Miniature Panathenaics

Abstract

Stephani, in Compte-rendu for 1876, pp. 55–6 and pl. 1, 4–7, published two small black-figure vases which he saw to be imitations of Panathenaic amphorae, but serving a different purpose: they were doubtless lekythia, intended to contain small quantities of scented oil, perhaps, he conjectured, the perfume panathenaikon which long held its own in the market (Pliny 13, 6: Panathenaicum suum Athenae pertinaciter obtinuere). A good many such vases have appeared since Stephani wrote, and the class has been studied by other writers, among them Jacobsthal (Gött. V. 15–16), Pfuhl (333), Miss Shoe (Hesp. I, 86), F. P. Johnson (AJA 1943, 393). I shall try to examine them more closely, date them more precisely, and set them in a context: the article will be a sort of appendix to Panathenaica, my study of the prize vases in AJA 1943, 441–65.