Chigi vase

The Chigi vase is a Protocorinthian olpe, or pitcher, that is the name vase of the Chigi Painter. It was found in an Etruscan tomb at Monte Aguzzo, near Veio, on Prince Mario Chigi’s estate in 1881. The vase has been variously assigned to the middle and late protocorinthian periods and given a date of ca. 650-640 BC; it is now in the National Etruscan Museum, Villa Giulia, Rome (inv. No.22679). Some three-quarters of the vase is preserved. It was found amidst a large number of potsherds of mixed provenance, including one bucchero vessel inscribed with five lines in two early Etruscan alphabets announcing the ownership of Atianai, perhaps also the original owner of the Chigi vase.

The Chigi vase itself is a polychromatic work decorated in four friezes of mythological and genre scenes and four bands of ornamentation; amongst these tableaux is the earliest representation of the hoplite phalanx formation – the sole pictorial evidence of its use in the mid- to late-7th century, and terminus post quem of the "hoplite reform" that altered military tactics.

The lowest frieze is a hunting scene in which three naked short-haired hunters and a pack of dogs endeavour to catch hares and one vixen; a kneeling hunter carries a lagobolon (a throwing cudgel used in coursing hares) as he signals to his fellows to stay behind a bush. It is not clear from the surviving fragments if a trap is being used, as was common in depictions of such expeditions. The next frieze immediate above suggests a collocation of four or five unrelated events. First a parade of long-haired horsemen, each of whom is leading a riderless horse. Possibly these are squires or hippobates for some absent cavalrymen or hippobateis; the latter, it has been conjectured, may be the hoplites seen elsewhere on the vase. The riders are confronted with a two-bodied sphinx with a floral crown and an archaic smile. It is not clear if the creature is participating in any of the action in this frieze. Behind the sphinx is a lion-hunting scene in which four youths wearing cuirasses (save for one who is nude, but belted) spear a lion which has a fifth figure in its jaws. Whether there were indigenous lions in the Peloponnese at this time is a matter for speculation. moreover the shock-haired mane of the lion betrays a neo-Assyrian influence, perhaps the first such in Corinthian art and replacing the previously dominant Hittite forms. Finally in this section, and just below the handle, is a Judgement of Paris scene. Above is another hunting scene, albeit of animals only: dogs chasing stags, goats and hares.

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