File:Grand Ludovisi Sarcophagus 04.jpg

English: Boncompagni Ludovisi Collection.

Proconnesian marble.

This sarcophagus entered the Ludovisi Collection shortly after its discovery in 1621, near the Porta Tiburtina in Rome, as a gift of the Capitulate of Santa Maria Maggiore to the Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi. Battle scenes are chiseled on the front and on the two shorter sides. The frontal decoration is organised on three levels: the victorious Romans are depicted near the top, together with the deceassed, dressed as a general; the central partb consists of a battle between Romans and barbarians; at the bottom the defeated barbarians are lying on the ground. This work is an example of battle sarcophagi, a quite common production of the mid 2nd Century and early 3rd Century AD. The face of the deceased, perhaps reworked in a later period, may depict one of the sons of the emperor Decius, Hostilian, who died in AD 252, or his brother Herennius Etruscus, who died fighting against the Goths in AD 251.

The scholars identifying the deceased with Herennius Etruscus hypothesise that the sarcophagus was made in Rome as the funeral monument of the young man or of his mother, Hereniia Etruscilla. Indeed the Boncompagni Ludovisi Collection once held a sarcophagus cover with a portrait of Herennia Etruscilla. This piece, very likely the original cover for the Ludovisi sarcophagus, is now in Mainz, Germany.