Schadenfreude in Protocorinthian Vase-Painting: Delight in the Death of Ajax? (15 min)

Presenters

Angela Ziskowski, Coe College

Abstract

Ajax and Bellerophon are among the most frequently depicted figures in early Corinthian vase painting. While more straightforward explanations can be offered for the presence of the local Corinthian hero, Bellerophon, in the city’s iconography, scholars have fewer reasons why Ajax from Salamis appears so often in the Corinthian repertoire with no obvious tie to the region. When one examines the corpus of iconography in archaic Corinthian vase painting, the frequency of the Attic hero Ajax stands out. Daryll Amyx counted at least 16 examples of the hero, seven of which depicted the hero’s suicide, on Corinthian vases. Why would the death of Ajax would be of such great interest to the Corinthians in the Protocorinthian period? Comparable fascination is not reflected in Attic vase painting.

For one to understand how and if the well-known iconography of the suicide of Ajax calculates into local Corinthian history, one must look closely at the mythology around their hero Bellerophon. In this paper I argue that Ajax’s popularity in Corinthian vase painting is centered not just on the circulation of certain epic cycles but on delight in his death since he was the man who slayed Glaukos, the grandson of Bellerophon, and thus ended a line of Corinthian royal lineage and that of the most important mythological figure from Corinth. If one accepts this as the reason for the early and frequent appearance of the hero in Corinthian art, it adds emphasis to the pervasive role of Bellerophon’s mythology in Corinthian history and epic storytelling. It may also raise the question of whether Protocorinthian interest in the story, for rather dark reasons, played any role in the myth’s reception in other regions’ media.

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