The identification of this female portrait with Circe is due to her discovery on the Circeo promontory; as the cut at the base of the neck indicates, the head must have belonged to a sculpture modeled separately, perhaps the cult statue of the shrine dedicated to her. The portrait, characterized by marked features that indicate a tough and self-confident beauty, was enriched with a diadem that surmounted the hairstyle, as demonstrated by the three pins visible on the head.

The head portrays a mature man with flowing hair and thick beard, who turns vigorously to the right; the identification with Ulysses is due to the presence of the conical and rigid headdress, the so-called pileus, which adheres to the head, falling back on the neck to cover the long hair.

The urn is dedicated to the slave Egrilia Felicitas, who died at the age of 28, by her fellow slave Carpophorus. The decoration describes the battle for Achilles' weapons: in a colonnaded room, in the presence of a seated character with a cloak wrapped around his hips, Ulysses, recognizable by the pileus, has just grabbed the helmet placed on an armour. He is surrounded by his companions who watch Ajax go away, the bearded character with bowed head, and his companions, a boy and the slave Tecmessa, dressed side-side.

The main scene is framed by a vegetable frame: Ulysses is tied to the mast of a ship with the sails furled and the ropes untied, while his companions continue to row; on the left a mermaid in a short tunic plays a lyre, while of the one on the right only the bird's legs can be recognized. Some names in Greek are indicated in correspondence with the various characters. The Latin inscriptions, which probably refer to the managers of the mansio, date back to a later period in the life of the mosaic.

Despite the very compromised state of conservation, in the head it is possible to recognize the replica of a statuary type known as Penelope. The sculpture is in fact characterized by the reclining pose of the head, supported by the right hand (of which a small part remains above the temple) and covered by a hat on which a heavy cloak is placed, and by the arrangement of the hair which follows one another in small comma curls along the contour of the face.

The bustier represents Athena armed: from the helmet, raised on the forehead, thick hair emerges; two soft locks fall on the aegis, the small armor that protects the chest and shoulders, characterized by a scale design and the presence in the center of the head of medusa (gorgoneion), a typical attribute of the goddess.

On the left is a group of girls, the daughters of King Nicomede to whom Thetis, Achilles' mother, had entrusted her son to protect him from war; recalled by the trumpeter, in the background on the left side of the sarcophagus, and by Ulysses and Diomede, always in the foreground on the left, Achilles, in the center of the scene, is already up in arms and ready for battle despite one of the girls, Deidamia, trying to hold it.