by Publius Dionysius Mus on Sat Sep 06, 2003 9:11 pm
Dionysius Mus omnibus salutem
First of all, thanx to Draco for making my avatar work!
For those who wonder what it represents, it is the painting called "Decius Mus Addressing the Legions", painted around 1617 by the great Flemish painter Pieter Paul Rubens (now in the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC)
A quote from the website:
"About 340 B.C., the cities of southern Italy revolted against the authority of ancient Rome. At their camp near Naples, the Roman leaders were visited by a divine apparition who declared that the army of one side and the commander of the other must be sacrificed to the Underworld. The prophecy meant that the side that lost its general would be victorious. Rubens imagined the moment before the battle when Decius Mus, standing on a dais, tells his troops that, for the sake of Roman victory, he would allow himself to be killed.
Symbolizing Jupiter, the Roman king of the gods, a mighty eagle clutches lightning bolts in its talons and hovers behind Decius Mus. Rubens derived the soldiers' armor, helmets, shields, and military standards from ancient Roman sculpture. The whole composition, in fact, with its large figures silhouetted in the foreground, recalls the appearance of bas-reliefs carved on Roman victory monuments.
The subject is the first in a series of eight tapestry designs on the theme of Decius Mus, which Rubens completed by May 1618 for a Genoese patron. The panel is a modello, or small model, that was enlarged by workshop assistants into a full-size picture, called a cartoon, that was sent to Brussels for the weavers to copy."
Optamo vobis bene valere
Publius Dionysius Mus
No Spartiate soul left alive to tell
How bravely they fought
By treason they fell
(Ancient Rites - Thermopylae)
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