Getty Museum

Olpe

Date

500–480 B.C.

Medium

Bronze

Culture

Greek

Department

Vessels

Institution

Getty Museum

This finely crafted bronze wine pitcher is a variety known as an olpe. Only the rim and the handle are ornamented. A fine beaded molding surrounds the rim and the rounded lip is decorated with an ovolo pattern. The base of the handle where it attaches to the body of the vessel takes the form of the head and forepaws of a lionskin. A Greek inscription on the handle indicates that the vessel was a votive offered to the Dioskouroi, the divine twins Kastor and Polydeukes, who were sons of Zeus and Leda and renowned horsemen. An inscription just below the shoulder of the vase names the dedicator as the hipparch (cavalry general) Alkimachos. A hipparch dedicating an offering to deities connected with horses is particularly appropriate. One of the letter forms used in this inscription links the vase to the city of Eretria on the island of Euboea in Central Greece. The Greek historian Herodotus (Hdt. 6.101) mentions an Alkimachos, a leading citizen of Eretria at the turn of the sixth century B.C., whose son, Euphorbos, was one of two men who betrayed their city to the invading Persian army not long after this vase was dedicated.

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