An inscription at the center of the lid informs us that this trough-shaped sarcophagus was dedicated to a woman named Arria, who lived fifty years and ten months, by her daughter Aninia Hilara. Arria’s portrait is carved just to the right of the inscription. The story of Endymion is shown in strongly undercut relief on the front of the sarcophagus. In the center, Selene, the moon goddess, alights from her chariot to visit her beloved, the shepherd Endymion, who reclines at the right. Endymion, most beautiful of men, has been granted eternal youth and eternal sleep. A female figure stands over him, pouring out the magic potion of immortality and holding a bunch of sleep-inducing poppies. The scene is flanked on the left end of the sarcophagus by a rising Helios, the sun god, and on the right by a descending Selene, each in a chariot. On the back, a bucolic scene with herdsmen among grazing bulls and unyoked horses is cut in low relief. Allusions to the changeless cycle of nature are combined with a myth of fulfillment through unending sleep.
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Artwork Details
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Title:Marble sarcophagus with the myth of Selene and Endymion
Period:Severan
Date:early 3rd century CE
Culture:Roman
Medium:Marble
Dimensions:H. 28 1/2 in. (72.39 cm)
Classification:Stone Sculpture
Credit Line:Rogers Fund, 1947
Object Number:47.100.4a, b
Found at Ostia in 1825
Matz, Friedrich. 1957. "An Endymion Sarcophagus Rediscovered." Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 15(5): pp. 124–28.
Bandinelli, Ranuccio Bianchi. 1966. Enciclopedia dell'Arte Antica, Classica e Orientale, Vol. 7. p. 311, fig. 394, Rome: Instituto della Enciclopedia Italiana.
Forsyth, William Holmes and The International Confederation of Dealers in Works of Art. 1974. "Acquisitions from the Brummer Gallery." The Grand Gallery at the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Sixth International Exhibition presented by C.I.N.O.A.. p. 4, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
McCann, Anna Marguerite. 1978. Roman Sarcophagi in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. no. 4, pp. 21–22, 24, 36, 39-44, 97,106, 110, 119, 121-22, figs. 35-41, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC). 1986. Vol. 3: Atherion-Eros. "Endymion," p. 734, no. 81, pl. 558, Zürich: Artemis Verlag.
Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1987. Greece and Rome. no. 114, pp. 146–47, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC). 1997. Vol. 8: Thespiades-Zodiacus. "Venus," p. 213, no. 215, pl. 147, Zürich: Artemis Verlag.
Bodel, John P. and Stephen Tracy. 1997. Greek and Latin Inscriptions in the USA : A Checklist. p. 196, Rome: American Academy in Rome.
Stroszeck, Jutta. 1998. Löwen-Sarkophage: Sarkophage mit Löwenköpfen, schreitenden Löwen und Löwen-Kampfgruppen. p. 108 n. 39, pls. 77.4, 113.2, Berlin: Gebr. Mann.
Sorabella, Jean. 2001. "A Roman Sarcophagus and its Patron." Metropolitan Museum Journal, 36: pp. 67–79, figs. 1–5, 8.
Picón, Carlos A. 2007. Art of the Classical World in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Greece, Cyprus, Etruria, Rome no. 456, pp. 391, 494–95, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Zanker, Paul. 2012. "Reading Images without Texts on Roman Sarcophagi." Res: Sarcophagi, 61/62: pp. 170–2, fig. 4.
Zanker, Paul, Seán Hemingway, Christopher S. Lightfoot, and Joan R. Mertens. 2019. Roman Art : A Guide through the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Collection. no. 135, pp. 20, 276–78, 280, fig. 10, New York: Scala Publishers.
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The Museum's collection of Greek and Roman art comprises more than 30,000 works ranging in date from the Neolithic period to the time of the Roman emperor Constantine's conversion to Christianity in A.D. 312.
