This
final scene from a comic performance depicts a slave (left) and his master
(right). One can note the similarity of the slave’s mask here to
the slave mask suspended in the air in the previous painting. This
vase dates from the third quarter of the fourth century BC, when Greek
comedy was evolving from Middle into New Comedy. We no longer see
the ridiculously protruding stomachs and posteriors. The “naked look”
is gone. The actors are dressed in everyday attire, although there
is one holdover from Old Comedy: the red leather phalluses.
The slave is carrying in his left hand a phiale (a flat vessel for pouring libations to gods) and fillets (ribbons usually used as a religious symbol) and in his right hand, a situla (an urn used for drawing water). These objects are probably intended for use in some festive religious occasion. The dramatic point of the painting is that the slave is reluctant to go along with his master, who pulls his slave by the wrist. The reason for the slave’s reluctance is unknown to us, for we do not know the play which this painting illustrates.