Stamnos with Herakles and the Centaur Pholos

On his way to hunt the great boar of Mount Erymanthos, Herakles stopped with the centaur Pholos, who lived in a cave. Pholos served his guest roasted meat and ate his own raw. Then Herakles asked for wine. Pholos had a great jar of it, but it belonged to all the centaurs, a gift from the wine god Dionysos, and once it was opened the smell brought the others galloping in with rocks and uprooted trees.

The Argos Painter put the whole story on one side of this jar. Herakles holds a jug and Pholos a drinking cup at a huge storage jar. Herakles' quiver hangs up, and from a tree dangle two hares, the day's catch. Around them the other centaurs are already arriving, one with a tree, two with rocks, one blowing a horn.

Athenian stamnoi like this one, painted in the early 5th century BC, have been found mostly in Etruria, and the shape seems to have been made with Etruscan buyers in mind. According to the 1925 publication of the finds, it shared a tomb in the Celle cemetery at Falerii with a drinking vessel shaped as a dog's head.