The relief on display was once part of the decorations of the most significant Hellenistic-era funerary monument in Taranto (Via Umbria). The underground burial chamber was marked by an aedicule structure (a so-called naiskos, “small temple”), recognisable by the few unearthed remains and in contemporary depictions on vases. Its structure included a square pediment supporting columns and a richly adorned frieze. The temple itself housed a statue or a monumental vase. Its pediment was adorned with a doric frieze around its entire perimeter, consisting of alternated triglyphs and metopes (high reliefs-carved panels). The metope on display represents the decisive moment of a fight, involving an armoured horseman about to inflict the final blow to his enemy, whose helpless muscular body is shown naked on the ground. The relief’s theme and composition are a precise cultural and ideological reference to Macedonian court art and draws its inspiration from illustrious precedents created by the Greek sculptor Lysippos – notably Alexander the Great on his horse Bucephalus and the Macedonian cavalry heroically resisting the Persians at a critical point in the advance into Asia.