Funerary stele of Aphtonetos

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Funerary stele of Aphtonetos Circa 145-165 (beginning of Hadrian’s reign) Laurion (Greece) Marble. Musée d’Art et d’Histoire (Musée du Cinquantenaire, Brussels, Belgium). Made out 500 pictures with CapturingReality. This stele evokes an aedicule, whose architrave decorated with hememions rests on pilasters. The inscription identifies the deceased as “Aphtonetos, son of Herakieon, the Milesian”. The ox dealer comes face on, dressed in a chiton with sleeves and belt, draped in a himation. The shepherd’s staff has the air of a club, so much so that the scene recalls the episode of Heraklès (cf. I patronymic) bringing back Géryon’s herds. The rather minor artistic value of the work is compensated by the rather exceptional fact that the Greek prototypes of such steles rarely represent the deceased in the exercise of their profession. For more updates, please consider to follow me on Twitter at @GeoffreyMarchal. (https://twitter.com/GeoffreyMarchal)