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From Grief to Superbia: the Myth of Niobe in Greek and Roman Funerary Art
281-296Views:272The Greek myth of Niobe was known in the ancient world both by literary sources and visual representations. Both in Ancient Greece and in Ancient Rome, the myth was represented, alongside a variety forms of art, in funerary art, but in a different manner during each period of time. In Ancient Greece, the myth was represented on Apulian and South Italian vases, portraying the finale scene of the myth: Niobe’s petrification. In Ancient Rome, a shift is visible: the portrayal of the scene of the killing of Niobe’s children on sarcophagi reliefs. The aim of this paper is to follow the iconography of each culture and to understand the reason for the shift in representation, while comparing the two main media forms.
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Phaedras Brief an Hippolytus: Ovids Brief (Her. 4) in der römischen bildenden Kunst
59–75Views:106Euripides has Paedra write a letter to Theseus in which she accuses Hippolytus of raping her. In the Heroides, Ovid has Phaedra write a letter to Hippolytus which describes her burning love for the young man. In Roman visual arts the story is usually depicted as a nurse handing over a letter to Hippolytus, which he declines. It seems obvious to identify this letter with the one composed by Ovid, i.e., it is this letter that found its way into the visual arts. The contents of the love letter gradually overshadowed the tragic outcome of the story: they represented endless spousal love in sepulchral art.