0655ANCIENTMeleagerCalydonianBoarHunt_DoriaPamphiliSarcophagus

0655ANCIENTMeleagerCalydonianBoarHunt_DoriaPamphiliSarcophagus

Ovid Met. 8.268-444
Apollodorus Libr. 1.8.1-3

The Meleager Sarcophagus, ca. AD 180-190, Galleria Doria Pamphili, Rome.

Meleager features in the center of the Calydonian Boar Hunt, a heroic figure surrounded by heroes. The sarcophagus lid also shows a procession associated with Meleager's fatal wounding.

"The deceased is praised not only for his beauty and courage, which are comparable to those of Meleager; it also shows that he, like Meleager, was overtaken by cruel death, a fate met even by the great heroes of the past." (Zanker & Ewald, Living with Myths, p. 364).

"The theme of the dying hero whose fated death is mourned by his companions combined with the sorrowing mother [Althaea/Mary] forms a natural prototype for the Christian scene of the Deposition of Christ. [Cf. Titan's Entombment of Christ, Louvre, Louis XIV 749.]" (McCann, Roman Sarcophagi in the MMA, p. 65.)

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.