accompany the ritual. He wears aphorbia, a leather strap that holds the mouthpiece of
the instrument to his lips.
The priest here raises his left hand in what is probably a gesture of prayer.
A particularly clear representation of prayer appears on an Attic red-figure vase
from before the middle of the fifth century found at Etruscan Nola in central Italy
(Figure 26.10) There the blind Thracian king Phineus raises both his hands palms
out, and the painter has written the word ‘‘gods’’ (theoi) as if the word is coming out
of his mouth.
Both of the vases with detailed representations of sacrifices on them discussed
above were made in Athens, but one was found in a tomb in Greek Sicily, the other
in an Etruscan tomb in central Italy. Both are of shapes designed for thesymposion,a
form of ritualized drinking common throughout the Greek and Etruscan worlds,
where they would have held the mixed wine and water that was a central part of that
ritual. Whether these vases were ever used for symposia or whether they were bought
specifically for the tomb is impossible to say. In any case, the vases were export
commodities, but the fact that the imagery is generally in keeping with imagery of
sacrifice on fragmentary vases found in Athens can perhaps reassure us that it gives us
some idea of the details of sacrificial rituals in Athens during the second half of the
fifth century.
The care we must take in reading images on vases is illustrated well by a scene on
another Attic red-figure krater, ca. 440 BC, found in a rich tomb at Spina, an
Etruscan commercial center at the head of the Adriatic (Figure 26.11). A bearded
Figure 26.9 Aftermath of a sacrifice with youths preparing to roastsplanchnaoptaiover a fire
on an altar on an Attic-red figure stamnos from Cerveteri ca. 430 BC. London E 455.
Photograph courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum
412 T.H. Carpenter