Grave relief of Sempronius Marcellinus in Savaria

Gesztelyi, Tamás (2015) Grave relief of Sempronius Marcellinus in Savaria. Acta Archaeologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, 66 (1). pp. 175-182. ISSN 0001-5210

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Abstract

The grave relief of Sempronius Marcellinus in Savaria does not show the scene of abreptio Helenae — as thinks Z. Kádár — but rather the painful moment of Eriphyle’s fateful decision followed by Amphiaraus’s leave (profectio). The closest conceptual analogy of the scene can be found on the Phaedra-sarcophagus with the difference that the fateful decision is made by the man there, not by the woman. Instead of the multi-figure scene of the sarcophagi here the three-figure composition, together with the figures in the background, can compress the entire story, enabling a complex semantic interpretation. This meaning is fateful separation and praise of the deceased person. Sempronius Marcellinus, who had ordered the tombstone, placed himself in the role of Amphiaraus while his wife in that of Eriphyle. But the representation of their relationship is obviously not the expression of betrayal but of pain felt over eternal separation.

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