Nearly sixty years ago, in June 1968, a beautiful image of a diver was discovered in a tomb of the early fifth century BC, excavated at Poseidonia (Paestum) in the part of southern Italy which the Greeks had colonised. Indeed, they were Greeks who had moved on, having already built one colony further south in Italy, the city of Sybaris, famed for its luxury. The diver was painted on the underside of the lid of a rectangular tomb. On its four interior walls were painted equally striking scenes of men enjoying themselves on couches at a symposium. The man buried in the tomb, surrounded by his drinking companions, would be able to look forever at a picture of a diver suspended between a stone-built diving board and the turquoise water into which his outstretched hands are about to plunge.  

In the eyes of many scholars, the scene of diving is a metaphor for dying, for the leap between the known and the unknown worlds, perhaps with occult resonances connected to Orphism or Pythagoreanism. But the painter has taken the trouble to add just a little hair to the diver’s chin in specially diluted paint. The diver is touchingly young. Did he look like the deceased? Could he simply have been famous for his skill at diving?

The image is now celebrated, and widely reproduced on T-shirts, mugs, cushions, fridge magnets and even earrings. It has joined the repertoire of instantly recognisable ancient artworks such as the Venus de Milo, Myron’s discus thrower and the Alexander Mosaic from the House of the Faun in Pompeii. Tonio Hölscher,