Il canestro di Ione, la κίστη di Erittonio. Mitografia, drammaturgia e iconografia di un oggetto

The contribution is focused on the exposure basket in Euripides’ Ion. It provides an analysis of the passages related to the basket, highlighting its role in both performance development and semantics of the tragedy. The explicit relationship established by Euripides between Ion’s basket and Erichthonius’ analogous attribute, togheter with the material features of the very stage property, is illustrated through the comparison with other literary sources and a corpus of Attic and Apulian vase paintings. The active role played by baskets depicted upon two phlyax vase scenes possibly related to Erichthonius’ and Ion’s tales, eventually, supports and enhances the metaphorical values of this specific object as detected in the text