Ajax and Achilles on the White-Ground Lekythos

Author: Elise Jackson

Date: January 30th, 2023

This white-ground lekythos (a Greek vase used for storage), depicts Achilles and Ajax engaged in a board game while the goddess Athena watches over. Lekythoi were often used in Ancient Greece during special occasions and ritual practices. The lekythos may have been used to ensure safe return in battle; the vase would be filled with an offering such as honey, and ritually poured in a practice known as libation.

Before setting off for Troy to engage in what would become the fantastical Trojan war, the famed Greek warriors Achilles and Ajax likely witnessed such an offering. Achilles was a favourite of Athena, and was fated to die in the Trojan war. After his death, the Greek camp had to decide who would be honoured with the inheritance of Achilles’s armour. Despite his past success in battle, Ajax was not awarded the armour.

Angry and dishonoured, Ajax wished to confront his companions but was thwarted by Athena, who “struck him with madness.” [1] In his state of insanity, Ajax slaughtered the cattle which sustained the Greek army. He was later so ashamed by his destruction of the Greek camp that he ended his own life. He was unlikely to receive a proper libation, but is immortalised on a lekythos alongside the goddess who procured his madness, and the warrior to which he was always second best. [2]

The Origins of the White-Ground Style

White-ground style lekythoi originate from Attica c. 500 BCE, when artists first began concealing the original reddish colour of their pottery with a clay that became white during the firing process. [3] While the technique was initially used on a variety of pottery styles, it became largely limited to the decoration of lekythoi sometime in the fifth century BCE. The lekythos in our collection predates the origins of the white-ground technique, yet its shape and style are consistent with later examples of Attic white-ground lekythoi.

The Funerary Uses of White-Ground Lekythoi

Lekythoi were frequently used in funerary contexts as vessels for libation. White-ground lekythoi were typically more fragile than their red-and-black-figure counterparts, and thus were more popular for libations. In a funerary context, the libation would be poured onto the grave or the ground surrounding it. Common liquids used during libation were water, wine, oil, milk, or honey. While the white-ground lekythos in our collection predates the mass-production of white-ground lekythos in the fifth century BCE, its shape is most definitely that of a lekythos, and thus it may have been used in a similar funerary context to the lekythoi of later centuries.

A special thank you to Professor Chandra Giroux for her expertise on the history and production of white-ground lekythoi!

Notes

[1] Hamilton, E. 2013. Mythology. Little, Brown.

[2] The version of the Ajax and Achilles myth depicted above is informed by Edith Hamilton’s reference book Mythology. Other versions of the mythology exist. Hamilton, E. 2013. Mythology. Little, Brown.

[3] Getty Museum. 2022, 11 October. “White-Ground Lekythos.” Getty Museum https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/103VMY.

Bibliography

Berthold, C., Zimmer, K. B., Scharf, O., Koch-Brinkman, U., and Bente, K. 2017. “Nondestructive, optical and X-ray analytics with high local resolution on ATTIC white-ground lekythoi.” Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 16:513–520. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2016.02.008

Hamilton, E. 2013. Mythology. Little, Brown.

Gaifman, M. 2018. The Art of Libation in Classical Athens. Yale University Press.

Encyclopedia Britannica, ed. “Lekythos.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica, inc. https://www.britannica.com/art/lekythos.

Getty Museum, ed. 2022, 11 October. “White-Ground Lekythos.” Getty Museum. https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/103VMY