Description
A hydria was primarily used for carrying water, although its use as a cinerary urn, or even a container for ballots has been recorded. This example, although decorated in red-figure, is of the so-called black-figure type, most popular from about 540 to 480 B.C. It is a large, full bodied vessel, with a deep, sharply offset shoulder--almost flat--a high neck, a wide overhanging lip, and three handles: two horizontal ones at the sides and a single, larger, vertical handle in back, extending from the shoulder to the lip. The two horizontal handles were used to lift the hydria and the vertical handle was held while pouring. The principal scene was on the front of the body, but the flat shoulder offered a second field for figural decoration and is never left blank.

The two figure panels are framed by ornamental bands. On the front, the figures stand on a band of black palmettes linked by tendrils and pointing alternately up and down. Palmette chains of this type appear on many Late Archaic black-figure and red-figure vases and always are drawn in black silhouette, never in red-figure. The lateral frames consist of pairs of red-figure palmettes linked and enclosed by tendrils. An upper band of simple key pattern provides the ground line for the figures on the shoulder. Black tongues are painted around the handle roots and above the shoulder panel at the neck. Rays at the base extend upward from the foot.

The panel on the front of the hydria features a dramatic battle between Herakles and Kyknos, the son of Ares. The action takes place in the presence of Athena and another female figure, Aphrodite, or perhaps Pelopia, who is the mother of Kyknos (note 3.) The myth is told in the short epic called The Shield of Herakles, traditionally attributed to Hesiod. It is a subject popular among black-figure vase painters from about 560 B.C. to the end of the sixth century, including those contemporary with the Dikaios Painter, who also worked in black-figure (note 4.) The shield of Herakles, which is described in this literary work, is discussed in the context of the confrontation between Kyknos and Herakles. The fight takes place in the sacred enclosure of Apollo at Pagasae, in Thessaly, where Herakles faced off with Kyknos, a thief and brigand who waylaid cattle being driven to Delphi to be sacrificed to Apollo (note 5.)

For the battle on this hydria, Herakles is almost nude, but is equipped with the basic accoutrements of a hoplite: spear, shield, and sheathed sword. Instead of a helmet, he retains his lion skin cap for protection, the skin tied in a knot under his chin and hanging down behind. Holding up his spear in his bent right arm, Herakles takes aim at his opponent. His encounter with Kyknos constitutes Herakles’ only combat as a hoplite, one where he is pitted against a fully armed adversary. The hero’s anatomy is finely detailed with dilute glaze, indicating the muscles of his buttock, the iliac crest of his hip, his abdominal muscles, biceps, and his pubic hair. His name, ΗΕΡΑΚΛΕΣ, is written vertically to the left, and the word, ΚΑΛΟΣ -- “beautiful,” is placed vertically between his legs.

Athena wears a long chiton over which drapes a voluminous mantle falling in zig-zag folds. She stands between the two adversaries, and raises her left hand toward Kyknos while turning around to look back at Herakles. Over her shoulders and chest she wears her aegis covered with a scale pattern and edged with writhing snakes. The aegis hangs some distance down her back, since coiled snakes can be seen along her left and right sides. She wears a high-crested helmet of Attic type, and holds a spear diagonally in her right hand. An inscription – ΑΘΕΝΑ[Ι]Α -- Athena, extends in an arc over her left hand.

Kyknos wears a chitoniskos and a full panoply of hoplite armor, including a crested Corinthian helmet pushed up on his head, protective greaves covering his lower legs, and a sheathed sword hanging at his left side. He supports a shield on his right arm and holds a spear in his raised left hand. The shield is decorated with a blazon in the form of a highly animated crab, standing upright on its legs while holding an ivy branch between its front claws. He is identified by an inscription, ΚΥΚΝΟΣ, extending diagonally above and below his right knee. Dilute glaze is used to delineate the musculature of his neck and the bicep of his right arm.

A female figure, at the far right is dressed in a finely woven chiton, indicated by dilute glaze lines, beneath a voluminous mantle that hangs down from her right shoulder in a neat pattern of zig-zag folds. She wears an elegant diadem over which her long hair is pulled up at the back of her head, an arrangment called a krobylos. The woman gestures with her uplifted right hand, suggesting her agitated state, an appropriate behavior for one concerned about the safety of Kyknos, and may denote her as his mother, Pelopia.

The primary scene on the Dikaios Painter’s hydria can be compared with the composition on a calyx-krater by Euphronios, which depicts a fallen Kyknos with sword drawn, but already wounded by Herakles’ spearhead (note 6.) In that instance, Athena takes a more active role, coming to the aid of Herakles with her spear raised against Ares, who arrives, too late, to protect his son. Standing behind Ares, a female figure is identified by an inscription as Aphrodite. She shares some similarities of dress and pose with the standing woman on this hydria, who also may be Aphrodite.

On the shoulder, three episodes from the Labors of Herakles are depicted together: the capture of the boar ravaging the countryside around Mount Erymanthos, in Arcadia; the strangling of the lion that terrorized the region around Nemea, in the Argolid; and the capture of the savage Cretan bull. In all three vignettes, Herakles is represented as youthful, beardless and naked. At the left, his club has been set aside and his cloak is neatly draped above it, like a swag. Herakles bends over and tackles the boar around its mid-section. Like an unwilling victim, the Erymanthian boar lifts its head upward, rolling back its eye in objection to this restraint. The inscription naming it extends from the belly of the boar to its snout. In the center of the scene, Herakles kneels forward, almost in a horizontal position, and holds the Nemean lion securely in a headlock. The lion, far from breathing its last, retaliates by clawing the hero’s head with its raised hind leg. A small tree, on which hang Herakles’ cloak, sword, and quiver, fills the space above the wrestling match. The word ΚΑΛΟΣ — beautiful — is painted between this scene and the next. At the right, Herakles grabs the bull by one of its horns, and prevents any option of the bull running away by securing the right front leg and bending it back with his right hand. The bull, with a closed eye, appears to surrender. The club of Herakles is placed diagonally nearby, and the name ΗΕΡΑΚΛΕΣ extends from the left leg of Herakles and beneath the club to the area in front of the bull.

The painting on the shoulder demonstrates the Dikaios Painter’s ability to represent the human figure in a variety of poses, even in the early development of red-figure vase painting. Dilute slip is used to depict abdominal muscles and wisps of cheek hair for the central figure of Herakles, and also as a subtle indication for the hair of the bull. Added red is used for the wreath and the fillets worn by Herakles, for the baldric of the sheathed sword, and for the leaves of the tree.

In red-figure the Dikaios Painter decorated several amphorae, a krater, a psykter, and a hydria, taking his name from a kalos inscription on the amphora in the Louvre (note 7.) Beazley described the Dikaios Painter as the “companion and imitator of Euthymides,”one of the greatest of the early red-figure vase painters. That influence is certainly felt in the painting and composition on this extraordinary hydria, which ranks among his finest works.

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Notes
1. For the shape, see Richter and Milne 1935, 11-12; Noble 1988, 47-48; Schreiber 1999, 116-123.

2. Attributed by J. Robert Guy. A fragment, Louvre CP11090 (Beazley, J. D. Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters, Oxford 1963 - 35.18) from the right side of the figure panel was seen to join this hydria by D. von Bothmer; it gives the left arm and part of the mantle of the female figure, as well as part of the palmette border: see Robertson 1981, 34, n. 6. For the Dikaios Painter, see Beazley, J. D. Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters, Oxford 1963 - 30-32; Paralipomena 174, 324, 509; Carpenter, T. H., T. Mannack, M. Mendonca Beazley Adddenda. 2nd edition, Oxford 1989 - 157; Boardman 1974, 35, figs. 45-47; Robertson 1992, 26,76. A similar hydria, assigned by Beazley to his list of Sundry Pioneers (Beazley, J. D. Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters, Oxford 1963 - 34.9) and now in the Princeton University Art Museum (inv. y1986-61), also has been attributed to the Dikaios Painter by Guy.

3. For the myth of Herakles and Kyknos, see Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae VII 1, 978 (this hydria, no. 116); Vian 1945, Schefold 1992, 146-49; Gantz 1993, 421-23.

4. For the black-figure work of the Dikaios Painter, see ABV 400.

5. The name Kyknos means “swan” (cygnet), ironically a bird sacred to Apollo.

6. For the krater by Euphronios depicting Herakles and Kyknos in the Shelby White and Leon Levy Collection, see Robertson 1981; Bothmer et al. 1983, 58-61; Robertson 1992, 24-25, fig. 19.

7. Louvre G 45, Beazley, J. D. Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters, Oxford 1963 - 31.4