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Fragment with the Head of Silenus Painted plaster Pompeii, origin unspecified Pompeii Archaeological Park, Inv. N. 20881 13¾ × 11 in.; thickness 1â…› in. 1st century CE © MIC – Parco Archeologico di Pompei
On a background shifting from green to pink, perhaps with the intention of representing the sky, looms the head of Silenus, a sensual and mischievous minor deity linked to the world of the woods and belonging to the Dionysian court. Almost bald with pointed ears, a white beard, and bushy eyebrows, his face contorted with its usual grin, the god was flanked by another figure (possibly a maenad) of whom only parts of the hair are preserved. Among the characters of the Dionysian cycle, Silenus (who, according to myth, welcomes and raises Bacchus as a child) is the one who, alone or together with a maenad, appears most frequently in the pictures and decorative medallions of the Third and Fourth Styles. This is further evidence of the particular devotion that the Pompeians had for the god of wine, the production of which affected most of the cultivated land on the slopes of Vesuvius. —AC
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