Ethnicity and Representation 359Figure 24.2 Herakles beating Bousiris with an Egyptian priest from an Attic black-figure
amphora of ca. 530 attributed to the Swing Painter. Cincinnati, Cincinnati Art Museum 1959.1.
Courtesy of Bridgeman Art Library International.
Bousiris was represented in opposition to Hellenic norms of dress, physiognomy, and
behavior in the Archaic period challenges the normal aristocratic tendency to emphasize
shared traits.
The myth’s representation underwent changes in the early classical era, in which the
Egyptian pharaoh evolved into a generalized tyrant (Miller in Cohen 2000: 429). Shortly
before the middle of the fifth century, the Bousiris myth underwent more fascinating
iconographic changes (it also became unpopular in Athens; of the approximately 23 vases
showing the myth, only three post-date 460). In Figure 24.3 (Miller in Cohen 2000,
Figures 16.8–9=LIMC“Bousiris” no. 2), the story is shown at an earlier moment, when
Herakles, still bound, is brought by priests (now in thehimation) before an enthroned
Bousiris (cf. the Attic pelike of ca. 460LIMC“Bousiris” no. 1). Strikingly, Bousiris’s
throne sits on a dais, he holds a scepter, and he is dressed in a spotted garment over
patterned trousers with soft, laced shoes. The “pharaoh” Bousiris is now represented as
the Persian king (LIMC“Bousiris” illustrates four equally “Oriental” examples, all ca.
400 or later, nos. 3–4, 5–6 from Apulia and Lucania, respectively). What remains of the
characters’ Egyptian appearance is only physiognomic.