Marble inscribed statue base

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The base is said to have been found near Rome, but the inscription is in Greek. It records the dedication of a statue in honor of Pompeia Agrippinilla, a priestess, which was erected by fellow members of the Bacchic cult to which she belonged. Listed are more than three-hundred Greek personal names, together with some seventy Roman names; about one-third of the total are those of women. The names seem to represent all levels of society, from senatorial rank to slaves, and are ordered according to status and function in the cult. Their titles give some indication of the size and complexity of an ancient sacred procession. They include a leader (possibly dressed up as Bacchus), priests and priestesses, bearers of images of the god, bearers of mystic baskets, cowherds, torch bearers, a phallos bearer, a flame bearer, an instructor, men and women dressed in skins of newly sacrificed animals, sacred cave guards, and large numbers of followers called Bacchoi and Bacchai.

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