362 S. Rebecca Martin
Figure 24.5 Ilioupersisfrom the inside of an Attic red-figure cup of 500–490 signed by Euphro-
nios as potter and attributed to Onesimos as painter. Rome, Villa Giulia 121110 (previously
Malibu, Getty 83. AE. 362). Courtesy of Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici dell’Etruria
Meridionale.
of Achilles, arranged in a temporal or thematic fashion (cf. Figure 24.5, the elaborate
Onesimos Cupof 500–490; Anderson 1997: 234–45, Figure 8; Shapiro 2010, Figures
1–4=LIMC Ilioupersisno. 7). In other words, the metopes showed pollution of sanc-
tuaries; the massacre of suppliants; and corrupt, human sacrifice overlooking the temple
of Athena destroyed brutally by the Persians. In this reading, theIlioupersisforeshadows
the destruction of Athens, the metopes functioning as a “paradigm of wrongful con-
quest” that encouraged Athenians to sympathize with Trojans, not Achaians, thanks to
a shared outrage (Ferrari 2000: 139). Alan Shapiro (2010) has made a similar argument
regarding theIlioupersisin vase painting, one that emphasizes the potential for Athenian
guilt in the destructions of Sardis (destroying Kybele’s temple) and Miletos (not help-
ing enough) that may have contributed to their inevitable punishment, the city’s sack in
- The Amazons’ attempted sack of the Akropolis (Boardman 1982) could be read in
a similar way.
TheIlioupersisdoes not present conflict as a one-sided cultural or ethnic dispute, an
idea strengthened by the apparent lack of ethnic difference in the north metopes. In fact,
no figures on the Parthenon metopes appear in “Oriental” costume (although some
have seen trousers on the poorly preserved Amazons, called Persians by Brommer 1967:
191–5). The audience of theIlioupersisis reminded that not only barbarians commit