Echi della favola di Esopo “la volpe e la cicogna” nella ceramica falisca a figure rosse

Abstract

Inside the tomb 22 (XXV) of the “Addition” to the Second Vallone cemetery at Corchiano in the Ager Faliscus, two
very interesting Faliscan red-figure vases (an hydria and a discoidal askos) were found. They seem to reflect, according
to L. Savignoni, the iconography of the famous Aesop’s fable The Fox and the Stork. On the hydria a stork with a beak
immersed in a labrum and behind it a quadruped (fox?) intent on licking the left leg of the stork are depicted; on the
discoidal askos a running quadruped (fox?) is shown and on the other side a stork with wings spread out. The representation
of the stork drinking from a labrum is well known both in Attic and in Faliscan red-figured pottery. The reference
could be either immediate (to the water present in the labrum and to the water destined to be contained in the hydria)
and/or symbolic. The comparison with other representations of this type allows to connect the scene to the ablution
(nuptial or previous the amorous encounter) and to the sexual desire. However, in the scene of the bird drinking from
the labrum on our hydria is also present a quadruped (fox?).The fox in the case of reference to scenes of ablution or
sexual desire, would have no role. In our opinion, however, it is not excluded that the depictions present the hydria and
on the askos, like the others (very common in ancient times) in which a more aggressive animal assaults or threatens
another more submissive and defenseless, are allusive to the fate of man threatened by death.