Funeral banquet, procession or an offering scene – A few remarks on Roman provincial painting
Funeral banquet, procession or an offering scene – A few remarks on Roman provincial painting

Summary/Abstract: The article discusses various types of the scenes that contain servants and deceased depicted in late Roman wall painting, especially in the territory of today’s Serbia, and makes comparisons with analogous examples known throughout the Mediterranean world. These types represent servants in the procession as well as reduced versions, when two or only one servant figures are painted. Well known interpretations of the reminiscences of the prestigious life status of the deceased and their wish for wellbeing in the afterlife are discussed together and in regard to the testified funeral rites, which include a funeral banquet and funeral procession, with special attention to the position and role of servants/slaves in them. A new possibility for the reduced scenes with servants depicted in Viminacium graves G-160 and G2624 introduces an interpretation of this motif as a reference to the custom of offerings at the grave after the funeral or during some of the commemorations which followed the funeral.

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