A Terracotta Campana Relief, early Roman Imperial, probably Augustan, circa late 1st Century B.C./early 1st Century A.D.

finely modelled in shallow relief with a nude heroic figure striding to right and holding a kneeling satyr by the hair, a lagobolon wielded in his right hand, a sword at his waist, and wearing a windblown cloak over his shoulder, an egg-and-dart kymation above, an ovolo kymation containing inverted palmettes below the ground line

John Hewett, London

The identity of the figures on the present plaque remains a mystery. However, the motif of the nude hero about to dispatch a helpless opponent with a club is strongly remininiscent of several other Campana relief types depicting the labours of Theseus. See, for instance, Hermann von Rohden, Architektonische römische Tonreliefs der Kaiserzeit, Stuttgart, 1911, vol. 2, pl. 13 (Theseus and Sinis, =LIMC, VII, s.v. Theseus, no. 80A), and pl. 110, no. 2 (Theseus and Skyron). Also compare Adolf Heinrich Borbein, Campanareliefs. Typologische und stilkritische Untersuchungen, Heidelberg, 1968, pl. 31.2 (Herakles and the Hydria). For the Campana reliefs from the Temple of Apollo on the Palatine, which was commissioned by Augustus early in his reign, see Gianfilippo Carettoni, "Die Campana-Terrakotten vom Apollo-Palatinus-Tempel," Kaiser Augustus und der verlorene Republik, Berlin, 1988, pp. 267-272.