Attic Kantharos of the Vatican Class (Class M)
Attic Kantharos of the Vatican Class (Class M)
On this janiform kantharos, with two human heads, the head of Heracles and that of a black African are depicted symmetrically opposed. It has been hypothesised that the two subjects may constitute a reference to the episode of Heracles and Busiris, the mythical Egyptian sovereign who, to keep famine at bay, destined for sacrifice any foreigners who entered Egypt. Among these was Heracles who, returning from the gardens of the Hesperides, was captured and led to the sacrificial altar; he broke his shackles and killed the Pharaoh and his court. There remains the fact that, following contact with Pharaonic Egypt, Greek knowledge of the African world increased from the seventh century B.C. onwards, entering into contact with the Nilotic ethnic African interior. More than an exotic evocation, the confidence with the subject demonstrated by the Athenian ceramic painter could have been due to the real presence of black Africans, introduced as slaves in Athens itself or enrolled as mercenaries, as was the case in the armies of Xerxes around 480 B.C.