Terracotta stemless kylix (drinking cup)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Silver cups with medallions in low relief on the interior were favored luxury items in antiquity. Terracotta versions such as these suggest their appearance. One tondo shows the Eleusinian god Triptolemos in his snake-drawn chariot. The other cup features the head of Arethusa, taken from the reverse of a celebrated coin of Syracuse in Sicily. "Arethusa cups" were made and found principally in Campania.

Greek and Roman Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Museum's collection of Greek and Roman art comprises more than thirty thousand works ranging in date from the Neolithic period (ca. 4500 B.C.) to the time of the Roman emperor Constantine's conversion to Christianity in A.D. 312. It includes the art of many cultures and is among the most comprehensive in North America. The geographic regions represented are Greece and Italy, but not as delimited by modern political frontiers: Greek colonies were established around the Mediterranean basin and on the shores of the Black Sea, and Cyprus became increasingly Hellenized. For Roman art, the geographical limits coincide with the expansion of the Roman Empire. The department also exhibits the art of prehistoric Greece (Helladic, Cycladic, and Minoan) and pre-Roman art of Italic peoples, notably the Etruscans.

Metropolitan Museum of Art