Rather than being signs of hellenization in a foreign culture, Athenian eye cups - like all Greek vases - were brought into Etruria then integrated, manipulated, and even transformed to suit local needs and beliefs. Tomb assemblages from Vulci and elsewhere reveal their multivalent significance: emblematic of banqueting in life and death, apotropaic entities, likely with ritual uses. The Etruscan consumers of eye cups made conscious choices regarding their purchase and usage.
Workshops were clearly aware of their audiences at home and abroad and shifted production and distribution of vases to suit. Indeed, the earliest, largest, and highest-quality (to modern eyes) examples were exported to Etruria, where the symposion as the Athenians knew it did not exist. Although many eye cups have been found in Athens - namely on the Acropolis and mainly from late in the series - the majority come from funerary, sanctuary, and domestic contexts to the west and east. On the other side is a scene of Odysseus and his companions preparing to blind the Cyclops. Such emphases, however, neglect chronology and distribution, which reveal the complexity of the pottery market in the late sixth and fifth centuries B.C.E. calyx-krater Object Type calyx-krater Museum number 1947,0714.18 Description Pottery: red-figured calyx-krater (bowl for mixing wine and water) showing four draped youths.
"Since the late 1970s, scholars have explored Athenian eye cups within the presumed context of the symposion, privileging a hypothetical Athenian viewer and themes of masking and play.
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