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X. Observations on the Figures of Anacreon and his Dog, as represented upon some Greek Fictile Vases in the British Museum. By SAMUEL BIRCH, Esq., F.S.A., Assistant Keeper of the Antiquities in the British Museum.

Read 12 December, 1844.

THE various fictile Grseco-Italian vases found northward of Rome, as well as those of Southern Italy, are decorated with subjects, the interest of which is chiefly mythological. . v If the legends of the Iliad, the traditions of the Poets of the Epic Cycle, and the narratives of the return of the Greeks from the Siege of Troy, be placed without the pale of history, there are but few vases representing subjects which can be considered historical. The high importance which attaches to historical subjects, found on any class of monuments, is still further enhanced in respect to these objects, by the consideration that they were neither restricted by the hieratical character of the temples, nor by the political conventionalities of the currency, but were, with few exceptions, employed for the enjoyment of private life. Commencing with the earliest archaic ware, called Phoenician, and descending to the vases of Basilicata, when the fictile system seems to become extinct, a period is traversed which witnessed the rise, progress, and declension of Greek fictile art; and at distinct epochs, during which the Greek mind must have been powerfully influenced by the Iliad, the Epic Cycle, the Traditions of the Return of the Greeks from Troy, and the Dramatists of the Attic School. The few vases representing historical subjects may be regarded as fixed points in the history of art, as having been executed at a time when the personages represented must have been in the meridian of their fame. They point to the Ionian traditions of Asia Minor. Thus the vase of the maker VOL. xxxi. 2 L 258 Observations on the Figures of Anacreon and Ms Dog, Taleides", of the style called Phenician, represents Arcesilaus III. of the Cyrenian Battiadse, who entertained friendly relations with the Ionians of Samosb, and who flourished B.C. 530. The celebrated amphora with Croesus0 seated on the funeral pyre, is evidently connected with the history of the same race, whilst representations are also found of Alcseus, Sappho*1, and Anacreon, who flourished about the same time, and were the brightest ornaments of the Ionian school of Lyric poetry. There are four vases in the collections of the British Museum, the subjects of Which I consider relate to Anacreon. 1. A tazza or cylixe of pure Greek style, with red figures on a black ground, formerly in the Durand Collection, and found at Vulci. The poet baldj bearded, and crowned with ivy (Kia-a-ocrTe^s), stands holding a seven-stringed lyre (|3ap3«Toy) in his left hand, which he sounds with the plectrum held in his right hand. His name, ANAKPEON, is written in a vertical direction before him. Two youths, both crowned with myrtle, advance towards him; the first has his drapery thrown loosely across his shoulders, the garment of the second is closely wrapped round him. In the area is the name of the possessor . . . NT*ES KAAOS. 2. Another cylixf from the same locality, and acquired from the same collection, represents in its interior a similar figure reclining on a cushion crowned with ivy, and playing on a lyre with the plectrum, which is attached to it by a cord. 3. An amphora with twisted handles/ of the same style, formerly in the possession of Cardinal Fesch, and subsequently acquired from the Princess of Canino (for the acquisition of whose rich suite of ] 00 vases the public is

a Now in the Bibliotheque du Roi. See De Witte, Dur. Cat. p. 158. no. 160. Mon. de 1 Inst. Arch. PL XLV1I. M. le Due de Luynes, Annales, v. 56. Micali, Storia degli Ant. Pop. XCVII. 1. Cf. Vase, Inghir Vasi. Fittil. II. Tav. ciij. b Herodot. IV. 162. This Vase, in fact, may be considered to represent Arcesilaus restored by the Samians. c Now in the Louvre. De Witte, Dur. Cat. p. 157. no. 421. Mon. de l'lnst. Arch. pi. liv. lv. Due de Luynes, Annal. v. 237. d Millingen, Anc. Unedit. Mon. pi. xxxiii. p. 81—85. e Described Dur. Cat. De Witte, p. 162, no. 428. Raoul Rochette, Peint. Ant. Ined. p. 438. f De Witte, Cat. Dur. no. 341. B Canino, Cat. no. c. *1671. Cf. also Nolan, Amphora Hamilton Coll. 275, a man walking with lyre slung on a stick playing on double flute, before a dog. Rev. Youth offering a cylix. •s

•*

* upon some Greek Fictile Phases in the British Museum. 259 indebted to the Marquess of Northampton), represents the poet as an old, bald, and bearded man, whose head is bound with myrtle, with an orna- mented garment flung loosely over both shoulders. He plays on a seven- stringed lyre, and is followed by a little dog. On the reverse a naked youth crowned with ivy, with similar drapery, advances towards him : one hand is placed against his side, the other holds an amphora across his left shoulder. See Plate IV. 4. Another vase of the same shape,11 from the same collection, represents the same poet with drapery somewhat disordered, holding his lyre and a walking-stick, while a youth offers him a cylix and a similar stick. Anacreon, whose fame filled the shores of the Ionian Sea, the continent of Greece, and the colonies of Italy, is universally mentioned as the sage1 or the bardk of Teos, from his birth-place. According to the generally received account, he was the son of Scythinus,k although, according to others, of Eumelus, Parthenius, or Aristocritus1 and Heetia.m He rose to eminence in the commencement of the reign of Cyrus,11 and resided in Teos till the attack made by Harpagus upon the Ionian confederation, and the capture of his birth-place by the Persians, compelled him to fly with his countrymen to Abdera in the Thracian Chersonese.0 From hence he passed to the court

h Cat. No. *1429. 1 For life of Anacreon, Cf. Herod. III. 121. Hor. I. od. xviii. 18. et sq. Epod. xiv. 9. sq. Ovid, Trist. 263. A. A. iii. 329. et sq. Rem. Am. v. 759. Strabo, xiv. p. 644. ed. Casaub. 953. Maxim. Tyr. dissert. 10. Pollux, III. 18. Apul. florid. 351. Apolog. 278. Athen. xiii. 8. ed. Casaub. 600. Aelian, V. H. viii. 2. ix. 4. Clemens, Strom. 308. Synesius, I. ss. Julian epist. Eugen. Dio. Chrysost. 31. de regno, 9. 31. Sallust in Porphyrione ad Horat. I. od. xvii. Suidas, voce Anacreon. Ed. Gaisf. Anacreon a Barnes, 12mo. 1734. Prolegomena, a Fischer, Lips. 1793. a Bergk. 8vo. Berl. 1834. k Suidas, loc. cit. Visconti, Iconographie Grecque, torn. i. p. 74, mentions a fragment of a headless Hermaic stele, found at Tivoli, inscribed 'Avaic[pewj'] 2icu9[Athenaeus, p. 461. Schol. in Platon. a Bekker, 8vo. Lond. 1824, p. 4. 235. 1 Suidas, loc. cit. m Cf. HpweXeyetov, cited by Barnes, Prolegomena, iv. n Suidas, loc. cit. Clinton, Fasti Hellenici, p. 22, 11. Barnes places his birth, Olymp. lv. Cramer in Diatribe xix. his death between 01. lvij. lix. 0 Herod. Clio, 160. Strab. xiii. 644. 260 Observations on the Figures of Anacreon and his Dog, of Polycrates,p the tyrant of Samos, the master of the seas,q the patron of literature and art/ and the voluptuary of the Isles.p Agreeably to the taste of the age, his time was occupied in celebrating in Ionic odes the hair of Smerdies, the eyes of Cleobulus, the beauty of the celebrated Bathyllus, and the praises of Polycrates.'' Here he appeared in the character both of the minister of the pleasures and of the councils of the Samian ruler.r Just before the fall of Polycrates, Hipparchus, the tyrant of Athens, despatched a galley of fifty oars to bring him to his court,8 which rivalled that of Asia, by the honour in which it held, and the liberality with which it treated men of letters. The poet here passed his time in writing panegyrics on the Peisistradidse * and Critias, in composing poems, few of which have reached us, and in satirizing his more fortunate rivals." Anacreon died, according to his successors, at Abdera, in the 85th year of his age ;x according to one account, choked by a grape-stone.y Hermesianax2 in his poetic cycle makes Anacreon the contemporary and lover of Sappho, which is denied by Athenseus, on the authority of Chame- lseon, the biographer of the poet.a It is, however, possible that they may

P Herod, iii. 121. Paus. Att. i. s. 2. t. 1. p. 4. Aelian, ix. 4. i Ibid, and Clitus the peripatetic in Athen. xii. c. 19, 540. r Thus the herald of Oroetes found Polycrates /caraKelfievov kv avbpeStvi, irapeivai be ol KCII 'AvaKpeovra TOV Trfiov, and the subsequent inattention of the tyrant seems to prove that he was minister of the pleasures. Her. loc. cit. 8 Socrates apud Platon in Hipparcho. Tzetzes, Chil. viii. 830. * Socrat. loc. cit. Pseud. Anacr. cited by Barnes, Proleg. li. u Cf. fragm. apud Athen. xiii. ed. Casaub. 845. Anacreon a Fischer, p. 357. et a Bergk. fr. xix. p. 110. x Lucian de Macrob. i Val. Max. ix. s. 5. c. 8. z Apud Athen. xiii. 598. Aeajiws 'A\ieaios be iroaovs ayebe^azo KWfiovs j.i$wv ifiepoevra noOov s. 6 b' aoibbs arjbovos fipaaaO', v/xvuiv Trjtov aXyvvwv avbpa Tro\vpablrj Kal yup TY\V 6 /j.e\ixpbs kwfii\r](T 'Avatcpeltav 0TeWofj.evr)v iroWais ufifiiya Aeafiiacri. K. r. X.—a Bailey, p. 2. 1. 47-52. * Athen. loc. sup. cit. upon some Greek Fictile Vases in the British Museum. 261 have met, although Sappho lived under Alyattes and died at an early age, while Anacreon was in the height of his reputation during the reign of Cyrus.b The vases offer no evidence of this fact; but, since there are some which represent the meeting of Alcseus and Sappho,0 their silence tends to throw doubt on the hypothesis, which, however, was entertained by some of the ancients themselves, that these two celebrated personages of the Ionic school of lyrical poetry ever met. It has been supposed that Athenseus may have considered Anacreon to have been the later poet on account of the great age which he reached; but the poem of Hermesianax, which seems to have been framed for effect rather than for historical truth, and the pseudo- Sapphic verses, which address the Teian bard as the illustrious elder, are evidently works of a more recent period. It is safer to follow the more generally received opinion, that Anacreon and Simonides lived after Sappho. The harp which Anacreon is represented on these vases playing is pro- bably the barbitos, the invention of which was attributed to Anacreon or Terpander, as Sappho was supposed to have originated the pel^tis or magadis.d The poet is represented on the coins of Teose playing a harp of the same shape; it is also found in the hand of the muse Terpsichore, on sarcophagi of the Roman era/ and is occasionally played by personages of Dionysiac thiasosg on vases of an early period. It was the peculiar instrument of the poet, mentioned throughout the

b Cf. Sapphus Lesbiae, carmina a H. F. M. Volger. 12mo. Lipsise, 1810, xxix. who with Barnes, Proleg. xxiv. Cramer Diatrib. inclines for their being contemporaneous, while Bailey, Lexic. Hist. Sapphus. Ann. Dacier in vita Anacr. sub fine. Wolfius, Sapph. ij. assert they could not have been. Volger reads, Stob. Florileg. lxxj. 291, aXX' eu>v »xoVa»8a x&w, strikes during the night the youth-loving chelysk —a name arising from the circumstance of this lyre having a soundings board in shape of the tortoise-shell.2 The statue erected to Anacreon in the Acropolis of Athens probably represented him in an attitude resembling that which he assumes on the vases, for Pausaniasm states ml ol ('kvaKpewn) TO (rp^ijfta eerriv, ohv aSoi/roy av iv /xeQir) yevoiro avftpwiruo, and his appearance is that of a man singing when intoxicated. It is thus that Leonidas of Taren- tumn describes him,—drunk, disordered in his dress, a%pi yap da-rpaya'Xouu eKKerat ajtwre^ovav, staggering in one shoe, having lost the other, lifting in his hand the chelys lyre, and singing to Megistes or Bathyllus.0 The statue erected by Polycrates in the temple of the Samian Juno, mentioned by Apuleius,p coincides so entirely with the representations on the early works of art, both in the manner of playing the barbitos and cithara, that that description must have been taken from an actual monument:—Cithara baltheo ccelato apta strictim sustinetur, manusque ejus tenerse proceracula laeva dis- tantibus digitis nervos molitur, dextra psallentis gestu suo pulsabulum admo- vet, which is precisely the mode of playing the instrument represented on some of these vases. It is always held at the left side by an embroidered scarf, or chased belt (ccelato baltheo). The left hand, with the fingers separated, touches the strings, while the right holds the plectrum or pulsabulum, which is always attached to the instrument by a cord. On Vase No. 4 Anacreon is represented holding a stick, as he describes himself in the pseudo-Ana- creontica, CVOJTT/JOI/ e%m ev %ep

1 Analecta, a Brunck, torn. i. p. 2. Conf. ibid. 136. n. 54. Athen. xiii. 8. k Athen. xiii. 600. Ed. Cas. 1 The cava testudo of Horace, Epod. xiv. 9-10. Cf. Ibid. I. od. xvij. 18, sq. III. xj. 3. m Attic. I. cap. xxv. n 8vo. Lipsiae, a Meineke, ss. xxxvij, xxxviij. 0 Simonides, 55. Analect. t. i. p. 136. P Florid. 1. I. upon some Greek Fictile Vases in the British Museum. 263 dress of the same figure recalls the descriptions of Pausanias and Leonidas, and the morals of him and his contemporaries/ The youths who appear before him on Vases 1, 3, 4, are probably some of the celebrated pages of Poly crates, Smerdis, Megistes, Bathyllus, or Critias. It is to them that he addresses his songs, for his odes appear to have been written in a metre adapted to music and suited to an instrumental accom- paniment.8 On the second Vase he is reclining upon a cushion, not improbably the afaTop$>upoi Tow^rey of ode rj. and is playing in that attitude.* The third and most remarkable Vase is that on which the little dog, with a curled tail and pointed nose, is following the poet. The history of a dog belonging to Anacreon, given in Tzetzes," has induced me to assign the subject represented on this Vase to Anacreon. It is mentioned on account of its extreme fidelity to its master, whom along with a slave it one day accompanied to market, and died after watching for several days a purse which the slave had dropped. The youth on the reverse is in the character of an cenoehoos or wine-bearer, for it was the duty of youths to administer wine at entertainments; and in the heroic ages those of noble bloodx did not disdain the office, attending with an cenochoe and pouring the wine through a strainer. In some of the genuine fragments which have reached

r Aristoph. Thesm. 167, speaks of Ibycus, Anacreon, and Alcaeus, e/xirpoipopovvTe ical bteKivow

'lldVlKOIS. s Anecdota, a Boissonade, IV. p. 458. Bachman, L. Anecdote, p. 191, 25. t The actual pillow was called TrpdsKea\awv. Athen. ii. 9, p. 48. B. « Chiliad, iv. p. 129, ed. Kies. Tji Tei'w 'AvaKpeovri irpbs Teiov epypfxevf jiera oiKerov (cat KYNOS &vi]aaadai ypei&ihij &s 6 oltcerrfs e| bbov irpbs 'iiacpiinv cnrrjXde Kal TO Kvvapiov avru eKe« avvtjicoXovdei v\a.TTev e/ceTvo lbs S'tK Tijs Telov Trjv avTr/v v7T£(TTpeov cnrpaKT(i>s KaTijXOe TO Kvvapiov ajrb TOV jiaKoLVTiov Tfjv TrapadriKriv bei^avre, atreicvipev evdiws 7ro\\ais i)fiepais aoirov eKeirre biafxeivav. x Homer, a. 142. 9. B. 128. Athenseus, v. p. 192. b. c. xiii. 8. p. 600, Ed. Cas. 264 Observations on the Figures of Anacreon and his Dog, fyc. us, the poet calls on boys and attendants to supply him with it.y He also wears the a/xjre^o'vi},* probably a kind of tribon,a usually worn by philoso- phers, judges, and graver people, who also carried a stick,b on which they leant. This garment left the upper part of the form naked, and hence the term ij/x/yujavoy, half naked, was applied to those who wore it. The custom of singing at entertainments was common among the Greeks,0 and their heroes are represented playing d and accompanying the lyre with their voice. At a later period, to attend feasts and play on the flute or lyre was a necessary accomplishment of the hetairai," and even at an earlier time females are depicted playingf on the double flute, while guests sang scolia or catches/ On the Vases previously described, the poet is standing and playing, and the representations, probably copies from memory, recal with- out doubt some celebrated statue, as that on the Athenian Acropolis, or some picture whose reputation has not reached us. This seems to have represented the poet at the close of some entertainment, descended from the triclinium and under the excitement of wine, striking his barbitos, singing forth with impassioned earnestness one of those songs, of which only detached frag- ments have reached us, and at the same time joining in the dance, which frequently ended the symposion.

y Cf. Fragm. of Anacr. in Demetr. Phal. de Interp. s. 5. Apud Scliol. Aristoph. Acharn. 305. « See Leonidas, Tarent. supr. cit. a Cf. Aristoph. Eccl. 277. 507. Plut. 714. 823. Antiphil. apud Athenamm, 545. Lucian Perieges, III. 357. b Cf. supra cit. and Aelian, V. H. ix. 11. Also Herodian, I. s. xxix, avr)p ov