Attic Black-Figure Lip Cup

The hero Herakles wrestles the Nemean Lion on both sides of this Athenian black-figure Little Master cup. The Nemean Lion was a monstrous beast sent by the goddess Hera to ravage the countryside around Nemea in southern Greece. Since the lion had an impenetrable hide, Herakles had to strangle it in the first of his twelve labors.

Little Master cups, introduced around 560 B.C. and so-named for their detailed miniature decoration, had a taller, slimmer shape than earlier cups. Little Master cups were either lip cups or band cups, easily differentiated by the placement of their decoration. A standard lip cup was decorated with a compact scene of one to three figures centered on each side of the lip with an inscription below, in the zone between the handles. The inscription might be a motto, an artist's signature, a nonsensical combination of letters or even a row of blobs that imitate letters. The text on this cup – repeated with minor variations on both sides – looks to be meaningless, but could evoke drunken gibberish, or perhaps even enthusiastic support for Herakles’ endeavor.