Fragment of a marble neo-Attic relief with Peitho

Fragment of a marble neo-Attic relief with Peitho

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This fragment shows Peitho, the personification of persuasion, seated on a high pillar with one hand on a dove and the other holding the edge of her himation (cloak). This scene was part of a decorative relief of Helen being persuaded by Aphrodite to leave her husband and go off to Troy with the Trojan prince Paris. The work was produced for the Roman market. A well-preserved Roman relief in the Archaeological Museum of Naples (Mus. Naz. 6682) shows the entire composition with all the names inscribed.

Greek and Roman Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Fragment of a marble neo-Attic relief with PeithoFragment of a marble neo-Attic relief with PeithoFragment of a marble neo-Attic relief with PeithoFragment of a marble neo-Attic relief with PeithoFragment of a marble neo-Attic relief with Peitho

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.