HILDESHEIM, THE TREASURE OF
A number of drinking vessels, plates, and cooking utensils of silver, most of them embossed in high relief, found at Hildesheim in 1868. These important products of Roman art, of the time of Augustus, are now among the chief attractions of the Berlin Museum. They probably belonged to the table service of some wealthy Roman, and had been hidden in the ground by Germans who had taken them as the spoils of victory. Artistically the most important pieces are a bowl shaped like a bell, and gracefully decorated externally with arabesques and figures of children (see cut), and four magnificent saucers decorated with a gilt Minerva seated on a rock, and half-length figures of the young Hercules slaying the serpents, and of Cybele and of Attis; also two cups adorned with masks and all kinds of emblems of the worship of Bacchus.
Pictures and Media
ROMAN MIXING-BOWL. (Found at Hildesheim, now in Berlin Museum.)