The tabulae iliacae are a series of tablets covered with minuscule relief scenes from the Trojan War, which were evidently inspired by illustrated manuscripts of Homer's epic poem The Iliad. This piece is signed on the back by a Greek artist named Theodoros, to whose workshop all of the surviving examples can be ascribed. He was probably active in Italy, and the tablets show that Homer was as popular with Romans as with Greeks, despite the fact that Virgil's Aeneid, designed to rival the Homeric poems and published by 19 B.C., quickly became the classic work of Latin epic.
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Title:Marble relief fragment with scenes from the Trojan War
Period:Early Imperial, Julio-Claudian
Date:1st half of 1st century CE
Culture:Roman
Medium:Marble, Palombino
Dimensions:7 1/8 x 6 15/16 in., 1.1kg (18.1 x 17.6 cm)
Classification:Stone Sculpture
Credit Line:Fletcher Fund, 1924
Object Number:24.97.11
Probably from Rome (as other fragments with known find-spots come from the “neighborhoods of Rome”)
[Until 1924, with Giovanni Fabiani, Rome]; acquired in January 1924, purchased from Giovanni Fabiani, Rome.
Pinney, Margaret E. 1924. "Miscellaneous Greek and Roman Sculptures." Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 19(10): pp. 240–41, fig. 2.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1927. Handbook of the Classical Collection. pp. 312–13, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Saxl, Fritz. 1931. Mithras: Typengeschichtliche untersuchungen. fig. 123, p. 38, pl. 22, Berlin: Heinrich Keller.
McClees, Helen and Christine Alexander. 1933. The Daily Life of the Greeks and Romans: As Illustrated in the Classical Collections, 5th ed. p. 50, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Weitzmann, Kurt. 1941. "A Tabula Odysseaca." American Journal of Archaeology, 45(2): p. 166.
Bulas, Kazimerz. 1950. "New Illustrations to the Illiad." American Journal of Archaeology, 54(2): pp. 112–14, pl. 18.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1954. Catalogue of Greek Sculptures. no. 236, pp. 116–17, pls. 161d, 162, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Ghali-Kahil, Lilly B. 1955. Les enlèvements et le retour d'Hélène dans les textes et les documents figurés. no. 204, p. 248, Paris: E. de Boccard.
Galinsky, Karl. 1969. Aeneas, Sicily, and Rome. p. 33, pl. 31, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Becatti, Giovanni and Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli. 1973. Enciclopedia dell'Arte Antica, Classica e Orientale, Suppl. 1. p. 762, fig. 772, Rome: Instituto della Enciclopedia Italiana.
Kron, Uta. 1976. "Die Zehn attischen Phylenheroen: Geschichte, Mythos, Kult und Darstellungen." Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Athenische Abteilung, Beiheft, 5: no. A7, pp. 129, 134, 265.
Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC). 1981. Vol. 1: Aara-Aphlad. "Achilleus," p. 120, no. 498; p. 126, no. 538; p. 130, no. 544; p. 141, no. 555; p. 153, no. 608; p. 153, no. 679; "Aineias," p. 386, no. 56; "Aithra I," p. 428, no. 78; "Antilochos I," p. 834, no. 23; pls. 109, 118, Zürich: Artemis Verlag.
Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC). 1986. Vol. 3: Atherion-Eros. "Equus Troianus," p. 816, no. 33, pl. 592, Zürich: Artemis Verlag.
Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC). 1988. Vol. 4: Eros-Herakles. "Hektor," p. 494, no. 108; "Helene," p. 552, no. 371, pl. 357, Zürich: Artemis Verlag.
Bodel, John P. and Stephen Tracy. 1997. Greek and Latin Inscriptions in the USA : A Checklist. p. 191, Rome: American Academy in Rome.
Burn, Lucilla. 2004. Hellenistic Art: From Alexander the Great to Augustus. p. 133, fig. 75, London: British Museum Press.
Neils, Jenifer, Ralf von den Hoff, and Guy Michael Hedreen. 2009. Heroes: Mortals and Myths in Ancient Greece, Sabine Albersmeier, ed. no. 21, pp. 200–1, Baltimore: Walters Art Museum.
Petrain, David. 2010. "More Inscriptions from the Tabulae Iliacae." Zeitschrift fur Papyrologie und Epigraphik, 174: pp. 53–54.
Squire, Michael. 2011. The Iliad in a Nutshell: Visualizing Epic on the Tabulae Ilicae. pp. 105, 179, 237–41, 391–92, figs. 36, 78, 119–21, pls. IV.5, V.6, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Picón, Carlos A. and Seán Hemingway. 2016. Pergamon and the Hellenistic Kingdoms of the Ancient World no. 46, pp. 139–40, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The Museum's collection of Greek and Roman art comprises more than 30,000 works ranging in date from the Neolithic period to the time of the Roman emperor Constantine's conversion to Christianity in A.D. 312.
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