Terracotta column-krater (bowl for mixing wine and water)

Pig Painter

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Obverse, man offering lyre and ball to boy Reverse, youth Part of a youth's education often came from an older mentor such as this man who offers to a young boy a lyre and a ball. Musical training was an essential part of Athenian education. Students learned to play the lyre, to recite poetry, and to dance.

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