Retelling Greek Myths on Roman Sarcophagi

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the mythological narratives that decorated Roman sarcophagi of the 2nd to 3rd centuries ce, considering how they might be read and understood within the wider framework of mythography. It considers how they compare to different types of mythography—systematic mythography that collects and organises myths into coherent accounts, and interpretative mythography, which seeks to explain myths by rationalising them, or reading them as allegories of philosophical or ethical truths. These two approaches are first discussed with relation to two different retellings of the myth of Theseus and Ariadne. The chapter then looks at the thematic grouping of myths on sarcophagi before turning to discuss the ways that the mythological narratives of the deaths of Hector and Patroclus were treated differently on sarcophagi produced in different areas of the Roman world. Mythological sarcophagi selected from the wider corpus of myths those which could be particularly related to the funerary context. However, individual retellings could vary between more narrative versions, where the funerary message was left open for the viewer or purchaser to create, to those where the funerary symbolism was more explicitly stated by the use of particular visual techniques such as adding portrait features, or by displaying comparable mythological stories together.