Sensual enjoyment played a major role at the time around the birth of Christ and in the early Roman Republic. According to Epicurean thinking, one should enjoy the time that remains and which is constantly slipping away to the full. Thus, in the art of the first century AD, more and more representations of skeletons appear that refer to and follow this guiding principle of "carpe diem" (Ode I 11,8) formulated poetically by Horace. Thus the skeletons admonished that enjoyment was the only goal worth striving for in a life that ends irrevocably with death. Derived from this, skeletal representations are found in many genres of Roman art, such as on gems. (AVS)
Former August Kestner Collection, Rome
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