0114ANCIENTAphrodite_Ludovisi

0114ANCIENTAphrodite_Ludovisi

Terras website
Plato Symposium 181a-e

The Ludovisi Throne, ca. 460 BC (?), Museo Nazionale Altemps, Rome

This much-disputed artifact may a 19th-century forgery, for many artistic anomalies trouble some scholars still.

The "throne" is a hollowed block of marble — the interior face carved to form a sort of love-seat sized bench, the outer faces exhibiting a sculpture program in relief. One interpretation is that the Throne exhibits three aspects of Aphrodite's existence: her birth, and her two constrasting sides, as presented by Plato in the Symposium, namely Aphrodite Ourania ("celestial") and Aphrodite Pandemos ("popular").

Click highlights for hi-res:

Upper left: right side shows a nude hetaira (courtesan) playing an aulos while seated on soft cushions. Aphrodite Pandemos?

Upper center (good source!) shows the relationship of the back panel to the right side panel.

Upper right: left side shows a a pious woman draped, head-covered, seated on cushions and sprinkling incense on a small flame in a thymaterion. Aphrodite Ourania?

Lower image: On the back of the Ludovisi Throne two attendants stand on a pebbled shore and hold a drape in front of a woman they are assisting. Aphrodite Anadyomene ("rising up")?

OGCMA slides are designed by Roger T. Macfarlane for use in Classical Civilization 241 courses at Brigham Young University and other contexts.
This resource contains information assembled for The Oxford Guide to Classical Mythology in the Arts, and it is used with express permission from Oxford University Press.
Address concerns or inquiries to macfarlane@byu.edu.