Marble Votive Relief Dedicated to a Hero in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, July 2007

Marble votive relief dedicated to a hero
Greek, Attic, late 4th century BC
Inscribed "to the physician"

Accession # 57.42

A hero was a deceased person who exerted from his grave a power for good or evil and demanded appropriate honor. The cult was concentrated at the grave, which was marked off as a special precinct and known as a heroon. As with the Olympian gods, there were animal sacrifices and offerings of food and libation. The principal cultic activity was a feast of the living in company with the dead hero and in his honor. Votive reliefs often show the hero, as here, reclining at such a meal and being approached by worshipers, shown in smaller scale.

Text from the Metropolitan Museum of Art label.