The protecting deity of the city. Roman copy reduced in size of a bronze original.
This sculpture is full of symbols and metaphor. The female figure represents the luck or good fortune, Tyche, of the city of Antioch, in modern Turkey. She is seated on a rock, with her feet on a swimming male figure (a personification of the river Orontes), both symbols of the city’s topography. She holds a sheaf of wheat representing prosperity, and wears a turreted crown symbolising security.
In early Hellenistic times, when this copy was made, Antioch became the second biggest city of the east Mediterranean, after Alexandria; a large number of other cities adopted Tyche as their symbol at this time
Rome, Vatican, Galleria dei Candelabri 49
Purchased in 1884 from Malpieri of Rome
Lippold: Griechische Plastik, 296 (n.15)
Richter: Three Critical Periods in Greek Sculpture, 22-, fig.38
Richter: Sculpture & Sculptors of the Greeks (1950), 753
Richter: Ancient Italy, 60
Walston: Catalogue of Casts in the Museum of Classical Archaeology (1889), 106, no.557
Reporter: 19 June 1885, 894, no.522
Found in Rome
