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Stag attacked by four hounds
© Institute and Museum of the History of Science

Stag attacked by four hounds

White Luna marble, 1st cent. A.D.
Herculaneum, House of the Stags
Soprintendenza Archeologica di Pompei, inv. 75796

This sculpture, a companion piece to the other group with a stag and dogs, represents a Hellenistic subject widely represented in the early Imperial Age. It seems almost a translation into sculpture of Phaedrus' story of the stag that, fleeing from hunting dogs in the forest, remains trapped in the branches of a tree by the fine horns of which it had been so proud.