0349ANCIENTDionysos_Naples

0349ANCIENTDionysos_Naples

Homeric Hymn to Dionysos (26)
higher-res image

Bacchus and Vesuvius, from Pompeii, House of the Centenary (IX, 8, 6), Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli, inv. no. 112286

Debate continues over the attribution of the mountain — is it Vesuvius or Nyssa? The fresco was cut from the lararium of the Pompeian house, which may have had this perspective of the volcanic mountain before the eruption. Iconography, though, is fascinating here — Dionysos/Bacchus is clad in a cluster of wine-grapes and pours a libation which the leopard eagerly laps up; plus the long thyrus in the god's left hand suggests his prowess in this setting, where the vineyards climb the slope the powerful god treads.

Ancient Roman fresco depicting Dionysus, a mountain, birds, and a snake, likely from Pompeii or Herculaneum

The cluster-clad depiction of the divinity is reminiscent of the Ephesian Artemis, also in Naples.

OGCMA slides are designed by Roger T. Macfarlane for use in Classical Civilization 241 courses at Brigham Young University.
The present resource contains information assembled for The Oxford Guide to Classical Mythology in the Arts, 1300 - 1990's, edited by J. Davidson Reid (Oxford 1994), and it is used with express permission from Oxford University press.
Address concerns or inquiries to macfarlane@byu.edu.