The Meidias Painter: Art amidst the Peloponnesian War

The Meidias Painter was an Athenian red-figure vase painter active in the last quarter of the 5th century BCE (fl. c. 420 to c. 400 BCE). He is named after the potter whose signature was found on a large hydria, depicting the rape of the daughters of Leucippus (Leukippos), prince of Messenia, by the Dioscuri, excavated from an Etruscan tomb.  John D. Beazley, renowned connoisseur of Greek vases, said of Meidias' work, "Here there is beauty: The gleam of gold, loves and ladies with soft limbs, in soft raiment, and all that is shining, easeful and luxurious: perfume, honey and roses." 

The Meidias Painter was known for combining his theatrical “florid” style with his “flying drapery.”  He worked during the period of the Peloponnesian War and his depiction of many Attic legends, particularly those involving Erichtonios, son of Hephaistos, points to "a clear assertion of local pride prompted by the Athenians' decisive role in the fight against the barbarian" according to Jenifer Neils, Assistant Curator of Ancient Art at Case Western Reserve University.

He ranged his scenes across the entire background of most vessels, especially kraters.  This reflects the influence of monumental wall painting during this period. The Meidias Painter is thought to be one of the best pupils of the Eretria Painter, who initially popularized non-mythical scenes of Aphrodite with four to five of her richly dressed attendants, Eudaimonia (Happiness or Prosperity), Eukleia (Good Repute), Eunomia (Good Order), Eutychia (Good Luck), Harmonia (Harmony) , Hygieia (Health), Paidia (Play), and Peitho (Persuasion).   Sadly, the personification of Eirene (Peace) did not make an appearance in Greek art until the early fourth century BCE.  Instead, the Meidias Painter focused on themes of love and music instead of heroes and the battlefield, possibly as an escape from the brutality of the war engulfing his world at the time.

Read more about it: https://www.academia.edu/12707446/A_Greek_Nativity_by_the_Meidias_Painter

Attic red-figure hydria of the Leucippides depicting the Dioskuroi, Kastor and Polydeukes, in their chariots raping the Leukippides Elera and Eriphyle by the Meidias Painter, 420-400 BCE, now in the British Museum courtesy of Wikimedia contributor ArchaiOptix.

Another scene on the Attic red-figure hydria of the Leucippides by the Meidias Painter, 420-400 BCE, now in the British Museum courtesy of Wikimedia contributor ArchaiOptix.

Red-Figure Squat Lekythos (Oil Vessel) depicting the Birth of Erichthonios attributed to the Meidias Painter, 420-410 BCE, now in the collections of the Cleveland Museum of Art, image courtesy of the museum.

Attic red figure loutrophoros depicting a draped woman standing beside a groom in a wedding scene with Eros between the bride and groom painted in the "manner" of the Meidias Painter.

Attic red figure squat lekythos depicting Oedipus killing a sphinx with his spear while a seated Apollo looks on painted in the "manner of the Meidias Painter, now at the British Museum, courtesy of Wikimedia contributor ArchaiOptix.

Agamemnon seated on a rock and holding his sceptre, identified from an inscription. Fragment of the lid of an Attic red-figure lekanis by the circle of the Meidias Painter, 410–400 BCE. From the contrada Santa Lucia in Taranto. Stored in the Museo Nazionale Archeologico in Taranto (Italy), courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Marie-Lan Nguyen.

Phaon and Aphrodite on an Attic red-figure clayx-krater dated from 420-400 BCE now in the collections of the Regional Archaeological Museum of Antonino Salinas courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Marie-Lan Nguyen.

Attic Red-figured kylix depicting Peitho, the goddess of Persuasion, who stands addressing a woman named Demonassa, sitting in a rocky landscape looking rather dejected , 410 BCE attributed to the Meidias Painter, now in the collections of the J. Paul Getty Museum, image courtesy of the museum. 

Red-figured squat lekythos depicting female allegories with Eros in a garden, Hygieia, Pandasia with wreath and phiale, flying Eros, Eudaimonia seated, standing youth (Polyeidos or Polykles) in chlamys with 2 spears, plants. Said to be a "poor" attempt (I still thought it was beautiful) to copy the Meidias Painter by Greek ceramic expert John D. Beazley, now at the British Museum, courtesy of Wikimedia contributor ArchaiOptix.

Closeup of red-figured hydria painting depicting Phaon and women from Lesbos, 410 BCE, now in the collections of the Archaeological Museum in Florence, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Shakko.

Small hydria with Eros, carrying a tambourine, flying towards a woman, in a flowered chiton and long mantle, whose right foot is on a foot stool. Behind her a girl in a Doric chiton, seated, playing with a panther. Before the Eros an acanthus ornament. Painted in the "manner" of the Meidias Painter, end of the 5th century BCE now in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, image courtesy of the museum.

 

If you enjoyed this post, never miss out on future posts by following me by email!

The Flight of Aeneas

While browsing the Getty's collections today I saw yet another intricately sculpted Roman cornelian gemstone from the 1st century BCE.

"The gem captures the moment when Aeneas, son of the Trojan prince Anchises and the goddess Venus, escapes with his family from Troy at the end of the Trojan War. Aeneas climbs up the steps to a waiting ship, with his father over his right arm and his son, Ascanius, holding his left hand. Aeneas wears a corselet but no other armor. His father wears robes with a mantle pulled over his head. Ascanius, shown just at the moment of leaving the gates of the city, wears a Phrygian cap, a chiton, and cloak while holding a pedum (a hunter's throwing stick) over his left shoulder. Anchises holds a cylindrical box with an X pattern on the side. Behind them, the walls of Troy rise up, and a Greek solider in a crested helmets looks towards them from the battlements while holding a lit torch aloft in his raised right arm, a spear upright in his left. Three Trojans await them on the ship, all wearing Phrygian caps: one works the rudder, another the still-furled rigging of the ship, and the third raises a trumpet or other horn-shaped object. Above them, a single star." - J. Paul Getty Museum

I noticed the similarities between the scene on the gem and a 1st century CE sculpture of the flight of Aeneas from the Sebasteion, an imperial cult temple of the Julio-Claudian dynasty and Aphrodite (Venus) in ancient Aphrodisias.  The three-storey complex was embellished with richly carved panels depicting mythological scenes, heroes, and gods surrounded by the emperors Augustus, Tiberius, Claudius, and Nero and their spouses, children and  a series of personified ethne or 'nations' of Augustus' world empire, from the Ethiopians of eastern Africa to the Callaeci of western Spain. The temple was excavated beginning in 1979.  Of the original 200 reliefs, 80 were recovererd.

Read more about the excavations and see more images of the temple here:

http://aphrodisias.classics.ox.ac.uk/sebasteion.html

 

Intaglio with Scene of Aeneas and his Family Escaping from Troy, Carnelian, Roman, 20 BCE now in the collections of the J. Paul Getty Museum in Pacific Palisades, California

Roman relief of the Flight of Aeneas with his father Anchises and son Ascanius helped by Aphrodite, 20 - 60 CE. The Trojan hero, Aeneas was the son of the prince Anchises and the goddess Aphrodite. His father was the second cousin of King Priam of Troy. The journey of Aeneas from Troy (with help from Aphrodite), which led to the founding of the city Rome, is recounted in Virgil's Aeneid. The 1st century CE relief is now in the Aphrodisias Museum in Turkey, image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Dick Osseman.

 

If you enjoyed this post, never miss out on future posts by following me by email!

Greco-Roman female portraiture

 

Head of a woman, Greek, 200-100 BCE Marble at the Yale University Art Gallery.

"In Greek and Roman female portraits, private women often imitated goddesses or queens in order to gain status and influence. This head, perhaps, echoes features of the goddess Aphrodite or the Egyptian ruler Cleopatra VII (reigned 69–30 BCE).  Although extensive damage and repairs, including a damaged nose and a missing section of hair, have made examinations of the head difficult, one can still see the resemblance to the two iconic figures."

"The figure’s melon hairstyle and the beginnings of what was probably a slightly aquiline nose relate the head to portraits of Cleopatra VII who is shown with these features in her more ‘masculinized’ portraits, as in her portrait on a silver denarius in the British Museum.  At the same time, the portrait of a woman also has the classic turn of the head and soft facial features one finds in portraits of typical Greek women and of Aphrodite.  Cleopatra VII herself is sometimes depicted in this softer, more classical style.  Thus this head can be related to Cleopatra VII, although the lack of a diadem indicates it cannot be a portrait of the queen herself." - Adria Brown, Yale University, Class of 2015 

If you enjoyed this post, never miss out on future posts by following me by email!

The Anthropological Implications of Laconian Art

When scholars seek to show the role of Spartan austerity in the evolution of artistic production, they often limit themselves to objects of luxury and high prestige, supposedly condemned by the egalitarian civic ideology of the homoioi.  This raises the question, then,  of who among Spartan citizens actually produced the art.  Did Spartan citizens participate or was the art produced by the "perioikoi," a group of residents, sometimes referred to as mercenaries, living within the body of Lacedaemonians but not equal to Spartiates and yet distinct from the oppressed helots. Classicist Conrad M. Stibbe thinks we should also consider a third possibility, that Laconian art production was not a privilege of one social class or another but rather a branch of artistic industry open to all inhabitants of Laconia, whether free, less free, or unfree.

Stibbe poses that archaic Sparta of the seventh and sixth centuries BCE was an open society in which artists of all kinds could freely move and produce whatever art objects they wished with no other social restrictions than those which applied to all other aristocratic societies of Greece at the time. In the latter half of the sixth century to the middle of the fifth century, however, a hero-cult developed in Laconia and began to be reflected in both sculpture and vase painting.

Among distinctive art objects produced in Laconia were both hand and stand mirrors.  Sixth century mirrors feature figures associated with religious ritual while figural decoration of the fifth century are less religious in character.  Sixth century mirrors are embellished with sculptures of prepubescent girls wearing ritual sashes or gymnastic garb sometimes with castanets identifying them as temple dancers, acrobats or officiants possibly connected with shrines such as Artemis Orthia's in Sparta or robed, powerful women with idealized features whose bearing and attributes, including doves, pomegranates, sirens, and sphinxes, identify them as goddesses,  such as Aphrodite in the form of the Oriental Earth Mother, or priestesses.  Were these, then, produced by craftsmen employed in religious sanctuaries, or individuals otherwise exalted but separate from the aristocratic power structure? 

In the fifth century BCE, however, the idealized features were replaced with individualized women accompanied by an assortment of creatures such as rabbits, roosters, dogs, frogs and foxes around the rim or on the base.  Art historian Lenore O. Keene Congdon thinks this evolution appears to point toward owners that were preoccupied with love, beauty, and all that Aphrodite represented. Complex stand mirrors produced during this time required experts in miniature sculpting as well as casting and joining separately casted pieces, up to fifteen or more in a single mirror.  Mirror disks were also precisely crafted - convex on the front and concave on the back to make enlarging or diminishing images. This all points to a non-warrior, highly trained social class no longer associated with religious centers but was probably not part of the hero-worshiping, martial elites.

By the late fifth century, though, possibly as a result of the financial drain of the Peloponnesian Wars, these complex mirrors disappeared and were replaced by more utilitarian handleless box mirrors decorated with less demanding repoussé motifs. These mirrors proliferated throughout the Hellenistic period and even through the Roman period. This makes you wonder if the social class of highly-skilled craftsmen also diminished, perhaps due to a new emphasis on military service.

 

Bronze mirror with a support in the form of a nude girl, Laconian, 2nd half of the 6th century B.C.E. at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The girl stands on a curled-up lion, and griffins springing from her shoulders help support the mirror disk. She holds a pomegranate in her left hand and is nude except for a necklace and a strap from which hang a crescent-shaped amulet and a ring. Her nudity and the animals that surround her bring to mind images of the Mistress of Animals, an ancient Near Eastern deity who contributed characteristics to two Olympian goddesses, Aphrodite and Artemis. As a mirror handle, the figure may simply evoke the powers of Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty; alternatively, she might be connected with Artemis Orthia, whose cult was important at the Laconian city of Sparta.

Bronze mirror support in the form of a nude girl, Laconian, ca. 540–530 B.C.E. at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.  The girl stands on a frog, and the traces of feline feet at her shoulders must have belonged to animals that helped in the support of the mirror disk. She wears a band decorated with a ring and amulets and holds cymbals in her hands. 

Bronze mirror of the Caryatid type, from ancient city of Halieis, 490-470 BC. Archaeological Museum of Nafplion courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Zde (digitally enhanced)

Greek mirror possibly from Sicyon, 470-460 BCE, at the Cleveland Museum of Art courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Daderot.

Mirror with Siren, about 450-400 BCE, Greek, Locri Epizephirii, necropolis, Lucifero district, bronze at the Cleveland Museum of Art courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Daderot.

Box mirror cover with relief of Pan late 4th century BCE at the Metropolitan Museum of Art courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Greek mirror depicting Aphrodite (?) with flanking Erotes (cupids) said to be from an Etruscan tomb 465-450 BCE Bronze that I photographed at the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City Missouri

The handle of this mirror is the goddess Aphrodite, a logical choice for an object where beauty is the central theme. The goddess is accompanied by two flying Erotes, gods of love. Surrounding the mirror flowers and pigeons adorn it, they are symbols befitting Aphrodite. Bronze, Peloponnesus (?), c. 460 BCE (inv. 566) at the Allard Pierson Museum courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Dick Osseman.

Greek mirrors and handle attachments from the mid 5th century BCE. 7565- Bronze statuette of a female figurine wearing a heavy tunic (peplophoros). From the sanctuary of Demeter and Kore Karpophorol at Agios Sostis, Arcadia. Probably represents Artemis with a torch. Peloponnesian work with attic influence. About 450-425 BCE. National Archaeological Museum, Athens, Greece. --- 6197. Bronze statuette of a female figurine wearing a heavy tunic (peplophoros). From Elis. The figure supported a mirror. Argive workshop. About 455 BCE. 15226. Bronze mirror. Provenance unknown. The mirror is supported by a female figurine wearing a heavy tunic (peplophoros) with a bird. Figurines of cocks and a hare at the top of the disk. Local variant of the Argive-Corinthian type. About 470-460 BCE. --- 12449. Bronze mirror. From Ioannina. The mirror is supported by a female figurine wearing a heavy tunic (peplophoros) with a bird. Disk with attached figurines of a hare and a dog. Work of a Corinthian workshop. About 465-460 BCE. At the National Archaeological Museum in Athens courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Tilemahos Efthimiadis (digitally enhanced).

If you enjoyed this post, never miss out on future posts by following me by email!

"Emerging" Aphrodite

This morning while searching for additional information about rare Roman funerary cippi recovered on Cyprus, I stumbled across this little figurine of "emerging" Aphrodite in the collections of the Museum of Cycladic Art. The reason it caught my attention is the pose is strikingly similar to the fresco of Venus in the triclinium of the House of the Prince of Naples that I studied earlier this year.  At the time, I was  wondering why the fresco was identified as Venus (Aphrodite) when the other main fresco in the room was identified as Bacchus (Dionysus), since Ariadne was the consort of Dionysus, not Venus.  Dr. Wallace-Hadrill had patiently explained to me that the goddess in the triclinium was identified as Venus because she is depicted wringing the sea water from her hair as described in Greek mythology (Hesiod's "Theogony" to be exact) but up until now I had never seen other ancient artwork with Venus in that particular pose.

According to the museum, the emerging Aphrodite was a common theme up to about the 1st century BCE, corresponding with the period leading up to Pompeii's destruction. The museum points out that, although Aphrodite was represented in Greek art as early as the 5th century BCE, the "emerging" Aphrodite was a creation of the Hellenistic period rather than the Classical period.

 "Some scholars believe that the type derives its origin from a famous painting of the emerging Aphrodite by the painter Apellis in the Asclepieion of Kos (second half of the 4th century BCE), which, like the pragmatic statue of Cnidia Aphrodite, is mentioned in innumerable ancient sources and seems to have contributed to the formation of a new model of female beauty in Hellenistic times. It is, after all, clear that the erotic dimension of Aphrodite emerges only during the Hellenistic period, when the naked depictions of the goddess increase and the word "Aphrodite" becomes synonymous with the erotic encounter. This fact is probably connected with an improvement of the social position of the woman and her release from the conservatism of the strictly male-dominated cities of the Classical era but also of classical art, which based its aesthetics on the worship of the male body." - Museum of Cycladic Art, Athens, Greece.

So the depiction of "emerging" Venus in the House of the Prince of Naples was not a questionable mismatch of consorts that I initially perceived as the less educated choice of art made by a merchant class resident seeking to project a more elite status, but simply a reflection of Pompeii's earlier Greek influence.  Sigh...so much to learn about ancient art and so little time!! 

 

Fresco of Emerging Venus (Aphrodite) in the summer triclinium of the House of the Prince of Naples in Pompeii.

Terracotta  Figurine of "Emerging" Aphrodite, Hellenistic 200 BCE - 1 BCE courtesy of the Museum of Cycladic Art, Athens, Greece.

If you enjoyed this post, never miss out on future posts by following me by email!

Social Integration in Roman Period Egypt

 The social structure in Aegyptus under the Romans was both unique and complicated. On the one hand, the Romans continued to use many of the same organizational tactics that were in place under the leaders of the Ptolemaic period. At the same time, the Romans saw the Greeks in Aegyptus as “Egyptians”, an idea that both the native Egyptians and Greeks would have rejected. To further compound the whole situation, Jews, who themselves were very Hellenized overall, had their own communities, separate from both Greeks and native Egyptians.

The Romans began a system of social hierarchy that revolved around ethnicity and place of residence. The Augustan takeover introduced a system of compulsory public service, which was based on poros (property or income qualification), which was wholly based on social status and power. Other than Roman citizens, a Greek citizen of one of the Greek cities had the highest status, and a rural Egyptian would be in the lowest class. In between those classes was the metropolite, who was almost certainly of Hellenic origin. Gaining citizenship and moving up in ranks was very difficult and there were not many available options for ascendancy. 

One of the routes that many followed to ascend to another caste was through enlistment in the army. Although only Roman citizens could serve in the legions, many Greeks found their way in. The native Egyptians could join the auxiliary forces and attain citizenship upon discharge.

Although Alexandria enjoyed the greatest status of the Greek cities in Egypt, it is clear that the other Greek cities, such as Antinoopolis, enjoyed privileges very similar to the ones seen in Alexandria and the Romans looked to Greek elites  to provide municipal officers and well-educated administrators. In contrast, the native Egyptians were treated as a conquered race.

Prior to Roman conquest, the Hellenistic Ptolemies identified Egyptian deities with their own. This continued after Roman annexation. The cult of Isis appealed even to Greeks and Romans outside Egypt, and in Hellenized form it spread around the Mediterranean and eventually across the Roman Empire. The result was the creation of hybrid deities such as those depicted on this "good luck" bracelet crafted in Roman Egypt in the late 1st century BCE or 1st century CE. 

The first known temple to Isis in Greece was built during or before the fourth century BCE by Egyptians living in Athens. Isis's cult reached Italy and the Roman sphere of influence at some point in the second century BCE.  It was one of many cults that were introduced to Rome as the Roman Republic's territory expanded in the last centuries BCE. Authorities in the Republic tried to define which cults were acceptable and which were not, as a way of defining Roman cultural identity amid the cultural changes brought on by Rome's expansion. In Isis's case, shrines and altars to her were set up on the Capitoline Hill, at the heart of the city, by private persons in the early first century BCE. 

The independence of her cult from the control of Roman authorities made it potentially unsettling to them. In the 50s and 40s BCE, when the crisis of the Roman Republic made many Romans fear that peace among the gods was being disrupted, the Roman Senate destroyed these shrines, although it did not ban Isis from the city outright.

Egyptian cults faced further hostility during the Final War of the Roman Republic (32–30 BCE), when Rome, led by Octavian, the future emperor Augustus, fought Egypt under Cleopatra VII. After Octavian's victory, he banned shrines to Isis and Serapis within the pomerium, the city's innermost, sacred boundary, but allowed them in parts of the city outside the pomerium, thus marking Egyptian deities as non-Roman but acceptable to Rome. Despite being temporarily expelled from Rome during the reign of Tiberius (14–37 CE), the Egyptian cults gradually became an accepted part of the Roman religious landscape. The Flavian emperors in the late first century CE treated Serapis and Isis as patrons of their rule in much the same manner as traditional Roman deities such as Jupiter and Minerva.

Image: Bracelet with Agathodaimon, Isis-Tyche, Aphrodite, and Thermouthis, 1st century B.C.E.–1st century CE, Roman Period at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  

"Powerful talismans of fertility and good destiny are woven into this rich golden composition. The bodies of two snakes intertwine to form a Herakles knot, the centerpiece of this bracelet. The snake on the left represents Agathodaimon, and the cobra on the right Thermouthis, two agrarian/fertility deities associated with Serapis and Isis, respectively. On the platform between them stand two goddesses, Isis-Tyche (or Isis-Fortuna), a deity closely associated with Alexandria, and the nude Aphrodite." - Metropolitan Museum of Art

If you enjoyed this post, never miss out on future posts by following me by email!

Aphrodite of the East - A warrior love goddess

The cult of Aphrodite in Greece was imported from, or at least influenced by, the cult of Astarte in Phoenicia, which, in turn, was influenced by the cult of the Mesopotamian goddess known as "Ishtar" to the East Semitic peoples and as "Inanna" to the Sumerians. Pausanias states that the first to establish a cult of Aphrodite were the Assyrians, followed by the Paphians of Cyprus and then the Phoenicians at Ascalon. The Phoenicians, in turn, taught her worship to the people of Cythera.

Aphrodite took on Inanna-Ishtar's associations with sexuality and procreation. Furthermore, she was known as Ourania, which means "heavenly", a title corresponding to Inanna's role as the Queen of Heaven. Early artistic and literary portrayals of Aphrodite are extremely similar on Inanna-Ishtar. Like Inanna-Ishtar, Aphrodite was also a warrior goddess. The second-century CE Greek geographer Pausanias records that, in Sparta, Aphrodite was worshipped as Aphrodite Areia, which means "warlike". He also mentions that Aphrodite's most ancient cult statues in Sparta and on Cythera showed her bearing arms. Modern scholars note that Aphrodite's warrior-goddess aspects appear in the oldest strata of her worship and see it as an indication of her Near Eastern origins. 

Nineteenth century classical scholars had a general aversion to the idea that ancient Greek religion was at all influenced by the cultures of the Near East, but, even Friedrich Gottlieb Welcker, who argued that Near Eastern influence on Greek culture was largely confined to material culture, admitted that Aphrodite was clearly of Phoenician origin. The significant influence of Near Eastern culture on early Greek religion in general, and on the cult of Aphrodite in particular, is now widely recognized as dating to a period of orientalization during the eighth century BCE, when archaic Greece was on the fringes of the Neo-Assyrian Empire.

Image: A sensuous bronze figurine of Aphrodite from a mirror or oil lamp thought to be from Roman Syria, 4th-6th century CE.  that I photographed at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri in 2016.

If you enjoyed this post, never miss out on future posts by following me by email!

Eros and Psyche: Love and the betrayal of trust

Although we often see Eros, Roman Cupid, depicted as a chubby little winged child, he was also prominently portrayed in ancient literature as the adult husband of Psyche.  The longstanding folktale, codified in Apuleius' Latin novel, The Golden Ass, relates a quest for love and trust between Eros and Psyche. Aphrodite was jealous of the beauty of the mortal princess Psyche, as men were leaving her altars barren to worship a mere human woman instead, and so Aphrodite commanded her son Eros, the god of love, to cause Psyche to fall in love with the ugliest creature on earth. But instead, Eros falls in love with Psyche himself and spirits her away to his home. Their fragile peace is ruined by a visit from Psyche's jealous sisters, who cause Psyche to betray the trust of her husband. Wounded, Eros leaves his wife, and Psyche wanders the Earth, looking for her lost love. Eventually, she approaches Aphrodite and asks for her help. Aphrodite imposes a series of difficult tasks on Psyche, which she is able to achieve by means of supernatural assistance. After successfully completing these tasks, Aphrodite relents and Psyche becomes immortal to live alongside her husband Eros. Together they had a daughter, Voluptas or Hedone (meaning physical pleasure, bliss), the basis for our word hedonistic.

Aphrodite, Eros and Pan, 1st century BCE at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor zde.

 Eros (Cupid) and Psyche at the Metropolitan Museum of Art by Antonio Canova, 1794, courtesy of the museum.

If you enjoyed this post, never miss out on future posts by following me by email!

Isis-Aphrodite, Roman symbols of fertility and rebirth in the Second Century CE

Isis-Aphrodite is a form of the great goddess Isis that emphasizes the fertility aspects associated with Aphrodite. She was concerned with marriage and childbirth and, following very ancient pharaonic prototypes, also with rebirth. Figures depicting this goddess are found in both domestic and funerary contexts. Popular already in the 3rd to 2nd centuries B.C., they continued to be made in Roman times. Dating technology places these pieces in the Roman period. These statuettes were created between 161 - 180 CE and are thought to be possibly reflecting the image of Empress Faustina Minor, wife of Marcus Aurelius. Statuettes with a vulture cap have been found in both Egypt and Syria. Images courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Isis-Aphrodite resembling the Roman Empress Faustina Minor, wife of Marcus Aurelius, 1st - 2nd century CE Egypt

Isis-Aphrodite with vulture cap that resembles Roman Empress Faustina Minor wife of Marcus Aurelius 161-180 CE Egypt

If you enjoyed this post, never miss out on future posts by following me by email!