Unchanged by any teller — how the centuries since have seen Acastus.
The gallery
The François Vase (Attic black-figure volute krater)
Kleitias (painter) and Ergotimos (potter), c. 570–565 BC
One of the most celebrated vessels of Archaic Greek art, this monumental Attic black-figure volute krater (c. 570–565 BC) carries some 270 figures across six superimposed friezes, 121 of them identified by painted inscriptions. Among the named heroes is Akastos (Acastus), the Argonaut and future king of Iolcus, who appears in the Calydonian boar hunt band near its top. Signed twice — 'Ergotimos made me; Kleitias painted me' — it is now in the National Archaeological Museum in Florence (inv. 4209) and remains the richest single visual compendium of early Greek myth, making it the earliest secure labeled image of Acastus.
The François Vase: detail of the Calydonian Boar Hunt
Kleitias (painter) and Ergotimos (potter), c. 570–565 BC
This detail from the upper neck frieze of the François Vase shows the hunt for the Calydonian Boar, the great beast charging left as nineteen hunters close in with spears, arrows and stones. Every participant is labeled: Peleus and Meleager thrust at the boar's head, with Atalanta and Melanion, the Dioskouroi, the fallen Ancaeus — and Akastos (Acastus), here recorded among the company of heroes who joined the hunt. The detail, in the National Archaeological Museum in Florence, is one of the few ancient images that names Acastus directly, anchoring his role as an Argonaut-generation hero in the visual record.
The Amphiaraos Krater: the Funeral Games of Pelias
The Amphiaraos Painter (Unknown), c. 570–560 BC
A Late Corinthian black-figure column krater (c. 570–560 BC, h. 46.4 cm) found at Cerveteri and now in the Antikensammlung Berlin (inv. F 1655). Above its battle frieze runs the funeral games of Pelias — complete with a chariot race and wrestlers beneath the handle — the very games that Acastus instituted to honor his murdered father after burying him and driving Jason and Medea from Iolcus. As the son who presided over these contests, Acastus stands behind the scene the painter celebrates, making this krater a key early witness to the episode that defined his accession to the throne of Iolcus.