1. To illustrate this point further, one may refer to the famous description of the shield of Achilles in the Iliad. The passage gives the impression of rendering not a real, but certainly a possible, work of ancient art; cf. W. Schadewaldt, Von Homers Welt und Werk [Leipzig, 1944], 280-302, especially 287, notes 1-5, with reference to the Phoenician bowls. The ekphrasis of Achilles' shield must therefore be regarded as the first authentic statement on art in Greek literature, and perhaps any literature. The interesting point is that, while the Homeric poem itself constitutes a highly developed and individualized example of character-fiction, this particular description still reflects an earlier, quite generic, level of art criticism. Its outstanding characteristic is the wholly impersonal, merely classifying, approach to subject matter. No personal name, no definite myth; only diverse if representative examples of human life and labour. Such themes were actually shown on the Phoenician bowls, but hardly in later Greek art, as, for instance, the men working the fields. Like the shield, more often than not this Phoenician art was conceived as a direct - not mythical - mirror of the world, expressed in terms of generic categories.

2. Varro recorded an ancient tradition which Plutarch thought in agreement with Pythagorean rules: that no images of deity existed in Rome before the statue of Jupiter by Vulca in the Capitoline temple -c. 500. See testimonia in O. Vessberg, Studien zur Kunstgeschichte der römischen Republik [Lund and Leipzig, 1941], 5-6; Riis, 198. The story probably refers to images designed for public worship - cult images. With this proviso, it may well be correct. Cult images were indeed regarded in Rome as a Greek, or rather Greco-Etruscan, innovation.

3. Early names of deities in Italy: for Rome and central Italy see F. Altheim, A History of Roman Religion [New York, 1938], 182-7, 229.

The popular groups which I called 'acrobats' and 'horse tamers' [see Chapter 2, illustrations 20 and 22] perhaps constitute the first Etruscan types of deity, or at least demoniac characters, in human form. The horse tamers, especially, follow a pre-Greek heraldic scheme, widely distributed in the eastern Mediterranean. Their appearance in Italy was therefore not necessarily due to Greek importation; the type may have reached the Italian peninsula across the Adriatic, by way of the Balkan route. For additional examples see P. Marconi, Bollettino d'Arte, XXX [1936], 58-75. An interesting sidelight falls on these conditions from the study of Latin names given in Italy to deities and mythical personages who were known by different names in Greece. Thus the goddess Artemis was first understood in Italy in her older, eastern Aegean function as a 'Mistress of Animals'. The idea of the virgin huntress developed later. Her Etruscan name, Aritimi, likewise came to Italy in a pre-Homeric form, perhaps transmitted by Illyrian peoples across the Balkans [Altheim, op. cit., 41]. It seems that the idea of divine horsemen and twins, called 'Dioskuroi' by the greeks, was brought to Italy in a similar manner, by way of Illyrian connections, long before it became thoroughly grecized through the influence of the Tarentine cult [Altheim, op. cit., 40]. I therefore connect the early Etruscan representations of horse tamers with this equally ancient relic of pre-Homeric demonology in Italy. But then the fact must be emphasilzed that in art one horse tamer usually stands alone between two horses: in other words, the horses are doubled but he himself is not a twin. This fact may have some bearing on the other, no less peculiar circumstance that when, eventually, a temple was built on the Roman Forum for the Dioskuroi the new building was actually dedicated not to the twins but to only one of them: it was the 'Temple of Castor' [Altheim, op. cit., 244-5].

4. From Tumulus I della Pania. Huls, 62-4, nos. 61 and 62, plates 27-30; Ducati, 175-8, plate 59, figure 180; H. MÄhlesteini, Die Kunst der Etrusker [Berlin, 1929], plate 53, pp. 162-6 [in need of revision]; Giglioli, plate 81, figure 2. The companion piece is illustrated in Giglioli, plate 81, figure 1. Italo-Corinthian vases and other objects found together with both boxes indicate a date near the end of the seventh century: G. Karo, Athenische Mitteilungen, XLV [1920], 149.

5. The Italian form of the name, Ulixes, like the names of the Dioskuroi and others, probably reached Etruria from an Illyrian, Balkan source even before the Homeric name, Odysseus, became generally known [Altheim, op. cit., 39, 128, 154]. This observation tallies with the early popularity of the story of Odysseus in Etruscan art.

6. Both soldiers on the march and a knight mounting his chariot represent standard motifs of Greek Orientalizing art. No specific significance was ascribed to them as a rule, but they could be used for mythical representations on occasion; for instance, the 'Departure of a Warrior' could be turned into an 'Amphiaraus going to war against Thebes'. Cf. the roughly contemporary terracotta frieze from Crete in F. Matz, Geschichte der griechischen Kunst, 1 [Frankfurt am Main, 1950], 491-2 and plate 288b.

7. The iconographic scheme, rear part of a horse attached to an upright human figure, is in accordance with early Greek habits. The long garment is unusual, however. The only example known from Greece represents a female figure, Medusa, in the form of a centaur: the Cycladic [rather than Boeotian] pithos in the Louvre [Matz, op. cit., 414, plate 251]. For early types of centaurs see also below, Chapter 10, Note 2, Chapter 11, Note 2.

8. Oriental iconography in grecizing monuments: Etrusco-Corinthian vases, Rome, Villa Giulia [38], M. Pallottino, Bollettino d'Arte, XXXI [1937], 149-53, figures 1-3. Provenance unknown, perhaps Cerveteri. Parts restored, but the representations here at issue seem intact. Birds feeding on the dead: there is a chance that oriental representations of this kind gave rise to the Greek myth of Prometheus and the vulture: see E. Kunze, Kretische Bronzereliefs, 2 vols. [Stuttgart, 1931], 250-1

9. Pareti, 182-4, nos. 3-4, plate 6; MÄhlestein, op. cit., figures 90, 91; Giglioli, plate 28, figures 1-2. Another pair, of similar make and design, is in the British Museum: F. H. Marshall, Catalogue of the Jewelry, Greek, Etruscan and Roman in the Department of Antiquities, British Museum [London, 1911], 123-4, nos. 1356-7, plate 18. The dancers are almost identical, but differences occur in the terminal reliefs, not discussed here: the Vatican bracelets show a 'Mistress of Animals' between two lions each of which is being attacked by a man; London has as central figure a 'Lord of Animals', and the lions are winged.

10. I cannot see that the women hold the trunks of the trees, as most descriptions maintain, including Pareti, 183. They hold hands in front of the trees: consequently they represent dancers. The dancing 'chorus' was a distinct subject of Greek Orientalizing art and also included in the representations on Achilles' shield, according to Homer: Kunze, op. cit., 213-13.

11. Side view versus frontality: from the end of the Geometric period onwards, most dancing figures in Greek paintings and reliefs turn not only their feet but also their heads to one side: cf. the early Attic loutrophoros in Paris, Matz, op. cit. 11, plate 193. The dancers on the Cypriote bowl illustrated by E. Gjerstad, Opuscula Archaeologica, IV [1946], plate 1, are likewise drawn with heads turned, not facing; this detail is probably due to Greek influence. Otherwise the bowl affords a good comparison to the Vatican bracelets. The figures have the same 'Phoenician' curls, and every second dancer wears a dress like the women on the bracelets, divided by a vertical fold in the middle. The trees are also found behind the dancers. Once again the evidence leads to the Cypro-Phoenician bowls, or some similar portable object from the same stylistic province, as the likely source of the subject matter and even of the iconographical scheme.

12. L. Curtius, Die Antike Kunst, 11, 1 [Potsdam, 1938], 111-112.

13. See the interesting terracotta relief in Naples representing the lower part of a female figure in along garment illustrated in Matz, op. cit., plate 279b. Her dress is decorated by a vertical ribbon, embroidered or woven, which consists of panels stacked one upon another. In the middle panel, a female chorus is represented, with heads facing. The style seems to be local, Italo-Greek, depending on Peloponnesian prototypes. Vertical rows of panels are even more characteristic of another early Greek type of art: the bronze bands with embossed reliefs which reinforced the leather handles of Archaic shields. These bands can be referred to Argive workshops. Poduction started before the end of the seventh century: E. Kunze, Archäische Schildbänder [Olympische Forschungen, 11] [Berlin, 1950], 204-5, 242.

14. It is indeed likely that the panels of the Vatican bracelets were derived from an original frieze composition, cut to panel size: cf. the almost identical decorations on the oblong pendants, perhaps from a pair of earrings, from the same tomb, Pareti, 187-8, nos. 15-16, plate 7.