PLATE XXVII
The Argonauts
The interpretation of this scene is by no means certain. It has been explained as depicting a band of Athenian warriors about to give battle to the Persians in the presence of the gods and heroes of old. Generally, however, it is thought to represent a group of the Argonauts, without reference to any particular episode. If this interpretation is correct, one can easily perceive the appropriate appearance of Athene, the divine patroness of the Argo, of Herakles, with club and lion-skin, and of one of the Dioskouroi, with his horse. Any attempt to identify the other figures would be purely fanciful. From a red-figured krater of the end of the fifth century b.c., in the Louvre (Furtwängler-Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei, No. 108).
