Terracotta head of Dionysos

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Dionysos, god of wine and the pleasures it can bring, was extremely popular during the Hellenistic and Roman periods. The Greek kings who ruled the lands conquered by Alexander the Great took him as patron deity, and the Romans, impressed by the luxury and wealth of those kingdoms, filled their private villas with images of the god. Dionysos could be shown either as an elderly bearded man, the perfect drinking companion, or as a beautiful youth.

Greek and Roman Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Museum's collection of Greek and Roman art comprises more than thirty thousand works ranging in date from the Neolithic period (ca. 4500 B.C.) to the time of the Roman emperor Constantine's conversion to Christianity in A.D. 312. It includes the art of many cultures and is among the most comprehensive in North America. The geographic regions represented are Greece and Italy, but not as delimited by modern political frontiers: Greek colonies were established around the Mediterranean basin and on the shores of the Black Sea, and Cyprus became increasingly Hellenized. For Roman art, the geographical limits coincide with the expansion of the Roman Empire. The department also exhibits the art of prehistoric Greece (Helladic, Cycladic, and Minoan) and pre-Roman art of Italic peoples, notably the Etruscans.

Metropolitan Museum of Art