REPUBLICAN PERIOD, CIRCA 1ST CENTURY B.C.

The flat oval stone is engraved with a satyr dancing ecstatically. He is depicted nude, balancing on his left tiptoes, with his other leg swung back. His muscular torso is twisted and his head is thrown back. In one hand he holds a beribboned thyrsus, in the other a kantharos. A panther skin is draped over his arm, with its tail extending behind, below the satyr’s own tail. The subject was popular on Roman gems (see for example nos. 178-180 in G.M.A. Richter, Engraved Gems of the Romans) and marble reliefs. The prototype was always thought to have been a Hellenistic bronze statue, which was confirmed by the 1997-1998 discovery of a life-sized bronze figure by Sicilian fishermen, now in the Museo del Satiro of Mazara del Vallo. The date of the bronze is still debated, with suggestions ranging from the late 4th to the mid 1st centuries B.C. (see no. 19 in J. Daehner and K. Lapatin, Power and Pathos, Bronze Sculpture of the Hellenistic World).