Sarcofagi di Ostia

The necropolises of Ostia and Porto have yielded a very great number of sarcophagi. Few of them are of Attic and Microasiatic production, while from the typological and decorative point of view the bulk belongs to the repertory of urban production covering a considerable chronological span, from the 1st to the late 4th century AD. On the evidence of the iconographic, technical and stylistic peculiarities many of the sarcophagi can be attributed to the production of the local workshop. Actually, the sarcophagi published in the series of volumes of the Corpus Die Antiken Sarkophagreliefs or in the later contributions offer a picture of the finds from Ostia and Porto that remains only partial. Illustrating the present state of knowledge of this class of material, the author presents a number of unpublished sarcophagi decorated with Dionysiac and marine themes, with hunting and grape-harvest scenes, with erotes, garlands and single myths. In particular, analysis is made of some unpublished fragments from sarcophagi depicting the myths of Penteus and the Seven against Thebes – subjects that are rare in Roman funerary sculpture, highlighting the preferences of the workshop and clients of Ostia.