Sep 22 2009
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At the link Mary Beard comments on new directions in the study of Roman mythological sarcophagi coming to light in the UC Berekeley conference on the subject.
“Re-presenting death in terms of the classic mythic stories offered a means of consolation: the bereaved wife could see herself, in the sarcophagus, as the lovely Selene mourning Endymion; the deceased was given the heroic form of (say Meleager). The parallels were sometimes hammered home even more forcefully by giving the mythological heroes the portrait heads of the dead.”
