Marble plaque with funerary inscription

Marble plaque with funerary inscription

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Latin inscription probably comes from a columbarium, a communal chamber tomb. It reads: "To the spirits of the dead. For C. Porcius Dionysius, who lived 8 years, 10 months, and 13 days. C. Porcius Dionysius made [this] for the sweetest of sons." The boy, who was clearly named after his father, died first, exemplifying the high rate of child mortality in antiquity.

Greek and Roman Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Marble plaque with funerary inscriptionMarble plaque with funerary inscriptionMarble plaque with funerary inscriptionMarble plaque with funerary inscriptionMarble plaque with funerary inscription

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.