You Can Never Have Too Much Neptune

If you thought the previous sea hall had rather a lot of fishes, welcome to the next one. At the Bardo Museum, you can never have too much Neptune—he is, arguably, the most popular “cover star” of ancient Africa.

This time round, we are not dealing in mere portraits, but a full-blown marine blockbuster:

• Triumphs and Processions: Neptune (occasionally with Amphitrite in tow) tears across the waves on a team of four hippocamps. Note the care lavished on the horses’ muscles and the scaling of their tails—Hephaestus plainly gave the local craftsmen a consultation or two.
• Extreme Cupids: Everywhere, putti (those plump little infants) treat dolphins and sea monsters as their personal jet skis. The whole business has an air of carefree abandon worthy of Bacchus himself.
• A Working Day: Wedged between gods and mythical beasts are perfectly ordinary Roman fishermen, going about their business. One could study their boats and tackle for hours—a ready-made primer on ancient seamanship.

Do scroll through the gallery—here are those very “useless things” from which the sense of an entire ocean, frozen in stone, takes shape, all under the watchful eye of Urania.