This relief sculpture adorns the front of a Roman sarcophagus, or stone coffin. The scene depicts the return of Meleager’s body to Kalydon. When Meleager, the son of the King of Kalydon, was born, the Fates decreed that he would live only so long as the log in the fire at his birth was unconsumed. Meleager’s mother, Althaea, put out the fire and locked the log away in a chest. Years later, when Meleager’s father forgot to sacrifice to Artemis, the goddess of the hunt, she sent a wild boar to ravage the kingdom. The King gathered the heroes of Greece to pursue the boar, and with them sent the maiden Atalanta. The group surrounded the boar, Atalanta wounded the animal, and Meleager killed it. Meleager insisted that the boar’s skin be given to Atalanta, but his uncles refused. In his anger, Meleager killed his uncles. When his mother learned that Meleager had slain her brothers, she flew into a rage and threw the fatal log onto the fire, killing her son. This sculpture shows Meleager’s body being carried back to Kalydon from the scene of the hunt.
The Roman sculptor of this sarcophagus created a sense of space by overlapping the figures and by carving the foreground figures – such as the horses, the kneeling figure, and the woman – in high relief so that they stand out from the surface. The figures in the background, as well as the towers and walls of the city, are carved in lower relief and thus appear to be farther away. In the third century, Roman sculptors begin to depict more emotion. Pathos, a major element in the myth of Meleager, is shown in the figure Althaea, her arms reaching toward the figure of her dead son.
As Rome was much influenced by Greek culture, stories from Greek mythology were commonly depicted on Roman sarcophagi. About A.D. 100, burial rather than cremation became the standard custom in the Roman Empire, and marble and limestone sarcophagi were used to hold the body of the deceased. Roman sarcophagi were usually carved on three sides, with the plain fourth side placed against the wall of the tomb.
Stonecutters mass-produced sarcophagi, which were often decorated with standard scenes of people engaging in domestic activities, symbolic animals, mythological stories, or battle scenes. Sometimes they would leave one figure’s head or a medallion uncarved so that a portrait of the deceased could be added.
