Manufactured in Taras (modern Taranto) in 330–320 BC, it is thought to be the only known artistic depiction of a lost play by Sophocles, Thyestes at Sikyon.
[1] It is currently on display in gallery 215C of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts, after having been purchased by them from Fritz Bürki and Son on February 25, 1987.
On the other side, Thyestes is protesting to king Adrastos the impending exposure (left out in the wilds, presumably to die) of his son Aegisthos, while Adrastos’ wife comforts the baby’s mother, Thyestes’ daughter Pelopeia.
Several gods range over all the mortals: Artemis, who is telling Pan to find a goat to nurse the baby; Apollo, a Fury, and a nude youth who is the personification of the city Sikyon, where this is all taking place.
[4] It is a particularly gruesome myth, although none of the gruesomeness is pictured outright here: it is up to the viewer’s familiarity to recognize that Thyestes raped his daughter because Apollo told a prophecy that a son born of that union would kill Thyestes’ brother Atreus, against whom he has a grudge.