Themes in Roman Wall Painting

Comparison with Greek Vases

Wall Paintings

• Unique representations

• Different moment in time in a popular myth

• Different emotion feel

• Landscape emphasis

• Medium affects portrayal

Unique Representation

• Telephus story

• Telephus suckling fawn

• Herakles, his Dad, watching

• Personification of Arcadia, the region of Greece where it happened

• The eagle of Zeus

Herakles and Omphale

• Herakles dressed in women’s clothing

• Tied down by cupids• Regal amusement of

Omphale

Cupids, again

• Story adapted to include the Romans favorite figure, the cupid.

• Humor in tiny winged figures of love subduing the enslaved Herakles.

Different moment in time

• Theseus and the Minotaur

• Hero of the people• Some pity for the

minotaur• Landscape - gates of

the city.

Minotaur

• Minotaur relegated to a subsidiary position.

• Innocence of children in contrast to the beast

• Central heroic nudity of Theseus

Different emotion feel

• Pensive Medea instead of vengeful

• Light and shadow in the room

• Children still playing

• Paidagogos worried.

Landscape emphasis

• Sack of Troy• Greeks stole the cult

statue of Athena, the Palladium

• Theft is subsidiary to the grand landscape of trees, altars, temples.

Medium changes portrayal

• Sacrifice of Iphigenia

• Shamed priest

• Statuette of Artemis

• Iphigenia held by attendants

• Pensive Agamemnon

• Replacement deer in the sky