IMPERIAL PERIOD, CIRCA 1ST CENTURY A.D.

This two-layered onyx cameo, white over translucent brown, depicts a Bacchic scene within the god's sanctuary, all on a raised groundline. To the left, a maenad reclines on her mantle, which also envelops her legs, leaving her torso nude. With her right hand she grasps a tympanon hanging from the branch of a bare tree. On a plinth before her stands a draped and bearded statue of Bacchus, holding a thyrsus and a kantharos. In front of the statue is another, lower plinth upon which stands a goat, its head turned back and its forelegs held by a youthful satyr wearing a nebris, seated upon rocks. A syrinx (Pan pipes) hangs from a branch above the goat's head. The scene was copied during the 18th century, although on one example the scale of the figures differs and there are some additions, including a thysus alongside the maenad (see pl. CXI, no. 9 in G. Lippold, Gemmen und Kameen des Altertums und der Neuzeit).