If you like Hector you may have heard of a scholion to a passage of Lycophron's Alexandra that states that Hector wore his hair in what we'd call a mullet:
"Hectorian hair is said to be that which is long at the back and cut short at the front as this Lycophron says."
Scholion 1133 Ad Lycophronem
Now, the original passage refers to the Daunians, the inhabitants of the northernmost part of Apulia in southeastern Italy:
But the chiefs of the Daunians shall build for me a shrine on the banks of the Salpe, and those also who inhabit the city of Dardanus, beside the waters of the lake. And when girls wish to escape the yoke of maidens, refusing for bridegrooms men adorned with locks such as Hector wore, but with defect of form or reproach of birth, they will embrace my image with their arms, winning of mighty shield against marriage, having clothed them in the garb of the Erinyes and dyed their faces with magic simples. By those staff-carrying women I shall long be called an immortal goddess.
Lycophron's Alexandra, v.1122+
This passage is a valuable resource to examine how the Greeks viewed the Daunians in general, but for the purposes of this post it, together with Greek and native Apulian art, can show us almost exactly what this hairstyle would've looked like! (Dump incoming under the cut lol)
In general, our understanding of Daunian men's hairstyles is cloudy due to the schematic nature of Daunian art, where women are often depicted with a long braid whereas men aren't represented with any hair. Here's some examples from Iron Age Daunian stelae.
As you can see, earlier Daunian art doesn't give us much information. Here are some much later IV/III century Daunian tomb frescos from when the area was more Hellenized and Daunian art got more figurative:
As you can see, the Daunians depicted in frescos roughly contemporary with Lycophron's writing correspond pretty accurately to the image painted by the scholion. The Daunian men of this time seem to have worn their hair in a "mullet", like the other native peoples of Apulia, collectively dubbed "Iapygians" by the Greeks. Here are some examples of Apulian natives in Greek red-figure pottery:
Note the distinctly Italic clothing as well as the bronze belts, which you can also see in the stelae above and which they share with other pre-Roman Italic peoples outside of Apulia (you can read up on that here). The last image is a particularly good example to show the contrast between the Greek and the native "style". Below is a fresco from the famous "Tomba delle Danzatrici", from Ruvo di Puglia.
Now, back to Hector lol. If you like the guy you have no doubt seen this Apulian vase painting:
As much as I love it, I'm afraid it might not be Hector after all :(. This scene not only depicts the two warriors with the signature native clothing as seen in earlier examples, it also represents a particularly popular scene in Greek art for a native Italic market: the return/departure of the warrior, often accompanied by libations, as seen in the first two examples above and in the following couple of pictures.
Interestingly, though I have seen the Jatta Museum (where the vase in question is stored) suggest the identification of the scene with that of the Iliad before, it also suggests that the father of the child is actually the man on the left (who gets cut out of the pic most of the time lol), pointing out the similarities in his and the kid's clothes. It also identifies the helmet in "Hector"'s hand as a Chalcidian helmet, clearly extraneous to the otherwise characteristically Italic elements of the scene, and thus interpreted as war loot from the Greek settlers in the region.
Now, this doesn't mean this can't be Hector, Andromache and Astyanax, but it definitely doesn't seem to be the most likely case. BUT! In a weird roundabout way we learned how Lycophron might've pictured Hector's hairstyle, even if that isn't him on the vase! Funny how that works huh, one of the most famous would-be depictions of Hector might not be him but it just so happens it depicts the hairstyle a source mentions the Daunians having taking after him because the vase was produced near Daunia!
Anyways, sorry for the long post , I hope this made sense at least lmao
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
I know you like Daunian stuff but I know next to nothing about it. What is cool about the Daunian people for beginners?
Oooo glad you asked!
Since we don't have any surviving texts from Daunia until Hellenistic times most of what we know about them comes from their stelae and unique pottery. Here's some resources that provide a pretty good base in my opinion:
Camilla Norman's "People of Ancient Daunia: Voicing the Statue-Stelae" is a book dedicated entirely to examining these unique monuments. Though it's not fully available online, the first stretch of the book (5 chapters) can be accessed through Google Books, and it gives a pretty good rundown of the origins of the Daunians and their art, as well as typologies, artistic parallels, a history of scholarship... It's jam-packed with information. It's also one the most recent resources linked here (2024), so if you want to be up to date fast this is the way to go.
Norman also has a website where you can access an archive of every known stela and filter by type, represented figures/scenes... Also a really awesome resource for visual reference.
Here's a couple papers by Norman worth checking out:
The tribal tattooing of Daunian Women
Illyrian Vestiges in Daunian Costume: tattoos, string aprons and a helmet
Maria Luisa Nava is one of the pioneers of Daunian research so her papers are also worth checking out. Here's some I'd reccommend (these are in Italian):
Le stele della Daunia nel quadro del megalitismo mediterraneo
Le gesta degli uomini, dei cavalieri e degli eroi nellla vita e nel mito sulle stele daunie
Lastly, I have to mention Maria Laura Leone, who has published on the Daunians as well, with a special interest in their attested use of opium, such as "Daunian opium and the concepts revealed by images", as well as these two papers on the iconography on the stelae by other researchers (I tried to use as much recent research as possible but these two are a bit older. Also only in Italian.): Iconografie greche nel mondo indigeno della Daunia, Il repertorio figurato delle stele della Daunia
Do keep in mind that this is a relatively young discipline of study so there's still a whole lot of uncertainties about the Daunians (especially compared to the other Iapygian peoples they neighboured, who did leave inscriptions and came in contact with the Greeks much earlier), so there's not much we definitively know about their beliefs for example, and things like the classification of stelae will differ drastically between Norman and Nava. That being said, the Daunians have left behind a large amount of absolutely fascinating material culture to study and they are very underappreciated, so I hope these resources spark some interest!
Thanks for asking and if you need anything more specific do let me know!
