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The Three-Figured Reliefs: Copies Or Neoattic Creations?, Peter E. Nulton Ph.D.

Peter E. Nulton Ph.D.

The well-known group of four three-figured reliefs, existing in several copies and once assigned to the Altar of Pity in Athens, has always eluded interpretation as a coherent iconographical program. The four scenes depicted are Orpheus and Eurydice, Herakles in the garden of the Hesperides, Herakles with Perithoos and Theseus, and Medea with the Peliads. Though some have questioned the association of the reliefs with the Altar, the conventional dating has not been challenged, in spite of the growing recognition that some of the pieces (most notably the Orpheus relief) are largely unparalleled in the Classical Greek idiom. Careful reexamination …