Frieze with Dionysian subjects

This fragment was part of a wall decoration made of marble panels. Sculpted on the panels are a musician centaur with a thyrsus and drum and a herm of Hercules: Dionysiac subjects whose allusions to wine are also suggested by the colour of the marble. The unfinished parts were completed with inlays of marbles in different colours. Other pieces of the same frieze are held in the Vatican Museums, in the Lansdowne collection and in a private collection. Hadrianic period (AD 117-138)