A Comforting Massacre: Onesimos and the Ilioupersis

Debra A. Trusty

Florida State University

During the early fifth century BC a significant change developed among Ilioupersis representations on Attic, red-figure, symposium vases.  Instead of single, expressionless battle scenes, we now witness groups of terrifying and sacrilegious assaults on the citizens of Troy.  By grouping these scenes together on one vase, the artist presents the viewer with an onslaught of the Achaeans’ shocking deeds: the death of Priam on the altar of Zeus Herkeios, the rape of Kassandra near the statue of Athena, and the harassment of the royal Trojan family and other unarmed Trojans. The faces of the assaulted are now wrought with pain, alarm, and terror.  Three pieces exhibiting this new style are Onesimos’ Getty Ilioupersis Cup, the Brygos Painter’s Louvre Cup, and the Kleophrades Painter’s Vivenzio Hydria.

The purpose of this paper, therefore, will be to explore the significance of these three pieces, while comparing them to the previous canon which illustrates Ilioupersis scenes.  Through comparison, I intend to uncover the inspiration for these bloody, horrific images, which differ greatly from vases produced less than fifty years prior.  If the dating of these pieces is correct, I believe I can relate the appearance of these scenes to the Persian attacks on Greek cities.  More importantly, I believe that the Onesimos Cup reflects the contemporary reaction against the sack of Miletos, just as many scholars, such as Boardman, believe that the Kleophrades Painter’s hydria reflects the sack of Athens.  These new scenes, therefore, would have served as political and spiritual messages to disheartened Greeks: just as the Achaean aggressions were avenged, the hubristic acts of the Persians would also not go unnoticed by the gods.