The Classical World Part 14

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24. Indo-Greek silver tetradrachm, c c. 150135 bc, with bust of Menander, a truly great conqueror from Bactria through India to the river Ganges: he was remembered in Buddhist tradition.

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25. Silver tetradrachm from Sardis, c c. 213190 bc, with head of the Seleucid King Antiochus III, defeated by Rome in 188 BC.

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26. Portrait bust of Seleucus I, Alexander's commander of the Royal s.h.i.+eld-bearers and eventual Successor in Asia. Cast of Roman replica, Herculaneum.

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27. Big column-capitals, removed from Ai Khanum in Afghanistan, site of the Greek city, by origin (probably) an Alexandria on the river Oxus. Reused since 1980 in this nearby tea-house.

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28. Portrait bust of Demetrius the Besieger, the most flamboyant of Alexander's successors, showing small bull's horns, attributes of the G.o.d Dionysus. Cast of Roman replica, Herculaneum.

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29. South facade of the court of Tomb I in the Moustapha Pasha necropolis, Alexandria. The painting showed Macedonian cavalrymen and standing ladies. c c. 280260 BC.

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30. The most distant known Ionic Greek column-capital: from the big temple at Takht-i-Sangin on the further bank of the Oxus, in Tadjikistan. c c. 300280 BC.

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31. Foot of a colossal Greek statue, surely of a G.o.d, from the Greek city at Ai Khanum, Afghanistan, c c. 250150 BC.

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32. Portrait head of Pompey, an imperial Roman copy, combining the realism of small eyes and expression with a hairstyle recalling the great Alexander's.

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33. Portrait head of Julius Caesar, probably posthumous, c c. 4030 BC.

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34. Marble portrait, also posthumous, believed to represent Cicero, c c. 4030 BC.

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35. The Portland Vase, (blue and white cameo-gla.s.s), probably depicting mythological Peleus and Thetis (left) and maybe Aeneas and unhappy Dido (right). Reference to Antony and Cleopatra (left) and Octavian and rejected Octavia (right) has been suggested. Perhaps c c. 35 BC.

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36. Lavish amphitheatre mosaic, showing named hunters in the arena killing named leopards ('The Roman'; 'Luxurious'). Floor-mosaic from house of Magerius, near Thysdrus, Tunisia. Perhaps c c. AD 26080.

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37. Colour reconstruction of the so-called 'Peplos Kore' from Athens, a 'Maiden in a Robe'. Most Greek marble statues were painted brightly. Original c c. 530 BC.

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38. Colour reconstruction of the grave-stele of Aristion by Aristocles. Original c c. 510 bc, found at Marathon in Attica. Aristion was possibly the famous sculptor from Paros.

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39. The 'Lady in Blue', one of five painted terracotta 'Tanagra' figurines from a tomb just north of Tanagra, central Greece. The lady with her fan, robe and covered head is perhaps a courtesan. c c. 330300 BC.

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40. Silver plate with gilding: a G.o.ddess, perhaps Cybele, drawn by lions to an altar. From the Greek city at Ai Khanum, Afghanistan, c c. 300 BC.

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41. Aerial view of the most remote Greek city, at Ai Khanum, Afghanistan, by the rivers Oxus and Kokcha, probably an Alexandria by origin. The lower city area has been devastated by plundering during the recent wars.

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42. Wall painting from the earliest tomb excavated under the Great Mound at Vergina (Aigai), the Macedonian dynastic centre: the G.o.d Pluto abducts Persephone to the underworld. c c. 340 BC.

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43. From the hunt-painting on the facade of the double royal tomb at Vergina, correctly ascribed to King Philip II. Details of rider identified as young Alexander.

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44. Detail of the older King Philip, matching his own coin-portraits, as he attacks a lion with the young Royal Pages whom he inst.i.tuted.

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45. Reconstruction of a section of the hunt painting on the tomb: young Alexander, after killing a boar, rides to the lion being attacked by King Philip and the Pages. Similar in style, perhaps the same artist, as Plate [image]

46. Tomb painting at Agios Athanasios (probably Chalastra) near Thessalonica, showing Macedonian males processing with torches and drinking vessels; dining, and standing as infantrymen. Arguably c c. 340335 BC.

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47. Painting of drunken Silenus, with a similar big 'griffin' drinking horn to the one in figure 46. From a marble tomb-bed found in Potidaea, south-west Macedonia, late fourth century BC.

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48. Wall-painting of Terentius Neo, holding a book-scroll, and his wife, holding a stylus-pen and a folded writing-tablet. Pompeii, c c. AD 60.

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49. Venus in a seash.e.l.l, pushed and pulled by cherubs, in a trompe l'aeil painting of the sea which thus seems to lie out beyond the adjoining garden paintings. Her hairdo was fas.h.i.+onable in Nero's reign. Pompeii, 60s ad.

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50. Womanman s.e.x scene, House of the Centenary, room 43, wall painting in small bedroom of household overseer. Pompeii, AD 4070.

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51. Manwoman s.e.x scene. Uncertain location. Wall painting from Pompeii, now in Naples Museum.

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52. Portrait of a boy, with surrounding mummy-wrappings. Fayyum, Egypt. Reign of Trajan, AD 98117.

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53. Portrait of a woman, with fine pearl and red-stone earrings: mummy portrait from Hadrian's new foundation of Antinoopolis, AD 130s.

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54. Silver denarius, Rome, showing a scene of voting. 113 or 112 BC.

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55. Silver denarius, Rome: Sulla triumphing in a four-horse chariot. 82 BC.

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56. Silver denarius, Rome: portrait of Julius Caesar (obverse) and his supposed ancestress Venus (reverse). 44 bc, his final year.

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57. Gold aureus, Rome, showing Nero and his mother Agrippina, a unique double portrait of an emperor and an imperial woman, but she was a unique 'queen' mother. AD 54.

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58. Relief frieze from the shrine of the emperors, or Sebasteion, at Aphrodisias in Turkey, showing Augustus with representations of land and sea, symbolizing his power over the world, c c. AD 60.

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59. Relief frieze from the same site, showing the Emperor Claudius conquering Britannia, as his army partly did.

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60. Gold aureus struck in Judaea under t.i.tus, AD 70. Obverse, Emperor Vespasian. The reverse shows the earliest-known figure of Justice, the Romans' verdict on their sack of Jerusalem and the Temple.

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61. Bra.s.s sestertius from Rome, ad 96. Obverse, portrait of Nerva, the 'good' emperor.

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62. Gold aureus from Rome AD 1348, with Hadrian (obverse) and a personified Egypt (reverse), one of his types of the provinces.

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63. Reconstruction of Trajan's Library in Rome where the historian Tacitus may have worked (reconstruction by G. Gorski).

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64. The Roman aqueduct at Segovia in Spain, reaching almost one hundred feet at its highest point. Built in the first century or early second century ad.

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65. A reconstruction of Pliny's Villa at Laurentum, one of many, based on Pliny's own Letter. By L.P. Haudebourt, in 1838, after visiting the area in 181516.

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66. Roman theatre, built at Emerita Augusta (Merida, Spain), probably with the backing of Augustus' general Agrippa. 16/5 BC.

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67. Scenes from Trajan's Column at Rome, dedicated in AD 113 to commemorate Trajan's Dacian Wars (in modern Romania).a) Dacian prisoners before Trajan outside a Roman camp.

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b) Roman soldiers lock s.h.i.+elds in the 'tortoise'-testudo formation against a Dacian fort.

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c) The Dacians' leader Decebalus kills himself by a tree as Roman cavalry attack him.

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d) Victory inscribes a s.h.i.+eld with Trajan's successes for posterity.

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68. Tondo originally from a Hadrianic hunting-monument, Rome. Hadrian (second left) and possibly Antinous (left) with the lion they killed in West Egypt, in September AD 130.

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69. Replica statue of a beardless warrior, probably a Greek hero, not a war G.o.d, by the 'Canopus' ca.n.a.l, Hadrian's villa at Tivoli, c c. AD 135.

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70. Bronze portrait head of Hadrian, second quarter of the second century ad.

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