Scythian-style archer blowing salpinx (trumpet)

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Scythian-style archer blowing salpinx (trumpet)
Scythian-style archer blowing salpinx (trumpet)

Black-figured pinax (plate), late style, depicting a youthful, beardless archer, with hair curly in front, earrings, and a high peaked cap. He also wears a jerkin (jacket) and anaxyrides (trousers) in one piece, stippled all over, with a guilloche pattern down the legs. At his side, his bow and quiver, the latter ornamented with guilloche pattern, with open lid in the form of a wing. He's blowing a trumpet (salpinx) with a phorbeia (chinstrap).

His clothing is almost entirely Scythian in style. Scythian archers were employed as mercenaries in Athens from the mid-sixth century until 514 BCE, with the Persian conquest of Thrace. I assumed this meant he *is* Scythian, but the British Museum has a somewhat odd reasoning behind why they think he's really Greek: he's clean-shaven. Perhaps the trumpet is part of their reasoning ...

This archer is blowing the salpinx, whose sound the Greeks most associated with war. It was the instrument often used for signaling, summoning crowds and starting chariot races. Aristides Quintilianus described the necessity of the salpinx and salpingtis (a player of the salpinx) in battle in his treatise, On Music. He explains that each command to troops was given using specific tones or "melodies" played on the salpinx. This action allowed for an entire army to receive a command at once as well as provide a level of secrecy as these salpinx calls were specific to a group and would be unknown to an opponent. Because it could be difficult to hear its tones over the sound of war, it was generally used before fighting began, to gather the men to battle and sound the charge.

This plate was painted by Psiax, who worked in both the conventional black-figure and the new red-figure techniques. The design, with the single black figure set on a plain clay background, looks like a translation into black-figure of a contemporary red-figure decorative scheme. Comparing it with a red-figure plate by the painter Epiktetos, which also shows a single archer, the opportunities offered by the newer technique are clear. The red-figure archer stands out more boldly against his black background; more varied and intricate patterns can be achieved because the details of his costume are painted rather than incised.

Attic Greek
ca. 520-500 BCE
Painted by Psiax

British Museum (1867,0508.941)

Attribution Noncommercial Share Alike Some rights reserved
Taken on: December 21, 2023
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