The Pyrgi Relief

A densely populated scene characterizes the high relief that covered the rear end of the ridge beam of the roof of Temple A; the latter, built around 470 BCE in the suburban sanctuary of Pyrgi (Santa Severa), port of Caere (Cerveteri), was dedicated to Thesan, Etruscan goddess of dawn.
The artist, in an effort of extreme synthesis and originality, succeeds in telling the stories of two characters of the myth, Tydeus and Capaneus, whose antecedents must be known.
We are under the walls of the city of Thebes, where Eteocles and Polynices, the two cursed sons of Oedipus, fight for power: Eteocles, the legitimate king, is barricaded with the Thebans in the city, while outside the warriors from Argos, allies of the usurper Polynices, try to assault it. As always, the gods witness the clash and intervene.
In fact, in the middle of the scene, an angry Zeus hurls his lightning against Capaneus who has blasphemed the gods, while on the left, at the sight of Tydeus, who, although mortally wounded, bites Melanippo's skull, the goddess Athena moves away disgusted with the potion that would have given immortality to her protegé.
The nakedness of Tydeus and Capaneus underlines the bestiality of their acts and their punishment is the punishment of every behaviour marked by contempt for the gods and the laws of men (hybris); in a political key, it is a condemnation of the tyranny symbolised by Polynices.