- Erika Simon –
Figure 24.1 Bucchero olpe found in Caere. Taitale (Daidalos). Rome, Villa Giulia (n. 2).Figure 24.2 Etruscan amphora, perhaps made in Caere. Orpheus and pyrrhiche of young Argonauts.
Wuerzburg, M. v. Wagner Mus. (n. 10).them have weapons. With them they perform an armed dance (pyrrhiche), which is known
from early cult and myth in Anatolia, Greece and Italy.^11 Young Argonauts danced the
pyrrhiche to the music of Orpheus on mount Dindymon in honor of the divine mother
Rhea.^12 Her cult personnel consisted of young armed dancers called kouretes. The goddess
enjoyed the pyrrhiche, created on waterless Dindymon, “Jason’s Spring” as it was called
(Ap. Rhod. 1.1148). With their dance, the Argonauts also wished to appease the soul of
a hero (Kyzikos), whom they had killed inadvertently. I think that dance was mentioned
in the early epic about the Argo (lost to us) and is represented on the amphora. Therefore,
the musician is Orpheus and the frontal lion head above him is the gargoyle of “Jason’s
Spring” (Fig. 24.2). The purpose of that pyrrhiche – appeasement of a soul – fi ts well with
an amphora in a tomb. We shall see that depictions of Greek myth in Etruria were often
made for the dead (see Figs. 24.7–8, 24.23–24 and others).
According to Martelli the amphora (Fig. 24.2) was produced in Caere, where vases of
the same workshop were found.^13 They are a generation older than the bucchero jug (Fig.
24.2). Caere, after all, was much interested in Greek mythology. This town, also called