Darius vase Napoli Museum without background

The Darius Vase is a famous vase painted by an anonymous

Magna Graecia Magna Graecia refers to the Greek-speaking areas of southern Italy, encompassing the modern Regions of Italy, Italian regions of Calabria, Apulia, Basilicata, Campania, and Sicily. These regions were Greek colonisation, extensively settled by G ...

Apulia Apulia ( ), also known by its Italian language, Italian name Puglia (), is a Regions of Italy, region of Italy, located in the Southern Italy, southern peninsular section of the country, bordering the Adriatic Sea to the east, the Strait of Ot ...

n vase painter, commonly called the

Darius Painter The Darius Painter was an Apulian Apulian vase painting, vase painter and the most eminent representative at the end of the "Red-figure pottery, Ornate Style" in South Italian Red-figure pottery, red-figure vase painting in Magna Graecia. His wor ...

, the most eminent representative at the end of the "Ornate Style" in South Italian

red-figure Red-figure pottery () is a style of Pottery of ancient Greece, ancient Greek pottery in which the background of the pottery is painted black while the figures and details are left in the natural red or orange color of the clay. It developed in A ...

vase painting. The vase was produced between 340 and 320 BCE, probably in a large

factory A factory, manufacturing plant or production plant is an industrial facility, often a complex consisting of several buildings filled with machinery, where workers manufacture items or operate machines which process each item into another. Th ...

-like workshop in the Greek city of

Taranto Taranto (; ; previously called Tarent in English) is a coastal city in Apulia, Southern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Taranto, serving as an important commercial port as well as the main Italian naval base. Founded by Spartans ...

(ancient Taras),

, well before the fall of Taranto to the Romans in 272 BCE. It is an important work of

Apulian vase painting Apulian vase painting was a regional style of South Italian vase painting from ancient Apulia in southeast Italy. It comprises geometric pottery and red-figure pottery. The legitimate Iron Age sequel to the Neolithic and Bronze Age culture of Ma ...

. The "Darius Vase" was discovered in 1851 near

Canosa di Puglia Canosa di Puglia, generally known simply as Canosa (), is a town and ''comune'' in the province of Barletta-Andria-Trani, Apulia, southern Italy. It is located between Bari and Foggia, on the northwestern edge of the plateau of the Murgia which ...

and is now on display at the Museo Archaeologico Nazionale, Naples (H3253). It is a large volute ''

krater A krater or crater (, ; , ) was a large two-handled type of vase in Pottery of ancient Greece, Ancient Greek pottery and metalwork, mostly used for the mixing of wine with water. Form and function At a Greek symposium, kraters were placed in ...

'', 1.3 meters in height and 1.93 meters in circumference. The vase contains several inscriptions, some naming individual figures, but there are also collective names (such as ''persai'' – Persians). These inscriptions can be seen as " tituli". All available space on the vase is used for figural depictions, arranged in two or three registers. Some individual zones are structured by opulent ornamental friezes. The Darius Painter is considered the first painter to have fully exploited the possibilities of large-format vase painting. His drawing style is regarded as especially good, particularly in faces, which he often depicts in a three-quarter profile.

Content of the vase

Neck of the vase: Combat scenes

The neck of the vase shows combat scenes between the Greeks and the Persians. It is generally thought that these scenes represents the combats between

Alexander the Great Alexander III of Macedon (; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), most commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greece, ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia (ancient kingdom), Macedon. He succeeded his father Philip ...

and Darius III, rather than the earlier combats of the troops of

Darius the Great Darius I ( ; – 486 BCE), commonly known as Darius the Great, was the third King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire, reigning from 522 BCE until his death in 486 BCE. He ruled the empire at its territorial peak, when it included much of West A ...

during his

First Persian invasion of Greece The first Persian invasion of Greece took place from 492 BC to 490 BC, as part of the Greco-Persian Wars. It ended with a decisive Classical Athens, Athenian-led victory over the Achaemenid Empire during the Battle of Marathon. Consistin ...

Top tier: Greek gods

Above Darius stands a line of Greek Gods:

Artemis In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, Artemis (; ) is the goddess of the hunting, hunt, the wilderness, wild animals, transitions, nature, vegetation, childbirth, Kourotrophos, care of children, and chastity. In later tim ...

riding a stag,

Apollo Apollo is one of the Twelve Olympians, Olympian deities in Ancient Greek religion, ancient Greek and Ancient Roman religion, Roman religion and Greek mythology, Greek and Roman mythology. Apollo has been recognized as a god of archery, mu ...

seated holding a

swan Swans are birds of the genus ''Cygnus'' within the family Anatidae. The swans' closest relatives include the goose, geese and ducks. Swans are grouped with the closely related geese in the subfamily Anserinae where they form the tribe (biology) ...

Aphrodite Aphrodite (, ) is an Greek mythology, ancient Greek goddess associated with love, lust, beauty, pleasure, passion, procreation, and as her syncretism, syncretised Roman counterpart , desire, Sexual intercourse, sex, fertility, prosperity, and ...

together with

Eros Eros (, ; ) is the Greek god of love and sex. The Romans referred to him as Cupid or Amor. In the earliest account, he is a primordial god, while in later accounts he is the child of Aphrodite. He is usually presented as a handsome young ma ...

Zeus Zeus (, ) is the chief deity of the List of Greek deities, Greek pantheon. He is a sky father, sky and thunder god in ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, who rules as king of the gods on Mount Olympus. Zeus is the child ...

holding a winged

thunderbolt A thunderbolt or lightning bolt is a symbolic representation of lightning when accompanied by a loud thunderclap. In Indo-European mythology, the thunderbolt was identified with the 'Sky Father'; this association is also found in later Hel ...

, Hellas standing,

Athena Athena or Athene, often given the epithet Pallas, is an ancient Greek religion, ancient Greek goddess associated with wisdom, warfare, and handicraft who was later syncretism, syncretized with the Roman goddess Minerva. Athena was regarde ...

holding a shield, Apate holding two torches,

Asia Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...

seated on an altar, next to a pillar holding a head (possibly of xoanon).

Middle tier: Darius and his court

Darius III is shown seated, wearing a long, ornate, sleeved robe and a high Persian hat. A bodyguard stands behind him, as Darius is listening to an allegory of the Persian people, enjoining him not to attack the Greeks. Darius could also be simply listening to a messenger.

Xerxes I Xerxes I ( – August 465 BC), commonly known as Xerxes the Great, was a List of monarchs of Persia, Persian ruler who served as the fourth King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire, reigning from 486 BC until his assassination in 465 BC. He was ...

, still a Prince, is said to be represented, second from right. The scene of the audience given by an Achaemenid ruler seems to have been quite conventional, and also appears in a similar fashion in the frieze on the tomb of

Lycia Lycia (; Lycian: 𐊗𐊕𐊐𐊎𐊆𐊖 ''Trm̃mis''; , ; ) was a historical region in Anatolia from 15–14th centuries BC (as Lukka) to 546 BC. It bordered the Mediterranean Sea in what is today the provinces of Antalya and Muğ ...

n ruler Arbinas.

Bottom tier: tax collection

A tax collector, the Royal Treasurer, is seen receiving payments by various conquered nations, whose representatives crouch before him."the Royal Treasurer is seen calculating the value of the tributes paid in by the conquered nations, whose representatives crouch before him." in On a table lays a calculating table (a reckoning board or abax, used for complicated calculations), with a number of small pebbles or counters in front of the

Greek numerals Greek numerals, also known as Ionic, Ionian, Milesian, or Alexandrian numerals, is a numeral system, system of writing numbers using the letters of the Greek alphabet. In modern Greece, they are still used for ordinal number (linguistics), ordi ...

for calculating large numbers. The symbol "O" appears in the calculation table, a Boeotian symbol for the obol, or small unit. The use of pebbles on a board to make calculations is illustrated down to modern times by the fact that ''calx'' is "pebble" in Latin, which is the etymological root for the word "calculation". The board contains the letters M (= 10.000), Ψ (Boeotian for 1.000), H (= 100), Δ (= 10) and Greek Pi archaic

(=5, or possibly the unit symbol for the

Drachma Drachma may refer to: * Ancient drachma, an ancient Greek currency * Modern drachma The drachma ( ) was the official currency of modern Greece from 1832 until the launch of the euro in 2001. First modern drachma The drachma was reintroduce ...

). White pebbles are added next to each letter in order to give the number of each quantity unit. Next to them appear the former symbols used to represent the Greek coins: Obol (Boeotian symbol O, 1/6 of a Drachma), half an Obol (С) and a quarter of an Obol (T). These symbols resemble those found in the Salamis abacus. The number here shown is probably 1741 and 4/6 Drachms. The tax collector also holds an open

diptych A diptych (, ) is any object with two flat plates which form a pair, often attached by a hinge. For example, the standard notebook and school exercise book of the ancient world was a diptych consisting of a pair of such plates that contained a ...

(two-leaved wax tablet) in which can be read the letters TAΛNTA:H, presumably meaning ''tal'anta hekaton ("one hundred talents").

Influences

The Darius vase may have represented a scene from a Greek drama. The depiction of Darius on his name-vase is possibly derived in its details from the ''Persae of Phrynikos'', C. Anti concluded in 1952, and Schmidt 1960 follows him. However Oliver Taplin notes in Pots and Plays, 2007, p. 235-7, the only strong indications of tragic reference are Darius himself and the old man in paidagogos outfit on the plinth inscribed ΠΕΡΣΑΙ, who might be performing the messenger role. Taplin speculates that the iconography of tragedy "could be assimilated into other contexts without danger of confusion", op. cit. p. 237.

Gallery

File:Darius detail on the Darius vase.jpg, Depiction of Darius III of Persia and its inscription (ΔΑΡΕΙΟΣ, top right) on the "Darius Vase" File:Darius-Vase.jpg, Drawing of Darius on the vase. File:Darius receiving advice on the Darius vase.jpg, Darius receiving advice from the Persians. File:Abax from Darius Vase.jpg, Abax depicted on the Darius vase File:Darius vase Tax collection.jpg, The Tax collector scene. File:Darius Vase Battle between Greeks and Persians.jpg, Battle between Greeks and Persians, on the reverse of the Darius Vase.

References

Sources

* Margot Schmidt. ''Der Dareiosmaler und sein Umkreis: Untersuchen zur Spätapulischen Vasenmalerei'', Munich: Aschendorff, 1960. * Jean-Marc Moret. ''L'Ilioupersis dans la céramique italiote, les mythes et leur expression figurée au IVe siècle'', Institut Suisse de Rome, 1975. * Thomas Morard, ''Horizontalité et verticalité. Le bandeau humain et le bandeau divin chez le Peintre de Darius'', Mainz, von Zabern, 2009. * Alexandre Cambitoglou, Arthur Dale Trendall. '' The Red-figured Vases of Apulia'', II, ''Late Apulian'', Oxford, 1982: p. 482-522. Bibliography. * Christian Aellen, Alexandre Cambitoglou, Jacques Chamay. ''Le peintre de Darius et son milieu, Vases grecs d'Italie Méridionale, Hellas et Roma'', Genf 1986. *

Arthur Dale Trendall Arthur Dale Trendall, (28 March 1909 – 13 November 1995) was a New Zealand art historian and classical archaeologist whose work on identifying the work of individual artists on Greek ceramic vessels at Apulia and other sites earned him i ...

. ''Rotfigurige Vasen aus Unteritalien und Sizilien. Ein Handbuch.'' von Zabern, Mainz 1991 (Kulturgeschichte der Antiken Welt Vol. 47), (p. 85-177). * Françoise-Hélène Massa-Pairault. ''Le Peintre de Darius et l'actualité. De la Macédoine à la Grande Grèce'', in ''L'incidenza dell'Antico II: studi in memore di Ettore Lepore'', Napoli, 1996. * Rolf Hurschmann. ''Dareios-Maler'', in

Der Neue Pauly The Pauly encyclopedias or the Pauly-Wissowa family of encyclopedias, are a set of related encyclopedias on Greco-Roman topics and scholarship. The first of these, or (1839–1852), was begun by compiler August Pauly. Other encyclopedias in t ...

Vol. 3 (1997), col. 324. * Claude Pouzadoux, ''Guerre et paix en Peucétie à l'époque d'Alexandre le Molosse (notes sur quelques vases du Peintre de Darius)'', in ''Le Canal d'Otrante et la Méditerranée antique et médiévale'', colloque organisée à l'Université de Paris X - Nanterre (20-21 novembre 2000), Edipuglia, Bari, 2005. {{Commonscat, Darius Vase Archaeological discoveries in Italy Art of Magna Graecia Collection of the National Archaeological Museum, Naples Darius III Individual ancient Greek vases