Kairos or Someone Else

The Roman reliefs from Ptuj include one that shows a nude male figure previously interpreted as Lysippian Kairos. It is an attractive interpretation, but one that calls for a careful analysis of all the elements of the relief to either support or refute it. The analysis has revealed the relief to be a fragment of the lower part of a marble sepulchral stela divided into three panels covering four modules. Only half of the central panel survives and depicts a male nude, whom some authors identified as Kairos; others saw him as a satyr paired with a (now missing) maenad. A new formal analysis of the figure, however, has shown significant differences when compared with Lysippian Kairos, but not with regard to a satyr depicted according to Neo-Attic models, such as is portrayed on a sarcophagus from Ioannina and on a drawing of a now lost relief from Ptuj. The new and precise 3D photographs of the Ptuj relief have furthermore revealed traces of a cloak billowing behind the male figure, a detail that identifies it as one of the mythological deities/heroes pursuing a female figure. The motif and its composition indicate an origin in the Neo-Attic tradition.