Tabula Iliaca

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A Tabula Iliaca is a generic label for a calculation of the days of the Iliad, probably by Zenodotus, of which numerous fragmentary examples are now known.

The term is conventionally applied to twenty marble low reliefs (sculptural form in which figures are carved in a flat surface and project only slightly from the background plane) in miniature with labeling inscriptions and short engraved texts. Little can be said about their sizes, since none survives complete. It appears that the largest rectangular tablet is 25 cm by 42 cm. Eleven of the small marble tablets are small pictorial representations of the Trojan War portraying episodes from the Iliad, including two circular ones on the Shield of Achilles. Another six panels depict the sack of Ilium. Their purpose is not clear; it has, however, been suggested that they served as votive offerings.

One of the most complete examples surviving is the Tabula Iliaca Capitolina, which was discovered around Bovillae, Rome. The tablet dates back to the Augustan period, around 15 BC. Its carvings depicts Aeneas climbing aboard a ship after the sacking of Troy^[1]. The carving's caption attributes its depiction to a poem by Steisichorus in the 6th century BC, although there is has been much scholarly skepticism since the mid-19th century^[2]. The Tabula Iliaca is currently in the Capitoline Museums in Rome.

[edit] References

• Theodor Bergk Commentatio de tabula Iliaca Parisiensi. (Marburg, Typis Elwerti Academicis, 1845).
• Anna Sadurska Les tables iliaques (Warsaw, 1964).
• Nicholas Horsfall "Tabulae Iliacae in the Collection Froehner, Paris". The Journal of Hellenic Studies 103 (1983), pp. 144-47.
• Stesichorus at Bovillae?. Retrieved on 2007-10-28.