- Luciano Agostiniani –
Figure 22.16 Tarquinia, dipinto on wall, Tomba dell’Orco I (350–325 bc).Figure 22.17 Tarquinia, dipinto on wall, Tomb of the Spitus family, third century bc, fi rst half.Figure 22.18 Cippus in the Tomb of the Reliefs at Caere, fourth century bc, second half.Finally, we consider a special case, the captions that appear in relation to images: mostly
painted on walls of tombs or incised on the backs of mirrors. In the vast majority of cases,
the caption proclaims the name of the person depicted. So, for example, in the Tomb of
Orcus in Tarquinia, dated 325–300 bc (Ta 7.64, 7.66, 7.72, 7.74), we fi nd mentioned
φersipnei “Persephone,” eivas “Ajax,” θese “Theseus,” uθuste “Odysseus” and on the back of
a mirror, also from Tarquinia, of the fourth century bc (Ta S.3) we read apulu “Apollo,”
menrva “Minerva” and hercle “Hercules.” In very few cases, the caption does not relate
to the single character, but to the entire scene, and therefore assumes the structure of a
sentence. Thus in the scene of Herakles nursed by Hera that appears on a mirror of the
fourth-third century bc from Volterra (Vt S.2), the sentence is recorded, eca sren tva iχnac
hercle unial clan θrasce: “this image shows [or similar] how Heracles became (?) the son of
Uni.” And a similar structure seems to be recognized in the sentence eca ersce nac aχrum
fl e rθrce, commenting on the farewell scene between Admetus and Alcestis painted on a
vase of the late fourth century bc from Vulci (Vc 7.38).