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A bull therianthrope identified as either the Minotaur or the god Dionysos appears on an
Etruscan red-figure cup by the Settecamini Painter (Fig. V.3). This cup is important for a
number of reasons. Scholars such as Brunn and S. Woodford have suggested that the inspiration
for this image was Euripides’ lost tragedy, Cretans. In his discussion of five Etruscan cinerary
urns of the Hellenistic Period, Brunn provides a short synopsis of the plot of the Cretans, which
begins after the birth of the Minotaur and presumably ends with Pasiphae’s suicide. 475 An ash
urn in Volterra (Fig. V.4) serves as one example of this series of cinerary urns. The figural
decoration on these urns presents the infant Minotaur in the company of Pasiphae, Minos,
Daedalus, Icarus and others. 476 These urns certainly do not represent an episode in the life of
Dionysos, as is evident from the multiplicity of figures and, as can be seen in Fig V.4, the
occasional presence of a bull, who must be none other than the Minotaur’s father. The presence
of a narrative tradition concerning the Minotaur’s childhood on the cinerary urns makes it seem
more likely to me that the Settecamini Painter also meant to represent the Minotaur and not
Dionysos. While the Settecamini Painter may or may not have been consciously trying to
represent the plot of Euripides’ play, this drama could have been the vehicle through which
traditions of the Minotaur’s childhood were transferred to Etruria. Furthermore, Brendel uses the
cup by the Settecamini Painter to demonstrate that a sophisticated Etruscan literary culture must
have existed in which the Etruscans were able to appreciate the “ferocious” or “comic” side of
Greek myth. He further states, “The absurdity of the maternal idyll serves as a reminder: even
the monster was once a dear child.” 477 If we interpret this child as the Minotaur, then the woman
holding the bull-man in her lap must be none other than Pasiphae, wife of Minos and queen of
Crete.
This argument is both logical and appealing, but a second interpretation exists. In his
discussion of the animal forms of Dionysos, Frazer suggests that a “red-figured vase” shows
Dionysos “portrayed as a calf-headed child seated on a woman’s lap.” 478 In his discussion of this
representations of bull therianthropes are problematic and not easily identifiable, and thus I must rule out the
possibility of Mars being represented in theriomorphic or therianthropic form.
475 Brunn and Körte 1872-1916, 83; Woodford 1992, 581.
476 Beazley (1947, 54) concurs with this identification; for a discussion of the cinerary urns, see Brunn and Körte
1872-1916, pl. 28,3, 29,4, 29,5, 29,5a, and 30,6.
477 Brendel 1995, 344.
478 Frazer (1922, 399) lists the various objects that represent Dionysos in partial bull form. “Types of the horned
Dionysus are found amongst the surviving monuments of antiquity. On one statuette he appears clad in a bull’s hide,
the head, horns, and hoofs hanging down behind. Again, he is represented as a child with clusters of grapes round
his brow, and a calf’s head, with sprouting horns, attached to the back of his head. On a red-figured vase the god is
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