Featured Mythological Parian or Bisque figure group

And it is very doubtful even that one post gets registered as 'best answer'. People have hit the 'best answer' button for quite a few of my posts, but none of them have been recorded. It is a useless option.

 

Dude did indeed nail it. It is Mercury/Hermes delivering the infant Bacchus/Dionysus to Ino & the other nymphs of Nyssa after his mother's death.

http://www.beazley.ox.ac.uk/record/60A935E3-BDDB-4DFE-BDCC-4FF3B614FB89

 

Yahoo. You're back.

 

And as pedantic as ever. The goat is not to be confused with Amalthea, who nurtured Jupiter.

 

Perfect!

 

After watching that for 30 seconds, I need a nap!!! Thank you, ma'am.

 

So it is therapeutic?
Don't watch it for too long. Unless you want to take a nap of course.

 

I read, earlier on in my quest that the goat was associated with Mercury, so it seemed natural to see it in place in the scene ...after reading your last post I revisited the Wikipedia page where I read about the association:

Mercury had essentially the same aspects as Hermes, wearing winged shoes (talaria) and a winged hat (petasos), and carrying the caduceus, a herald's staff with two entwined snakes that was Apollo's gift to Hermes. He was often accompanied by a cockerel, herald of the new day, a ram or goat, symbolizing fertility, and a tortoise, referring to Mercury's legendary invention of the lyre from a tortoise shell.​

 

As I remember my mythology textbook, Hermes was originally a god of herds/fertility/increase but mutated into a messenger of the gods, patron of travelers & thieves. In your group I think the goat is there as a way of indicating the rustic setting where nymphs dwell & lonely goatherds hang out.

As far as I know snakes on his staff are an error caused by confusion with the staff of Asklepios, which has a single snake coiled around it. The caduceus is the staff of a herald/messenger, & has ribbons. I have never encountered a tale of Apollo giving it to him. (But I should look it up.)

He is seen with a cockerel more than the other & it represents him symbolically. Have never found an explanation for the association. The 2 I can invent are that the rooster is a herald of the new day & the story of Hermes being conceived, gestated & born in the course of a single night, being born at dawn.



The tortoise may also refer to his changing Chelone into one: