Athena, goddess of Athens, strides across this olive oil amphora, which is a variant of those used as prizes for contests at the Panathenaic games. Games were held annually to celebrate the city’s patron deity, but every four years they were elevated to a larger festival in the goddess’s honour.
On prize amphorae, Athena is usually shown as she appears here, battle ready wearing her snake-fringed aegis and high-crested Attic helmet, with spear raised and shield decorated with ivy leaves. This is the goddess as Athena Promachos, the Athena who fights on the front line, ready to defend her city. She strides between two Doric columns surmounted by fighting cocks, symbolising the competitive spirit.
The Logie Collection vase is a pseudo-Panathenaic: its small scale and the absence of an inscription or depiction of a contest indicate it is an imitation. Fewer than one hundred such vases have survived. Of those, only five bear the hindquarters of a horse on Athena’s shield on side B as this does.
