Portraits were placed on Roman funerary monuments for identification, at least one might think so. Two sarcophagi in the Getty collection are dated close together. Both come from early in the new Roman fashion for inhumation of the dead instead of the centuries-old tradition of cremation and burial in urns. The change created a whole new industry for marble-carvers, combining images of the deceased first with elaborate ornaments and soon with complex mythological or even biographical themes.
49 The earliest sarcophagus in the collection belongs to the Trajanic period of the very early second century A. D, and shows a bust of a boy held by two Erotes. The association is suitable, given the age of the deceased and the natural and sentimental taste for representing Erotes involved in children’s activities. The bust extends rather low down the chest, and the short hair and rounded features may suggest a later imperial date, but a look at the rest of the decoration of the sarcophagus changes this appraisal totally. On the front and sides of the sarcophagus, Erotes are feeding griffins, Griffins reappear on the front of the lid as purely ornamental creatures. The motif itself is known from a series of terracotta architectural reliefs from the end of the first century B. C. and then later, colder and more elegantly classicizing, on the marble architectonic decoration of Trajan’s Forum. This last indicates the date. Even if the sarcophagus is less pretentious and the artisanal cutting more stonelike, the boy’s image does not lack some of the Trajanic virtue that imbues imperial portraits like Plotina’s (no. 42). A touching detail of the sarcophagus may be mentioned: inside, a stone cushion with a rounded depression for the head was carefully rendered, ready for the quiet rest of the deceased child.
50 In the same spirit, a girl is represented reclining on the lid of her sarcophagus. A technical detail shows the continuing attention lavished on her after death: in the right side of the lid, a circular opening was carved to allow food or drink to be poured inside the coffin. The things surrounding her confirm this tender preoccupation. She softly caresses her little pet dog while two dolls rest at her feet. A sleeping Eros, symbol of a premature death, is placed on the back edge of the couch. The limp, immaterial body is just a conventional symbol, but the face with its precocious melancholy attempts to be a real portrait. A gold earring originally hung from her left ear. (Her right ear, turned away from the viewer, is not pierced.) The funerary epigram, unfortunately fragmentary, points in the same wistful direction:
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