ABSTRACT
Images of powerful fighters and successful hunters played an integral role in displays of power and triumph, so crucial to the identity of the upper classes, that took place in banqueting contexts. Nuanced and subtly encoded messages were constructed through pointed iconographies depicted on precious metal vessels that depicted specific historic and fictional events. They included the victorious campaigns of emperors, with the decorated tableware tactically deployed to further the humiliation of those they had vanquished. The material properties of the art of dining including the weight and colour of precious metal were used to further communicate the might of an object’s owner in combination with the way in which the artwork was presented to its viewers and users. Another subject used to communicate power and might was that of Alexander the Great, a triumphal ruler associated through visual and textual culture with the figure of the emperor. Alexander the Great is shown on a silver-gilt vessel, accompanied by scenes of leisure and pleasure. Re-contextualising depictions of pleasure, which accompany the images of triumphal rulers on metal tableware in particular, through contemporary discourse and art reveals that they held an alternative meaning that encoded specific nuances of power and triumph.
