Relief of Ajax and Cassandra at the Altar of Athena

Roman art

This bas-relief depicts the rape of the Trojan princess, Cassandra, by Ajax in the temple of Athena in Troy, evoked by the pillar on the left and the statue of the goddess, Pallas, on a stepped pedestal. On the left, the hero, nude with the exception of a mantle that flutters in a fan shape behind his back, drags Cassandra towards him. The princess is also identified by the inscription [Cas]SA[ndra]. In a desperate attempt to fight off her attacker, the woman, clinging to the statue with her left arm, lets her mantle and chiton slip off her right shoulder, exposing a breast.

Part of a larger architectural frieze that probably depicted the Iliupersis (the Sack of Troy), the relief was produced in a neo-Attic workshop and inspired by models from Taranto.

Described by Winckelmann in the basement of the Villa in 1797, by 1832 it was reported in Room I.

Object details

Commentary

The ‘beautiful bas-relief’ that J.J. Winckelmann saw in the basement of the Villa in 1797 was probably moved to Room I when Camillo Borghese had the collection rehung in the Palazzina between 1819 and 1832. It is described in the guide published by Antonio Nibby between 1832 and 1838 as used for wall decoration and inserted in a modern frame.

The scene depicted in the relief is only part of a larger frieze, bookended by a pillar on the left and a statue of Athena on the right (the goddess can be identified by the stylised aegis and the staff, now lost, in her right hand) set on a stepped based to evoke a temple interior. The two figures, a man and a woman, are portrayed in a divergent composition. On the left, the man, wearing only a mantle fastened around his neck with a fibula and open like a fluttering fan behind his back, pivots on his left leg while he tries to drag the female figure towards him with both hands. The woman, who is kneeling with her left knee on the steps of the statue pedestal and whose right foot is stepping on that of the man, is desperately turned to the right towards the statue, which she clings to with her left arm, while she tries to fight off her attacker with her right. Her hair is flying in the air and her mantle and chiton have slipped off her right shoulder, exposing one of her breasts.

The two figures have been interpreted as Ajax and Cassandra, the daughter of Priam, king of Troy. This interpretation is supported by the sources and confirmed by the letters ‘SA’ incised between the heads of the two figures, which Nibby recognised as the middle part of the inscription [Cas]sa[ndra]. The scene illustrates an episode from the fall of Troy, when the princess takes refuge in the temple of Athena, pursued by Ajax, and reaches the statue of the goddess (Pallas), seeking protection. But the hero pays no mind, grabbing her and dragging her away.

While the earliest ancient authors considered Ajax’s offence to be his violation of the protection guaranteed by Athena (Iliupersis, 108; Euripides, Troiane 69–71), a version of the myth emerged during the Hellenistic period with a clearly erotic tone, the hero’s abuse now seen as the rape of the young woman, an aspect crystallised in the subsequent literary sources, both Greek and Latin (Lycophron, Alexandra 348–372; Pausanias, 5, 29; Ovid, Metamorphoses 13.408–411). This second version was the inspiration for the iconography of the Borghese relief, imagery that is widely documented in Attic red figure vases (Paoletti 1994, p. 963, nos 111–120; Grilli 2015, pp. 125–127). One example is the Attic red figure kalpis by the Kleophrades Painter in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples, which represents Cassandra nude with the exception of an open mantle, clearly alluding to the rape that will soon take place, while clinging to the statue of Athena, in a vain attempt to escape her sacrilegious abduction by Ajax (MANN inv. 81669, H 2422).

Deep burn marks were revealed when the relief was cleaned, hidden under an artificial patina. The marks are compatible with a fire, which might have destroyed the building where the relief was part of a continuous architectural frieze, probably on the theme of the fall of Troy. Based on comparison with Italiot imagery, there might have been a priestess to the right of the main group (Touchefeu 1981, p. 343 no. 58–59).

The handling of the drapery suggests that the relief might have been made in an Italiot workshop, as it is iconographically and stylistically similar to works from Taranto and Paestum dating to the first half of the fourth century BCE or, more plausibly, a neo-Attic workshop, possibly in Rome, drawing on models from Taranto.

Jessica Clementi