Calyx Krater with the Death of Aktaion

Aktaion boasted that he was a better hunter than the goddess of the hunt herself, Artemis. Furious, she turned him into a stag, whereupon his hunting dogs devoured him.

Aktaion occupies center stage. Nude and beardless, expressive of heroism, vulnerability, and youth, he wears only a pair of hunting boots, a mantle pinned at the shoulder, and a sun hat (petasos). His hair is wreathed. He defends himself with a hunter's throwing stick (lagobolon). The process of transformation into a stag has begun: antlers sprout from his forehead; his ear is deerlike. His dogs begin to sniff the change of scent. Shortly he will be devoured. At right, two companions flee. The first, more elaborately dressed, is named Diokles. The second person (name unknown) has taken to the hills. At far left is Artemis herself, simply dressed, her hair with a diadem and held in a patterned kerchief. The lighted torch she holds indicates the dawn twilight when the hunters' quarry is running. Bow and quiver remind us that it is she, not Aktaion, who hunts. Before her stands her assistant from the Underworld, Hekate, who, like Artemis, is named by inscription. The head of a small dog emerges from her own head, which is also named.

The figures are drawn on undulating lines to convey that the action takes place out of doors, in hilly terrain. The conifer likewise symbolizes a forest, perhaps Mount Kithairon outside Thebes, where the story unfolded.