Judgment of Paris on a South Italian Krater
A student's coursework portfolio on the Judgment of Paris compares two objects: an Apulian red-figure volute krater of about 350 BCE showing Paris seated, Hermes leading three goddesses, and painted name labels; and a fourth-century CE Roman villa mosaic showing a similar scene with a different arrangement and an apple. The student writes: 'The krater proves that the Homeric version, in which Aphrodite offers Helen, was the standard Greek myth, and the mosaic simply copies Homer.' The teacher knows that the Judgment is not narrated in the Iliad; it is alluded to there and handled in other archaic poetry. The portfolio is strong on description but weak on method. Moderation is in two weeks. The teacher must decide what feedback will improve the thesis without reducing the task to a fact-correction exercise.
1. Identify the two or three most serious methodological errors in the student's claim and explain why the krater cannot 'prove' a Homeric version.
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The main error is a category confusion between image and text. A painted vase can show that a myth was represented in a particular place and period; it cannot show that a literary text was the standard or that the painter was illustrating Homer. The name labels identify figures, not a source. Second, the student assumes a single 'standard' myth. Greek myth was variant-centred: the Judgment is alluded to in the Iliad but not narrated there, and archaic poetry handled it differently. A South Italian krater of c. 350 BCE belongs to a different milieu from the archaic Ionian tradition and may reflect tragic or local Italiote interests. Third, the word 'Homeric' is anachronistic as a guarantee of orthodoxy; there was no central authority fixing the story. The mosaic may copy a painting or a theatrical version, not a text. The claim also commits an argument from silence: the absence of a full narrative in Homer does not make later images 'copies'. A better formulation would ask what each object does with the myth in its own context.
2. Propose a revised thesis sentence and outline how the student should use the two objects as evidence for mythic plurality and reception.
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Revised thesis: 'South Italian and Roman images of the Judgment of Paris show the myth being adapted to different viewing contexts; their differences in composition, attributes and emphasis reveal local interests rather than a decline from a single textual original.' The student should first describe each object's function and setting: the Apulian krater as a symposium or funerary object made for a South Italian market, the mosaic as domestic decoration in a Roman villa. Then compare selected details: who holds the apple, whether Helen is present, how the goddesses are characterised, whether inscriptions guide recognition. The point is not to match details to Homer but to explain choices. The student should cite textual variants cautiously, noting that the Iliad alludes to the Judgment without narrating it, and that later handbooks and poets give different versions. The conclusion should distinguish 'reception' from 'illustration': images can be evidence for how myths were used, not for a lost canonical text.
3. What additional evidence would most strengthen the revised argument, and what would it not settle?
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Most useful would be more objects from datable contexts: other Apulian vases with the same scene, Roman mosaics and sarcophagi, and inscriptions or papyri preserving archaic and classical versions. Findspot and commission evidence would help explain the South Italian market; ancient literary references would show the range of variants. Comparative material from the same workshop could show whether the krater's arrangement is conventional. What this would not settle is the 'original' myth or the painter's direct access to a text. Even a close parallel cannot prove that an image 'copies' Homer; it can only show a shared or transmitted iconographic scheme. The student should therefore treat the new evidence as contextual, not as a missing link.