This animation was created for The Museum Artefact and Cultural Space, a conference held at University College Dublin.
It shows Achilles (left) and Ajax during the Trojan War.
The vase used in the Clash of the Dicers was made in Athens around 540-530BCE. It is signed by the famous potter Exekias and is now housed in the Vatican Museum.
The vase shows Achilles and Ajax playing a game during the Trojan War. Both men still have their shields, spears, and helmets at the ready. Achilles and Ajax were cousins, as their fathers, Peleus and Telamon, were brothers. They were both tremendous warriors. In the Iliad, Ajax is often said to be second only to Achilles (Iliad, 2.768; 13.321; 17.279). According to the mythic tradition, Ajax killed himself after the death of Achilles, when the Greeks awarded Achilles’ arms and armour to Odysseus instead of Ajax. The fallout of the award of arms is the subject of an ancient tragedy, Sophocles’ Ajax).
The reverse of the vase features Helen’s family. Helen of Troy, as she became known, had once been Helen of Sparta. The vase scene shows her parents, Tyndareos and Leda, and her twin brothers, Castor and Polydeuces (aka ‘Pollux’ to the Romans) with a horse. Like the gaming scene on the other side, this is an image of famous figures in a moment of leisure.
Many vase-painters created versions of the gaming scene around this time. More than a hundred examples survive.
For more detail on the animation and the vase it was made from, read here.
Source: Steve Simons's website, Panoply.org.uk.
(via PhDiva)