Ajax and Achilles playing a game on an olpe in Oxford

Abstract

A charming black-figured olpe in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford shows two warriors playing a game (PLATE IIc). Between them stands the goddess Athena, an alert figure looking sharply to the left while holding her shield to the right. She holds it rather tactlessly, for the shield entirely obscures the head of the right-hand warrior. Although Cassandra, clinging desperately to the statue of Athena, sometimes has her head obscured in a similar manner behind the goddess's shield, it seems more likely that the painter here has simply misjudged the space available than that he has conflated two iconographical types.The Oxford olpe, though imperfectly planned and executed, is clearly an example of the subject which is best known through the beautiful amphora in the Vatican painted by Exekias (PLATE IIIa). Exekias represented two warriors playing a game at least twice, and is generally believed to have been the first to paint this theme on a vase.