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# The Ludovisi Throne of the 5th Century BC and the Debate Over Which Goddess the Relief Shows
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/v-sobranii-natsionalnogo-muzeia-rima-est-neobyknovennyi-mramornyi-blok-s-relefom-poluobnazhennoi-zhenshchiny-podnimaiushcheisia-pri-pomoshchi-dvukh-sluzhanok-s-k-sozhaleniiu-otbitymi-go/
- Published: 2025-06-03T16:30:59.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-02T18:48:27.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Art, Museums, Observations, Rome

In the collection of the National Roman Museum there is an extraordinary block of marble with a relief of a half-naked woman being raised up by two handmaidens whose heads and shoulders, alas, have been knocked off.

This monument of the 5th century BC is usually called the Ludovisi Throne, on account of its characteristic shape, reminiscent of the base of a throne, and after the Ludovisi family, during the building of whose villa the marble was found. The base of a throne, a temple parapet, part of a staircase or the frame of an altar: questions arise not only about its purpose but also about the origin of the block of stone. Nor is it entirely clear who is depicted on the front panel.

When I first saw this bas-relief, for some reason I thought at once that it was the birth of Aphrodite: the skirts of the attendants look wet, and the central figure undoubtedly personifies the goddess. The photograph does not convey it, but the stone has an unusual grainy, glittering structure, and this only heightens the solemnity and weight of the subject. Many scholars insist that it is indeed Aphrodite, a version strengthened by the reliefs on the side panels, where a wholly naked girl playing the flute and a matron wrapped in a cloak are shown, as though two hypostases of the goddess.

On the other hand, the iconographic uniqueness of the monument makes one doubt not only its association with Aphrodite but the very origin of the throne. Among the likely heroines of the façade, researchers name Hera bathing in the waters of rejuvenation, Pandora and Persephone; the last is treated as the second principal version in the museum itself. The goddess here may be rising not from water, to which only the wet skirts and the pebbles point, but from the womb of the earth, whence Persephone emerged once a year, beginning the endless cycle of the seasons.