He explains where, how, and why the vase was produced, retrieving what we know about the life and legend of Sarpedon. Spivey takes the reader on a dramatic journey, beginning with the krater’s looting from an Etruscan tomb in 1971 and its acquisition by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, followed by a high-profile lawsuit over its status and its eventual return to Italy. How this came about is told by Nigel Spivey in a concise, stylish book that braids together the creation and adventures of this extraordinary object with an exploration of its abiding influence. It was decorated some 2,500 years ago by Athenian artist Euphronios, and its subsequent history involves tomb raiding, intrigue, duplicity, litigation, international outrage, and possibly even homicide.

Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library.Description: Perhaps the most spectacular of all Greek vases, the Sarpedon krater depicts the body of Sarpedon, a hero of the Trojan War, being carried away to his homeland for burial. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press London, William Heinemann Ltd.

Pausanias, Description of Greece with an English Translation by W.H.S.

Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press London, William Heinemann, Ltd.

Homer, The Iliad with an English Translation by A.T.

Rose's 'Handbook of Greek Mythology', Psychology Press, 2004, ISBN 9780415186360.

Hard, Robin, The Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology: Based on H.J.

Greek text available from the same website. in 2 Volumes, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press London, William Heinemann Ltd.

Apollodorus, The Library with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S.

A Classical Manual, being a Mythological, Historical and Geographical Commentary on Pope's Homer, and Dryden's Aeneid of Virgil with a Copious Index.

^ Scholia on Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica 1.216.

Download free the sarpedon krater