Ancora su un rilievo neoattico dalla Casa dei Rilievi Dionisiaci di Ercolano

In 2009, a marble relief with Dionysian motifs, possibly attributed to a Neo-Attic workshop of the Augustan period and based on models from the 4th and 3rd centuries BC, was discovered in Herculaneum within a building complex in Insula I. A second marble relief with Dionysian references was discovered in the same complex in 1997; both pieces are believed to have decorated Room (M). This essay examines the various interpretations presented by renowned scholars regarding the scene of the most recent discovery and advances a new interpretation. The author suggests a connection with Euripides's Bacchae, the tragedy in which Pentheus is torn to pieces by the Bacchae, urged by the god Dionysus to punish the young king who had opposed his cult. The relief would be consistent with the building's known decorative program.