Grave Relief for Tation and Tatianos

A.D. 150–175

Medium

Marble

Dimensions

88.9 × 66 cm

Status

In Museum Collection

Collect24 Art ID

C24-252690

On this grave stele, a man and woman stand side by side within an architectural framework that takes the form of an arch with central and side ornaments (acroteria) supported by pilasters with leaf-decorated capitals. The man at left, wearing armor and boots, holds a whip by the handle. He has wide open eyes and curly hair. The woman’s hair hangs down on either side and curls upward at the ends. She wears a chiton decorated with zig-zags, a mantle draped across her thighs, and also boots. Objects beside them—a vine knife, writing tablets, a mirror, and a comb—serve as attributes for their idealized identities, the man as a soldier-farmer with pretensions to learning, and the woman as a beauty. The flat, frontal figures are characteristic of funerary reliefs from Phrygia (in present-day Turkey), and it is reasonable to interpret these figures as representing husband and wife. The Greek inscriptions at the bottom of the stele, however, reveal a more complex situation. The four lower lines read: “Demetrios and Tation for their sweetest child Tatianos in memory. May whoever lays a hand heavy with [envy] on this grave be struck by a similarly premature blow of fate.” Just above, near …