Roman fresco from the Villa of the Mysteries in Pompeii, showing a representative of the Arimaspian people stealing gold from a griffin
Roman fresco from the Villa of the Mysteries in Pompeii, showing a representative of the Arimaspian people stealing gold from a griffin. Object dated to the middle of the 1st century BCE.
The Arimaspas were one-eyed people mentioned by Herodotus in his “Histories”. They lived east of the Black Sea and north of Scythia. As you can see in the painting, the griffin, dissatisfied, attacks the thief.