History of Ancient Pottery: Greek, Etruscan, and Roman....

The Erinnyes or Furies play an important part in the nether-world scenes,[856] and one is also represented at the punishment of Ixion.[857] They pursue Orestes after the slaughter of his mother and Aigisthos to Delphi and Tauris,[858] and even when with Pylades he comes to make himself known to Electra.[859] Among other mythological scenes they are found at the combat of Herakles and Kyknos[860]; with Pelops,[861] and with Medeia and Jason[862]; and threatening with punishment the hero Agrios, who is seized and bound upon an altar by Oineus and Diomedes.[863] Kerberos is once seen without Herakles in the under-world vases[864]; and there is a very curious representation of his being chained up by Hermes.[865]

Hekate as a Chthonian deity frequently appears on the under-world vases[866]; she is also connected with Eleusinian scenes and legends,[867] such as the sending of Triptolemos,[868] the birth of Dionysos or Iacchos,[869] or with the rape and return of Persephone.[870] She appears also as a single figure.[871] Allusion has already been made to the Chthonian associations of Hermes, Triptolemos, and Iacchos (pp. 27, 52).

Thanatos, the personification of Death, appears on vases[872] almost exclusively in one aspect, as the bearer of souls in conjunction with Hypnos (Sleep); they convey the body of Memnon from Troy to his home in Egypt,[873] and this type is borrowed for other scenes (e.g. on the funeral lekythi) in which an ordinary warrior is borne “to his long home.”[874] In one instance Thanatos is seen urging Ajax on to commit suicide[875]; he also appears on another vase where the subject may relate to the story of Ixion.[876] Representations of Death-demons or Harpies,[877] and of Κῆρες θανάτοιο, or small winged figures boding or signifying death,[878] are by no means uncommon. It has been held by some writers that the personifications of Thanatos above referred to are more properly to be regarded as Κῆρες θανάτοιο.[879] These small winged figures are also employed to represent a soul escaping from a deceased person[880]; or, again, to indicate the souls of Achilles and Hector (or Memnon) when weighed by Zeus (see below, pp. 130, 132).[881] We also find actual representations on B.F. vases of the ghost of a hero, especially in Trojan scenes; he floats through the air fully armed, with large wings.[882]