Antiquities Exhibits

The Romans frequently linked images of banqueting and death in both literature and the visual arts. In Petronius' satirical novel, the Satyricon (60s CE), Trimalchio, the crass, nouveau-riche host of a dinner party, brings out a small silver skeleton between courses. The skeleton has flexible joints, and after posing it on the table in various ways, Trimalchio recites a poem to the effect that life is short and should be enjoyed before becoming a skeleton like the one he displays. He declares: “Alas for us poor mortals. Thus we shall all be, after Hades takes us away. Therefore, let us live while it goes well with us.” This bronze skeleton may have been used in the same manner. Although now missing several limbs, it too is jointed in a way that allows it to be posed or shaken so that it jumps and dances. Several similar skeletons are known, including one in silver found at Pompeii. - J. Paul Getty Museum This remembrance of mortality actually spawned an art movement in the 17th cen...

One of the subjects touched on in the Great Courses lecture series, "The Black Death," was the rise of what was termed Memento Mori in art during and after the great mortality with paintings filled with skeletons.  But the somber reminder to remember we are mortal has been practiced throughout classical antiquity.  The Greek pre-Socratic philosopher Democritus born around 460 BCE, is said to have practiced the frequenting of tombs to remind himself of mankind's mortality.  The later Stoics, including Seneca, discussed the topic of death frequently.  The Stoic Epictetus admonished his students that when kissing their child, brother, or friend, they should remind themselves that they are mortal, curbing their pleasure, as do "those who stand behind men in their triumphs and remind them that they are mortal." Ironically, such artwork was found in a villa in Boscoreale after it was destroyed by Vesuvius in 79 CE.  This skyphos or silver drinking cup is part of th...

A skull, on view at the Museo Storico Nazionale Dell'Arte Sanitaria in Rome, thought to have once held the brain of Pliny the Elder. Like Mary Beard, I'm afraid I'm skeptical about pointing to a particular skeleton from the Vesuvius disaster 2000 years ago and making claims it is a famous person. Sort of like all those people across the centuries claiming to have bits of the "true cross." I, too, like Professor Dunn, also immed iately wondered why, if Pliny's body was found and said to look asleep why it would not have been removed and cremated like most other Romans of the period. Matrone, the original discoverer of the skeleton, also sold off the jewels so that portion of the find context has been lost (if the objects ever existed in the first place). It was interesting, though, that the DNA analysis points to someone born in the region where Pliny the Elder is said to have been born. But the Naples area was a hub of trading activity so that could probab...