BABESCH 94 (2019), 87-96. doi: 10.2143/BAB.94.0.3286780 Pictorial narratives in Faliscan red figure vase painting L. Bouke van der Meer Abstract This article deals with images on Faliscan red figure vases (ca. 390/380-300 BC). It aims to define the Athenian influences and Faliscan characteristics, and explain two enigmatic images by paying attention to visual narratives: extraction, omission, paradigmata and syntagmata. By excerpting Attic figurative scenes local vase painters cre- ated symbolic combinations of different mythological scenes. After the end of the Peloponnesian War (404 BC), painters made relief-lines, after that date very rare- or after 394 BC, when Rome had defeated the ly. 8 Around 350 BC Beazley’s Fluid Style, charac- Faliscans, some Athenian vase painters emigrated terized by a diluted glaze, was born, the produc- to Falerii Veteres, henceforth Falerii, today Civita tion of large vases gradually came to a halt, and Castellana. Much earlier, from 565-560 BC onwards, the so-called standardization, though with much Athenian black and red figure vases had arrived variation in Dionysiac scenes, started. Kylikes were at Falerii, with red figure even continuing as late now produced in larger numbers, and exported as 400 and 350 BC.1 The oldest Faliscan red figure outside the Ager Faliscus.9 Some vase painters vases, made in Falerii, look very much like con- moved to Caere, today Cerveteri, where they temporary Athenian ones. There are differences, founded a Falisco-Caeretan workshop,10 probably however. Recent X-ray (ED-XRF) analyses of because Rome, after a war of seven years, made an three Athenian and two Faliscan vases seem to armistice of forty years with Falerii in 351 BC, and show that there are smaller concentrations of this eased the mobility of craftsmen and artifacts. nickel and chromium in the clay of Faliscan vases. Contacts became more frequent between the Then, too, unglazed surface of Faliscan vases var- workshops in Falerii and those in Orvieto and ies from orange-yellow to yellow, less red than Chiusi.11 From then on Etruscan subject-matter the Athenian ones.2 was used by Faliscan vase painters.12 Adembri’s chronology is a relative one, depend- CHRONOLOGY ing on comparisons with shape, style, ornaments, composition and subject matter of 4th century BC According to Benedetta Adembri the Del Chiaro Athenian vases.13 She shows that the floral orna- Painter (380-370 BC) was either the first local art- ments tend to become more complex through ist who was influenced by the Athenian Jena time.14 As we don’t know how long vase painters Painter, or someone from his circle.3 His local fol- were active, it is difficult to date vases more pre- lowers were the Malibu Painter and the Nepi cisely between 380 and 350/340 BC. Jiři Frel even Group consisting of the New York GR 999, Deia- suggests that the Del Chiaro Painter spanned neira and Nepi Painters. Around 360 BC the Naz- thirty years, from 380 to 350 BC.15 The earliest zano Painter, one of the most original painters,4 stylistic influences of Apulian, Paestan and Cam- the Herakles Group, the Painter of Würzburg panian red figure vases appeared after ca 370 818, and the Diespater Painter started their pro- BC,16 but the impact was indirect since these pots duction.5 The Aurora Painter began his career in have not been found in the Ager Faliscus.17 What the Diespater Group. Around 350 BC the Civita further hampers a more precise chronology is the Castellana 1611, the Kylikes6 and the Villa Giulia fact that the Faliscan chamber tombs with loculi (henceforth VG) 8238 Painters started their pro- for inhumation were used over a very long period duction.7 Adembri attributes all these groups and of time, probably by the same elite families, from painters to workshop A. The Vienna ANSA- the sixth towards the beginning of the 3rd century, IV-4008 Painter of workshop B and the VG 8361 sometimes with an interruption in the fifth cen- and Florence 3975 Painters of workshop C had tury BC.18 Imported and local vases were found contacts with workshop A. Before 340/330 BC the together in the chamber part of the tomb, rarely 87 Fig. 1. Faliscan calyx-krater Museo Nazionale Fig. 2. Athenian calyx-krater Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia 906 Etrusco di Villa Giulia Villa Giulia 1514 (from JdI 71, 1956, 76). (from JdI 71, 1956, 67). in loculi, which makes dating difficult.19 Often 3. Eros or a satyr playing with a bird, often a duck,22 tomb goods were robbed. Further, there are 4. a more or less symmetric rendering of onlook- hardly any historical events that enable us to ers above the vase handles, define a terminus post quem. The appearance of 5. attributes of gods or heroes, tainiai (sashes), Gauls in Central Italy after ca 390 BC only gives a rosettes, and birds in the picture-space, terminus a quo for Celtic war scenes on vases. The 6. meetings between satyrs and maenads, an latter, however, were made forty years later.20 athlete and a woman (in one instance Nikè), or a A stamnos from Sovana, now in Berlin, show- youth or a woman between dressed figures on ing Achilles slaughtering a Trojan captive, dated the reverses of krateres and stamnoi, and on the around 340 BC (fig. 6), may refer to the slaughter of exterior sides of kylikes. In the latter case both Roman captives at Tarquinia, which was supported sides may be identical. by Falerii, in 358 BC. As is well known, a similar scene in the François Tomb at Vulci (340-310 BC) FaLIScaN FEaTURES has an anti-Roman meaning.21 In the following I will analyze which are typically Athenian and Most scholars define Faliscan red figure vases as which local elements in Faliscan red figure vase Etruscan. There are, however, no Etruscan artistic painting. influences before ca 350 BC, as Deppert has pointed out.23 As far as I know, no Etruscan red figure vases ATHENIaN INFLUENcES with mythological scenes from Vulci, Orvieto, Chiusi and Perugia have been found in the Ager After the publication of Beazley’s Etruscan Vase Faliscus prior to ca 350 BC. This may be explained Painting (1947) little attention was paid to the icon- by the fact that around 20 of the approximately ographic aspects of Faliscan vases. The question 400 known Faliscan pots were exported outside arises whether the Faliscan vase painters contin- the Ager Faliscus.24 Consequently, there was little ued to work in the tradition of their Athenian mas- interaction between workshops in Falerii and ters, or whether and when they transformed Greek those of Etruscan red figure vases between ca 400 mythological scenes. Apart from some mytho- and 350 BC. logical themes, frequent features illustrating a Was there an interpretatio falisca of Greek scenes? recurrent use of Athenian models, mostly in This is likely. Three vases bear inscriptions in Falis- krater scenes. These are: can, a dialect of Latin.25 Although no vase carries a 1. a row of gods and heroes in the upper register, Greek or Etruscan inscription, evidently, artists 2. a god or hero placing his or her foot on a rock and customers understood Greek myths. One of or another object, usually in conversation scenes, the first authors who identified a local flavour in 88 mythological scenes was Hellmut Sichtermann.26 feature.32 A further local phenomenon is extraction Dealing with scenes showing Zeus and Ganymede of scenes from larger Athenian compositions, as on Athenian and Faliscan vases, he concludes that shown by a comparison of Bellerophon’s fight the latter show Dionysiac and erotic elements (Eros with the Chimaera and the Amazons on side A of or Erotes), a wedding preparation, and animals, the Faliscan calyx-krater VG 906 (360 BC, fig. 1) features that are absent on the Athenian ones. from tomb 24 (LXXXI) in the necropolis of Celle As for the modus operandi of the painters, it should at Falerii with that on side A of the Athenian calyx- be observed that they often made one or more iden- krater VG 1514, dated to ca 400 BC, from a necro- tical versions of a vase. Already in the seventh cen- polis of the Ager Faliscus (fig. 2).33 The presence of tury BC locally produced twins of impasto have Dionysiac elements in a main scene is also a fre- been found in graves.27 In several tombs two iden- quent phenomenon.34 Also found in tomb 24 was tical Faliscan red figure vases were deposited like a Faliscan kylix, VG 918, showing Bellerophon’s some Attic black and red figure twins in Faliscan fight with the Chimaera.35 Perhaps the owner tombs.28 It is, however, unknown whether funer- wished to identify himself with the Greek hero. ary rituals needed two (almost) identical vases.29 Some vases representing women extinguishing Before the middle of the 4th century BC Faliscan the funeral pyre of Herakles, without showing vases were not used as ash urns. Due to Etruscan his apotheosis also testify to extraction and omis- influence, their imagery refers to the after-life only sion,36 a phenomenon that helps to explain the after ca. 350 BC, be it very rarely.30 Maybe most following two enigmatic obverse images. early vases were directly destined for deposition in tombs.31 The main vase shapes were krateres, ENIGMaTIc IMaGES stamnoi, oinochoai (shape VII), and kylikes. Typically Faliscan are the sometimes exuberant vegetal It is difficult to explain the imagery of side A of the ornaments under and next to the handles of kra- calyx-krater Louvre CA 7426 (formerly Zürich, teres, stamnoi, skyphoi, oinochoai and on the exterior Hirschmann collection) attributed to the Nazzano sides of kylikes.