Athenian red-figure neck amphora

3D Model

This red-figured vessel was made in Athens c. 480- 470 BC. On one side you can see the hero Theseus performing one of his twelve labours & about to kill the Attic villain, Procrustes, who attacked travellers. Procrustes’ gruesome method was to force strangers to lie down on a bed and then he would either hammer his victims to lengthen them or chop their extremities to make them fit the bed.

The drama of his own punishment is heightened in this somewhat hasty drawing by the fact that the deed is not quite done. The axe-wielding Theseus has wounded Procrustes who struggles to protect himself with an inoffensive-looking hammer. Theseus was also a king, credited with creation a union of Attic communities under the leadership of Athens. The other side of the amphora shows the amorous advance of the dawn deity, Eos, upon the handsome youth, Tithonos, who she later arranged to have immortalised. However, having forgotten to seek eternal youth for him, she eventually shut the chattering old man up in a bed-chamber