Altar with Dionysian Relief

Roman art

This circular altar, the upper and lower parts of which are restored, is decorated with a relief of figures from the entourage of Dionysus, god of mysteries and drunkenness. First, a bearded faun, with a hairy body and legs like a goat, who is wearing a nebris and holding a short staff and a drinking horn in his hands. The faun is followed by a Maenad, priestess of Dionysus, a satyr, looking back over his shoulder while running, and a second Maenad, who is dancing while playing the castanets. The paraphernalia of the Bacchic cult hanging from the upper border evokes the rural setting typical of rustic sacred rituals. The upper edge is incised with the initials of an unauthentic dedicatory inscription that reads d(e) s(ua) p(ecunia) f(aciendum) c(uravit). The Borghese altar, of unknown provenance, was made during the Imperial period in an Italic workshop that drew on a repertory of models that ranged from the Archaic period to the Hellenistic one.

Object details

Commentary

This Borghese altar is circular in shape and the upper and lower parts are restored. Of unknown provenance, it was already in the Borghese Collection in the sixteenth century and described by Iacomo Manilli and Domenico Montelatici as a base for a statue of Eros displayed in Room II and now in the Louvre. It was installed in Room I as a base for the statue of Aphrodite (restored as Urania) when Camillo Borghese had the collection rehung in the Casino between 1819 and 1832, after it was emptied by the sale of antiquities to Napoleon Bonaparte.

The relief depicts a procession of figures from the thiasus of Dionysus, god of mysteries and the countryside, connected to wine and the vineyard. A bearded faun, deity of the countryside and flocks, with a strong chin, two long horns, a hairy body and legs like a goat, is represented in profile facing right. He is wearing a nebris like a mantle and holds a short, curved stick called a pedum in his right hand and a drinking horn called a rhython in his left. He is followed by a Maenad, priestess of Dionysus, dressed in a chiton and a fluttering himation, a satyr, personification of the natural energies of water, the winds and the forest, looking back over his head while running to the right and holding a torch in his left hand, and, lastly, a second Maenad, who is dancing while playing the castanets. The objects typical of the Bacchic cult (pan pipes, kettledrums and cymbals) are hanging from ribbons between the figures, evoking the rural setting typical of sacred rustic rituals (Dräger 1994; Bacchetta 2005).

The upper edge is incised with the initials off an unauthentic dedicatory inscription that reads d(e) s(ua) p(ecunia) f(aciendum) c(uravit).

During the Imperial period, the Dionysian thiasos, with its symbolic elements and natural setting, became an especially popular theme for various supports, including puteals, sarcophagi and altars, and was sometimes even used to decorate outdoor spaces, like gardens. It quickly turned into a genre subject and allusion to the joy of the dance-filled celebrations held in preparation of the sacrificial ritual and the earthly pleasure offered by Dionysus.

The Borghese altar, which is heavily restored, draws on a repertory of models that range from the Archaic period to the Hellenistic one. Various stylistic considerations, and in particular the handling of the bodies and fluttering mantles, which are similar to those found on sarcophagi decorated with Dionysian themes, standardised products of second-century workshops (see the fragment of a sarcophagus lid in the Farnese Collection, Naples, MANN inv. 6606; Lista 2010, pp. 113–114, no. 42), allow us to date the present altar to the same period.

Jessica Clementi