DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.5988#0055
15 FRAGMENT OF GROUP OF EROS AND PSYCHE Plates XIX, XX
H. (maximum) -31 m. B. (maximum) -28 m. Unrestored. Remains of ancient drill-hole under
Psyche's right shoulder. Pentelic marble.
In spite of its mutilation, enough remains of the fragment to show that it represented the
pursuit of Psyche by Eros. The head of Psyche, a portion of her shoulder, her left wing
showing against the left side of Eros, the torso of Eros with part of the wings, and his hand
clutching Psyche's hair are preserved. In its old Roman home, the group had already
attracted considerable attention for its admirable technique and arresting pathos. The
face of Psyche, uplifted in anguish as she feels herself caught in an inexorable grasp,
Fig. 6. Nereid of Ostia (Castello, Ostia)
called to mind the much later group in the Pergamene frieze, of the young giant Enke-
lados striving, as he sinks in death, to loosen Athena's grip upon his locks. It also recalled
the 'companion of Ulysses', seized by the cruel hand of Scylla (head in Palermo, E.V. 556,
cf. Waser in Roscher, s.v. Scylla, Fig. 25), the Laokoon, the bearded Capitoline Centaur,
&c. But all these works were evidently later than the Psyche and more advanced in style
and in the rendering of pathos. On the other hand, the Psyche, when compared to the
Niobe of Florence, seemed to surpass it in intensity of expression, and to be presumably
later. A date mid-way between a fourth-century creation like the Niobe and the Per-
gamenes might, it was thought, be safely assigned to the little group. With the discovery
at Ostia in 1913 of the torso of a Nereid,27 moving forward, with hair streaming, and with
face upturned like Psyche's, towards an assailant now lost, a new point of comparison was
19
H. (maximum) -31 m. B. (maximum) -28 m. Unrestored. Remains of ancient drill-hole under
Psyche's right shoulder. Pentelic marble.
In spite of its mutilation, enough remains of the fragment to show that it represented the
pursuit of Psyche by Eros. The head of Psyche, a portion of her shoulder, her left wing
showing against the left side of Eros, the torso of Eros with part of the wings, and his hand
clutching Psyche's hair are preserved. In its old Roman home, the group had already
attracted considerable attention for its admirable technique and arresting pathos. The
face of Psyche, uplifted in anguish as she feels herself caught in an inexorable grasp,
Fig. 6. Nereid of Ostia (Castello, Ostia)
called to mind the much later group in the Pergamene frieze, of the young giant Enke-
lados striving, as he sinks in death, to loosen Athena's grip upon his locks. It also recalled
the 'companion of Ulysses', seized by the cruel hand of Scylla (head in Palermo, E.V. 556,
cf. Waser in Roscher, s.v. Scylla, Fig. 25), the Laokoon, the bearded Capitoline Centaur,
&c. But all these works were evidently later than the Psyche and more advanced in style
and in the rendering of pathos. On the other hand, the Psyche, when compared to the
Niobe of Florence, seemed to surpass it in intensity of expression, and to be presumably
later. A date mid-way between a fourth-century creation like the Niobe and the Per-
gamenes might, it was thought, be safely assigned to the little group. With the discovery
at Ostia in 1913 of the torso of a Nereid,27 moving forward, with hair streaming, and with
face upturned like Psyche's, towards an assailant now lost, a new point of comparison was
19