The Vicarello Goblet (25 BCE – 25 CE)

The Vicarello Goblet is an outstanding example of Roman silversmithing from the Augustan period, around 25 BCE–25 CE. This small silver drinking cup, discovered near ancient thermal springs north of Rome, bears a finely worked relief scene of a rustic ritual in honor of Priapus, the Roman god of fertility, gardens, and male sexuality. Priapus appears as an ithyphallic figure, a form that signaled abundance as well as protection. Though modest in scale, the goblet belongs to the world of luxury tableware used by the Roman elite and carries a vivid fusion of refinement, ritual, and sensual symbolism.

At the Springs of Vicarello

The goblet dates to the early Roman Empire under Augustus, whose reign from 27 BCE to 14 CE marked a period of cultural refinement and flourishing luxury arts. It was likely made in Italy or the eastern Mediterranean by a highly skilled silversmith working in repoussé relief. The vessel was discovered around 1862 at Vicarello, ancient Aquae Apollinares, near Lake Bracciano, a site famous for healing thermal springs dedicated to Apollo. Places of this kind often received votive offerings connected to health, fertility, and recovery, making the goblet’s imagery especially resonant even within a sanctuary primarily associated with Apollo.

A Gesture of Contact and Invocation

One of the most striking details in the relief is the central gesture of a woman reaching out to touch Priapus’s phallic form, as if activating the god’s powers through ritual contact. The act may suggest a prayer or magical invocation for fertility, abundant harvests, children, or erotic vitality, all concerns closely associated with the cult of Priapus. No surviving myth describes this exact scene, yet the image powerfully conveys the intimate and devotional relation worshippers could have with the god. Its discovery at a site of thermal healing adds another layer of meaning, raising the possibility that the goblet was offered by someone seeking relief from infertility or related afflictions, bringing together the curative force of the springs and Priapus’s domain over reproduction and virility.

Priapus, Wine, and Rural Abundance

The goblet belongs to a broader tradition of Roman silver vessels decorated with Dionysian, or Bacchic, themes that celebrated wine, ecstasy, fertility, and the untamed energies of nature. Priapus, regarded as a son of Dionysos or Bacchus, was a minor but widely venerated deity who protected gardens, orchards, livestock, and boundaries. His herm-like image, a pillar topped by a head and an erect phallus, functioned both as a guardian and as a force for growth and fecundity. The scene on the goblet presents a rural shrine ritual within a Dionysian thiasos, or retinue, where ecstatic followers, including a satyr and a maenad, dance in abandon and reinforce themes of release, revelry, and fertile power. Such imagery was especially fitting on symposium vessels, where wine accompanied conversation, performance, and pleasure. The high quality of the goblet reveals how Roman elites used art to surround banqueting with associations of divine favor, sensual richness, and cultivated enjoyment.

Silver Relief and Elegant Scale

The goblet is made of silver and decorated through advanced repoussé and chasing techniques, which allowed the relief scene to be raised and refined with remarkable precision. It measures 12.2 cm, or 4 13/16 inches, in height and 7.8 cm, or 3 1/16 inches, in diameter, making it a compact yet elegant vessel suited for drinking wine. Its surface is wrapped in a continuous frieze of multiple figures rendered with notable delicacy, from human and divine bodies to drapery, offerings, and architectural details. The work demonstrates the silversmith’s ability to combine narrative richness with technical control on a small and intimate scale.

From Private Collections to Cleveland

The provenance of the Vicarello Goblet can be traced to 1867 or shortly thereafter, when it entered the collection of Sir William Drake, F.S.A. (1817–1890), a prominent British antiquarian and collector in London. By 1912, it had passed into the collection of Baron Edmond de Rothschild (1845–1934) in Paris, one of the leading collectors of art and antiquities of his time. It remained in private hands until April 5, 1966, when it was sold at Christie’s in London as lot 12. That same year, the Cleveland Museum of Art acquired it through the J. H. Wade Fund, and it has remained in the museum’s permanent collection ever since.