Death of Hipparchos

Abstract

Among the sherds found at Gela in what must have been the sanctuary of the hero Antiphamos—the Rhodian co-founder, with the Cretan Entimos, of the city itself—was a fragment of a large Attic skyphos representing the Assassination of Hipparchos. It was described, though not figured, by Orsi in Notizie degli Scavi 1900 p. 276. He compared it with the well-known picture of the same subject on the stamnos by the Copenhagen Painter in Würzburg (515: AZ. 1883 pl. 12 and pp. 215–8, Boehlau; Klio 20 pll. 1–4; Langlotz pll. 182–3 and 210: ARV. p. 193 no. 5). Petersen noticed the fragment in R.M. 16 (1901) p. 103, and there are one or two bare mentions elsewhere. In 1923 it was still in private hands at Gela, where I saw it, but not long afterwards it passed to the Villa Giulia, and was figured, with a hasty description, by Cultrera in Bollettino d'Arte 7 (1927) p. 319, above, 2. This publication seems to have escaped general notice, at least it is not quoted in recent studies of the Tyrant-slayers. The fragment has such exceptional interest of subject that I may be excused for returning to it.