Detail of a Marble Hellenistic Grave Relief With Two Registers in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, July 2007

Marble grave relief with a funerary banquet and departing warriors
Greek, Hellenistic, 2nd century BC

Accession # 1992.11.58

Two brothers, sons of Apollonios, are represented in both reliefs, and their names are inscribed below. They are shown in a manner associated with hero worship. The ancient Greeks devised a category of powerful demigods known as heroes, who were not unlike Christian saints. Local cults flourished at the tombs of
certain deceased men who were thought to exert power for good or evil from their grave. During the Classical period, votive reliefs dedicated to such heroes often represented them on horseback or dining at a funerary banquet. The reliefs on this grave monument drew on such imagery and thus enhanced the memory of the deceased brothers.

Text from the Metropolitan Museum of Art label.