Bird-Dancer and Satyr-Craftsmen on an Attic Vase HADZISTELIOU PRICE, THEODORA Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies; Fall 1972; 13, 3; ProQuest pg. 239

Bird-Dancer and Satyr-Craftsmen 
on an Attic Vase 

Theodora Hadzisteliou Price 

A LATE ARCHAIC black-figure juglet at the University of Chicago, 
a squat lekythos of unusual shape published briefly thirty 
years ago,! bears a unique and puzzling representation which 

may be related to the satyr-play and is in any case the earliest depic­
tion of satyr-craftsmen. 

Shape, Style and Date 
The first publisher noted that the "woman's garment [as the bird­

like figure was interpreted] can hardly belong to the sixth century." 
In fact the slapdash style of the two smaller figures recalls late Attic 
black-figure of the first two decades of the fifth century B.C., to which 
it should be dated in spite of the somewhat archaizing shape which 
recalls sixth-century lekythoi but has no exact parallels among them.2 

The shape of this vase is squat, pearlike, with flowing uninterrupted 
contours, quite different from the aryballic lekythoi of the first 
quarter of the fifth century (PLATES 8 and 9).3 The omission of the 
ground-line is a feature of the Ripe Archaic and Early Free red-figure 
style, when some painters (like the Berlin Painter and Sotades Painter) 
tried to free their figures from the conventional vertical and horizon­
tal frames; this style was taken over by painters of small pots in the 
old black-figure technique, such as the Haimon Painter' and the 
painter of our vase. The free background makes the figures look less 
static and more three-dimensional; it is sometimes used in scenes of 

1 F. P. Johnson, " BF Pottery at Chicago," AJA 47 (1943) 395-96, fig. 1 I. For permission to 
republish the vase I am indebted to the Classical Collection, University of Chicago. 

I See the discussion by Johnson, loc.cit. (supra n.l). 
3 Ch. Dugas, "Lecythe aryballisque athenien," BeH 70 (1946) 172-78, pI.ix and figs.Iff 

and further bib!. 
, C. H. E. Haspels, Attic Black-figured Lekythoi (Paris 1936) l30ff. 

239 



240 BIRD-DANCER AND SATYR-CRAFTSMEN ON AN ATTIC VASE 

dance (e.g. the knuckle-bone vase of the Sotades Painter in London) 
or ecstatic mood (e.g. the Berlin Painter's citharode in New York). 
Here it may well have been used intentionally to add freedom to the 
grouping. The omission of detailed incision in the legs and arms is 
common in the late Attic black-figure of the first decades of the fifth 
century.5 

Iconography 
The puzzling scene is lively, full of action, and could hardly be a 

<nonsense' decoration. There are five figures on the vase. At right6 
(PLATE 8) a long-tailed silenus with equine ears sits on a stool, a 
hammer or axe in his right hand and a club or tree trunk in his left. 
He turns his head back to observe a smaller semi-crouching figure 
which is just dropping, or lifting from the floor, something which 
looks like an athlete's strigil. This figure also has large ears but no 
tail and wears a short cloak; he is probably a young satyr.7 Behind 
him a standing, draped, horse-eared satyr (PLATE 9, fig.I) extends his 
arms in a gesture towards the other satyrs, or is exercising. It is 
impossible to determine whether he was tailed or not because of a 
large chip from the surface of the vase. The fourth tiny figure on the 
stool looks like a child-satyr, beardless, with small equine ears. 
Apparently he held something in the outstretched left hand-again 
the chipped surface of the vase does not permit further interpretation. 

Behind him is the fifth, last figure, with a bird-like face (PLATE 9, 
fig.2). It has been interpreted as a woman8 but with the admission 
that the black of her strange face and neck was never covered by white 
paint, as is the rule for female flesh on Attic black-figure vases. Apart 
from the long garment, which is also quaint, covering arms and hands 
completely, nothing points to a specific sex. The nearest parallel are 
the masked dancers from a comic chorus, wrapped in similar cloaks, 
on a black-figure amphora of the first quarter of the fifth century B.C. 

I; T. Hadzisteliou Price, .. 'To Be or not to Be' on a Black-figure Pelike," AjA 75 (1971) 
431-34, pls.93 figs.I-3 and 94 figs.6-7 and n.4. 

• Johnson, op.cit. (supra n.1) fig. 11 a-b. 
7 Satyrs are sometimes represented without tail: E. Buschor, Feldmiiuse (SBMunchen 

1937.1) passim; idem, Satyrtilnze und frUhes Drama (SBMunchen 1943.5) passim; see also infra 
and J. E. Harrison,jHS 20 (1900) 106 fig.2, for the Paris lekythos with satyr sphyrokcpos. 

8 Johnson, loe.cit. (supra n.1). 



THEODORA HADZISTELIOU PRICE 241 

in Berlin.9 This amphora and an oenochoe in the British Museum10 

with feathered dancers are the earliest extant evidence for choruses of 
birds. The figure on the Chicago vase should be added to these early 
examples. The incredibly large beaklike nose, receding forehead, un­
depicted mouth and long neck can belong only to the mask of a bird­
dancer of early comedy, unless they come from a comic chorus of 
birds without dialogue like the choruses of the Corinthian padded 
dancers. The cloak in which the figure is wrapped, however, was part 
of the attire of the comic animal-dancers.u Its interpretation as a 
bird-dancer from early comedy, therefore, is the more persuasive. 

In the Chicago juglet it thus appears that we have a very early 
representation of satyric and comic choruses inspired by contempo­
rary performances.12 Apart from the black-figure vases mentioned 
above, there are even earlier ones depicting comic choruses of horse, 
dolphin and ostrich-riders.13 There is also concrete literary evidence 
that animal choruses were commonly used in comedy of the first half 
of the fifth century B.C. In the 470's and earlier Magnes produced 
choruses of frogs, birds and gallflies; Krates also staged choruses of 
birds and beasts around the middle of the fifth century.14 The earlier 

9 M. Bieber, The History of the Greek and Roman Theatre2 (Princeton 1961) 36ff and bib!. 
10 Bieber, op.cit. (supra n.9) fig.l23; Haspels, op.cit. (supra n.4) 78ff, 214, no.187, London 

B509; J. D. Beazley, ABVP (Oxford 1956) 473, no.187. See Harald Patzer, Die Anfiinge der 
griechischen Tragodie (Wiesbaden 1962) 61ff and bibl. G. M. Sifakis, Para basis and Animal 
Choruses, A Contribution to the History of Attic Comedy (London 1971) 3ff, esp. Part ii, "Animal 
Choruses," 73ff, pIs. vi-viii. B. Dohle, "Beziehungen zwischen Drama und attischer Vasen­
malerei in der 1. Halfte des 5. Jh. v. Chr." in Die griechische Vase (Vortrage auf einer Kon­
ferenz in Schwerin, 27-29.x.1966, Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der Universitiit Rostock xvi, 1967) 
411-604, pIs. 1-30. 

11 Sifakis, op.cit. (supra n.lO) ch. ix, "The Performances depicted on Vases. The 'Himatia' 
of the Chorus," 86-88, 92 and app. 103ff. 

12 The male figures must be satyrs, since the pointed equine ears are not found other­
wise in human figures, while there are examples of satyrs without tail; see supra n.7. In 
black-figure vases of this period the human ear is either not denoted, is covered by the hair, 
or is lower and round; see Bieber, op.cit. (supra n.9) fig.124, the fluteplayer in front of the 
birds. 

13 Sifakis, op.cit. (supra n.lO) 3ff, pIs. i-v. The bird-in-arms depicted alone on a late archaic 
aryballic lekythos in a private collection, Dugas, loc.cit. (supra n.3), may not come from a 
particular comic chorus as it lacks both human features and the characteristic himation 
which could allude to a member of such a chorus. It may well be an imaginative depiction 
of the name of lark, Kopv8a.U.oc 'the bird in helmet', as suggested by Dugas. This vase was 
brought to my attention by the anonymous referee. 

14 Ar. Eq. 520. A. W. Pickard-Cambridge, The Dramatic Festivals of Athens2 (Oxford 1968) 
83,106,119; E. Buschor, op.cit. (supra n.7); Sifakis, op.cit. (supra n.10) 76-77. 



242 BIRO-DANCER AND SATYR-CRAFTSMEN ON AN ATTIC VASE 

vases mentioned above point to the existence of animal-choruses 
already at the end of the sixth century B.C. All three black-figure vases 
with representations of bird-dancers15 date from the early decades of 
the fifth century and reflect either a particular play that the painters 
saw or the rising popularity of such choruses.16 

The group of the satyr-craftsmen on the Chicago juglet is unique. 
The first publisher suggested that Hin view of the variety of activities 
in which Silens appear it is not incredible that one of them should be 
preparing a club, presumably for Herakles; but the meaning of the 
rest of the scene, if there is any, is difficult to determine." There is no 
evidence, however, that satyrs ever prepared any kind of armor for 
Herakles. On a red-figure vase satyrs are trying to carry off the arms 
from the pyre on which Herakles was burning;17 in other instances 
also satyrs tried to steal Herakles' arms but were unsuccessful.18 

Could the objects in the hands of the satyrs be the stolen arms? The 
hammer or axe is not one of the weapons ofHerakles. It is the attribute 
of a less heroic personality, Hephaistos. 

There is a late literary reference which connects the satyrs with 
Hephaistos and arms: two epigrams of the Greek Anthology (XVI 15 

and 15A) describe the satyrs as chained and working in the smithy of 
Hephaistos, where among other things they forged the arms of 
Achilles.19 Besides the fact that this myth is not known from earlier 

11 As well as the red-figure juglet with the humorous representation of bird-in-arms, 
Dugas. loc.cit. (supra n.3). 

18 The satyrizing literary animal chorus has an interesting early Indo-European pre­
decessor in the Frog-Song of the Rigveda 7.103, which is devoted to the description and 
praise of the frogs: N. N. Law. Age of the Rigveda (Calcutta 1965) 37ff. The hymn has been 
interpreted by some scholars as a satire of the priests and the elaborate ceremonies of the 
Brahmans. The poet compares the croaking of the frogs with the chants of the priests 
exhilarated by Soma, and with the clamor of pupils at school repeating the words of their 
teacher. M. Millier found it curious that these animals "should have been chosen by the 
Vedic satirist to represent the priests, which by the earliest satirist of Greece were selected 
as the representatives of the Homeric heroes." 

17 E. Romagnoli. Nel regno di Dioniso (Studi suI teatro comico greco, Bologna 1923) 161 and 
ills .• Satiri alia Caccia. 

18 Also in other instances the satyrs tried to steal the arms of Herakles but were un­
successful: F. Brommer, Satyrspiele2 (Bilder griech. Vasen, Berlin 1959) 29ff; J. D. Beazley, 
Paralipomena (Oxford 1971) 248; S. Karouzou, «'HpaKMjc EaTVptKOc,» BCH 60 (1936) 152-57, 
pIs. 17-19, esp. p.156 for a possible early satyr-play, or otherwise a legend about the 
attempted-but unsuccessful-theft of the arms of Herakles. 

It W. R. Paton, ed. Greek Anthology V (LCL 1926) 167 (from Anthologia Palatina. ed. F. 
Jacobs [Leipzig 1814] Adesp. 412,413); H. Beckby, ed. Anthologia Graeca IV (Munich 1958); 
A. C. Pearson, The Fragments of Sophocles n (Oxford 1917) 136 and discussion. 



THEODORA HADZISTELIOU PRICE 243 

literature, according to extant evidence, the satyrs represented on 
the vase are not chained and toiling but are cheerful and move about 
freely. The only weapon in the scene is the club, which does not belong 
to the armor of Achilles; if he had intended to represent the making 
of the arms of Achilles, the artist would have made it clearer by 
depicting a shield. Nevertheless the epigrams most probably echo 
some old tradition which connected the satyrs with craftsmanship 
and Hephaistos. According to the legend used by Sophokles in the 
satyric Ichneutai, the satyrs were promised by Apollo gold and manu­
mission if they discovered his stolen cattle; the legend was probably 
much earlier than Sophokles. One might suggest that the satyrs on 
the vase are about to work the gold they received from Apollo. In 
that case, however, the club would remain unexplained, and there 
would still be the questions of where, how and why. 

The earliest specific literary reference to satyrs with hammers is 
the title of the lost satyr-play of Sophokles, Pandora or Sphyrokopoi.2o 

Pearson noted that "The title indicates that the satyrs in the play 
appeared as Hammerers, and we must infer that they acted as assist­
ants in the workshop of Hephaestus, while he was engaged in shaping 
Pandora." As further evidence for the employment of satyrs by 
Hephaistos he gives the commentary of Proklos to Hesiod, Opera et 
Dies 94, and the epigrams mentioned above. Robert,21 however, 
suggested that the satyr-chorus were not smiths helping with the 
forging of Pandora (who, according to the tradition, was made of clay), 
but clod-breakers helping to free Pandora from the earth.22 The play 
of Sophokles, therefore, is not helpful for the interpretation of the 
scene of the Chicago juglet; although the myth is much earlier than 
Sophokles, the implication of the title Hammerers remains unclear.23 

Young beardless satyrs appear on vases already in the first quarter 
of the fifth century under the influence of the satyr-plays ;24 such must 
be the two smaller figures on the Chicago juglet. Hephaistos is not 

20 A. Nauck, TrGrFr. nos. 441-45. 
11 C. Robert, "Pandora," Hermes 49 (1914) 17-3S. 
2B Pearson, op.cit. (supra n.19) II.137, and n.7 supra. 
Z3 The only representation known to me of a chorus of satyrs holding hammers and 

dancing to the accompaniment of a long-robed fluteplayer appears on a red-figure volute­
krater in Ferrara, later than the Chicago vase and contemporary with Sophokles: Bieber, 
op.cit. (supra n.9) fig.16. The satyrs here, however, are not working metal in a workshop 
but only brandishing their hammers; Brommer, op.cit. (supra n.1S) 49, 52, fig.49. 

u Brommer, op.cit. (supra n.1S) 38ff. 



244 BIRD-DANCER AND SATYR-CRAFTSMEN ON AN ATTIC VASE 

present here, but the objects held by the satyrs indicate that they are 
engaged in some craft. They are properly dressed and not in their 
usual exuberant nudity; none of them is dancing. 

The earliest literary document with some allusions to the connec­
tion of satyrs with craftsmanship and Hephaistos is Aischylos' satyr­
play Isthmiastai. 25 Since Aischylos started producing at the beginning 
of the fifth century, it is likely that this vase is contemporary with the 
performance of the Isthmiastai. In the new fragments of the play26 the 
satyrs are addressed by somebody (apparently Dionysos) who accuses 
them of, among other things, wearing clothes, boasting and telling 
him that he is no good in iron-work and that he is like a woman. He 
also accuses them of getting «hateful new instruments" ; not only that, 
but instead of dancing they behave like athletes of the Isthmian 
games. It seems to me that the satyrs' reproach against Dionysos for 
lacking knowledge of iron-work implies their own dexterity in it, 
since otherwise the reproach would apply also to them. Their opyava 
€x(lLcTa 1Tavrwv TW[V- - - (lines 69-70) for which the former accuses them 
are smith's implements. Also at line 77, «you will cry without smoke" 
hints at the smithy's fire. Further on (lines 85ff) a newcomer, identi­
fied by Lloyd-Jones as Hephaistos,27 says that he brings them play­
things newly made with hammer and adze "because they like learn­
ing these things." It seems that the new &(}vpp.aTa are as likely to be 
craftsmen's implements as javelins. The satyrs have taken up two 
different occupations instead of the dance: craftsmanship and 
lC(}P.LCX,€£V, 'behaving like crowned athletes at the Isthmia'. This sug­
gestion is strengthened by the fact that the two following fragmentary 
lines include the word cc/>vpa, edited as cc/>vptL. but which could be 
cc/>vpa 'hammer'. Next the satyrs admire a likeness of them brought 
by the 'Skilful One', apparently Hephaistos. One wonders why the 
satyrs would practice craftsmanship if they were intending to enter 
the Isthmian Games. The reason could very well be to furnish them­
selves with certain athletic accessories which otherwise they could not 
have. On the Chicago juglet the satyrs appear respectable and clothed, 
as accused by Dionysos. The second young satyr is apparently lifting 

15 Aeschylus. ed. H. Lloyd-Jones (LCL 1963) II.406 and Appendix by H. Lloyd-Jones. 541fT. 
I am indebted to Professor Lloyd-Jones for a useful discussion in an early stage; the views 
expressed here are my own. 

28 Lloyd-Jones. op.cit. (supra n.25) 552f. 
17 See supra n.25. 



THEODORA HADZISTELIOU PRICE 245 

a scraper, and the third could be performing some exercise. The first 
silenus is hammering something like a Heraclean club, the symbol 
of the Greek hero par excellence. Since Herakles was also an athlete 
and the founder of the first games, this may well be a comic allusion. 
Otherwise there is no evidence that they ever made weapons for him; 
the only explanation would be that they are making the club for 
themselves. One of the contests in the games is the footrace in full 
armor. The club was the hero's most important weapon. 

The vase may have been inspired by the performance of Isthmiastai, 
but the play is too fragmentary to permit any certainty. The juglet 
does, however, seem to have been inspired by dramatic perform­
ances rather than by myths. The last figure on the vase hints at one of 
the early bird-choruses known through both literary and iconographic 
evidence; it may well have been inspired by a comedy that followed 
the satyr-play Isthmiastai. 

Another interpretation of the single bird-figure could be deduced 
from a line of a fragment of Isthmiastai28 which refers to old CKW7T€.,)/ux:rCt 

(from CKWtP, a kind of dance). Athenaeus, at 9.45 p.391A, notes that the 
dance called CKW!f, <the screech-owl dance', got its name from the 
variety displayed by the bird. Thus, the bird-figure might be an 
allusion to these old dances mentioned in Isthmiastai. In this play 
Dionysos, who reproaches the satyrs, mentions preparations of 
choruses by him and scolds them for not being dedicated to their 
own trade, dancing. On the vase the old trade of the satyrs, the 
choruses or CKW7T€VP.CtTCt, and their new arts, craftsmanship and prepara­
tion for the games, are depicted side by side. This scene is the earliest 
explicit evidence for satyr-craftsmen. 

THE CENTER FOR HELLENIC STUDIES, WASHINGTON 

May, 1972 

S8 Op.cit. (supra n.25) 407, fr.40(79). 



PRICE PLATE 8 

SQLT.H LEKYTHOS AT TI IE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 

CiZlssical Collection, \Varren-Tarbell 23 

(Ph"tograph by T. H. Price) 



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