Vases Red-figure Lekythos Attic Red-Figure Lekythos
Attic Red-Figure Lekythos

Attic Red-Figure Lekythos

Red-figure Carlsruhe Painter · Lekythos · 470–460 B.C.
*They put down a stone and throw at it from a distance with balls or pebbles. The one who fails to overturn the stone carries the other, having his eyes blindfolded by the rider, until, if he does not go astray, he reaches the stone, which is called a dioros.*

 -- Pollux 

Children in antiquity played *ephedrismos*, the game the ancient Greek writer Pollux describes above and which is pictured on this lekythos. Although this looks like a scene of children at play, the two figures represented here are actually a satyr--identified by his beard and the hint of a tail--and a short-haired woman called a maenad. Both satyrs and maenads were followers of Dionysos, the god of wine, vegetation, and the theater.
Shape
Technique
Date
470–460 B.C.
Culture
Greek (Attic)
Dimensions
H: 24.50 cm
Museum
J. Paul Getty Museum
Accession Number
71.AE.444
Image Source
getty_cc0
Images courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art (CC0)