The Death of Myth on Roman Sarcophagi
Allegory and Visual Narrative in the Late Empire

This book explores the disappearance of Greek mythic imagery from the Roman sarcophagi in the 3rd Century.

Mont Allen (Author)

9781316510919, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 29 December 2022

325 pages
26 x 18.4 x 1.9 cm, 0.77 kg

A strange thing happened to Roman sarcophagi in the third century:  their Greek mythic imagery vanished. Since the beginning of their production a century earlier, these beautifully carved coffins had featured bold mythological scenes. How do we make sense of this imagery's own death on later sarcophagi, when mythological narratives were truncated, gods and heroes were excised, and genres featuring no mythic content whatsoever came to the fore? What is the significance of such a profound tectonic shift in the Roman funerary imagination for our understanding of Roman history and culture, for the development of its arts, for the passage from the High to the Late Empire and the coming of Christianity, but above all, for the individual Roman women and men who chose this imagery, and who took it with them to the grave? In this book, Mont Allen offers the clues that aid in resolving this mystery.

Introduction – the death of myth on Roman sarcophagi
1. Myth a casualty of Christianity
2. Bucolic sarcophagi and elite retreat
3. Refuge from the third-century crisis
4. Culture, status, and rising populism
5. Myth abstracted: from narrative to symbol
6. Distinguishing the mythological: function and form
7. Myth, history, and the desire for proximity
Coda – myth revived: temporality and the afterlife.

Subject Areas: Ancient history: to c 500 CE [HBLA], History of art: ancient & classical art,BCE to c 500 CE [ACG]