Classical Mythology

Dionysus and Ariadne. Marble sarcophagus, ca. 180 A.D.; width 77 in., height (without lid) 20V 2 in., height of lid 11 in. Dionysus approaches
from the left riding on a chariot drawn by a lyre-playing centaur, behind and to the right of whom a centauress blows on a kind of flute.
Before him go Pan and a silenus, and a silenus mask lies on the ground in the left center. A cupid hovers near the god. In the center the
god stands, now clothed in a long robe, holding a reversed thyrsus in his left hand, his right hand resting on the leading silenus. He looks
toward the sleeping Ariadne, whose robe is being drawn aside by a cupid, while two maenads look back at the god. To the right two mae-
nads are about to attack Pentheus. On the lid are reliefs of the god's thiasos, and a deer is being sacrificed to the right. The waking of Ari-
adne to the coming of the god of new life was popular in the funerary art of late antiquity as a parable of the waking of the soul to eter-
nal life after death. This sarcophagus is in a tomb in the cemetery under St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican. It is not known whether its
occupant was pagan or Christian. (Photo courtesy of the Foto Fabbrica di San Pietro.)