Attic black-figure lekythos by the Beldam Painter
Hellenic, National Archaeological Museum, Vases Collection, inv. no. Α 599

Provenance: Unknown
Dimensions: Height 22.5 cm.
Date: Ca. 480 BC
Display location: Room 54, Showcase 85

When Jason returned from Colchis to Iolcus bringing the Golden Fleece to his uncle, King Pelias, he realized that Pelias had no intention of keeping his promise to hand over the power to him[1]. In fact, in the young hero’s absence, he had exterminated all his relatives, so that no one could claim the throne. Jason vowed to take revenge. The punishment of Pelias was inflicted by the witch Medea, daughter of King Aeëtes of Colchis, who, in love with Jason, had helped him seize the Golden Fleece and had followed him to Iolcus as his wife. Medea convinced Pelias and his daughters (called the Peliades) that she could make him young again.  In order to achieve this goal, she instructed the Peliades to kill him in his sleep, cut him up, and boil him along with some “magic” medicines.  After doing exactly the same thing to an old ram, turning it into a young lamb, the Peliades, now convinced that in this way their father would be rejuvenated, killed Pelias. Τhey were thus transformed from naive apprentice witches into tragic misguided patricidal figures.

The scene of the ram’s rebirth is depicted on the black-figure lekythos presented here, a work by Beldam Painter. In the center, the animal springs full of vigor from a large cauldron placed on a tripod base. It is flanked by two Peliades, holding the vessels (cups?)[2] that contained Medea’s “magic” herbs. The two sisters wear a chiton and himation decorated with white dots, while their flesh, the fillets adorning their hair, and other elements of the scene, such as the ram’s horn and nostrils, the hair on its chest, decorative elements of the cauldron, and the fruit, which, together with the leafy branches in the background indicate that the scene takes place in the open air, are also rendered in added white color.

The theme of the Peliades’ attempt to revive their father, dealt with by Sophocles in his lost play Rhizotomoi and Euripides in his Peliades, first appears in late Archaic vase painting and then in that of the 5th century BC[3]. The scene where the ram comes back to life seems to have been particularly popular with the Beldam Painter, who depicted it on three more lekythoi, two of which are housed in the Hellenic National Archaeological Museum[4]. Knowing the use of these vases as grave goods, it becomes immediately clear that the depicted scene is charged with special significance and that the great cauldron with the ram functions as a symbol of rebirth for those whom they accompanied in the grave. It is no coincidence that the animal emerging fully alive from inside the cauldron is not a lamb, as mentioned in the myth, but a robust ram.

[1] Pelias, son of Poseidon and Tyro, had usurped the throne from his half-brother and father of Jason, Aeson. As he had received an oracle that he would meet death at the hands of an Aeolid (a descendant of Aeolus) and that he should beware of him who wears a single sandal, when he realized that the young man who suddenly appeared in Iolcus wearing one sandal was Jason (great-grandson of Aeolus), he knew that he had to exterminate him. Therefore, when Jason requested that he surrender the throne to him, Pelias consented, on the condition that Jason bring back the Golden Fleece, thus sending him on the dangerous overseas expedition to Colchis (Argonautic Expedition).

[2] It has been argued that the female figure on the left is Medea. However, this identification cannot be confirmed.

[3] The theme is also depicted in later periods.

[4] A 12805, A 18633 and Erlangen, Friedrich–Alexander–Universität I 429.

 Dr Christina Avronidaki

BIBLIOGRAPHY

C.H.E. Haspels, Attic Black-figured Lekythoi (Παρίσι 1936) 178, 268 αρ. 56, πίν. 53,5a-b.

Η. Meyer, Medeia und die Peliaden. Eine attische Novelle und ihre Entstehung. Ein Versuch zur Sagenforschung auf archäologischer Grundlage (Ρώμη 1980) 5-6 αρ. Ι Va 7, πίν. 4,2-3.

Μ. Vojatzi, Frühe Argonautenbilder (Würzburg 1982) 96-97, 122 αρ. Β78, πίν. 13,3-4.

LIMC VII (1984) λ. Peliades, 271 αρ. 6a, pl. 210 (E. Simon).

Α. Kottaridou, Kirke und Medeia. Die Zauberinnen der Griechen und die Verwandlung des Mythos (διδ. διατριβή Κολωνία 1991) 146 αρ. Μ.21.

Από τη Μήδεια στη Σαπφώ. Ανυπότακτες γυναίκες στην αρχαία Ελλάδα. Κατάλογος έκθεσης, Εθνικό Αρχαιολογικό Μουσείο 20 Μαρτίου – 10 Σεπτεμβρίου 1995 (Αθήνα 1995) 28-29 αρ. 8 (Α. Κοτταρίδου).

Τ. Mannack, Haspels Addenda. Additional References to C.H.E. Haspels Attic Black-figured Lekythoi (Oxford 2006) 71.

Ε. Hatzivassiliou, Athenian Black Figure Iconography between 510 and 475 B.C. (Rahden 2010) 149 αρ. 586.

Beazley Archive Pottery Database (https://www.carc.ox.ac.uk/carc/pottery) αρ. 514.