Marble grave relief with a funerary banquet and departing warriors

Marble grave relief with a funerary banquet and departing warriors

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Two brothers, sons of Apollonios, are represented in both reliefs, and their names are inscribed below. They are shown in a manner associated with hero worship. The ancient Greeks devised a category of powerful demigods known as heroes, who were not unlike Christian saints. Local cults flourished at the tombs of certain deceased men who were thought to exert power for good or evil from their grave. During the Classical period, votive reliefs dedicated to such heroes often represented them on horseback or dining at a funerary banquet. The reliefs on this grave monument drew on such imagery and thus enhanced the memory of the deceased brothers.

Greek and Roman Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Marble grave relief with a funerary banquet and departing warriorsMarble grave relief with a funerary banquet and departing warriorsMarble grave relief with a funerary banquet and departing warriorsMarble grave relief with a funerary banquet and departing warriorsMarble grave relief with a funerary banquet and departing warriors

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.