Relief with a Heroic Banquet in the Getty Villa, July 2008

Relief with a Heroic Banquet
Greek, made in the eastern Mediterranean, 150-100 BC
Marble

Inventory # 96.AA.167

Surrounded by elegant furnishings, a bearded man holding a phiale (offering dish) reclines on a couch. A servant stands nearby, ready to fill his dish from a large krater (mixing vessel). Reliefs showing the pleasures of the banquet served as offerings to the gods, dedications to heroes, or grave monuments. The absence of personal attributes indicating the man's status suggests that this relief had a devotional rather than funerary purpose.

Text from the Getty Villa museum label.