Red-Figure Volute-Krater Depicting the Sack of Troy

A: The Sack of Troy. At the center of the main register, a white-painted shrine with pediment and palmette akroteria contains the Palladion, the cult-statue of Athena, shown helmeted and armed with spear and shield. Helen rushes towards the statue from the left, looking back at a bearded Menelaos who pursues her with sword drawn. To the right, Cassandra clings to the statue’s legs and shield as Ajax, son of Oileus, pulls her backwards by her hair. Both women wear elaborately embroidered chitones (dresses) and heavy jewellery. The Greek warriors each wear a muscle cuirass over a short tunic, a chlamys (cloak), and a pair of greaves; Menelaos wears a plumed Corinthian helmet, and Ajax a plumed Phrygian helmet.

The goddess Athena, wearing a diadem and aegis and carrying a shield and spear, watches from top left. Below and to the right of the temple, four Amazons fight two Greek warriors on foot and on horseback. The Amazons wear Phrygian caps, short chitones over long sleeved catsuits decorated with spots and stripes, and are armed with spears, double-axes and peltae emblazoned with facing female heads. There is a band of palmettes and a band of egg-pattern above and a band of meander below.

The neck depicts the chariot race of Pelops and Oinomaos. At left, the charioteer Myrtilos sabotage’s Oinomaos' quadriga (four-horse chariot) while Pelops speeds ahead, accompanied by Oinomaos’ daughter Hippodameia. Two winged Erotes fly above, one reaching towards the couple with a phiale and wreath. Above is a band of scrolling tendrils with a female head at center.

B: At center, a young man wearing a chlamys and holding a spear in his left hand and a wreath in his right stands beside a horse within a white-painted naiskos (funerary shrine) with pediment and palmette akroteria. He faces a young woman wearing a long chiton and carrying a phiale. There are two figures on either side in two registers. At left, a male nude seated on his cloak holds a staff (perhaps a thyrsus) and rests his left hand on a shield. Below him, a draped seated woman holds a wreath and a basket in one hand and a rattle in the other. At right, a draped seated woman holds a cista and a male nude seated on his cloak holds a phiale and oinochoe. Below the naiskos are three more seated figures. At left, a nude male seated on his cloak and holding a phiale; at centre a draped woman holding a cista and a fan; at right a nude male holding a basket and a staff. There is a band of palmettes and of egg-pattern above the main register and a band of meander below.

On the neck, winged Nike drives a quadriga to the left, a hare beneath the feet of the foremost horse. Above is a band of alternating red and white leaves forming a wreath with a rosette at the centre.

There are two registers of palmettes under the handles. The volute handles are decorated on the obverse with plastic female masks wearing necklaces, earrings and a diadem contained within a border of scrolling tendrils and flowers, and on the reverse with plastic female masks within a single tendril scroll. The obverse handle flanges are