CIRCA MID 2ND CENTURY A.D.

From the right front corner of a sarcophagus, the present fragment is sculpted in high relief with Apollo resting his raised right foot on a rocky outcrop. The god is depicted nude but for a mantle pinned on his right shoulder and draped over his left. In his left hand he holds a kithara. Below the outcrop is a bird and a winged griffin stands with his head turned back between Apollo’s legs. The fragment preserves part of an oak tree, above, and the right foot of a draped figure, to the left. The short end of the sarcophagus preserves a feline paw carved in shallow relief.
This fragment is likely from a sarcophagus depicting the myth of Apollo and the satyr Marsyas, a popular subject through the 3rd century A.D. (see A.M. McCann, Roman Sarcophagi in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, p. 81). For a complete example in Rome at the Galleria Doria Pamphilj, see no. 92 in McCann, op. cit.