- Larissa Bonfante –
Alcestis as a loving couple on their wedding day, fl anked by the symbolic images of their
marriage and their death. A Praenestine mirror represents the reconciliation and perhaps
the marriage of Juno and Heracles, crudely expressed by male and female sexual organs
(Fig. 20.5). Prophecy, frequently represented or alluded to in scenes of preparation for
the marriage, was evidently part of the wedding ritual. We see it on a beautiful mirror
in which Thetis is bathing and adorning herself. As she looks into the mirror, Peleus,
who has just come upon the scene, recoils in horror at the vision he sees there – the tragic
result of their union, the birth of Achilles and the Trojan War (Fig. 20.6).^29
Some of these images might have functioned like modern wedding portraits on the
mantel, recording the formation of the family. The inscriptions that identify the fi gures
are often detached from them, their principal function being apparently to move the
scene to a mythological level, as in an epithalamium, equating the married couple to
divine or heroic lovers. One scene shows Turan, goddess of love, bringing together the
adulterous lovers, Paris and Helen,^30 who are here presented as an ideal couple and an
example for the married pair.
Figure 20.4 Tomb of the Monkey at Chiusi. Deceased woman watching funeral games in her honor.
(MonInst 5, 1849–53, pl. 14–16).Figure 20.5 Bronze mirror, Praenestine. Juno (Iuno) and Heracles (Hercele) approach from either side
Jupiter, who is seated on an altar (Iovei). Juno is fl anked by a female herm, Heracles by a phallus.
New York, Metropolitan Museum. Late fourth or early third century bc.
(Bonfante, 1997, CSE USA 3.7).