The Partial Historians 🏺

Totally, I may have tried to wriggle it into today because it was on my mind 😉

The scene is thought to relate to the great wrath that fractured the friendship of Leto and Niobe. Niobe praised her own children and mocked Leto’s. Leto wasn’t having it and asked her children (Apollo and Artemis no less) to take revenge. Ileira and Aglaia play without seeming to realise the tragedy that is about to befall them. This fresco is signed by Alexander of Athens in the upper left corner and is now held in the MAN Napoli (inv. 9562). While only the outlines remain today, the remains of paint suggest this was originally a richly polychromic scene.

⭐️The knucklebone players⭐️

This #FrescoFriday we travel to Herculaneum. The scene has been labelled revealing Phoebe (the Titan) trying to pacify Leto (her daughter) and Niobe; on the ground two of the Niobids, Ileira and Aglaia play knucklebones.

#AncientRome #AncientBluesky🏺

Strawberries is my intuition. Delicious!

Image: Coin of Syracuse of Dionysius I: 405-367 BCE (Obverse) with the head of the Nymph Arethusa between the dolphins; Quadriga and weapons (Reverse) – Naples, Archaeological Museum. Courtesy of Carlo Raso on Flickr.

🌟Brand New Episode – A Campaign in No Way Memorable🌟

392 BCE, the year that went down in history for “a campaign in no way memorable”. Ah, that Livy, he paints quite a picture, doesn’t he? We take you through the campaign in question…

#AncientBluesky🏺 #AncientRome #Podcast🎙️

Description from the Met: “Demeter, the goddess of agricultural abundance, stands at the left, clad in a peplos and himation (cloak) and holding a scepter. At the right is Persephone, her daughter and the wife of Hades, the god of the underworld. She is dressed in a chiton and himation. Each goddess extends her right hand toward a nude youth, but it is no longer possible to determine what they held. The boy is thought to be Triptolemos, who was sent by Demeter to teach men how to cultivate grain. The original marble relief was found at the sanctuary of Demeter at Eleusis. The original Greek work and a number of Roman copies survive. Here the ten Roman fragments are embedded in a cast of the Greek relief.“

🏛️ Fragments of the Great Eleusinian Relief🏛️

This #ReliefWednesday we travel to the sanctuary of Demeter at Eleusis via Rome. These Augustan era fragments create a scene of Demeter and Persephone with Triptolemos, who was sent by Demeter to teach men how to cultivate grain.

#AncientBluesky🏺

Description from the Met: “Demeter, the goddess of agricultural abundance, stands at the left, clad in a peplos and himation (cloak) and holding a scepter. At the right is Persephone, her daughter and the wife of Hades, the god of the underworld. She is dressed in a chiton and himation. Each goddess extends her right hand toward a nude youth, but it is no longer possible to determine what they held. The boy is thought to be Triptolemos, who was sent by Demeter to teach men how to cultivate grain. The original marble relief was found at the sanctuary of Demeter at Eleusis. The original Greek work and a number of Roman copies survive. Here the ten Roman fragments are embedded in a cast of the Greek relief.“

🏛️ Fragments of the Great Eleusinian Relief🏛️

This #ReliefWednesday we travel to the sanctuary of Demeter at Eleusis via Rome. These Augustan era fragments create a scene of Demeter and Persephone with Triptolemos, who was sent by Demeter to teach men how to cultivate grain.

#AncientBluesky🏺

Oooo yay!!

Image is the logo for Betwixt the Sheets in yellow, red, and purple with text below which reads, “Catch Dr G in conversation with Dr Kate Lister to talk all things Vestals!”

Talk about the Vestal Virgins? Dr G is in! Catch the conversation over on Betwixt the Sheets 🥳

I was super excited to chat all things Vestals with Dr Kate Lister! Be warned, some of the stories are wild 😉

#AncientRome #AncientBluesky

Oooo interesting!

No apologies needed - this is a great theory!

Ooo yes I see what you mean - often carnations are used for this kind of thing

One certainly wonders!

Mosaic shows a marine scene populated by various fish, shellfish, and what looks like a bull in the lower left corner. Two angry looking dolphins appear to swim near the central figure, a goddess nude except for jewellery and holding a substantial rope.

This #MosaicMonday we travel metaphorically to the Bardo Museum in Tunis to see this beautiful marine scene with what looks to be a goddess holding a rope. I’m not familiar with this iconography, so if you know what’s going on here, I’d love to learn more.

#AncientRome #AncientBluesky🏺

Oooo thank you!

It’s a mystery to me! I’m baffled about what actually be going here. Actors? Muses? It seems like it could be something else entirely, but what I’m not sure…

Image description: The seated figure with spectre and sword has sometimes been identified as an actor (after a show). They watch a female figure (possibly a Muse) writing something on the base of a tragic mask, in the background a second female figure (another Muse?). This fresco was found at Herculaneum, Insula orientalis II, palaestra, room III. It is now held in the MAN Napolu, inventory number 9019.

🎨The act of painting🎨

This #FrescoFriday we travel to Herculaneum and this intriguing scene. A figure with a sceptre and sword watches a female figure (potentially a Muse) who appears to paint something underneath a tragic mask...

#AncientRome #AncientBluesky🏺

Correct!

That’s #FannyFriday to you, sir!

The gift shop at Pompeii should have something similar. I’ve seen some lovely replica ones for sale in Rome as well 😉

This beauty has a phallic head, wings, its own phallus, and you can see a curved phallic tail as well, just for good measure. This example is held by the Museum August Kestner in Hanover, inventory no. 1999.3.

🍆 #PhallusThursday has arrived in all its bronze glory 🍆

This phallic creature was most likely a tintinnabulum (wind chime) as we can see the loops on the bottoms of its legs to support chains with bells. As always we wish you great good fortune!

#AncientRome #History #AncientBluesky🏺

Clearly someone in the digital side of publishing needs to step up

Just need the relief evidence to confirm 😅

The film that has it all!

Details from Mark B. Abbe, Tuna Şare Ağtürk 2019. “The new corpus of painted Imperial Roman marble reliefs from Nicomedia: a preliminary report on polychromy” Techne 48: “Having both descended from their flanking purple chariots, for all of their similitudo,they are clearly and emphatically differentiated, not only in their standing height and the height of their flying Nikai, but also, conspicuously, in their hair color: the taller, elder greeting emperor at left (Diocletian) has a light gray brown color, while the emperor at right (Maximian) has a remarkably different red hue.”

💜The embracing emperors💜

Diocletian and Maximian are shown in unified leadership of the Roman empire this #ReliefWednesday. Both have stepped down from their chariots to greet each other.

#AncientRome #AncientBluesky🏺

The trouble with being the largest mosaic 😉 I do like the engravings too!

Endnotes are what publishers ask for just to punish us I’m sure 😤

Artemis (the Roman Diana), or a Roman lady with divine fantasies, after her bath in a rustic, woodland setting, is the subject of the tondo in relief on the back of this Roman hand mirror. Her cloak is draped over the rocks on which she sits, and she holds the end wrapped around a small hand mirror in her raised left hand, a divine celebration of the uses of the mirror in a Roman household. The landscape in front of her, to the right, recalls the paintings and reliefs from houses around the Bay of Naples before the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79. The quiver of the goddess leans against the base of a garlanded altar with a small herm on top. A second terminal figure, Priapis, the god of gardens and fertility, tilts back while facing to the right on the ledge at the right. The bovine skull in the right foreground suggests the sacrifice after a successful hunt. Art Institute of Chicago (ARTIC) 1985.1042a-b

This golden Roman hand mirror (missing its handle) depicts a naked goddess after her bath in a rustic, woodland setting. You'd expect Aphrodite-Venus, right? Instead, it might be a rare depiction of a naked Artemis-Diana, her quiver propped against the base of an altar. 🏺 1/

2nd c. CE, #ARTIC
📸 me

LARNAX WITH FEMALE FACE, 240-220 BCE. MUSEO DELL'ARTE SALVATA, BATHS OF DIOCLETIAN This third cinerary urn found in an illicit excavation in the locality of S. Donnino outside the Umbrian town of Città della Pieve is much simpler than the other two from the same tomb belonging to the women of the aristocratic Pulfna family. It's a quite simple box in a local tufo whose lid has no effigy of the deceased but is a simple flat slab, on the front of which is a long inscription both incised and painted in red. I can't find a translation of this, but I can make out the name Pulfna on it. The corners of this box are carved like pilasters, and extend below it to make short legs. At centre is a strange female face, carved in an almost childlike way, with bulging eyes, triangular nose, and irregular mouth. She is probably a Medusa, with brown painted hair below an unpainted and jagged crown (?). Two symmetrical S-volutes flank the head, on a painted brown background.

For #SarcophagusSaturday we're back one last time at the #MuseodellArteSalvata at the #BathsofDiocletian in #Rome, to see a strange #Etruscan #cinerary #urn or #larnax saved from the clandestine antiquities market by the #Carabinieri. #AncientBluesky 🏺

Screen cap of my Flickr Photostream. Labeled ‘Stephen Chappell (aka Chapps)’, at the moment I took the pic, it included things like a terracotta figurine of two girls playing ephedrismos, a bronze Roman cavalry parade helmet, a gold Ptolemaic coin, an Egyptian faience vase, etc.

FYI, to anyone interested, I upload all of my high res photos to my Flickr account where they’re organized into albums and tagged with keywords, so they’re easy to search. All free to use, with credit. www.flickr.com/photos/chapp...

I’ll eventually upload my reconstructions! 🏺

I also wish we had freely available high resolution images. This was the best I could get hold of but it’s still not detailed enough when you zoom right in.