Antiquities Exhibits

This morning while browsing artifacts in the collections of the Getty Villa, I came across this exquisite gilded silver sculpture of a Triton forming the handle of an oinochoe.  As I described in a post a couple of years ago, the original sea god, Triton, was the son of Poseidon and Amphitrite according to Hesiod's Theogony. Triton is usually represented as a merman, with the upper body of a human and the tailed lower body of a fish. At some time during the Greek and Roman era, Tritons became a generic term for mermen in art and literature. A female version (tritoness) was eventually introduced as well. Triton was said to dwell with his parents in  a golden palace claimed to be located at Aegae on the island of Euboea in a passage from book 5 of Homer's Iliad. It describes how  Poseidon "lashed his long-maned horses and drove to Aegae, where he had his famous palace" after having destroyed Odysseus' raft with a storm. Later in Book 13 of the Iliad, Poseidon "...

Horses, with or without riders, were favorite subjects for Boeotian artisans. The figurines were frequently left as burial offerings in graves. Horses were a sign of wealth for the Greeks of this period, and the terracotta horses were probably left to symbolize and to reinforce the high status of the deceased. Thousands of clay figurines like this one survive from the Archaic period (600 to 480 BCE). "Horses played a central role in the great civic festivals in the ancient world, such as the Panathenaic Games in Athens and the Olympic games at Olympos, where they took part in chariot races and single horse races. The horse’s long affiliation with gods and heroes in Greek mythology no doubt also fostered a special respect and admiration for this remarkable creature in the minds of “ordinary” Greeks. In Homer’s Iliad, horses drive the chariots of the heroes and are praised for their swiftness and beautiful coats. They are often depicted as having special relationships with their own...

All Greek and Etruscan metal rings with engraved bezels ultimately derive from Egyptian and Phoenician cartouche-shaped rings. The cartouche-shaped ring was especially popular in Etruria in the later 500s B.C., where immigrant Greek goldsmiths from Ionia introduced it. This example features an intricate scene of two men approaching a fountain where water gushes into a vessel from a lion's head spout. Behind the fountain, a man squats as if hiding, holding a sword. These details identify the scene as a standard depiction of the ambush of Troilos (Troilus), prince of Troy, by the Greek hero Achilles during the Trojan War. On this ring, however, a strange dog-headed creature, who is not part of the Troilos myth, sits atop the fountain. The creature may actually be jackal-headed and thus meant to recall the Egyptian god Anubis harking back to the origin of such rings from Egypt. Prophecies retold in the Iliad link the fate of Troilos, one of the sons of King Priam (or Apollo in some ve...

Despite the addition of a head of Serapis, recut and restored in the 18th century CE, the overall scene of a relief at the J. Paul Getty Museum portrays Calchas, the Argive soothsayer to whom Apollo had given the gift of prophecy. In Homer’s Iliad (II.300-30), the seer foretold that the Trojan War would last for nine years after observing a snake devour a mother sparrow and her eight chicks. The eclectic style of the relief combines the form of a late Classical Attic stele with landscape elements drawn from the Hellenistic repertoire. It was discovered in 1774 at Roma Vecchia in the Villa dei Sette Bassi, which belonged to the senatorial family of C. Bellicus Calpurnius Apolaustus. Such a panel may have decorated a library assembled by a cultured patron well versed in Greek literature. On the underside is a Latinized Greek inscription that reads XEANTHE—likely a version of Xanthe, the former name for Troy.   It was Calchas who prophesied that in order to gain a favourable wind...

In pre-Olympian Bronze Age Greece, Poseidon was venerated as a chief deity at Pylos and Thebes. He had also the cult title "earth shaker". In the myths of isolated Arcadia he is related with Demeter and Persephone and he was venerated as a horse, however it seems that he was originally a god of the waters. He is often regarded as the tamer or father of horses, and he could create springs with a strike of his trident.  Homer and Hesiod suggest that Poseidon became lord of the sea following the defeat of his father Cronus, when the world was divided by lot among his three sons: Zeus was given the sky, Hades the underworld, and Poseidon the sea, with the Earth and Mount Olympus belonging to all three. In Homer's Iliad, Poseidon supports the Greeks against the Trojans during the Trojan War and in the Odyssey, during the sea-voyage from Troy back home to Ithaca, the Greek hero Odysseus provokes Poseidon's fury by blinding his son, the Cyclops Polyphemus, resulting in Posei...

Then said Achilles, "Son of Atreus, king of men Agamemnon, see to these matters at some other season, when there is breathing time and when I am calmer. Would you have men eat while the bodies of those whom Hector son of Priam slew are still lying mangled upon the plain? Let the sons of the Achaeans, say I, fight fasting and without food, till we have avenged them; afterwards at the going down of the sun let them eat their fill. As for me, Patroclus is lying dead in my tent, all hacked and hewn, with his feet to the door, and his comrades are mourning round him. Therefore I can think of nothing but slaughter and blood and the rattle in the throat of the dying." - Iliad 19.226 As some of you know, I am the spouse of a veteran who has suffered from PTSD since service in Vietnam back in 1967-68. Although the psychological trauma suffered by those who have experienced a traumatic event now has a very modern-sounding diagnosis, it is not a recent phenomenon but has been a plague u...

This ivory/bone relief is part of a larger plaque that illustrated a scene from the life cycle of the Greek hero Achilles from the Iliad. What remains is a composition of 4 figures, two females (one holding her left hand to her face in a gesture of concern, the other kneeling at her feet offering a stringed instrument—the lyre of Achilles) and two males (one older with balding head and beard, the other younger who is seen from behind) from the left side of the fuller scene, now lost. The use of the architectural setting (a colonnade with fluted columns) and the figure of the draped and worried woman suggests that this a scene from the life cycle of Achilles.The closest composition is found on a large silver luxury plate found in France (now in the Cabinet des Médailles, Paris) seems to be a combination of the leading away of Briseis, the embassy of Phoenix, and the death of Patroclus. The plaque was probably part of a larger group of decorated bone panels that were attached to a wooden...

Among the most poignant sculptures at the Loggia dei Lanzi (and my favorite) is the ancient Flavian era (1st century CE) Pasquino Group (also known as "Menelaus Carrying the Body of Patroclus" or "Ajax Carrying the Body of Achilles"), a group of marble sculptures that copy a Hellenistic bronze original, dating to ca. 200–150 BCE.    During the 16th century, various authors proposed different identifications for the dead figure, including Hercules, Geryon, and Alexander the Great. Bernhard Schweitzer's 1936 "Das Original der sogennanten Pasquino-Gruppe" identifies the subject of the group as Menelaus carrying the body of Patroclus, However, this identification has been questioned and the identification of Ajax carrying the body of Achilles is now widely accepted for most of the known 15 Roman copies.  However, five fragments of a Pasquino group were excavated from Hadrian's Villa by Gavin Hamilton in 1769. This sculpture was a part of the Roman emp...

Etruscan frescoes from the Francois Tomb now in the Villa Albani in Rome. In 1857 Alessandro François was commissioned by the Prince of Torlonia to excavate the Ponte Rotto Necropolis in the Etruscan city of Vulci. There he discovered the magnificently frescoed tomb of the Saties (or Seties) family. These frescoes, dated to approximately 330 BCE, depict Caelius Vibenna (whom the Romans believed the Caelian Hill was named after)  and Mastarna (a legendary figure whom the Emperor Claudius identified with Servius Tullius as well as a representation of 'Marce Camitlas' (Latin equivalent 'Marcus Camillus') about to draw his sword against a crouching 'Cneve Tarchunies Rumach' ('Gnaeus Tarquinius of Rome'). Some historians think the figure labeled as Gnaeus Tarquinius is actually Tarquinius Priscus, the legendary king of Rome (r. 616-579 BCE). If so, the painting provides an alternative fate of the king instead of the Roman tradition that Priscus was assass...

The Olympian Aegis. According to the Iliad, both Zeus and Athena carried an aegis thought to be either a shield or animal skin adorned with the head of Medusa. The aegis was thought to have magical properies and when shook by an Olympian, would wrap clouds around Mount Ida, create claps of thunder and strike men down with fear. In the Iliad when Zeus sends Apollo to revive the wounded Hector, Apollo, holding the aegis, char ges the Achaeans, pushing them back to their ships drawn up on the shore. Roman poet Virgil described the aegis as a fearsome thing with a surface of gold like scaly snakeskin, edged with golden tassels and bearing the Gorgoneion in the central boss. But Augustus' freedman, Gaius Julius Hyginus, who became superintendent of the Palatine library, claimed it was the skin of a pet goat owned by Zeus' nurse, Amalthea, that he used as a shield when he went forth to do battle against the Titans. Images: Early Roman Imperial Zeus with Aegis and Gor...