More Dramatic Masks on Gnathia Vases

Abstract

The vases decorated in white or polychrome paint laid on the black glaze which were produced mainly in South Italy in the second half of the fourth and the first quarter of the third century b. c. are called Gnathia from Egnazia in South Italy where many of them were found. The best were certainly made in Apulia and decorated by the same painters as decorated Apulian red-figure vases. Wine vessels in this ware are frequently decorated with dramatic masks and sometimes with actors : Dionysos is the god of the theatre as well as the god of wine. The vases give evidence for South Italian theatre practice in the late fourth and early third century b. c. Rather over fifty of these vases were known to me in 195 1 when I discussed their chronology and endeavoured to interpret the masks and actors in an article published in the volume of the Journal of Hellenic Studies dedicated to Sir John Beazley1. Since then I have seen myself or been informed by correspondents of a good many more Gnathia vases with masks, which are briefly described in the list at the end2. The list is arranged by masks, and the vases have, as far as possible, been given numbers which place them correctly in my earlier list. In some cases I have not seen photographs but have been able to place vases by very efficient descriptions, particularly from Mr. Axel Seeberg. Some vases have been omitted because I had no adequate method of referring to them. I have included illustrations of nos. 6, 9a, 11, and 12 from my earlier list (Pi. 8, 3. 2. 9, 5. 2). The earliest vases were painted a little before 350 B.C. and the latest in the first quarter of the third century B.C. The dating is cross-checked by other South Italian fabrics and by parallel developments of shape in Attica, and a number of pieces are fixed by the contexts in which they were excavated. The following contexts seem to me significant: at Lipari8 good floral Gnathia was found with red figure of the third quarter of the fourth century. In two tombs at Rocavecchia our nos. 40b and 48 were found with piriform unguentaria, a lamp of a type known in Athens4 from the middle of the fourth century into the third, and a black kantharos of a type known in Athens6 from the last quarter of the fourth century. Piriform unguentaria were found with a Gnathia kantharos of similar shape at Gela6 in a level containing coins dated 310-282 B.C.; the coins are likely to be the latest things in the level and therefore the vases may reasonably be dated 3 30-20 b. c. At the necropolis ofChatbynear Alexandria7, where the pottery seems to date from the last quarter of the fourth century and the earliest years of the third, although some of the terracottas are later, a few of the fragments show careful ribbing; in most of them the ribs are indicated simply by the intervening furrows; our no. 36 d is broken too high to show whether it belonged to the Ribbed group or not. Finally, at Francavilla Fontana an oenochoe of the most advanced shape (no. 36 in the old list)8 was found with a fusiform unguentarium of a type which does not appear at Gela before 282 b. c.