Danaids

Danaids

This statue, mounted on a semicircular base, portrays the standing figure of a young woman. Her eyes are made of coloured vitreous paste and she is shown in the act of fastening her peplum, which is not tied around her waist, onto her right shoulder. Her hair at the front is held down by a taenia with silver inlay and divided into two bands framing her forehead with three short locks on her temples, whilst at the back it falls down her neck in long disorderly curls. The statue was found together withfour other similar statues (inv. 5604, 5605, 5620, 5621) in the large peristilium of the Villa dei Papiri in Herculaneum; it was probably moved there following the earthquake of 62 A.D. Defined erroneously as "dancers", these statues were later recognised as hydrophorai, "water carriers" and therefore identified as the Danaids, the fifty daughters of Danaus who, according to the myth, were condemned to fetch water for eternity. This theme must have been very popular in the Augustan age, since similar statues were placed in the portico of the temple of Augustus on the Palatine Hill, inaugurated in 28 BC.