Iliad 18.599-602: The Simile of the Potter & the Wheel

§1 A modern potter would be somewhat baffled upon encountering an ancient Greek predecessor at work on the wheel. That the wheel oscillated noticeably as it turned would surely intimidate our time-traveling craftsperson. The visual evidence of ancient Greek wheels suggests they were propelled by hand, either by the potter or an assistant. Modern potter’s wheels employ a variety of technologies to make them turn. There are kick-wheels and treadle wheels, which rely on a heavy fly-wheel driven by the potter’s feet^[1] to retain momentum, and electric wheels. These have one feature in common. The axle which turns the wheel-head on which a pot is formed is stabilized by a frame or armature. As a result, a modern wheel-head  spins level and consistently horizontal.

§2 The ancient Greek potter’s wheel, as evidenced on Attic vase-paintings and Corinthian pinakes, would not have been so stable. Visual and comparative evidence indicates that they likely wobbled. That the Greek potter’s wheel may have wobbled or oscillated is subtly suggested by the simile comparing the dance to the potter’s wheel from the “Shield of Achilles” in lines 18.599-602 of the Iliad:

οἳ δʼ ὁτὲ μὲν θρέξασκον ἐπισταμένοισι πόδεσσι
ῥεῖα μάλʼ, ὡς ὅτε τις τροχὸν ἄρμενον ἐν παλάμῃσιν
ἑζόμενος κεραμεὺς πειρήσεται, αἴ κε θέῃσιν·
ἄλλοτε δʼ αὖ θρέξασκον ἐπὶ στίχας ἀλλήλοισι.

And at one time on skillful feet they (the dancers) were running
with great ease, as when a potter sitting at the wheel
Fitted in his hands tests it if it might run.
And at another time in turn they ran in rows at one another.

A modern audience unfamiliar with how an ancient Greek potter’s wheel worked could overlook the beauty and appropriateness of Homer’s visualization of the dance through the simile. In fact, the rotation of a perfectly turning modern wheel at high speed is hardly noticeable and would surely not stimulate the visualization of a dance. If the ancient wheel had worked accordingly, the simile would not have conveyed much at all. But the singer’s audience with even a passing familiarity of the potter’s craft would instantly nod admiring approval of his imaging. The poet notes that the potter makes a test of the wheel to see if it will run. Why is this a question? When an ancient wheel turns, it doesn’t just spin evenly but sways or oscillates. Perhaps too much to work properly. But if it turns well, it still oscillates. It dances. And what the dancers do with their skillful feet, the potter does with his hands, first powering the wheel then shaping the pot. First let’s explore evidence of ancient wheels.

§3 Below are two fragments of Corinthian pinakes from Penteskoupia (early 6th century BCE), among those that Eleni Hasaki has exhaustively documented depicting a potter at the wheel.^[2] On both the potter sits low to the ground, as Homer indicates. This is typical. The wheel-heads are quite large, estimated to be 30+ inches in diameter and 4+ inches thick.^[3] Both wheels are supported on a thick base on which they rotate. Where the surface of the base and the under side of wheel-head come in contact lubrication may have been applied. Unseen in this view is the fitting which joins the wheel-head to its base (see §6 below). A short axle, cone, or ball, perhaps iron or polished stone, fits into a socket in both pieces. Around this fitting the wheel-head rotates. On F868 the potter has finished throwing^[4] the vessel and appears to be applying slip (a liquified clay that has been sifted to remove coarser particles, used for decoration) in a frieze with one hand while he turns the wheel with the other. On F869, the potter is still forming the pot. Likely there is an assistant to the right turning the wheel, but the pinax is too fragmentary to be sure. The mound of clay below the vessel is an example of an efficient technique contemporary potters refer to as “throwing off the hump.” The potter begins by placing a large mound of clay on the center of the wheel-head, and rather than centering the whole mass, he only has to center the amount he will need for the particular piece he is making. When a vessel is completely formed, he cuts it off, removes it, and starts the next pot from the hump. One benefit to the technique, as we will see, is that it does not require the  wheel-head to be perfectly steady and level.

Antikensammlung Berlin F868 & F869 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Pinakes_from_Penteskouphia_in_Berlin,_Antikensammlung

§4 A more complete picture of potters at work can be seen below in this detail of an Attic black-figure kylix (540-30 BCE) in the Badisches Landesmuseum, Karlsruhe, 67/90. Again the wheel appears quite large. The potter is shaping the vessel while his assistant turns the wheel. The wheel is supported by a conical base which steps down to an axle that spins in a socket in the workshop floor. The shape, and for that matter the motion, is not unlike a toy top when spinning. This type of rotation, I suggest, is a key to to the simile. As a toy top spins it oscillates side to side. Note too the top of the wheel-head is not quite level—this subtly indicates the oscillation inherent in how the ancient wheel turned.

Fotograf*in: Thomas Goldschmidt under CC: https://katalog.landesmuseum.de/object/5601A04742FC6F9AE9BCBAA3EA2341BD-trinkschale-mit-darstellungen-einer-toepferei

§5 On the shoulder of this hydria below in the Antikensammlungen in Munich the vase-painter depicts an entire workshop. On the far left the painter decorates the vessel. To his right a potter is  finishing a large pithos. As he shapes a tall form he stands over the low wheel which a sitting assistant turns. As on the pinakes, this wheel is also quite large. This base is also conical, though it is difficult to see clearly because of a missing fragment. Unlike those on the pinakes, it appears to narrow where it meets the wheel-head.

Attic Black Figure Hydria, 550-500 BCE. Leagros Group. Munich, Antikensammlungen: J731. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Leagros_Group_-_ABV_362_36_-_potter´s_workshop_-_Aineas_escaping_from_Troy_-_München_AS_1717_-_04.jpg

§6 In modern India traditional potter’s wheels are still in use in some potters’ communities. These wheels closely resemble those in the surviving images depicted on Greek vases and pinakes. Observing an Indian potter at work on one of these wheels will advance our understanding of and appreciation for Homer’s simile comparing the turning wheel to a round dance. Below is a still from a video of a potter plying his craft on a traditional wheel in Jodhpur, India. Behind the potter is another wheel and its base assembly. The heavy stone base would be partially submerged in the ground. Anchored in a socket at the top of the base is a small honed cone. This cone fits into the tiny socket in the center of the underside of the wheel-head. On this small cone the wheel rotates.

Manual Hand Spun Pottery Wheel outside Jodhpur, India

When the potter begins to propel the wheel it oscillates substantially. As it gathers speed it becomes more stable but continues to oscillate in a wave-like motion. The wave-like movement is part of what makes Homer’s simile work. During a circle dance the movement of the dancers, by lifting their arms or bending their torso one after another, will simulate a wave movement. The speed is an important element of the simile too. The dancers are running (θρέξασκον) in a circle. The simile confirms the circle dance when the potter makes a test of the wheel to see if it runs, that is, turns fast (πειρήσεται, αἴ κε θέῃσιν). The simile is bracketed by the construction δʼ ὁτὲ… ἄλλοτε, ”at one time… at another.” The initial line (599) does not specifically indicate a circle dance—the simile does that—and is contrasted with the last line (602), “in turn they run in rows at one another” (αὖ θρέξασκον ἐπὶ στίχας ἀλλήλοισι). The circle dance is followed by a line dance.

§8 The video reveals that Homer’s simile is richer still. When Homer compares the potter’s wheel to the round dance, he is not only referencing the wheel-head’s circular and oscillating motion and speed, but also the potter’s making of a pot. While the wheel oscillates the potter keeps the piece he is working on centered above the hump. The centered clay now rotates on a vertical axis independently of the hump, which continues to oscillate with the wheel. Having centered the clay the potter next opens up the interior of the vessel and expands the body of the pot. He will then thin the wall of the vessel to the desired thickness by offsetting the pressure of his fingers inside and out as he raises the wall from bottom to top. At the same time he is shaping the pot toward its finished form. It is not just the spinning and oscillating wheel-head that is a simile to the dance, but also the movement of the clay as the potter opens and closes the form while shaping the pot. Every movement though returns to a centered position. Likewise the dancers on the khoros through all manner of movements hold their center. In a ring dance the dancers sometimes move together narrowing the circle at its center and then expand the circle outward again, just as the potter does when he works the clay. The poet’s visualization of the dance by means of the potter’s wheel in motion adds another layer of complexity both to the simile and the the dance itself. The oscillation of the turning wheel reflects the wave motion of the dancers undulating sequentially around the circle. Additionally, the working hands of the potter, opening and closing the vessel as he shapes it, approximates the dancers closing and reopening the circle on their skillful feet.

§9 In addition to the visualization of the movements of the dance, the potter in the simile underscores the skill and speed of the dancers. The entire passage (18.590-605) depicting the dance scene on the Shield is constructed on a scaffolding of words denoting craftsmanship and skill befitting the masterpiece of Hephaestus’s material craft, and Homer’s verbal craft of visual narrative. As Thomas Hubbard has argued, the simile self-reflexively “accents the equivalence of music/poetry to the visual arts.”^[6] Appropriately the brief simile of the potter is likewise rich in the Homeric vocabulary of craftsmanship and reinforces that scaffolding. The dancers’ feet are trained and skilled (ἐπισταμένοισι πόδεσσι), such that they run (θρέξασκον) with ease (ῥεῖα), effortlessly. The dance becomes intuitive, embodied, and second nature, as is the potter’s craft. The wheel itself is well fitted into the the potters hands (τροχὸν ἄρμενον ἐν παλάμῃσιν). (The axe Calypso gives Odysseus to construct his raft is also ἄρμενον ἐν παλάμῃσι (Odyssey 5.234)). The verb ἀραρίσκω, of which ἄρμενον is the aorist middle participle, is frequently used for something highly crafted or jointed. It can apply to both process and product, the making and the made. Through the simile of the potter, not just the dance but the embodied knowledge and skill of the dancers is visualized in action. To paraphrase Yeats, the dancers become the dance.^[7]

Bibliography

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Hubbard, T.K., 1992. Nature and Art in the Shield of Achilles. Arion: A Journal of Humanities and the Classics, 2(1), pp.16-41.

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Vidale, M. 1998. “Le diverse nature del tornio da vasaio nelle immagini della ceramica greca (VI-IV secolo a.C.),” OCNUS 6:117-135.

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