Cleveland Museum of Art

Ring with Hippocampus

Date

100–200 CE

Medium

gold

Culture

Italy, Roman

Department

Greek and Roman Art

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

This delicate gold ring is decorated with a tiny hippocampus, a creature from Greco-Roman mythology with the forequarters of a horse and the tail of a fish. Stylized waves bracket the hippocampus, crashing up against its tail and front hooves. The thin band of the ring is decorated with horizontal lines to the halfway point on both sides. In Greek and Roman art, water spirits or nereids are often depicted riding hippocampi.

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