The Flickr Ilioupersis Image Generatr

The figurative frieze painted on the lid was recomposed with some integrations from several fragments. It tells the tragic fate of Troy and the death of Hector's son, Astyanax. The painting shows a tight line of horsemen and hoplites interrupted to make room for the central scene that takes place near an altar: Neoptolemus, son of Achilles, grabs the young Astyanax by the foot with a gesture that fits well with tradition, which says he was thrown from the Troy walls. However, the image of Neoptolemus hitting Priam standing near the altar of Zeus with the body of his youngest grandson, the infant Astyanax, appears mainly to describe a gesture of contempt and of maximum violence against Priam and the female figure at his side, the mother or the grandmother of Astyanax, Hecuba or Andromache, who face him imploring pity for the boy.
Around this central scene the frieze describes the Greek troops taking Troy: the infantrymen arranged in three groups of seven warriors individualized by the designs on their shields, are interspersed with three pairs of horsemen. The sequence opens with a pair of knights who, aiming with their lances, mark the collision of the army with the enemy city.

Source: Museo Archeologico dei Campi Flegrei – Vol. 1 – Cuma

Lekane lid, Attic black-figure
Diameter 34.6 cm; height 9.5 cm
Attributed to Painter C
Ca. 570 BC
Cumae, Northern Necropolis - Incineration tomb (Granata XII))
Museo Archeologico dei Campi Flegrei – Inv. 132615

Neoptolemus, son of Achilles, grabs the young Hector's son, Astyanax, by the foot with a gesture that fits well with tradition, which says he was thrown from the Troy walls. However, the image of Neoptolemus hitting Priam standing near the altar of Zeus with the body of his youngest grandson, the infant Astyanax, appears mainly to describe a gesture of contempt and of maximum violence against Priam and the female figure at his side, the mother or the grandmother of Astyanax, Hecuba or Andromache, who face him imploring pity for the boy.

Source: Museo Archeologico dei Campi Flegrei – Vol. 1 – Cuma

Lekane lid, Attic black-figure
Diameter 34.6 cm; height 9.5 cm
Attributed to Painter C
Ca. 570 BC
Cumae, Northern Necropolis - Incineration tomb (Granata XII))
Museo Archeologico dei Campi Flegrei – Inv. 132615

Priam's death.
Neoptolemus’ lance is about to pierce Priam. The old king is falling backwards onto an altar. He holds his right arm protectively in front of his face. Behind the altar two women: one turns to Neoptolemus with raised hands in supplication gesture, the other bends down to Priam putting a hand on his chest and raising the other plaintively. Near Neoptolemus, in front of his leg, a young girl rushes between him and Priam. She turns her face toward Neoptolemus raising her left arm as if she wanted to stop the Greek hero’s spear. On the left edge of the picture, a fragment shows the lower part of the body of man with a stick (probably a lance), wearing a long clad. The right edge of the scene shows a second long-robed man with a staff seated on a stock block. In front of him a standing woman raises a hand over her head in a mourning gesture.
The altar has a curved outline on the left side and, on the upper and lower part, exhibits a meander framed by white lines.
Priam wears a long chiton decorated with red dots and white incised swastikas; his long hair, arranged in loose strands over his shoulders, and his beard are white. Neptolemus is equipped with a shield decorated with a bull's head, a spear, a high crested helmet and greaves.
Women have white skin. They wear different peplos and have red ribbons in their long hair. The two men who frame the scene wear long chitons and cloaks. The volume of their bodies is rendered alternating black and red bands.

CAV / CAVI @ www.beazley.ox.ac.uk/record/77673849-EC5E-4D69-9B5A-04B90...

Attic black-figure neck amphora
H 26,4 cm; Dm. 17,2 cm; Lip Dm. 12.0 cm.
From Aegina
Ca. 550 BC
Berlin, Altes Museum, Inv. No. F 3996

Priam's death.
Neoptolemus’ lance is about to pierce Priam. The old king is falling backwards onto an altar. He holds his right arm protectively in front of his face. Behind the altar two women: one turns to Neoptolemus with raised hands in supplication gesture, the other bends down to Priam putting a hand on his chest and raising the other plaintively. Near Neoptolemus, in front of his leg, a young girl rushes between him and Priam. She turns her face toward Neoptolemus raising her left arm as if she wanted to stop the Greek hero’s spear. On the left edge of the picture, a fragment shows the lower part of the body of man with a stick (probably a lance), wearing a long clad. The right edge of the scene shows a second long-robed man with a staff seated on a stock block. In front of him a standing woman raises a hand over her head in a mourning gesture.
The altar has a curved outline on the left side and, on the upper and lower part, exhibits a meander framed by white lines.
Priam wears a long chiton decorated with red dots and white incised swastikas; his long hair, arranged in loose strands over his shoulders, and his beard are white. Neptolemus is equipped with a shield decorated with a bull's head, a spear, a high crested helmet and greaves.
Women have white skin. They wear different peplos and have red ribbons in their long hair. The two men who frame the scene wear long chitons and cloaks. The volume of their bodies is rendered alternating black and red bands.

CAV / CAVI @ www.beazley.ox.ac.uk

Attic black-figure neck amphora
H 26,4 cm; Dm. 17,2 cm; Lip Dm. 12.0 cm.
From Aegina
Ca. 550 BC
Berlin, Altes Museum, Inv. No. F 3996

Theseus fighting the Minotaur

Marble Statue, 1826
by Étienne-Jules Ramey (French, 1796–1852).
Jardin de Tuileries, Paris

Theseus fighting the Minotaur

Marble Statue, 1826
by Étienne-Jules Ramey (French, 1796–1852).
Jardin de Tuileries, Paris

Theseus fighting the Minotaur

Marble Statue, 1826
by Étienne-Jules Ramey (French, 1796–1852).
Jardin de Tuileries, Paris

The Trojan princess Cassandra was the fairest among the daughters of Priam and Hecabe. She was famous for her unheard prophetic power: During the Trojan war she continually announces the calamities which are coming, without any one giving heed to what she says.
This sculpture shows Cassandra at the taking of Troy when the princess, trying to escape his sad fate, fled into the sanctuary of Athena. Here she is portrayed as a suppliant embracing the statue of the goddess, Palladium. However Ajax, the son of Oileus, tore her away from the temple, and according to some accounts, even ravished her in the sanctuary. When the Greeks divided the booty of Troy, Cassandra was given to Agamemnon, who took her with him to Mycenae. Here she was killed by Clytaemnestra, and Aegisthus put to death her children by Agamemnon, Teledamus, and Pelops.

The fate of Cassandra’s end is treated in many artworks of Attic painters. Some examples are: the Codrus Painter , the Antimenes Painter , the Marlay Painter, and a magnificent crater not yet attributed and housed in Ferrara Spina Museum.

Marble statue
Aimé Millet, 1877
Jardin des Tuileries, Paris

The Trojan princess Cassandra was the fairest among the daughters of Priam and Hecabe. She was famous for her unheard prophetic power: During the Trojan war she continually announces the calamities which are coming, without any one giving heed to what she says.
This sculpture shows Cassandra at the taking of Troy when the princess, trying to escape his sad fate, fled into the sanctuary of Athena. Here she is portrayed as a suppliant embracing the statue of the goddess, Palladium. However Ajax, the son of Oileus, tore her away from the temple, and according to some accounts, even ravished her in the sanctuary. When the Greeks divided the booty of Troy, Cassandra was given to Agamemnon, who took her with him to Mycenae. Here she was killed by Clytaemnestra, and Aegisthus put to death her children by Agamemnon, Teledamus, and Pelops.

The fate of Cassandra’s end is treated in many artworks of Attic painters. Some examples are: the Codrus Painter , the Antimenes Painter , the Marlay Painter, and a magnificent crater not yet attributed and housed in Ferrara Spina Museum.

Marble statue
Aimé Millet, 1877
Jardin des Tuileries, Paris

The Trojan princess Cassandra was the fairest among the daughters of Priam and Hecabe. She was famous for her unheard prophetic power: during the Trojan war she continually announces the calamities which are coming, without any one giving heed to what she says.
This kylix shows the sad fate of Cassandra at the taking of Troy. She fled into the sanctuary of Athena, and embraced the statue of the goddess as a suppliant. But Ajax, the son of Oileus, tore her away from the temple, and according to some accounts, even ravished her in the sanctuary.
When the Greeks divided the booty of Troy, Cassandra was given to Agamemnon, who took her with him to Mycenae. Here she was killed by Clytaemnestra, and Aegisthus put to death her children by Agamemnon, Teledamus, and Pelops.

Attic red figured kylix
Made in Athens
Attributed to “The Codrus Painter”
About 440-430 BC
Paris, Musée du Louvre

When the Greeks divided the booty of Troy, Cassandra was given to Agamemnon, who took her with him to Mycenae. She was killed by Clytemnestra, and Aegisthus put to death her children by Agamemnon, Teledamus, and Pelops.

Ancient authors often wrote on this theme, and Homer was one of the first, mentioning Agamemnon’s murder several times in the Odyssey. When the shade of the king tells the story to Odysseus, Aegisthus is not the only one who is guilty – the queen takes part in the crime and kills Cassandra herself. In the Oresteia by Aeschylus and in the later tragedies, Clytemnestra is explicitly portrayed as the instigator of her husband’s murder, the one who organizes it, and, moreover, the one who claims responsibility for it.
The illustration of Cassandra’s murder on this kylix painted by the “Marlay Painter”, summarizes Clytemnestra’s fate. The cup depicts Cassandra, kneeling on the steps of an altar, half naked, wearing a crown of laurel on her head. She stretches out her hand to Clytemnestra in a pleading gesture. Behind her is a laurel tree. Clytemnestra brandishes the axe with both hands above her head thus hiding her face behind her right arm. Her furious gesture has unbalanced the tripod, which can be seen falling in the background. The tripod, combined with the laurel crown and trees, evokes the Apollinian world, of which Cassandra is the unfortunate priestess.
Cassandra’s plea is even more pitiful as her eyes are turned towards Clytemnestra’s hidden face, who accomplishes her heinous crime with blind cruelty.
Clytemnestra’s sacrilegious act is perpetrated not only against Cassandra but also against Apollo himself: it is his priestess who is slaughtered on the steps of his own altar. The queen shows no respect for the sacred place.
This scene, which was painted subsequent to Aeschylus’ Oresteia, redirects us back to the tragedy.
This iconographic representation of the Apollinian world foreshadows the vengeance of the god and his full support of Orestes who, according to the Delphic oracles, will kill his mother and avenge his father.
(Source: Kolosski-Ostrow A.O., Lyons C. (ed.), “ Naked Truths”)

Attic red-figured kylix
Made in Athens
Attributed to “The Marlay Painter”
About 450-400 BC
From Spina Necropolis
Ferrara, Archaeological Museum

The images depicted on the surface of this magnificent volute krater show some very popular Greek myths. The side A reports the Iliupersis, or Troy’s destruction, and a scene depicting Dionysius between maenads and satyrs; the side B the fighting of the Lapitas supported by Theseus and his friend Perithoos against the Centaurs, and Meleager hunting the Calydonian boar.

Made in Athens
Attic red figured volute-krater
Attribute to unknown
About 400 - 390 BC
From Spina Necropolis
Ferrara, Archaeological Museum

The Trojan war is over. The Athena Promachos' statue splits the scene in two sections depicting, respectively, the capture of Cassandra and the death of the old king Priam.
To left, Ajax Oileus with his sword in the right hand bursts into the temple where the Palladium, a sacred statue of Athena, was venerated. The female figure is Cassandra; she is seeking refuge in the holy temple of Athena, but the Greek hero is about to catch her while the desperate daughter of Priam is embracing the goddess’ statue.

Made in Athens
Attic red figured volute-krater
Attribute to unknown
About 400 - 390 BC
From Spina Necropolis
Ferrara, Archaeological Museum

Neoptolemus is about to kill Priam. The old king is seated on his throne without any waepon and wearing a rich oriental dress. Priam tries to protect himself against the sword of the Greek warrior raising his naked hand. Between the statue of Athena and Priam a woman seated on the ground along with her child: they are Andromache and Astyanax, the wife and the son of Hector.
Behind Neoptolemus a woman runs away; she is wearing a rich clothing and a diadem crowns her head: probably, she is the Troy’s queen Hecabe. Hidden behind his shield a frightened warrior closes the scene.

Made in Athens
Attic red figured volute-krater
Attribute to unknown
About 400 - 390 BC
From Spina Necropolis
Ferrara, Archaeological Museum

Ajax Oileus rips off the Pricess Cassandra from the statue of Athena.
Attributed to “Antimenes Painter”
ca. 520-510 BC
Munich. Antikensammlungen

Attic kylix
From Vulci, Etruria
ca. 550 BC
Munich. Antikensammlungen