Jones, Henry Stuart [Hrsg.]; Palazzo dei Conservatori <Rom> [Hrsg.]: A catalogue of the ancient sculptures preserved in the municipal collections of Rome: the sculptures of the Palazzo dei Conservatori (Text) (Oxford, 1926)

i54

SALA DEGLI ORTI LAMIANI38

taken to pieces at the end of the sixteenth century (Robert ii, p. 132). As
usual in sarcophagi, the two short sides are in somewhat lower relief than
the centre.
On the 1. short side a Greek warrior on foot drags an Amazon by
the hair off her horse, while she endeavours to thrust him back with her r.
hand; behind her in fainter relief a horse is seen violently rearing.
On the front face the first figure on the 1. is a warrior in &xw72z',y and
boots, with arms and head missing, in whom Robert (Ac. <rzh) is probably
right in recognizing the trumpeter, with r. hand raised to the back of his
head, and holding the trumpet to his mouth with his h, who appears in this
place on other more fully preserved examples. Then follows a vigorous
group of a Greek raising his shield against an Amazon who is attacking
him furiously on foot with her double axe; the combat is over the body of
a dead Greek who lies along the ground with hand clenched and face half
revealed. In the centre a Greek, wearing a helmet, half kneels on a dead
comrade and defends himself with shield and sword against a mounted
Amazon in helmet who is charging him with sword or spear. The dead
Greek is lying face downward with his head on his 1. arm. This group
of three is flanked to r. and 1. by a mounted Amazon galloping outward.
The Amazon on the 1. with cAz'Aw slipping from her shoulder turns back
to the centre swinging her double axe. This whole group is separated
from the next on the r. by a gnarled tree-stump. Next towards the r. a
Greek overpowers another Amazon who has sunk to the ground ; he drags
back her r. arm while she raises herb high up with the shield; then, after
another dividing tree, an Amazon gallops towards the r. against an enemy
whose shield is just seen where the fragment breaks away; on the ground
lies a dead Amazon. The r. short side, which is incomplete, displays the
usual group of a Greek warrior with his back towards the spectator
dragging back the head of an Amazon who has sunk on her knee, and
about to dispatch her with his sword. The hind-quarters of her horse
galloping away to 1. are seen in faint relief on the background. The
front of the horse's body is broken away.
The animated composition contains several traditional motives of
the classical Amazonomachies (on this point see Robert, ii, p. 76 k), but
the relief is handled in the Roman pictorial style; the figures are often on
different planes ; an elaborate perspective is attempted : some of the forms
dwindle to a faint relief or even disappear altogether into the background
upon which, however, they may have been indicated by means of colour
now lost. The hair of the warrior in the centre is drilled with deep holes.
Drapery and anatomy are also often heavy and rough. The Amazono-
machy, like other battle scenes, was a favourite theme for the decoration of
sarcophagi, acquiring without doubt a meaning symbolical of the struggles
and battles of the soul.
Ordinary work of the second century A. D.
In the possession of 'Magister Lita alia Valle' in 1612-1g (Dal
Pozzo).
Old drawings: Cod; Coburg., fob 207, no. 207 (the front),
(1871)) P- 492 ; Francchi in Turin, fob 101 (1. side without corner figure, and group
in the middle without the Amazon going to the r.). Restored drawings: Dal Pozzo,
Windsor, xviii, fol. 77 (52), inv. 8070 (the front) ; fol. 82 (49), inv. 8075 (the 1. side) ;
fol. 118 (50), inv. 8111 (the r. side).
Robert, ii, pi. 46, no. 111; Reinach, AVA/i, iii. 179. 1-3.