Roman Terracotta Antefix in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, July 2007

Terracotta Antefix
Roman, Augustan, late 1st century BC-early 1st century AD

Accession # 96.18.162

Antefixes are decorative covers for the ends of tiles situated at the edge of a roof. This example, showing the goddess of love, Venus (Greek: Aphrodite), and her lover, the god of war, Mars (Greek: Ares), retains a considerable amount of its painted surface.

Text from the Metropolitan Museum of Art label.