Terracotta Volute Krater

Among the many subjects they painted and sculpted between the Archaic Period and the Hellenistic Period, Athenians had a fondness for the Amazonomachies, battles between Greeks and the mythical Amazonites, a race of warrior women from the north and east. Such is the focus of the Terracotta volute-krater, a red-figure battlefield baked and painted in approximately 450 BCE, at the shift between the Early and High Classical Periods of Greece. Curiously however, the painter, dubbed the Painter of the Woolly Satyrs. painted the the battle as an even match between the Amazons and the Greeks, despite having the opportunity to paint the Greeks the victors, as was so often the case in many works of art depicting the militaries of the work's’ origin
The Amazons were depicted as deadly warriors; they were able to go toe to toe with with warriors from city-states across Greece, if their varying states of dress and helmets are anything to go by. Olive branches and “brooms” amidst others decorate the helmets of the Greek fighters (almost smudging the legibility of the krater at first). Despite having the right to tell the story (and thereby color it), the artist turned down the opportunity to show the Greeks as the victors just as their predecessors have to their own armies and kings. As stated before, the Greeks didn’t have a god for a king. Neither reason nor means exists to “deify” themselves as well; the Amazon's’ body-count within the piece speaks for itself: the Greeks soldiers can die, can get fatigued, can get outnumbered. They are not the soldiers of a god. They are very much
In fact, one could infer this homogeneity in facial and body structure highlights how alike the Greeks saw themselves and their adversaries. Between the two races, one could draw similarities between the two in their straight noses, their curly/wavy black hair, their identical heights, and the Amazons’ lack of stylised sexual dimorphism. Their mythical rivalry appears to be just as respectful as it was deadly, the Greeks regarding the Amazons as their equals (if not