Lekythos with the Theban Sphinx

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Lekythos with the Theban Sphinx

Description

The lekythos is a type of vase used primarily to hold perfumed oil. This example, decorated in the black-figure style, features a scene of two older men with the famous Theban sphinx, a monster with the winged body of a lion and a female human head. She devoured anyone who could not answer her famous riddle: "What is it that walks on four legs in the morning, on two at noon, and on three in the evening?" When the hero Oedipus correctly answered that it was man who first crawls on all fours, then walks upright, and in old age needs a stick as a third leg, she leapt from her perch in fury and was dashed to pieces.