Symposium scene

A symposium (dinner party), from a painted frieze from a small mausoleum (colombarium) near Porta Maggione. The mausoleum was owned by the family of T. Statilius Taurus, an aristocrat close to the emperor Augustus. Dated ca. 25-1 BC. The scenes in the painting depict the Aeneas and Romulus legends, suggesting that the mausoleum was intended to celebrate Roman identity and connect that identity with the family interred within. The scenes include the love between Rhea Silvia and the god Mars, as well as the birth of the divine twins. At the time of its discovery the frieze included painted captions that are now all but gone, preserved only in a 19th-century watercolour reproduction. National Museum of Rome, Palazzo Massimo.