Is there a plunging dolphin under the ship of Theseus on the Francois vase?

We review some of the most important comments so far put forward on the frieze of Theseus' ship on the François Vase, and particularly Mario Torelli's views in Le strategie di Kleitias: Composizione e programma figurativo del Vaso François (2007, Electa Milano), so far the most complete and organic discussion of the masterpiece. Like others before us, we compare the vase's imagery with Ode 17 of Bacchylides, composed about one century after the creation of the vase. Both painting and poem came from a more ancient folkloric theme and oral tradition. Recognizing in the frieze the figure, so far ignored, of a diving dolphin, the interpretation of the ship frieze would completely change; and would question the main conclusion of Torelli’s study - namely, that the paintings on the vase were, as a whole, a highly structured, unified iconographic message, meant to instill the ideological essential of paideia into young aristocratic Athenians. If this were the case, similar implications and meanings are not excluded, but they do not account for the whole graphic project.