred vases, where the figures of 
 animals are much smaller than on the sarcophagus. In the subsequent stage of the art 
 these lines were by a much simpler process painted in with white over the black colour 
 with which the whole body of the animal was first laid in. What the origin of the 
 earlier and more laborious process may have been has not been explained. But taking 
 into consideration that the larger the figures, the more easy would this method be, we 
 may perhaps assume that it had been derived from painting on a large scale. In 
 view of this suggestion we may refer to the painted slabs of terra-cotta from Caere 
 
 ' Catalogue dcs Vases Antiques dii Louvre^ ■[896, 
 p. 145. Compare his article in the Mommients 
 Piot, I. p, 45, where he publishes a Rhodian vase on 
 which are combined the two methods of vacant and 
 
 of incised lines, as on a vase now in Berlin {Hellen. 
 Journ. 1885, p. 186, fig. 3), and on a large lebes 
 from Naucratis in the Brit. Mus. (A. 957), which 
 latter was apparently unknown to M. Pettier. 
 
i8 
 
 now in the British Museum, on which the system of reserved or vacant lines is con¬ 
 spicuous, and as to which there can be little doubt that these slabs represent a metio 
 of painting’ derived from Asia Minor/ 
 
 In the passage referred to above M. Pettier recognises the practice of line drawing 
 with a brush as common also to the Mycente period. ,It is, in fact, a conspicuous 
 feature of the so-called Mycenaean vases. We may add that on at least one well-known 
 vase from lalysos (of the Mycenae style), the figure is filled in with black, while t e 
 inner lines are reserved on the white ground.’ That is to say, the method of painting 
 is exactly the same as on the Cameiros sarcophagus, on a series of Cameiros vases, 
 on several fine vases from Naucratis, and on others from Daphnae m Egypt, while 
 again on other vases of the Mycenae class is to be seen the later and more rapid 
 method of putting in the inner lines with white over the black colour.’ In the warrior- 
 vase of Mycena;,* in its companion (the vase signed by the potter Aristonophos in Rome), 
 and in vases of the Melos group, we find a more ambitious stage of the art, when 
 human figures and even legendary scenes become prominent. But the method of com¬ 
 bining drawing with painting and of reserving the inner lines remains in force, if indeed 
 somewhat degenerate. So that on the whole it would appear as if the immediate 
 antecedents of the Cameiros sarcophagus and its congeners had been vases of fee 
 Mycena; period. How long antecedent they were is the question which yet remains 
 to be determined/ 
 
 Meantime it is agreed on all hands that the earliest geometric or Dipylon style 
 of vase painting was followed immediately in Attica with figures of animals in which 
 the combination of drawing and painting just described is the conspicuous feature. It 
 is believed that this change was due to an impulse derived from the importation or 
 knowledge of vases of the Cameiros, Naucratis and Daphnae class, as specified above. 
 An excellent illustration may be seen in the Burgon lebes (A. 535), having two large 
 figures of lions standing confronted. There is, however, this difference, that neither on 
 the Burgon lebes, nor on any other vases of its class, have we observed the existence 
 of these laboriously reserved inner lines, which lend so marked a character to the 
 vases we have referred to from Cameiros,' Naucratis,’ and Daphnae.' In the 
 circumstances the omission of these lines was to be expected, on the principle that 
 in imitation it is mainly the general effect that is aimed at. 
 
 On the vases in question from Naucratis there occurs frequently the figure of a 
 Sphinx having a sort of tendril projecting from the crown of the head. The same 
 
 ' Tournal of Hellenic Sltcdies, x. pi. 7, and 
 pp. 244-245 and 248-249. 
 
 * Furtwaengler and Loescheke, Mykeniseke 
 Vasen, pi. i, fig- i- 
 
 ® Cuttle-fish from lalysos in Furtwaengler and 
 Loescheke, Myk. Vasen, pi. 8, fig. 49. 
 
 * Furtwaengler and Loescheke, Myk. Vasen, 
 pis. 42-43. 
 
 ® F. Dummler, in Jakrbuch, 1891, p. 270, says: 
 “ Da es jetzt wahrscheinlich ist dass mykenische 
 Keramik in Argolisbis gegen 800 v. Chr. geherrscht 
 
 hat, wlirde sich der rhodische Stil direkt aus dem 
 mykenischen haben entwickeln kdnnen unter Mit- 
 wirkung verschiedenen fremdartigen Imports, ohne 
 dass in Argolis selbst ein geometrischer Stil zwischen 
 dem mykenischen und rhodischen bestanden hatte.” 
 
 ® For Cameiros specimens see the oenochoae in 
 Vases Antiques du Louvre, pi. 12. 
 
 '' Naucratis, pt. i. pi. 4, and pt. ii. pis. 5-6. On 
 the lebes on pi. 8 the upper row of animals has the 
 inner lines incised, while the lower row has them 
 vacant. 
 
 ® Tanis II., pis. 27-28. 
 
19 
 
 characteristic is to be seen still in force on the Clazomense sarcophagus, and, tracing the 
 feature backward in point of time, we meet it again on the gold ornaments from Enkomi, 
 in Cyprus, found in tombs with Mycenaean vases. It will be seen also from the Cameiros 
 sarcophagus that the piebald colour of the bull is rendered in the same manner as on 
 the painted bull from Tiryns and on fragments of vases from Mycenae.* As the striking 
 resemblance in these instances cannot have been casual, we must suppose that it had 
 been the result of a common method of painting and a common tradition, however 
 separated the individual objects may have been in time. It does not follow that this 
 method had originated in Rhodes or in Asia Minor. But the fact is not to be ignored 
 that the discovery of sarcophagi at Clazomenae has of late years confirmed in an extra¬ 
 ordinary manner the classical tradition of an early school of painting in Asia Minor. 
 For the present we cannot trace this school beyond the Clazomenae stage further back 
 
 than to the stage of the Cameiros sarcophagus. But that of itself must mean a certain 
 
 distance of time. 
 
 It remains now to describe the Cameiros sarcophagus in detail. To begin with, 
 when set upright on end, it has the appearance of a doorway, not unlike the door 
 of the peribolos, or enclosing wall, of the Heroon at Giolbaschi, in Lycia,'* the 
 sculptures of which are now in Vienna. Apparently the intention in both cases had 
 been to suggest the portal of Hades, through which the deceased would have to pass. 
 In later times the most usual form of a Greek steR, or tombstone, was that of 
 
 a doorway, and that this was meant for the portal of Hades is now evident from a 
 
 terra-cotta vase recently acquired by the Museum, on which is represented, in relief, the 
 Rape of Persephone. In front of the chariot of Hades is a steR, inscribed evccBcic, 
 and beyond it the reeds of Acheron and the Danaides filling in vain their pitchers. 
 The stele, therefore, indicates the entrance to Hades. 
 
 On the head of the sarcophagus is a bull standing to the left between two lions 
 confronted, and having their faces turned round full to the front. The heads of the 
 lions are rendered in lines, but it is noticeable that this method oi drawing is not 
 extended to the lower part of their legs, as in the vases referred to from Cameiros and 
 Naucratis. This omission may be taken as an indication of a somewhat later date for 
 the sarcophagus. Still more suggestive of a later date is the drawing of the lions’ heads 
 full to the front instead of in profile, implying, as it does, an increased dexterity and a 
 new desire towards vividness of representation. On the other hand, the two lions back 
 to back on the foot of the sarcophagus have their heads drawn in profile, like the vases 
 in question, and only differ from the vases in the more strictly heraldic grouping of the 
 animals, reminding us in this respect of the two lions on the Burgon lebes of the later 
 Dipylon style. The breadth of manner and fine sweep of lines with which the bull and 
 the two lions at the head of the sarcophagus are painted far exceed the work on the 
 vases, and prepare us for the two heads of warriors immediately beneath. Nothing 
 comparable to the severe and refined aspect of these two heads has been found in the 
 vase painting of this period. They point rather to a higher walk of art, in which the 
 
 ^ Furtwaengler and Loeschcke, Myken. Vasen, j * 'Collignon, de la Sculpt. Grecque, ii. 
 
 pi. 41. Gr. Kunstgeuhichte,-^. ; p. 205. 
 
20 
 
 Greek ideal had already begun to assert itself in no insignificant manner. In style 
 they recall the heads of the two warriors found by Prof. Ramsay on a rock-cut tomb 
 in Phrygia.' 
 
 In speaking of the heraldic grouping of the lions, we have used a convenient term. 
 The meaning is that one lion is almost as much a counterpart of the other as if it 
 had been made from a reversed tracing. Apparently the result which we are now 
 describing as heraldic was nothing more than a piece of artistic economy, such as we 
 saw carried out on a large scale on the Clazomenre sarcophagus. It is a sort of 
 compendiaria, or short-cut, though possibly a very different compendiaria from that which 
 Petronius" says had been invented by the audacity of the Egyptians, involving, he 
 says, the inevitable decline of the art of painting. 
 
 In the foregoing discussion it has been necessary to give a number of details. 
 But the purpose in view has been to show, or at all events to suggest, that the 
 Cameiros sarcophagus was artistically a descendant of an earlier stage of painting in 
 Asia Minor which had been more or less closely related to the vase painters of the 
 Mycenaean period, on the one hand, and to those of the Asiatic and Dipylon periods 
 on the other. 
 
 The sarcophagus was acquired in 1863. Its dimensions are; Length, 6 feet 5 in., 
 width at top, 2 ft. i in.; at bottom, i foot ii in. The clay is covered with a white 
 slip, upon which the figures and patterns are painted exclusively in black. Partly 
 published in Salzmann’s Ndcropole de Camiros, pi. i, figs. 1-2. 
 
 ^ Journal of Helhfi. Studies, ix. p. 363. fecit, postquam ^gyptiorum audacia tarn magnae 
 
 * Saiirae, 2 : Pictura quoque non alium exitium I artis compendiariam invenit. 
 
SARCOPHAGUS FROM CAERE 
 
 Pis. IX.—XL 
 
 I N the Papa Giulio Museum at Rome there has recently been acquired from Caere 
 a terra-cotta sarcophagus, having on the lid a group of a man and woman 
 reclining together. In point of artistic style this sarcophagus may be assigned to 
 about the same date as the specimen in the British Museum here published, though 
 the details are more minutely finished and the style somewhat more refined in the one 
 at Rome. On the other hand, it has no reliefs nor any decoration on the body of the 
 sarcophagus. In the Louvre there has long been on exhibition another Etruscan 
 sarcophagus in terra-cotta, having a similar group of a man and woman reclining on 
 the lid in much the same archaic manner, but again without any reliefs on the body of 
 the sarcophagus.^ The Louvre specimen is richly coloured. 
 
 These three sarcophagi, though differing in point of style and execution, appear 
 to be more or less contemporary, the differences of style and execution being due 
 probably to the idiosyncrasies of Etruscan artists working under the foreign influence 
 of Greek art. To this question it will be necessary to return; meanwhile all three have 
 this in common, that they present us with the earliest known type of a group of two 
 reclining figures on the lid of a sarcophagus. That is a phenomenon with which we 
 are familiar in later Etruscan and in Roman art. It can now be traced back to near 
 600 B.c. But what was its origin ? 
 
 The idea, doubtless, is that of a man and woman reclining at a banquet, as we 
 see them in the archaic painted tombs of the Etruscans, and, indeed, on the reliefs of 
 the Museum sarcophagus (PI. X.). Apparently the group on the lids of the sarcophagi 
 has been simply abstracted from one of those scenes of funeral banquets; but the 
 frequency of these scenes in early Etruscan art is not sufficient to prove that the 
 origin of the idea was Etruscan. There was a time when it might have seemed so, 
 but the finding of a number of terra-cotta sarcophagi at Clazomenae has opened up a 
 new possibility, the issue of which time alone can show. 
 
 Assuming, as it seems fair to do, that the group in the round on our sarcophagus 
 was derived from the older conception of a similar group in relief or in painting, we 
 have next to consider the difficulties of the situation. These life-size figures had to be 
 
 * Mon. dell’ Inst. vi. pi. 59; Annali, 1861, 
 p. 390; Mush Napoleon III. pi. 80. In the 
 British Museum is a terra-cotta urn in the shape of 
 a small sarcophagus having an effigy of a female 
 
 lying on the lid, while on the front of it is a narrow 
 band of reliefs representing a central group of two 
 lions attacking a bull, with a Satyr reclining at each 
 end. 
 
22 
 
 made hollow. It was necessary that the clay should contain a minimum of moisture, 
 so as to avoid the dangers of expansion or contraction during the firing. Apparently 
 the figures had been modelled over an inner core of wood, which under the process of 
 firing would gradually disappear. In one place the chances and changes of firing are 
 very noticeable; the left foot of the man has shrunk to the extent of a good half inch 
 in length. In the left hand of the man the upper joint of the thumb is on a line with 
 the uppermost joints of the fingers, and as no one with any artistic training could have 
 made such a mistake, we must conclude that it also has been due to some mischance 
 in the firing. It was in antiquity a matter for surprise when a terra-cotta chariot 
 group at Veil had in the firing burst the kiln asunder. The Augurs proclaimed that 
 Veil would successfully resist the Romans so long as it held to that sarcophagus. 
 But the incident, though it may have been extraordinary, could not have been 
 altogether unexpected among a people so well accustomed to working in terra-cotta 
 as were the ancient Etruscans. 
 
 The reliefs on the sides of the sarcophagus were not subject to the same danger. 
 The process was different. The four sides would be erected first in pounded brick 
 or potter’s earth, from which the moisture would be extracted by a preliminary firing. 
 There would next be laid on a thin surface coating of finer clay, on which the reliefs 
 would be stamped from moulds ; then would follow the painting, and a final firing 
 at a low heat. 
 
 At this point it may be interesting to compare a somewhat older work of Etruscan 
 art, the bronze bust from the Polledrara tomb in the British Museum (b.c. 666-612), 
 for the sake of the striking contrast which is presented between the reliefs round the 
 base of the bust, and the artistic aspect of the bust itself. The reliefs exhibit many of 
 the excellences which arise from an art that has been practised for some time, while the 
 bust itself betrays in a glaring manner an inexperience in working in the round. In a 
 less degree, as would be expected in a more advanced stage of art, our sarcophagus 
 furnishes the same contrast between its reliefs and its figures in the round. 
 
 Bearing in mind the difficulties that beset the sculptor of a life-sized group of terra¬ 
 cotta, in particular the difficulty of translating from relief into the round, we are 
 prepared to expect in the man and woman on our sarcophagus a strong measure of 
 realism. The decorative instinct which had been developed in the reliefs was no longer 
 available. The figures must be as nearly as possible life-like, subject always to the 
 artistic traditions and conventions of the age, which could not be broken through. 
 Sir C. T. Newton said^ with perfect truth:— 
 
 “ The style of these figures is archaic, the treatment throughout very naturalistic, 
 in which a curious striving after truth in anatomical details gives animation to the 
 group, in spite of the extreme ungainliness of form and ungraceful composition.” 
 
 In the man the evidence of realism is most apparent in the modelling of the torso. 
 Hardly any trace of convention or tradition remains. In the limbs, however, there is 
 less of this direct study of nature, while again the face is simply a mask, executed on 
 traditional lines. We see that it is a mask from the artificial rendering of the hair over 
 the forehead, and are reminded thereby of the use of such masks to cover the faces of 
 
 Castellani Collection, p. 5, pis. 18-20; compare Dennis, Cities and Cemeteries of Etrtiria^ i. p. 281. 
 
the dead in early times, as, for example, in the gold masks of Mycense and other 
 instances.^ As regards the face of the woman, there is no such direct proof that it also 
 IS a mask, and no inference can be made one way or the other so long as it is 
 unknown whether she is to be regarded as living or dead. 
 
 The body of the woman is strongly naturalistic. In a rough general manner the 
 forms under the drapery are made to express themselves forcibly. The drapery has to 
 give up much of its older conventionalisms and has not yet found a proper substitute 
 for them, whereas the thicker drapery over the legs retains fully the old conventions. 
 On the other hand, the feet and ankles again make a considerable show of realism. 
 It is noticeable that she wears sandals, under which are thin stockings. Shoes, or 
 even high boots, may have been more in accordance with early Etruscan usage; but 
 the instances of sandals are numerous enough. The point for the moment is, that in 
 the other archaic examples the feet and the sandals alike adhere to a strictly 
 conventional type, while on our sarcophagus the feet of the woman seem almost to 
 feel the rude touch of the rough straps of the sandals. The thin stocking accentuates 
 that sense of touch. For the rest, we know of no other example of stockings among 
 the remains of ancient art. 
 
 In the reliefs on the sides of the sarcophagus there was no specially new problem 
 to be solved. The art of working in relief in terra-cotta had already passed through 
 its apprenticeship, and had established certain fixed types for individual figures, and for 
 a limited range of compositions. Its method of repeating figures and groups from 
 one and the same mould gave it an easy advantage for purposes of decoration. 
 The Museum possesses a number of fragments from a terra-cotta frieze, apparently 
 from a building of some sort, in which the same chariot group recurs four or five 
 times. That is a process of artistic economy which we saw largely employed in the 
 paintings of the sarcophagus from Ciazomenae. Even on the archaic limestone 
 cistas of the Etruscans the reliefs are sculptured in panels, as if under the direct 
 influence of the terra-cotta method of working from moulds, so far as concerns their 
 general form. 
 
 The question at the present day is, how far this method of working in relief in 
 terra-cotta had been derived by the Etruscans from Greece or from Asia Minor, how 
 long and to what extent that Hellenic influence had been exercised. Without entering 
 on the details of this question, this much seems clear, that the Etruscans did possess a 
 flourishing art of their own, even in times earlier than our sarcophagus. The proof of 
 that is to be seen in the numerous wall-paintings on their tombs, the sculptured cistse 
 above referred to, and many objects of art of a portable kind in bronze or in gold. 
 On the other hand, we see the archaic Etruscans employing the same alphabet as the 
 contemporary Greeks, and find that their tombs have yielded vast numbers of painted 
 vases and other examples of artistic luxury, which had obviously been imported from 
 Greece, all testifying to a wide community of feeling between the two peoples during 
 the archaic period. The difficulty is to establish a border line where these two classes 
 of works of art appear to encroach the one upon the other. To take our sarcophagus 
 
 Benndorf, Gesichtshebne, p. 70, pi. i 
 
24 
 
 as an illustration, the group on the lid would come within the category of more or 
 less purely Etruscan work, while the reliefs go to the opposite extreme of being 
 
 dominated by the influence of Greece or of Asia Minor. At first sight there seems 
 
 to be no detail in them which could not be found on the black-figure vases of the 
 later Corinthian or Chalcidian class, while, on the other hand, there is an entire 
 absence of strictly Etruscan costume, such as the pointed cap worn by Etruscan 
 
 women, as we see them on the tomb paintings and the limestone cistm. Yet on closer 
 
 inspection there has been a general transformation, which pervades almost every 
 
 detail. The girdles round the waists of the women and the borders of their dresses are 
 exaggerated to a degree which has no parallel on the Greek vases, and can best be 
 explained as examples of the form of exaggeration which usually attends the imitation 
 of a foreign school of art. 
 
 In connection with these matters of fact we have to bear in mind certain 
 traditions. We are told that the early art of Etruria had been greatly influenced by 
 artists who had settled there in exile from Corinth, among them being the father of 
 
 Tarquin. We know that in early times Corinth had been distinguished as a seat of 
 
 working in terra-cotta. Corinth in its turn had been influenced by the art of Asia 
 Minor, and of late years we have had abundant evidence in the sarcophagi of Asia 
 Minor to show to what excellence the art of working in terra-cotta had there attained. 
 Very possiby this art in passing through Corinth to Etruria had, at the same time, 
 touched on other parts of Greece. But as yet the proofs in this direction are 
 
 comparatively slight. 
 
 The subject of the reliefs has been thus described by Sir C. T. Newton*:— 
 
 “ The relief on the front of the coffin represents a battle between two warriors, each 
 attended by one male and two female figures. At either end of the scene is a winged 
 figure. These probably represent the souls of the two warriors. On the opposite side of 
 the coffin is represented a banquet at which a male and a female figure recline. At one 
 end are two warriors, each of whom appears to be taking leave of two female relatives. 
 At the other end are two pairs of females, seated on chairs in a mourning attitude. It 
 is to be presumed that the four scenes thus represented on the sides of the coffin have 
 relation to one another, and that the four subjects represented are: the leave-taking of two 
 warriors before going to single combat; the death of one of them; the mourning for that 
 death; and the funeral feast, or possibly the reception of the slain warrior in the realms 
 of bliss. But the particular single combat represented has not yet been identified. It 
 should be noticed that in the single combat a lion is represented fastening on the leg 
 of the falling warrior.” 
 
 In the central group on the front the idea of a lion assisting a combatant is 
 known elsewhere, as in the sculptures of Pergamon,’ and again on the frieze of the 
 Treasury of Knidosj?) discovered in the French excavations at Delphi, two or three 
 years ago. In the example from Delphi we see the goddess Cybelb in the midst of a 
 Gigantomachia driving a yoke of two lions, which seize upon a giant. Possibly some 
 
 The Castellani Collection^ p. 5. 
 
 * Beschretbung, p. 13. 
 
25 
 
 similarly Asiatic legend of a warrior attended by a lion had found its way to Etruria. 
 The only alternative that suggests itself is that the presence of the lion may have 
 been meant to show by a species of anticipation or prolepsis that the body of the 
 falling combatant was left to be devoured by wild beasts. 
 
 The explanation of the two winged figures at either end of the combat-scene 
 as the souls of the warriors is justified by those instances of psychostasia, in which, 
 as on an archaic vase in the Museum (B. 639), Hermes is seen weighing in a 
 balance the souls of Achilles and Memnon during their encounter. It may be assumed 
 that the soul of the wounded man is bounding off to Hades, The conception seems 
 to be purely Greek, or more particularly Ionian Greek. 
 
 In the banquet scene on the back of the sarcophagus there appear certain vases 
 on tall pedestals which correspond exactly in shape with a class of vases which 
 have been found of late years at Falerii and elsewhere. These may be regarded 
 as local Etruscan ware. It is noticeable also that one of the musicians carries a 
 lyre in his hand of absurdly diminutive proportions. The shape of the lyre is 
 correct, but its exceeding smallness implies that the artist was ignorant of the 
 proportions of this instrument in Greek art, as an Etruscan artist might perhaps 
 be excused for being, considering that the flutes were much more to his nature 
 and practice. 
 
 The inscription on the front of the sarcophagus reads: ^ 
 
 Mivelaves nas' nievepetursikipa 
 Tkaniavelaimat maiimata. 
 
 The sarcophagus was acquired in 1873 from Alessandro Castellani, who in turn had 
 purchased it from Pietro Pennelli. It reached the Museum in the condition in which it 
 had been found at Caere (Cervetri)—that is to say, in a number of pieces, the fractured 
 edges showing the same hard incrustation which is still visible on many parts of the 
 surface. In ordinary circumstances it would be unnecessary even to mention, still less 
 to emphasize, this condition of the sarcophagus when it arrived here, since nothing 
 could be more satisfactory than the state of this terra-cotta. 
 
 It happened, however, that certain scholars took objection to the inscription on the 
 ground of its resemblance to an Etruscan inscription on a gold fibula in the Louvre, 
 and because of difficulties in explaining the structure of certain of the words. In a 
 matter still so obscure as the Etruscan language, it was to be expected that while the 
 most prominent of the then Etruscan scholars (Corssen) found no difficulty in the 
 inscription, others would take a different view. As scholars they were entitled to do 
 so, but when they proceeded to criticise the artistic features of the sarcophagus they 
 forgot the advice of Apelles to his critic. 
 
 The sarcophagus measures 5 ft. 8 in. in height, inclusive of group, and 4 ft. 5 in. 
 in length. It has been published by: Sir C. T. Newton, The Castellani Collection (1874), 
 pis. 18-20; Encyclopcedia Britannica, 9th ed., vol. 8, pi. 8; G. Dennis, Cities and 
 Cemeteries of Etruria, 2nd ed., I. p. 227 and p. 280. 
 
 See Deecke, Eiruskische Forschungen, pt. 3, p. 257, where the literature of the subject is collected. 
 

SARCOPHAGUS FROM CLAZOMENAE 
 
SARCOPHAGUS FROM CLAZOMENAF 
 
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 ;iRC0PHAGU5 FROM CLAZOMERAE 
 
SARCOPHAGUS FROM CAMEIROS IN RHODES 
 
PL IX 
 
 ETRUSCAN SARCOPHAGUS FROM CAERE 
 
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 ETRUSCAN SARCOPHAGUS FROM CAERE 
 
PL XI 
 
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