Athena stands at the center, with Apollo and Artemis beyond. ![]() ![]() In the upper register, Poseidon, above Melanippe at right, gestures angrily to Aphrodite and Eros. Behind him is Kretheus (Melanippe's half brother) who crowns a mare, possibly a reference to Melanippe's mother, Hippe. On the other side stands Aiolos, her father, who carries a scepter to denote his kingship. At right, an old woman, Trophos (nurse), comforts the distressed heroine Melanippe. Through her powers of persuasion, however, Melanippe was able to convince her father that the children were not monsters, and their lives were thus spared.Īt center, an elderly man, Boter (shepherd), emerges from an orchard carrying two newborns (note the pointed heads) wrapped in a blanket, which he presents to Hellen. Thinking these to be "cow born monsters", they ordered the infants to be burned and instructed Melanippe to prepare the funeral shrouds. On orders from Poseidon, and anticipating her father's return, she exposed the children in a cow shed, where they were discovered by a shepherd and brought to her father and grandfather, Hellen. Here, the drama unfolds in the lower register, with the protagonists named by inscriptions, while the gods look down from Olympus above.Īccording to myth, Melanippe bore twin sons to Poseidon while her father Aiolos was in exile. His play Melanippe the Wise survives today only in fragments, but from an ancient summary of the plot we are able to reconstruct the story. It is possible that performances of a tragedy by the Athenian dramatist Euripides inspired the picture on this krater.
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