Sacred Art & Iconography

Sea Thiasos Relief, Marriage of Neptune and Amphitrite (Glyptothek, Munich, 239)

Marble relief, second half of the 2nd century BCE

Citation Formats

General Reference

Divinity Atlas. "Sea Thiasos Relief, Marriage of Neptune and Amphitrite (Glyptothek, Munich, 239)." Accessed August 30, 2026. https://divinity.interactivelion.com/sacred-art-iconography/marine-thiasos-relief-glyptothek-munich-239.

APA Style

Divinity Atlas. (n.d.). Sea Thiasos Relief, Marriage of Neptune and Amphitrite (Glyptothek, Munich, 239). Retrieved August 30, 2026, from https://divinity.interactivelion.com/sacred-art-iconography/marine-thiasos-relief-glyptothek-munich-239

BibTeX

@misc{divinityatlas-sea-thiasos-relief-marriage-of-neptune-a,
  author = {Divinity Atlas},
  title = {Sea Thiasos Relief, Marriage of Neptune and Amphitrite (Glyptothek, Munich, 239)},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://divinity.interactivelion.com/sacred-art-iconography/marine-thiasos-relief-glyptothek-munich-239},
  note = {Accessed August 30, 2026}
}

A marble relief panel from the monument known as the Altar of Domitius Ahenobarbus, dated to the second half of the 2nd century BCE, held by the Glyptothek, Munich under inventory 239. The frieze depicts the wedding procession of Neptune and Amphitrite, the sea-god and his bride riding in a chariot drawn by two music-playing Tritons, surrounded by Nereids, Doris bearing wedding torches on a sea-horse, Erotes and sea creatures including a hippocamp, a Hellenistic sea thiasos in the Roman decorative tradition. A companion historical panel from the same monument, the census relief, is held by the Musee du Louvre.

Facts

Disputed

Attributed Tothe subject's own account

The Hellenistic carving style has led some scholars to attribute the marine panels to the Greek sculptor Scopas the Younger, though the attribution is disputed and the monument's traditional association with Domitius Ahenobarbus himself has also been questioned; some specialists refer to it instead as the Paris-Munich reliefs, after the cities that now hold its separated panels, precisely because neither the sculptor nor the patron can be fixed with confidence. 1

Cross-Tradition Connections