Image Details

Scala/Art Resource, NY

A youth dives off a cliff in the second chamber of the Tomb of Hunting and Fishing (painted around 500 B.C.) in Tarquinia. Although the dive probably symbolizes the plunge into the world of Hades, some scholars believe this to be the sea from which Aphrodite emerged, given the Etruscans’ fascination with Adonis, the beautiful consort of the Greek goddess of love.