[60] In the same picture we
also find a representation of a true Greek motive, kottabos. Another
momentary motive appears in the Tomba d’Orfeo e d’Euridice at Corneto
(_Monumenti_ v. pl. 17), a slave pulling off his master’s slippers.
[61] Hypothymides were first used ‘by the Aeolians and Ionians who
wore them round their necks, as we learn from the poems of Anacreon
and Alcaeus’ (Athenaeus xv. 678 d); Cp. Plutarch, _Quaest. conviv._
iii. _probl._ 1, 3. In Ionia the women perfumed their bosoms and
wore wreaths of flowers round their ‘delicate necks’, as Sappho says
(Athenaeus xv. 674 c-d).
[62] Athenaeus ix. 409 e.
XI
[Sidenote: SYMPOSIA]
But we can go still further and establish beyond the possibility of
doubt that where men alone are gathered at the symposium of eternity,
the pictures represent the heads of the families who ordered the tombs
and had them decorated. To be sure, the pictures of the sixth and
the beginning of the fifth centuries do not give us any information
as to this—even the symposium in the Tomba delle Bighe is without
inscription; but in this respect also the sepulchral paintings become
more communicative after the middle of the fifth century. In the Tomba
Golini at Orvieto, discovered in 1863 and called after its discoverer,
and, to judge from its style, contemporary with the Tomba degli Scudi
and the front chamber of the Tomba dell’Orco, we see in the symposium
on the back wall (fig. 31) two men on the same couch drinking to the
accompaniment of the two familiar musicians. Beneath the couch we can
make out dimly a servant, and a hunting leopard, probably feeding; both
have their names attached: that of the animal is Kankru. In Egyptian
reliefs also, dating from the Fifth Dynasty, we occasionally find names
attached to the domestic animals depicted, for instance ducks and
pigeons.
Of the two men reclining on the couch the foremost holds a
drinking-bowl and an egg. In the Ny Carlsberg facsimile he is
represented as beardless, but no doubt wrongly. It is an elderly man;
his face is one of the earliest examples of naturalism in Etruscan
portraiture. The other, full-bearded, holds a flat, fluted vessel
without foot, presumably one of the celebrated Etruscan golden vessels
which are more minutely characterized in a symposium in the Tomba della
Pulcella; they were even introduced into Athens, where, side by side
with Corinthian works in bronze, they formed part of the decoration of
a wealthy house, and they are eulogized in a poem by Critias,[63] one
of Athens’ finest _beaux esprits_.
[Sidenote: TOMBA GOLINI AT ORVIETO]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account