149. 10.191 FRAGMENTS OF A COLUMN-KRATER PLATE LXXXV, 3-4
Formerly in the possession of Ludwig Pollak. A, MFA. Bull. 9 p. 54, 1 (Caskey); A, VA. p. 119, whence Die Antike 6 pl. 16, b (Deubner); A, Anita Klein Child Life in Greek Art pl. 23, b. A, seesaw; B, man or youth. About 470-460 B.C., by one of the early mannerists, the Leningrad Painter. In VA. pp. 118-20 I grouped a number of mannerist vases with these fragments under the name of 'Seesaw Painter'. Later (Att. V. pp. 239 and 249) I saw that the fragments were probably not by the same hand as the rest: I therefore detached them and placed them amongst the works of 'undetermined mannerists' and gave a new name to the painter of the other vases — 'Pig Painter'. In ARV. pp. 377 and 959 the fragments appear under the heading 'Mannerist Group: very close to the Leningrad Painter, if not his work'. The Leningrad Painter is the 'brother' of the Pig Painter, and the two artists are not always quite easy to tell apart. It is now clear to me that the vase is in fact by the Leningrad Painter (ARV.2 p. 569 no. 49). The name-piece of the Leningrad Painter is now figured in Gorbunova and Peredolskaya Mastera grecheskikh raspisnykh vaz p. 69. Our vase was a column-krater (ARV.1 p. 959) and not as I formerly thought (before I knew of the reverse fragment) a hydria of black-figure type. A. On the front of the vase, beside a fruit-tree, two girls are playing at seesaw. A long plank is laid on a short thin one which rests on the log of a tree-trunk. Both girls wear the chiton only, girt, with a kolpos in front. The chiton of the left-hand girl is thicker and richer than the other. Above the waist it is spotted; a band with a pattern of dots runs down it; at the ankles it has a border with a pattern of arcs — probably lotus-buds; and at mid-calf there is a row of winged horses galloping. Winged horses occur on other rich garments, for instance the himation of Demeter on the skyphos by Makron in London.1 Ear-rings are worn, and a necklace. A fillet passes round the hair, the upper part of which is drawn tight to the skull and the lower part confined in a small bag. The other girl has a scarf tied round her head, one end of which is seen at breast-level before the fragment ends. B. There was only one figure on the reverse, a youth or man in a himation standing to right, in back-view. The pictures are not framed. A red line runs round the vase below the feet of the figures. Relief-contours on A, not on B. Brown for the nostril, the necklace, the ear-rings, the spots on the chiton, the winged horses, the sparse folds on the skirt of the left-hand girl, the rings on the log. Red for the head-fillet and the leaves, white for the fruit. The only other pictures of a seesaw are on two Attic hydriai, one by the Dwarf Painter, in Madrid, the other by the Painter of Athens 1454, in Athens; on a cup by the Codrus Painter in the collection of Miss Iris Cornelia Love, New York; and on two Italiote vases, a bell-krater in Reggio, and a calyx-krater in Syracuse. From her attitude, a girl on a small fragment of an Attic bell-krater in the Agora Museum might also be seesawing.2 The name of the seesaw plank, and of the game, was probably πέτευρον (see Housman on Manilius 5, 439), Latin peteurum and petaurum, although the words may also have had a wider significance. Prof. Spyridakis has kindly provided me with a list of modern Greek words for seesaw, which I transcribe. 'δραμπάλα, τραμπάλα, κούνια in many districts. ἀπότζι (Naxos), κάργα (Karpathos), ὄπαλα (Thera), ζαγκουβάνα (Chaldia Pontou), τσουντσουβάνα (Kotyora Pontou), γκούλιαρος and ζύγκαρος (= ζύγαρος?) (Epirus), τριζο（γ）ύρα and ζυοτήρι (= ζυγοτήρι) (Cyprus), ζυγόγυρος (Rhodes).' The ζυγο-words are appropriate, whether one thinks of a 'yoke' or rather of 'the beam of a balance', and one feels that they might be derived from ancient Greek. Adults sometimes confuse seesaw and swing. The two are coupled under oscillatio in Daremberg and Saglio. Fig. 5440 there (from London E 387) does not represent a seesaw, but a potter's wheel used as a turntable or merry-go-round.3 Other turntables on an Italiote oinochoe in Syracuse, N.Y., and a Paestan skyphos in Oxford: both used by entertainers.45 At the feast in the house of Kallias, described by Xenophon (Xen. Sym. 7), a potter's wheel was brought in for the Sicilian dancing-girl to perform on. Unfortunately Socrates interrupted and the girl didn't get a chance. Her turn would have been preferable to the high-class pantomime at the end of Xenophon's Symposion. The turntables on the two Italiote vases may well be potter's wheels.P. E. Arias, RM 76 (1969), p. 7; Chapman Tribute, illus.; Para., p. 390, no. 49; L. Byvanck-Quarles van Ufford, RA 1972, p. 258; Boardman 1975, pp. 180, 182 (fig. 322), 217, 247; Beck 1975, p. 48, no. VII/30, pl. 57, fig. 295; K. Schauenburg, 1976, Erotenspiele 1.Teil, p. 51, note 80; Moon 1979, pp. 167 (under no. 95), 169 (under no. 96) (L. Berge); Beazley Addenda 1, p. 128; Böhr & Martini 1986, p. 109, pl. 18, 2 (R. Olmos); Beazley Addenda 2, p. 261.