Front of a sarcophagus with a continuous frieze portraying Apollo and the Muses, two sections

Roman art

These two panels, which formed the front of a sarcophagus, are decorated with a continuous frieze depicting eight figures standing in front of a fabric-covered backdrop. Analysis of the iconographic types and attributes allow us to identify some of the nine Muses, daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne (goddess of Memory), divine singers who brought cheer to the assembly of the gods with their music. Starting from the left, we find Polymnia, protector of pantomime, followed by Thalia, protector of comedy and agriculture, who is holding the comic mask in her left hand. She is followed by Melpomene, who holds the tragic mask in her left hand and a club, pointing downward, in her right. The identity of the fourth Muse is unclear. She might be Terpsichore, who oversaw dance, or Erato, protector of lyric poetry. The last Muse on the left panel is Euterpe, Muse of dance and rhythmic singing. The right-hand panel is decorated with the figures of Apollo Musagetes (leader of the Muses), turned into a Calliope, the Muse of history, by a modern restorer, and three Muses that date entirely to a nineteenth-century restoration. The iconographic theme of the Muses, developed in Greece in the Classical period, was especially popular in the Roman world. The Borghese sarcophagus, of unknown provenance, belongs to a large class of funerary monuments, more than 300 of which are known, made for patrons in metropolitan Rome.

Object details

Commentary

Of unknown provenance, these two panels from the front of a rectangular sarcophagus were mentioned for the first time by Antonio Nibby, who described them in Room VIII, set into the walls. Sometime before 1893, they were moved to the Portico, where they are currently displayed.

Defined by a narrow, flat listel at the top and bottom, the panels are decorated with a continuous frieze depicting eight figures standing in front of a backdrop covered with a type of curtain called a parapetasma. Analysis of the iconographic types and attributes allow us to identify some of the nine Muses, daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne (goddess of Memory), divine singers who brought cheer to the assembly of the gods with their music and were evoked by Homer in the Iliad and the Odyssey. Starting from the first panel on the left, we find Polymnia, protector of pantomime, her upper body turned to the left and her right leg crossed over the left, in a meditative pose. Her head, shown in profile, is supported by her right hand. Her hair is parted in the middle and gathered in a braid. She is wrapped in a large mantle that covers her chiton. The next figure is Thalia, to whom the sources attribute the spheres of comedy and agriculture. She is wearing a close-fitting, cut-work theatrical garment that is partially covered by her mantle. She is holding the comic mask in her raised left hand and a, now lost, object in her right. Based on comparison with other sarcophagi, this object might have been a curved stick called a pedum. As for her clothing, this Muse is most often described, starting in the second quarter of the third century, wearing a theatrical garment that might be traceable to the clothing worn by slaves in comedies, Silenes (followers of Dionysus) or courtesans (Panella 1966-1967, pp. 22–23; Schöndorf 1980, pp. 136–139).

The next figure is Melpomene, who presides over tragic poetry. She is wearing a chiton and holds the tragic mask in her left hand close to her face. In her right hand, she holds a club, pointing downward and resting on a small base. The fourth Muse cannot be clearly identified. The lyre, the attribute of Terpsichore, who presides over dance, was heavily restored in the nineteenth century, and might have originally been the cithara of Erato, protector of lyric poetry. The last figure on the left-hand panel is Euterpe, who holds a flute in her right hand. She originally held a second flute in her left hand, traces of which can still be seen on the far left of the second panel. The tibia was a traditional attribute of the Muse of dance and rhythmic singing in the Imperial period.  She was followed, in the exact middle of the composition, by Apollo Musagetes (leader of the Muses), as identified by the lyre, still partly visible in the background, and the laurel crown, but transformed into Calliope, Muse of history, by a nineteenth-century restorer, who added the scroll on the left. The last three figures on the second panel were added during the nineteenth-century restoration, when attributes were freely added to complete the group of Muses with a Urania (?), and, again, Euterpe and Polymnia.

The iconographic theme of the Muses was developed in Greece during the Classical period and came to the Roman world through Hellenistic sources. It enjoyed particular success in Rome in decorative painting, mosaic, sculpture cycles for public and private spaces and, starting in the middle of the second century CE, sarcophagi. The Musensarkophage comprise a vast class of funerary monuments that was extremely popular among patrons in metropolitan Rome. More than 300 survive, divided between strigilated, columnar and frieze sarcophagi. The latter, which form the largest subgroup, were made between the late Hadrianic period and the early fourth century (Paduano Faedo 1981, p. 93; Koch, Sichtermann 1982, pp. 197–200; Koch 1993, pp. 82–83).

In the present example, the canonical choros of Muses is incomplete, probably due to restoration work and the reuse of the panels, but expanded to include the figure of Apollo, the inclusion of whom is frequently attested starting in the last two decades of the second century CE, usually in association with Athena (see Germoni 2010; Teatini 2011, pp.119–129, no. 25). In most of the examples that include Apollo and Athena, the order of the Muses is the same. Whereas in the Borghese relief, the sequence is somewhat irregular.

Analysis of the formal and technical language, with heavy use of the drill to create chiaroscuro effects, and the distinctive double feather worn on the Muses’ heads, a clear reference to their victory over the Sirens (monstrous sea creatures that were half woman, half bird and dared challenge the nine daughters of Mnemosyne, ending up plucked), which began to replace the low diadem in the third century, allow us to date the Borghese sarcophagus to the second quarter of the third century.  Starting in the second half of the third century, the Muses and deities were joined by the deceased, especially on large-scale works of good quality, which presented husband and wife generally sitting at the ends of the front panel, the woman playing the cithara and the man holding a scroll (see Teatini 2011, pp. 129–136, no. 26).

Jessica Clementi