There is a very peculiar shield emblem in Attic red-figure vase painting at the end of the 6th century BCE, that of a flute-playing crab. I know only two examples of this emblem in art, the first from the famous Euphronios krater, the second from another krater by a painter called Karkinos. The crabs are playing the double-flutes aulos, and they look like this.
On the left a figure from the Euphronios krater, on the right a figure from the Karkinos krater. Both have the same shield emblem, which might be unique to these two vases.
The vases and their painters
On the left the Euphronios krater, also known as the Sarpedon krater, since Euphronios painted the death of Sarpedon on its A side, this B side shows youths arming themselves. On the right the Karkinos krater, side A showing the abduction of Antiope by Theseus, side B shows riding Amazons. Not to scale.
The Euphronios krater is famous, even infamous vase, because it turned out to have been illegally excavated in an Etruscan cemetery in Greppe Sant’Angelo area, near Cerveteri, by a gang of tomb robbers in December 1971. Previously it was possible to see these two vases together in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, where the Euphronios krater used to be part of the museum's collection from 1972 to 2008. After it was deemed illegally excavated in 2006, it was transferred to Italy, where it recided in the National Etruscan Museum in Villa Giulia in Rome until 2015, after which it has been exhibited in the Cerite National Archaeological Museum in Cerveteri, Italy. It is the most important surviving work of the Athenian vase painter Euphronios (c. 535 – after 470 BCE), and it is dated to 515 BCE.
Not much is known about the life of Euphronios, but he must have been born during the tyranny of Peisistratos, when Athenian art and culture bloomed. At that time black-figure painting was the prevalent style in Attic vase-painting, but around 530 BCE the workshop of the painter Andokides started to produce vases in the new red-figure style. Potters such as Andokides and Nikosthenes contributed greatly to ancient Greek vase art, by inventing new vase shapes and styles of painting. Euphronios also became one of the ”Pioneer Group” of the emerging red-figure painting.
Much of the Athenian pottery of that time was made for export, and most of the extant Attic pottery has been found as grave goods from Etruscan tombs. Most of Euphronios's work has been found in Cerveteri, ancient Caere, an Etruscan city which has been called ”a privileged market for red-figure production, and Euphronios in particular” by Italian archaeologist Maria Antonietta Rizzo.
The other vase, which I dubbed the ”Karkinos vase”, can be seen in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and has been in their collection since 1959. It is dated to circa 500 BCE. Almost nothing is known about the Karkinos Painter, his name is modern, coined after the crab, karkinos, he has painted on this vase. He was active in Athens about 500–480 BCE, at the end of the Archaic Period. He and Euphronios were contemporaries and likely knew each other, since all Athenian potters and vase painters worked at the same district of Kerameikos (the distict is named after κέραμος, kéramos, ”pottery clay”), or at least the Karkinos Painter was familiar with Euphronios's work. Since the Euphronios krater is earlier, it is probable that the Karkinos Painter copied the flute-playing crab image from the imaginative Euphronios, who was famous in his own time, signing his own works (not all vase artists did this).
Where did Euphronios invent this image of a flutist crab from? The Metropolitan Museum offers their explanation, which I find very convincing. They say about the Karkinos vase: ”Of special interest on the obverse is the shield device of a flute-playing crab. The motif plays on the name of a famous flute-player in late-sixth century B.C. Athens, Karkinos, crab. The device occurs again on the reverse of the calyx-krater by Euphronios and Euxitheos”.
Who was ”Karkinos the Flautist”, and all the other Karkinoi?
I have not been able to find much information about this flute-player except his name and the century in which he flourished. However, from the 4th century BCE a ”theatre-dynasty” of Karkinos the Elder, his son Xenokles, and his son Karkinos the Younger are known. They came from Thorikos, the southernmost deme of Attika and were all tragic playwrights in Athens. The elder Karkinos and his sons are mentioned, or appear on stage, as tragic performers in three plays by Aristophanes (in Wasps, Clouds and Peace). The younger Karkinos was active in the 370s BCE, his father Xenokles was active from circa 420 BCE onwards. Before that time the title of the family poet was reserved for the elder Karkinos, the father of Xenokles. Who knows, perhaps this family of musicians, playwrites and actors was related to the flute-player Karkinos, maybe even directly descended from him? It seems that the theatre was very often family-business in ancient Greece.
If this was indeed true (which I unfortunately cannot prove) it would mean that the eldest Karkinos (the flautist) living in the late sixth century BCE could perhaps be the grandfather of Karkinos the Elder, since there are some 70 years between them, about two generations. Since antiquity, there has been a strong tradition of naming the first
and second sons after the paternal and maternal grandfathers in Greece, a practice that still continues to this day. This would indicate that Karkinos the flautist could be the grandfather of Karkinos the Elder. The following is a hypothetical family tree with a tentative chronology I created for understanding the time and relations of these people. The dates are the adulthood years of the men, when their careers fourished.
Karkinos the Flautist, 515–500 BCE
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Unknown man, 500–460 BCE?
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Karkinos the Elder, 460?–420 BCE
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Xenokles and his two or three brothers, 420–370? BCE
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Karkinos the Younger, son of Xenokles, 380–350 BCE
The career of Xenokles seems to have been very long, about fifty years, but this is not unheard of in Antiquity nor in the modern World, and it is based on sources. That would allow a forty year career for his father, if the flourishing years of Karkinos the Flautist ended in 500, although he could have been in the game longer. In any case I think that the dates match reasonably well, so that Karkinos the Flautist could time-wise be the grandfather of Karkinos the Elder. Still it has to be remembered that this possible relation is in no way provable because of the lack of direct evidence.
It seems that Karkinos the Elder and his three (or four) sons were well-known in Athens at their time. Karkinos and Xenokles at least were tragic playwrights, Xenokles's brothers were either playwrights or actors. Karkinos the Elder and three sons of his appear at the end of Aristophanes's comedy Wasps. Aristophanes probably knew Xenokles well, since he parodied his work quite often (e.g. in Clouds, Thesmophoriazusae and Frogs). Aristophanes's Wasps ends in a funny dancing competition in which the three sons of Karkinos take part. It is also a perfect example of ancient Greek humour, which showcases their love for word-play and puns:
Philokleon
And now I summon and challenge my rivals. If there be a tragic poet who
pretends to be a skilful dancer, let him come and contest the matter
with me. Is there one?
Is there not one?
Xanthias
Here comes one, and one only.
A very small dancer, costumed as a crab, enters.
Philokleon
Who is the wretch?
Xanthias
The younger son of Karkinos.
Philokleon
I will crush him to nothing; in point of keeping time, I will knock him out, for he knows nothing of rhythm.
Xanthias
Ah! ah! here comes his brother too,
another tragedian, and another son of Karkinos.
Another dancer, hardly larger than the first, and similarly costumed, enters.
Philokleon
Him I will devour for my dinner.
Xanthias
Oh! ye gods! I see nothing but crabs. Here is yet another son of Karkinos.
A third dancer enters, likewise resembling a crab, but smaller than either of the others.
Philokleon
What's this? A shrimp or a spider?
Xanthias
It's a crab, —a hermit-crab, the smallest of its kind; it writes tragedies.
Philokleon
Oh! Karkinos, how proud you should be of your brood! What a crowd of
kinglets have come swooping down here! But we shall have to measure
ourselves against them.
Have marinade prepared for seasoning them, in case I prove the
victor.
Leader of the Chorus
Let us stand out of the way a little, so that they may twirl at their ease.
Chorus
It divides in two and accompanies with its song the wild dancing of
Philokleon and the sons of Karkinos in the centre of the Orchestra.
Come, illustrious children of this inhabitant of the brine, brothers of the shrimps, skip on the sand and the shore of the barren sea; show us the
lightning whirls and twirls of your nimble limbs. Glorious offspring of
Phrynic
let fly your kicks, so that the spectators may be overjoyed at seeing
your legs so high in air. Twist, twirl, tap your bell
kick your legs to the sky. Here comes your famous father, the ruler
of the sea, delighted to see his three lecherous kings.
Go on with your dancing, if it pleases you, but as for us, we shall
not join you. Lead us promptly off the stage, for never a comedy yet was
seen where the Chorus finished off with a dance.
–Aristophanes, Wasps, lines 1497–1529ff.
It seems that the Greeks just couldn't help making jest of the name Karkinos, calling him ”ruler of the sea”, his sons ”brothers of the shrimps”, making jokes about marinating and eating them, even dressing the sons in crab costumes for the theatre. In this light it is only natural that flute-playing crabs were painted by vase-artists, as a kind of inside joke known to them and other Athenians, however completely unintelligible to their Etruscan customers. The Italians might have been perplexed about the meaning of these crabs, maybe they thought them cute, like we do.
But things get even more interesting. A piece of ancient Greek musical notation of an unknown provenance (Louvre Pap. E 10534) was bought from a dealer in Cairo and brought to Louvre in 1891. The fragment dates to 2nd century CE and it is identified as a piece from a tragedy Medeia by Karkinos the Younger, one of the leading playwrights between 380–350 BCE in Athens. That means an actual piece of music composed by the youngest Karkinos in this family tree exists. What is even more exciting is that I found that piece of music actually played with a tzouras (a kind of bouzouki). And it was done by my own countryman Kimmo Kovanen from Finland. He is working on his PhD thesis on ancient Greek music in my University. How exciting!
You of course want to hear how that piece of music sounds, and you can listen it right here:
Click here if the player above doesn't work.
How wonderful to hear a piece of ancient music. Even though it is played on a stringed instrument instead of a flute, and it's four generations younger than Karkinos the Flautist, we can imagine hearing a little bit of what he could have played with his aulos at the theatre of Dionysos in Athens, or wherever he might have performed. He must have played so well that the famous vase painter Euphronios and one of his admirers made him into a word-play, a joke which travelled over a thousand kilometers from Athens to Caere to the Etruscan customers who never knew who Karkinos was or why the crabs were playing the double-flute on the shields, and finally 25 centuries in time for us to wonder the same questions.
A note to reenactors
If you want to reenact a Greek hoplite and want a crab for your shield, maybe do not make the crab play the double-flutes (ordinary crabs are more plentiful as shield emblems in vase art). This seems to have been an inside joke that the vase-painters invented, and it's not sure if it ever existed on real shields. However, if you insist on painting a flautist crab on your shield, make sure that it fits your reenactment persona, since this joke requires you to play the part of a late 6th century BCE Athenian soldier, like those youths on the Euphronios krater. And familiarise yourself with this story, so you can explain to all who ask why the crab on your shield is playing the double-flutes. With that emblem you are making jest of a well-known Athenian flute-player named after the pincered sea-creature.
Post scriptum about other musical arthropods
There is a nice parallel to the flautist crabs in a phiale attributed to the previously mentioned potter Nikosthenes, which shows an aulos-playing scorpion. It looks like this.
This libation bowl was made in Athens, probably in Nikosthenes's workshop, was then transported to Capua in Campania, where it was found, and can now be seen in the British Museum. The museum dates it to 500–470 BCE, which is surely not correct, since Nikosthenes died around 510 BCE. He worked approximately between 550 and 510 BCE. Nikosthenes specialized in producing vases for the Etruscan market too. He worked with a lot of painters, in the transitional period from black-figure to red-figure style.
The bowl shows a hare-hunting scene and an array of other animals, such as foxes, birds, and snakes. Among those is a scorpion playing the double-flutes just like the crabs. The scorpion looks exceptionally funny to me, since its pedipalps holding the aulos are shaped like human arms. Perhaps this motif was inspired by the (contemporary?) flute-playing crabs of Euphronios and company, since they must have known each others work pretty well (Euphronios was once pupil of the painter Oltos, who worked with Nikosthenes). Or perhaps the scorpion was earlier than the crabs? In any case I have hard time believing that the same idea of an aulos-playing arthropod was just a coincidence.
Thanks to Paul Bardunias for bringing the scorpion phiale into my attention.
Sources:
Aristophanes, (1938). Wasps. The Complete Greek Drama, vol. 2. Eugene O'Neill, Jr. New York. Random House. https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0044%3Acard%3D1474
Kovanen, Kimmo (upcoming). Finding
Inner Harmonia. A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Ancient Greek
Musical Modes. PhD in Classics, University of Helsinki.
https://soundcloud.com/kimmopkovanen
Lloyd, James (2019). Music in Ancient Sparta: instruments,
song, archaeology, and image. PhD in Classics, University of Reading.
https://centaur.reading.ac.uk/88938/1/23862434_Lloyd_thesis.pdf
Povoledo, Elisabetta (2008). Ancient Vase Comes Home to a Hero’s Welcome. New York Times.
https://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/19/arts/design/19bowl.html
Stewart, Edmund (2016). ”An ancient theatre dynasty: the elder Carcinus, the young Xenocles and the sons of Carcinus in Aristophanes”. Philologus, 160(1), 1-18. https://doi.org/10.1515/phil-2016-0001
Vaio, John (1971). ”Aristophanes' Wasps. The Relevance of the Final Scenes”. Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies. Vol. 12, No. 3. https://www.academia.edu/8588357/Aristophanes_Wasps_The_Relevance_of_the_Final_Scenes
West, M. L. (2007). ”A New Musical Papyrus: Carcinus, ”Medea””. Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, Bd. 161, pp. 1-10. Published By: Dr. Rudolf Habelt GmbH. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20191275
https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/G_1873-0820-388
https://civitavecchia.portmobility.it/en/cerite-national-archaeological-museum-cerveteri
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/255014
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carcinus_(writer)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphronios
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphronios_Krater
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_name
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