CIRCA FIRST HALF OF 2ND CENTURY A.D.

Eros is depicted flying with a torch in his right hand and a captured butterfly, the symbolic manifestation of Psyche, in the other. He holds her by the wings over the flame of a fluted, lion-footed altar or thymiaterion. During the Roman period, particularly on gems, the allegorical representation of Eros chasing or torturing butterflies was common. It alluded to broader ideas relating to the relationship between the moral soul and the divine. For a red jasper intaglio showing Cupid burning a butterfly with a torch, now in the collection of the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, and a discussion of the iconography see V. Platt, ‘Burning Butterflies: Seals, Symbols and the Soul in Antiquity’, in L. Gilmour (ed.), Pagans and Christians - from Antiquity to the Middle Ages, British Archaeological Reports series, 2007, pp. 89-99.