Terracotta Megarian bowl

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

All but one of the figures on this bowl are inscribed. From left to right, the Cretan king Idomeneus attacks Phaistos as he steps into his chariot. To right of this vignette, Athena and Ares sit on rocks, facing a personification of the river Skamandros, while observing a fight between Agammenon and a now nameless Trojan foe. The subject matter on this bowl closely follows an episode in book V of Iliad, in which Athena exhorts Ares, the god of war, to remain neutral during the specific duals of the Trojan conflict that took place between the characters mentioned above. As in Homer's text, the two Olympians observe the fighting from the banks of the river Skamandros, a detail that confirms the subject matter depicted on the bowl.

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