Actaeon - Punishment of Indecent Audacity
In 1972 a statuette discovered near the Palazzo De Belli in Koper was handed over to the Koper Regional Museum. Information regarding the find is incomplete and we do not even know whether the object was discovered in ancient strata or in more recent layers. The only thing we know for sure is that it represents Actaeon.
Interpretive Drawing of Aktayon.
Author: Gorazd Koščak
The bronze statuette of Actaeon from Koper was probably part of the decoration of a Roman travel carriage.
Photo: Aleš Rosa.
Actaeon, a prince of Thebes in Greece, was a passionate hunter. His hybris – excessive pride – angered Artemis (the counterpart of the Roman goddess Diana), who punished him with a cruel fate, transforming him into a stag to be torn apart by his own hounds.
The details of his transgression vary. In one version of the story, he boasted that he was a better hunter than the goddess; in another, better known version, he chanced upon Artemis’s sacred spring while out hunting and surprised the goddess bathing. His unseemly curiosity angered her and sealed his fate.
A hunter who is transformed into prey and killed by his own hounds, who no longer recognise their master – this is the terrifying end to a story that has stimulated the imagination ever since it was first told.
The myth, which is probably based on a local tradition about a heroic ancestor, soon became known throughout Greece and, later, in Italy too. It became a popular subject for artistic depiction: on temples and other public buildings, on tombstones, in private houses, on jewellery and everyday objects.
A depiction of the moment when Diana punished Actaeon, who is already turning into a deer, as envisioned by Giuseppe Cesari in the 17th century.
Photo: Museum of Fine Arts Budapest; http://www.szepmuveszeti.hu/rights_and_reproductions
Detail of a first-century fresco showing Actaeon from the House of Menander in Pompeii.
Photo: Andrej Preložnik.
It was made famous in literature by Ovid in his Metamorphoses. Via this work, which survived antiquity, the story of Actaeon became the inspiration for a series of medieval, Renaissance and modern era masterpieces and remains topical even today.
Andrej Preložnik, Špela Prunk, Maša Saccara
Pokrajinski muzej Koper
Image Gallery and Catalogue of Museum Objects
