Red-Figure Pelike (Storage Vessel) (Primary Title)
attributed to, Eucharides Painter (Artist)
“In the flute player [aulete] the gods implanted no sense for together with his blowing, his sense also flies away.” —(Atheanaeus 337e–f)
Neither “flute girls” nor “dancing girls” were considered respectable in 5th-century Athens, although music (including from double flutes called auloi) and dance were central to both private gatherings and civic and religious festivals. When this vase was made, elite Athenians regularly studied the auloi, but a century later the philosopher Aristotle wrote “the playing of auloi went out of favor as men became better able to discern what tends to promote virtue and what does not.” (Aristotle, Politics)
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