• Dirce
• Dirke
• Ercolano
• Herculaneum
• landscape
• paesaggio
• pittura parietale
• pittura vesuviana
• Pompei
• Pompeii
• punishment
• supplizio
• wall painting

This research focuses on a group of eight wall paintings from Pompeii and Herculaneum that depict the mythological episode of the punishment of Dirke. Such paintings form the largest class of materials in the iconographic tradition of Dirke, both Greek and Roman. They can also be accounted among the earliest representation of this myth in the Roman world. First depicted in South Italian vase paintings of the 4th century BC, this episode would hardly be represented during the Hellenistic period, until it was “discovered” again in Pompeii, where it became very popular from the Augustan Age onwards. The main purpose of this research is to shed new light on this group of paintings, which has been often overlooked by scholars or considered a mere reflection, more or less direct and accurate, of the famous sculptural group known as “Toro Farnese”. Ultimately, this study aims to understand the reasons that lie behind the revival of this mythological subject in Roman art.