Gods, Heroes, and Athletes: The Art of Ancient Greece
  
       
  Greek Humanism :: The Geometric And Orientalizing Periods :: The Archaic Period :: The Early And High Classical Periods :: The Late Classical Period :: The Hellenistic Period :: Hellenistic Art Under Roman Patronage    
       
       
  HELLENISTIC ART UNDER ROMAN PATRONAGE

Rome in Greece:

During the first century BCE, the various parts of the decaying Hellenistic empire, including Syria, Macedonia, Greece, and Egypt, became absorbed into the Roman Empire. Roman interest in Greek art kept Greek artists busy producing original works and copies of earlier Classical and Hellenistic art. Greek Hellenistic taste lived on in Roman Italy.

Laocöon's agony:

One such work is the famous group of the Trojan priest Laocöon and his sons, which was discovered in Rome in 1506 in the presence of the great Italian Renaissance artist Michelangelo.

5-89: ATHANADOROS, HAGESANDROS, and POLYDOROS OF RHODES, Laocöon and his sons, from Rome, Italy, early first century A. D. Marble, approx. 7' 10 1/2"  high. Vatican Museums, Rome.
  1. Laocoön
  2. Laocoön
  3. Laocoön
  4. Laocoön
  5. Laocöon
Homeric at Sperlonga:

That the work seen by Pliny and displayed in the Vatican Museums today was made for Romans rather than Greeks was confirmed in 1957 by the discovery of fragments of several Hellenistic-style groups illustrating scenes from Homer's Odyssey.

5-90: ATHANADOROS, HAGESANDROS, and POLYDOROS OF RHODES, Head of Odysseus, from Sperlonga, Italy, early first century A. D. Marble, approx. 2' 1  high. Museo Archeologico, Sperlonga.
  1. Sperlonga
  2. Sperlonga
  3. Sperlonga
  4. Sperlonga
  5. Sperlonga
    
       
  Greek Humanism :: The Geometric And Orientalizing Periods :: The Archaic Period :: The Early And High Classical Periods :: The Late Classical Period :: The Hellenistic Period :: Hellenistic Art Under Roman Patronage