This krater-a vessel used for mixing and serving wine-features a phlyax actor. The term, used for both the actors themselves and the comedic plays that featured them, probably derives from the Greek verb meaning "to swell," and may refer to the costume worn in these comic farces. As is typical for a phlyax, this actor is heavily padded, wearing a white cloak, a red tunic, yellow sleeves and tights (both meant to imply nudity), and a large, flaccid red phallus. His yellow staff, his white hair, and the gnarled features of his mask are telltale signs of his age. As he runs across a ground line composed of white dots, fruits and cakes spill from his mantle; most likely he has stolen these as a gift for the lone female figure on the opposite side of the vase.

Although fifth- and fourth-century-B.C. playwrights, namely Euripides and Aristophanes, dominate current perceptions about ancient drama, a lively tradition of improvised theater based on stock plotlines and characters flourished in both Greece and southern Italy. The oldest evidence of these plays is fourth-century-B.C. vase paintings such as this one; it appears the plays were not written out until slightly later. Character-driven in the same way as the commedia dell'arte, they were largely unscripted, were performed outdoors, and loosely satirized the themes of daily life.

This actor was painted by a South Italian artist of the Apulian region in the Gnathian technique, which involves layering colored slips atop a uniform base of black. Miniaturized figures such as this one give us a sense of how vibrant larger ancient paintings-also frequently inspired by the theater-would have been.

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