Roman Redware Sherd with Warriors from the Trojan Cycle
4th-5th century A.D. Displaying an possibly unfinished scene composed of robed warriors or other figures wearing Phrygian caps, wide tunics with segmenta, oriental trousers (anaxyrida) and tugging on a rope; later attachment loop to the reverse. Cf. for a similar image of warriors see the miniature of Ilias Amrosiana in Del Como, D. (ed.), Omero, Iliade ed Odissea, Milano, 1983, p.507. 163 grams, 10.1 cm (4 in.).

Acquired 1960s-1990s. From the late Alison Barker collection, a retired London barrister. The scene probably represents an episode of the Trojan cycle, with the Trojans (usually represented in Late Antiquity with a Phrygian cap, wide sleeved tunics and Persian-style trousers) dragging the wooden horse inside the walls of Troy. In the late Roman Empire the Trojan cycle became often the subject of artistic representations, such as the famous Ilias Ambrosiana now preserved in Milan, or the miniatures of the Vergilius Romanus. [No Reserve]