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The article examines a series of images on Athenian ceramic vases in which sandals are depicted as a hitting implement. This iconographic motif appears mainly in two contexts: educational scenes, where an adult hits a subordinate, and erotic scenes, where the hitting action is almost always performed by males upon female prostitutes.
The utilisation of this specific mundane object, rather than equally available others, for these violent acts is explored in light of psychologist James J. The affordances of the sandal, stemming from its shape and material and the inherent potentialities for action, are perceived and exploited by the hitters. Though not designed as a hitting implement, in the hands of these privileged figures in these specific situations, the mundane, ordinary sandal becomes the medium, a social agent, by which their control attains physical embodiment.
Thanks to the Athenian vase painters, we are able to register and visualise latent affordances of the sandal that previously lay out of sight. It seems that in the context of Athenian society, the supposed dichotomy between the ordinary usage and the extraordinary violent usage of the sandal collapses. In this particular case, hitting with a sandal seems as ordinary as donning it in everyday use.
Two identical Attic pelikai attributed to the Athenian painter Euphronios, both housed in the Villa Giulia Museum and dating to ca. Footnote 1 In the other, another similarly seated youth is about to strike an ithyphallic boy with a sandal, which, as is typical, is shown from its back side the sole , and bears a characteristic contour line Fig. Footnote 2 The identical setting and the formal features of both pelikai, including the kalos name and the use of patterns, juxtaposed with the fact that they are the only pelikai attributed to this painter Robertson, , p.
