Here's another gem to understand the uses and customs so much in vogue in ancient Rome, another work of art from the marvelous collection of the Vatican Museums that is able to describe us the ancient culture. 

Here we see a work of art housed in the halls of the Egyptian Museum of the Vatican Museums, inaugurated two centuries ago, at the behest of pope Gregory XVI. We are in 1839, when, on designed of father Luigi Ungarelli, one of the first Italian egyptologists, even the Vatican Museums were endowed with an egyptian collection. The vast majority of the works still exhibited were part of private and corporate collections, which were already found in Rome in the past centuries. Keep this in mind: many egyptian works of art that are in the Eternal City were transported from the land of the pharaohs directly from by the ancient Romans, when, especially after the official annexation of Egypt in the first century b.C., they admired a lot that culture so different from their own. I would also add how even Europe, years ago, had almost been invaded by more egyptian artefacts, brought in this case by Napoleon after his military campaigns in Egypt. But now let us dwell on a particular work of the Gregorian Egyptian Museum.

What do we have here? We see an old man, but still strong and well muscled, seen in what we can almost define as nudity, heroic. His body, so realistic and muscular, remind us the perfection of the heroes of the ancient greek and romans descriptions, represented by means of statues in marble and not only them. See now the gesture and pose of the man represented here: he is reclined on one side, a pose that recalls very close to the one that took the guests or the participants of the greek style symposia, a practice later taken over by the Romans, especially when they had guests at home. Now, when in Rome or in some museums we see a figure of that kind we would most probably face a personification of something connected to the water: river, lake, ocean, or sea. This was the canon used later by the Romans to represent a very important element in the life of the Eternal City, and not only. So each personification had some distinctive signs that characterize it, and that allow us to understand what kind of element linked to the water was.

In this case, after noticing the extraordinary details of the beard and long hair, let's look at a figure in the shadow, on the right: a sphinx! We are in the presence, therefore, of the personification of the Nile, the river beloved by the Romans and well known for its beneficial properties. Let's not forget how the silt left by the Nile during floods, or similar episodes, was great as a natural fertilizer. At that time they did not know its source, but we are still below the sphinx, a species of jug from which, metaphorically, leaves the water that makes up the river. All, finally, complemented by that sort of cornucopia, which the figure holds on the left hand ears of corn and fruits, the symbol of plenty. Do you need more to understand the values given to the longest river in Africa? You have just to visit the Vatican Museums in Rome, appreciating this wonder.