Relief with the Seer Calchas (Front)

On this relief, a bearded man is seated in right profile on a four-legged stool (diphros) with carved legs and a cushion, and rests his feet on a footstool. With his left hand raised to his check in a contemplative gesture, he supports his left elbow on a gnarled staff held in his right hand. Beneath the chair is a griffin, the symbol of Apollo, god of prophecy. Over his left shoulder he wears a himation that covers his lower body, and sandals. Coiled around the tree in front of him is a snake, which menaces a nest of fledglings and two adult birds perched in the branches. The Pentelic marble head is ancient but does not belong to the original relief; it was recut and restored in the 18th century. The hairstyle and sober expression belong to a divinity, and a hole in the crown for the attachment of a kalathos identifies it as the head of the god Serapis.

Despite the addition of a head of Serapis, the overall scene portrays Calchas, the Argive soothsayer to whom Apollo had given the gift of prophecy. In Homer’s Iliad (II.300-30), the seer foretold that the Trojan War would last for nine years after observing a snake devour a mother sparrow and her eight chicks. The eclectic style of the relief combines the form of a late Classical Attic stele with landscape elements drawn from the Hellenistic repertoire. It was discovered in 1774 at Roma Vecchia in the Villa dei Sette Bassi, which belonged to the senatorial family of C. Bellicus Calpurnius Apolaustus. Such a panel may have decorated a library assembled by a cultured patron well versed in Greek literature. On the underside is a Latinized Greek inscription that reads XEANTHE—likely a version of Xanthe, the former name for Troy.  The inscription may have functioned as a tag indicating the placement of the relief.