MÈTIS N. S.

12  2014
Anthropologie des mondes grecs anciens
Histoire  •  Philologie  •  Archéologie

Dossier :

Des vases pour les Athéniens

(vie-ive siècles avant notre ère)

Éditions de l’ehess • Daedalus

Paris • Athènes
 Sommaire

Dossier : Des vases pour les Athéniens

(vie-ive siècles avant notre ère)

Marie-Christine Villanueva Puig, Des vases pour les Athéniens (vie-

ive siècles avant notre ère)������������������������������������������������������������������� 7-24
Annie Verbanck-Piérard, Sous les yeux d’Athéna et des Athéniens :vases,
techniques et statut de l’artisan à l’Acropole�������������������������������������� 25-49
Victoria Sabetai, The wedding vases of the Athenians: a view from
sanctuaries and houses������������������������������������������������������������������������ 51-79
Kathleen Lynch, Fine Ware Pottery from a Late Archaic House near the
Athenian Agora����������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 81-98
Norbert Eschbach, Athenian Vases for whom? A new workshop of the
late 4th century in the Athenian Kerameikos........................................ 99-118
Violaine Jeammet, Des vases plastiques attiques pour les Athéniens du
ive siècle����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 119-143
Jutta Stroszeck, Plastic vases related to the Eleusinian cult from the
Athenian Kerameikos�������������������������������������������������������������������������� 145-162
Cécile Jubier-Galinier, La production « athénienne » du Peintre de
Sappho, entre création et routine��������������������������������������������������������� 163-188
Robin Osborne, Afterword. Towards an understanding of the choices
made by the producers and consumers of Attic pottery���������������������� 189-198

Varia
Annick Louis, Les vies de Schliemann : l’autobiographie comme lieu de
savoir��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 201-223
Marisa Tortorelli Ghidini, Acque e anime nell’escatologia orfico-
pitagorica��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 225-236
Giuseppina Paola Viscardi, L’insostenibile “pesantezza” della saggezza.
A proposito del baros/embaros di Munichia o sul sapere sacerdotale
dell’uomo dotato di nous e phronesis�������������������������������������������������� 237-264
Dyfri Williams, Prometheus, Epimetheus and Pandora: from Athenian
pottery to satyr-plays and cult������������������������������������������������������������� 265-290
Manuela Giordano, Contamination et vengeance : pour une diachronie
du miasma������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 291-310
César Fornis, Cynisca l’Eurypontide : genre, autorité et richesse dans la
Sparte impériale du début du ive siècle avant notre ère����������������������� 311-324
Philippe Akar, Pleurer comme un homme à la fin de la République
romaine, ou comment construire l’autorité par les larmes������������������ 325-352

Résumés���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 353-362
Revues échangées avec Mètis��������������������������������������������������������������������������� 363
Le 4 janvier 2014, Jean-Pierre Vernant aurait eu 100 ans. Il nous a quittés
le 9 janvier 2007. D’autres célèbreront ailleurs et autrement ce centenaire.
Nous souhaitons ici rappeler la mémoire de celui qui fut, en 1986, un des
fondateurs de la revue Mètis. Il nous a appris, entre autres, à partager, à
réfléchir, à dialoguer. En important dans le domaine de l’antiquité classique
le questionnement des sciences sociales, il a transformé de manière
irréversible les études grecques. Il a ainsi notablement élargi le champ de
nos recherches en les ouvrant sur la société contemporaine. Sa méthode et
son style personnel d’intellectuel engagé, son acuité et son intelligence en
tant que lecteur averti, sa générosité et son attention aux autres, quels qu’ils
soient, resteront pour nous un modèle lumineux.
 Dyfri Williams
Gerda Henkel Marie Curie Senior Research Fellow, Université libre de Bruxelles

Prometheus, Epimetheus and Pandora:

from Athenian pottery to satyr-plays and cult*

The mythical figure of Prometheus has served many artists and writers
since he first appeared in Hesiod’s the Works and Days.1 He is readily used
as a model of human ingenuity and a symbol of mortal suffering, and we
continue to invoke him whether faced with external or internal crises. In the
nineteenth century this multivalent figure of Prometheus was equated with
Christ, Napoleon, and even Don Giovanni, was used by slavery abolitionists
and, of course, evoked by a defiant Karl Marx. In the wake of the Second
World War and the growing Cold War, Oskar Kokoschka used the image in
his great triptych of 1950 as a warning about what might happen to man in
his arrogance, while Frances Bacon’s triptych of 1976 reveals a terrifying
and ferocious mix of Classical imagery that seems to echo personal pain
and suffering. The latest manifestation, however, is a Hollywood science-
fiction film by Ridley Scott, in which Prometheus has become a space-craft
that, together with its occupants, is sacrificed in a seemingly futile attempt
*  I am very grateful to Kate Morton for kindly drawing the preliminary sketch lines
on the London Owl-Pillar neck-amphora for me. I should also like to thank François
Lissarrague for the invitation to Paris, as a Visiting Professor at the Centre Louis Gernet in
May 2008, where I did some of the early research on Prometheus for one of his seminars,
and for seeing the resultant article, which was written during my tenure of a Gerda Henkel
Marie Curie Senior Research Fellowship at the Université libre de Bruxelles, through the
press. Finally I should like to thank Natacha Massar who very kindly read various drafts
and Georg Plattner, Christine Kondoleon, and Anja Ulbrich for their help with images.
1.  Hesiod, Theogony 507-616; Works and Days 42-105. On Hesiod see West 1966
and 1978. On the general theme of Prometheus see most recently Carol Dougherty,
Prometheus, Abingdon, 2006.

Mètis, N. S. 12, 2014, p. 265-290.

266 Dyfri Williams
to avert the threat posed by Titan-like alien beings (“Engineers”) to planet
Earth. Prometheus’ name and his protective challenge on behalf of the
human race have not, it would seem, been forgotten.
In ancient art there is an early visual tradition of the punishment of
Prometheus.2 It was at Athens in the late seventh century and early sixth,
however, that the fullest expression of the theme occurred, including images
of Herakles shooting the eagle that tortured Prometheus, shackled to the
Caucasian crag. I have suggested elsewhere that this latter scene was perhaps
reinvigorated on Athenian vases from about 440 BC by Aeschylean drama,
in particular the Prometheus Desmotes and the Lyomenos.3 I also went on
to point out that at just the same time a satyr-play may have encouraged a
particular interest among vase-painters in the theme of Prometheus’s theft
of fire and the hiding of it in a fennel rod and even suggested that this
play was, in fact, Aeschylus’ Prometheus Pyrkaeus which could have been
created to go with the other two dramas.4
Here, I wish to examine the increasing variety and complexity of scenes
involving the Titan brothers, Prometheus and Epimetheus, in the years
following the Persian Wars. By the beginning of the fifth century the stock
of stories available to vase-painters was considerable, but it was at this point
that the inventiveness of theatre drama began to add new dimensions to old
themes and ensure that myth-making remained alive and vigorous. The
recognition of such influence is based on three fundamental signals, rather
than proofs. The first is the sudden apparent popularity of a story or episode
(this may equally be the result of a new visual source, such as a wall or panel
painting, but this would perhaps tend to lead to a host of very similar scenes
as opposed to disparate versions). The second is a new feature or twist to an
old story, including the appearance of an unexpected or extraneous figure
or action. The third is the depiction of unusual details in the iconography,
such as the wearing of special costumes. The iconographer must be attuned
to such “intrusive” elements in what one may think of as the general store
of mythological material and attempt to account for them, even if little
evidence can be adduced to support any subsequent interpretation.
2.  For the visual evidence see most fully Gisler 1994.
3. Williams 2008, p. 181-185.
4. Williams 2008, p. 185; see also John D. Beazley, “Prometheus Fire-Lighter”, AJA
43, 1939, p. 618-639, with a different conclusion.
Prometheus, Epimetheus and Pandora 267
Prometheus and Hephaistos
I begin with a particular example, the tondo of a fine red-figure cup in the
Cabinet des Médailles, attributed to Douris and dating to about 470 BC or
soon after. Prometheus stands before Hera who is seated on an elaborate
throne: both figures are named (fig. 1).5 This scene and combination of
figures is unique, while their meaning has never really been addressed. The
likely context for the combination of figures would seem to be provided,
in fact, by the scenes on the exterior, which show the return of Hephaistos
to Olympos, accompanied by Dionysos and his troop of satyrs. The smith-
god, in revenge for being thrown off Olympos by his mother Hera, made
and sent the goddess a magical throne that imprisoned her; and in a number
of fifth century representations she is seen seated on this throne awaiting
the rescue procession and thus her release.6 Our preserved literary sources
do not reveal what the role of Prometheus might have been in this story
– was he appointed by Hephaistos to oversee the delivery and erection of
the throne or could he have been one of those summoned to attempt her
release? The parallel with Hephaistos, a god in need of reconciliation with
the Olympian family, whether Hera or Zeus, is obvious and as we shall see
there are many cross-overs between the stories of these two technologically
minded immortals. Furthermore, we might note that there are actually later
references to the idea that Hera was Prometheus’ mother and Hephaistos
Prometheus’ son, as well as evidence for a general and growing convergence
in the myth and cult of the two figures in the fifth century.7
5.  Paris, Cabinet des Médailles 542: Beazley ARV2 p. 438, 133; Kerényi 1963, p. 59,
with pl. 4; Diana Buitron-Oliver, Douris, Mainz, 1995, pl. 100.
6.  Return: Brommer 1978, p. 10-17 and p. 199-204. Hera on magic throne: Monique
Halm-Tisserant, « La représentation du retour d’Héphaïstos dans l’Olympe: Iconographie
traditionelle et innovations formelles dans l’atelier de Polygnotos (440-430)  », AK 29,
1986, p. 8-22, esp. p. 20-1. For Brommer 1978, no. B 53 see now Delia G. Lollini et alii,
La ceramica attica figurate nelle Marche (Ancona 1991) no. 5 (Enrico Paribeni); and for
a new representation see Giovanni Rizza, “La liberazione di Hera in un vaso attico da
Lentini”, in Graziella Fiorentini et alii (ed.), Archeologia del Mediterraneo: studi in onore
di Ernesto de Miro, Roma, 2003, p. 579-590. There do not seem to be any examples of
Hera trapped in her throne before the first decade of the fifth century (the earliest is the
Kleophrades Painter’s calyx-krater, Louvre G 162, Brommer 1978, no. B 3).
7.  Hera as Prometheus’s mother: scholiast on Homer, Iliad XIV, 295 – Euphorion, ed.
John U. Powell, Collectanea Alexandrina, Oxford, 1925, p. 42, fr. 99; Kerényi 1963, p. 35
and 59. For the idea that Hephaistos was Prometheus’ son (with this cup) see Kerényi 1963,
p. 57-58, using Pausanias IX, 25, 6. The difference in age is noted in the description of the
268 Dyfri Williams
There seems to be clear visual evidence for a satyr play at the time of
the Paris cup, one that included the return of Hephaistos, for a fine calyx-
krater in Vienna, attributed to the Altamura Painter, depicts a satyr wearing
the perizoma, tight-fitting shorts with an attached erect phallus and a tail,
as he leads Dionysos and Hephaistos to Olympos (fig. 2).8 The perizoma is
regularly identified as a dramatic costume, since it is not required by “real”
satyrs and thus breaks the illusion of a regular scene of myth.9 Although
using visual evidence to reconstruct possible satyr plays is fraught with
uncertainties (at least as many as those surrounding the identification or
reconstruction of such plays from scraps of papyrus and possible quotes
in later authors), most scholars seem comfortable with the idea of a play
that included the return of Hephaistos to Mt Olympos and have tended to
look to the playwright Achaios who is recorded as having produced a play
entitled the “Komasts or Hephaistos”.10 Achaios, however, was clearly
active in the second half of the fifth century, not in the first, a fact that has
led some to suppose two satyr plays on the theme of Hephaistos.
Is there any other evidence for such an earlier play, whoever its author
was? To answer this, we might look at a three more unusual scenes. A
remarkable red-figure kalpis attributed to the Leningrad Painter in Boston
shows a group of satyrs, also in perizōmata, carrying parts of what is surely
a grand throne (fig. 3). This must be Hephaistos’s gift for Hera, as Erika
pair on a carved pedestal from near the Academy: scholiast on Sophokles, Oedipus Colonus
55-56. There is also a reference to the idea that it was not Hephaistos but Prometheus that
wielded the axe that released Athena from Zeus’ head: Euripides, Ion 452-7; and a tradition
that it was Prometheus that created Pandora: Plotinus, Enneads IV, 3, 14.
8.  Vienna inv. IV 985: Beazley ARV2 p. 591, 20; Lissarrague 1990, p. 233; Krumeich
et alii 1999, pl. 28a. For recent comments on the visual indicators of satyr plays see the
important overview in Krumeich et alii 1999, p. 41-73; also Bernd Seidensticker, “The
Chorus in Greek Satyrplay”, in Csapo, Miller 2003, p. 100-121; Podlecki 2005, p. 2-3;
Carpenter 2005, p. 233; and Lissarrague 2013, p. 28-37. Note also I.C. Storey, “But
Comedy has satyrs too”, in Harrison 2005, p. 201-218, esp. p. 208-209, who makes it clear
that our ability to differentiate between satyrs in satyr-plays and in comedies is limited. On
satyr plays in general see most recently: Pierre Voelke, Un Théâtre de la marge. Aspects
figuratifs et configurationels du drame satyrique dans l’Athènes classique, Bari, 2001;
J. Gibert, “Recent work on Greek satyr play”, CJ 98, 2002, p. 79-88; J. Gibert, “Satyric
Drama”, CR 2003, p. 22-24 (review of Voelke).
9.  On perizōmata see Anneliese Kossatz-Deissmann, “Zur Herkunft des Perizoma im
Sayrspiel”, JDAI 97, 1982, p. 65-90. Lissarrague 1990, p. 230-231, is perhaps unduly
cautious.
10.  Cf. Brommer 1959, p. 29-32; Sutton 1980, p. 70-1; Simon 1982, p. 131-2; Krumeich
et alii 1999, p. 519-521.
Prometheus, Epimetheus and Pandora 269
Simon realised – we see the four elaborate legs and what seems to be the
cross-bracing for the seat (held up-side-down) being brought forward to a
plinth for erection.11 Simon, following one of Beazley’s suggestions, went
on to identify the closely draped bearded male in a himation beyond the
aulos as the chorēgos.12 She may be right, for the figure is isolated from
the action by the musician, but Beazley’s alternative idea, “a character in
the play”, is perhaps more likely, for the figure’s reserved hair and beard
and his seemingly pouting mouth might well indicate a dramatic mask,
perhaps a white-haired one. If he is part of the play, then he might best
be thought of as Prometheus, as he can hardly be Hephaistos. This scene
might thus help us to understand Douris’ cup as representing Prometheus
observing Hera’s imprisonment, not perhaps without a certain quiet
satisfaction.
Another vase that might hold a link between Hephaistos and Prometheus,
but this time one that is not immediately obvious, is the column-krater
from Caltanisetta attributed to the Harrow Painter, a work of the later 470s
BC.13 It shows two satyrs (not wearing perizōmata) seemingly helping
Hephaistos in his forge, although one wonders what mischief the satyr
holding the pair of skin bellows might really have in mind. We cannot
know what Hephaistos himself is busy with - it is clearly not Achilles’
armour – but it is the presence of the satyrs that seems the point of the
11.  Boston 03.788: Beazley ARV2 p. 571, 75; Brommer 1959, p. 13-14, fig. 8; Simon
1982, p. 135-6, with fig. 36b; Lissarrague 1990, p. 231 with pl. 10; Carpenter 2005,
p. 222 and fig. 4 (he notes that it is probably by the same painter as a kalpis in Tokyo that
Simon argued was inspired by Aeschylus’ Sphinx – Simon 1981; Simon 1982, pl. 37 a-b;
Krumeich et alii 1999, pl. 22b); Krumeich et alii 1999, p. 23 n. 109, 59, 209, 520 n. 13,
with pl. 4; Mitchell 2009, p. 210-1; Marie Louise Hart (ed.), The Art of the Ancient Greek
Theater, Los Angeles, 2010, p. 98-99, no. 46; Lissarrague 2013, p. 29-30 and fig. 6. Note
especially Beazley’s careful description in Lacey D. Caskey, John D. Beazley, Attic Vase
Paintings in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston iii, Oxford, 1963, p. 51-52, no. 151.
12.  Cf. also Lissarrague 1990, p. 231 and 2013, p. 30 (chorēgos); Klaus Junker, “The
Transformation of Athenian Theatre Culture around 400 BC”, in Taplin, Wyles 2010, p.
134-5 (choregos or ordinary citizen as audience). For a more plausible choregos, Charinos
on the Pronomos vase see Peter Wilson, “The Man and the Music (and the Choregos)”, in
Taplin, Wyles 2010, p. 206 and 209-210.
13.  Caltanisetta 20371: John D. Beazley, Paralipomena. Additions to Attic black-figure
vase-painters and to Attic red-figure vase-painters, Oxford, 1971, p. 354, add as 274, 39
bis; Brommer 1978, p. 25, with 209 no. B.3; Robert Gempeler, “Die Schmiede des Hephäst
– Eine Satyr-Spielszene des Harrow-Malers”, AK 12, 1969, p. 16-21, pls 13 and 14, 3-4.
See also Mitchell 2009, p. 195; and Lissarrague 2013, p. 214, who views the satyrs
simply as workmen.
270 Dyfri Williams
scene, suggesting that the moment is prior to Dionysos and his satyrs
escorting the lame smith-god back to Olympos. When Hephaistos was
ejected from Olympos, he landed on the island of Lemnos, was rescued by
Thetis and established his forge.14 The association between Prometheus’
theft of fire and the forge on Lemnos is made by several writers, including
Cicero’s translation of a passage from the lost Prometheus Lyomenos
where he refers to the theft of fire as “furtum Lemnium”.15 This suggests
that Aeschylus located the theft on Lemnos and, indeed, it is thus depicted
on a later Roman sarcophagus.16 Furthermore, it is perhaps with such a
scene in Hephaistos’ forge on Lemnos that we should associate a fragment
quoted from one of Aeschylus’ Prometheus plays, a line that suits a curious
and mischievous satyr: “and you be careful lest a bubble burst in your
face; for it is bitter, and its vapour bitter and deadly.” 17
Finally, a third contemporary vase should be mentioned here as it seems
to record, if indirectly, the celebration of the gift of fire to mankind, and
that is the Altamura Painter’s chous in Berlin with its scene of young
satyrs in a torch race, under the eye of a giant statue of Dionysos.18 Four
tiny satyrs run in perfectly synchronised pairs, like striding male ballet
dancers, clutching torches, while their companion has mounted the barrier
round an altar to sound a trumpet, as if he was the starter of the race or
announcing the winner.19 Whether this torch race was intended for that in
honour of Hephaistos or of Prometheus is not clear: indeed, it may have
been intended to do duty for both.
These four vases, all roughly contemporary, provide an unusual range
of images. All have been singled out before in some way or other, but the
apparent connecting thread has not elicited any comment. For, if one were
14.  For Lemnos as the landing place and for the forge: Homer, Iliad I, 590-1;
Apollodoros, Bibl. I, 3, 5; Lucian, De Sacrificiis 6.
15.  Plato, Protagoras 321c; Lucian, Prometheus 5; Cicero, Tusc. II, 10, 23. There are
other traditions: Hesiod, Works and Days 51; Virgil, Eclogues VI, 42. See further Kerényi
1963, p. 80-81.
16.  Roman sarcophagus: Gisler 1994, no. 1.
17.  Krumeich et alii 1999, p. 174, F 206. Cf. Kerényi 1963, p. 70-71.
18.  Berlin 1962.33: Adolf Greifenhagen, Ein Satyrspiel des Aischylos? (118
Winckelmanns­programm; Berlin 1963); Simon 1981, p. 27-28 with pl. 16. See further,
Simon 1982, p. 140, who associates it, perhaps rather oddly, with a different satyr drama,
the Trophoi. Cf. also Mitchell 2009, p. 184 with fig. 94, who takes the satyrs as anti-
athletes rather than as part of a satyr play (he also mistakes Simon’s attribution).
19.  One also thinks of the trumpet that started the drinking competition at the Anthesteria
– cf. Aristophanes, Acharnians 1000-2.
Prometheus, Epimetheus and Pandora 271
to put them together with the scenes of the return of Hephaistos as a single
story, it might go as follows: Hera throws Hephaistos out of Olympos;
he lands on Lemnos and establishes his forge there (Prometheus takes
advantage of fire being on earth to pass it, with the aid of the satyrs, on
to mankind); Hephaistos takes revenge on Hera with his magical throne,
helped by the satyrs (and perhaps Prometheus, who is similarly soon cast
out, perhaps with this additional cause); eventually Hephaistos is reconciled
with Hera (thanks to Dionysos’ intervention; just as Prometheus was
reconciled with Zeus thanks to Herakles’); and a torch race is established
for Hephaistos (and Prometheus).
The impact that the public performance of plays, whether tragic or comic,
had on vase-painters will have been filtered through their own system or
language of images (both socially and personally determined) and may have
resulted in either a generically representative image of the play (perhaps
built around or incorporating a key scene or idea) or a series of images
derived from different engaging moments.20 It might, therefore, be possible
to associate not only the substantial series of scenes of Prometheus with
fennel stalks or torches accompanied by satyrs with an Aeschylean satyr
play,21 but also the diverse yet contemporary series of images connected
here with the theme of Hephaistos’ expulsion from Olympos. Indeed, these
images do seem to reflect some of the other potentially comic moments
in the action – the satyr chorus playing dangerously in Hephaistos’ forge;
the satyrs’ dance of the flat-packed furniture; the stiff embarrassment of
Hera in front of a silently gloating Prometheus; and even the balletic satyr
torch race that perhaps acted as a finale. As noted above, we know of a
satyr-play by Achaios entitled the “Komasts or Hephaistos”, but this must
have belonged after the middle of the fifth century. If, however, we follow
the inclusion of Prometheus, as suggested especially by the Cabinet des
Médailles tondo (fig. 1) and perhaps the Boston kalpis (figs 2-3), it would
open the possibility of the influential play really being one of Aeschylus’,
namely that performed under the title Prometheus which was victorious
in the Great Dionysia of 473/2 BC.22 Although such a suggestion can only
remain hypothetical, we might note that Aeschylus was, of course, not
20.  Cf. Shapiro 1994, p. 8-9: “synoptic” and “cyclic”, following Anthony Snodgrass,
Narration and Allusion in Archaic Greek Art, London, 1982.
21.  See Williams 2008, p. 185.
22.  It is sometimes suggested that there was another satyr play by Aeschylus which
might have been related in theme – the Kabeiroi – but its existence is very uncertain – see
Podlecki 2005, p. 12-13. The Sicilian playwright, Epicharmos, is also recorded as having
272 Dyfri Williams
only a highly renowned writer of satyrika, with perhaps more than 20%
of his output being devoted to that genre, but also that he appears to have
had an interest in the figure of Prometheus as revealed by his later group
of plays, a dilogy and a satyr play.23
Making Pandora presentable
Next, I should like to turn to a further group of images on fifth century
vases, one that centres more directly on a particular strand of the Prometheus
myth, that involving Pandora, for some of these representations on vases
also betray a link with the theatre. Although Hesiod records the story that
she was made from clay by Hephaistos and then provided with all sorts of
gifts by several of the gods before being given to Epimetheus, there were
no doubt other versions, certainly by the fifth century.24 A small group
of contemporary vases, all of the decade 470-460 BC, show the final
adornment of Pandora just prior to her despatch to Epimetheus.25 On the
first, a white-ground cup attributed to the Tarquinia Painter, Athena and
Hephaistos add the finishing touches to the creation of Pandora: Athena
reaches out to fix the pin in the shoulder of Pandora’s peplos as Hephaistos
adjusts her diadem, while holding his metalsmith’s hammer.26 Pandora is
here given a name devoid of any traces of Hesiodic misogyny, Anesidora
(“she who sends up gifts”), and bears witness to a positive shift in an
Athenian context that helps us to understand the presence of the scene on
the base of the Athena Parthenos.27
produced a Pyrrha or Prometheus, perhaps in the first half of the fifth century: Krumeich
et alii 1999, p. 169.
23.  Cf. Podlecki 2005, p. 4-16 and 17. On the other Prometheus plays see Williams
2008, p. 183-185.
24.  Hesiod, Works and Days, 59-68. See West 1978, p. 166 for the stories brought
together or reflected in Hesiod. See also Boardman 2001, p. 233-236.
25.  For this group of vases see most recently Boardman 2001, p. 237-241. On the scene
of Pandora on the base of the Athena Parthenos see also N. Robertson, “Pandora and the
Panathenaic Peplos”, in Michael Cosmopoulos (ed.), The Parthenon and its Sculptures,
Cambridge, 2004, p. 86- 94; Claire C. Davison, Geoffrey B. Waywell, Pheidias: the
Sculptures & ancient sources, London, 2009, p. 117-126 (BICS Suppl. 105).
26.  British Museum GR 1885,0128.1 (Vase D 4): Beazley ARV2 p. 869, 55; Shapiro
1994, p. 66-7, fig. 41; Reeder 1995, no. 79.
27.  For this approach see especially Boardman 2001.
Prometheus, Epimetheus and Pandora 273
The second representation occurs in the centre of the upper frieze of
one side of a calyx-krater attributed to the Niobid Painter.28 Here, Pandora
stands, frontal, fully dressed and holding a branch or garland in either
hand. Athena stands on the left holding out a garland, while behind her are
Poseidon, Zeus and Iris. To the right of Pandora is Ares, then Hermes, while
on the far right stands Hera (or Aphrodite). It is strange that Hephaistos
is not shown opposite Athena, as on the white-ground cup (and on a third
example discussed below), and that he has been replaced by Ares. In fact,
Ares and Hermes form a pair of figures, moving apart (in contrast to all the
other very static figures) but looking back at each other. The deliberateness
of their dynamics may well be intended to be significant. We might wonder
if the dangerous quarrelsomeness of Ares, highlighted in Homer, had been
added at some point to Hesiod’s misogynistic list of gifts from the gods to
amplify Hermes’ gift of bitchiness and deceit.29 Alternatively, if there was
a humorous allusion here, we might think of the story that Ares was sent
to try to bring back Hephaistos, but was frightened off by him wielding
torches.30 Below is a frieze of satyrs wearing perizōmata (with satyrs’ tails
and erect phalloi) but also sporting goat horns and hoofs, all dancing to
the sound of the auloi being played by the youth in the centre. The link
between this chorus and Pandora above is made clear by the punning
additions to their dramatic costume, Pan’s horns and hoofs.
The third example is a fine but fragmentary rhyton attributed to the Sotades
Painter that was dedicated in the sanctuary of Aphrodite in Paphos.31 It has
the remains of a stately version of the dressing of Pandora, but it is sadly too
incomplete to add much, other than that this time Athena and Hephaistos
flanked Pandora. Nevertheless, the same workshop has left another version
of the story on a fragmentary stemless cup from Olbia, which has not
previously been discussed in this context.32 Here a draped, bearded man
seems to adjust the drapery on the shoulder of the pale, lifeless-looking
28.  British Museum GR 1856,1213.1 (Vase E 467): Beazley ARV2 p. 601, 23; Shapiro
1994, p. 67-8, fig. 42; Reeder 1995, no. 80.
29.  For Ares cf. Homer, Iliad V, 889-891. Otherwise, his presence has been explained
simply as the consort of Aphrodite (cf. Reeder 1995, p. 283) or more allusively as a
womaniser (Shapiro 1994, p. 67).
30.  Libanius, Narrationes, peri Hephaistou: Krumeich et alii 1999, p. 517.
31.  British Museum GR 1888,1114.3 and 4 (Vase E 789) frr.: Beazley ARV2 p. 764, 9; D.
Williams, “Sotades: Plastic and White”, in Simon Keay, Stephanie Moser (ed.), Greek Art
in View: Studies in Honour of Brian Sparkes, Oxford, 2004, p. 103-106, figs 7.8 and 7.9.
32.  Parutino, Olbian Arch. Mus.: Sergej D. Krijitsky, Nina A. Lejpunskaja, Olbia,
Nikolaev, 1997, p. 45 fig. 26-2.
274 Dyfri Williams
and frontal figure of Pandora, while to the right a satyr dances wildly. The
presence of a satyr on this fragment indicates a dramatic context almost as
clearly as the costumes of the chorus on the Niobid Painter’s krater. The
identity of the figure dressing Pandora, however, is puzzling. If we follow
Hesiod, he should be Hephaistos, but he has none of the usual distinguishing
features of the smith-god and we have to consider the possibility that here a
variant version is represented, one in which it was Prometheus who created
Pandora, a version only preserved by Plotinus in the third century AD.33
Fifth-century playwrights were clearly quite ready and happy to mix and
manipulate versions of a well-known theme as they sought success in the
new vibrant world of fifth-century Athenian drama. Myth, in many ways,
only exists to be manipulated.
Receiving Pandora
What happened next to Pandora? Among the plethora of anodos scenes
that show a female figure rising from the ground, surrounded by satyrs
who beat the earth, we find a small group that involve a human, and
in one case he is labelled Epimetheus and she Pandora.34 This is on a
mid-fifth century volute-krater in Oxford (fig. 4).35 Epimetheus is shown
with a large wooden hammer looking down at Pandora rising from the
ground, arms outstretched as an Eros hovers above, while to the left of the
scene are Hermes and Zeus. This would seem to present a story in which
Epimetheus summoned Pandora from the earth by hammering the ground,
perhaps accidentally as he toiled in the fields, for he is to be thought of as a
farmer breaking up the clods of soil before planting.36 Quite why Pandora
appears in this fashion is not explained in our preserved literary sources,
but one can only suppose that although Hermes was to be her escort, the
33.  Plotinus, Enneads IV, 3, 14.
34.  On anodos scenes see Bérard 1974, passim.
35.  Oxford G 275 (V 525): Beazley ARV2 p. 1562, 4; CVA Oxford i, p. 18-19, pls 21,
1-2, and 36, 1; Trendall, Webster 1971, p. 33, II 8; Shapiro 1994, p. 69, fig. 45; Reeder
1995, no. 81.
36.  Carl Robert, “Pandora”, Hermes 49, 1914, p. 17-38; and Beazley 1958, p. 92, who
favoured the agricultural mallet or bettle used for breaking up the clods of earth. Simon
1982, 146, prefers the idea that the hammers were for beating clay; but in Simon 1989,
p. 199, she offers both possibilities. In fact the wooden hammers (kopana) used by early
twentieth century potters on the Greek islands are of a radically different shape.
Prometheus, Epimetheus and Pandora 275
actual transition had to be effected by Epimetheus himself, beating on
the ground and causing her to rise up, an anodos suitable for Anesidora
(“she who sends up gifts”), the name used on the white-ground cup. Eros
probably suggests the impending marriage of Epimetheus and Pandora,
while Zeus is shown as the cruel conceiver of the whole plan.37
Two vases, which seem to depict the same theme, take it back some 20-
30 years to around 490-480 BC. They are both black-figured lekythoi, one
in Paris attributed to the Athena Painter, the other in the Bojkov collection
attributable to the Theseus Painter. On the Paris lekythos only Pandora’s
head is shown, flanked by two figures wielding hammers; the scene is
bracketed by columns and all the figures wear festive branches in their
hair.38 The figure on the right is a normal bearded man, but that on the left
has the red ear, long beard and hair arrangement of a satyr, although he
lacks a tail. On the Bulgarian lekythos, Pandora is now out of the ground
to the level of her thighs and has two branches, while of the two flanking
figures one at least is purely human.39 It might seem possible that on these
two lekythoi both Epimetheus and Prometheus are involved, but on the
Paris vase we may prefer to think that the vase-painter had in mind a satyr.
An extraordinary red-figured stamnos in the Louvre attributed to the
Eucharides Painter and also dating to about 490-480 BC needs to be
discussed here.40 On one side there are three satyrs dressed in perizōmata:
two are wielding hammers, but the third has dropped his as a female head
emerges from the ground (there is no Epimetheus here, but the context of a
satyr play is clear from the costumes). The other side of the vase shows an
37.  For Eros cf. Beazley in CVA Oxford i, p. 19; an alternate tradition has Prometheus
married to Pandora, see West 1978, p. 165 (Hesiod fr. 2).
38.  Paris, Cabinet des Médailles 298: Beazley ABV p. 522, 87 (Athena Painter); Bérard
1974, figs 21-22; Simon 1989, pl. 34, 5; Shapiro 1994, p. 69; and Krumeich et alii 1999, p. 56,
n. 69, who discount the satyr-like figure. On the problem of anodoi in general see recently
Boardman 2001, p. 240-241. The figure with a hammer attacking a tree (and the satyr-play
versions of it) have been plausibly interpreted as Erysichthon, see H. Alan Shapiro, “The
Iconography of Erysichthon: Kallimachos and his sources”, in Proceedings of the XIIIth
International Congress of Classical Archaeology, Berlin 1988, Mainz, 1990, p. 529-530
(satyr play Aithon by Achaios); and Uta Kron, in LIMC iv, s. v. Erysichthon I, p. 14-18.
39.  Ivan R. Marazov et alii, Vassil Bojkov Collection, Sofia, 2005, no. 81. The text of
the catalogue is not very informative, and the illustration only shows one of the men.
40.  Louvre C 10754 plus: Beazley ARV2 p. 228, 32; Beazley 1958, p. 91-95; with all
the new fragments, found since Beazley’s publication, Simon 1989, p. 197-203, pls 34,
1-4 and 35, 1-2; Krumeich et alii 1999, pl. 1b-c, with p. 57 with n. 71, dismissing Simon’s
interpretation.
276 Dyfri Williams
aulos player, a youth preparing a bull for sacrifice (it is being encouraged
to drink from the large lekanē beneath his head), and a bearded himation-
clad man. Under one handle is a goat; under the other a pointed amphora
leaning against a small rock; there is also a bird above either handle.41 The
piper has stopped playing, both his auloi are in one hand, the other hand
is on his hip and his phorbeia is round his neck: he has turned away to
look out of the scene. Indeed, his attention seems to have been attracted
by the cry of alarm from the surprised satyr on the other side of the vase,
as Simon suggests, following Beazley.42 Beazley took the bearded figure
to be the chorēgos and the sacrifice as connected with his victory feast,
but could there perhaps be some mixing of or cross-referencing to the
story of Prometheus’ duplicitous sacrifice at Mekone and of the arrival of
Pandora?43 The figure overseeing the sacrifice is perhaps less likely to be
the chorēgos than a participant in the drama and, so, Epimetheus (rather
than Prometheus), but we cannot be sure.
These early examples are followed by a grand volute-krater from Spina,
which, like the Oxford krater (fig. 4), belongs to the middle of the century
or soon after.44 Here a troop of six satyrs with hammers, along with a little
baby satyr, dance to the music of a piper or react to the appearance of a
woman with a stephanē on her head and a sceptre in her hand who rises
from the ground. In the background behind her stands a bearded man with
a wreath in his hair wearing chiton and ependutēs and holding two torches.
On the far right a bearded man in a himation stands casually watching.
The central bearded figure with torches is surely Prometheus: he is dressed
exactly like the key figure in the scenes showing the passing of fire on
41.  Simon 1989, p. 199, identifies the object supporting the amphora as part of a basket;
for rocks serving this purpose see eg. Norbert Kunisch, Makron, Mainz, 1997, 65 fig. 28
no. 87. The birds may be connected with the sacrifice or simply witness to the rural setting,
startled by the hammering.
42.  Beazley 1958, p. 94, has the pipe-player do double duty. On the sacrifice, cf. Folkert
T. van Straten, Hiera Kala, Leiden, 1995, p. 217-8, V 135, but the goat is not mentioned;
and G.C. Nordquist, “Instrumental Music in Representations of Greek Cult”, in Robin
Hägg (ed.), The Iconography of Greek Cult in the Archaic and Classical Periods, Liège,
1992, p. 157 (Kernos Suppl. 1).
43.  Beazley 1958, p. 93. For Mekone: Hesiod, Theogony 545-557, with West 1966.
44.  Ferrara 3031 (T 579): Beazley ARV2 p. 612, 1; Trendall, Webster 1971, p. 34, II
7; Fede Berti and Piero G. Guzzo, Spina: Storia di una città tra Greci ed Etruschi, Ferrara,
1993, p. 97, fig. 75 (cat. 789); Krumeich et alii 1999, pl. 10.
Prometheus, Epimetheus and Pandora 277
to the satyrs and similarly holds two torches.45 His presence might be
intended to indicate the cause of the creation and delivery of Pandora, his
theft of fire on behalf of mankind (see further below). The other bearded
figure might be his brother Epimetheus, but is perhaps better thought of
as Zeus, observing his handiwork, as on the Oxford volute-krater (fig. 4).
The scene recurs on a fragmentary two-row bell-krater in the Cahn
collection in Basel, a piece attributed to the Hearst Painter, an Apulian
vase-painter of the last decade of the fifth century.46 Here, in the lower
frieze, satyrs with hammers leap around as a female rises from the ground.
The central figure, however, is human – he wears a short chiton and has
human ears - and also wields a hammer. On the basis of the Oxford krater,
we may identify him as Epimetheus and presume that this vase also echoes
a fifth-century satyr play. But which play could it be?
We know of a satyr drama by Sophokles called Pandora or the
Sphyrokopoi (Hammerers), but the Louvre stamnos and the black-figure
lekythoi would seem just a little too early to be associated with that
playwright, who was only born in 497/6 BC.47 Similarly, there appears to be
a gap between these three early vases and the Hephaistos and Prometheus
group assembled at the beginning of this paper (section 1). It is quite
possible, however, that the Sophoclean drama might be connected with the
Spina and Basel kraters and, less overtly, with the Oxford one. Although
our vase chronology is far from secure, we might, therefore, have to think
in terms of two “Hammerers” plays, the earlier being completely lost to
us. A final complexity in any reconstruction, however, is the remarkable
juxtaposition on the Spina krater of Prometheus porphuros with the
summoning of Pandora. Did both scenes actually form part of Aeschylus’
Prometheus Pyrkaeus, or might Sophokles have echoed a motif from that
play in his own Pandora, or is it the vase-painter who is adding a cross-
reference of his own?48
45.  Cf. eg. Gisler 1994, esp. nos. 11 and 17, but also nos. 4 (?), 10, 15, 16 and 18; also
Ancona 25342, Williams 2008, p. 191 fig. 4.
46.  Basel, Cahn 278: A. Dale Trendall, Alexander Cambitoglou, The Red-figured Vases
of Apulia I, Oxford, 1978, p. 11 no 25a, pl. 4, 1; Vera Slehoferova, in Vera Slehoferova,
Herbert A. Cahn, Margot Schmidt, Der zerbrochene Krug. Vasenfragmente klassischer
Zeit aus Athen und Grossgriechenland, Basel, 1991, no. 31; Boardman 2000, p. 53 with
fig. 6 on p. 56 (only one fragment).
47.  See Sutton 1980, p. 55; and now Krumeich et alii 1999, p. 378-379, who note that
the play was not necessarily a satyr play.
48.  Note also the possibility of a Prometheus by Sophokles himself, Krumeich et alii
1999, p. 169-170.
278 Dyfri Williams
Pandora’s Chest
We have, so far, looked at two main characters and their stories, Hephaistos
and Prometheus. These stories seem to have various possible points of
intersection – Prometheus appears to have had a role in Hephaistos’ trick
on Hera (see above), Hephaistos was the major force in the creation of
Pandora (although possibly also attributed to Prometheus) and, of course,
Hephaistos was, under protest, the god to chain Prometheus to the rock.
Such connections must have made it possible for the playwrights to weave
anew the main threads of their chosen story, whether concentrating on
Hephaistos, Prometheus or Pandora, resulting in our modern difficulties
in seeing a way through to individual dramas. Indeed, it is perhaps more
important to recognise examples of the impact of such dramas on the vase
iconography and to envisage how it may have operated than to actually
name individual authors, especially when we know of only such a tiny
fraction of the respective outputs of a select few.
Now I should like to turn to the next episode in the Pandora story - or is it
really the Prometheus story? There is a reference in a scholiast on Hesiod’s
Works and Days to a satyr play in which “Prometheus received the jar with
the Evils from the satyrs and, passing it on to Epimetheus, commands
him not to accept any gift from Zeus; Epimetheus disregards the advice
and accepts Pandora.”49 Although this is often associated with Aeschylus’
Prometheus Pyrkaeus, such an attribution remains a conjecture. The action
does, however, bring to mind a very strange vase in the British Museum
that belongs to the so-called Owl-Pillar Group (figs 5-6).50 This group of
vases would seem to have been produced in Campania, but perhaps by an
immigrant Athenian potter (who was no painter!), around the middle of the
fifth century. Here we see the young Epimetheus, dressed as a countryman
or workman, his hammer now resting on the ground, as Pandora rises from
the ground (fig. 5), much as on the Oxford volute-krater.51 The other side
49.  Krumeich et alii 1999, p. 174-5 no. F 207a; scholiast on Hesiod, Works and Days
89; cf. West 1978, p. 95 and 73, who notes Tzetzes’ reference in this context to “krotous”
(“hammerings”?) as well as satyrs.
50.  London F 147: Arthur B. Cook, Zeus iii, Cambridge, 1914, p. 349-353, pl. 34; A.
Dale Trendall, The Red-figured Vases of Campania, Lucania and Sicily I, Oxford, 1967,
p. 189 and 667 no. 5; Boardman 2000, p. 51-53, and 55 figs 1-5; Neils 2005, p. 38-40,
figs 4, 1-2 and 6-8.
51.  Neils 2005, p. 38-39, sees him as Hephaistos, on the basis of a vague resemblance to
metalworker, and her determinedly Hesiodic reading, which seems entirely unsympathetic
to the vase iconography.
Prometheus, Epimetheus and Pandora 279
is particularly unexpected (fig. 6): a bearded figure, wearing a himation,
turns to view a jar in the neck of which is stuck the head and draped
shoulders of a woman, regularly identified as Elpis (Hope). Although the
bearded figure has recently been interpreted as both Hephaistos and Zeus,
he is surely Prometheus.52 But let us look more carefully at the jar and
the preliminary sketch lines under the black glaze, as they have never
been adequately explained (fig. 7). These sketch lines actually mapped
out a large wooden chest, decorated with stars and wheels – Pandora’s
chest.53 Its feet are decorated with a zigzag pattern and its lid is open. As
sketched, only the very rim of the pithos would have been visible, with the
head and shoulders of Hope showing against the raised lid, the rest hidden
within the chest. The painter seems to have become confused when adding
the black slip and found himself unable properly to delineate the chest,
causing him to omit it - unless his change was deliberate and done to make
the scene more recognisable by showing the whole jar.
The story of Pandora’s box or pyxis, as opposed to her jar or pithos, was
explained by the Panofskys in their book, Pandora’s Box (an amusingly
apposite collaboration, since her name was Dora and he was fondly called
Pan), as a slip by Erasmus of Rotterdam at the beginning of the 16th
century, led astray by Psyche’s pyxis.54 The idea that the jar would have
been kept in, or even delivered in, a large wooden chest, perhaps together
with Pandora’s other treasures, like a marriage chest (or the modern
American “Hope Chest”), would probably have seemed very practical and
appropriate to an ancient Greek. Clearly the painter of the Owl-Pillar vase
thought it so, even if he changed his mind about showing it.
52.  Neils 2005, p. 39-40 (Zeus); Daniel Ogden, “What was in Pandora’s box”, in
Nicolas Fisher, Hans van Wees (ed.), Archaic Greece: New Approaches and New Evidence,
London, 1998, 217 (Hephaistos).
53.  Boardman 2000, p. 52 with n. 1, was right in seeing that the upper horizontal line
in the published drawing of the preliminary sketch was a wheel mark. There is, however,
another pair of horizontal lines further up the vase almost at handle level, indicating the top
of the lid of the chest, open and viewed from the front; there are also triple vertical lines on
each side. Circles and stars are suitable decoration for a wooden chest, whether magical or
not. On boxes see E. Brümmer, “Griechische Truhenbehälter”, JdI 100, 1985, p. 1-168; cf.
also eg. Reeder 1995, nos. 75-77, and p. 270 fig. 74; and François Lissarrague, “Women,
boxes, containers: some signs and metaphors”, in Reeder 1995, p. 91-101 – note p. 93
fig. 2, 94 fig. 3, 100 fig. 15.
54.  Erwin and Dora Panofsky, Pandora’s Box: The Changing Aspects of a Mythical
Symbol, New York, 1956.
280 Dyfri Williams
The sight of Prometheus gazing into the chest that contains the pithos
with Elpis stuck in the neck requires explanation (fig. 6). Is it simply
that Prometheus is viewing the result of Epimetheus’ acceptance of a
gift from Zeus? Or do we have here an echo of the satyr play recorded
by the scholiast on Hesiod to the effect that the jar was actually brought
first to Prometheus, who warned Epimetheus to no avail, a version which
might also be associated with Babrius’ reference to a “foolish anthrōpos”
who opened the jar.55 It even brings to mind the tondo of a contemporary
Athenian cup which shows a satyr bent over, his head and shoulders fully
inside a similar chest – is he to be thought of simply as an incorrigibly
curious satyr rootling through some maenad’s belongings or is this rather
a reference to a satyr play in which a satyr placed the jar inside Pandora’s
chest, or was even the one to open it?56
In connection with the Owl-Pillar vase, Jennifer Neils recently drew
attention to a most remarkable plastic vase said to be from Thebes that,
as she rightly argues, represents Pandora’s jar with the head of Hope
similarly stuck in the top, as on the Owl-Pillar vase.57 This Boston vase
should date from the first half of the sixth century.58 The decoration, simple
bands around the body and two-line dog-teeth on the shoulder, does not
help much in trying to decide its place of manufactures, but it is probably
Boeotian. This would also seem to be true of a somewhat similar little
vessel, also said to be from Thebes, and now in the Louvre.59 In this case
the jar is a pointed one (with alternate black and red bands on the body)
and the head in the top less carefully made: it may be slightly earlier. These
two evocative, little sixth-century scent-bottles might have been made by
a potter with a similarly misogynistic outlook as Boeotian Hesiod’s, but
they could equally have been made in line with a more positive version of
the story that had Zeus give Prometheus a jar full of beneficent demons,
55.  Cf. above n. 49; and Babrius, Fabula 58, with West 1978, 169-70 (note the
connection with Theognis 1135-7 and Macedonius). “Anthrōpos”, however, by Babrius’
time can mean a woman too: cf. Zarecki 2007, p. 20 n. 32.
56.  Formerly European market: Lissarrague 1995, p. 100 fig. 15; Lissarrague 2013,
p. 209 fig. 181.
57.  Boston 01.8056: Arthur Fairbanks, Catalogue of Greek and Etruscan Vases,
Boston, 1928, no. 539, pl. 51; Neils 2005, p. 41-42, figs 4, 9-12.
58.  Pace Neils 2005, p. 42.
59.  Louvre CA 445: Edmond Pottier, “Le vase de Cléoménès”, RA 27, 1900, p. 195
and pl. 14, 1; Humphry Payne, Necrocorinthia, Oxford, 1931, p. 173 n. 2.
Prometheus, Epimetheus and Pandora 281
which all escaped back to Olympos when it was opened, leaving only
Hope to comfort mankind.60
In the interpretation of all the scenes discussed above, it is important to
keep an open mind as to the source of the scene and understand that stories
were rarely simple or static. Hesiod was surely not the earliest source on
Prometheus and in the sixth century, Ibykos and Sappho seem to have
made mention of him, but only perhaps in passing.61 In the fifth century
Pherkydes perhaps dwelt on Prometheus in greater detail, but it was at
the hands of the fifth-century playwrights, who seem to have regularly
sought to re-juggle elements of the myths that they used for added novelty
and appeal, that the story gained depth and complexity.62 To this, one has
to add the work of the sophist Pythagoras, whose own radical revision
of the Prometheus story, is probably related in Plato’s dialogue (written
in the 390s BC, but set in the late 430s BC).63 A positive acceptance of
Prometheus, and Epimetheus, naturally entailed some sort of re-writing of
the old Hesiodic tale.
Prometheus and Epimetheus
If we are right in thinking that from about 480 BC down through the third
quarter of the century the figure of Prometheus appeared in several dramas,
including both tragedies and satyr plays, and that this had an impact on
vase-painters, then we might well imagine that his appearance on vases in
a soberly Olympian context, with no apparent dramatic overtones, in the
last third of the century may have been the result of the Titan’s increased
role in Athenian cult and society. His new visibility is first found on a grand
but fragmentary cup in the Vatican of c. 430 BC, attributed to the Codrus
Painter, where Prometheus is included in the scenes on the exterior that
are probably connected with the passions of Zeus (for Leda and for Io).64
60.  For a positive reading of Elpis see Paul Girard, “Le mythe de Pandora dans la
poésie hésiodique”, REG 22, 1909, p. 217-30, esp. 229-30; and E.F. Beal, “The Contents
of Hesiod’s Pandora Jar: Erga 94-98”, Hermes 117, 1989, p. 227-30. See also most recently
Zarecki 2007, p. 19-22.
61.  For Hesiod’s sources see West 1978, p. 166. Sappho (fr. 207: Lobel and Page);
Ibykos (PMG 342).
62.  Pherekydes: Martin L. West “The Prometheus Trilogy”, JHS 99, 1979, p. 145-6.
63.  Plato, Protagoras 320d -322d. Cf. also Plato, Gorgias 523d-e and Philebos 16c.
64.  See Williams 2008.
282 Dyfri Williams
Likewise, he or his brother Epimetheus (the name is difficult to read, but the
figure is beardless) is also depicted as an observer at the birth of Erichthonios
on a late fifth-century krater attributed to the Nikias Painter in Richmond,
Virginia.65 This might possibly suggest a reference to the later tradition that
Prometheus was actually the father of Erichthonios – he, not Hephaistos,
having had a passion for Athena.66 Whether there was such a motif behind
the inclusion of Epimetheus or Prometheus, the Richmond krater and the
Vatican cup clearly suggest a growing importance of the brothers in fifth-
century Athenian cult.
This idea is further reinforced by the appearance of both brothers (or
father and son) in a remarkable cultic scene on a large chous attributed to
the Eretria Painter.67 On the left of the scene is a stone structure on a three-
stepped base, adorned with the head of Dionysos (seen in profile): both
the head and the top step have been decorated with festive branches. To
the right of this stands a youth labelled Epimetheus: he is shown frontally,
wearing an ivy wreath and a short mantle round his waist, and drinking
from a cup-skyphos, a small column-krater on the ground beside him. In
the centre of the scene is a three-legged table on which is placed a liknon
wrapped in an ornate textile and covered with some branches. To the right
stands the bearded figure of Prometheus who is placing another branch
on the covered liknon; his left hand is closed, but what if anything it was
holding is not clear. At the far right of the scene is a young boy, naked
but for an ivy wreath, holding a large chous. Prometheus and Epimetheus
are clearly involved in a Dionysian celebration that included the tasting
or drinking of mixed wine and the veneration of the mask of Dionysos
hidden inside the liknon on the table, elements that would seem to point
to the Athenian festival known as the Anthesteria, rather than the Lenaia.68
65.  John Oakley, “A Calyx-Krater in Virginia by the Nikias Painter with the Birth of
Erichthonios,” AK 30, 1987, p. 123-130; Reeder 1995, no. 71.
66.  Douris, FGH 76 F 47: scholiast on Apollonius Rhodius ii, 1248.
67.  Athens, 3rd Arch Eph. inv. 3500: Adrienne Lezzi-Hafter, Der Eretria-Maler: Werke
und Weggefahrten, Mainz, 1988, p. 202 n. 304; Olga Tsachou-Alexandri, “Apeikoniseis
ton Anthesterion kai o chous tes Odou Peiraios tou zographou tes Eretrias”, in John Oakley
et alii (ed.), Athenian Potters and Painters, Oxford, 1997, p. 473-490, a full and important
publication. For Prometheus as the father of Epimetheus, see scholiast to Pindar, Olympian
Odes IX, 68.
68.  On the Anthesteria see most recently Parker 2005, p. 290-316 (see p. 306 n. 69
for the Athens chous). See also Richard Hamilton, Choes and Anthesteria: Athenian
Iconography and Ritual, Ann Arbor, 1992; and Richard Hamilton, “Lenaia Vases in
Context”, in Csapo, Miller 2003, p. 48-68 (see p. 51 for the Athens chous).
Prometheus, Epimetheus and Pandora 283
The built structure on the left seems too solid, complete with a stone mask
of Dionysos, as argued by Tsachou-Alexandri, to be the “Lenaia” pole and
mask, and makes one think of the ancient sanctuary of Dionysos “in the
Marshes”. The roles of Prometheus and Epimetheus, however, are puzzling.
It seems difficult to escape the conclusion that by the last decades of the
fifth century they had become linked to the Anthesteria in some specific
way, not just as symbolic role-models. We might guess at some sort of a
connection between the Pithoigia of the first day of the Anthesteria and the
release of whatever was in Pandora’s pithos or that Prometheus’s technical
skills became linked to an understanding of the fermentation of wine, but
neither can be substantiated. Although the Eretria Painter was clearly
much interested in scenes of cult, we should no more expect such a scene
to be specific or accurate than a scene derived from drama: both were no
doubt only intended as evocative and impressionistic, and the combination
of different moments in time unexceptional. Nevertheless, the inclusion of
the boy with a chous would at least seem to suggest roles for Prometheus
and Epimetheus in the cult of Dionysos and its connections with both the
upbringing of citizens and the cohesion of the community at large.
Prometheus’ role in Athenian cult, however, is perhaps best known
to us now from the torch race that was held in his honour at the annual
Prometheia.69 This relay race of tribal teams began at Prometheus’ altar
near the Academy, where there once stood, according to Apollodoros, a
base with a relief showing a youthful Hephaistos and an older Prometheus
with a sceptre (or torch?) in his right hand (the ages perhaps echoing
the story that Hephaistos was Prometheus’ son).70 The racers passed
through the Kerameikos where the inhabitants made fun of the slower
runners.71 On a bell-krater in London, signed as potter by Nikias, the son
of Hermokles and of the deme of Anáphlystos, and like the Richmond
krater attributed to the Nikias Painter, we see an elaborate scene connected
69.  For the Promethia see Ludwig Deubner, Attische Feste, Berlin, 1932, p. 211-2;
Giulio Q. Giglioli, “Lampadedromia”, Archeologia Classica 3, 1951, p. 147-162; Julia L.
Shear, Polis and Panathenaia: The History and Development of Athena’s Festival, diss.
University of Pennsylvania, 2001, p. 335-339, and 113-114; Martin Bentz, “Torch race
and vase-painting”, in Olga Palagia, Alceste Choremi-Spetsieri (ed.), The Panathenaic
Games, Oxford, 2007, p. 73-80. On Prometheus in cult in general see also Paola Pisi,
Prometeo nel culto attico, Roma, 1990.
70.  Scholiast on Sophokles, Oedipus Colonnus 56 (= FrGrH 244 F 147); and cf. Salust’s
hypothesis; John Travlos, Bildlexikon zur Topographie des antiken Athen, Tübingen,
1971, p. 42-51. Cf. also Pausanias I, 30, 2.
71.  Cf. Aristophanes, Frogs 1089-98.
284 Dyfri Williams
with a torch race (fig. 8).72 In the centre a bearded athlete holds his torch
over an altar, while a winged Nike flies in to tie a fillet around his arm. His
elaborate headgear bears an inscription that clearly reads ANTIOCH…,
thus labelling the team as that of the tribe Antiochis (Nikias’ own tribe).
Two younger athletes are also present: neither holds a torch and the one on
the left seems to be warming up. To the right of and behind the altar stands
a white-haired man with an olive or laurel wreath in his hair.
The torch race was run by youths, not bearded men, so that we must
presume that the athlete with the torch is Antiochos, the eponymous hero
of the tribe, rather than a real runner. The scene must be the lighting of
the torch at Prometheus’ altar before the start of the race, carried out
here symbolically by the tribal hero, with Nike anticipating the result.
The white hair of the man behind the altar would seem to militate against
him being the presiding Archon Basileus or official (or, indeed, the god
Hephaistos), and the idea that he is instead Prometheus himself might be
supported by comparison with the fact that Prometheus on the Vatican
cup has white hair and a wreath.73 Prometheus is present to witness the
successful lighting of the torch at his altar at the beginning of the race, a
race that symbolised the return of fire to the city, and he puts his head back
and opens his mouth, perhaps to call on Zeus to accept the return of fire
and, in so doing, to reconfirm his position in both the city and on Olympos
after his terrible punishment at the hands of the father of the gods.
Conclusion
It was in fifth-century Athens, then, that the Titan Prometheus came to
be celebrated as a political rebel and a culture hero, a god who suffered for
mankind, and a subversive who was in the end reconciled to Olympos, all
passion spent. His story, and that of his alter ego, Epimetheus, as we have
seen, increasingly pervaded stage, philosophy and cult, a development
that was also perhaps mirrored to some extent in the case of Pandora,
who was not forgotten when sacrifices were made to Athena and seems
72.  British Museum GR 1898,0716.6: Beazley ARV2 p. 1333, 1; most recently Dyfri
Williams, Masterpieces of Classical Art, London, 2009, p. 128-9 no. 56. Note that the
Nikias Painter is one of the few Athenian painters to have left a scene from comedy – cf.
Paris Louvre MN 707: Beazley ARV2 p. 1335, 34; Hart 2010, p. 114-5, no. 52.
73.  Cf. also perhaps the figure on the Boston kalpis with satyrs assembling Hera’s trick
throne – see above. On Prometheus’ white hair cf. Williams 2008, p. 185.
Prometheus, Epimetheus and Pandora 285
to have also become linked to the family of Erechtheus.74 Their rising
profile in Athens was reflected by that city’s vase-painters, who presented
a new and complex repertoire of themes, inspired first by the dramas that
they saw and then by the cult festivities in which they and their fellows
participated. Indeed, how could it be otherwise, for Prometheus, who in
the fifth century took his place alongside Athena and Hephaistos as part of
the technologically informed trio, was worshipped by potters – they were
to be called “Prometheuses”.75
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75.  See West 1966, p. 306; and Lucian, Prometheus Es, 2.
286 Dyfri Williams Prometheus, Epimetheus and Pandora 287

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Fig. 2: Vienna IV 985, calyx-krater: return of Hephaistos.

288 Dyfri Williams Prometheus, Epimetheus and Pandora 289

Fig. 3: Boston 03.788, kalpis – satyrs with parts of a throne, and Prometheus (?).

▲ Fig. 5a ▲ Fig. 5b

◄ Fig. 5c
Fig. 5: London, British Museum F. 147, neck-amphora.
a. Epimetheus and Pandora. – b. Prometheus and jar. – c. Preliminary sketch showing
Fig. 4: Oxford, Ashmolean Museum G 275 – Epimetheus and Pandora . chest, with final pithos superimposed (drawing by Kate Morton, British Museum).
290 Dyfri Williams

Fig. 8: London, British Museum, GR 1898,0716.6, bell-krater –

preparations for and completion of a torch race.