Existing comment:
Greek
Black-Figure Neck-Amphora (Storage Vessel), ca 510 BC
Inscriptions on other versions of this scene identify the dice players as the Greek heroes Ajax and Achilles. In this version, an image of Athena stands behind them. The popular scene was perhaps invented by the influential vase painter Exekias between 540 and 530 BC, the very period when Homer's Iliad and Odyssey may have been first written down. |