Contested Spaces: Houses and Temples in Roman Antiquity and the New Testament (Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen Zum Neuen Testament) 9783161510267, 9783161520266, 3161510267

Citation preview

Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament Herausgeber / Editor Jörg Frey (Zürich) Mitherausgeber / Associate Editors Friedrich Avemarie (Marburg) Markus Bockmuehl (Oxford) James A. Kelhoffer (Uppsala) Hans-Josef Klauck (Chicago, IL)

285

Contested Spaces Houses and Temples in Roman Antiquity and the New Testament Edited by

David L. Balch and Annette Weissenrieder

Mohr Siebeck

David L. Balch, born 1942, Professor of New Testament, Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary/Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley; Ph.D. Yale University. He has just been given a Festschrift: Aliou Cissé Niang and Carolyn Osiek, eds., Text, Image, and Christians in the Graeco-Roman World: A Festschrift in Honor of David Lee Balch (Princeton Theological Monograph; Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2012) with three sections: 9 articles on house churches, 6 on constructions of the ”other,” and 6 on constructions of visual worlds. Annette Weissenrieder, born 1967; Ph.D. at the University of Heidelberg; currently working as Associate Professor of New Testament at San Francisco Theological Seminary/ Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley; Affiliate Member of Doctoral Faculty at the Center of Jewish Studies at Berkeley.

eISBN 978-3-16-152026-6 ISBN 978-3-16-151026-7 ISSN 0512-1604 (Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament) Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliographie; detailed bibliographic data is available on the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de.

© 2012  by Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, Germany. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, in any form (beyond that permitted by copyright law) without the publisher’s written permission. This applies particularly to reproductions, translations, microfilms and storage and processing in electronic systems. The book was typeset by Martin Fischer in Tübingen, printed by Gulde-Druck in Tübingen on non-aging paper and bound by Buchbinderei Spinner in Ottersweier. Printed in Germany.

Preface At first it may seem trite to observe that every society organizes its social, political, and religious spaces in a manner that corresponds to its own unique fundamental values. This is the case for house types in antiquity, as also for pagan temples, trade associations, and religious groups. The correlation of types of space – including, for example, their furniture and ancient art – with particular communities gives information about self-understanding and internal communal relationships, and is, therefore, the object of numerous archaeological studies. Even when most New Testament research does not work explicitly with archaeology, nevertheless, many such studies make assumptions about the types of space connected with the social histories they reconstruct, assumptions that are, however, seldom consciously articulated. Three examples suffice. Decisions about kinds of space influence New Testament scholars’ understanding of conflict around the Lord’s Supper in Corinth. Is the conflict grounded in the lack of space in “private” houses, so that the poor are relegated to atria at the entrance, while the rich recline in elite triclinia deeper inside the house? What types of houses were there in Greece and Rome? To what extent were individual rooms and their functions fixed? To what extent were religious values and experiences reflected in the art and architecture of these houses? A second example: Luke’s narrative expresses central theological topoi through characters at meals. To what extent are ancient seating/reclining customs reflected in this gospel? Did women customarily recline with the men? Where did women sit or recline, and what behavior was expected of them? Finally, New Testament scholars have generally polarized understandings of certain architectural forms, domus and insulae, the former characterized as residences of the wealthy structured hierarchically and the latter located in urban slums where residents experienced equality. This particular understanding of polarized domestic spaces yields related reconstructions of congregational sizes, ethics, and leadership. Might further study of these domestic spaces alter our reconstructions of Roman congregations, both in the capital and in Roman colonies like Corinth and Philippi? Through this volume we hope to stimulate increased dialogue between New Testament and patristics scholars, on the one hand, and Italian (Umberto Pappalardo, Rosaria Ciardiello, Mario Grimaldi, Ivan Varriale, Maria

VI

Preface

Paola Guidobaldi, and Fabrizio Pesando), Austrian (Hilke Thür and Ulrike Muss), English (Janet DeLaine), German (Monika Bernett), and American (Eleanor Winsor Leach, John R. Clarke, Tina Najbjerg, Laura Salah Nasrallah and L. Michael White) historians of Roman art and archaeology, on the other. These few questions suggest that particular types of spaces are decisive for the interpretation of New Testament texts and urban congregations. Nevertheless, scholars have neglected space and focused on time, until the nineteen nineties brought the so-called “spatial turn.” This is the case not only for New Testament hermeneutics, but also for Ancient History in general. Fundamental is not only the classical differentiation between physical space, on the one hand, and social space, on the other,1 but also the tension between an “absolute,” passive understanding of space, a typology designating space for particular social events, and a relational, active understanding of space, in which actors generate their own spaces. The consequences of this second distinction are fundamental: the focus of research shifts from examining words and texts to questions of the physicality of space: walls, windows, doors, stairs, columns, frescoes, mosaics, and furniture. Space becomes the formal condition, the conditio sine qua non, as Simmel2 can write. Such research focuses on the interrelationship between space and society. Typologies of space affect and condition actions. These relationships “are embedded in cultural paradigms open to change,”3 with the consequence that spaces have different functions and meanings. Contemporary social scientific theories have therefore changed, given the recognition that spaces go through evolutionary development. Expressed differently, the ordering of space represents social order, or with Pierre Bourdieu, “habits make houses.”4 This book, however, does not thematize contemporary discussions about space; the following chapters rather assume this discourse. Three concerns are expressed in the title, Contested Spaces: the first is archaeological, which aims to give specific insights into Roman domestic and sacred spaces. We examine these spaces in diverse geographies (e.g. Pompeii, Ostia, Ephesus, Corinth). What was a Roman domus (Ivan Varriale, Mario Grimaldi,5 Hilke Thür), a villa (Umberto Pappalardo, Rosaria Ciardiello, 1 M. Schroer, Räume, Orte, Grenzen. Auf dem Weg zu einer Soziologie des Raums (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 2006), 174–176. 2 G. Simmel, Soziologie. Untersuchung über die Formen der Gesellschaftung (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot 1908 = Gesamtausgabe Vol. 11; Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1999). 3 A. Janson, “Institut für Grundlagen der Gestaltung,” in Fakultät für Architektur der Universität Karlsruhe (TH) (Tübingen, 1999), 41. 4 P. Bourdieu, “Physischer, sozialer und angeeigneter physischer Raum,” in Stadträume (ed. M. Wentz; Frankfurt a.M./New York: Campus, 1991), 25–34, here 32. 5 This volume contains articles explicating domus, insulae, and villae; to which category does Grimaldi’s article belong? The Casa di Fabius Rufus illustrates the problems of defin-

Preface

VII

Monika Bernett), an insula (Maria Paola Guidobaldi, Janet DeLaine)? Concepts of space include connections between outside and inside by colonnaded halls, the aesthetics of self-representation by upper or lower class symbols in both the materials and techniques of construction, as well as frescoes with nature visually represented, which dissolves oppositions between inside and outside; in the Augustan age all this expressed a completely new world. In the textual world we see this renewal and Romanization in Vitruvius’ ten volumes of comprehensive architectural theory. Each of the chapters below assumes that actions and events, either individual or collective, are related to architectural and social space. To reach a wider audience, we have had some Italian and German contributions translated into English. The second concern is to examine interrelationships between architecture and the experience of space, on the one hand, with social and religious experiences on the other. Several essays address the religious character of certain spaces (David Balch, Irene Bragantini, Tina Najbjerg, Annette Weissenrieder, Monika Bernett, Laura Salah Nasrallah, and L. Michael White). A third concern is theological: this volume has its origin in a conference Celebrating the Centenary of the Pontifical Biblical Institute at the Pontifical Gregorian University, which was held in Rome in July, 2009. We express our gratitude to Prof. Frederick E. Brenk, S. J., who has assisted us over the years in Rome and who also helped arrange this particular seminar. The editors have requested some additional essays by scholars who could not attend the conference. We intend to make available an initial survey of religious spaces in the Imperial period that goes beyond contemporary national borders, and at the same time to bring different scholarly disciplines into conversation with each other. Both internationally known as well as a newer generation of scholars offered contributions at the conference, scholars from specialties in archaeology, ancient art, architecture, ancient history, and theology (New Testament), in order to give aspects of an archaeological survey of ancient spaces relevant to our leading questions. In some instances individual chapters go deeper, especially when new excavations are presented. The production of this collection of essays is the result of close cooperative research between disciplines, especially in relation to visual materials. We ing domestic space: it is one of fifteen luxurious domus in the Western Insula of Pompeii, built as a unit in the first century B.C.E, totaling c. 15,000 square meters; most of these domus have three or four floors, gardens, and terraces with panoramic views of the Mediterranean, the latter typical of coastal villae. See U. Pappalardo and M. Aoyagi, “L’insula occidentalis. una sintesi delle conoscenze,” Pompei (Regiones VI-VII) Insula Occidentalis (eds. M. Aoyagi and U. Pappalardo; University of Tokyo Center for Research of Pictorial Cultural Resources; Naples: Valtend, 2006), 17–31, at 17.

VIII

Preface

thank especially the doctoral student Thomas Soden and Prof. Dr. Polly Coote for their consistent assistance, including the translation of the essay by PD Dr. Monika Bernett. We offer our gratitude also to Mohr Siebeck for their financial support of the translation of several essays from Italian into English. We are grateful to Dr. Jason T. Lamoreaux for the first two indices. We thank Jana Trispel and Dr. Henning Ziebritzki, the editors of the series, and especially Prof. Dr. Jörg Frey, for their competent guiding of this work to publication, their trust in the result, and their readiness to publish an unusual volume with a CD. Please accept our deepest gratitude! July 2011

David L. Balch Annette Weissenrieder

Table of Contents Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . V A. Interpretive Issues John R. Clarke Representations of Worship at Rome, Pompeii, Heraculaneum, and Ostia in the Imperial Period. A Model of Production and Consumption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Irene Bragantini The Cult of Isis and Ancient Egyptomania in Campania . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Fabrizio Pesando The Properties and Social Role of Pompeiian Feminae Nobiles in Italy During the Early Imperial Age . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 Annette Weissenrieder Contested Spaces in 1 Corinthians 11:17–33 and 14:30: Sitting or Reclining in Ancient Houses, in Associations and in the Space of ekkl sia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 Laura Salah Nasrallah Grief in Corinth: The Roman City and Paul’s Corinthian Correspondence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 Eleanor Winsor Leach Rhetorical Inventio and the Expectations of Roman Continuous Narrative Painting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141 B. Contested Domestic Spaces I. Domus Ivan Varriale Architecture and Decoration in the House of Menander in Pompeii . 163

X

Table of Contents

Mario Grimaldi Charting the urban development of the Insula Occidentalis and the Casa di Marcus Fabius Rufus at Pompeii . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185 David L. Balch The Church Sitting in a Garden (1 Cor 14:30; Rom 16:23; Mark 6:39–40; 8:6; John 6:3, 10; Acts 1:15; 2:1–2) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201 Hilke Thür Art and Architecture in Terrace House 2 in Ephesos. An example of domestic architecture in the Roman Imperial Period . . 237 II. Villae Umberto Pappalardo How the Romans saw the frieze in the Villa of the Mysteries at Pompeii . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261 Rosaria Ciardiello Beryllos, the Jews and the Villa of Poppaea in Oplontis (Torre Annunziata) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265 Monika Bernett Space and Interaction: Narrative and Representation of Power under the Herodians . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283 III. Insulae Maria Paola Guidobaldi The House of the Telephus Relief in Herculaneum: the building history of an aristocratic domus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311 Janet DeLaine Housing Roman Ostia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327 C. Contested Sacred Spaces: Temples, the Imperial Cult, and Mithraea Tina Najbjerg Exploring the economic, political, and social significance of the great Porticus in Herculaneum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355

Table of Contents

XI

Annette Weissenrieder “Do you not know that you are God’s temple?” Towards a new perspective on Paul’s temple image in 1 Corinthians 3:16 . . . . . . . . . . . 377 David L. Balch Cult Statues of Augustus’ Temple of Apollo on the Palatine in Rome, Artemis’/Diana’s Birthday in Ephesus, and Revelation 12:1–5a . . . . . . 413 L. Michael White The Changing Face of Mithraism at Ostia. Archaeology, Art, and the Urban Landscape . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 435 Ulrike Muss The Artemision at Ephesos: Paul, John and Mary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 493

List of Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 513 Index of Ancient Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 517 Index of Modern Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 533 Index of Architectural Structures and their Decorations . . . . . . . . . . . 549 This book contains a CD with pictures./The eBooks contains all pictures from the CD. Please go to “Pictures”.

A. Interpretive Issues

Representations of Worship at Rome, Pompeii, Heraculaneum, and Ostia in the Imperial Period A Model of Production and Consumption John R. Clarke Visual representations, like textual representations, do not record or document religious practices. Each of them is unique. A given representation of worship has a specific purpose. Operating as we are at a distance of two millennia, we can only partially understand the meanings encoded in any representation. Over the years scholars of ancient Roman visual culture have adopted various strategies to decode representations of worship. The least successful of these, to my mind, are approaches that take an image as prima facie evidence. I call this the approach of the “omniscient scholar-viewer.”1 The image of a ceremony of the cult of Isis, found in an unknown space at Herculaneum in the eighteenth century, might tempt the omniscient scholar to scour the ancient literature for references to Isis (fig. 1). She might decide that the painting fits with a description of the cult of Isis embedded in the Golden Ass, even though Apuleius wrote it about 100 years after the painting was covered by the eruption of Vesuvius. Looking for resemblances between literary images and visual images, in fact, is standard practice. Never mind that Apuleius is writing a novel meant for a literate, elite public, and that the painter who created this image was decorating a wall with a picture. We don’t even know whether this wall was in a temple or a private house, and we don’t know what else the artist included in the decorative ensemble. Was it one of a kind or were there other pictures with it? In this case a second picture, also in the collection of the Naples Archaeological Museum, was found with it, but we have no information about the physical space.2 We don’t know who would have seen the picture or what a viewer might have known about the image. 1 J. Clarke, Looking at Laughter: Humor, Power, and Transgression in Roman Visual Culture, 100 B.C.–A.D. 250 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007), 109–20. 2 V. Gasparini, “Iside a Ercolano: il culto pubblico,” in Egittomania: Iside e il mistero. Exh. Cat. Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples, Oct. 12, 2006–Feb. 26, 2007 (ed. S. De

4

John R. Clarke

But our omniscient scholar is in a different position from an ancient Roman viewer. He has the entire preserved corpus of ancient texts referring to Isis, a huge series of volumes on oriental religions called Etudes préliminaires aux religions orientales dans l’Empire romain (LESPROM), numerous other monographs on Isis, and the corpora of Greek and Roman inscriptions. He has at his disposal photographic archives organized by subject matter. Working from within this rich plenum of possibilities, a scholar might be inclined to decide on a meaning and come up with an interpretation of the image that flies up into the interpretative stratosphere, and few will take him to task for it. After all, the bibliographic references are all there. What can a scholar do in the face of interpretative practices that take visual representations on face value and assume that we can, at will, use all the ammunition in our scholarly arsenal? The best chance to fix this problem is to work from a model that looks at production and consumption of visual imagery (fig. 2). This model, which I proposed in 2003, asks a series of questions that emphasize context understood in its broadest sense.3 I begin with the questions of identity. Who is the patron? Who is the artist? Who is the viewer? These questions immediately focus on social status and gender, as do the other boxed elements questioning literacy and profession. My model also focuses on the circumstances of production and consumption. There are at least two actors in the production side: the person who paid for it (the patron) and the person who made it (the artist). On the consumption side there are many potential viewers, and each brings to the viewing different kinds of information, or cultural baggage if you will. What is more, these viewers will look at that visual representation under differing circumstances conditioned by variables of time and place. Since this is a complicated model, in what follows I take it apart by asking one question at a time, with a special focus on visual representation with religious content.

Caro; Milan: Electa, 2006), 123–24 hypothesizes a continuity of action between inv. 8924 and inv. 8919. Both paintings well-illustrated in Rosso Pompeiano: La decorazione pittorica nelle collezioni del Museo di Napoli e a Pompei. Roma, Museo Nazionale, Romano Palazzo Massimo alle Terme, 20 dicembre 2007–31 marzo 2008 (eds. M. Nava, R. Paris, and R. Friggeri; Milan: Electa, 2007), 151–52. 3 J. Clarke, Art in the Lives of Ordinary Romans: Visual Representation and Non-Elite Viewers in Italy, 100 B.C.–A.D. 315 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 9–13.

Representations of Worship

5

1. Who paid for it? We have sufficient textual information to be quite clear about who paid for two roughly contemporaneous altars at Rome: the well-known, muchstudied Altar of Augustan Peace and a humble altar commissioned by four magistrates who were former slaves (fig. 3). Scholars agree that the ultimate patron of the Ara Pacis is Augustus himself, although the Senate voted its construction. We might characterize the patron of the Ara Pacis as the Roman Senate controlled by Augustus. Paul Zanker focuses on its imagery as the quintessential expression of the emperor’s program of cultural renewal.4 So, we have an elite patron, male in gender identification, seeking to use visual representation for specific aims. A far from complete list of these aims includes: representing his pietas by emphasizing his role as pontifex maximus; establishing his divine parentage by representing his ancestor, Aeneas, sacrificing at Lavinium; and demonstrating the effects of Peace in two ways: in the hybrid representation of Venus/Tellus/Italia/Pax/Ceres and in the representation of the exuberant growth of nature in the remarkably fecund acanthus decorations on the outside of the altar and the garlands with the fruits of all seasons on the interior of the altar.5 Augustus presents dual proof of his legitimacy as ruler by showing his blood-line family following him to the altar’s inauguration on one of the long enclosure walls with the political family of the senators on the opposite wall. Scholars have remarked on these and many more features of the Altar that remind us that Augustus was the patron and that he and his dynasty were the prime beneficiaries of its tendentious messages.6 It is interesting that the actual representation of the sacrifices that took place at the Ara Pacis appears not on the precinct wall but on the altar itself, in a small frieze running around its upper border. If we ask who are the principal viewers of this frieze, we would have to answer that they are the priests and Vestal Virgins in charge of the annual sacrifices, although the fact that the precinct wall had doors opening to reveal both the back and front of the altar made it possible for people to see more of the interior imagery than they could with just one door. People could have glimpses, perhaps, of the garlands decorating the precinct wall and the small sacrificial friezes on the altar itself. But on ordinary days these doors were closed, and the curious would have had to be content with views of the exterior. Zanker, The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus, trans. A. Shapiro (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1988), 167–83. 5 D. Castriota, The Ara Pacis Augustae and the Imagery of Abundance in Later Greek and Early Roman Imperial Art (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1995). 6 Especially useful summary in K. Galinsky, Augustan Culture: An Interpretive Introduction (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1996), 141–55. 4 P.

6

John R. Clarke

If we step back from this analysis of visual representation of worship and look at the big picture, we realize that the altar and its precinct constitute both the representation of worship and the place where one worshipped. But that place extends into meanings that go beyond thanking the gods for Augustus’ safe return from war on July 4, 13 B.C.E. The altar is but one of a group of monuments that articulates the virtues of Augustus and the founding of his dynasty (fig. 4). Since Augustus is patron not only of the Ara Pacis but of the entire complex, we can expect all of these monuments to articulate one or more aspects of his imagery of legitimation. Although my main question here is: Who paid for it? I can not resist asking: Who is the viewer? I can imagine a host of hypothetical Roman viewers. An elite woman, say, the wife of a Senator portrayed processing along the west precinct wall, would probably be able to identify not only her husband but the other Senators. (But not of course today, since the heads are modern restorations). She could also probably figure out who was who in the frieze of Augustus and his family – even though the frieze was high up: the enclosure wall rose to a height of 19 feet above the paving of the plaza. The unusual inclusion of children would have struck home as well, since Augustus had actually enacted legislation to encourage childbearing. A very different kind of viewer, a freeborn woman, wife of a freeborn working man, might have understood why Augustus included children in the processional friezes, but it is unlikely she could have recognized (like our Senator’s wife or omniscient scholar viewer) the members of the dynasty other than Augustus himself, whose images were everywhere. Her children, innocent of propaganda, would most likely have focused on all the creatures in the acanthus scrolls. What a viewer understands in an image depends on the variables: here social class, gender, age, and prior experience of the visual representation. Back to the question: Who paid for it? – but this time with patrons who are definitely non-elite. The four freedmen who paid for the little altar found 25 feet beneath the modern Via Arenula were ward-captains, called vicomagistri; they kept watch over traffic, crimes, and fires (fig. 5). It is a monument to street-corner religion: the cult of the Lares, or protector deities not of the home but of the city ward, or vicus, named on the altar. It is the Vicus Aesculetus, one of 265 wards established by Augustus in 8 B.C.E.7 But their most prestigious activity and the one represented on the altar was sacrificing to the Lares and to the Genius of Augustus. In the office of vicomagister, religion and civic duty merged.

7 Pisani Sartorio, “Compitum Vici Aesc(u)leti,” Lexicon Topographicum Urbis Romae 1 (1988): 316.

Representations of Worship

7

Who are these unlikely patrons? Imagery and inscriptions together provide clues to their identity. The four figures wear togas, indicating that they are citizens, either freeborn or freedmen. Since they are in the act of sacrificing, they have drawn an edge of the toga over their heads. This was a powerful image for the contemporary viewer, since it signified the virtue of pietas that Augustus promoted: Romans everywhere could see images of the emperor togate and capite velato throughout the city and the empire. That is how he appears on the Ara Pacis. The vicomagistri also wear laurel crowns, a central motif in Augustus’s visual representations and the attribute that distinguishes the Lares depicted on each the altar’s two sides from ordinary domestic Lares who instead carry a pail. Yet our patrons are not senators or equestrians belonging to the elite priestly colleges like those represented on the Ara Pacis. The inscriptions inform us. An “L” appears in two of the names, meaning that the men are the libertini (former slaves) of their masters.8 In return for their work of watching over their neighborhood’s security, these men won the privilege of parading their status before their neighbors, accompanied by two lictors. In the relief the artist had space to show just one lictor, carved in low relief at the altar’s left edge. Lictors also appear on the Ara Pacis, identified by the fasces (elm or birch rods bound together). The player of the tibia, or double oboe, occupies the center between our four vicomagistri. Clearly this modest relief crows a bit in its imitation of important state religious ceremonies, considering that the vicomagistri’s duties were local and discrete. Our patrons instructed the artist to give them the greatest prominence and to make them equal. The artist arranged them symmetrically on either side of the altar, their arms all outstretched to sacrifice. One wonders whether this is actually how they carried out the sacrifice. The man on the left holds a patera or offering plate, but did the man behind him hold a patera as well? Similarly, if the man in the front on the right is holding a grain of incense, did the man behind him repeat that offering? If the surfaces were less damaged, we could see whether the artist created a portrait likeness for each man, but otherwise the image is one of solidarity and equality in sharing their duties. These unlikely patrons also instructed the artist to show a special aspect of this sacrifice: the offering of a bull to the Genius (or guardian spirit) of Augustus. Pigs are the proper offering to the Lares, as is well attested in other settings. A viewer would immediately identify the bull in the relief with the emperor.9 So, the sacrifice carried out by our vicomagistri was Ordinary Romans, 84, esp. n. 27. Scott Ryberg, Rites of the State Religion in Roman Art, Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome (Bergamo: Istituto d’arti grafiche, 1955), 60. 8 Clarke, 9 I.

8

John R. Clarke

much more complex and expensive than one a paterfamilias officiated over in his home.10 We can imagine a crowd of people from the vicus watching the proceedings and eagerly anticipating a feast with abundant roasted meat. Note also that to accommodate the animals and the men who killed them the artist has had to make them smaller than our patrons. Sometimes the ward officials were slaves. A case in point is the modest altar from the vicus Statae Matris, found on the Caelian hill in 1906. It commemorates the sixth year of the establishment of the cult, and bears the names of the four officials called ministri rather than magistri. The four vicomagistri were Felix, Florus, Eudoxsus, and Polyclitus. They record their names according to the usage for slaves of the Augustan period: their master’s names follow their own in the genitive case. The year and date of the erection of the altar is 18 September 2 B.C.E., under the consuls named on the monument: L. Caninius Gallus and C. Fufius Geminus. It was a more economical monument than the Altar of the Vicus Aesculetus. Rather than a scene of sacrifice with figures, simple decorative emblems appear. The corona civica (oak leaf crown) appears on the front, where it encircles the names of the four slaves.11 There is a patera on the back, and laurel branches substitute for the laurel-carrying Lares on the sides.12 The fact of their slavery demonstrates how important it was to Augustus to enlist the piety and loyalty of the slaves in Rome. What have we learned by asking the question: Who paid for it? For one thing, we see that self-representation as a pious individual is a value shared by the Emperor and the elites as well as former slaves and slaves. Public priesthoods are also important to these men. But if there is anxiety concerning the patrons’ identity in non-elite altars, there is no trace of it in the Ara Pacis. Everyone knows who Augustus is, but even so he piles on references to his priestly office, his family, and his “extended family” – the senators who survived his bloody accession to power. On the little altar from the Vicus Aesculetus, the four former slaves vie for center stage, so much so as to crowd the relief, whereas the poorest commission, the Altar of the Vicus Statae Matris, deftly substitutes symbols (corona civica, patera, laurel branches) for narrative scenes even while emphasizing the patrons’ names. 10 T. Fröhlich, Lararien‑ und Fassadenbilder in den Vesuvstädten: Untersuchungen zur “volkstümlichen” pompejanischen Malerei (Römische Mitteilungen, Supplement; Mainz: von Zabern, 1991), 21–61. 11 In 27 B.C. the senate honored Augustus with the corona civica and the clipeus virtutis for his virtus, clementia, iustitia, and pietas; they also gave him the right to hang laurel branches over the door to his house and honored him with laurel trees flanking his doorway: Augustus, Res Gestae 34. 12 On slaves as magistri and ministri of the Genius of Augustus, see Y. Thébert, “The Slave,” in The Romans (ed. A. Giardina, trans. L. Cochrane; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), 163.

Representations of Worship

9

In the domestic sphere we find many lararia, most of them quite standard in their imagery. But several are unique and offer new insights into the question of patronage. Unique paintings in a house at Pompeii (I 13,2) identified as belonging to a certain Sutoria Primigenia add to our investigation of patronage the question of gender: does a woman patron represent worship differently from a male patron?13 It seems she does (fig. 6). It is a relatively modest house, and the paintings in the kitchen, executed in the 60s or 70s C.E., provide a particularly eloquent testimony to the importance of religious observance in the household (figs. 7 and 8). Someone entering the kitchen (17 on the plan) would see a representation of the whole household, or familia, attending a sacrifice. Large figures of the Lares frame the scene. Next in size are the figures of Genius of the paterfamilias or head of the household – perhaps Sutoria’s dead husband or other male relative – accompanied by the Juno, or guardian spirit of the woman of the house: Sutoria’s guardian spirit. Both stand at an altar at the left. Just to the left of the altar are the tibicens playing the tibia. Only the Genius wears the toga, and of course since he is sacrificing, he has pulled its edge over his head. The Juno wears the proper garment of the Roman matron, the stola. All thirteen persons to the right face outwards in frontal pose and wear white tunics with short sleeves. And all hold their arms and hands in the same attitude. They hold the right arm to the chest while the left rests at the waist. An exception is the first person at left in the front row standing near the Genius, who must be the camillus or attendant. Beneath is a landscape genre scene, and around the niche for the lararium proper the artist has painted foodstuffs. At the bottom is the serpent, one of the good demons or agathodaemones that invariably appear approaching representations of altars in domestic lararia. The patronage of Sutoria seems to account for the non-standard features of this lararium painting. She wanted to represent the familia at worship. Did she want to encourage piety among the slaves who would have gathered daily in this space to offer sacrifice to the Lares and the Genius of the household? Or did it constitute wishful thinking, since the kitchen is scarcely large enough to accommodate such a large gathering? Perhaps the scene records a special sacrifice of thanksgiving or celebration. Although it is impossible to determine the patron’s purpose in representing the assembled familia in such a humble space, both its specificity and its elaborateness distinguish it from standard lararium paintings found throughout Pompeii. Before we leave the question: Who is the patron? let us return briefly to the imperial sphere to see what happens as the persona of the emperor 13 O. Bardelli Mondini, “I 13,2: Casa di Sutoria Primigenia,” in Pompei: Pitture e mosaici, vol. 2 (ed. Giovanni Pugliese Carratelli, Rome: Treccani, 1990), 860–80; Fröhlich, Lararien‑ und Fassadenbilder, 261, L 29.

10

John R. Clarke

begins to change over time. The patron of the Column of Trajan is – as in the case of the Ara Pacis – the Emperor and Senate. But uniquely and exceptionally, the Column is also Trajan’s tomb. Leaving aside the repetitions of Trajan’s name, honors, and statues throughout the forum, the imagery of the helical frieze with some 2,500 figures and 154 recognizable scenes is not symbolic or allegorical. It presents itself as realistic and documentary: a history of the two campaigns of the Dacian wars (101–102 and 105–106). Or so it seems, but as scholars have long recognized, this putative narrative really consists of variations on six stock scenes.14 The army journeys, then builds, then the emperor prepares for battle by sacrificing, then he addresses the troops. The army engages in battle. The sixth stock scene focuses on the enemy rather than on the Romans and their work: we see Dacian barbarians, brought as prisoners or coming as ambassadors to Trajan. Most scenes of sacrifice all portray the lustrum, the cleansing of the camp and the army, a ceremony that challenged artists who had to represent both the circumambulation of the camp and the emperor’s sacrifice of a pig, a sheep, and a bull, the suovetaurelia. In contrast to the Altar of Peace, where the representation of sacrifice is confined to the altar itself so that Augustus can foreground – through symbolic and historical representations – other ideological claims, the artist gives completely even treatment to the six stock scenes. He wants to show Trajan as the perfect military man, performing all the virtues of the perfect Roman. If the representations of worship show his pietas, his address to the army shows his virtus (manly virtue); his reception of the barbarians his clemency (clementia), and so on. And although they propel the story along, and the representations of worship are realistic, they contribute to the profile of the ideal emperor, always honoring the gods, and honored as a god and interred at the base of this very column: a fitting memorial for the emperor after his death.

2. How Does the Visual Representation Address the Viewer? A slew of variables arise when we ask how an image addresses a viewer. Viewer address includes the questions of both place and time. Investigation of the location of a visual representation is fundamental to understanding its temporal dimensions, that is, when and under what circumstances a viewer might see it.

14 K. Lehmann-Hartleben, Die Trajanssäule: Ein römisches Kunstwerk zu Beginn der Spätantike, vol. 1 (Leipzig: Walter de Gruyter, 1926).

Representations of Worship

11

It is archaeology that tells us about the location of the visual representation. If we are lucky, the image is still in situ and we can go see it for ourselves. Luck is on our side as well if when the excavator removed the visual representation and put it in a museum, like the Altar from the Vicus Aesculetus, he also left us a detailed report of where he or she found it and what else was around it. However, most objects removed from their context carry little information about their original location; in the case of the looted objects that fill our museums, we have no information at all. A particularly good example of the importance of location in determining the meanings of representations of worship for ancient is a painting that, although badly damaged, is still in situ along the Street of Abundance at Pompeii, found in 1912 on the facade of a shop (fig. 9).15 Although excavators were unable to explore the spaces behind the facade, what they found was remarkable: an ensemble of paintings that included: the four planetary gods (Sun, Jupiter, Mercury, and Moon); Pompeian Venus; and a detailed representation of a procession honoring the Great Mother of the Gods, Cybele. There was also an archaizing bust of Dionysus inserted into a niche to the right of the doorway. Looking at this ensemble, the one element that tells us most about viewer address is the procession of Cybele because it shows human beings in cult activity (figs. 10–11). If the planetary deities set up a kind of cosmic architrave, it is to frame Jupiter, father of the gods, and Mercury, protector of commerce, between the sun and the moon. The painting of the heavily draped, corpulent Venus with Cupid at her side must represent the cult statue in the Temple of Venus near the Forum.16 When Sulla conquered the Pompeii of the Samnites and made it a Roman colony in 80 B.C.E., he dedicated the city to Venus. It is the remarkable representation of a second statue of a maternal deity that forms the focus of the painting on the right of the entrance. It is a wooden statue used in processions, still resting on its bier or ferculum – not a Roman goddess but an import from Phrygia in Asia: Cybele, also known as Magna Mater Deum. The four bearers have just set the ferculum down. The statue is about twice life-size, set off by a green backdrop covered with red stars. Cybele wears a dress of deep purple and a mantle, with a crown in the shape of city walls to symbolize her role as protector of the city. In her left hand she holds a long golden branch with thin leaves at the top and a golden patera in her right. In the crook made by her left arm is a tambourine; there are two little lions at her feet. Today the painting has suf15 V. Spinazzola, Pompei alla luce degli scavi nuovi di via dell’Abbondanza (anni 1910– 1923), vol. 1 (Rome: Libreria dello Stato, 1953), 213–242, figs. 144, 145, 241, 242; G. De Petra, “Pompei: Scavi di antichità,” Notizie degli Scavi (1912): 110, fig. 7; 138, fig. 1. 16 Spinazzola, Pompei alla luce, 1, figs. 216–17.

12

John R. Clarke

fered much damage, so that the net of prophecy covering her lap is no longer visible. It is an attribute Cybele shares with oracular divinities including Dionysus, Apollo, and Artemis-Hecate.17 In fact, the artist included one of these oracular divinities, Dionysus, in a novel way by inserting a marble bust of the god in a niche at the left. Between these two representations of cult images we find all of the devotees save the two musicians to the left of Dionysus represented in a smaller size than the others because of their lesser importance. To the right we see the four bearers who have just set down the ferculum (figs. 13–16). All wear long white tunics partly covered by long red bibs that hang from shoulders to knees.18 They still hold the canes they used to help bear the statue’s weight.19 In the front row are the three principal actors, all wearing ample white tunics decorated with red stripes. The officiating priest (11) holds out both hands. In his right hand he holds a little green twig and an object that may be an oil lamp or flask, and in his left a gold patera. The man to his left who turns to him must be his assistant, for he carries a cista, the reliquary containing the objects sacred to Cybele’s cult on his left shoulder. To his left is the tibicen (6) turning his instrument toward the bust of Dionysus in the niche at far left. Immediately behind the celebrant are two women who stand out a bit from the others: one wears a vegetal crown and a robe the color of Cybele’s and she carries special attributes: a branch in her right hand and a patera in her left (12). One scholar identifies her as the first priestess of Cybele.20 Her companion (10), on the other side of the celebrant and wearing a green dress, looks intently at the cista; she may be the second priestess of the Pompeian cult.21 Interesting for our question of how the painting addressed the viewer is the fact that so many of the assembled devotees play musical instruments: tambourines, cymbals, the pan pipes, and the double oboes. As far back as Plato we find mention of the powerful effect of the “Phrygian harmony” on those who heard it.22 We can practically hear the sound of the proces17 Spinazzola, Pompei alla luce,  1, figs. 216–17; A. and M. de Vos, Pompei Ercolano Stabia, Guide archeologiche Laterza (Rome: Laterza, 1982), 111. 18 Also seen in the dress of Persians in the painting in oecus g, west wall, west part, of the House of Octavius Quartio: Spinazzola, Pompei alla luce, 1, figs. 262–63. 19 For a fragment of a relief from Capua with Cybele’s ferculum bearers using canes, see Spinazzola, Pompei alla luce, 1, fig. 261. 20 Spinazzola, Pompei alla luce,  1, figs. 234–35; at nearby Beneventum there was a priestess (sacerdos) and an assistant priestess (consacerdos), CIL 10, 1542, 1541. 21 For the complex hierarchy of priests and priestesses in the cult of Cybele, see H. Graillot, Le culte de Cybèle, mère des dieux à Rome et dans l’Empire Romain (Biblothèque des Écoles françaiseses d’Athènes et de Rome ; Paris, 1912), 226–61; he provides a long list of priestesses from preserved inscriptions, 248–49, n. 1. 22 Plato Republic 3.399–399c.

Representations of Worship

13

sion that has just ended here, as the bearers have set the statue down and, it seems, the high priest prepares to carry out the rites of Magna Mater. If we remember the rocky history of this cult, from the time the Roman Senate invited Cybele to Rome in 204 B.C.E. to the various suppressions of the cult until the emperor Claudius officially permitted citizens to become priests in C.E. 50, we can imagine a range of reactions to this painting on Main Street. Elite citizens – senators and lawyers – repeatedly call for bans on cult practices, such as the noisy, exuberant, and licentious dancing and music that accompanied Cybele’s processions and rites, and above all the practice of self-castration by priests of the cult, the Galli.23 The Galli entered Rome along with the sacred meteorite from Pessinus; their self-castration imitated that of the goddess’s beloved, Attis, who made himself a eunuch in devotion to Cybele.24 It took Rome several hundred years to accept priests who compromised their legal identity as men by becoming eunuchs. Epigraphic evidence shows that even the head priests, the Archigalli, were ex-slaves well into the third century C.E.25 Equally difficult for elite Roman men was the attraction that Cybele’s cult had for women. Traditional state religion allowed women only minimal roles: elite women could become Vestals; at Pompeii we have two priestesses of Venus, Eumachia and Mamia. So our humble street-front painting is an important indicator of non-elite women’s participation in the very public, showy, and noisy cult of Cybele. The patron instructed the artist to represent six women – two of them possibly priestesses – among the entourage of sixteen. What is more, the artist set up the painting to emphasize Cybele’s alliance with two Roman deities who were important to women: Dionysus and the local maternal deity, Venus Pompeiana. The location of this painting on a busy public street beautifully complicates the answer to the question: Who is the viewer? One of Pompeii’s elite citizens might think: These crazy people, can’t they be content with the state deities? And they’re so noisy and undignified. A female devotee of Cybele would get up close to see if she could make out the features of the priest and, above all, the priestesses, hoping that some day she could enter the inner circle of the cult. The actor, Gaius Norbanus Sorex, might think this tiny painting on the crowded street insignificant – nothing to compare 23 Lucretius, On the Nature of Things 2.600–28; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities 2.19.3–5; Juvenal, Satires 6.511–21. 24 Catullus 63; A. Nock, Essays on Religion in the Ancient World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972), 1, figs. 7–12; E. Simon, “Menander in Centuripe,” Sitzungsberichte der Wissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft an der Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main 25, 2 (1989): 60–61. 25 M. Beard, J. North, and S. Price, Religions of Rome (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 1, 261, n. 49.

14

John R. Clarke

with the recently restored temple of Isis where his own bronze portrait was displayed along with an inscription recording his achievements.26 A painting found in 1827 on the facade of a shop on the Street of Mercury, and removed soon after its discovery to the Naples Museum, provides an image of a ferculum with six bearers (fig. 12). It demonstrates the need for the question: “Seen with what other images?”27 Unlike the shop of the procession of Cybele, where we can still locate all the images that accompanied it through on-site investigation supplemented by archival photographs, we only have vague written descriptions of the original location of the Naples painting on the facade of the building. This remarkable painting shows the bearers dressed in their carpenters’ tunics, carrying a ferculum with a statue of their patron goddess Minerva (only partially preserved at the left), a tableau of carpenters at work, and a representation of the male patron, Daedalus, standing over the body of Perdix. What is fascinating about this representation is its specific connection of worship to work. If the representations on the shop of the procession of Cybele made the excavator believe that it was not a shop but rather the entrance to a sanctuary of the goddess, there is no mistake that this was a carpenters’ shop (fig. 13). Written accounts of the long-gone paintings remind us that representations of deities also functioned as good-luck charms. We read, for example, that in the doorway at 9 a viewer would have seen Mercury and Fortuna facing each other on the door jambs. The patron wanted to balance the god of commerce with Lady Luck. Written accounts of the now-lost paintings also remind us that the painting program repeated images of the two patron deities of the carpenters and their craft. To the left of doorway 9 a viewer saw an Image of Minerva, armed, like the Minerva on the ferculum, with shield and spear. The excavator tells us that the artist depicted Minerva offering a libation on the altar assisted by a young girl. And just opposite the procession image Daedalus appeared a second time, in the act of making his most famous wonder, the wooden cow that Pasiphae ordered. Perhaps it looked like the painting of the subject from the north wall of oecus p of the House of the Vettii at Pompeii. Although the details are impossible to check today, this ensemble has a different flavor from the shop of the procession of Cybele, with its clear appeal to religious syncretism: planetary deities, the local Venus, Dionysus, and a representation of the worship of Cybele. The mixture of images on the facade of the carpenters’ shop only makes sense if we consider the Mau, Pompeii: Its Life and Art (rev. ed. F. Kelsey; London: Macmillan, 1902), 176. in Fröhlich, Lararien‑ und Fassadenbilder,  320–21; see also I. Bragantini, “VI 7,8.12: Bottega del Profumiere,” in Pompei: Pitture e mosaici, vol. 4 (Rome: Treccani, 1993), 389–98. 26 A.

27 Bibliography

Representations of Worship

15

owner’s profession. What emerges is a fascinating profile of how religious belief, coupled with a concern to ensure protection from harm, merged in the workplace. The owner wanted to proclaim his identity as a carpenter even while invoking the deities who protected his craft.

3. What Does the Viewer Know about the Representation? Although there are many books and articles that have tried to crack the code of the Second-Style megalographic frieze in the Villa of Mysteries at Pompeii, the mysteries of Dionysus remain just that.28 Rather than rehearsing the various attempts to pin down its meaning, I wish, instead, to focus on the distinction between what an initiate knows and what a non-initiate knows about the cult of Dionysus. I believe, along with many other scholars, that the patron and the artist were drawing from sources that presented the public pageants and tableaux of the cult.29 What we see on the walls of this remarkable room would have been known to viewers who were noninitiates, but would have had special meaning for the initiates of the cult. The frieze is, first and foremost, a decoration tailored to the space: a large entertainment room with two prized views out of it toward the Bay of Naples (fig. 14). For someone entering the room, the frieze encourages two viewing patterns: a fixed, timeless focus on the central image of Dionysus reclining on Ariadne’s lap and a sequence (and therefore a narrative) that runs clockwise around the room (fig. 15). These two kinds of viewing  – from the room’s axis and clockwise – are the painter’s solutions to fitting imagery to space. No matter how astounding the images are in themselves, this was the decoration of a U-shaped room with a major entryway from the portico, a minor doorway in its northwest corner where the clockwise sequence begins, and a large window interrupting the south wall. Scholars who have assumed that the frieze is a copy have proposed various compositional schemes for the “original.” However, if we look at the corners, we see how the artist designed the composition specifically for this space. How else can we explain the startled woman and the old Silenus with two Pans, the winged flagellator and her victim, and the bride at her toilet and the cupid? Reinhard Herbig’s diagram of the figures’ gazes illustrates the complex interactions among the figures themselves and between the 28 For a variety of thought-provoking essays on the subject, see Roman Art in the Private Sphere: New Perspectives on the Architecture and Decor of the Domus, Villa, and Insula (ed. E. Gazda; Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1991). 29 J. Clarke, Houses of Roman Italy, 100 B.C.–A.D. 250: Ritual, Space, and Decoration, 96–105.

16

John R. Clarke

figures and the viewer (fig. 16).30 The meanings of the Mysteries Frieze must arise from the interrelationships expressed by these gazes; it must reside in the reciprocity established between these gazes, represented within the painting, and the individual viewer’s gaze, whether he or she is an initiate or non-initiate. Someone entering the room would have immediately focused on Dionysus and Ariadne proclaiming the theme of the room: the ecstasy of both Bacchic intoxication and love. But while Dionysus’s body is casually, drunkenly open to our gaze, his face, with his upturned eyes focused on his lover, ignores the viewer. If we ask the question: What models did the artist have? we find ample evidence. This group of Dionysus and Ariadne shows up as a stock type in sculptures from the Hellenistic period.31 If a viewer wants to sort out the meaning of the frieze by looking for a sequence of actions, she will turn to the north wall, where a pattern of left-to-right reading begins. A veiled woman walks into the scene of a matron looking over the shoulder of a nude boy who reads from a scroll. A pregnant woman carrying a tray of offering cakes walks toward a scene of ritual washing, where a woman with her back to us draws a veil from a box held by a servant while another servant pour water over her right hand. A tableau of a Silenus playing the lyre and a Pan watching a Panisca give suck to a goat takes a viewer from the realm of these women’s ritual performance to that of the mythical followers of Dionysus. The north wall ends with the imposing figure of a woman in violent contrapposto, her cloak billowing up behind her head, with her right arm thrown up in a gesture of surprise or terror. Although scholars have debated about what it is that terrifies her, she effectively carries the drama across the corner of the room to the back wall. Two scenes frame the central image of Dionysus and Ariadne on the rear wall. A seated Silenus hold a cup while a young pan gazes into it and another holds up a comic mask. One and a half scenes complete the wall on the right of Dionysus and Ariadne: the unveiling of the sacred phallus – another stock motif that the artist would have known – and the figure of the demon-flagellator, poised to reach across the corner of the room to strike her victim on the south wall (fig. 17). Some scholars interpret the nude dancing woman as the flagellant rejoicing after her whipping. Following the break in the frieze made by the large window, a viewer takes in another corner composition: a 30 R. Herbig, Neue Beobachtungen am Fries der Mysterien-Villa in Pompeji: ein Beitrag zur römischen Wandmalerei in Campanien (Deutsche Beiträge zur Altertumswissenschaft 10; Baden-Baden: B. Grimm, 1958). 31 For this type and other models known to the artist see J. Davis, “The Search for the Origins of the Villa of the Mysteries Frieze,” in The Villa of the Mysteries in Pompeii: Ancient Ritual, Modern Muse. Exh. Cat. Kelsey Museum of Archaeology October 1–November 19, 2000, (ed. E. Gazda; Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000), 83–95.

Representations of Worship

17

woman at her toilet attended by two cupids, one holding up a mirror while the other, with bow in hand, admires her from the entryway wall. On the opposite entryway wall is the isolated figure, often called the domina, or mistress of the villa, surveying the frieze from a calm distance (fig. 18). Through the evidence of both texts and parallels in other visual representations, scholars have been able to identify the meanings of most of the individual scenes. The very fact that scholars, at a remove of two millennia, can identify so many elements underscores the fact that we are not seeing the actual mysteries of Dionysus but rather elements of the public presentations of the god. Even still, it is useful to ask several of our questions about production and reception. For instance, if we ask: What models does the artist have? and: Does he understand those models? it is clear that the artist is sophisticated in his knowledge of models from past or contemporary visual art. What is more, he shows unusual skill in interweaving the representations of human and divine beings. But if we ask: What does the viewer know about the image? we immediately have to separate the initiate from the non-initiate viewer. The non-initiate might be able to identify images familiar to him from public manifestations of Dionysiac ritual. It would have been an entirely different story for the initiate; she would read the frieze from her own experience; she would recognize the allusions, the abbreviations, the relation of the tableaux to the secrets – and perhaps the sacred tableaux – that no non-believer ever saw. If the Mysteries Frieze, despite its complex allusions to the sacra dionysiaca, still has as its primary purpose the decoration of a wealthy suburban villa, the visual representations that begin to appear during the course of the second century C.E. are decidedly didactic in that they reminded believers of the very steps of initiation that they had experienced or that they would experience. At Ostia Antica, where Becatti studied and published fifteen mithraea, mosaicists and wall painters find a variety of ways to visualize the seven steps of initiation.32 The Mithraeum of Felicissimus, dated to the second half of the third century, is perhaps the most straightforward in its imagery, executed in the medium of black-and-white mosaic (fig. 19). The artist created a ladder-like framework that extends from the entrance of the mithraeum to the altar at back. The imagery in the space between each rung of the ladder condensed the narrative of each step of initiation into three symbols. In this way the artist represented the same step of initiation in several ways.33 This little mithraeum is a long, narrow space with the usual couches to either side for the cult members to recline on (fig. 20). The entryway space 32 G.

Becatti, I mitrei, Scavi di Ostia (Roma: Libreria dello Stato, 1954). I mitrei, 105–12.

33 Becatti,

18

John R. Clarke

presents the symbols of fire (an altar) and water (a crater). At the beginning of the corridor are two conical caps (pilei) that symbolize the Dioscuri, representatives of the two celestial hemispheres that the Pythagorean soul must cross – just as the initiate must complete a voyage through the planetary spheres. The seven successive rectangles in fact allude to these seven planets and the progressive steps of initiation. The first rectangle, under the protection of Mercury (note the caduceus) is that of the Corax or Raven, accompanied by a vase for ablutions. The second rectangle is that of the planet Venus, symbolized by the diadem. This is the level of the Nymphus, and the associated object is a lamp. In the third rectangle, the helmet symbolizes the planet and god Mars; the rank is that of Miles or soldier, symbolized by the lance, and the object is the soldier’s rucksack. The fourth rectangle represents the planet Jupiter with lightning, the rank of Leo with the fire-shovel, and the sistrum, or rattle, sacred to Isis. Moon, represented by the crescent, rules the fifth rectangle, where the hooked sword represents the level of Perses and the object is a sickle. Sun, represented by the radiate crown, rules the sixth rectangle. The level is that of Heliodromus, literally he who runs with the sun, symbolized by the whip to drive the horses of the solar quadriga, and the object is a torch. We arrive then at the seventh rectangle, representing the highest rank, that of Pater. The planet is Saturn, symbolized by the curved sword. The attribute is the Phrygian cap, the headdress of Mithras himself, and the objects are two: the commander’s wand and the patera for libations. The final image gives us the patron’s name: Felicissimus ex voto fecit. The interesting answer that comes up when we ask about initiate knowledge in this and other Mithraea is that the visual representation must have meant different things to a man (for the cult was limited to males) depending on what level he had attained. One supposes that at each rung on the climb to Mithras/Sol status, the initiate had yet to go through some ritual for which we have little information. When we look at the substitutions that artists invented for the fairly frank representations of the stages of initiation in the Mithraeum of Felicissimus, it is surprising to see they are almost as cryptic as Early Christian visual representations. One wonders why we find seven circles in one of the Ostian mithraea.34 Although allusive to the seven planets, it is likely that only an initiate would understand the symbolism. The same goes for the Mithraeum of the Seven Gates.35 One wonders whether the patron wanted to suggest that the seven stages of initiation were gates that allowed one entry into increasing identification with the godhead.

34 C.

Pavolini, Ostia, Guida archeologica Laterza (Rome: Laterza, 1983), 71–72. Ostia, 185–86.

35 Pavolini,

Representations of Worship

19

By asking the questions posed by my model, I have focused attention on the variables that the scholar must take into account when he or she uses visual representation as evidence for ancient religious practices. We may want to read them as realistic, historical documents of that show us what cult practices looked like, what people wore, and who were the officiants. But artists, just like writers about religion, have biases. They make things up. If we want to take the Christian apologists as evidence for the immoral pagan cults, we have to deconstruct them, just as we have to take into account the biases of pagan writers attacking the Jewish or Christian cults. The same thing goes for visual representation. I hope that my model for the production and consumption of visual representations will help to keep us from making extravagant claims for their legitimacy as “documents” of ancient religious practice. Like any scrap of evidence we have from the past, the evidence of visual representation is uneven. Accidents of preservation, like the eruption of Vesuvius in C.E. 79, tend to give us much evidence for a particular period and place, a plethora of information that contrasts all too sharply with the scraps of evidence available for other times and locations. Add to this the changes wrought by time upon important monuments of ancient visual culture, and we begin to feel a bit humbled – and perhaps envious of scholars who work in more recent times with a plethora of well-preserved documents of visual culture. Nevertheless, I will continue to mine visual representations for knowledge about the past, for they often offer vivid glimpses into the attitudes of ancient Romans toward the gods. They allow us to jump into the persona of one of carpenter ferculum-bearers, or to imagine ourselves standing in the lararium of Sutoria Primigenia. They extend what we can know from the scant evidence of ancient texts. Fully contextual analysis of visual representation greatly enriches what we know of worship in the Roman period.

Captions to figures

(All tables and drawings are by the author) Fig. 1: Ceremony of the Cult of Isis. Naples, National Archaeological Museum, inv. 8924. Photo Michael Larvey. Fig. 2: A model for the reception of visual art in ancient Rome. Fig. 3: Rome, Ara Pacis, 13–9 B.C.E., south side with procession of family of Augustus and allegorical figure of Tellus/Italia/Pax/Venus. Photo Michael Larvey. Fig. 4: Rome, Augustan Monuments in the Campus Martius. Fig. 5: Rome, Altar of the Vicus Aesculetus, C.E. 2. Photo Michael Larvey. Fig. 6: Pompeii, House of Sutoria Primigenia (I 13,2), plan.

20

John R. Clarke

Fig. 7: Pompeii, House of Sutoria Primigenia (I 13,2), room 17, north and east wall. Photo Michael Larvey. Fig. 8: Pompeii, House of Sutoria Primigenia (I 13,2), room 17, east wall, detail. Photo Michael Larvey. Fig. 9: Pompeii, Shop of the Procession of Cybele (IX 7,1), view at the time of excavation. Photo courtesy Soprintendenza Archeologica di Pompei, Archivio Fotografico della Soprintendenza, 80883. Fig. 10: Pompeii, Shop of the Procession of Cybele (IX 7,1), detail of procession of Cybele. Photo courtesy Soprintendenza Archeologica di Pompei, Archivio Fotografico della Soprintendenza, 80888. Fig. 11: Pompeii, Shop of the Procession of Cybele (IX 7,1), detail of procession of Cybele, drawing with figures numbered. Fig. 12: Pompeii, VI 7,8–11, Carpenters’ procession, Naples inv. 8991. Photo Michael Larvey. Fig. 13: Pompeii, VI 7,8–11, plan. Fig. 14: Pompeii, Villa of the Mysteries, plan. Fig. 15: Pompeii, Villa of the Mysteries, Room of the Mysteries, view from western entrance. Photo Michael Larvey. Fig. 16: Diagram of gazes in the Mysteries Room. After Herbig, Neue Beobachtungen, foldout. Fig. 17: Pompeii, Villa of the Mysteries, Room of the Mysteries, southeast corner: unveiling of phallus, flagellation, dance. Photo Michael Larvey. Fig. 18: Pompeii, Villa of the Mysteries, Room of the Mysteries, west wall to north of western doorway, the domina. Photo Michael Larvey. Fig. 19: Ostia, Mithraeum of Felicissimus, plan with mosaics drawn in. After Becatti, I mitrei, fig. 22. Fig. 20: Ostia, Mithraeum of Felicissimus, view from entry. Photo Michael Larvey.

The Cult of Isis and Ancient Egyptomania in Campania Irene Bragantini1 Before I address, from an archaeological perspective, the two themes I will deal with here – the cult of Isis and “Egyptomania” in settlements in ancient Campania, some preliminary remarks are in order. In a situation where a certain interpretive confusion reigns, it may be useful to try to clarify the nature of the evidence that has come down to us, focusing especially on the following aspects: – chronologies; – social levels of patrons; and – the function of images within their contexts of origin. A correct analysis of this evidence should thus first of all distinguish between images and objects that are presumably related to the performing of a domestic cult, and images showing Egyptian subjects or settings that are, instead, unconnected to cult.2 For painted images or statuettes in domestic shrines, it is also useful to distinguish between those appearing in a “representative” area of a house and those gracing “service” areas. The former are especially significant, as they identify the domini as devotees of the cult of Isis,3 whereas the latter must have been worshiped by the servants.4 In the peristyle that constitutes the center of the House of the Golden Cupids (VI 16,7) at Pompeii are two domestic cult installations, both dat1 I

am most grateful to Federico Poole for his translation and support correcting the English text and to the Electa publisher for their permission to publish a text previously published in Italian. 2 M. Söldner, “Zur Funktion ägyptischer Elemente in der römischen Wanddekoration,” in Fremdheit – Eigenheit. Ägypten, Griechenland und Rom. Austausch und Verständnis, (eds. P. C. Bol, G. Kaminski and C. Maderna; Städel Jahrbuch 19; Munich: Prestel, 2004), 201–212. 3 S. Adamo Muscettola, I culti domestici, in Pompei. Abitare sotto il Vesuvio, catalogue of the exhibition (Ferrara 1996–1997) (Ferrara: Ferrara Arte, 1996), 175–179, here 178. 4 R. A. Tybout, “Domestic shrines and ‘popular painting’: style and social context,” JRA 9 (1996): 358–374.

22

Irene Bragantini

able to the last decade of the city’s life. Next to a large and lavishly decorated cubiculum, for which the house is named, is an aedicule shaped as a temple on a podium. Here were found bronze statuettes of the Capitoline triad (Jupiter, Juno and Minerva), the two Lares, and Mercury.5 At the opposite corner of the peristyle is a shrine for the cult of Egyptian deities. On its socle are painted two snakes converging towards an altar with offerings, a habitual image in lararia. Above, against a bright yellow background framed in red that must have stood out in the shade of the peristyle, are accurate depictions of the instruments of the cult of Isis: a sistrum, two cists, a patera, a situla, towards which a uraeus (the sacred cobra) makes its way (fig. 1). Beside these are portrayed the deities worshiped in the cult: Anubis, jackalheaded and clad in red; Isis with a sistrum in her right hand and a situla in her left; Osiris, also holding a sistrum in his upheld right hand, and a cornucopia, symbol of abundance, in his left; and little Harpocrates, also holding a cornucopia. Next to the deities is the officiating priest in front of the altar (fig. 2).6 The excavation also yielded some objects connected to this shrine, which help us to reconstruct its appearance and imagine the actions performed there. These include an alabaster statuette of Horus (cat. N. III.115, 133230) and a large glazed-terracotta lamp on whose disc are pictured Isis, Harpocrates and Anubis (cat. N. III.105, 19286), both on display in the Egittomania exhibition (see p. 32 below, bottom). Isis, Serapis and little Harpocrates were also painted on one of the walls of the garden of the House of the Amazons (VI 2,14) at Pompeii (fig. 3). They stood inside a temple surrounded by a luxuriant garden with a marine landscape in the background. The presence of a masonry altar in front of the painted shrine seems to indicate that a domestic cult was performed for these deities in this representative area of the house.7 Another image (cat. N. III.51, 112285) was found in the service area of a house (IX 7,21–22), and must hence have been worshiped by the slaves. It was painted on the wall in a corridor leading to the latrine. In this case, too, the presence of a small terracotta altar under the painting assures us that this, too, was a cult image. The attributes of the deity depicted here reflect the assimilation of Isis to Fortuna, an especially popular goddess among slaves and freedmen.8 In this case, however, account should be taken of the fact that a shop straddling two streets was annexed to this house. In such a 5 F. Seiler, “voce (VI 16,7.38). Casa degli Amorini dorati,” PPM V (1994): 714–846, here 758–759, figs. 82–83. 6 Seiler, “voce (VI 16,7.38). Casa degli Amorini dorati,” 764–767, figs. 93–99. 7 I. Bragantini, “voce VI 2,14. Casa delle Amazzoni,” PPM IV (1993): 168–197, here 174, fig. 13. 8 T. Fröhlich, Lararien‑ und Fassadenbilder in den Vesuvstädten. Untersuchungen zur “volkstümlichen” pompejanischen Malerei (RM Ergänzungsheft 32; Mainz: Von Zabern, 1991), 42.

The Cult of Isis and Ancient Egyptomania in Campania

23

context it is likely that there were no significant differences in social class among the inhabitants of the house.9 The provenance of painting cat. N. III.50,8836, is less clear. An inscription qualifying it as a votive gift, however, bears witness to its religious significance.10 The presence of devotees of Egyptian cults in Pompeian homes is also documented by the finding of statuettes picturing Isis and the deities associated with her cult. Like the painted images, these sculptures often show the goddess in “mixed” forms combining the attributes of Isis with those of other deities, notably the globe or rudder of Fortuna. Different functions can be reconstructed for such sculptures on the basis of context of provenance, material, and size. Especially remarkable examples include a group of silver statuettes from a lararium in a rural villa in the Pompeian countryside (cat. III.19–21, 125709–125711); reconstructed groups of statuettes from Herculaneum (cat. III.27–31); and a complete installation including a statue (cat. III.45, 1996/2) placed among trees in the center of an open area in the house of C. Arrius Crescens (III 4,2), at Pompeii, to form a sort of “sacred wood”, in spite of the small extension of the area – a function confirmed by the finding here of a bronze brazier.11 Further evidence for Isis worshipers is brought by objects used in the cult of the goddess, especially sistra; the Egittomania exhibition catalogue includes a representative sample of the twenty or so found at Pompeii so far (cat. III.1–16).12 Jewels and amulets worn on the person appear to indicate a wish for a more direct bond with the deity and a request for her protection. The above-mentioned images and objects, being more directly linked to private cults, can be regarded as fairly reliable testimonies of the presence of Isis worshipers in the houses where they occur.13 For other images, instead, a religious function is not as easy to establish, because of their specificity, Bragantini, “voce IX 7,21–22,” PPM IX (1999): 865–869. Lararien‑ und Fassadenbilder in den Vesuvstädten. Untersuchungen zur “volkstümlichen” pompejanischen Malerei, 294. 11 V. Spinazzola, Pompei alla luce degli Scavi Nuovi di via dell’Abbondanza (anni 1910–1923) (Rome: Libreria dello Stato, 1953), 727–762; P. Zanker, Pompei (Torino: Eina­ udi, 1983), 179–182. 12 M. de Vos, “Egittomania” nelle case di Pompei ed Ercolano,” in Civiltà dell’antico Egitto in Campania. Per un riordinamento della collezione egiziana del Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli. Raccolta di studi in occasione della Mostra allestita nel Museo Archeologico Nazionale (Naples: Tempi moderni, 1983), 59–71, here 69. 13 A connection between the worship of Isis and the position of a house near the temple of Isis in Pompeii has been suggested for the House of Acceptus and Euhodia (VIII 5,39), in whose lararium Isis-Fortuna was depicted (M. de Vos, “Egittomania” nelle case di Pompei ed Ercolano,” 62). This house yielded statuettes of Ptah-Pataikos and Bes on display in the Egittomania exhibition (cat. III.126–127, 116666, 116665).   9 I.

10 Fröhlich,

24

Irene Bragantini

rarity or complexity, or the peculiarity of their context of provenance. Examples include two depictions of Isiac ceremonies from Herculaneum, and the image of a priest of Isis on a wall in the House of Octavius Quartio (II 2,2), in Pompeii. The paintings from Herculaneum (Naples Museum, 8919 and 8924, fig. 4), datable to the first half of the first century C.E., show a priest exhibiting cult objects to the faithful. It is hard to gauge the significance of these pictures, since they were found during eighteenth-century excavations, which at Herculaneum were conducted by tunneling, and the context near the theater from which they were removed has not been identified.14 Considering their insistence on cult objects brought forth to be worshiped by the faithful attending the ceremony, I doubt that they can be interpreted in an exclusively “exotic” key, as a mere expression of a predilection for scenes drawing on Egyptian imagery. Similar considerations probably apply to the above-mentioned depiction of a priest of Isis in the House of Octavius Quartio at Pompeii (fig. 5). The subject is recognizable by his white garment and fringed shawl, cleanshaven head, except for a tress descending from the top of his head onto his right ear, the sistrum held in his right hand, and the situla hanging from his left wrist. He is painted on the wall beside a large window looking onto a garden crossed by a long euripus. An inscription painted under the priest must have identified him, thus adding meaning to the presence of the figure, which can hence hardly be dismissed as a mere exotic ornament, although the rest of the wall decoration of the room contains no other distinctive elements.15 A glazed terracotta lamp showing Isis, Harpocrates and Anubis (similar to cat. III.105), two glazed terracotta statuettes, one of Bes and another of a pharaoh, and a marble group showing an ibis biting a snake, were found outside the room and thus seem to enhance its significance.16 The meaning of a marble sphinx (cat. III.134, 2930) from the same house is less clear. It was found in a very heterogeneous sculptural ensemble lacking any other Egyptian connotations, and there is no evidence of a connection with the other above-mentioned materials.17

14 A. Allroggen-Bedel, “review of Tran Tamh Tinh, Catalogue des peintures romaines du Musée du Louvre,” Gnomon 50 (1978): 428–430; U. Pannuti, “Il ‘giornale degli scavi’ di Ercolano (1738–1756),” MemLinc 26,3 (1983): 161–410, here 218–220. 15 I. Bragantini and M. de Vos, “voce II 2, 2. Casa di D. Octavius Quartio,” PPM III (1991): 42–108, here 70–79, figs. 46–54. 16 Spinazzola, Pompei alla luce degli Scavi Nuovi di via dell’Abbondanza (anni 1910– 1923), 394–396, figs. 449–451; M. de Vos, “Egittomania nelle case di Pompei ed Ercolano,” 63. 17 Spinazzola, Pompei alla luce degli Scavi Nuovi di via dell’Abbondanza (anni 1910– 1923), 397–406.

The Cult of Isis and Ancient Egyptomania in Campania

25

A different reasoning applies, instead, to the many scenes of “Egyptomania” representing “the landscape of Egypt” with no cultic implications. These fall into two main genres designated in the literature, respectively, as “Nilotic” and “Pharaonic,” which are chronologically distinct and had different functions in Roman house decoration. There has been a heated debate among scholars over the last few decades concerning these paintings. The disagreement arises in part from the lack of a rigorous analytic distinction between the two genres, as well as attempts to jump to general conclusions without adequate consideration of the contexts in which the paintings occur; above all, however, it is a consequence of the lack of a shared vision of the function of house decoration in Roman society of this age. The 1950s and 1960s were dominated by an approach that we could label “panreligious”, often characterized by somewhat uncritical interpretations, seeing even the most tenuous allusion to Egypt as a testimony of Isiac faith. In later years, this approach was rejected by scholars who rightly stressed the need for more discriminating analysis and did away with many excessive interpretations. By overreaction, however, these same scholars refused to grant any significance to any of these references to the Egyptian world, dismissing them as manifestations of a generic “exoticism” devoid of deeper implications.18 As a consequence, they, too, omitted to examine this evidence more carefully according to the parameters I referred to above (p. 21): chronology, clientele, and context. The current increased interest in the language of house decoration and the mechanisms informing visual perception in the ancient world invite us to reconsider these “images of Egypt,” trying to understand what they could communicate to a hypothetical ancient viewer. These images are an adaptation within the Roman culture of habitation of a vast store of themes and iconographies portraying Egypt as a land of mystery, miracles and oddities. For a public of Hellenistic culture, this image could be evoked by means of a limited number of stereotypes or “icons,” which sufficed to represent Egypt, its landscape, and its peculiar religious practices. These considerations, which help us to understand how visual perception is constructed and works, are also useful as a mean of analyzing different iconographic genres, and thereby shed light on the mentality and ideology of a given society. These specific figurative themes, too, need to be approached from the perspective of an interpretive discourse that places them back in their original context, whenever this is possible, and reconstructs 18 M. Söldner, “Ägyptische Bildmotive im augusteischen Rom. Ein Phänomen im Spannungsfeld von Politik, Religion und Kunst,” in Ägypter-Griechen-Römer. Begegnung der Kulturen (eds. H. Felber and S. Pfisterer-Haas; Kanobos 1; Leipzig: Wodtke und Stegbauer, 1999), 95–113, here 96–97.

26

Irene Bragantini

their function within it, a discourse formulated in the awareness that the figurative language of a given society is not a “description” of reality, but a system of communication, and as such calls for a holistic approach. By analyzing how a given image developed within the ancient figurative repertoire as part of a specific figurative system it appears in (in our case, the system and language of house decoration), one can rescue this evidence, at least in part, from the isolation and fragmentariness to which it has been relegated so far. Meaning can be restored to these images by exploring the reasons for and modes of their appearance in a historical perspective (how did a historical theme develop within the mentality of the time? what can the motivations of the clientele have been? how was a given theme figuratively translated by craftsmen, and how did it become part of their repertoire?). Any interpretation, however intriguing, that dispenses with such an effort at reconstruction can be nothing more than a gratuitous and unprovable hypothesis, and will not shed light on the meaning of these images for the society that produced them. In Republican times, as late as the mid-first century B.C.E., papyrus boats, palms, exotic animals and certain types of buildings alluded to Egypt and the Nile. This genre has come down to us through some exceptional testimonies from the previous century, such as the mosaic of Palestrina and the mosaics from the House of the Faun at Pompeii.19 Among the examples of the popularity of this “Nilotic” repertoire in the Vesuvian towns are two small mosaic pictures in reception rooms, respectively in the House of the Menander (I 10,4) (fig. 6) and the House of Paquius Proculus (I 7,1) at Pompeii.20 These are variations on the same theme, that of pigmies on a boat on the Nile, which is evoked by its typical flora and fauna (crocodiles and hippopotami, as well as ducks and palm trees) against the background of a built-up landscape alluding to a city, presumably Alexandria. A long painted frieze from the House of the Sculptor (VIII 7,23–24), a fragment of which was on display in the Egittomania exhibition, dates from the same period (cat. III.66, SAP 41654).21 The protagonists of these images are pigmies appearing in a setting defined by the same elements that encode the image of the Egyptian landscape during this period. These pigmies are engaged in “caricatural” actions, such as animatedly fighting against innocuous animals or, conversely, attempt19 P. G. P. Meyboom, The Nile Mosaic of Palestrina. Early Evidence of Egyptian Religion in Italy (Religions in the Graeco-Roman World 121; Leiden: Brill, 1995); F. Zevi, “Die Casa del Fauno in Pompeji und das Alexandermosaik,” RM 105 (1998): 21–65. 20 R. and L. Ling, The insula of the Menander at Pompeii: vol. II. The decorations (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005), 53–55 and 201–202. 21 A long frieze from House (VII 16,17) at Pompeii dates from the same period: I. Bragantini, “voce (VII Ins. Occ., 17). Casa di Ma. Castricius,” PPM VII (1997): 887–946, here 940–946, figs. 123–140.

The Cult of Isis and Ancient Egyptomania in Campania

27

ing in vain to stand up against crocodiles or hippopotami with inadequate weapons. These images hark back to a stereotype of Hellenistic art, documented by a series of small bronze statues usually ascribed to the Alexandrine milieu. Through the startling association of a grotesque subject – misshapen dwarfs or “pigmies” – with precious materials and a refined technique, these statuettes must have contributed to an atmosphere of great domestic luxury.22 The two polychrome mosaic visual representations and the painted frieze, in spite of the difference in medium, show the same theme, and help us to understand the function of such images in homes of the time. They bear witness to the gradual spread, from the mid-first century B.C.E. onward (ca. 50–25 B.C.E.), of a “Nilotic” repertoire employed both in reception rooms and in gardens, as one of several forms that domestic luxury can assume among these social classes in this period. These images appear in rooms destined for the receiving of guests, or in open spaces within the house decorated with special care. By portraying the characteristic landscape of the Nile and the Delta, with its imaginary protagonists, its flora and its fauna, these images visually generate an “other” world, whose function within the decorative system of the Roman house lies precisely in this “otherness”. Their purpose is to stress the distance from the real world which, in the figurative system of the Roman house, characterizes the space where the dominus and his guests live and interact. Typological and iconographic distinctions aside  – these lie beyond the scope of the present essay – “Nilotic” images were only one of the visual repertoires available to artists and their clients. Their function within the decorative system of the Roman house can be likened to that of depictions of banqueting couples in Greek garb surrounded by servants and luxury tableware (fig. 7). The latter images – whose distance from the real world should always be kept in mind – draw on another stereotype – that of the luxury and pleasures of the Hellenistic lifestyle – to generate an imaginary “mental space” for the dominus and his/her guests. A completely different repertoire, which we can call “Pharaonic”, features images and symbols imitating the style and iconographies of ancient Egyptian art. Such images are believed to have entered the imagery of the time through their introduction in Rome, in milieus close to the court, dur22 For a broad perspective and an interpretation in an ideological and social key of some leading themes of Hellenistic figurative culture, see P. Zanker, “Un’arte per i sensi. Il mondo figurativo di Dioniso e Afrodite,” I Greci. Storia Cultura Arte Società, vol. II, 3. Una storia greca. Trasformazioni (ed. S. Settis; Torino: Einaudi, 1998), 545–616; idem, Eine Kunst für die Sinne. Zur hellenistischen Bilderwelt des Dionysos und der Aphrodite (Berlin: Wagenbach, 1998). On these Alexandrine bronzes, cf. Das Wrack: der antike Schiffsfund von Mahdia, catalogue of the exhibition (Bonn 1994–1995) (ed. G. Hellenkemper Salies; Köln: Rheinland, 1994).

28

Irene Bragantini

ing the final decades of the first century B.C.E., following the conquest of Egypt.23 Originally destined for an elite clientele, these elements were allegedly adopted into the repertoire of house decorators, who employed them in ways similar to how they appear in the House of Augustus on the Palatine. These “Pharaonic” elements do not alter the house decorating system and do not constitute in themselves a theme within the figurative language of house painters; rather, they are an addition to a decorative scheme that is otherwise undistinguishable from those in use at the time. Due to the period of their occurrence – the first half of the first century C.E., the age, that is, of the emperors who belonged to Augustus’ dynasty – and the alleged circumstances of their introduction into the repertoire, “Pharaonic” images – whose use was in any case rather sporadic24 – can be interpreted as a sign of adhesion to a specific political climate by prominent citizens of the Vesuvian towns.25 It is significant that this “Pharaonic” genre is attested in houses in the Vesuvian area whose owners must have been leading members of the ruling elites in their respective cities: the Boscotrecase villa figures in the archaeological evidence as the first, highest-level example of this new genre.26 Among various possible examples, I chose those in the House of the Golden Bracelet (VI 17,42) and the House of the Floral Cubicula (I 9,5), 23 M. de Vos, L’egittomania in pitture e mosaici romano-campani della prima età imperiale (EPRO, 84; Leiden: Brill, 1980); Söldner, “Zur Funktion ägyptischer Elemente in der römischen Wanddekoration,” 201–212. 24 M. de Vos, “Egittomania nelle case di Pompei ed Ercolano,” 60. 25 Pictures showing Io freed by Hermes from Argus’ custody have also been interpreted as a political allegory: Through the assimilation of Io to Isis, and of Augustus to Hermes, it has been argued, they allude to the conquest of Egypt as a liberation (S. Adamo Muscettola, “L’arredo delle ville imperiali: tra storia e mito’,” in Capri antica. Dalla preistoria alla fine dell’età romana (eds. E. Federico and E. Miranda; Naples: Edizioni La Conchiglia, 1998), 241–274, here 254–256, with further bibliography at note 63). Hermes is absent in the picture showing this subject on display in the Egittomania exhibition (cat. III.56, 9556), while he is very conspicuous in that from the House of the Citharist at Pompeii (I 4, 5 and 25): M. de Vos, “voce (I 4,5.25), Casa del Citarista,” PPM I (1990): 117–177, here 130–131, fig. 21. Both pictures, at any rate, appear to be later than the age of Augustus, being datable to after 50 C.E., possibly in the time of Nero. 26 P. H. von Blanckenhagen and C. Alexander, The paintings from Boscotrecase (RM Erg-Heft 6; Mainz: Kerle, 1962 = reprint Mainz: Von Zabern, 1990). The fact that a decoration of this type also graced the triclinium of the House of the Centenary (M. de Vos, L’egittomania in pitture e mosaici romano-campani della prima età imperiale, pp. 35–49, n. 20; cf. also pp. 49–60, n. 23), whose last renovation does not suggest an especially high social level for its occupants, may be explained by a change of property of the house in its last phase: cf. D. Scagliarini Corlaita, “La casa del Centenario (IX 8,3–6.a),” in Storie da un’eruzione. Pompei Ercolano Oplontis, catalogo della mostra (Napoli 2003) (eds. A. d’Ambrosio, P. G. Guzzo, M. Mastroroberto; Milano: Electa, 2003), 283–285, here 284–285. The presence of Egyptianizing elements in the House of the Deer at Herculaneum is also significant (inv. 8561, 8974, de Vos, L’egittomania in pitture e mosaici romanocampani della prima età imperiale, 23–25 n. 12, no provenance).

The Cult of Isis and Ancient Egyptomania in Campania

29

both in Pompeii, because here the Pharaonic images can be examined in the context of the pictorial decorative system of the house as a whole. In the former, two adjacent rooms, opening onto a garden with a pergola and a fountain, were frescoed with images of gardens around the middle of the first century C.E. Room 32 is graced with a view of a luxuriant garden crowded with marble ornaments  – herms, fountain-vases, small pictures in relief, decorative reliefs and hanging masks – and peopled with realistically rendered birds. In the adjacent room (31) is a similar garden, whose marble ornaments, however, evoke Egypt, including, as they do, statues of pharaohs, sphinxes, and marble reliefs showing the Apis bull (fig. 8, cat. III.59–60, SAP 87229, 87228). The same artists who painted these two differently decorated gardens in the House of the Golden Bracelet – for expediency’s sake, we will designate one as “Roman”, the other as “Pharaonic” – painted two rooms, 8 and 12, in the House of the Fruit Orchard (I 9,5). The same elements employed in the House of the Golden Bracelet are found in two rooms distinguished by their background color – respectively, light blue and black. Here, however, the “Roman” and “Egyptian” sceneries, which were distinguished in the other house, are merged. Pharaonic statues, reliefs with Egyptian figures and the Apis bull, hydriai and situlae of precious materials mingle with fountain-vases and marble pictures showing characters from the Dionysian world (fig. 9). It would hence appear that here the painters, by the customer’s request, adapted and reduced the elements of their repertoire. Not long thereafter, a biclinium was built in the innermost part of the apsed room decorated with the “Egyptian garden” in the House of the Golden Bracelet. Masonry couches faced with marble were erected on either side of a basin into which water flowed from a stepped fountain set in the apse, which was converted into a faux cave by facing it with calcareous concretions imitating the walls of a natural cave. The walls behind the beds were graced with a glass mosaic also showing a garden crowded with rich ornaments . This new decoration completed and enhanced the pre-existing “Pharaonic garden” theme. The whole installation looks up to larger-scale aulic models attested in contemporary court architecture.27 The complex of Julia Felix in Pompeii (II 4,3), also has a triclinium with a fountain opening onto a garden (fig. 10). At the back of the room, whose barrel vault is faced with calcareous concretions to imitate a grotto, is a fountain with a marble-faced stepped cascade, from which the water ran down into a low basin set between the couches. On the walls are depicted crocodiles, hippopotami, lotus flowers, and pigmies (fig. 11, cat. III.63, 8608). 27 P. Gros, L’architecture romaine 2. Maisons, palais, villas et tombeaux (Paris: Picard, 2001), 244–252, 351–360.

30

Irene Bragantini

The room opened onto a garden crossed – as in the house of D. Octavius Quartio – by a long canal, a euripus of sorts. From the triclinium the guests enjoyed a view of the garden closed off on the opposite side by a long row of recesses with alternately rectangular and semicircular plans, also faced with calcareous concretions to imitate caves. Here the use of wall mosaic was limited to rows of blue glass tesserae.28 It is significant that next to the southern extremity of this row of niches was a room containing a now lost Isiac lararium with painted images of Isis, Serapis and Anubis, along with Fortuna, while Harpocrates was represented by a silver statuette.29 From the highest-level example among those selected here (which for methodological reasons must take priority), that from the House of the Golden Bracelet, whose owner must have been a leading member of Pompeian society,30 to the decoration of the House of the Fruit Orchard, the mosaic fountain-niche addition to the House of the Golden Bracelet, and the “Villa” of Julia Felix, where the mosaic fountain is replaced by a stepped marble fountain and completed with a Nilotic painting (probably coeval with the mosaic fountain in the House of the Golden Bracelet): all these testimonies show that, in the central years of the first century C.E., house painters were variously combining the elements of their repertoire to meet the different requirements of individual clients. Once this evidence is placed into context, highlighting chronological, economic and social differences, it appears that the painters were using the same iconographic motifs in a modular way, amplifying and spreading them out or, on the contrary, reducing and combining them in the same room. The interchangeability of individual elements speaks against a religious purpose for them, which would have required a more systematic organization. They appear, instead, as testimonies of a specific aspect of domestic luxury that is an integral part of the decorative system of the Roman house, and probably not unconnected with political motivations. The painted garden can be regarded, in this period, as a “genre”31 within Roman house decoration. The examples I have just illustrated are an “Egyp28 V. Sampaolo, “voce (II 4,3). Villa di Giulia Felice,” PPM III (1991): 184–310, here 230–236, figs. 73–80; pp. 260–267, figs. 135–141. 29 F. Pesando, “Abitare a Pompei,” in Gli ozi di Ercole. Residenze di lusso a Pompei ed Ercolano (eds. F. Pesando, M. P. Guidobaldi; Roma: l’Erma di Bretschneider, 2006, 16), assumes that the corporation of the Isiaci were among the “users of the complex”. Cf. also C. C. Parslow, Rediscovering Antiquity. Karl Weber and the Excavation of Herculaneum, Pompeii, and Stabiae (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 110. 30 A parallel, albeit a more modest one, can be found in the garden of the House of Julius Polybius (IX 13,1–3) at Pompeii, which has been attributed to freedmen connected to the Imperial family on the basis of epigraphic evidence: F. Zevi, “La Casa di Giulio Polibio,” 73–79. 31 S. Settis, “Le pareti ingannevoli. Immaginazione e spazio nella pittura romana di giardino,” Fondamenti 11 (1988): 3–39 (reprint in Le pareti ingannevoli. La villa di Livia

The Cult of Isis and Ancient Egyptomania in Campania

31

tian” adaptation of a model already documented in the villa of Livia at Prima Porta, in a semi-subterranean room with faux cave concretions on the wall, to amplify the “reality-distancing” effect of the decorations. As we have seen, however, this is only one of the possibilities of the genre. The triclinium of the Villa of Julia Felix substitutes a Nilotic landscape for the Pharaonic setting of the gardens of the Houses of the Golden Bracelet and the Fruit Orchard, a shift that may reflect a slight chronological difference, possibly of a couple of decades. To sum up, trying to set the interpretations I have proposed here within a wider perspective, we could ask ourselves why the Nilotic repertoire, originally attested in the late Republican age by the images on fig. 6, resurfaced in the last decades of the life of Pompeii after having been obscured by more austere themes, in line with the preference accorded by the court to exemplary stories about the great heroes of Greek myth (Theseus, Perseus). These heroes can be regarded as “transfigurations” of Augustus and of those among his successors who patterned themselves after him. The Pharaonic repertoire, if it truly reflected adhesion to the political climate of the early Empire, would have been a fit complement to this genre. The large-scale changes in Roman society that followed the advent of the Empire also had important consequences for the culture of habitation. In the central decades of the first century C.E., the number of people increased whose economic and social condition allowed them (indeed, required them!) to live in houses with decorated rooms. In the houses belonging to this new class of patrons, open spaces, even of small size, were often graced with paintings and sculptures to set them up as a “scenery” of sorts – a space for the pleasure, real or presumed, of the dominus and his guests. The mental model at work here is the same that informed the creation and use of the figured language in the Roman culture of habitation, its ideology of habitation. As Zanker argued long ago,32 the pictorial evidence from the Vesuvian centers, and Pompeii in particular, is nothing but a reduction to the economic and social level of the inhabitants of these towns of a series of elements characterizing the villas and residential spaces of the great families of Roman society in the Republican age. These, in their turn, must have looked up to the habitative models of Hellenistic courts. It is in this climate that Nilotic paintings make their reappearance, in the last few decades of the life of the Vesuvian towns. The pigmies are now engaged not only in the caricatural actions described above, but also in e la pittura di giardino (ed. S. Settis; Milano: Electa, 2002); S. De Caro, “Due ‘generi’ nella pittura pompeiana : la natura morta e la pittura di giardino,” in AA.VV. La pittura di Pompei. Testimonianze dell’arte romana nella zona sepolta dal Vesuvio nel 79 d.C. (Milano: Jaca Book, 1991), 262–265. 32 Zanker, Pompei, pp. 147–230.

32

Irene Bragantini

erotic performances under the eyes of their mates; a testimony of variations in the preferences of the local clientele, which we are not always able to understand. I have proposed the above distinctions between different genres to shed light on the function of specific elements of figurative language at the time of their appearance in the social system of visual communication, which in the Roman world is usually influenced by the trends prevailing among the upper classes. Once these elements have entered the circuit of communication, the reasons for their presence, however, can change; they can become, that is, an integral part of the imagery of the period, and orient the choices of the clientele and the artists. Thus, the connection with the initial reasons for their presence must be historically reconstructed case by case, whenever this is possible. Through the example of these different figurative genres, we realize that the language expressed by a specific iconographic and figurative theme needs to be analyzed in the modes of its formation to shed light on the reasons for its presence and the communicative function it performed in the society that produced and adopted it. In the wake of the recent interest in the representation of “other” worlds in antiquity, and notably in the Roman world, I have investigated these images of Egypt – an especially representative case both for the abundance of testimonies and for the thematic variations that can be recognized in an apparently unitary genre – to try to understand how the image of an “other” world is constructed in Roman society33; a problem and exercise for which Egypt – the “other” world par excellence due to its geographical, religious and social peculiarities – offers abundant material. Inventory numbers refer to the Archaeological National Museum, Naples. SAP numbers refer to inventories in Pompeii. Catalogue numbers (cat.) refer to Egittomania. Iside e il mistero, catalogue of the exhibition (Napoli 2006–2007) (ed. S. De Caro; Milano: Electa, 2006). The Publisher and the Author wish to thank Electa publisher for granting permission to translate the essay by Irene Bragantini in the aforesaid catalogue.

33 M. J. Versluys, Aegyptiaca Romana. Nilotic scenes and the Roman views of Egypt (Religions in the Graeco-Roman World 144; Leiden: Brill, 2002); R. A. Tybout, “Dwarfs in discourse: the functions of Nilotic scene and other Roman Aegyptiaca,” JRA 16 (2003): 505–515.

The Cult of Isis and Ancient Egyptomania in Campania

33

Captions to figures Fig. 1: Pompeii, House of the Golden Cupids (VI 16,7), details of frescoes lararium with instruments of the cult of Isis (after PPM V). Fig. 2: Pompeii, House of the Golden Cupids (VI 16,7), detail of frescoed lararium with Egyptian deities (after PPM V). Fig. 3: Pompeii, House of the Amazons (VI 2,14), lararium (Francesco Morelli, after PPM IV). Fig. 4: Isiac ceremony from Herculaneum, 8919. Fig. 5: Pompeii, House of D. Octavius Quartio (II 2,2), detail of fresco with priest of Isis (after Egittomania). Fig. 6: Pompeii, House of the Menander (I 10,4), polychrome mosaic showing pigmies on a boat on the Nile (after Egittomania). Fig. 7: Pompeii, House of the Chaste Lovers (IX 2,16), picture of couples at a banquet. Fig. 8: Pompeii, House of the Golden Bracelet (VI 17,42), detail of painted garden with marble ornaments (after Egittomania). Fig. 9: Pompeii, House of the Fruit Orchard (I 9,5), detail of painted garden with Egyptian-style marble ornaments (after Egittomania). Fig. 10: Pompeii, Villa of Julia Felix (II 4,3), triclinium with fountain, general view (photo Author). Fig. 11: Naples, National Archaeological Museum, detail of Nilotic landscape (from Pompeii, Villa of Julia Felix [II 4,3]) (after Egittomania).

The Properties and Social Role of Pompeiian Feminae Nobiles in Italy During the Early Imperial Age Fabrizio Pesando

The Public Sphere In the late first century B.C.E. women of high rank made important benefactions in many ancient Italian cities: Mamia and Eumachia at Pompeii, Terentia at Ostia, Baebia Bassi(l)la at Veleia, Mineia, Sabina and Valeria at Paestum. All these women have left a record of their generosity in the form of monumental inscriptions, almost all characterized by a concise text in keeping with the sobriety of feminine behaviour imposed by the society in which they lived. Much has been written on the role played by these “great women” within cities and the reasons for their considerable influence: we know that some (Mamia and Eumachia at Pompeii, Sabina and Valeria at Paestum) held prestigious religious offices as priestesses of major city cults and they certainly had access to large sums of money thanks to Augustan family laws (the Lex Iulia de maritandis ordinibus of 18 B.C.E. and the Lex Papia nuptialis of B.C.E. 9) which allowed free women with large numbers of children to avoid the control of a guardian in the management of their property and to enjoy relative financial independence if they were widowed.1 The most widely accepted explanation sees the work of these feminae nobiles as a successful attempt to instate early manifestations of the imperial cult indirectly, disguised as forms of social self-promotion and delegated to unofficial exponents of the local ruling class, such as these women.2 In some 1 M. L. Caldelli and C. Ricci, “Donne e proprietà sepolcrale a Roma,” in Donna e vita cittadina nella documentazione epigrafica (eds. A. Buonopane and F. Cenerini; Faenza: F.lli Lega, 2005), 81–103, here 81–83; M. Corbier, “Conclusioni,” in Donne e vita cittadina nella documentazione epigrafica, 625–634, here 628. On Pompeii’s priestess see L. Savunen, Women in the Urban Texture of Pompeii (Pukkila: Sumiloffset, 1998), 51–58. 2 M. Torelli, “Il culto imperiale a Pompei,” in I culti della Campania antica (Atti del convegno internazionale di studi in ricordo di N. Valenza Mele) (Rome: G. Bretschneider, 1998), 245–270.

36

Fabrizio Pesando

cases, as demonstrated by the family history of the influential Pompeiian woman Eumachia, these benefactions gave their descendants access to the most important municipal offices: Eumachia’s son M. Numistrius Fronto became duovir in C.E. 2 and 3.3 1) Paestum; Basilica of Mineia. [Mineia M.f .C.Cocc]ei[ F]lacci, [m]ate[r / C. (?) Coccei Ius]ti, ab fundamentis / [basilicam e]t ante ba[silicam sua p]ecu[nia / fecit porticus pavim] entaque omnia4 (late first century B.C.E.). Mineia, daughter of Marcus, wife of C. Cocceius Flaccus, mother of C. Cocceius Iustus, rebuilt the basilica from its foundations and the portico in front of it and all the floors at her own expense. The very fragmentary inscription is one of a series of 6 epigraphs recording Mineia’s dedication of the same number of honorary statues of family members (husband, brothers, nephew) in the basilica which she had rebuilt a fundamentis. The building is also depicted on a coin (a semis) minted in Mineia’s name. She is also credited with restoration work in the temple of Mens, whose magistri dedicated a statue to her (ILP, 18) and more tentatively with the refurbishment of the small temple behind the basilica (the so-called Italic Temple). Paestum  Temple of Venus Iovia, restoration work financed by Sabina and Valeria C.f. Sabina P[‑‑‑] / Flacci uxo[r sacellum] / deae a solo fa[bricandum] / opere tector[io poliendum] / sedes et pavim[enta cur(avit)] / pequnia fac[iunda cur(avit)] eadem p[rob(abit)] Sabina, daughter of Publius, wife of Flaccus, at her own expense undertook and approved the construction of the sacellum and its stucco decorations, seating and floors. Late first century B.C.E.5 The dedicant, probably a priestess of the cult of Venus Iovia practised at the sanctuary outside the city at Santa Venera, appears to be related to the gens Cocceia and may even have been the first wife of C. Cocceius Flaccus who later married Mineia M.f.6 She was responsible for almost completely rebuilding the little temple. [Vale]ria Sabin[i uxor] / [Sabi]nae neptis p[rivign(a)] / [C. Fla]ccei Flacci V[‑‑‑] / [stro]ngyla de s[ua pec(unia)] / [faciund]a cu[r(avit)] 3 P. Castrén, Ordo populusque Pompeianus. Polity and Society in Roman Pompeii (Rome: Bardi Editore, 1982), 198. This is the so-called Temple of Peace: M. Torelli, “Donne, domi nobiles ed evergeti a Paestum,” in Les élites municipales de l’Italie péninsulaire des Gracques à Néron (ed. M. Cébeillac-Gervasoni; Naples-Rome: École Française de Rome-Centre Jean Bérard de Naples, Arte Tipografica, 1996), 159–175, here 157. 4 ILP, 163; Torelli, “Donne, domi nobiles ed evergeti a Paestum,” 155. 5 ILP, 158; Torelli, “Donne, domi nobiles ed evergeti a Paestum,” 161. 6 Torelli, “Donne, domi nobiles ed evergeti a Paestum,” 167.

The Properties and Social Role of Pompeiian Feminae Nobiles

37

Valeria, wife of Sabinus, niece of Sabina, adoptive daughter of C. Flacceius Flaccus, undertook the construction of the strongyla at her own expense. Early first century C.E.7 A generation after Sabina, her niece Valeria had an unusual architectural element built (the strongyla, a term certainly derived from the Greek στρóγγυλον or “circle”), for insertion into the recently restored temple. Valeria was also responsible for a second refurbishment project, recorded in another inscription: [Valeria C.f. ‑‑‑Sabini uxor?] / [Sabinae n]ep[tis pr]ivig[na) C. Flaccei] / m[na]mon cu[linam] / [de s]ua pequnia fac[iundam] / curavit Valeria, daughter of Caius, wife of Sabinus, niece of Sabina, adoptive daughter of C. Flacceius, priestess, built the kitchen at her own expense. Early first century C.E.8 In the context of the priesthood of Venus Iovia – referred to using a word possibly derived from the Greek, which appears to indicate an initiatic cult based on the transmission of rituals passed down through memory – Valeria rebuilt the service area of the temple, doubtless essential for the unfolding of ceremonies. 2) Veleia; Calchidicum (chalcidicum) of Baebia Bassi(l)la in the Forum. Baebia T.f. [Bas]silla calchidicum municipibus suis dedit Baebia Bassilla daughter of Titus donated the chalcidicum to her fellow citizens at her own expense. Late first century B.C.E.9 The inscription was discovered in 1760 in the portico of the Forum’s long west side and refers to its construction; a bronze portrait found in the same year near the entrance to the Basilica, which occupied the whole of the Forum’s short north side, has been identified as that of Baebia Bassilla. 3) Ostia; Calchidicum (chalcidicum) and crypta of Terentia near the Forum. Terentia A.f. Cluvi (uxor) / cryptam et calchid(icum) solo sua pecun(ia) fecit ex SC et DD Terentia, daughter of Aulus, wife of Cluvius, built the crypta and the chalcidicum at her own expense by decree of the Senate and the Decurions C.E. 6.10 The inscription was reused as a floor slab in the so-called Byzantine Baths (Regio IV, ins. 4, no. 8), located near the Round Temple. Another inscrip-

  7 ILP,

157; Torelli, “Donne, domi nobiles ed evergeti a Paestum,” 163. 159; Torelli, “Donne, domi nobiles ed evergeti a Paestum,” 162.   9 CIL, XI, 1189; ILS 5560. 10 F. Zevi, “Miscellanea ostiense,” RendLinc 26 (1971): 2–15.   8 ILP,

38

Fabrizio Pesando

tion dating to C.E. 94 records a restoration of the building by the duovir L. Terentius Terius, doubtless a descendant of Terentia.11 4) Pompeii; Calchidicum (chalcidicum), porticus and crypta of Eumachia and Numistrius Fronto. Eumachia L.f. sacerd(os) publ(ica) nomine suo et M(arci) Numistri Frontonis fili chalcidicum crypta porticus Concordiae Augustae Pietati sua pecunia fecit eademque dedicavit Eumachia, daughter of Lucius, public priestess, in her own name and in that of her son Marcus Numistrius Fronto, built the chalcidicum, the crypta and the portico at her own expense and dedicated them to Concordia Augusta and to Pietas (CIL X, 810). We know of two copies of the same dedicatory inscription: a monumental version forming the architrave of the colonnade in front of the entrance (the chalcidicum mentioned in the text) and a smaller version inserted near the building’s secondary entrance on Via dell’Abbondanza. Concordia Augusta and Pietas are the objects of the dedication. The first personification refers to the most ancient cult of an abstract entity introduced to Rome (according to tradition the first temple of Concord was dedicated by Camillus in 367 B.C.E.). For obvious reasons of propaganda, Concordia was particularly venerated by the Princeps after the civil war which had torn apart the Republic (Tiberius had the old temple on the slopes of the Capitol rebuilt in C.E. 10); Livia incorporated an aedes (shrine) to Concordia into the centre of the gigantic portico which she and her son Tiberius had built on the Esquiline in 7 B.C.E., in an area previously occupied by the luxurious house of Vedius Pollio inherited by Augustus (Ovid, Fasti, 6, 637–644). The unusual association in the Pompeiian building between the cult of Pietas and that of Concordia has been explained by suggesting that Numistrius Fronto died before its dedication, perhaps in the year of his duovirate, C.E. 2/3; were this the case the building must have been dedicated after that year.12 The chalcidicum must have been adorned with an important series of statues; due to looting after the eruption of C.E. 79 only the bases resting against the columns and the remains of some inscriptions have survived; these include one recording a benefaction by M. Lucretius Decidianus Rufus (CIL X, 815), one of the most powerful political figures in the Augustan city, duovir on several occasions and also serving as duovir quinquennalis and pontifex. In a niche at the centre of the east side of the crypta the fullones dedicated a statue to their patrona Eumachia, portrayed as a priestess (CIL X, 813). The 11 P. Pensabene, Ostiensium marmorum decus et splendor (Rome: “L’Erma” di Bretschneider, 2007), 303, 20, note 79. 12 Torelli, “Il culto imperiale a Pompei,” 251–261. See also Savunen, Women in the Urban Texture of Pompeii, 133–135.

The Properties and Social Role of Pompeiian Feminae Nobiles

39

Eumachii were an old local family from the Samnite period, remembered as the owners of a figlina and a large fundus. 5) Pompeii; Temple VII 9,2: Aedes Genii Augusti of Mamia in the Forum. M[a]Mia P.f. sacerdos public[a] gen[io Augusti s]olo et pec[unia sua]. Mamia, daughter of Publius, public priestess, to the genius Augusti (?) on her own land and with her own money. This large inscription, whose exact place and time of discovery during the 19th century excavations in the Forum are unknown, was carved into a large epistyle. According to G. Fiorelli’s calculations,13 its dimensions were identical to those of the architrave of the tetrastyle temple built up against the back wall of the small sanctuary VII 9,2 facing onto the east side of the Forum.14 As recorded by the inscription, it was built on private land; this has been confirmed by some test pits revealing that the area was previously occupied by some shops and perhaps a house. The priestess Mamia, who descended from an important Samnite family, received for this and other good works the right to be buried on public land in the necropolis of Porta Ercolano (Tomb 4S). A graffito scratched into the plaster of the tomb when it was still fresh tells us that it was under construction in C.E. 29, so the temple dedicated by Mamia must date to the late Augustan period or the early years of Tiberius’ reign. The missing parts of the inscription have been subject to various interpretations: on the basis of numerous comparisons with documents from other Campanian towns a dedication to the Genius Coloniae has been suggested or to the Genius Augusti.15 Were the inscription in fact to belong to sanctuary (VII 9,2), the latter theory would seem preferable given the sculpted scenes on the faces of the altar, which present clear references to the honours paid to the Princeps as Pater Patriae (CIL X, 816). Alongside these benefactions, which we have almost always been able to associate with buildings discovered during archaeological excavations, are other acts of generosity known only from the epigraphical sources. Three inscriptions dating to the Augustan period refer to buildings in the Campanian towns of Puteoli, Cuma and Nola.16 At Puteoli a Sextia L.f., member of a gens whose members included one (or perhaps two) sacerdos Cereris, Fiorelli, Descrizione di Pompei (Naples, 1875), 262. are expressed in W. Van Andringa, Quotidien des dieux et des hommes (Rome: Bibliothèque de l’École Française de Rome 337, 2009), 49–59.52. 15 I. Gradel, Emperor worship and Roman religion (Oxford and New York: Clarendon Press 2002), 80, but ascribing Mamia’s dedication to the nearby sanctuary of the Public Lares. More shaded is the interpretation proposed by Savunen, Women in the Urban Texture of Pompeii, 130–132; cf. also Torelli, “Il culto imperiale a Pompei.” 16 G. Camodeca, “Gli archivi privati di tabulae ceratae e di papiri documentari. Pompei ed Ercolano: case, ambienti e modalità di conservazione,” Vesuviana 1 (2009): 17–42. 13 G.

14 Doubts

40

Fabrizio Pesando

was described in a public funerary inscription as munifica erga coloniam (“generous towards the colony”), probably because she was responsible for the construction of the porticus Aug(usti) Sextiana in the town’s Forum, of whose existence we know from one of the tablets found in the building at Moregine (outside Pompeii) belonging to the Sulpicii (TSulp. 83–86). Another inscription by a public priestess of Ceres – a deity intimately linked to the feminine sphere – records another act of generosity on the part of a woman, this time at Cuma: the person in question is Lucceia Cn. f. Maxima, a descendant of one of the town’s important families and perhaps a close relative of the two praetors (Cn. Lucceii pater et filius) who restored the city temple of Demeter (Ceres). Like Baebia Bassi(l)la at Veleia, Terentia at Ostia and Eumachia at Pompeii, the “woman of Cuma” had a chalcidicum built at her own expense to host the honorary statues of the Lucceii (CIL X, 3697); this was almost certainly one of the porticoed sides of the town Forum, since the honorary inscriptions were found near the modern building known as the Masseria dei Giganti, on the south side of the square. Finally, at Nola, Varia Pansina dedicated a porticus, green spaces (viridia) and statues to Venus Iovia (the same goddess venerated at Paestum) and to the Genius of the Colony as well as distributing money to the mulieres (“women”) on the occasion of the complex’s inauguration (AE 1971, 85). In less central areas of Italy such as Regio IV,17 public buildings, infrastructure and sacred places were also built or restored by prominent women during the first half of the first century C.E., thus contributing to the renewal of some ancient Italian cities like Telesia (schola, domus and horti), Teate Marrucinorum (temple?; aqueduct) and Corfinium (aqueduct?). In one of Umbria’s most ancient towns, Asisium, Petronia C.f. Galeonis (uxor) even participated in the construction of the amphitheatre, begun by her brother. Finally, a unique instance is that of the Arch of the Sergi at Pola, which formed a monumental backdrop to the city’s south-east gate and which served exclusively to celebrate the gens of which Salvia Postuma Sergi (uxor) was a member; the renown and monumental isolation of this family triumphal arch make a description here superfluous: specific studies include Traversari, Coarelli, and Chiabà.18 One feature which appears to be shared by many of the acts of generosity recorded in inscriptions is a degree of indeterminacy in the function of the buildings dedicated: with the sole exceptions of the Basilica in Paestum dedicated by Minea and the aedes built by Mamia in Pompeii, these build17 M. Buonocore, “Evergetismo municipale femminile: alcuni casi dall’Italia centrale (Regio IV),” in Donne e vita cittadina nella documentazione epigrafica, 523–539. 18 G. Traversari, L’arco dei Sergi (Padua: CEDAM, 1971); F. Coarelli, “Recensione a G. Traversari, L’arco dei Sergi,” DArch 6 (1972): 426–435; M. Chiabà, Salvia Postuma e l’arco dei Sergi a Pola, Donne e vita cittadina nella documentazione epigrafica, 373–385.

The Properties and Social Role of Pompeiian Feminae Nobiles

41

ings are defined in terms of their component parts, described as porticus, chalcidica and cryptae (Veleia; Ostia; Pompeii, Eumachia Building). As already noted – excepting the building constructed by Terentia at Ostia, destroyed during the Severan period and of which only a few remains and some reused architectural elements are known – archaeological research has succeeded in identifying the monuments mentioned in the inscriptions. We will begin our discussion of the buildings constructed by these great women of the Augustan period with those in Paestum, which served a clear purpose, and then go on to discuss the other monuments, which have in common their indeterminate use, much debated even in recent studies.

Paestum, Basilica of Mineia (fig. 1) The building constructed by Mineia a fundamentis stands almost at the centre of the south side of the currently excavated part of the Forum of Paestum (about half of its original size). On the north side were three entrances allowing people to pass from the portico into the Forum; the portico, too, was built by Mineia as we know from the text of the dedicatory inscription (et porticus ante basilicam … fecit: “and she made the portico in front of the basilica”). The basilica has three naves with columns topped by Corinthian capitals made of local stone and half columns set against the perimeter walls. Between the half columns on the short east and west sides were a series of niches used to display the statues of members of the Mineii and Cocceii families. Mineia had become a member of the latter on her marriage to C. Cocceius Flaccus, Caesar’s quaestor in 44 B.C.E. and later (in 42) propraetorial legate in Bithynia. Only one of these statues has been found, portraying a man in a toga with his head covered and the capsa of books next to his left leg, probably an allusion to the public office he held in the municipium. The identification of the Basilica of Mineia with the building visible today, whose central nave was refurbished in late Antiquity with the construction of a semi-circular tribunal (fig. 2), has been much debated. The building’s construction technique (opus vittatum mixtum) is typical of the first century C.E. and therefore appears to be incompatible with Mineia’s building; additionally, the wall paintings still visible are not in the Third Style, as has sometimes been written,19 but belong to a later period and cover earlier layers of decorations. Excavations in this area during the 1970s revealed the existence of two buildings predating the current Basilica: a small square 19 Torelli, “Donne, domi nobiles ed evergeti a Paestum,” 157; M. Torelli, Paestum romana (s.l.: Ingegneria per la Cultura, 1999), 101; M. Gualtieri, La Lucania romana (Naples: Loffredo Editore, 2003), 73.

42

Fabrizio Pesando

with a vat clad in opus signinum at its centre and surrounded by tabernae, identified as the forum piscarium, and a first basilica whose three naves are completely open to the Forum but whose floor plan remains extremely uncertain given the paucity of archaeological remains identified.20 This is probably the basilica constructed by Mineia since the materials discovered in the well belonging to one of the ancient tabernae indicate that it was closed in the early Augustan period, when the Republican forum piscarium was demolished.21 The basilica visible today may either have been built by an anonymous curator rei publicae in the late third century C.E., as recorded in an inscription (ILP 168), or be a refurbishment dating to the Flavian period when a colony of Vespasian’s veterans was planted here (C.E. 71) and the town took the name of Colonia Flavia Prima.22 The latter hypothesis is supported by the masonry techniques of the period – much used, for example, at Pompeii in reconstruction work after the C.E. 62 earthquake – and by the existence of numerous superimposed wall paintings, indicating that the building was in use for a considerable period.

Paestum, Temple of Venus Iovia (fig. 3) Described in the excavation reports as a “Sanctuary at Santa Venera”, the complex history of this cult place, located between the southern stretch of walls and one of the necropoleis of the Greek city, has been reconstructed in detail thanks to a series of excavations in the 1980s.23 The area was initially frequented in the early sixth century B.C.E. when a small oikos was built, to which a small sandstone capital and a metope with a sculpted scene showing the Rape of Europa may have belonged. The initiatory function of the complex appears to be evident already by the fifth century, when a hall with a round structure at its centre, a large room (the so-called Rectangular Hall) and a long portico giving access to the sanctuary were built. Only minor building work took place during the Lucanian period and the earliest phase of the Latin colony of Paestum; it was only in the early imperial period, with the reconstruction work funded by Sabina and Valeria, that the sanctuary took on its definitive form, preserved until its abandonment. The salient features of this rebuilding project were the addition of a second room 20 E. Greco and D. Theodorescu, Poseidonia – Paestum I. La “Curia” (Rome: Istituto Centrale per il catalogo e la Documentazione and École Française de Rome, 1980), 33. 21 Greco and Theodorescu, Poseidonia – Paestum I. La “Curia”, 18. 22 I. Bragantini, R. De Bonis, A. Lemaire and R. Robert, Poseidonia – Paestum V. Les maisons romaines de l’îlot Nord (Rome: Istituto Centrale per il catalogo e la Documentazione and École Française de Rome, 2008), 104–106. 23 J. G. Pedley and M. Torelli, The Sanctuary of Santa Venera at Paestum (Rome: G. Bretschneider, 1983).

The Properties and Social Role of Pompeiian Feminae Nobiles

43

(the so-called West Wing) and above all the complete renovation of both the main hall and the Rectangular Hall; the surviving remains do not allow us to appreciate Sabina’s reconstruction of the sacellum and addition of decorative elements (benches and painted plasterwork) but we do have some evidence of help in identifying the work financed by Valeria. Specifically, it has been suggested that the mysterious strongyla mentioned in one of the inscriptions were the five little round rooms built on the north and east sides of the Rectangular Hall, with at their centres column drums protected by a thick layer of opus signinum (fig. 4). The sanctuary’s close relationship with water – further underlined by the construction of a large pool in its immediate vicinity, perhaps used to farm particular species of fish – has suggested that the strongyla were purificatory basins used by women admitted to the cult of the goddess;24 the women crouched over the column drums to be bathed during the annual rites held in honour of Venus VerticordiaFortuna Virilis on 1 April, reviving the cult practiced during the Republican period at the “public pool” in the Forum.25 As we know from Ovid (Fasti, 4, 133) the goddess, thanks to these sacred ablutions, helped to rejuvenate the bodies of the matrons, hiding their defects from the eyes of their husbands. Finally, the culina built by Valeria may be one of the rooms in the “West Wing”: its construction was essential for other ceremonies culminating in communal meals. As we have seen, while Sabina focused her attention on the monumental refurbishment of the Sanctuary of Venus Iovia, her niece Valeria attempted to revive the ancient religious traditions inherited from the early colonial period, renewing them in keeping with the new Augustan regime’s concern for the feminine sphere and in particular for marriage.

Veleia, calchidicum of Baebia Bassilla (fig. 5) This small municipium located in what had previously been the territory of the Ligures underwent a profound renewal during the early Augustan period, in accordance with a programme common to many other ancient Italian towns. Thanks to an odd series of coincidences in their excavation histories, chance discoveries and antiquarian interests, Veleia came to represent a sort of counterpart to Herculaneum for eighteenth-century archaeological research. Like Herculaneum, the town was identified after a discovery during agricultural work at a time when the first explorations of the Vesuvian town had been underway for a few years. In 1747 the chance 24 Torelli,

“Donne, domi nobiles ed evergeti a Paestum,” 174–175. Greco in Poseidonia – Paestum III (Rome: Istituto Centrale per il catalago and École Française de Rome, 1987), 60–62. 25 E.

44

Fabrizio Pesando

discovery of the Tabula Alimentaria Veleias (CIL XI, 1147) led to the site’s identification; in 1760 Philip of Bourbon, Duke of Parma, began systematic excavations at Veleia, hoping to emulate his brother Charles III who had been involved in the excavations at Herculaneum from 1738 and at Pompeii from 1748. The results were noteworthy: preserved from looting thanks to its precocious abandonment during the third century C.E. the city yielded a large number of finds and a series of modest but well-preserved monuments. The most important discovery was the cycle of statues of members of the Julio-Claudian family: a series of 12 marble statues found at the foot of a podium built up against the back wall of the basilica and with rings at the back to fasten them to the wall. Obviously the statues were arranged on the podium; according to the information available on their discovery it seems that they formed two distinct groups, seven to the west and five to the east.26 These statues have been linked to L. Calpurnius Piso, son of Caesar’s father-in-law and consul in 15 B.C.E. (perhaps the owner of the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum!) who was probably the patronus of Veleia (CIL XI, 1182; LILS, 900). It may have been the discovery of this statue cycle in a building obviously used as a judicial basilica that possiply led to the renaming of a monument at Herculaneum brought to light in the same period and in which bronze statues of very similar subject and function had been found: the Augusteum, up until that point described simply as a “Building” in the excavation reports and plans. In the late 1700s this building began to be known as a Basilica, confusing it with the real basilica of Herculaneum built in the Augustan period by Nonius Balbus and located on the other side of the Decumanus Maximus.27 As we were saying, the overall organization of the Forum at Veleia is known, with tabernae, a large public hall (the city lararium?), the basilica and a bath complex opening onto it; paved during the Augustan period, the public square also hosted a series of honorary statue bases and was surrounded by a portico. Baebia Bassilla’s benefaction belongs to the long west side of the portico and is described as a calchidicum. The exact function of this type of structure, mentioned in numerous inscriptions from the Augustan period onwards, has recently been the subject of various studies which propose two principal lines of interpretation. The first emphasises the architectural aspect of the chalcidicum (calchidicum),28 26 A list of occurrences can be found in Fentress, “On the block: catastae, chalcidica and cryptae in Early Imperial Italy,” 233–234; but see this essay for a summary of information on the Eumachia Building at Pompeii. C. Saletti, Il ciclo scultoreo della basilica di Velleia, (Milan: Ceschina, 1968). A. Frova, EAA Suppl. 1970, s.v.; M. Marini Calvani, EAA Suppl. 1970–1994, s.v. 27 F. Pesando and M. P. Guidobaldi, Pompei, Oplontis, Ercolano, Stabiae. Guida Archeologica Laterza (Rome and Bari: L’Erma” di Bretschneider, 2006), 385. 28 F. Zevi, “Il calcidico della Curia Iulia,” RendLinc 26 (1971): 237–251; F. Zevi, “Miscellanea ostiense,” RendLinc 26 (1971): 2–15; P. Gros, “Chalcidicum: le mot e la chose,”

The Properties and Social Role of Pompeiian Feminae Nobiles

45

identifying it as a “complex consisting of a colonnaded façade with an important building behind it,”29 and ascribing its invention to the Greek world, based on the testimony of Festus (chalcidicum genus aedificii ab urbe Chalcidica dictum: “chalcidicum a type of building named after the town of Chalcis”). The reasons for the attribution of this architectural form to the Euboean town are unknown, although it cannot be ruled out that the name simply reflected a fashion for “exotic” definitions typical of the technical language of the Late Republic and well known from the numerous examples found in Vitruvius’ manual, especially in relation to ostentatious luxury in domestic architecture (oecus Corinthius, Cyzicenus, Aegyptius, atrium corinthium). It is Vitruvius himself (5,1,4) who employs the term chalcidicum in the generally accepted sense to refer to the space in front of judicial basilicas whose short side opens onto the public square; the best known archaeological example is the Basilica at Pompeii. By contrast, the second line of interpretation stresses the functional purpose of the chalcidicum,30 which, according to a comparative reading of epigraphical documents and the archaeological data, appears to be a space characterized by the association of a portico and a raised platform, the latter being used for proclamations, funerary orations, public auctions and sales of various sorts, particularly of slaves. The chalcidicum was thus the outer part of the venalicium, the building used to house and trade in slaves. At the current state of research it is difficult to choose between these proposals; however, we must necessarily take into consideration both the definition of the chalcidicum provided by the sources – especially some glosses – and the relevant archaeological evidence. The glosses are essentially in agreement: Cal(ci)dicum fori deambulatorium (CGL, 174,4: “chalcidicum a walkway around the Forum”); Cal(ci)dicum fori deambulatorium quod et petibulum dicitur et iterum (CGL 596, 42: “chalcidicum a walkway around the Forum also known as a petibulum and as an iterum”). Whilst the interpretation of the latter gloss remains somewhat obscure (petibulum may be a corrupted version of either petauron, “platform”, or peribulum “enclosure”; iterum may be a corruption of the word pteron, used to define the wing of a building, or be emended to deambulatorium), both sources agree that the term chalcidicum refers to a space located in the Forum around which one could walk: this space can only be Ocnus 9–10 (2001–2002): 123–135; M. Torelli, “Chalcidicum. Forma e semantica di un tipo edilizio antico,” Ostraka 12,2 (2003): 215–238. 29 M. Torelli, Attorno al chalcidicum. Problemi di origine e diffusione, in Théorie et pratique de l’architecture romaine (Aix-en-Provence, 2005), 37–54, here 23. 30 F. Coarelli, “L’ “agora des Italiens”: lo statarion di Delo,” JRA 18 (2005): 212; E. Fentress, “On the block: catastae, chalcidica and cryptae in Early Imperial Italy,” JRA 18 (2005): 220–234; P. Braconi, “Il ‘calcidico’ di Lepcis Magna era un mercato degli schiavi?,” JRA 18 (2005): 213–219; D. Manacorda, “Donne e cryptae,” in Donne e vita cittadina nella documentazione epigrafica, 37–54.

46

Fabrizio Pesando

a portico, or more accurately part of a portico. The generic identification of the chalcidicum with the porticoes surrounding the Forum square in Roman towns of the imperial period may help to clarify the use of some adjectives associated with this word: for example, we know that there were three separate chalcidica in the Forum of Puteoli, named Hordonianum, Octavianum and Caesonianum after the names of their builders (TabSulp 85–87, 90–93); as we have seen, one of the colonnaded sides of the Forum of Cuma was also described as a chalcidicum (Lucceianum). All the examples mentioned appear to have one feature in common: these are porticoes built by private citizens who contributed to enhancing the grandeur of the celeberrimum locum (“most frequented place”: ie. the Forum) where all of the town’s most important activities were concentrated, including commercial ones such as auctiones (“public auctions”) or emptio de catasta (“the sale of slaves from a platform”). It is possible that the chalcidicum of Baebia Bassilla was sometimes used for the sale of slaves, but it is certain that it served mainly as a fori deambulatorium.

Ostia, crypta and calchidicum of Terentia31 (fig. 6) The location of the building constructed by Terentia in C.E. 6 is uncertain. However, various clues suggest that it must have been in the south-west sector of the castrum, in the area occupied during the Severan period by the Round Temple. The dedicatory inscription was reused as a floor slab in the nearby Byzantine Baths and some soundings in the area of the Round Temple have documented the existence of an earlier colonnade and fragments of a marble floor, probably belonging to a quadriporticus; older architectural elements, perhaps from the building constructed by Terentia, were also reused in the Round Temple itself.32 It is important to note that the large Flavian-Trajanic Basilica east of the Round Temple was originally connected to the quadriporticus by five openings, closed when the Round Temple was built. This suggests that the Basilica and the quadriporticus – if this was indeed the building constructed by Terentia and restored in 94 – formed a single architectural complex. If we combine the epigraphical and archaeological data, we can suggest that Terentia’s building was a quadrangle surrounded by a covered passageway (the crypta) accessed through a broad portico (the chalcidicum); overall, this type of arrangement is very similar to the Eumachia Building at Pompeii, whose chronology, structure, topo31 R. Meiggs, Roman Ostia (2nd ed.; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973), 585; C. Pavolini, Ostia. Guide archeologiche Laterza (Bari/Roma: Editori Laterza, 2006), 105. 32 P. Pensabene, Ostiensium marmorum decus et splendor (Rome: “L’Erma” di Bretschneider. 2007), 20, 22, 300–315, 303.

The Properties and Social Role of Pompeiian Feminae Nobiles

47

graphical location and perhaps function it shares. Based on the “functional” interpretation of the chalcidicum as a place used mainly to sell things and people, an identification of Terentia’s building with the local venalicium has been proposed; however, aside from the doubts already expressed regarding the nature of the chalcidium, the purpose of the buildings surrounding and superimposed upon it do not seem to justify this theory. We know that the basilica was originally connected directly with the hypothetical quadriporticus (perhaps that restored by Terentius Tertius in 94) via five openings and that the Round Temple was a Severan sanctuary dedicated to eastern deities and the imperial cult.33 There is thus nothing to stop us thinking that it in part inherited the functions of the older, initially isolated building which was later incorporated into the basilica, of which it became the Augusteum.

Pompeii. Chalcidicum, crypta and porticus of Eumachia and Numistrius Fronto and Temple VII 9,2 (of the Genius of Augustus) of Mamia (fig. 7) Some recent and extremely detailed studies have established that the Eumachia Building and Temple (VII 9,2), adjacent to one another,34 have identical construction phases and were not built at different periods as was generally thought. Both were built in place of tabernae and buildings of the Samnite period in the vicinity of the Forum. In the case of Temple VII 9,2 (Temple of the Genius of Augustus) these were private houses of the II century B.C.E. facing onto the Forum and surrounded by shops as was the custom at the time (Rome, Cosa, Alba Fucens); however, it is even possible that the Eumachia Building replaced a small cult place since the fill layers on which it stands yielded some antefixes in the shape of heads of Hercules and Minerva of the type used in the Doric Temple during the Samnite period in the late fourth century B.C.E. Both buildings were dedicated to the imperial cult and date to the early imperial period: the Eumachia Building to between C.E. 2 and 4, Temple VII 9,2 to the late Augustan or early Tiberian period. After being partially destroyed by the earthquake, their façades were rebuilt in brick with a marble veneer. The presence of this facing, stripped off after the eruption of C.E. 79, is indicated by some remains of the socle and the wedges used to hold the slabs in place. The large portal with a lavish plant decoration in relief survived from the marble decoration of one Ostiensium marmorum decus et splendor, 312. Dobbins, “Problems of Chronology, Decoration and Urban Design in the Forum at Pompeii,” AJA XCVII, 4 (1994): 629–694; K. Wallat, Die Ostseite des Forums von Pompeji (Mainz am Rhein: Lang, 1997). M. Toreli, “Il culto imperiale a Pompei,” 245–270. 33 Pensabene, 34 J. J.

48

Fabrizio Pesando

of the buildings and has been reassembled at the entrance to the Eumachia Building. However, it is not at all certain that it did in fact belong here; the frame was found in pieces between the two buildings and its reassembly in its current position shows that the architrave could be set in place only with a significant addition to the left-hand corner which has left the large central acanthus bush completely off-centre. A recent proposal appears to have resolved this problem definitively, showing that the frame fits the entrance to Temple (VII 9,2) perfectly (fig. 8). Substantial remains of the original layout of the Eumachia Building (dimensions: surface area c. 2700 m2; cult hall opening into the centre of the east side 47  m2) survived until the eruption in the south perimeter wall, with fake niches topped by pediments in opus vittatum. Both the façade and the rooms at the bottom end were rebuilt in brick. From the dedicatory inscription we know that this construction work was funded by the priestess of Venus, Eumachia. As with the dedication of the contemporary Large Theatre, the inscription mentions the individual parts constructed without describing the building to which they belonged, leaving some room for doubt as to its purpose. Having discarded the long-favoured theory that it served as the headquarters of Pompeii’s collegium of fullones – who only dedicated an honorary statue in the centre of the crypta to their patron Eumachia – the building was thought to be destined for the imperial cult; its form, comparable to that of the so-called Basilica at Herculaneum (actually the local Augusteum) and the so-called Porticoed Temple at Cuma, is believed to have been inspired by the Portico of Livia in Rome, built in 7  B.C.E. (fig. 9). Like other monuments of this type (such as the Saepta Iulia in Rome, home to the imperial cult but also used for entertainment and commercial activities), the Eumachia Building must have served a variety of purposes; it has recently been proposed that it also acted as a venalicium (“slave market”). Four large niches adorned the building’s porticoed façade, the chalcidicum mentioned in the inscription (fig. 10). As we know from the two long tituli, the two niches left and right of the entrance hosted statues of Romulus and Aeneas (the latter perhaps portrayed with Anchises and Ascanius, as in the well-known group found at Merida). This decorative programme has been interpreted as an obvious reference to the porticoes in the Forum of Augustus, where exedrae with the statues and elogia of Aeneas and Romulus led to the galleries celebrating the gens Iulia and the summi viri of the Republic respectively. It has been suggested that the other two niches, for which no inscriptions have survived, held the statues of two deified emperors (Caesar and Augustus or Augustus and Claudius). The statue bases resting against the columns show that the chalcidicum was a celebratory space, used to honour the most important exponents of the Pompeiian elite. The two large niches at the end of the façade may have been

The Properties and Social Role of Pompeiian Feminae Nobiles

49

used not only for the proclamation of elogia publica but also – and perhaps more frequently  – for commercial activities (public auctions and the sale of various types of commodities, including slaves). The room off the south side of the vestibule, which has a slit window opening onto the niche with the elogium of Aeneas, was occupied shortly before the eruption by a small staircase leading to a landing on which a terracotta dolium stood. It is possible that on special occasions the herald used this space for announcements; the large container was not used to collect urine but as a resonating vase of the type used in theatres to enhance the propagation of sound (Vitruvius, On Architecture 5, 5,8). The building was looted after the eruption and very little now survives of the porticus with its two orders of columns and the crypta mentioned in the inscription. The most imposing remains are a distyle apsidal chamber, preceded by a colonnaded avant-corps aligned with the entrance; these were built after the earthquake in place of an earlier rectangular sacellum. A headless female statue which originally portrayed Livia was found here (fig. 11). The crypta ran around the peristyle and had windows with marble sills; according to the nineteenth-century descriptions, it had a refined Third Style decoration with a black background and marble wall bases. The crypta passageway led to a large niche where the apse of the sacellum had once been and in which the statue of Eumachia donated by the fullones was displayed (fig. 12). On the south side a steep ramp led to the entrance on Via dell’Abbondanza; facing it was a white limestone fountain whose spout was decorated with Concord holding a cornucopia in her hand. Temple VII 9,2 (surface area 44 m2) is probably the Temple of the Genius of Augustus (or of the Colony) of whose existence we know from an inscription inserted into a large marble epistyle. On the basis of our information on Mamia, the temple must date to the late Augustan period or the early years of Tiberius’ reign; on stylistic grounds we can ascribe the Luni marble altar in the centre of the courtyard to the same period. The altar presents obvious signs of restoration in antiquity, probably carried out after the earthquake: specifically, all the upper cornices and those of the north side of the base have been replaced (fig. 13). The relief sculpture on the west face shows the temple’s ceremony of consecration: the priest, capite velato, is busy making the preliminary sacrifices on a round table towards which two victimarii dragging the bull destined for sacrifice converge from the right. Behind the priest are auletes, a dapifer and other cult personnel, including a smaller figure holding the urceus and patera in her hand and who differs from the others for her hair, gathered up in a chignon (a woman, perhaps Mamia herself?). The entire background of this relief is occupied by a tetrastyle temple, whose pediment is decorated with the clipeus virtutis (“shield of bravery”) and a garland between the columns holding up a heavy velum. The south, east and north faces of the altar depict objects connected with

50

Fabrizio Pesando

the cult and the attributes of the sacralization of the house of Augustus on the Palatine: the mantele, acerra and lituus (“cloak, incense box and augur’s staff”); laurei postes and corona civica (“laurel decorations on the door-posts and civic crown”); patera, urceus and simpulum (“shallow dish, pitcher and ladle for libations”).35

Domestic Life The undoubted importance of the feminae nobiles discussed above leads us to ask about their standards of living, shifting our attention to the private sphere.36 Unfortunately we have no evidence on the basis of which to ascribe one of the domus of Pompeii to Eumachia or Mamia; for the latter, a tenuous clue in the shape of a titulus dating to the pre-Roman period indicates a close link between this ancient gens and the cult of Mefitis. In the colony the cult of this goddess became confused with that of Venus of whom, as we have seen, Mamia was sacerdos publica. The inscription (Vetter 32) was found in the House of the Large Fountain (VI 8,20–22), a residence dating to the mid-second century B.C.E. facing onto Via di Mercurio, the most prestigious of all Pompeii’s streets; here, at the same time, some of the most luxurious domus in Pompeii were being built (Houses of the Dioscuri [VI 9,6.7], of the Black Anchor [VI 10,7, of Meleager [VI 9,2.3]], of the Centaur [VI 9,3–5.15] and of Apollo [VI 7,23]). Originally this was a double atrium house, with the smaller courtyard (entrance no. 21) being of the Corinthian type, with six Doric columns surmounted by a trabeation decorated with a dentellated cornice identical to that of the propylaea of the Triangular Forum (fig. 14). A generation before Mamia, the sector organized around the Tuscan atrium (no. 22) was separated from that of the Corinthian atrium with the closure of the three doors that originally communicated between the two; a portico supported by brick columns was built behind the tablinum. The large apsidal fountain which gives the house its conventional name, adorned with a bronze spout in the form of a dolphin and marble theatre masks at the base of the uprights, was only built up against the back wall in the first century C.E. More complex alterations were carried out in the quarters centred around the Corinthian atrium: with the incorporation of the entire hortus into the house with its entrance at no. 22 the old corridor 35 I.

Gradel, “Mamia’s dedications: Emperor and Genius. The Imperial Cult in Italy and the Genius Coloniae in Pompeii,” AnalRom 20 (1992): 43–58; J. J. Dobbins, “The Altar in the Sanctuary of the Genius of Augustus in the Forum at Pompeii,” Römische Mitteilungen 99 (1992): 251–263. 36 For this part of the report see F. Pesando and M. P. Guidobaldi, Gli “ozi” di Ercole. Residenze di lusso a Pompei ed Ercolano (Rome: “L’Erma” di Bretschneider, 2006).

The Properties and Social Role of Pompeiian Feminae Nobiles

51

communicating between the back sector of the house and the atrium was closed and in its place an elegant tablinum was built, decorated with a coloured mosaic. A new residential space, consisting of a large peristyle onto which some living rooms opened, was added to the south at the expense of a previous owner. After the earthquake the appearance and function of this sector changed, coming to host one of the largest fulleries hitherto excavated at Pompeii. We have no definitive evidence that this domus still belonged to the Mamii during the Augustan period and it is in fact possible that the sweeping changes documented under the Late Republic indicate a change in ownership. What we do know for certain, though, is that this ancient Pompeiian gens passed virtually unscathed through the political and social upheavals affecting Pompeii in the first century B.C.E. (the Social War, the deduction of the Sillan colony, tensions during the Civil Wars, the institution of the Principate), retaining ownership of some important properties opening onto the east side of the Civic Forum throughout this period: these probably include some shops and a small house, demolished by Mamia to build the Temple of the Genius of Augustus (VII 9,2). As for Eumachia, the house of this great woman is unknown but her tomb has been found (fig. 15). This is the grandest tomb hitherto found at Pompeii, dominating the large necropolis of Porta Nocera, south-east of the town. The tomb’s appearance is unusual: it is an exedra tomb, a funerary typology known from some late Republican examples in Rome but uncommon elsewhere in Italy and in the provinces. The inscription on the façade recalls that it was constructed by Eumachia, daughter of Lucius, for herself and her family. Behind the façade, which has a small door at the centre, is a terrace with the central altar, destined for the burial of the deceased. Next to the altar, recent excavations have revealed the presence of Eumachia’s cappuccina tomb, with large tiles supported by small columns from an older funerary monument (belonging to the Eumachii?); inside the deposition the remains of the funeral pyre and some precious objects were found. The large exedra above the monument was decorated with niches, presumably holding the statues of the deceased and adorned at the top with a long marble relief depicting an Amazonomachy (an allusion to a family tradition exalting the warrior virtus of the Eumachii?). The largest of the town properties discovered at Pompeii belonged to another woman who lived a generation after Mamia and Eumachia, and is described in a famous rental inscription as a praedia, in other words a complex of gardens and buildings. The Praedia of Julia Felix (II 4,3) are located in a suburban part of the town, near the Amphitheatre37. We know that this area was occupied by houses from the second century B.C.E., but 37 On

Iulia Felix see L. Savunen, Women in the Urban Texture of Pompeii, 56–58.

52

Fabrizio Pesando

it was only in the mid-first century B.C.E. that the whole insula was unified into a single complex, as is apparent from some mosaic floors in the baths. From this point on, a series of building and decorative projects led to the property being organized into four distinct nuclei: a domus with a Tuscan atrium holding a transversally placed impluvium opening onto the western alley; a large garden with a series of residential rooms opening onto it; a bath complex and a huge park (fig. 16). The layout of the floor plan is no longer that of a house but of a true “urban villa”, with buildings occupying less than half of the total surface area. After the C.E. 62 earthquake, the large residence underwent a unitary decorative renovation, whilst the architectural focus of the complex came to be on Via dell’Abbondanza, with the entrances to the viridarium sector (no. 3), two tabernae (nos. 5 and 7) and above all the large entrance gate to the bath complex (no. 6) made of brick and framed by two half columns. At this time, part of the building was rented out, as we know from the rental inscription painted onto the façade on Via dell’Abbondanza shortly before the C.E. 79 eruption (CIL IV, 1136): In praedis Iuliae Sp. F. Felicis locantur balneum venerium et nongentum, tabernae, pergulae, cenacula ex idibus Aug(ustis) in idus Aug(ustas) sextas, annos continuos quinque. S(i) Q(uinquennium) D(ecurrerit) L(ocatio) E(rit) N(udo) C(onsensu). The text names the owner, perhaps the descendant of a family of imperial freedmen, and poses no problems as to the duration of the contract (“from 1 August next to 1 August of the sixth year, for a period of five years”) or the areas available for rent. The tabernae (with their pergulae) are clearly the series of rooms – some of which had counters for mixing drinks – opening onto Via dell’Abbondanza (nos. 1,7); the cenacula are the rooms above the western sector of the complex and the balneum is the only bath complex, whose brickwork had been completely restored and which was adorned in many areas with a wall decoration of marble slabs. By contrast, the meaning of the highly unusual and obscure adjectives describing the qualities of the balneum has been much debated. The commonly accepted translation “an elegant (venerium) bath for important people (nongentum)”, seems to repeat the same concept twice; a formula of this type in a proscriptio locationis, which by its very nature must have been concise, to the point and comprehensible to as many readers as possible, seems unconvincing. Rather, we could interpret the adjective venerium – well-suited to a bath complex owned by a woman – as a synonym of calidum, as suggested by one of Servius’s glosses to the Aeneid (8,387–389): namque ideo Vulcanus maritus fingitur Veneris, quod Venerium officium non nisi calore consistit, unde est “frigidus in Venerem senior”: “it is no coincidence that Vulcan is believed to be the husband of Venus, since the favours of Venus are not without warmth, from which the expression “the old man is cold to Venus”. Finally, I do not believe that the adjective venerium has any con-

The Properties and Social Role of Pompeiian Feminae Nobiles

53

nection with the Venerii/Veneriosi mentioned in two electoral inscriptions read in the vicinity of the praedia (CIL IV, 1146; 7791) as recently suggested by W. Van Andringa.38 Rather, it may be that these Venerii should be identified with the inhabitants of the city district comprising Regiones I and II. Were this the case, we could identify the fifth electoral district of Pompeii, hitherto unknown, as that of the tribus (or curia) Veneria (“the tribe of the Venerii”). Nongentum, in turn, might therefore be an allusion to the office of the nongenti, the judges in charge of supervising the urns into which voting slips were placed (Pliny, Nat.Hist. 33,31). The rental inscription would thus have advertised a “hot bath (like the touch of Venus) with a guard (as under the attentive gaze of the nongenti)”: To let, in the estate of Julia Felix, daughter of Spurius: a hot bath with a guard, shops with upper rooms and apartments. From 13 August next to 13 August of the sixth year, for five consecutive years. The lease will expire at the end of the five years”. As we have said, the built area of the Praedia of Julia Felix (size: surface area 5600 m2; banquet hall 23 m²; baths c. 900 m²) appears to consist of three separate nuclei. The first is the domus, arranged around the Tuscan atrium (93) and accessed, after the closure of the vestibule (47), either from entrance no. 10 or through the cubiculum (89); the biclinium (91), the tablinum (92) and the cubicula (97) and (98) opened onto its east side. All these rooms had large windows overlooking the park. In this sector the subjects chosen for the painted decorations are somewhat conventional, including still lives (xenia) adorning the upper part of the walls in the tablinum. The second nucleus is that organized around the viridarium (8) with rooms on a longitudinal axis. In the middle of the garden is a canal with three little bridges and recesses for fish to lay their eggs; its sacro-idyllic atmosphere was conveyed by the statues of Pan and by a fountain in the form of a shell with crabs, whilst the image of Pittacus of Mytilene evoked the gardens of the Greek schools of philosophy. Among the rooms facing onto the west portico, with its fluted rectangular marble pilasters of the Corinthian order (fig. 17), is the summer triclinium (83); here, above the walls which originally had a marble socle and frescoes with Nile landscapes, was an unusual barrel vaulted ceiling faced with lapilli to create the appearance of the interior of a grotto (fig. 18). This room, with its marble-clad banqueting couches surrounded by a small channel with running water, was decorated with a niche holding a stepped cascade, with water being fed in through two tubes from the tanks located above the service corridor behind the room (49) as in Nero’s Domus Aurea. The east side of the garden, by contrast, presents a series of alternating rectangular and semi-circular niches; the latter have the same imitation-grotto cladding as the vault of the summer 38 Van

Andringa, Quotidien des dieux et des hommes, 327.

54

Fabrizio Pesando

triclinium (fig. 19). At the southern edge of the garden area was a little room, almost completely destroyed during the eighteenth-century excavations (51), with a barrel vaulted ceiling which we can identify as a small shrine to Isis. The paintings covering the walls portrayed the goddess with a sistrum flanked by Anubis, Serapis, Fortune and a Genius sacrificing on a lararium altar. This room was where the famous bronze tripod with ithyphallic satyrs holding out their left hands, palms upwards, in an apotropaic gesture was found, now in the Secret Cabinet at the Naples Museum. The architecture and decorative programme of this sector of the residence, clearly the most important, thus displays a degree of eclecticism; however, the whole is not entirely lacking in thematic unity. The centrality – not merely spatial – of the large triclinium, the presence among the statues of that of the Greek legislator and philosopher who introduced severe laws on crimes committed by drunks (D. L. 1,76,6) and, finally, the shrine to Isis itself all appear to evoke the atmosphere of the parties held in the luxurious diaetae along the banks of the Canopus of Alexandria frequently recalled in the houses of Pompeii, from the Hellenistic exedra of Alexander in the House of the Faun (VI 12,2) to the far more modest triclinium with a water feature in the House of the Ephebe (I 7,10–12) built in the final years of the city’s life. Also belonging to this second sector of the Praedia is the atrium (24) which only later came to be the main entrance to the house. This room still has its Second Style floor belonging to the earliest decorative programme but has lost its original wall paintings, replaced by a Fourth Style painting in the years immediately preceding the eruption of C.E. 79. An interesting frieze depicting “scenes of life in the Forum”, now in the Naples Museum, has been ascribed to this second and final decorative arrangement of the atrium; its ordered sequence, in relation to the only two fragments still in situ, has only recently been reconstructed. The frieze, which separated the middle part of the wall holding panels with red, green and blue backgrounds from the upper part with fantasy architectures on a white background, ran around all four walls, for a total length of 31 metres. The frieze offers a detailed and evocative picture of the numerous activities taking place in the Forum: fabric and cattle merchants, metalworkers, bread and vegetable sellers, teachers and their pupils, passers-by move around against the background of monumental porticoes populated by equestrian statues. It has been suggested that the frieze represented specific sectors of the Forum at Pompeii and was positioned in the atrium according to the actual orientation of the public square. Of particular antiquarian interest is the depiction of a long scroll with writing fixed to the base of a series of equestrian statues (fig. 20): with this the painter probably wished to show, in accordance with the canons of folk art, the public display of proposed laws for the period of a trinundinum, in other words the 27 days preceding their approval or rejection by the city government. Whilst

The Properties and Social Role of Pompeiian Feminae Nobiles

55

this reconstruction is accurate in general terms, the pictorial representation of the city’s Forum, as well as reflecting a desire to ennoble a private space with the grandiose language of public architecture, may also allude to the restoration work undertaken by the owners of the complex. Clearly this representation provides some extremely important information, showing an image of the Forum of Pompeii populated by statues and with its buildings, some of which are recognizable, like the porticoes of Eumachia’s Building or the Macellum, completely restored. The overall appearance is not dissimilar to that of nearby Herculaneum, equally affected by the earthquake but where numerous marble and bronze statues belonging to the Forum area and major public buildings have been found. This depiction thus overturns the conventional picture of a ruined and incompletely restored Pompeiian Forum during the years between the earthquake of C.E. 62 and the eruption of C.E. 79, ascribed to delays in reconstruction work in public areas after the quake. Unless we see it as a purely ideal representation, this painting thus allows us to say that the Forum underwent large-scale reconstruction after the earthquake; its bare appearance, sealed by the eruption and still visible today, was due to the deliberate recovery of the most important sculptures and architectural elements, probably by the imperial authorities themselves.39 The last nucleus identifiable in the villa is the bath complex which, as we have seen above, still has floors belonging to the mid-first century B.C.E. decorative programme, whilst the wall decorations date to the Neronian-Flavian period. The monumental entrance at no. 6 Via dell’Abbondanza leads into the porticoed courtyard, decorated at the centre with a mosaic depicting a marine thiasos (31); the brick seats against the walls tell us that this was a waiting room. This room gave access to the typical rooms of a bath complex: the frigidarium (39), the tepidarium (41), with a floor on suspensurae and walls vaulted using tegulae mammatae, the laconicum (29), circular and with a dome-shaped roof, the calidarium (42) with a south-facing apse clad in marble tiles removed during the eighteenth-century excavations; the excavation reports also tell us that the windows of all these rooms were screened with large slabs of glass or talc. The courtyard (5) holds a large open-air pool, which can also be reached through the taberna with its entrance at no. 7; the taberna has a counter for mixing drinks and a next-door room with a brick triclinium for its customers. At the south-west end of the courtyard is a large latrine (37) linked to the frigidarium by a narrow channel.

39 F. Pesando, “Prima della catastrofe: Vespasiano e le città vesuviane,” Divus Vespasianus. Il bimillenario dei Flavi (Catalogo mostra Roma 26 Marzo 2009–10 Gennaio 2010) (ed. F. Coarelli; Milano: Electa, 2011), 378–385.

56

Fabrizio Pesando

With the exception of the tabernae and the sector arranged around the atrium house opening onto the west lane, the whole complex thus seems to revolve around a series of rooms aimed at rendering the encounters between their users more intimate. This type of spatial arrangement suggests the simultaneous use of the complex by a large number of people; the size of the bath complex is comparable not with the small domestic baths present in the most luxurious domus from the early decades of the first century B.C.E. but with the private complexes that sprang up around the city between the Augustan and Flavian periods. Among these some of the most important are the Sarno Baths (VIII 2,17) – at one time associated with the Palaestra (VIII 2,22–24), which, as we know from an electoral inscription, was used by an association of iuvenes – and the Suburban Baths. Both of these bath complexes had a series of rooms for rent; on the upper floor of the Suburban Baths – which were very probably used for prostitution – and opening onto the loggias on the ground floor and the lower first floor in the Sarno Baths, with broad views over the Gulf of Naples. To an even greater extent the arrangement of the praedia, with their association between the bath sector and the banqueting area, is highly reminiscent of the layout of the complex discovered in the Agro Murecine. This should not be identified, in an anachronistic and simplistic way, as a hotel, but as the seat of a collegium, almost certainly one of those collegia illicita which were disbanded by imperial decree after the disturbances of 59 and taken over, after this date, by the wealthy Puteolan family of the Sulpicii.40 No differently from other buildings with a complex floor plan in the Vesuvian towns which are difficult to ascribe to the category of domus or villa, such as the Gladiators’ Barracks (V 5,3) in Pompeii or the House of the Inn at Herculaneum, the most luxurious part of the praedia of Julia Felix may later have been rented by one of the corporations of craftworkers or religious associations present at Pompeii, of whose existence we know from a substantial and well-known series of private inscriptions and above all from political propaganda. Among these, the most important were the Isiaci, who may well have used the complex given the evocations of Egypt associated with a small cult place dedicated to this goddess.

40 Cf. G. Camodeca, “Gli archivi privati di tabulae ceratae e di papiri documentari. Pompei ed Ercolano: case, ambienti e modalità di conservazione,” Vesuviana 1 (2009): 17–42.

The Properties and Social Role of Pompeiian Feminae Nobiles

57

Conclusions This essay outlines the current state of knowledge on the life and works of the “great women” of the early imperial period, but it is likely that in the future new epigraphical discoveries and archaeological research will improve our understanding. What we can say for certain is that these women played an important part in promoting the new regime of the Principate, especially with regards to the female component of the city. In this context we can once again repeat the words of P. Castrèn in his fundamental study of imperial society in Pompeii: “There were others still in Augustan Pompeii who had close connexions with the new rulers: it is probable that the Temple of Fortuna Augusta ([VII 6,1], built by M. Tullius on his own land at his own expense) and the Temple of Augustus ([VII 9,2] built by the public priestess Mamia) were not constructed without prior consent or even incentive of the princeps himself”.41

Captions to figures Fig. 1: Paestum, Basilica of Mineia. Fig. 2: Basilica of Mineia with the building visible today, whose central nave was refurbished in late Antiquity with the construction of a semi-circular tribunal. Fig. 3: Paestum, Temple of Venus Iovia. Fig. 4: the mysterious strongyla mentioned in one of the inscriptions were the five little round rooms built on the north and east sides of the Rectangular Hall, with at their centres column drums protected by a thick layer of opus signinum. Fig. 5: Veleia, calchidicum of Baebia Bassilla. Fig. 6: Ostia, crypta and calchidicum of Terentia. Fig. 7: Pompeii. Chalcidicum, crypta and porticus of Eumachia and Numistrius Fronto and Temple VII 9,2 (of the Genius of Augustus) of Mamia. Fig. 8: large central acanthus bush completely off-centre, the frame of which fits the entrance to Temple VII 9,2. Fig. 9: Porticoed Temple at Cuma, believed to have been inspired by the Portico of Livia in Rome, built in 7 B.C.E. Fig. 10: Four large niches adorned the building’s porticoed façade, the chalcidicum mentioned in the inscription. Fig. 11: A headless female statue, which originally portrayed Livia. 41 P. Castrén, Ordo populusque Pompeianus. Polity and Society in Roman Pompeii (Rome, 1982), 96.

58

Fabrizio Pesando

Fig. 12: The crypta passageway led to a large niche where the apse of the sacellum had once been and in which the statue of Eumachia donated by the fullones was displayed. Fig. 13: Temple VII 9,2 (surface area 44 m2), probably the Temple of the Genius of Augustus (or of the Colony), which must date to the late Augustan period or the early years of Tiberius’ reign. On stylistic grounds we can ascribe the Luni marble altar in the centre of the courtyard to the same period. Fig. 14: House of the Large Fountain (VI 8,20–22), a residence dating to the mid-II century B.C.E. facing onto Via di Mercurio. Fig. 15: Tomb of Eumachia. Fig. 16: The Praedia of Julia Felix. Fig. 17: The summer triclinium (83), facing onto the west portico, with its fluted rectangular marble pilasters of the Corinthian order. Fig. 18: The summer triclinium (83). Fig. 19: View of the garden from the entrance of the summer triclinium (83). Fig. 20: Frieze depicting “scenes of life in the Forum” ran around all four walls, for a total length of 31 metres, with a detailed and evocative picture of the numerous activities taking place in the Forum against the background of monumental porticoes populated by equestrian statues. Of particular antiquarian interest is the depiction of a long scroll with writing fixed to the base of a series of equestrian statues.

Contested Spaces in 1 Corinthians 11:17–33 and 14:30 Sitting or Reclining in Ancient Houses, in Associations and in the Space of ekkl sia Annette Weissenrieder “But all Greek states are wholly governed by the rashness of the assembly while sitting (sedentis contionis). To pass over modern Greece which has long been overthrown and afflicted by its own decision-making, even the Greece of old which flourished in wealth, power and glory, fell from this one evil, of unrestrained liberty and licence in popular assemblies. When completely unskilled and ignorant men without experience took their seats in the theatre that was when they undertook profitless wars, put seditious men in charge of the state, and threw out their most deserving citizens.” (Cicero, Pro Flacco 16)

1. Introduction In Pro Flacco, Cicero makes a topographical connection between the political structure of Greece and the space used for political activity by Greek society, namely the theater. Politically sensible and admirable formation of opinion can be seen, according to Cicero, in the way the members of the political body moved about within these spaces, physical posture, namely sitting or standing, being his standard of measure. For his argument, sitting and standing represent two different models of social organization: the Greek and the Roman. The Roman magistracy organized according to wealth, age and social rank, represents order for Cicero, while he finds that the Greek senate, which convenes in a theater, allows its political leaders no respect.1 Cicero takes his point even further, claiming that sitting is indica1 Th. E. Mommsen, Römische Geschichte (special edition in two volumes, based on the original edition from 1856 ff.; Darmstadt: WBG, 2010); E. S. Gruen, Culture and National Identity in Republican Rome (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992), 205 ff. A. WallaceHadrill, Rome’s Cultural Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008),

60

Annette Weissenrieder

tive of a physical weakness that he ascribes to the Greeks as a particular characteristic. Standing, in contrast, is indicative of physical strength.2 A similar example is found in Plutarch; he draws a comparison between standing at a table to eat and a meal at which one reclines to eat, which he presents as a weakness.3 This is equally valid, in Plutarch’s view, for soldiers and in aristocratic circles.4 Caligula provides many accounts in which senators, as well as other politicians such as the consul Pomponius Secundus, in sitting or standing had to put themselves in a subordinate position in relation to Caligula, who was reclining at meals. The sitting posture of Pomponius has further significance, because he sat at the feet of the emperor and kissed his feet during the meal, and in so doing adopted a position that was normally associated with women.5 And a final example from the New Testament: “For if a person with gold rings and in fine clothes comes into your assembly (sunag g n), and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in, and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say, ‘Have a seat (esth ti) here, please,’ while to the one who is poor you say, ‘Stand there,’ or, ‘Sit at my feet.’ ”6 A brief look at seating in different spaces makes one thing clear: the space itself is not the crux of the critical debate, but rather the capacity of the space to be experienced, and the way it is experienced by the perceiving subjects. Thus Cicero is not, in the passage above, criticizing the fact that the theater has been chosen as the site for meetings of the assembly. The space is rather the spatial expression of the physical energy of those present, and as such represents the society’s way of thinking. It is this physical posture, symbolizing physical weakness and lack of order, that is being criticized. In this way, subject and space become variables independent of one another. This idea of the independence of subject and space seems all the more likely for antiquity because what is space and what is subject is determined by the concept of physis. In more theoretical terms: the physical – objective 164 f. argues that Cicero, ironically, was not aware of the etymological root of seditiosus in the Greek stasis, standing; this seems unlikely, however, given for example the Greek derivation from hedos/hezomai. 2 Vitruvius also provides an example of a climate-based rationale for Roman superiority over all peoples, especially over the Greeks, in his theory of architecture, which deals extensively with the question of places of assembly. He bases his argument on ethnographic ethnological writings from the Hippocratic Corpus. This issue is examined thoroughly in my book project Tempel, Kirche und Zivilgesellschaft im 1. Korintherbrief. 3 Cf. Plut. Mor. 201C; Livius 23.45.1–4; Suet. Iul. 67. 4 Plut. Ant. 4.4; Suet. Tib. 18: trans Rhenum vero eum vitae ordinem tenuit, ut sedens in caespite nudo cibum caperet, saepe sine tentorio pernoctaret […]. Cf. M. Elefante, Velleius Paterculus, Ad M. Vinicium consulem libri duo (Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1997), 487 f. 5 Dio Cassius 59.29.5. 6 James 2:2–3. It is certainly worth considering the fact that the same word for sitting in a community assembly is used as in 1 Cor 14:30.

Contested Spaces in 1 Corinthians 11:17–33 and 14:30

61

experience of the space corresponds to its conceptual identity. Thus for Aristotle the space of the body is a place (topos), a space with boundaries which is occupied by a body, but nevertheless always remains separate from it, as H. G. Zekl has demonstrated persuasively. It is certainly no coincidence that in natural philosophical texts the human body is described using the word topos, thereby drawing on various concepts of space.7 This perspective is reflected in critical theory of the late 18th century in Kant’s linking of the experience of a space to the perceiving subject. Kant writes: “Wir können demnach nur aus dem Standpunkte eines Menschen vom Raum, von ausgedehnten Wesen ect. reden.”8 A focal point in this debate is Ernst Cassirer’s Philosophie der symbolischen Formen, in which he describes space in terms of its organizing function in human life, building upon the thinking of Kant, among others.9 Cassirer’s use of the concept of space and his application of this concept in the Philosophie der symbolischen Formen to textually and visually concrete spaces makes his thought especially useful and relevant to my work. Both of these conceptual models of space will prove vitally important in the following discussion.

In developing his theory of space, Cassirer gives precedence to the concept of order over the concept of being: “Die Welt wird nicht als ein Ganzes von Körpern ‘im’ Raum, noch als ein Geschehen ‘in’ der Zeit definiert, sondern sie wird als ‘System von Ereignissen’ [verstanden].”10 If we take this remark literally, it becomes clear that we cannot speak of space in general, but rather at most of a specific location and its surroundings. This is in agreement with Greek thought in so far as early Greek philosophy speaks at first only of topos, meaning thereby a perceptible, concrete location such as a temple, in contrast to kenon, which also occupies space and can be thought of as emptiness. That being said, en pantì tóp should be understood as it occurs in connection with ekkl sía in 1 Cor 1:2 not as “everywhere” or “in all places,” but rather as referring as a rule to a specific location such as a “town quarter” or a specific “room,” as demonstrated by Arzt-Grabner.11 Space can only be experienced concretely. If space is described as a dynamic, active as well as passive, internal and external relationship between person and place, it is easy to see that through people a great variety of spaces come

  7 Cf. A. Weissenrieder, “‘Am Leitfaden des Leibes.’ Der Diskurs über soma in Medizin und Philosophie der Antike,” ZNT 27 (2011).   8 I. Kant, Werke in sechs Bänden: Kritik der reinen Vernunft, vol. 2 (ed. W. Weischedel; Darmstadt: WBG, 1960 = 1781), 42.   9 See therefore: M. Ferrari, “Cassirer und der Raum,” Internationale Zeitschrift für Philosophie 2 (1992): 167–188. 10 E. Cassirer, Philosophie der symbolischen Formen. 3. Teil. Phänomenologie der Erkenntnis. Gesammelte Werke Vol. 13 (ed. J. Clemens; Darmstadt: WBG, 2002 = 1929), 160. 11 P. Arzt-Grabner et al., 1. Korinther (Papyrologische Kommentare zum Neuen Testament 2; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2006), 44.

62

Annette Weissenrieder

into being.12 In other words, the shape and form of a space does not exist in a predetermined state, but rather is created by the perceiving subject. Perhaps an example from antiquity will help illuminate this point. Many spaces in ancient houses have no specific designated function; they are flexible in their function. These rooms acquire purpose through portable furniture and an organization of meaning which is given to the space by the conduct of its inhabitants. This indicates on the one hand that a New Testament study taking into consideration archaeological and art historical perspectives regarding the question of ancient space is called for; on the other hand these perspectives must be brought back and tied to a textual foundation. Two central concepts are definitive here for Cassirer: the nature and manner of “relation,” and the organization of meaning,13 which appears in different manifestations depending on the type of space, whether mythic, theoretical or aesthetic.14 Starting with an assumption of a historical shaping of terms defining space, Cassirer achieves, in contrast to Kant, a cultural historical differentiation of spatial manifestations, of mythic space. Or, to use Cassirer’s own words to describe this space typology, the conceptual representation of space is seen as a mode of human conceiving of reality. “Die echte ‘Vorstellung’ ist immer zugleich Gegenüber-Stellung; sie geht aus vom Ich und entfaltet sich aus dessen bildenden Kräften, aber sie erkennt zugleich in dem Gebildeten ein eigenes Sein, ein eigenes Wesen, ein eigenes Gesetz – sie läßt es aus dem Ich ‘erstehen’, um es zugleich gemäß diesem Gesetz ‘bestehen’ zu lassen und es in diesem objektiven Bestand anzuschauen.”15 That is, perception of space does not exist in predetermined form, but is rather created. It is formed by means of organization of meaning. Therefore the concrete topoi such as house or meeting place are systems of spatial relations, which can not only be archaeologically reconstructed but are also generated linguistically. The fact that cultural space cannot be interpreted without considering the social structuring of spaces has been thoroughly discussed by P. Bourdieu 12 See therefore: F. Gaona, Das Raumproblem in Cassirers Philosophie der Mythologie (Tübingen: Präzis, 1965), 39–42. 13 E. Cassirer, “Mythischer, ästhetischer und theoretischer Raum,” in Symbol, Technik, Sprache. Aufsätze aus den Jahren 1927–1933 (eds. E. W. Ohrt and J. M. Krois, Hamburg: meiner), 93–119, 102 = in Raumtheorie. Grundlagentexte aus Philosophie und Kulturwissenschaften (eds. J. Dünne et al.; Frankfurt a.M.: suhrkamp, 2006), 485–501, here 497 f. 14 It would make sense at this point to discuss cultural semioticist J. Lotmans’ explicit literary topology, Die Struktur literarischer Texte (Munich: Fink, 1970); idem, “Zur Metasprache typologischer Kultur-Beschreibungen,” in Aufsätze zur Theorie und Methodologie der Literatur und Kultur (ed. idem; Kronberg: Scriptor), 338–377. Unfortunately space restrictions prevent me from doing so here. 15 E. Cassirer, “Mythischer, ästhetischer und theoretischer Raum,” 102.

Contested Spaces in 1 Corinthians 11:17–33 and 14:30

63

in his book Zur Soziologie der symbolischen Formen.16 The conduct of various people in spaces is understood, therefore, as the decisive factor in the process of structuring of space. At the basis of this lies the assumption that the inhabitants of the space not only structure the space conceptually by means of concrete arrangement of and movement within the space, but that they also perform a physical and concrete structuring. Spaces which host gatherings project not only a certain social order in the way that the inhabitants move within them, but they also represent society’s way of thinking in that they symbolize these thoughts through their conduct. The way space is represented through language in texts makes it possible to relate this back to ancient principles of order. These are also called semiotic codes, and are not based on an exact reconstruction of the concept of space. Rather these allow a reconstruction, which is aimed at the recognition of conceptual representational models and organizations of meaning. The goal of this essay is to form an understanding of these conceptual models and organizations of meaning through an investigation of sitting and reclining at gatherings of the Corinthian community. 1. Cor 11:17–34 and 14:30 and the representation of space through sitting and reclining We can see the extent to which an assembly space and the behavior of those in the space represents and shapes the social relationships in a group when we look at the various kinds of space available in antiquity, as well as at the organization of sitting and reclining, which for antiquity can be seen as an indication of the way a community is organized.17 Most scholars agree that 1 Cor 11:17–34 provides very little information on this topic. Only oikos, which scholars usually translate as “private house” is mentioned. But the regulations regarding meals in 1 Cor 11:17–34 are not the only explanations of how to conduct community gatherings found in the first letter to the Corinthians. Along with the question of eating meat sacrificed to idols, addressed in 1 Cor 8–10, the problem of covering women’s heads is discussed in 11:2–16 and the question of the value of charismatic gifts and the closely related issue of pneumaticcharismatic ways of speaking are dealt with in 14:26 ff. If the place of assembly and more specifically the customs of sitting and reclining in that place are an indication of the social organization of the community, then the question presents itself: what was the situation in this regard in 1 Cor 11:17–34, especially given that this aspect is not considered in the verses in question? Or, put slightly differently, did the Corinthian community members sit or recline? And, on this basis, what features of the ancient spaces allow us to conclude that they sat or reclined? 16 P. Bourdieu, Zur Soziologie der symbolischen Formen (2nd ed.; Frankfurt a.M.: suhrkamp, 1983). 17 I would like to acknowledge my gratitude to Prof. Wolfgang Ehrhardt, Prof. Irene Bragantini, Prof. David Balch and Nikolas Möller for their thought-provoking critical comments and guidance on this point.

64

Annette Weissenrieder

In 1 Cor 8:10, it is clear that Paul is speaking about a reclining meal when he says, “For if someone weak sees you who possess knowledge reclining (katakeimenon) in an idol’s temple, will not his conscience be strengthened to eat food offered to idols?”18 According to Paul, the reclining meal takes place in a triclinium of one of the temples and in conjunction with the sacrifice to idols. In contrast, in 1. Cor 14:30 he speaks of sitting during worship, saying: “And if someone sitting down (kath menai) receives a revelation, the person who is speaking should conclude.”19 Both passages deal with conduct in a religious context, at a meal and in worship. Whereas one automatically brings the idea of reclining meal from chapter 8 to 1 Cor 11, it is surprising that 1 Cor 14, which speaks of sitting during worship, remains relatively unconsidered in scholarly literature. To my knowledge only Smith, in his book From Symposium to Eucharist, has addressed this issue, proposing that there was a meal eaten while sitting and an assembly meeting, in this case at a table. No further conclusions however are drawn from this observation. The only issue connected with sitting is the question of how many participants there were at a meal. It is a fundamental question, however, whether one can bring the idea of a reclining meal from chapter 8 to a reading of 1 Cor 11:17–34 – or if one should think rather of a seated meal, an interpretation that seems to be suggested by 1 Cor 14:30? In considering this question, it is also important to assume two orders of worship – a Communion liturgy and a liturgy of the Word – in chapters 11 and 14. On a semantic level, a connection between chapter 11 and the previous chapters seems clear because astheneia, a central term, appears again in chapter 11. Recently Volker Gäckle has argued persuasively that weakness is reinterpreted in 1 Cor 8–10 as an acceptable way of living a Christian life. Paul’s statements in chapter 11,20 however, seem to run directly counter to this interpretation. Is Paul contradicting himself, then? As I’ve shown elsewhere, in 1 Cor 11 and 12 astheneia is used to mean a weakening or damage to the body or part of the body, which is inflicted as a punishment and in the worst case results in death.21 This shows that the semantic context has shifted, because a weakening of the body seems, in the context of a communal meal, to not actually be an acceptable way of living a Christian life. This observation suggests that Paul is opening up a new line of thought with chapter 11.22

18 See Mark 2:15; Luke 5:29; 14:3. Otherwise anakeimai is more common, for example in Mark 14:18; 16:14; Matt 9:10; 22:10.11; 26:7, 20; Luke 22:27; John 6:11; 12:2; 13:23, 28, which refers very specifically to “reclining on cushions.” 19 For kath menai see also Acts 2:2; 20:9; James 2:3; and perhaps also Rev. 4:4 and 11:16. 20 V. Gäckle, Die Starken und die Schwachen in Korinth und in Rom. Zu Herkunft und Funktion der Antithese in 1Kor 8,1–11,1 und in Röm 14,1–15,13 (WUNT 2,200; Tübingen: Morh Siebeck, 2005), 242 ff. 21 A. Weissenrieder, “‘Darum sind viele körperlich und seelisch Kranke unter euch’ (1 Kor 11,29 ff.). Die korinthischen Überlegungen zum Abendmahl im Spiegel antiker Diätetik und der Patristik,” in Eine gewöhnliche und harmlose Speise? Von den Entwicklungen frühchristlicher Abendmahlstraditionen (eds. J. Hartenstein, S. Petersen and A. Standhartinger; Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2008), 239–268. 22 The commentary by Arzt-Grabner et al., 1. Korinther, 321 ff., argues against such a division, grouping the subsection with chapters 7–14 on the basis of the introductory phrase peri de.

Contested Spaces in 1 Corinthians 11:17–33 and 14:30

65

This gives rise to further observations, which receive excellent treatment from M. Pöttner.23 He divides the excerpt 8:1–11:1 into five distinct sections, all of which have one single aim, namely to hold up Paul as the exemplary apostle and thereby to advocate the imitation of his behavior. The amplification that follows is that Paul’s behavior functions as a model for Christian behavior in general. This amplification no longer applies in the following section, chapter 11. Instead the communication of an eschatological reference to Christ is central here, which manifests itself through the meal, charisms and pneuma (spirit), but – and it is this that indicates the separation – is understood by a privileged group as relating to itself. A final aspect which should be mentioned is the commendation, Paul expresses in 11:2. These words of praise can probably be understood as captatio benevolentiae, and they have a kind of tautegorical function. They refer cataphorically to the antithetical speech act in 11:17 and 22, in which Paul explicitly does not praise the community, and it points to the Last Supper, which has been neglected. While the Corinthian community in 11:3–16 is recognized as having an independent capacity for judgment and is thereby of equal standing in this exchange with Paul, the situation changes regarding the schismata, which Paul rejects by adopting here a commanding tone, which hinges semantically on the use of paraggelein (to order, direct), and diatassein, although this is supposed to go hand in hand with a regulation of behavior on the part of the Corinthians. All the factors I’ve discussed so far seem to imply that we need to assume a different context for 1 Cor 11 than for chapters 8–10, although we should not be improvident to assume that the same reclining position still applies in Cor 11:17–34. It is in my opinion more difficult to decide whether or not a distinction between a service with communion and a service of the word can be established based on the terms used, meaning that the seats mentioned in 1 Cor 14:30 would not come into consideration for 1 Cor 11. Two sources provide a basis for believing that the events in chapters 11 and 14 are two different kinds of worship service:24 For one, we have Pliny’s account of a legal interrogation which speaks of both a coming together for a meal,25 which would only have been possible in the evening, and a coming together ante lucem, at which both a prayer and an oath were spoken. For another, New Testament passages mention both gatherings in the temple and breaking of bread in the evening in houses (Acts 2:42 ff.; 5:42). Three valid arguments can be made against this point of view. Meals and rituals of speech are brought together by the end of the letter, 1 Cor 16:20–22, which can be interpreted as an introductory formula in a celebration of the eucharist. The invitation to the holy kiss, curse formula, Maranatha and benediction represent the end of the reading aloud of the letter and at the same time the beginning of the ceremony. Therefore it is believed that the end of the letter is basically equivalent to a liturgical 23 M. Pöttner, Realität als Kommunikation. Ansätze zur Beschreibung der Grammatik des paulinischen Sprechens in 1 Kor 1,4–4,21 im Blick auf literarische Problematik und Situationsbezug des 1. Korintherbriefes (Theologie 2; Münster: Lit, 1995), 58 f. 24 Older scholarship, especially, argues for this point of view; see for example Th. Harnack, Der christliche Gemeindegottesdienst im apostolischen und altkatholischen Zeitalter (2nd ed.; Amsterdam: Edition Radopi, 1969), 96 ff.; H. Lietzmann, Messe und Herrenmahl (3rd ed.; AKG 8, Berlin: de Gruyter, 1955), 257. 25 Plin. Ep. X 96.7.

66

Annette Weissenrieder

form.26 Despite the fact that this view has been cast in some doubt recently, it must be said that J. Kremer is correct in observing that 1 Cor 11:16 contains the same reference to “church” organization as 14:40, making a connection between the two chapters seem likely.27 It also seems questionable from an exegetical standpoint to see the text from Acts, which comes later chronologically, as fundamental for the Corinthian community and on this basis to surmise that there were two congregations. The text of the first letter to the Corinthians, in any case, does not offer us any information to that effect. In addition, in 1 Cor 11:17, 20, 33, 34 just as in 1 Cor 14:23, 26 the verb sunerchomai is found together with ekkl sía, which is usually translated as “come together.” Schneider goes so far as to identify the verb as “terminus technicus” for “the assembly of the community” in his article in the ThWNT/TDNT.28

This suggests that in the following discussion we should assume that there was a seated meal in 1 Cor 11, and that we should therefore examine the differences between this seated meal and a reclining meal. I will focus below on three questions: what social and religious implications are connected with a seated or reclining meal in antiquity? What different meeting places in differing spaces are implied by the two alternatives? And what exactly does kath menai mean in the context of a gathering of the ekkl sía? I aim to show that visual and textual sources generate meaning for sitting – as opposed to reclining at a meal – as it occurs in 1 Cor 11–14. In my discussion I will consider specific concrete spaces (house, meeting place, gathering space for the ekkl sía), keeping in mind that the choice of the word ekkl sía does not evoke a specific concrete space, but rather the concept is generated by a certain way of behaving within a space. I hope to initiate a methodological discussion about the persuasiveness lent to imagerelated methods of investigation when they are used in conjunction with the textual and image world of the Biblical text.

2. Implications of seated and reclining meals in antiquity If space is understood as a social-hierarchical environment, then furniture is certainly a factor that can contribute to that hierarchical environment. Most of our knowledge about the furniture of antiquity comes from a quantity of images on vases, mirrors, frescoes, and grave reliefs. On the whole the 26 Lietzmann, Messe und Herrenmahl, 229 in particular argues in this vein: “Jetzt wird uns ein Bild lebendig: Wir stehen zu Korinth in der Gemeindeversammlung. Ein Brief des Apostels wir vor den lauschenden Hörern verlesen, er neigt sich dem Ende zu, noch eine Mahnung zur Besserung, Eintracht, Liebe und Frieden. Und dann klingt’s feierlich.” 27 J. Kremer, Der Erste Brief an die Korinther. Übersetzt und Erklärt, Regensburger Neues Testament (RNT; Regensburg, 1997), 224 ff. 28 J. Schneider, “Art. sunerchomai,” ThWNT 2 (1935): 682.

Contested Spaces in 1 Corinthians 11:17–33 and 14:30

67

furniture of antiquity was restricted to very few pieces which could be transported from place to place.29 An important piece of furniture was the klin (couch), from klinein, “to recline,” because it served both as a bed to sleep on at night and as a couch to recline on at meals.30 Although we know of various different versions of the klin , there was in my opinion no difference in how they were used, except perhaps in the case of the built-in klin , which was carved out of stone, often encased in marble, and built into the rooms or the garden. The klin consisted of a frame with four posts and a bottom made of woven bands on which mattresses and blankets were laid (fig. 1). The ends of the kline, at the head and the foot, were often raised. The klin was also often accompanied by a small footstool, which served as a foot rest or a place where one could set shoes.31 We have a few noteworthy examples from Corinth.32 Furniture for sitting displayed more variety in its forms; common pieces were a backless stool, the díphros,33 and a folding stool, the díphros okladías.34 We know of numerous examples of both pieces of furniture from Corinth. Also very common were simple wooden benches, which were used in a variety of ways (fig. 2) and stone benches, which either served as seating for clients at the entrance of a house or as a place for sitting in the garden. In many epics a remarkable phenomenon can be seen: furnishing and seating are always described in exact detail when the furnishings in question are simple, while luxurious seating is not mentioned even when sumptuous furnishings are described in detail.35 In addition to these there was also a large chair for reclining with a backrest, known as the klismós.36 In principle Roman furniture was not much different from Greek furniture, though we can detect a search for even more elegant forms and materials in Roman designs. Pliny tells us for example

29 On

this subject see Hilke Thür’s excellent essay in this volume. of klin ancient authors refer to terms like klinarion, as well as klint r, klinis, and chameuna, chian. For further information see G. M. Richter, The Furniture of the Greeks Etruscans and Romans (Basle and London: Phaidon Press, 1966), 52 ff. and 105 (for Rome: lectus); for Heraculaneum see Stephan Th. A. Mols, Houten Meubles in Heraculaneum. Vorm, Technik en Functie (unpublished Diss. Nijmegen, 1994), 174ff . 31 Compare for example the footstool now housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Inv. 17.190.2076. 32 See for further information the catalogue on Kenchreai. Eastern Port of Korinth. Results of Investigations by The University of Chicago and Indiana University for The American School of Classical Studies at Athens. VI. Ivory, Bone, and Related Wood Finds (eds. W. Olch Stern and D. Hadjilazaro Thimme; Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2007), table VI. 5–12 and VI. 13–C, 14, 15 a–b, 19 a–b. 33 These are well known in both Greek and Roman context: For the Greek context see Richter, Greek Furniture, 38–41 and for the Roman see A. T. Croom, Roman Furniture (Mill: Tempus Publishing, 2007), 87–105. 34 Of these, too, we have examples from ancient Greece and Rome, for example in frescoes in private homes, such as the images of Psyche in the Villa of the Vetii, as well as from a great number of images of Zeus, Asclepius and Dionysos. 35 Hom. Od. 3.38; Hom. Od. 14.49 f.; Hom. Od. 16.47; Verg. Aen. 8.176–178; Falernus Sil. 7.171–205. 36 Another type of seat, the throne, should be given brief mention here, since it always occurs in connection with images of gods. 30 Instead

68

Annette Weissenrieder

about beds and klines made of silver,37 rare varieties of marble, ornament made from precious stones, and special woods such as ebony, which at that time was favored by the elite.38 Small portable tables (fig. 2b) that one could set next to the klines were also popular: the trapeza, tripous, tripodes,39 tetrapous and, in Roman houses, the mensa. In addition to these small side tables, which were probably often carried to the Symposium already laid, we also have examples of tables that were set in front of people seated to eat.40

We have seen that in its form the furniture of Rome, in the west, can hardly be distinguished from that of the eastern provinces. The question remains whether this can be said with equal certainty of the significance of a seated or reclining meal.41 Another question is whether or not these pieces of furniture carried with them social connotations. This will be explained below with the help of visual representations and a few literary sources.42 2.1 Visual Examples Vergil and Servius Aen. testify to the custom of seated meals in early times, among the Homeric heroes for example.43 Later the reclining meal became more common, perhaps as a result of Lydian influence; during the Roman period it is especially associated with what is known as the triclinium.44 Bek believes that “this mode of reclining on the three couches during (a) meal had superseded the older Italic habit of sitting at table in the 3rd and 2nd centuries B.C. as a result of Greek influence.”45 37 Plin. Nat.Hist. 33.144–146. See the thorough discussion in S. Faust, “Fulcra. Figürlicher und ornamentaler Schmuck an antiken Betten,” MDAIR 30 (1989). 38 Plin. Nat.Hist. 13.91–102; Lucan. 10.144 f. 39 Three-footed tables were especially common in ancient Greece, as we know from Aristophanes (Pollux X 80.81), Menander (Pollux X 80) and Hesiod (Athenaios II.49b). 40 A very early example is the Corinthian krater; on these see E. Saglio, “Art. Coena,” Dictionnaire des antiquités, 1270. fig. 1690; W. Smith, “Art. Coena,” Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, 123. 41 Unfortunately we have no examples of comparable frescoes or reliefs that might help us solve the problem of whether meals were taken seated or reclining. This is due to the particular conditions at the excavation sites at Corinth, where only very few houses are as well preserved as in Pompeii. In the reconstruction of Corinth we can assume both that Roman architectural ideals found expression and that this Roman influence was strengthened through the use of pattern books. 42 See for the following: M. B. Roller, Dining Posture in Ancient Rome: Bodies, Values, and Status (Princeton: Princeton University, 2006). 43 See Serv. Aen. VII 176 and Verg. Aen. VII 176 and VIII 176, where Vergil also tells us of meals that were eaten on the grass. 44 See Diels VS 134, Nr. 22. 45 Unfortunately L. Bek does not list any sources in “Questiones convivales. The idea of the triclinium and the staging of convivial ceremony from Rome to Byzantium,” AnalRom 12 (1983): 81–107. A. P. Zaccaria Ruggiu, “Origine des triclinio nella casa romana,” in Splendida civitas nostra. Studi archeologici in onore di Antonio Frova (eds. G. Cavalieri

Contested Spaces in 1 Corinthians 11:17–33 and 14:30

69

We have many images of couches from the middle of the 1st century C.E. from sarcophagi and sculptured monuments of couches and grave monuments. These often display a typological difference between men and women, which we know to be a reflection of reality in Roman times: men are shown holding drinking vessels, while women are occupied with items of toilet. There are exceptions: images of women resting in front of a table set for a meal, which were probably commissioned by craftspeople and freed slaves who were not members of the elite and did not feel bound by aristocratic norms.46 The remarkable architectural discoveries made in Corinth should be mentioned: in the so-called Potters’ Quarter in Corinth there are circa 108 terracotta figurines of men in reclining posture. They were probably a local tradition in Corinth, since no similar figurines have been found outside of the Potters’ Quarter.47 Among the reclining figurines a seated woman holding a fruit has been identified. N. Stillwell writes of this instance, “Reclining figures found at other sites have sometimes been called female, but I know of very few which are unquestionalbe female.”48 This fact makes the figurine even more remarkable among handmade Corinthian terracottas, others of which show not only men on klines, but women as well (fig. 3).49 The women are reclining just like the men, supported on their left arms, most likely with a cushion at their backs, right arm free for eating. Representations like this one of women in a reclining posture are rare, perhaps even exclusively Corinthian. They demonstrate however that a reclining posture for women was not, in principle, unfamiliar in the craft quarter. We can speculate that these figurines were commissioned, though we cannot know for sure. Scenes of people reclining are found depicted in frescoes in Roman houses, which we can probably assume were the homes of private individuals. These scenes known to us from the Roman context can often be traced back to Hellenistic Greek models, on which they were based, where the landscape, triclinium and clothing have all been Manasse and E. Roffia; Rome: Quasar, 1995), 137–154 offers a religious context for the meal taken while reclining on three klines (“il costume tricliniare”). 46 Cf. H. Wrede, “Stadtrömische Monumente. Urnen und Sarkophage des Klinentypus in den beiden ersten Jahrhunderten n.Chr.,” AA (1977): 395 ff., here 424–427 and R. Amedick, Die Sarkophage mit Darstellungen aus dem Menschenleben. IV Vita Privata (Berlin: Mann, 1991), 11 f.; for further information see A Woman’s Place: House Churches in Earliest Christianity (eds. C. Osiek, M. Y. MacDonald, with J. H. Tulloch; Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2006), 156, 159–62. 47 A. Newhall Stillwell, Corinth. Result of Excavations conducted by the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, vol. XV, II: The Potters’ Quarter. The Terracottas (Princeton, NJ, 1952), fig. 31, p. 111. 48 Newhall Stillwell, Corinth. The Potter’s Quarter, 54 f., 104. 49 See Newhall Stillwell, Corinth. The Potters’ Quarter, 54 f., 104; it is striking that although the figurines are entered in the catalog as female, in the description of the figurines there is no indication of their gender.

70

Annette Weissenrieder

altered to reflect Roman circumstances. In contrast to the tavern scenes I describe below, which are probably realistic depictions of tavern life, these reclining scenes cannot be assigned easily to a genre. Rather, these scenes could be more a record of the ideas and wishes that the person commissioning the work had about social representation. A visual example is the banquet scene found in the Casa del Triclinio, which represents reclining in three different seasons, which in addition to the fact that the owner of the house was in a position to be able to put on a convivium, indicating that he was of a higher social status, depicts drunken and well fed guests.50 The banquet scenes are remarkable in a certain way because, for one, the people depicted have very strong individual features – one can therefore agree with Fröhlich that in these images the owners preserved those who were present at the banquet for eternity – and for another, some of the faces, features and hairstyles depicted are reminiscent of portraits of emperors and not of real people.51 Despite the fact that the frescoes aim to give a different impression, it is actually unlikely that the owners of these houses were among the most important patrons of the city. The scenes of reclining in an otherwise simple, unadorned household point to a representation of status in the context of the political elite, a status which the owner appears to wish to express through the images of reclining meals. We know of a similar example regarding the former slave Trimalchio, who, Petronius tells us, wished to have a symposium with reclining depicted on his tombstone.52 Putting on a reclining meal – associated with having clients and followers – should therefore be understood as a status symbol. The depiction of reclining meals therefore, was extremely common for men during antiquity and should be seen as an indication of status. In the following I will give a few examples of seated meals. The social context of the meal is of particular interest here. Does a seated meal signify belonging to a different social class?

Realistic Scenes: The Tavern Frieze Of interest to us now are a number of frescoes, which are classified as belonging to the “folk painting” genre, although this interpretation has recently come into question.53 Here we have seemingly realistic representations of everyday life, which were found in the tabernae and popinae, which, one can assume, were not frequented by the members of the elite (fig. 4). The tavern frieze from the caupona of Salvius is interesting because it is a

50 St. Ritter, “Zur kommunikativen Funktion Pompejanischer Gelagebilder: Die Bilder aus der Casa del Triclinio und ihr Kontext,” Jahrbuch DAI, Rom 120 (2005–2006): 301– 372. 51 On this subject see the extensive discussion in Th. Fröhlich, Lararien‑ und Fassadenbilder in den Vesuvstädten. Untersuchungen zur ‘volkstümlichen’ pompejanischen Malerei (Mainz: Zabern, 1991), 226 ff. 52 Cf. Petr. 71.10; Fröhlich, Lararien‑ und Fassadenbilder in den Vesuvstädten, 227. 53 Fröhlich, Lararien‑ und Fassadenbilder in den Vesuvstädten, 13–20 and 211, who takes a rather critical view of this genre classification in general, but finds it a likely designation for the table scene.

Contested Spaces in 1 Corinthians 11:17–33 and 14:30

71

kind of comic strip, complete with dialogue bubbles (fig. 6).54 In the first picture, two men dressed in short robes sit on low stools facing the hostess, who is holding a bowl and a pitcher. The stools are made of wood and probably free of decoration. Both men clearly wish to be served, since next to the man on the left we see the inscription “hoc” (“here”), and next to the man on the right we see “non, mia est” (“no, it’s mine!”). The hostess, at first diplomatic, says, “qui vol sumat” (“whoever wants it, take it”), but then she ends up offering the wine first to a certain Oceanus (“Oceane veni bibe”), one of the guests. Fröhlich argues that the customers, along with the hostess of the tavern, “belonged to the lower classes of society.”55 This is confirmed, according to Fröhlich, by the names of innkeepers from antiquity that we know of today, most of whom are identified as libertus/liberta. In addition, some of them bear surnames of Greek origin, which probably indicate their slave names.56 Fröhlich finds it very likely therefore that these pictures represent everyday scenes. If however one also takes into consideration the various hairstyles and clothing depicted in other frescoes, one cannot help but notice that the two men in the picture are depicted as having peculiar, feminine-looking hairstyles. These features are all the more striking because men in other frescoes are shown as either clean-shaven or bearded, and in masculine poses.57 The hostess exceeds the two men demanding wine not only in height, but most likely also in status, as their clothing indicates. The image communicates to us the fact that the hostess has the power to decide which guest she will favor by serving first. Also, her placement at the front edge of the picture makes her seem to communicate directly with the viewer of the fresco. Although the two men in the picture 54 The interpretation of the frescoes has changed recently, now that the pictures can be seen in a restored, cleaned-up state. This makes it possible to identify a kissing couple in the picture as a man and a woman (otherwise they had been identified as a homosexual couple  – either two men, as in Fröhlich, Lararien‑ und Fassadenbilder in den Vesuvstädten, 213 or as a lesbian couple as in F. A. Todd, “Three Pompeian Wall-Inscriptions, and Petronius,” The Classical Review 53 (1939): 5–9); see therefore J. R. Clarke, Art in the Lives of Ordinary Romans. Visual Representations and Non-Elite Viewers in Italy, 100 B.C.–A.D. 315 (Berkeley at al.: University of California Press, 2003), 162 ff.; especially helpful in this regard is the paper by I. Bragantini, “VI 14.35.36: Caupona di Salvius,” in Pompei: pitture e mosaici 5 (Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia italiana, 1994), 366–371 who is able to present next to the old photographs the new reproductions by Presuhn. [E. Presuhn, Pompeji: Die neusten Ausgrabungen von 1874 bis 1878 (Leipzig: Weigel, 1878) Abt. V 3 ff. table 6–7]; regarding the Frescoes see also A. Mau, “Scavi di Pompei,” Bullettino dell’Instituto di Corrispondenza Archeologica (1878): 191–194; T. Kleberg, In den Wirtshäusern und Weinstuben des antiken Rom (2nd ed., Darmstadt: WBG, 1966), 54 and table 10,17; K. Schefold, Die Wände Pompejis. Topographisches Verzeichnis der Bildmotive (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1957), 135 f. 55 Fröhlich, Lararien‑ und Fassadenbilder in den Vesuvstädten, 214. 56 Kleberg, In den Wirtshäusern und Weinstuben, 20. See also the thorough description of rights: innkeepers were denied certain civil rights, and hostesses in particular were quasi-prostitutes (p. 20 f.). 57 See Clarke, Art in the Lives of Ordinary Romans, 162 ff.

72

Annette Weissenrieder

assume poses probably aimed to imply that they are powerful, they are ignored by the hostess. Their verbal demands fall on deaf ears. Can one therefore conclude that these scenes should be understood as a satire on the question of masculine behavior, since the first scene, too, of the kissing couple, shows the woman as a strongly active participant, which was probably rather untypical? This point of view is supported by a point made by Todd, namely that Oceanus is a name that had local resonance in Pompeii. He was a well-known gladiator in the city, who is also present in other frescoes.58 In any case it is Oceanus who is favored by being served first, while the hostess punishes the other male guests through her neglect.

Two aspects are important for our investigation. First, the frescoes demonstrate that in the mid-1st century C.E. a seated posture, even in a public space such as a tavern, was not unfamiliar. In contrast to the Praedia of Julia Felice described below, here we are not dealing with reclining. The guests sat on simple wood stools. Second, the concern with images of tavern life displays clearly the same difficulty we have today with clear designation of social status. It is certain that the tavern was not frequented by the political elite, as indicated by the clothing and the context. All the same, the frescoes display subtle distinctions in status, so we would be wise to avoid the general label “lower class” as a designation of status.59 Another series of images relevant to our discussion comes from a back room that served as a dining room (Caupona via di Mercurio).60 This series of images also shows scenes from a tavern; these however do not show the guests in a reclining position, but rather sitting on stools and sitting or standing at a table. In the following discussion, I will describe the pictures in the order in which they would have been seen originally, from right to left (fig. 5). Here are two examples of frescoes that decorated the walls of the tabernae in Pompeii. In a series of thirteen frescoes from Caupona VI 10.1 several found on the south wall are particularly illuminating for our purposes (fig. 5). The first on the south wall shows a scene with four guests sitting on stools and gathered at a three-legged table. The scene has quite a dynamic feel; not only does one of the men seem to have just jumped up from his seat, as we can tell from the sequence of steps, but also other figures in the picture are gesticulating wildly. Another fresco depicts seated guests who have only drinks in front of them, but hung about above them are various foodstuffs such as sausages and vegetables. Two of the guests are clearly travellers, as can be seen from their clothes, especially the cuculli (a traveling cloak with a hood). These two friezes are in a way very similar, since in both of them the figures seem to float without any base, the heads of the figures are of a similar shape and the sandals are also worn in a similar way. It is also striking that in both friezes some images seem 58 Todd,

“Three Pompeian Wall-Inscriptions, and Petronius,” 6. D. E. E. Kleiner, Roman Group Portraiture: The Funerary Reliefs of the Late Republic and Early Empire (New York: Garland, 1977) and Clarke, Art in the Lives of Ordinary Romans, 2–13. 60 Fröhlich, Lararien‑ und Fassadenbilder in den Vesuvstädten, 214. 59 Cf.

Contested Spaces in 1 Corinthians 11:17–33 and 14:30

73

to be completed, whereas others have a strangely unfinished feel to them. One can therefore join Fröhlich in concluding that the artist has made use of already existing traditions for drawing various types and completed the picture by supplementing these with his own compositions.61 The drinking scenes found in the Caupona – in part expanded by the addition dice games – are, according to Fröhlich, typologically very similar to those scenes found on tombstones and other reliefs, and have their origins in Greek art.62

It is worth noting here that these images of the tavern are in some ways reminiscent of images of people reclining on klines, the only difference being that here the klines are replaced with stools. The physical and seated posture corresponds closely to a reclining posture, leaning forward. This change in physical posture implies that it was important to the owners of the tavern that they reproduce the seated posture of their guests. We can also assume that the artistic value of the representation of the inn and its guests was not of great importance to the innkeeper. We can therefore designate these pictures as belonging to the genre “folk painting.”63 Let us take a look at Corinth. Here we have many remains of stools resembling the ones in the frescoes, so we can assume that here too guest gathered and sat together in taverns.64 As far as I know, however, we do not have any examples of frescoes from taverns. We have only architectural remains of taverns, which provide us with very little information about how the owner wished to see the tavern represented. Sitting and Reclining: The Amiternum A remarkable relief from the middle of the 1st century C.E., which is now found in the church of Santo Stefano is the Amiternum.65 The context of the relief is unknown to us, but we can surmise that it is a grave relief based on the sepulchral context. Two different types of meal are depicted, seated and reclining. Six participants are shown at a meal in the normal reclining position, while six others are shown sitting on chairs, grouped around a small table (fig. 6). The two groups do not differ in their clothing, since all Lararien‑ und Fassadenbilder in den Vesuvstädten, 219. Lararien‑ und Fassadenbilder in den Vesuvstädten, 220 f. 63 Regarding the Caupona, I cannot quite follow Clarke’s comparison (Art in the Lives of Ordinary Romans, 167 f.) between the tavern guests and Donald Duck; in my opinion, the forward-leaning posture owes more to the artist’s adoption of a model of a reclining meal. 64 Newhall Stillwell, Corinth. The Potter’s Quarter, see the illustrations. 65 For the Amiternum see A. Giuliano, “Rilievo con scena di banchetto a Pizzoli,” StMisc 10 (1963–1964): 33–38, plates XIII–XVIII, who writes, that “la scena é ottentuta giustapponendo due iconografie di banchetto, senza creare un preciso nesso figurativo tra i due gruppi” (p. 37); F. Ghedini, “Raffigurazioni conviviali nei monumenti funerari romani,” RdA 14 (1990): 35–62, plates 1–34; C. Compostella, “Banchetti pubblici e banchetti privati nell’iconografia funeraria romana del I secolo D. C.,” MEFRA 104 (1992): 659–689. 61 Fröhlich, 62 Fröhlich,

74

Annette Weissenrieder

participants at the meal are shown wearing formal clothing. Both groups are gathered around a table. Just like the reclining guests, the sitting guests hold wine goblets, and each group is being served by a slave. Should we understand this image of two different groups simply as an iconographic variation, or does it have some further significance? A similar structural design situation is found in the Praedia Iuliae Felicis II.4 a building in the southeastern region of Pompeii, near the amphitheater and the palaestra.66 The building covers a large part of the 5900 sq m Insula, while the rest was used as a garden (fig. 8–9).67 The built-up area is occupied by two compounds, each with its own entrance. The first entrance leads into a bath area. A second part of the compound is a spacious building with a recessed triclinium, which looks out on the garden at its center. A small corridor runs parallel to the outer wall, making it possible for the servants to cross the compound without disturbing the activity of bathing. On the basis of this unusual construction, it has been speculated that this living area was used as a gathering place for clubs or societies.68 Only the thermopolium with its adjoining guest room interests us here.69 The thermopolium has a back room and what we can identify as the beginning of a staircase which would have led to an upper story; this seems to indicate that it was used as living quarters. The taverna in turn 66 A rental notice has been preserved for the Praedia Iuliae Felicis II 4, as follows: In praedis Iuliae Sp. F. Felicis locantur balneum venerium et nongentum tabernae pergulae cenacula ex idibus Augustis primis in idus Augustas sextas annos continuos quinque si quinquennium decurrerit locatio erit nudo consensu: “In den Besitzungen der Iulia Felix, Tochter des Spurius, sind ein balneum venerium et nongentum tabernae pergulae und cenacula ab dem nächsten 13. August bis zum sechsten 13. August für fünf zusammenhängende Jahre zu vermieten. Nach Ablauf der fünf Jahre kann die Miete formlos fortdauern.” translation by F. Pirson [Mietwohnungen in Pompeji und Herakulaneum. Untersuchungen zur Architektur, zum Wohnen und zur Sozial‑ und Wirtschaftsgeschichte der Vesuvstädte (Munich: Verlag Pfeil, 1999], see also the explanations in the same volume. J. DeFelice (Roman Hospitality: the professional women of Pompeii [Warren Center: Shangri-La, 2001], 176–306), presents a list of Pompeian businesses by women. 67 J. DeFelice, “Inns and Taverns,” in The World of Pompeii (eds. J. J. Dobbins and P. W. Foss; New York: Routledge, 2007), 474–86, 478 argues that customers ate sitting and not reclining at the klines. With a different point: C. Parslow, “Entertainment at Pompeii,” in The World of Pompeii, 212–23 notes “the choice of dining while reclining or sitting upright” at the Praedia of Julia Felix. C. Parslow, “Documents illustrating the excavations of the Praedia of Julia Felix in Pompeii,” Rivista di Studi Pompeiani 2 (1988): 37–48; A. M. Mahon, “The taberna counters of Pompeii and Herculaneum,” in Roman Working Lives and Urban Living (eds. A. M. Mahon and J. Price; Oxford: Oxbow, 2005), 70–87; DeFelice, Roman Hospitality, 253–254. 68 Cf. P. Zanker, Pompeji. Stadtbild und Wohngeschmack (Kulturgeschichte der antiken Welt 61; Mainz: Zabern, 1995), 188. 69 It is possible that the thermopolium belongs to Business Room 5 (furnished with a sales table, but without any built-in components), because according to F. Pirson (Mietwohnungen in Pompeji und Herakulaneum, 49) both are connected to the bath area next to it.

Contested Spaces in 1 Corinthians 11:17–33 and 14:30

75

consists of a built-in kline, from which there is a view onto the street – it also allowed the passerby a view into the reclining area – and two sitting areas with two tables located in the back of the room. The two areas, the sitting and reclining areas, are not divided by a wall, but are instead located in the same room and therefore manifest the same structural principles that we see in the Amiternum. It is clear that banquets with a limited number of guests were possible within the walls of the Praedia of Julia Felice, especially when we consider the space offered by the entrance to the pool. We do not have any further information about the guests, however. The remains of the buildings do not allow us to draw any conclusions about whether there were differences in status between the guests. Perhaps an inscription from Corfu, which has been preserved in records of payments for participating in public banquets, will be of help here.70 Here we have just this contrast between a reclining meal and a seated meal, both held in the same room:71 … qui … statim / splendidissimum ordinem liberos[que] et coniuges eorum sed et populum public. / epulantes maximo cum gaudio exhilaravit.//… obtulit decurionibus et universe populo H S L mil. nummum/ quae Mammiana Divisionem percipere possint..// … Item dedit/ decurionibus discumbentibus (to recline at table for the purpose of eating an opulent meal, A. W.) et liberis eorum singul[is] HS XXX nummos, sevir[is] Augustal[ibus]// vescent[ibus] (enjoy the account of food, but not reclining, A. W.) singul[is] HS XX numm[os]…, plebei universae epulantibus (belonging to a banquet, A. W.) singulis H S VIII nummos …72 The verbs discumbentibus, vescentibus und epulantibus (reclining at a table for eating an opulent meal, enjoy the account of good food, and belonging to a banquet) make one thing clear: a distinction between a reclining meal and a seated meal is the basis of the inscription. It is significant that at some public banquets in antiquity the guests were paid for their presence at the meal, which is probably the case here as well: 70 On this subject see the extensive discussion in W. J. Slater, “Handouts at dinner,” Phoenix 54 (2000): 107–122, which examines numerous inscriptions dealing with payment, the sportae, including the one I discuss above. 71 Several papers discussing public feasts like the one of Amiternum, which have been held outside a house: see J. F. Donahue, The Roman Community at Table during the Principate (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 2004), 32–33, e.g. discussing Julius Caesar’s, Tiberius’ and Caligula’s public banquets: “But surely, as with Caesar’s banquets, we must believe that any and all available outdoor space was utilized” (p. 10). Domitian offered a feast for all at the Coliseum (Statius, Silvae 1.6; Donahue, Roman Community, 16–19, 21–23). Dunbabin, “The imagery of convivial entertainment,” 24, discusses the above mentioned mosaic from Carthage, also arguing that it presents a public banquet for the whole city, but – as we have seen earlier – people have been sitting and reclining; and Dunbabin, The Roman Banquet: Images of Conviviality (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2003), 89–92, figs. 46–47. 72 CIL IX 3160 = Toller 1889: no. 71 = no. 228 = ILS 6530.

76

Annette Weissenrieder

the members of the decuria (decurionibus discumbentibus), to whom 30 sesterces are given, eat their (opulent) meal while reclining, while the Augustales (sevir[is] Augustal[ibus]) and the common folk (plebei universae epulantibus) sit while eating. The difference can also be seen here: the members of the decury receive 30 sesterces, the Augustales get 20 sesterces, and 8 sesterces, or perhaps a picnic basket, are given to the common folk. As to whether or not there was a further distinction made between the Augustales and the plebei universae, in other words if they sat in different places, we can only speculate; but it seems likely to me, given that we know from other contexts that the lower classes often received a picnic basket. The meal was designed as a display of munificence; these were the so-called epula meals that were put on by philanthropists, mostly on festive occasions and for a closed circle, but also occasionally for the whole city.

It is important in any case that the reclining meal and the seated meal indicate differences in status. In the case of the Ameriternum, however, these differences cannot be put simply as between upper and lower class, given that the Augustales received a great deal of respect on account of their service in the cult of the emperor, which we know also existed in Corinth. We also have evidence of a distinction between a reclining meal and a seated meal from visual sources from a somewhat later date, one of which is a mosaic from Carthage. This floor mosaic (figs. 7, 7a) depicts seven benches for sitting; on each of the benches (one additional bench, the eighth, remains unfinished) sit three people eating, in distinctive clothing, who are being served by a slave who hurries around them. In its style of representation – especially of the bench, a subsellia cathedraria – the mosaic is very similar to a sarcophagus. H. Blanck has contributed interesting comparisons to the scholarly discussion of this image, making reference not only to book illustration of late antiquity but also to images of visitations of angels in the mosaics of Santa Maria Maggiore.73 We can be sure: the visual sources make it clear that there was a difference in status between a reclining meal and a seated meal. This difference in status, however, does not just refer to a distinction between upper and lower classes. It can also indicate subtle differences in position within a given class. In any case, images of seated meals in taverns from the 1st century C.E. are first and foremost realistic painting. Meals exclusively for women, which could only be conducted while sitting, were an exception. We also have images of these from the upper class. 2.2 Literary Sources If we turn our attention to literary sources from antiquity, we see that in literature for the most part women are depicted sitting, as in the classic passages from Varro 73 H. Blanck, “Ein spätantikes Gastmahl. Das Mosaik von Duar-ech-Chott,” RM 88 (1981): 329–344.

Contested Spaces in 1 Corinthians 11:17–33 and 14:30

77

and Valerius Maximus.74 A late source explains the difference between sexes in this way: “Sedes are so called because among the old Romans there was no practice of reclining, for which reason they were also said to ‘take a seat.’ Afterward, as Varro says in his work On the life of Roman people, men began to recline and women sat, because the reclining posture was deemed shameful in a woman.”75 Therefore Varro demonstrates that the sitting position changed with time and also differently for men and for women.

Some literary passages provide examples of standing or sitting positions adopted by men.76 In Plautus’ Stichus, Gelasimus tries to wring an invitation to dinner out of a man called Epignomus who however has already invited nine other guests, all far superior to Gelasimus in terms of status. Gelasimus tells Epignomus that he wouldn’t have to lie on a couch and that he would be satisfied with a place sitting on a bench, in order to clearly indicate his lower status.77 We know of another example of a renunciation of status from Cicero, who tells us that Lollius, a Roman cavalier, was asked to stand. Cicero summarizes the scene in this way: “Through these humiliations, judges, know that Lollius was forced to accede to Apronius’s terms and conditions,” meaning that Lollius paid more than he owed.78 74  The classic passages are probably Varro (Orig. 20.11.9) who gives us this example postea, ut ait Varro de vita populi Romani, viri discumbere coeperunt, mulieres sedere, quia turpis visus est in muliere accubitus and Valerius Maximus tells us: feminae cum viris cubantibus sedentes cenitabant (Val. Max. 2.1.2). 75 Isid. Etym. 20.11.9: sedes dictae quoniam apud veteres romanos non erat usus adcumbendi, unde et considere dicebantur. Postea, ut ait Varro de Vita populi Romani, viri discumbere coeperunt, mulieres sedere, quia turpis visus est in muliere adcubitus. 76 In epics from the Homeric period, banquet scenes show people eating while seated: Cf. Hom. Il. 9.200 (Presbeia); Hom. Il. 11.623 (Machaon); Hom. Il. 11.778 (Nestor and Odysseus); Hom. Il. 24.553 (Priamos); Hom. Od. 1.130–135 (Athene); Hom. Od. 3.35–39 (Telemach); Hom. Od. 5.58 f. (Hermes); Hom. Od. 10.233, 314f (Odysseus); Hom. Od. 14.49 ff. (Odysseus); Hom. Od. 16.46 ff. (Telemach); Hom. Od. 17.90 (Theoklymenos); A. R. 1.453 ff., 2.305 and 309 f. (Argonaut); Verg. Aen. 8.176 ff. (Aeneas). In the postHomeric period, we find almost exclusively a reclining posture at meals: A. R. 1. 453–455 (Iolkos); Verg. Aen. 1.697–700 (Dido); Lucan. 10.122–126 (Caesar); Sil. 6.89 f. (Serranus); Sil. 7.176 (Bacchus); Sil. 11.272 ff. (Hannibal); Stat. Theb. 1.525–528 (Tydeeus and Polyneikes); Val. Flac. 1.252 f. (argonaut); Val. Flac. 5.571 (Jason). 77 Plaut. Stich. 486–493: Ge: vin ad te ad cenam veniam? Ep.: si possim, velim; verum hic apud me cenant alieni novem. Ge.: hau postulo equidem me in lecto accumbere; scis tu me esse unisubselli virum. Ep.: at ei oratores sunt populi, summi viri; ambracia veniunt huc legati publice. Ge: ergo oratores populi, summates viri, summi accubabunt, ego infimatis infimus. In the end, Gelasimus is invited to the reclining meal (618 f.). 78 Cic. Ver. 2.3.62: statuitur Lollius in illo tempestivo gladiatorum convivio […] statuitur, ut dico, eques Romanus annos prope ex natus in Apronii convivo, cum interea Apronius caput atque os suum unguento confricaret. “quid est, Lolli,” inquit, “tu nisi malo coactus recte facere nescis?” homo quid ageret taceret responderet, quid faceret denique illa aetate et auctoritate praeditus nesciebat. Apronius interea cenam ac pocula poscebat; servi autem eius qui et moribus isdem essent quibus dominus et eodem genere ac loco nati, praeter oculos Lollii haec omnia ferebant. Ridere convivae, cachinnare ipse Apronius […] ne multa, iudices: his contumeliis scitote Q. Lollium coactum ad Apronii leges condicionesque venisse.

78

Annette Weissenrieder

From Lucian we know of yet another scene: at a festive meal, there is a struggle over a good seat between the Stoic Zenothemis and the Epicurean Hermon, which is resolved through Hermon’s acquiescence. When the Cynic Alkidamas then appears, uninvited, the struggle threatens to begin anew. But instead of having a seat given to him, Alkidamas walks around, eating the best things from each table and giving speeches about virtue and vice. When the host, the owner of the house, offers him a cup of wine, he rejects a place on the bench and instead leans on his arm on the ground, making one thing clear: he categorically rejects a claim to a place on the bench.79 Suetonius gives in the Fragments this account: a young comic actor came to present his work at the house of an important comic actor, Caecilius Statius, and when he arrived, the other was having dinner, reclining. The younger actor was not turned away, but was rather invited to take a place on a bench. It was not until the established actor had read the first verses of the younger one’s work that he offered him a couch to lie on. Suetonius shows us in this way that it was not unusual to invite guests to sit on a bench while others were reclining on a couch. He also demonstrates that between sitting and reclining there was a social distinction: the young actor was at first deemed unworthy of the couch based on his clothing, which was either inappropriate or simply lower in status in relation to the owner of the house, and asked to sit. The fact that this difference in status was then suspended after the famous actor read those first verses shows that these differences were not so binding that one could not look beyond them when needed.80 Accounts from Cato in De Agri Cultura can perhaps give us an idea of the seating customs of the non-elite. Cato tells us that a farm of 60 hectares (240 iugera) and thirteen people had the following pieces of furniture: “1 small table, 2 copper disks, 2 tables, 3 large benches, 1 bedroom stool, 3 stools, 4 chairs, 2 arm-chairs, 1 bed in bed-room, 4 beds on cords (with leather straps A. W.), and 3 common beds; […] 8 mattresses, 8 coverlets, 16 cushions, 10 covers […].”81 He also gives a similar example in the following chapter, where the estate he describes is smaller, but the number of people on it is greater. Cato lists three klines, which is the normal number for a triclinium, as well as a few stools and simple chairs with backs, and a few klines, which Cato presumes were in the cubiculum. Based on these numbers, we can assume that one could put on a reclining meal in this household. We can also guess at the number of cushions (accounting for one cushion per person, which would have been put under the supporting arm, and occasionally a second cushion for the back) and covers they must have had. Based on this knowledge, we cannot assume that a seated meal was typical for the non-elite in general. 79 Lucian (The Carousal or the Lapiths; LCL 1 and 4) displays many similarities with Plato in his Conv. 12 is very similar to Plato’s Symposium 212 c and 175 c here as well Homer’s words from Il. 2.408 play an important role. 80 Suet. Poet. Fr. 11: scripsit comoedias sex. Ex quibus primam Andriam cum aedilibus daret, iussus ante Caecilio recitare ad cenantem cum venisset, dicitur initium quidem fabulae, quod erat contemptiore vestitu, in subsellio iuxta lectulum residens legisse, post aucos vero versus invitatus ut accumberet cenasse una, dein cetera percucurisse non sine magna Caecilii admiratione. 81 Abacum I, orbes aheneos II, mensas II, scamna magna III, scamnum in cubiculo I, scabilla III, sellas IIII, solia II, lectum in cubiculo I, lectos loris subtentos IIII et lectos III; […] culcimentas VIII, instragula VIII, pulvinos XVI […].” Cato De agri cultura X (Translation: Hooper).

Contested Spaces in 1 Corinthians 11:17–33 and 14:30

79

Accounts from Columella demonstrate that a reclining meal was uncommon even for a slave owner. He describes how a certain Vicilius was only allowed to take part in a reclining meal on festive days: “Nur an Feiertagen soll er liegend essen und die Feste in der Weise begehen, daß er die Tüchtigsten und Bescheidensten mit Geschenken auszeichnet, manchmal auch an seinen Tisch holt und sie auch sonst durch Ehrungen heraushebt.”82 With this passage, Columella not only demonstrates that as a rule slaves took their meals while sitting, but also that in the delicate matter of differentiation in status between male and female slaves reclining signified a distinction.

Like the visual sources, the literary sources give evidence of a differentiation according to status group between sitting and reclining postures, and of the difference in value attached to each. This manner of differentiating between the guests was probably primarily nothing more than an example of a manifestation of hierarchy, which was ubiquitous in Roman society. That these were in fact perceived, however, is demonstrated by these sources, which resolve these differentiations in favor of the people of lower status. Sitting at a meal seems in any case to have been a clear indication of a lower status or a lowering of status, as in the case of the inscription I described above. One thing is striking: the literary texts and the inscription only indicate one group for whom a reclining meal was unusual, namely the slaves.

3. Space for the Lord’s Supper and the Meeting of the Assembly The visual and literary evidence and the architectural features of Iulia Felice demonstrate that a seated meal was possible during antiquity, but very rare. We have seen that in antiquity a seated meal was seen as a lowering of status, albeit one that should not be seen as equal to the difference in status between two different social groups, for example between slaves and the wealthy. But can we now conclude on the basis of the text of 1 Cor 14:30 that there was a seated meal in a house or an association room?

3.1 Space for the Lord’s Supper: The House Numerous passages in the New Testament (Acts 2:46; 3:1; 5:42) indicate that communal gatherings took place in the house. The fact that the issue of architectural typology dominates so much of the debate among New Testament scholars about the Lord’s Supper is certainly due to the concept of oikos, introduced by Paul in verses 22 and 34 of chapter 11, which allows scholars to infer that a private house was the space in which the celebration of the feast of remembrance took place. Ancient architectural typology was first brought into the debate by the New Testament scholar and archaeologist Jerome Murphy O’Connor.83 In his well-known Rust. 11.1.19 (Translation: Richter). Murphy-O’Connor, St. Paul’s Corinth. Texts and Archeology (3rd ed.; Good News Studies 6, Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2002). 82 Col. 83 J.

80

Annette Weissenrieder

book St Paul’s Corinth, he looks at examples of archaeological specimens from Corinth and Pompeii. In the section ‘House Churches and the Eucharist’ he connects the Corinthian house congregation with the Villa Anaploga (a villa that has since become inaccessible because of an olive grove that has been planted there), which he believes belonged to a wealthy member of the congregation. Murphy O’Connor places the meeting place of the house congregation in the triclinium, which he identifies as a specific room for eating. Murphy O’Connor, Lampe and many scholars following their lead see the physical structure of the Roman house and specifically the limited space in the triclinium as problematic because guests who arrived late would not have been able to find any more places on the klines in the triclinium.84 Peter Lampe views this archaeological evidence in the framework of a normal eranos meal. The break between the main dish, the main course for wealthy Corinthians, and the secundae mensae, the dessert with a blessing of the bread and a blessing of the wine, is of fundamental importance for Lampe, since this interruption represents, he says, a pause in the ceremony that would have allowed newly arrived guests to join the company. These latecomers, however, did not find any more space in the triclinium.85 Therefore Strecker, for example, concludes that “(v)or diesem Hintergrund […] nicht auszuschließen (ist), daß der jeweilige Patron die ärmeren und sozial niedriger gestellten Gemeindeglieder gleich im Atrium empfing, und dort abfertigte.”86 These exegetes therefore see the structural features and limitations of space and its use as the cause of conflict in Corinth. In scholarly discussion, however, the question of when the villa Anaploga was built and when the floor plan was created has remained unconsidered. Horell has taken a closer look at the supposed limited space in the triclinium, and he seeks to prove that even the houses of lower-class people had room for many participants at meals and worship services.87 He focuses on the houses in the East Theater Street, a street with numerous small businesses, where Horrell assumes the residents were “non-elite, not the most impoverished urban residents”.88 He bases 84 For atrium or peristylum see G. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (NIC; Grand Rapids, 1987), 533; R. F. Collins, First Corinthians (Sacra Pagina; Collegeville Min: Liturgical Press, 1999), 418; P. Lampe, “Das korinthische Herrenmahl im Schnittpunkt hellenistisch-römischer Mahlpraxis und paulinischer Theologia Crucis (1Kor 11,17–34),” ZNW 82 (1991): 183–213, here 197; Murphy-O’Connor, St. Paul’s Corinth, 129–138; Theissen, “Soziale Integration und sakramentales Handeln,” 297. 85 Lampe, “Das korinthische Herrenmahl,” 183–213 and idem, “The Corinthian Eucharistic Dinner Party: Exegesis of a Cultural Context (1 Cor. 11:17–34),” Affirmation (UTS in Virginia) 4/2 (1991): 1–15. 86 Ch. Strecker, Die liminale Theologie des Paulus. Zugänge zur paulinischen Theologie aus kulturanthropologischer Perspektive (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1999), 323. 87 D. G. Horrell, “Domestic Space and Christian Meetings at Corinth: Imagining New Contexts and the Buildings East of the Theatre,” New Testament Studies 50 (2004): 349–369; Christianity in Corinth. The Quest for the Pauline Church (eds. E. Adams and D. G. Horrell; Kentucky: Westminster, 2004); P. Oakes, “Con tours of the Urban Environment,” chap. 2 in After the First Urban Christians: The Social-Scientific Study of Pauline Christianity Twenty-Five Years Later (eds. T. D. Still and D. G. Horrell; New York: T&T Clark, 2009) and P. Oakes, Reading Romans in Pompeii: Paul’s Letter at Ground Level (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2009). 88 Horrell, “Domestic Space and Christian Meetings at Corinth: Imagining New Contexts and the Buildings East of the Theatre,” 367 f. I find his premise, that “NT studies

Contested Spaces in 1 Corinthians 11:17–33 and 14:30

81

his argument, however, on a two-story structure, for which there is some evidence in Corinth. The idea that in Corinth the construction of two-story buildings was avoided because of the danger posed by earthquakes, as Schowalter proposes, seems unlikely to me, especially against the background of Pompeii and other cities.89 We also have many ancient literary sources that speak of the dangers of buildings with multiple stories and caution against adopting this solution for reasons of space only. Horrell and David Balch (2004) point out a central aspect of ancient house structure: that the entire Greek or Roman house, whether domus, villa or insula, or a part of the house, such as the taberna, pergula, hospitium or cenaculum, whether owned or rented, was a conglomeration of various kinds of rooms and the site of various activities. The houses themselves seem to have been conceived in an additive style, in other words as a series in which rooms are strung together: vestibilium, atrium, and peristylium, oecus and triclinium, exedra, diaeta, cubiculum, etc. We have very few accounts of ancient space typology.90 From Pliny we have helpful descriptions in which he leads a visitor around his Laurentium: he begins in the atrium, which then leads to the porticus, to the cavaedium and triclinium, which looked out on the sea. Several cubiculum are mentioned, one of which was furnished as a library. Fridgidarium, unctorium, hypocauston, balinea and spharisterium were connected to these rooms. Several diaetae, a cenatio, an apotheca and a horreum were often located in the second story.91 These space typological observations form the background for our understanding of the celebration of the Lord’s Supper which, whether it took place in Jerusalem, Corinth, or Ephesus (where the letter to the Corinthians was written), had to situate itself in each place anew, in rooms that were different in terms of space typology and the activities that took place in them. While space typological structuring may seem helpful for architectural-historical observations, little can be gained from it in terms of the question of different activites in the living quarters, because it suggests the possibility of specific rooms being assigned specific functions, which is hardly the reality: the triclinium for reclining, the tablinum or oecus as a reception room and the cubiculum as a sleeping room. This kind of designation of function to difshould pay more attention to the varieties of domestic space in the urban setting of Corinth and other cities of the Roman empire, and consider these as possible settings for early Christian meetings,” convincing, especially given that the preoccupation with Vitruvius and the architectural politics of Augustus show Rome’s effort to establish a unified concept of space within the provinces (p. 369). Unfortunately I cannot pursue the question of Romanization further here; on this subject see Ch. 3 of my forthcoming book Tempel, Kirche und Zivilgesellschaft im 1. Korintherbrief. 89 D. N. Schowalter, “Seeking Shelter in Roman Corinth: Archaeology and the Placement of Paul’s Communities,” in Corinth in Context (Comparative Studies on Religion and Society Novum Testamentum Supplements; eds. idem, St. Friesen and J. Walters, Leiden: Brill, 2010), 327–341. 90 See the dissertation by V. A. Alikin, The Earliest History of the Christian Gathering: Origin, Development and Content of the Christian Gathering in the First to Third Centuries (Leiden, 2009), which has an impressing collection of evidence. A different point is raised by W. Braun, “‘Our Religion Compels Us to Make a Distinction’: Prolegomena on Meals and Social Formation,” in Identity and Interaction in the Ancient Mediterranean: Jews, Christians and Others. Essays in Honour of Stephen G. Wilson (eds. Z. A. Crook and P. A. Harland; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2007), 41–55. 91 Plin. Ep. II. 17.

82

Annette Weissenrieder

ferent rooms does not fit in with the Greco-Roman understanding of rooms in the 1st century C.E. A. Wallace-Hadrill has shown persuasively that the living area in its functional design and structure went beyond the range of ways of life and rituals within the house and their concrete spatial organization.92 In his book Roman Domestic House and Early House Churches, Balch refers several times to the possibility of retiring to the peristylum, should problems of space arise.93 While in his 2004 book Balch listed various reasons that supported a communal gathering inside the house, in the essay in the present volume he argues that meetings may have taken place in the garden. For the sake of comparison, he refers to the “munificence meals” discussed above, which indicate public meals and large ancient gardens. The gardens are indeed an important meeting point for opulent meals.94 However, as I showed earlier with regard to the munificence meals, these draw (sometimes) a line between sitting and reclining during the meal. Here, the difference in status – however small it may be – is represented by sitting or reclining during the meal. Nevertheless, this status distinction is not reflected in the biblical texts that Balch uses as examples.95 The various spaces and their functions that Paul discusses in 1 Cor 8–10 and 11–14 are the sacrificial meal in the temple, which is eaten while reclining, the communal gathering in the ekkl sía, which takes place while seated (as will be shown in 4), and the private houses. However, while the oikos is seen as a space in the archaeological 92  A. Wallace-Hadrill, Houses and Society in Pompeii and Heraculaneum (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994); P. Zanker, Pompeji. Stadtbild und Wohngeschmack, 16 ff.; A. Zaccaria Ruggiu, “Spazio private e spazio pubblico nella città romana,” Rivista di Archeologia XIII (1989): 77–94. Recently some New Testament studies have attempted to establish a more precise allocation; see D. L. Balch, Roman Domestic Art and Early House Churches (WUNT 228; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008). 93 Balch focuses on Pompeiian houses and gardens; see also P. Oakes, Reading Romans in Pompeii: Paul’s letter at ground level. See also K. M. D. Dunbabin, “Nec grave nec infacetum: the imagery of convivial entertainment,” in Das römische Bankett im Spiegel der Altertumswissenschaften (ed. K. Vössing; Internationales Kolloquium 5.–6. Oktober 2005, Düsseldorf and Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2008), 13–26. 94 For garden areas see P. Soprano, “I triclini all’aperto di Pompei,” in Pompeiana (Biblioteca della parola del passato; Naples: Gaetano Macchiaroli, 1950), 288–310, lists 39 outdoor triclinia, including five biclini, one stibadium, some destroyed, and five visually represented in frescoes. Jashemski, The Gardens of Pompeii, 1, 346, n. 1 has evidence of 56 outdoor garden triclinia: W. Jashemski, “The Campanian Peristyle Garden,” in Ancient Roman Villa Gardens (Dumbarton Oaks Colloquium X; Washington D. C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 1987), 31–48; see also his later summery: “Gardens,” in The World of Pompeii (eds. J. J. Dobbins and P. W. Foss; New York: Routledge, 2007), 487–498; E. W. Leach, The Social Life of Painting in Ancient Rome and on the Bay of Naples (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2004), 37–38 mentions several dialogues in Cicero’s garden; the book Il giardino antico da Babilonia a Roma. Scienze, arte e natura presented by G. di Pasquale and F. Paolucci gives an impressive exhibit on sculptors and mosaics in the garden (Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienze di Firenze; Livorno: sillabe, 2007). For literary evidences see A. R. Littlewood, “Ancient Literary Evidence for the Pleasure Gardens of Roman Country Villas,” in Ancient Roman Villa Gardens, 7–30. 95 I also do not find the comparison to Mark 6:39; 8:6 and John 6:10 particularly illuminating. The fact that the meal was funded by the political elite, who issued invitations to the meal, is not mentioned in these texts. Instead, Mark explains that people shared the food they had brought.

Contested Spaces in 1 Corinthians 11:17–33 and 14:30

83

sense in New Testament scholarship, the meeting en ekkl sía is often interpreted as a house church or a separate church, and is not discussed as a space. It is noteworthy that Paul, in mentioning synerchomai (coming together), specifically does not write en oik (in the house), but rather en ekkl sía (in the assembly; in the space of an assembly). He refers more to the private homes en oik when it comes to eating (1 Cor 11:22; 34). In this context, it is certainly also significant that in 1 Cor 11:34 Paul introduces a category that is not temporal (before coming to the ekkl sía), but spatial (eating at home).96 In addition, the oikos space in 1 Cor 14 is not mentioned at all in the context of the communal gathering. The passage discusses people’s behavior en ekkl sía.97 It would have been very unusual, in any case, to sit in a house, whether in a triclinium or in the peristylum area, or a large garden and would certainly require an explanation, especially when one considers the discussion about a correct meal in 11:17–34. When the peristylum was used for the evening meal, in many houses stone klines were already built in to the garden, or we can assume that they had portable klines taken outside, that the participants in the meeting of the congregation were reclining.

3.2 Spaces for the Lord’s Supper: Associations Matthias Klinghardt,98 Dennis E. Smith,99 Eva Ebel and Philip Harland100 have given consideration in various books to the question of structural-typological features by looking at (Corinthian) associations or meeting houses, each equipped with one or more dining rooms. They have shown that it is not the question of space or rooms that is at the center of the Corinthian debate over meals (as opposed to Lampe, among others), but rather the question of the division of food and drink (often in agreement with Theißen, among others). Klinghardt says for example: “Man wird sich die korinthische Gemeindeversammlung als am ehesten in einem angemieteten Vereinslokal vorstellen –, so wie es auch für die ephesische Gemeinde bezeugt ist.”101 Klinghardt mentions “Gebäude wie das J. Økland, Women in Their Space (London: T&T Clark, 2004), 148. Women in Their Space, 138 f.   98 G. Heinrici, in his essay “Zum genossenschaftlichen Charakter der paulinischen Christengemeinden,” ThStKr 54 (1881): 505–524 brought attention for the first time to the cooperative nature of the Pauline congregations. M. Klinghardt in Gemeinschaftsmahl und Mahlgemeinschaft: Soziologie und Liturgie frühchristlicher Mahlfeiern (TANZ 13; Tübingen, Basle: Francke, 1996), developed this idea excellently, using numerous individual characteristics to draw a picture of the life of the community, in which the meal stood at the center.   99 D. E. Smith, From Symposium to Eucharist: The Banquet in the Early Christian World (Minneapolis; Fortress, 2003). 100 E. Ebel, Die Attraktivität früher christlicher Gemeinden. Die Gemeinde von Korinth im Spiegel griechisch-römischer Vereine (WUNT 2,178; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004) and Ph. Harland, Associations, Synagogues, and Congregations: Claiming a Place in Ancient Mediterranean Society (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003): in his excellent book he gives an impression how different associations in different ancient regions might have been. 101 Cf. e.g. Klinghardt, Gemeinschaftsmahl und Mahlgemeischaft, 326, 75–83; Ebel, Die Attraktivität früher christlicher Gemeinen, and Harland, Associations, Synagogues, and Congregations.   96 See

  97 Økland,

84

Annette Weissenrieder

troizenische Asklepieion oder die Deipnisterien des epidaurischen Gymnasiums,”102 since these buildings could accommodate several clusters of triclinia in one room. He does not rule out the possibility that “Spaltungen zwischen den einzelnen Triklinien verliefen.”103 Since Klinghardt and others make specific mention of the Asklepieion in Corinth, I will give a brief introduction to this building, continuing to focus on our central question: seated meal or reclining meal?104 When the Asklepieion in Corinth is compared with that of Epidauros, the temple grounds in Corinth make a relatively modest impression. The sanctuary was probably located at the northern edge, directly adjacent to the city wall, in an area with many springs, a place that would suggest itself both on account of the cult of Asclepius and in terms of ancient medicine. The remains of the sanctuary allow us to conclude that there was a small temenos (43.6 × 30.5 m; fig. 10b), in the middle of which stood a small temple to Asclepius and Hygieia. A little distance from these were a sacrificial altar and a pool of water. It would not do justice to this cult, however, to conclude that we are dealing here with a cult with modest influence in Corinth, given the numerous finds of votive objects. For not only was the Asklepieion in Corinth a flourishing cult from the 5th century B.C.E. on, for which we have evidence in the form of over one hundred votive objects from the 4th century B.C.E. alone, but the Asklepieion was also one of the first cult sites, that became active again after Caesar’s founding of Corinth in the year 44 B.C.E., as we can see from a collection of eleven coins that were found in a donation box (fig. 10a).105 For our purposes, not only the temple and its cult are of great interest, however. In particular, the three buildings found east of the building and which belong together architecturally with the Asklepieion deserve our attention.106 In each of these buildings, the mountings for eleven klines carved out of stone are found (fig. 10c), in part still preserved, as well as mountings for seven tables.107 These buildings are probably banquet houses belonging to the Asklepieion, also known as hestiatoria. We know from Pausanias that sacrificial meat was eaten here, which, it was said, one was not allowed to eat outside of this setting. The act of reclining on couches for a convivium held in a meeting house is confirmed not just for the Asklepieion, but also for numerous other spaces used by 102 Also Smith, From Symposium to Eucharist, 73, note 31 on the Asklepieion at Corinth: “the preferred design for temple dining rooms was to provide several small rooms in standard sizes, either seven-, nine-, or eleven-couch rooms.” 103 Klinghardt, Gemeinschaftsmahl und Mahlgemeischaft, 326. 104 In addition to the Asklepieion, the sanctuary of Kore and Demeter are also given consideration in exegetical scholarship, especially by J. Økland, Women in Their Space. Here also, however, it can be shown that in the triclinia there was the apparatus for the installation of klines, which allows us to conclude that there must have been reclining meals in these meeting houses as well. On this topic, see the informative article by N. Bookidis, “Ritual Dining at Corinth,” 45–63. 105 C. Roebuck, Corinth XIV. Results of Excavations. The Asklepieion and Lerna. Based on the Excavations and Preliminary Studies of de Waele (Princeton, NJ: The American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 1951), 38. See also N. Bookidis, “The Sanctuaries in Corinth,” in Corinth XX, 247–259. 106 C. Roebuck, Corinth XIV. Results of Excavations, 51–57. 107 On this subject see the detailed description in R. A. Tomlinson, “Two Buildings in Sanctuaries of Asklepios (Plate VII),” JHS 89 (1969): 106–117.

Contested Spaces in 1 Corinthians 11:17–33 and 14:30

85

various Corinthian cults for meals of all kinds, such as those held in honor of Demeter and Persephone. The fact that the klines in the approximately 40 dining halls dedicated to Demeter and Kore were very narrow is an indication not so much that the diners were seated, but that only women took part in the meal.108 Since very few bones have been found to date, Bookidis and Stroud assume that no meat was served, but instead cake, vegetables and fruit. The rooms were large enough that at least 33 people could take part in the meal (three on each kline), these grouped around a few tables. Therefore when we refer to a meeting house the problem of a lack of places to recline does not arise, a problem that would have separated the poor, late-arriving members of the congregation, who would only have found places in the atrium, from the wealthy. The congregation, which we can estimate at about 35 members, could have found more places in a guest room. However, the dining halls have not been accessible in 1 cent. C. E. When one considers the problem of space alone, then one has to concede that Klinghardt, along with many other scholars, is right to identify the hestiatoria as a possible location for the Corinthian meal or assembly meeting. When, however, one considers the aspect that interests us, namely sitting at the Corinthian meal, which is suggested by 1 Cor 14:30, then a meeting house, especially the Asklepieion, no longer seems likely, since only klines are found in the hestiatoria. These indicate a reclining meal without a doubt. Analysis of visual images from antiquity has shown that only women were found in a seated posture on klines. Men and women were depicted sitting on benches and stools, as in the many examples from the literary sources we have seen above. There is no evidence, literary or visual, that men sat on klines. But not only the fact that only klines were found in the Asklepieion argues against the conclusion that a hestiatorion was a meeting place. In addition to this evidence we also have the terracotta figurines from the Asklepion, which show male guests at a meal, reclining.109 Although we have a great deal of evidence for the fact that gentile writers especially designated the Christian communities as thiasos, as organization or club, and suggesting therefore that the organization provided a meeting place, still in the Asklepion, as well as in the other meeting houses in Corinth, sitting would have been rather unlikely and would certainly require further justification on the basis of the fundamental principles of Paul’s space typology.

Bookidis and R. S. Stroud, Demeter and Persephone in Ancient Corinth (Corinth Notes 2; Athens: The American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 1987); N. Bookidis and R. S. Stroud, Corinth XVIII; Part 3: The Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore. Topography and Architecture (CORINTH. Result of Excavations Conducted by the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 18,3; Princeton: The American School of Classical Studies in Athens, 1997). 109 On this subject see Roebuck, Corinth XIV. Results of Excavations, 140, Nr. 13 and 14, plate 53, 13 und 14; while the first figure is of an older male banquet participant, of which we have numerous examples, the second type is youthful, with longer hair. According to Roebuck these belong to the votive objects. I cannot agree with this point of view, however. 108 N.

86

Annette Weissenrieder

4. Meeting space for the ekkl sía 4.1 Space for the Lord’s Supper: the gathering room of the ekkl sía It must at first seem a strange undertaking to examine the ekkl sía in this context  – since how can one investigate something space-typologically, which in our language usage is generally understood primarily as ritual and not as space? In any case, the majority of exegetical scholars110 appear to agree with J. Økland that “[i]n Paul’s text, it seems that the material place where the ekklesia gathers is rather irrelevant.”111 Two complementary issues above all are most relevant to our discussion. For one, the conflict between value judgments, that is between the normativity of early Christianity and a challenge from exegetical scholarship to the idea of a political influence on New Testament texts, led to questions about the political connotation of the word ekkl sía, since in the Christian realm ekkl sía “war und wollte nicht sein ein Kult neben anderen Kulten, sondern stand gegen alle Kulte in dem Sinne, daß er gegen die ganze Welt, auch gegen die ganze sogenannte religiöse Welt stand”.112 The origin of the word is usually traced back to the Septuagint, especially in these sense of “the realization of the Old Testament ‫קהל‬,”113 or gathering of people before Yahweh.114 In this vein, H.-J. Klauck writes: “Die Christen verstehen sich 110 D. N.

Schowalter (“Seeking Shelter in Roman Corinth: Archaeology and the Placement of Paul’s Communities,“ 340) writes, that “[w]hile the interruptions would have been different if the believers were gathering in a shop, a warehouse, or in a more pastoral setting, it is helpful the reminder that even the best ritual definition of space as ekklesía would not have eliminated the natural sounds, the smells, the sights, and the other distractions of the oikia and the real world”; cf. MacDonald and Osiek, A Women’s Place. House Churches in Early Christianity, 67 “The sounds of a woman in labor somewhere in the background, the crying of infants, the presence of mothers or wet nurses feeding their children, little toddlers under foot, children’s toys on floor – all could have been part of atmosphere.” 111 J. Økland, Women in Their Space, 142, on page 166 she writes: “With a spatial-ritual approach to 1 Corinthians 11–14 it is possible to see the contours of a particular, historically situated and discursively defined ritual space which was quite different from the modern reality of the institutionalized Christian churches.” In the background of 1 Cor 3:16 ff. and other passages in 1 and 2 Cor mentioning naos Økland calls the ritually constructed space also ‘sanctuary space’ (‘in a sense of a larger consecrated space’ page 132). 112 K. L. Schmidt, “Art. ekklesía,” ThWNT 3 (1950): 519. 113 Schmidt, “Art. ekklesía,” 531. 114 Schmidt, “Art. ekklesía,” 533; for kyríou see Dtn 23:2–5; Neh. 13:1; Mi 2:5; see earlier L. Rost, Die Vorstufen von Kirche und Synagoge im Alten Testament. Eine wortgeschichtliche Untersuchung (BWANT 78; Stuttgart 1938 = Darmstadt: WBG 1967, 1938), 154; K. Stendahl, “Art. Kirche II. Im Urchristentum,” RGG III, 3rd ed.: 1297–1304; K. Kertelge, Gemeinde und Amt im Neuen Testament (BiH 10; Munich: Kösel, 1972), 37 ff.; H. Frankemölle, Jahwebund und Kirche Christi (NTA NF 10; 1974), 220 ff.; G. Delling, “Merkmale der Kirche nach dem Neuen Testament,” NTS 13 (1966): 297–316; R. Bultmann, “Kirche und Lehre im Neuen Testament,” ZZ 7 (1929): 9–43 = idem, “Kirche und

Contested Spaces in 1 Corinthians 11:17–33 and 14:30

87

im Anschluß an die Exodustradition als Kerntruppe des neuen Gottesvolkes, vergleichbar dem Israel der Wüstenzeit.”115 Therefore in scholarly discussions the grammatical qualifiers and semantical field of ekkl sía are seen as fundamental, ekkl sía being often accompanied in the LXX by tou theou, kyríou or t n hagi n, which are used with varying frequency in the New Testament. For another, the space in 1 Cor 11–14 is reconstructed with a common meal in mind, and not a community gathering. This premise leads scholars to reconstruct the original ground plan only in terms of ritual and not in terms of the space.This decision is based however on the belief that there were two community gatherings in Corinth (meal and meeting of the assembly), and on the consequent use of passages from Acts as a basis for an understanding of the letter to the Corinthians. As I have shown above (under 1), this is problematic. There are several good arguments for seeing the meeting of the political ekkl sía as the background of the gathering of the congregation in Corinth, for only in this way can the fact that the members of the congregation in chapters 11–14 are seated be explained:116 4.2 Space of the ekkl sía and the meaning of kath menai First, let us return to the question of “sitting.” We have seen so far that sitting at a meal, whether in a house or in public gathering places, was rather unusual and uncommon in antiquity. We have also seen that sitting signified a lowering of status. Are we therefore to suppose that members of the Corinthian community underwent a change in status when they sat while eating instead of reclining – a change in status that is, however, not reflected in the text of the first letter to the Corinthians itself? Hardly! Exegetical scholarship thus far has completely ignored the word that Paul uses only in this place in the text for sitting  – kath menai. Kath menai, which in New Testament scholarship has only been analyzed in terms of Jesus’ sitting on a throne at the right hand of God, is not otherwise used by Lehre im Neuen Testament,” in Glaube und Verstehen im Neuen Testament. Gesammelte Aufsätze vol. I (ed. idem; 8th ed.; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1980), 153–187; with a different point: W. Schrage, “‘Ekklesia’ und ‘Synagoge’’. Zum Ursprung des urchristlichen Kirchenbegriffs,” ZThK 60 (1963): 178–202; still excellent: K. Berger, “Volksversammlung und Gemeinde Gottes. Zu den Anfängen der christlichen Verwendung von ‘ekklesia’,” ZThK 73 (1976): 167–207; different: R. A. Horsley, “Paul’s Assembly in Corinth,” in Urban Religion, 371–395. 115 H.-J. Klauck, Gemeinde zwischen Haus und Stadt. Kirche bei Paulus (Freiburg et al.: Herder, 1992), 35; Klauck also names a second possible meaning for the word, however: “citizens’ association of God.” See also recently P. Trebilco, “Why did the Christians call themselves ἡ ἐκκλησία?” NTS 57 (2011): 440–460. 116 This is by no means to say that one should derive the Pauline concept of ekkl sía exclusively from the political concept of a community gathering; I only seek to show that this background allows us to formulate explanations for many choices in the letters to the Corinthians.

88

Annette Weissenrieder

Paul. Among scholars of the epistles, only Jakobus draws on the concept in connection with a gathering of the community.117 An examination of the use of this word in ancient literature is revealing. First, it is worth noting that kath menai is not a typical term for a seated meal, except when used to mean a meal given as a display of munificence, as I’ve described above; the word is seen much more frequently in descriptions of different cultures and (table) manners, as in Strabo, who writes: “Their meals they take sitting, on seats put up round the walls, and they take place on these according to their age and rank.”118 Although Strabo mentions this sitting at a table in order to highlight a differentiating feature between the two cultures, at the same time he points to things they have in common: the arrangement of seats, which were attached to the wall, and the ranking of seating, which was, like at the reclining meal, arranged with respect to social-societal factors. But in general this use of the word is rare, especially considering its many other uses. The word is used much more often to describe the difference between a speaker who stands up to deliver a speech and the listeners who sit and listen silently in order to be able to follow the argument, and then perhaps rise themselves to speak. Sitting is therefore understood not only as a posture with social significance for which the alternative is reclining, but we also recognize it as a posture of silent listening and attending to what is happening. Thus 1 Cor 14:30 reads: “And if someone sitting down (kath menai) receives a revelation, the person who is speaking should conclude.” Remarkably, in ancient Greek and Roman literature there are only a few places in which this kind of silent listening, the sitting expressed by the word kath menai,119 is required: primarily in a courtroom120 or in the political ekkl sía.121 From Homer too we can glean some information about the space typology of rooms used for gatherings when we read, for example: “Sessel um alle Wände des Saales tief hinein an der Schwelle (reihten); und Teppiche bedeckten die Sessel, fein und zierlich 117 Acts 20:9 is also interesting, where there is mention of a certain Eutychus who fell asleep while sitting in a gathering of the community. Perhaps the sitting mentioned in Acts 2:2 is also a reference to a gathering of the community. 118 Strabo Geogr. 3.3. 119 I have also found a passage describing sitting on a “banking-table”; see Isocrates Trapeziticus 17.12. 120 See e.g. Plato Apologia 35c; Plato Republ. 758 d: “For these reasons, this presidential section of the State must always have the control of the summoning and dissolving of assemblies, both the regular legal assemblies and those of an emergency character. Thus a twelfth part of the Council will be the body that manages all these matters, and each such part shall rest in turn for eleven-twelfths of the year: in common with the rest of the officials, this twelfth section of the Council must keep its watch in the State over these matters continually. This disposition of affairs in the city will prove a reasonable arrangement.” (Translation: Burnett); see also Aristoph. Sph kes 1. 121 For example Hom. Il. 5 76–78.

Contested Spaces in 1 Corinthians 11:17–33 and 14:30

89

bestickt […].”122A later text develops this further, saying: “Since the negotiations are not to go on before the people, in order that we may not be able to speak straight on without interruption, and deceive the ears of the multitude by seductive arguments, which would pass without refutation (for we know that this is the meaning of our being brought before the few), what if you who sit there were to pursue a method more cautious still! Make no set speech yourselves, but take us up at whatever you do not like, and settle that before going any farther. And first tell us if this proposition of ours suits you.”123 The fact that within the life of the ekkl sía “man sitzend und liegend speiste, ist bezeugt und hat sich in konservativen Landschaften wie Kreta und Makedonien als dauernde Sitte erhalten”.124 The seats were often already installed in gathering rooms in the form of a kind of tribune made of wood. We also know of cities, however, in which the members of the community set up the wooden chairs they had brought with them wherever they liked in the room, or stood them on raised platforms in the room.125 Other texts mention, in addition to the ekkl sía and the courtroom, other public rooms in which one sat and observed an event; in Plato, for example, we read: ‘“who are the chief sophists and educate most effectively and mold to their own heart’s desire young and old, men and women?” “When?” said he. “Why, when,” I said, “the multitude are seated together in assemblies or in court-rooms or theaters or camps or any other public gathering of a crowd, and with loud uproar censure some of the things that are said and done and approve others, both in excess, with full-throated clamor.”’126 The fact that the theater is mentioned here alongside the courtroom is no contradiction, given the context of ancient Greece. We know of many Greek cities, which had to move from their original council hall into the theater127 or some other Od. 7.95–99. 5.85. (Translation: Smith LCL). 124 Gneisz, Das antike Rathaus, 54 with reference to Ovid Fast. 6.305. 125 Gneisz, Das antike Rathaus, 296. 126 Plato Republ. 6 492b (Translation: Burnet). 127 There are several ancient sources that argue for ekkl síai being held in a theatre; see Kolb, Agora und Theater, Volks‑ und Festversammlung, 88 note 9. See in addition for Enna: Livius 24.39.3–4 (214 B.C.E.): alii ad exitus theatri conferto obsistunt; Engyion: Plutarch Marc. 20.3 (212 B.C.E.); Epidauros: IG IV 1, 84.23–24 (around 40 C.E.) ekkl sía kyria en t i theatr i; Katane Front. Strat. 3.2.6 (around 415 B.C.E.) Alcibiades […] cum civitatem Agrigentinorum egregie munitam obsideret, petitio ab eis concilio diu tamquam de rebus ad commune pertinentibus disseruit in theatro, ubi ex more Graecorum locus consultationi praebebatur; Miletos: IvO 52.46 (around 138 B.C.E.) ekkl sía sun chth kyria e[n t i thea]tr i; Rhodes Polybus 15.23.2. (around 202 B.C.E.); Samo: Syll. 976.3–8 (2nd cent. B.C.E.); Skotoussa Pausanias 6.5.2. (371 B.C.E.); Tara: Valerius Maximus 2.2.5 Viri […] in theatrum ut est consuetudo Graeciae, introducti legationem quibus acceperant verbis peregerunt; Thebes Plutarch Moralia 799 e–f; Tralles Vitruvius De architectura 7.5.5 (1st cent. B.C.E.) Etenim etiam Trallibus cum Apaturius Alabandius eleganti manu 122 Hom.

123 Thucydides

90

Annette Weissenrieder

available space because of the number of their participants.128 As I will show below, Corinth was probably one of these cities. Passages by Aeschines and Aristophanes give proof that senators and citizens sat in the ekkl sía.129 The fact that the word kath menai is used to describe sitting statues when they assume a certain posture, one indicating listening, also seems only logical.130 When Paul uses kath menai, therefore, to describe the sitting of the Corinthians, he could be drawing on the Greco-Roman context in which sitting in the political ekkl sía or in a courtroom was familiar and was interpreted as an act of silent listening, including however an appropriate and respectful reaction on the part of the listeners.131 Or, to put it differently, an ekkl sía is not only a gathering place of citizens with full rights and in this way the result and manifestation of their cohesion, but rather also the safeguard and projection of a certain political order, internally and externally, which is reflected in the way the space is used, for example sitting at a gathering. The location in which the gathering of the ekkl sía takes place is therefore also the spatial expression of its sociological energies. In this way, a house or a place not only belongs to the ekkl sía, rather the ekkl sía is the house or place; the gathering place symbolizes and manifests the attitudes of the society.132 And it symbolizes this idea in part through the seated posture of the inhabitants of the space, as opposed to a reclining or standing posture. finxisset scaenam in minusculo theatro, quod ekkl siast rion apud eos vocicatur; Syrakousai Plutarch Tim. 34.6; Justin Epit. 22.2.10. 128 On the subject of displays of munificence and the so-called epula (banquets) of antiquity, see the section on the Amiternum. In addition to the seated guests, we know that there were also always reclining guests – a differentiation for which there is no evidence in the letter to the Corinthians. 129 Aesch. Tim. 1.112 “The senators had been sitting with the other citizens as members of the assembly.” Aristoph. Achar. 29 ff. 130 Thus for example Pausanias describes sitting statues which he saw during his pilgrimage using the word kath menai (I 1). 131 There is no Latin equivalent used consistently for ekkl sía; rather there is a series of words for the fact of coming together, such as concilium, conventus, concionem, curia. On the political ekkl sía see Lucian. Dial Deor. 24.1; Isocr. De Pace 7.68; 8.130; IG 2.945.5; Ath. Decr. 102.6; 79.6; 181.6; Varro Ling. 7.10 curia hostilia templum est et sanctum non est; Plin. Nat.Hist. 35.22 tabulam […] proposuit in latare curiae; Cic. Catil. 1.32.2 non in campo, non in foro, non in curia, non denique intra domesticos parietes pertimescimus; Vatin 22 cum […] foro, curia, templis, locis publicis omnibus expulisses; Sen. Dial. 2.12.2 in campo foroque et in curia; Calidius Orationum fragmenta a scriptoribus (ed. Malcovati) 208 horrea curiaque et tabulariae publicae; Liv. 1.48.3 Servium e curia in inferiorem partem per gradus deiecit; inde ad cogendum senatum in curiam rediit; Plin. Nat.Hist. 7.212 cum accensus a curia inter ristra et graecostasim prospexisset solem; Thuc. 6.8.72; 6.8.93; 6.32.51; Aristoph. Ach. 169; Polyb. 4.34.6; Plat. Polit. 298 c; Plat. Protagoras 319 b; Plut. Rom. 27; Xen. Hell. 2. In his outstanding paper “The church as ‘assembly’ (ekkl sia)” presented at the SBL 2010, G. H. van Kooten also argued that the Graeco-Roman political meaning was adapted by Paul. 132 Cf. G. Simmel, “Über räumliche Projektionen sozialer Formen,” in Raumtheorie. Grundlagentexte aus Philosophie und Kulturwissenschaften (eds. J. Dünne and Stephan Günzel; Frankfurt a.M.: suhrkamp taschenbuch, 2006), 304–316.

Contested Spaces in 1 Corinthians 11:17–33 and 14:30

91

4.3 Space of the ekkl sía in Corinth Let us bring in what we know of the structural typology of Corinth at this point.133 In so doing it certainly makes little sense to identify a concrete, specific room in which the Christian ekkl sía could have met; rather it is of primary importance here to give an idea of the kinds of spaces in which the political ekkl sía could have met.134 One thing should be said in advance, however: as yet we have examples of reconstructions of conceptual representations of space of the political ekkl sía from only very few Greek cities. One could take this to indicate a decrease in the significance of political institutions. Despite the fact that we have sources providing evidence of high-status citizens being paid for their presence at a political meeting, these do not, however, allow us to make further conclusions. Given that these sources name various different locations and spaces where the political ekkl sía met, we can thereby conclude that the spatial conception of an ekkl sía did not exist in predetermined form, but rather that it was only generated through the organization of meaning acquired by a space in a specific spatial relation. The participants in a meeting of the assembly and the location of the ekkl sía are the variables that determine the nature of the space. Let us first take a look at the variable of the space: In the course of the development and expansion of the administration, distinctive buildings were designed and built in the Greek poleis. As a rule these were located nearby the agora. In several Greek cities we find a configuration of a large hall, a prytaneion (for the magistrate), a bouleut rion (for the council members; fig. 11), and a court house. In Corinth we find a building similar in a certain way to the Greek bouleut rion and ekkl siast rion and the typical Roman council building, but at the same time quite unusual in terms of its architecture and departing from all known types, a manifestation that is not found again in any later buildings.135 The presence of 133 In Ephesus, too, where Paul is supposed to have written the letters to the Corinthians, there is a bouleut rion from the 3rd century B.C.E. that is c. 30 meters wide (see Gneisz, Antike Rathäuser, 135). 134 For instructions how to build a Roman-style curia, see Vitruvius De architectura 5.2.1: aerrium, carcer, curia foro sunt, sed ita uti magnitudo, symmetriae eorum foro respondeant. Maxime quidem curia in primis est facienda ad dignitatem muncipii sive civitatis; cf. Plin. Epist. 1.8.16: hunc ipsum sermonem non apud populum, sed apud decuriones habui, nec in propatulo […].The curia, the meeting place of the senate, lay, if we are to believe these sources, in the forum or in its immediate vicinity, this being perceived as the center of political, cultic (religious) and private life. In terms of its architecture, the Roman curia follows a unified structural model, that of the archaic curia hostilia. 135 See O. Broneer, A Guide to the Excavations of Ancient Corinth and Museum (6th ed.; Athens, 1960), 57; L. Scranton, Monuments in the Lower Agora (Corinth I.3) (Princeton: American School of Classic, 1951), 126; McDonald, Meeting Places, 177 ff. C. H. Morgan II, “Excavations at Corinth,” AJA (1936): 479 f.

92

Annette Weissenrieder

a bouleut rion in a city does not in and of itself provide any information about the city’s political organization, since we see examples of bouleut ria from monarchies just as often as from oligarchies and democracies. The bouleut rion in Corinth, in any case, is from the 1st century B.C.E. and should not necessarily be interpreted as a sign that the government in Corinth was democratic (11 B.C.E.–267 C.E.).136 The building is oriented toward the north, in the direction of the agora, and is in well-preserved condition even today. The largest room of the curia occupies a horseshoe-shaped space (13.50 and 12 m; see fig. 11). Of special interest to us here are the well-preserved blocks of porous sedimentary rock that are set into the curved walls. They are of various heights and have inserts for armrests, allowing us to presume with some certainty that this building was a senate house.137 The statue of an official that has been found under the floor of the entrance gives additional indication that this was probably a public building. It appears that with time this building became too small to be used for meetings of the Corinthian senate, leaving it vacant. Meetings were probably moved from the original meeting building to the theater or the stadium. For a further differentiation of meeting space in Corinth, scholars have referred to what is known as the Astarita vase, a Corinthian krater from the 6th century B.C.E. Claude Bérard assumes that the vase represents Corinthian society and “la réception d’une ambassade à Corinthe,” which refers to the theatron: “en effet, les ambassades sont reçues dans l’agora, ou plutôt dans les différents bâtiments qui entourent celle-ci, prytanée, bouleutérion, ecclésiasterion.”138 This view corresponds to the assertions of F. Kolb, who demonstrates that the interior furnishing of the agora could have been quite minimal. In early times it provided primarily a space for agones, or athletic contests, and had an orchestra, a space dedicated to a divinity in which sacred dances were performed. A measure of skepticism regarding the aforementioned ekkl siast rion is appropriate. We know of only very few cities in antiquity which had ekklasiasteria of their own. As yet, Corinth does not belong to this number. Admittedly, it is worth noting that in this regard the boundary between ekkl siast rion and 8.3 309 fr. e., see also Plut. Cleom. 19.1: “When this happened, Aratus was at Corinth, holding a judicial examination of those who were reputed to favour the Spartan cause. The unexpected tidings threw him into consternation, and perceiving that the city was leaning towards Cleomenes and wished to be rid of the Achaeans, he summoned the citizens into the bouleut rion, and then slipped away unnoticed tot he city gate.” (Translation: Perrin). Cf. also Plut. Aratus 40.2–4 and Pol. 5.25.5. 137 It is not sure if the passage in Plutarch’s Cleomnes (19.1) regarding a bouleut rion is meant to be regarded on the meeting building; the meeting building is certainly not big enough for a meeting of many people. 138 Cl. Bérard, “Architecture et politique: réception d’une ambassade en Grèce archaïque,” Études de Lettres (III. 10; Lausanne, 1977), 1–25, 4. 15. 136 Corinth

Contested Spaces in 1 Corinthians 11:17–33 and 14:30

93

the theatron was fluid, as Vitruvius describes: Etenim etiam Trallibus cum Apaturius Alabandeus eleganti manu finxisset scaenam in minusculo theatro, quod ekkl siast rion apud eos vocitatur […].139 The word theatron means first a gathering place, an audience gathered together, and then later a play (an important example of that is 1 Cor 4:9): “theatron konnte im Griechischen denn auch stets jede für Zuschauer gedachte Anlage bei jedem beliebigen Anlaß bezeichnen und blieb nie auf das Theatergebäude beschränkt.”140 For the 4th century B.C.E., we can perhaps draw on two passages by Xenophon and Diodorus for evidence for the Corinthian agora being a place of political meeting. The agora seems to have been built originally for agones (athletic contests), “deren kultischer Hintergrund offensichtlich Grabstätten, Heroenkulte und Heiligtümer chthonischer Gottheiten (Athena Hellotis, Poseidon) bildeten.”141 This designation appears to be closely tied to its cultic-topographical traditions. Xenophon tells of an attack by various groups on the members of the Corinthian peace party in the year 392 B.C.E.: “And in the first place they devised the most sacrilegious of all schemes; […] but these men chose the last day of the Euclea because they catch more people in the agora, so as to kill them. Then again, when the signal was given to those who had been told whom they were to kill, they drew their swords and struck men down, – one while standing in a social group, another while sitting kath menon in his seat, still another in the theatre, and another even while he was sitting kath menon as judge in a dramatic contest. Now when the situation became known, the better classes immediately fled, in part tot he statues of the gods in the agora, in part to the altars.”142 Xenophon goes on to report that many people who were in the agora were killed. Diodorus describes the people who were killed as tines t n epithumount n d mokratias sustraphentes ag n n ont n en t theatr  – men who favoured a democracy, while contests were being held in the theatre.143 We can suppose, though not be sure, that these men belonged 139 Vitruvius De architectura 7.5.5. The term ekkl siast rion is also known by Dionysius Halicarnassus 4.38.6 and 10.40.4. A few cities had an ekkl siast rion which are known to us through written sources and archaeological findings. The most well-known is probably in Athens on the Pnyx [H. Thompson, “The Pnyx in Models,” Hesperia Supl. 19 (1982): 141 f. and M. H. Hansen, The Athenian Ecclesia II. A collection of Articles 1983–1989 (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 1989, 129–165)]. In Priene a building on the agora on the south, next to the prytaneion is identified as ekkl siast rion; during a restoration there was an inscription restored on two blocks at the wall outside the building: OROS E[KKLESIAS]. But this restoration was questioned. 140 F. Kolb, Agora und Theater, Volks‑ und Festversammlung (Deutsches Archäologisches Institut. Archäologische Forschungen 9; Berlin: Mann, 1981), 3, note 17. 141 Cf. Kolb, Agora und Theater, Volks‑ und Festversammlung, 81. 142 Xenophon Hellenica IV.4.2–3 (Translation: Brownson). 143 Diodorus XIV.85.1–2.

94

Annette Weissenrieder

to the people’s assembly, the ekkl sía, which probably met in the theatron located next to the agora.144 Perhaps for the 1st century B.C.E. we can draw here on an example from Plutarch, who writes: “When everything appeared to be safe Aratus came down from the citadel into the theatre whither an immense multitude streamed with an eager desire to see him and hear what he would say to the Corinthians.”145 This seems to indicate that the theatron in Corinth could have been the place in which the polis came together for religious festivals as well as the place for assemblies. The theatron was therefore “(ein) heiliger Raum für eine bedeutsame kultische Handlung, deren Ritual in Gestalt des Dramas die kunstvolle szenische Darstellung der grundlegenden Probleme der Polisgemeinschaft einbegriff,”146 as well as the site of meetings of the ekkl sía and a place in which to discuss problems facing the community. Kolb goes so far as to say: “die griechischen Theatergebäude waren wohl sogar von vorneherein in erster Linie für die Volksversammlung gedacht,”147 a hypothesis that is by no means certain. Chr. Schwingenstein has given support to this hypothesis, however, by showing that characters in the theatre were designed based on statues of politicians and “daß hier auch Inschriften rein politischen Charakters, Staatsverträge, Freilassungsinschriften, Stiftungsurkunden angebracht wurden. Das Theater war demzufolge auch der Ort, an dem ebenso wie auf der Agora und in Heiligtümern die Heroen und verdiente Männer der Stadt ihre Denkmäler erhielten.”148 This makes the idea that the political ekkl sía met in the Corinthian theatron or bouleut rion seem plausible. But how does this relate to the meal? The historical derivation alone suggests a connection, also for the political assembly, between the meal and the gathering of the community, since an advisory council met even in Homeric times primarily for a meal,149 and the advising sessions began only after the meal. The Roman concept of the curia hestia is derived from early meetings of organized hearth communiAgora und Theater, Volks‑ und Festversammlung, 81–83 sees this as the only possible interpretation. 145 Plutarch Aratus 23.1 (Translation: Perrin, LCL), although the word ekkl sía does not appear here. 146 Kolb, Agora und Theater, Volks‑ und Festversammlung, 1. 147 Kolb, Agora und Theater, Volks‑ und Festversammlung, 90. In contrast, M. H. Hansen and T. Fischer-Hansen (“Monumental Political Architecture in Archaic and Classical Greek Poleis. Evidence and Historical Significance,” in From Political Architecture to Stephanus Byzantinus. Sources for the Ancient Greek Polis [Historia 87; ed. D. Whitehead; Stuttgart: Steiner, 1994], 23–90, here 51 f.) have noted that the bema, which served the assemblies, was usually made from wood and was therefore portable. They conclude that the theater was built mainly for plays, especially since no stone benches for the presidents of the assemblies have been found there. 148 Chr. Schwingenstein, Die Figurenausstattung des griechischen Theatergebäudes (unpublished Dissertation, Munich, 1977), 15. 149 Hom. Il. 4.259, 260; Od. 7.95–99; 15.465 ff. 144 Kolb,

Contested Spaces in 1 Corinthians 11:17–33 and 14:30

95

ties, those gathered around the hearth (Hestia or Eschara), which was at the center of the house – while an early connection to activities of associations should not be dismissed. Among these was, in the post-Homeric period, the so-called prytaneion, the building in which the divine hearth was found, which was located immediately next to the bouleut rion. But while the prytaneion was of a sacred nature, this was not the case for the bouleut rion. In their “Entwicklung und Verwendung bestand also zwischen Prytaneion und dem Bouleut rion eine enge Verbindung, weswegen sich diese beiden Bauten auch meistens nebeneinander im Zentrum jeder Stadt befanden.”150 We see that this is the case for Corinth as well when we examine the city plan, which shows a kind of prytaneion in addition to the bouleut rion. The elliptical shape of the entrance area of the bouleut rion also hints at its original function as a hearth house, since this can be seen as an enclosure where tiers of seating were arranged. Space typology does support the likelihood of seating in tiers, as we have examples of this kind of seating from Corinth. We have an example from everyday life of the fact that societal circumstances were transposed onto and manifested in spaces during antiquity, namely the fact that the family, the association, religious and political associations all had “their” house. In a certain way, an aggregate condition of becoming a community is made visible in them. But the most important bond is by no means created only by a spatial cohesion, but rather by means of a number of peripheral factors, all of which culminate in this essential sociological and religious point: the creation of a unity out of a multiplicity. In the following we will analyze the relevance of this creation of a unity from a multiplicity for the ekkl sía of the Corinthian community by examining the code of behavior and consequences for incorrect behavior in the ekkl sía in the first letter to the Corinthians. We have already said that the shape and form of a space did not exist in predetermined form, but were rather created. This is especially true considering that we must presume that an ekkl sía could have taken place in the theatron just as well as in other spaces capable of accomodating hundreds or even thousands of participants. Therefore we can assume that in terms of the ekkl sía, the variables that generated a conceptual representation of space and thereby an organization of meaning, were space and subject. 4.4 The meaning of ekkl sía in non-Christian sources and 1 Corinthians Among Paul’s letters, the word ekkl sía appears most frequently in the letters to the Corinthians (31 times in the two letters to the Corinthians), and 150 Gneisz,

Das antike Rathaus, 5.

96

Annette Weissenrieder

of these instances the greatest number occur in Chapters 11–14 of 1 Corinthians.151 The fact that the Christian ekkl sía in Corinth had a diverse background in terms of its religious and geographical origins may at first seem a trivial observation.152 That a political assembly was a part of the vital political experience of Jews and non-Jews in many Greco-Roman and Jewish cities, is however of central importance for the following discussion, although one must take into consideration that these experiences were entirely different depending on gender and social and geographical origin, a fact which may also be reflected in the letters to the Corinthians. One thing is clear: in addition to non-Christian sources on the ekkl sía, such as Polybius and Plutarch, Philo and Josephus are also crucial.153 In Legum Allegoriae and De Abrahamo, Philo mentions not only “market-places, theatres, lawcourts, council-halls […] and every group and gathering of men,” but also the “Jewish community Iudai n politeian” next to the ekkl sía.154 And in Quod omnis probus liber sit he writes: “The senates and national assemblies meet almost every day to discuss more than anything else how to confirm the freedom if they have it, or to acquire it if they have it not. The Greek and the outside world are perpetually engaged in feuds and wars, nation against nation, and with what object save to escape from slavery and to win freedom?”155 151 1 Cor 1:2; 4:17; 6:4; 7:17; 10:32; 11:16 and 18; 12:28; 14:5, 12, 19, 23, 33, 34, 35; 15:9, 16:1,19. 152 It is without a doubt the case that the word ekkl sía appears in numerous official documents of the Achaean league, in which Corinth had a leading role. See Polybius 2.46.6 in the year 229 B.C.E.; Plutarch Aratos 42; Cleomenes 19 and Polybius 2.52.5 for the year 224 B.C.E.; Polybius 5.1.9 king persuaded the magistrates transfering ekkl sía to Sicyon in the year 218; Polybius 5.91.1 and 5 Aratos assembled the Confederacy in 217 B.C.E.; Livy 28.7.17 and 28.8.2–6 meeting of the ekkl sía in 208; extraordinary meeting of the ekkl sía in Livius 31.25 in 200; Livius 35.25 decision on war discussed in ekkl sía in 193 B.C.E.; Polybius 21.3 in which he mentions that many are gathered in an ekkl sía in 190 B.C.E.; Livius 38.30,1–6 discussion of the war on Sparta in ekkl sía in 188 B.C.E.; Polybius 22.10 calling an ekkl sía in 183 B.C.E.; Polybius 23.175 mentions the “many gathering” which might refer to ekkl sía 181 B.C.E.; Paus. 7.14.1–3; Dio Cassius 21.72.1 Achaeans have been called to an ekkl sía in 147. The political ekkl sía was to have great significance for the history of the city, as well as for its occupation. It would however be going too far to draw conclusions on this basis about reasons for its frequency in the letters to the Corinthians. 153 Here I follow the findings of Berger, “Volksversammlung und Gemeinde Gottes. Zu den Anfängen der christlichen Verwendung von ‘ekklesia’,” 168 ff. 154 Philo Virt. 108. De decalogo 32 he names both men and women as making up the people’s assembly; De specialibus legibus 1.325 he writes that “in Versammlungen nicht selten verworfene Menschen sich einschleichen und infolge der Ansammlung der Volksmenge unbemerkt bleiben, schließt es, damit solches nicht vorkomme, alle Unwürdigen aus der heiligen Versammlung aus […].” 155 Philo Quod omnis probus liber sit 138 (Translation: Colson LCL); cf. also Josephus Bell. 4.255 and Sir. 38.33.

Contested Spaces in 1 Corinthians 11:17–33 and 14:30

97

The administration of the ekkl sía was usually entrusted to an epistates (presider, prytane156), who later also represented the emperor, whose missives and decrees were read aloud to the assemblies, or to officials who at first were newly elected for each meeting (often monthly or quarterly). Despite this frequent change of leadership, the procedure was the same for assemblies in almost every city,157 as Brandis has demonstrated convincingly; in other words an assembly followed a certain “liturgy.”158 At the center of the proceedings of the assembly was an acclamation of the ruling emperor, praising him as the benefactor of the city. This found expression, for example, in wreaths or inscriptions honoring the emperor, which are mentioned by Josephus and Lucian (with disdain).159 Thus we also hear of Herod from Josephus, who recounts several times in the Antiquitates of the calling together of an ekkl sía, to which the Jews in part felt obligated to come and give praise to Herod, fearing that they would otherwise be punished:160 “And now Herod accused the captains and Tero in an assembly of the people, and brought the people together in a body against them; and accordingly there were they put to death […]; they were killed by the pieces of wood and the stones that were thrown at them.”161 The ekkl sía however has even greater significance than that given by the reading aloud of imperial decrees. The assembly also had the responsibility of making sure the voice of the people was represented.162 Clearly various obligations were connected with this, particularly under Roman rule. Therefore participation in an ekkl sía was tied to the rights of full citizenship;163 the right of people of lower status and women to participate in the ekkl sía and speak in discussions was disputed.164 Unsurprisingly, this has led to speculation on the part of exegetes that the Paul’s law forbidding women to speak was an acknowledgement of an older idea of ekkl sía.165 The idea, however, that generally in a political meeting the right to speak 156 Philo even names the high priest as prytan of the ekkl sía; cf. Philo Somn. 2.186; Spec.Leg. 3.131; Diodor 40.3. 157 M. Holleaux, Études d’Épigraphie et d’Histoire Grecques I (Paris: E. de Boccard, 1938), chap. 18; cf. also C. G. Brandis, “Art. Ekklesia,” PRE V (1905): 2163–2200, here 2193 ff. 158 Brandis, “Art. Ekklesia,” 2199. 159 See therefore Josephus Ant. 14.149–155 for Athen; Ditt. Syll. 258. 463 and Ditt. Or.Gr. 727. 771; regarding crown and inscription see Philo Leg.Gai. 153. 160 See Josephus Ant. 17.161. 161 Josephus Bell. 1.550 (Translation: Whiston); see also Bell. 4.255. 162 The following terms regulate conduct in an ekkl sía, according to Paul: herm neia (14:26); ana meros (14:27); diam neuet (14:28); kath men (14:30); kath hena (14:31); sigat (14:33); hypotassesth san (14:34); aischròn […] estin […] lalein (14:35); eusch mon s (14:40); kata táxis (14:40). 163 See Arist. Politeia 42 and more often. 164 See Philo Decal. 32. 165 Cf. K. Thraede, “Art. Frau,” RAC VIII (1972): 197–269.

98

Annette Weissenrieder

was given to those superior in social standing due to status, age or gender while those inferior listened, was an essential one within the framework of Roman society, and applied not only to women.166 In any case a major responsibility of the president was to ensure the orderly conduct of the meeting (eukosmias).167 Likewise we are familiar with eusch mon s and taxis as descriptions of commendable behavior (see 1 Cor 14:40).168 They belong to the sphere of dignitas, that virtue of which Cicero and others repeatedly remind their readers.169 The disturbances (akatastasia) mentioned in 1 Cor 14:33 refer not only – as in non-Christian texts as well – to the disturbances in the assembly of the ekkl sía and the confusion and agitation during a military conflict (2 Cor 6:2), but also to the physical unrest caused by a pneuma in the body that does not allow a person to stay quiet, but rather precipitates conflicts, as we see for example in the case of Chrysippus.170 If each meeting of the assembly follows a liturgy, it does so because it possesses a particular religious character. The prayer to the gods is therefore one of the central rituals, and one that was spoken in the assembly by each speaker before beginning a speech.171 The prayers at the beginning of some of the speeches delivered before the ekkl sía, of which we know only the introductory remarks from citations, are grounded in the religious context of the process in question.172 Prayers for the ekkl sía are also found, however, in the collection of preambles in the Corpus Dem.,173 and they also

therefore A. Wallace-Hadrill, Rome’s Cultural Revolution, chap. 2. Aischines I.34. 168 On taxis in terms of conduct that takes into consideration status, age, etc, see: Xen. Mem. 2.1.7; Dem 171.17; on the subject of order in general within the ekkl sía, see Plat. Leg. 925 b; Id. Polit. 305 c. 169 On eusch mon s see for example Ar. Vesp. 1210; Xen. Cyr. 1.3.8; Arist. NE 1.10.13. 170 Chrysippus 3.121; see also Polybius Hist. 7.4.8 and the reception of Macarius Aegyptus M.34 497C (on this topic see G. L. Marriott, “Macarii anecdota,” HTS 5 (1918): 51–58) and Athanasius Alexandrinus M. 26.896B; cf. also Manetho 5.57. 171 Thus Demosthenes’ famous speech, De corona XVIII.18.1 begins with a prayer before the ekkl sía, a prayer which he prolongs considerably: “My first words, men of Athens, are a prayer to all our gods and goddesses […]”.The prayer is especially emphasized by his use of Pr ton men at the beginning of the speech. It is also worth noting that Demosthenes not only begins his defense speech with a prayer, but also repeats it at the end of his preamble, and then during his apology inserts a second prayer (§ 141) and ends the speech with another prayer. 172 See for example Polyxen p. 344 Sauppe = Greg.Cor. in Hermog. VII p. 1272, 13–16; Din. Fr. XXIX, p. 323 Sauppe (= XXXIV p. 111 Conomis); Dion. Hal. Din. P. 314.6 [see therefore V. de Marco, “La Parola del Passato,” 16 (1961): 81–92]; Din. Fr. XIX p. 322 Sauppe (= XX 1. P. 105 Conomis) = Dion.Hal. Din. 312, 5 f. 173 Corp. Dem. 25.3; 31.2; 50.1. 166 See 167 Cf.

Contested Spaces in 1 Corinthians 11:17–33 and 14:30

99

appear to have been more numerous in the orations of earlier times.174 We have many examples of political speeches in Rome that were begun with a prayer to the gods or a god.175 That Cicero mentions these prayers with disdain should likewise be understood as a further indication that they were in fact spoken.176 Since priests therefore could have had a central role in the assembly, it seems likely that these political meetings also could have taken place in a temple.177 We have evidence that the political assemblies of non-Christian and Jewish ekkl síai also had executive and legislative functions. No wonder, then, that we find words in Paul’s writing that designate points of conflict, dispute and reconciliation, such as pragma (6:1); adikoi (6:1); aproskopoi […] ginesthe (10:32); philoneikos (11:16); haireseis (11:19); krima (11:28) und krin (6:1); dokimazet (11:28); anaxi s (11:27); enochos (11:27); schisma (11:18, 12:25); parakl sis (14:3); kakía (14:20); fr n (14:14, 15,19); eir n (14:33). These words, which we can identify as legal terminology, refer without exception to actual circumstances in which, we can imagine, the ekkl sía in pagan antiquity had jurisdiction: situations such as the resolution of disputes (6:1–6), the role of Christians in the status quo (7:17–24), situations concerning the right to participate in festive meals (10:23–11:1), situations concerning contention within the community in 11:16 (in the context of the natural law issue of women’s head coverings in 11:2–16), and finally concerning vocabulary with legal connotations in 1 Cor 14 (14:20,24,25). Here of course 6:4 seems especially relevant. The passage, in which the jurisdiction of the ekkl sía in legal cases from everyday life is discussed, is shaped by the use of legal terms, whereby kathizein can also be situated semantically, as Barrett has done for example, reading it as “appoint as judges,” or Collins, who also correctly defines it as “seat as judges.” The “ones who are despised” are not to be understood as “less valued members of the community,” but rather as gentile judges.178 The designation exouthen menoi may call attention to the curious fact that Christians not only recognized the authority of the law in Corinth, but also even replicated it in a way in the ekkl sía, and the term could therefore perhaps allude to a Roman civil trial, as 174 See for example the prayer by Praxagora Ar.Eccl. 171 f. (here the speech delivered at an oratory contest); Ar.Equ. 634–638; 763–768 and Ran. 885–894 [see A. Burckhardt, Spuren der athenischen Volksrede in der alten Komödie (Basle: Birhäuser & Cie, 1924) 33 ff.; H. Wankel, Demosthenes. Rede für Ktesiphon Über den Kranz (annotated and with an introduction, vol.1; Heidelberg: Carl Winter; 1976), 105]. 175 Verg. Aen. 11.301. 176 Cic. Div.in Caec. 43. See also the beginning of the list speech for Cornelius fr. VI.1. 177 See IG 1.3.78; II.2.47; IG 2.2.204; 1283; IG 2.2.333 and 337; Plut. Per. 32.2; Aristonicus GHI 81; see also R. C. T. Parker, Polytheism and Society at Athens (Oxford: University Press, 2005); idem, “The Vocabulary of Religion,” in History of Ancient Greek (ed. A.-F. Christidis; Cambridge: University Press, 2007), 1070–1073. 178 C. K. Barrett, A Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians (New York: Harper, 1968), 127; R. F. Collins, First Corinthians (Sacra Pagina Series 7; Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 1999), 232 and W. A. Meeks, “‘Since Then You Need to Go Out of the World’: Group Boundaries in Pauline Christianity,” in Critical History and Biblical Faith. New Testament Perspectives (Annual Publication of the College Theology Society; ed. T. J. Ryan; Villanova, PA: College Theology Society, 1979), 4–29, here 9 ff.

100

Annette Weissenrieder

Kaser and Hackel have suggested.179 This interpretation seems plausible to me, even if only on account of the meaning of the word ekkl sía in the non-Christian context. Not only was the ekkl sía in ancient Greece a gathering of adult citizens, but it was also responsible for making decisions in legal cases. We have many sources that give evidence of this fact, especially for Athens, but also for other Greek cities including Corinth, and especially from times in which a military engagement was imminent. That space of the ekkl sía in Paul was not only a legal space, but might also create a differentiation between purity and impurity can be shown here. An understanding of ekkl sía in the sense of a legal chamber is also suggested by 7:17, where diatassomai is used in the sense of “to rule judiciously, regulate.” This meaning is evident for example in descriptions of the receiving of sums of money180 and the placement of slaves,181 and is found frequently in rulings of high officials, for example the following: “for the edicts stand firm, and are unshakeable, and I suppose that this principle is observed by all: to transgress the edict is of the same gravity as to commit outrage or homocide.”182 Further concepts found in this context, such as eleutheros and apeleutheros, doulos and gorasth te tim s, make it seem even more likely that this is a legal context. We can make a similar assumption about the passage dealing with the right to participate in the festive meal in 10:23–11:1, which opens explicitly with exousía, containing the background meaning of legal contingency in the sense of a potestas or patria potestas – a connotation which is of vital importance for our next example as well.183 We should also mention again 1 Cor 11:16 ff., where the word philoneikos is used, a word which we translate as contention or difference of opinion and which can refer to private or public conflicts, for which we have evidence from Plutarch, for example.184 The fact that Paul builds his argument in 1 Cor 11:3–16 on the basis of natural law, and that in this connection he even draws on concepts of natural philosophy, suggesting a foundation in natural law, both give support to our idea that the term ekkl sía has a legal function. A few final passages from 1 Cor 14 deserve mention: these likewise do not argue at the level of morals, but rather adopt a legalistic tone, as for example with kakía in 14:20, which can be understood in the sense of “an action performed out of malice,” elegch in 14:24, in the sense of “to reprimand,” anakrinetai in 14:24, in the sense of “to be culpable” and fanera ginetai in 14:25, as the bringing of a non-believer before a court of law.

179 Cf. M. Kaser and K. Hackel, Das römische Zivilprozessrecht (HdAW X.3.4.; 2nd ed.; Munich, 1996), 285 ff. Different W. Schrage, Der erste Brief an die Korinther (1Kor 6,12–11,6) (EKK VII/1; Neukirchen: Benzinger, 1995), 412. 180 P. Mich V 323–325.14–16; see therefore A. Papthomas, Juristische Begriffe im ersten Korintherbrief des Paulus. Eine semantisch-lexikalische Untersuchung auf der Basis der zeitgenössischen griechischen Papyri (Tyche Suppl. 7; Vienna: Holzhausen, 2009), 127. 181 P. Fay. 97.9–15; cf. Papthomas, Juristische Begriffe, 127. 182 SB XII 10967,25–28 (Translation: Pearl); cf. also SB XIV 12087, Fr. A, 12–13; SB XIV 11863,44 f. and P.Oxy. XLVII 3364,28 f., which writes: “Since our lords the invincible Emperors have issued a gerneral decree that all are to return to their own homelands” (see also J. H. Moulton and G. Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament Illustrated from the Papyri and Other Non-Literary Sources [Grand Rapids: Hodder and Stoughton, 1985]). 183 On this topic see the helpful compilation in Papthomas, Juristische Begriffe, 135 ff. 184 Plutarch Mor. 825A.

Contested Spaces in 1 Corinthians 11:17–33 and 14:30

101

One crucial passage in 1 Cor seems to contradict my interpretation of the concept of ekkl sía in terms of a political institution, namely 1 Cor 11:27–30, where we encounter ekkl sía twice: in 1 Cor 11:18 and 22. Here we not only find ekkl sía flanked by the qualifier tou theou, but in addition the determining semantic field here appears to be that of food and drink; the legalistic language appears to refer not to a worldly, but rather to a divine justice, whereby ekkl sía establishes itself as an important eschatalogical entity. Does 1 Cor 11:17–34 contradict what I have proposed above? In this section, Paul criticizes discrepancies at the meals accompanying the Lord’s Supper and draws here also on legal vocabulary, especially in 11:28–30: while some starved, others ate to excess. Paul writes, translated literally: “For this reason, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. A person should examine him‑ or herself first, and in this way, let him or her eat the bread and drink of the cup. For the one who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment against him‑ or herself. That is why many of you are corporally and mentally weak and chronicly ill, and quite a few are dead.” Does this passage refer to the last judgment, and are the illnesses he speaks of therefore a punishment from God in the ekkl sía? A major argument against this idea is the fact that according to Paul the Corinthians eat the meal in judgment upon themselves. For just this reason, the threatened judgment is bound up with self-examination.The fact that the effects of an action are emphasized, rather than a person’s ethical and moral condition, is also demonstrated by the word “unworthily” in v. 29, which only appears in the New Testament in 1 Cor 6:2. In both Corinthian passages, it is used as an adverb. The word thus describes a person’s actions, but not his or her moral condition. “Unworthy” points to the contrast between “holy” and “profane.” The sphere of ritual impurity is also indicated by Josephus, who states that those who unworthily touch the Ark will perish in God’s tribunal.185 According to Paul, a person is “unworthy” if he or she threatens the arrangement of a communal celebration by feasting and drinking at the expense of the other participants in the meal. Another legal term used here, énochos, indicates that this person is “guilty.” The use of this word signals a return to forensic terminology. The widespread use of this term in legal clauses in contracts and certificates makes it clear that it is not focused solely on the last judgment.186 It is striking that the word is also used in a discussion of the issue of breach of contract, and that the death penalty is named in this connection. With a contract, the participating parties enter into an agreement, and if the agreement is breached, the punishment can be death. Thus it is reasonable to assume that Paul is requiring self-examination (dokimazein). It is interesting that Paul also speaks of self-examination in Romans 14:22 f., which also deals with the proper differentiation of foods in the sense of judgment, but with his own emphasis: the major focus is on a battle between the strong and the weak at the communal meal, where abstinence from meat and wine is required, probably for religious reasons.187 The self-examination in Corinth thus serves to Jos. Ant. 6.16f; cf. 2Macc 14,24; Aristophanes Eccl. 217. Papathomas, Juristische Begriffe im 1 Korintherbrief, 168, who as an example points to C.Pap.Gr. I 13,31–32 (from the rule of Augustus); or to P.Oxy. II 239,12 (1. cent. C. E.); W.Chr. 13,10–11 (prefect’s edict with a death penalty for those who carry weapons). 187 Cf. H.-J. Klauck, Herrenmahl und Hellenistischer Kult: Eine religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung zum ersten Korintherbrief (NT Abh.; Münster: Aschendorff, 1982), 282 ff. 185 Cf.

186 See

102

Annette Weissenrieder

protect people from physical ailments. Verse 30 can hardly be read any other way. The verse addresses members of the Corinthian community who have fallen ill due to a lack of self-examination and who are thereby threatening the communal body’s relationship with salvation. It is unclear, however, whether these persons’ illness is to be considered a self-inflicted result of their guilt or sin, as a punishment or the Last Judgment. Ernst Käsemann188 argues that the Lord’s sacramental epiphany during the Last Supper marks the arrival of the Judge of the World, and Martin Hengel writes, “Es ist der eine Herr, damals und jetzt, der sich zu seinem Tische und damit zur Teilhabe an sich selbst einlädt. Wer sich gegenüber dieser Einladung ‘unwürdig’ verhält, mißachtet mit den Gaben den Herrn selbst und die ‘Gemeinschaft’ mit ihm. […] Verächter dieser Einladung des Kyrios müssen daher mit der Strafe des Herrn, der zugleich Richter ist, rechnen.”189 The following passage in 11:27–33 strengthens the condemnation, in Hengel’s view: “[…] es geht um schwere Schuld, Verachtung des Leibes und Blutes Christi und seiner Heilsbedeutung und führt unweigerlich zum Gericht. Daß der Herr jetzt strafend eingegriffen hat, war notwendig […].”190 Friedrich Lang argues in a similar manner: “Paulus sieht in diesen Vorfällen den Kyrios Christus als Richter am Werk, der auf die Missstände beim Herrenmahl mit zeitlichen Strafen reagiert.”191 I argue against this view: The conditions under which one can bring judgment upon oneself through eating and drinking are listed in v. 29 – m diakrin n to s ma. This verse formulates the conditions as a subsequent conditional clause. What is initially noteworthy is that Paul does not have a specific court in mind here, since the Greek does not include an article. Krima – court – can have various meanings in Paul’s writings. The meaning of an eschatological court of damnation, as Käseman uses it, can be found in Romans 2:2 f., for example, which states, “Now we know that God’s judgment against those who do such things is based on truth.” However, this is not the only possible connotation, as shown by 1 Cor 6:7, where krimata are profane disputes before worldly judges. Which meaning is Paul using when he speaks of the court in v. 29 ff.? In v. 28 he issues a call for self-examination that is taken up again in v. 31. The objective is to avoid condemnation. If, however, we are brought to the court because of our improper behavior, as described in v. 29, then we are corrected by the risen Christ because our behavior based on an inability to differentiate the Eucharistic meal, which can be manifested in our own bodies by way of physical and mental illnesses. It manifests itself in the individual’s body. This judgment does not come from God, because the kyrios court protects us from being condemned with the rest of the world in the Last Judgment, as vividly described in v. 32b. It is also worth noting here that there is a paronomastic accumulation of words from the root krin‑ in verses 29–32, all of which incorporate the idea of judgment, and which in 1 Cor 6:7 is still conceived of as the sentence pronounced by a judge, while in our passage individual personal judgment is the focus. Hans-Josef Klauck summarizes: 188 Käsemann,

“Anliegen,” 25. Hengel, “Das Mahl in der Nacht, ‘in der Jesus ausgeliefert wurde’ (1 Kor 11,23),” in Les Repas de Dieu. Das Mahl Gottes. 4. Symposium Strasbourg, Tübingen, Upsal (ed. Christian Grappe, WUNT 169; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004), 115–160, 123. 190 Hengel, “Das Mahl in der Nacht, ‘in der Jesus ausgeliefert wurde’ (1 Kor 11,23),” 125. 191 F. Lang, Die Briefe an die Korinther, übersetzt und erklärt (NTD 7; 16th ed.; Göttingen/Zürich, 1986), 155. 189 Martin

Contested Spaces in 1 Corinthians 11:17–33 and 14:30

103

“The court of v. 29 exists, if you will, in the temporal punishments for sin as described in v. 30. The future estai in v. 27 is not sufficient to restrict the interpretation to the Last Judgment.”192 Accordingly astheneia and arrostoi (weak and weak) can be interpreted as a set expression in the 1st century B.C.E.– C.E. – an expression which signifies corporal and mental weakness and chronic illness, illnesses which are caused by the individuals themselves. It is in this context that Paul adopts the expression in 1 Cor 11, even when this causes Paul to break with his own logic regarding the weak within the church. However, he is perfectly consistent with the logic of dietetics. Both concepts are also taken up in the texts of the Church Fathers, in the sense of a corporal or spiritual weakness.193 In his argument in 1 Cor 11:17–34, Paul also does not diverge from these passages in his use of the legal terms; as before, his explanations refer to discrepancies that have consequences less for the Last Judgment than for people’s actions in the present, as demonstrated by his references to physical and mental illness. The judgment does not come from God, but is carried out by one’s own body. This argument corresponds to statements about natural law like those we saw earlier in 1 Cor 11:2–16, and as confirmed by the numerous explanations by the Apologists and church fathers. As in the other ekkl sía passages in 1 Corinthians, here Paul is describing the issue of social unity and space. The space of the ekkl sía is not a natural space, but is created in the duality of structural organizations and procedural actions, both with religious connotations. The fundamental question underlying this passage is: What is the practice that constitutes the space? The kyriakon deipnon defines the space of the ekkl sía in a Christological sense: participation with Christ in drinking and eating. In this context, s ma refers to the body of Christ that was surrendered on the cross which is then transferred in the meal. In 1 Cor 11:29, s ma functions as a type of hinge, which displays the solidarity of the community in a shared, spiritual meal. However, the differentiation (diakrinein) of the body remains fundamental. The space of the ekkl sía in 1 Cor 11:17–34 is defined by the acts of serving one another and participating in the s ma.

Let us conclude: the question of how the meeting of the assembly was arranged according to structural oganization and procedural actions – along with how the Lord’s Supper was celebrated by the Corinthians  – is the subject of a wide exegetical debate. Repeated attempts using the evidence of ancient house structure and gatherings of associations have been made to show that ancient space typology plays a role in the resolution of the Herrenmahl, 326. we are afflicted with fever and evil humors, we do not take part in feasts in order not to become the prey of death,” explains John Chrysostom in his observations on 1 Cor 11:30 [Joh. Chrys. Hom. 1 Kor 28,1]. Here we have a reference to the medical concept of ‘humoral pathology’, i.e. the field which sought to understand the chief fluids of the body and disturbances in their equilibrium. Ignatius [Ign. Ant. Eph. 20,2] and Gregory of Nyssa [Greg. Nyss. Or. Catech. 37] speak of an antidote and the medicine of immortality, which the human body needs to combat the bodily decay caused by normal nutrition. Justin describes the transformation of the elements as metabol , or the transformation of substances in the body. 192 Klauck, 193 “If

104

Annette Weissenrieder

conflict in Corinth; the aforementioned spaces in 1 Cor 11–14 en ekkl sía, oikia and en oik can also be used as evidence. Our investigation, however, has taken an unconventional route. Instead of approaching space typology from a discussion of the meal, we have come to it by examining posture in space, namely sitting or reclining. More specifically, our question was, how can the Corinthians’ sitting described in 14:30 be explained, given that chapters 11–14 belong together formally and in terms of content? Our initial starting point was the probability that people sat at a meal. Seated meals were rather uncommon during antiquity. Visual and textual sources have shown that a seated meal reveals a status or gender distinction. The above references to extratextual codes of antiquity which were applied with particular force to the house and the association do not help us further, since they do not provide an explanation for one important aspect: sitting. This conclusion finds its counterpart in the word used by Paul, kath menai, as kath menai is used very rarely to refer to a seated meal and much more often indicates a posture adopted by participants in an ekkl sía or in a courtroom, namely the posture of attentive, listening while sitting. Here also the conclusion has a counterpart in the Pauline text, since the coming together (sunerchomai)194 en ekkl sía is of central importance in 1 Cor 11–14, especially when one considers that a dative with en suggests a spatial character, according to Kühner, carrying with it the meaning of “to be surrounded” or the separation of inside and outside, in that “das Mittel rein räumlich als eine Dimension von Sprache aufgefaßt [wird].”195 When Paul refers to the ekkl sía as a central space, this is surely also with the knowledge that the Romans considered sitting in the ekkl sía to be a characteristic of the Greek communal gathering – a custom that was harshly criticized, as the opening citation from Cicero shows, and that was particularly rejected in Rome.196 It is certainly also noteworthy that within the duality of structural organization and procedural actions regarding the space, he oriented himself toward Judaism in terms of purity and impurity, toward the Greek ekkl sía in terms of behavioral rules for individuals and the community, and towards the remembrance of the humiliating death of Jesus in terms of the unity with the s ma in the meal and baptism. In this way, Paul establishes a concept of space that is in a sense anti-Roman. This closer examination brings with it the further issue of a concrete arrangement of a room. The connections demonstrated above between Christian communities and ancient houses and assembly places are not illuminatsunerchomai see for example Polybius 4.7.2. Kühner and B. Gerth, Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache. Zweiter Teil: Satzlehre. Vol. 1 (3rd ed.; Hannover: Verlag Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 1983), 404. 196 See Philo Flacc. 41; Jos. Ant. XVII 161; Heliod. Aeth.IV 19.21; CGI III 481.11. 339–441; Dio Chrys. VII 24; XL 90. 194 On 195 R.

Contested Spaces in 1 Corinthians 11:17–33 and 14:30

105

ing for our further discussion, since a posture of sitting in a room would require explanation in any case, as visual and written sources show. Referring to the space of the ekkl sía does not provide a simple solution either, however, although numerous sources assume that one sat in the ekkl sía and at the meal preceding political meetings; even just the brief outline of an examination of the word-field given above demonstrates that ekkl sía is seldom connected with a specific concrete space. And that which applies to many Greek cities has been shown to be true for Corinth as well: we have no evidence that Corinth had an ekkl siast rion, in other words a meeting room for the political ekkl sía, and it is certain that the bouleut rion, which surely had great significance in Corinth, as indicated by the building’s peculiar architecture, could not have accomodated the political ekkl sía of Corinth, which probably had several thousand members. Thus the connection to the theatron persists, as is accepted for almost every city in ancient Greece. One thing remains certain, in any case, according to my research up to now: we have little evidence that in antiquity there was a special space dedicated only to the ekkl sía. The insight we have gained from this investigation may seem at first to be negative: namely, that the question of a space for the ekkl sía cannot be answered. This means that a more meaningful question would be, what significance did the space for the ekkl sía have in Corinth? Here I would like to refer once again to theoretical considerations: conceptual representation of space and the organization of meaning of space are primarily generated by the subjects in the space. The physical nature of the inhabitants of the space is therefore the concrete factor in creation of a space, as Werlen states: “Wenn nämlich die konstitutive Kraft der sozialen Welt den handelnden Subjekten zukommen soll, dann können Raum und Zeit nicht per se als generative Instanzen der Sozialwelt betrachtet werden. ­Stimmt man dem zu, braucht man die räumliche Komponente trotzdem nicht zu vernachlässigen. ‘Raum’, ‘Region’ usw. sind dann aber Ausdruck der Konstitutionsleistungen der Subjekte, denen für die Konstitution und Reproduktion der sozialen Wirklichkeit spezifische Bedeutung zukommt.”197 If we follow this line of thinking, then the issue of sitting or reclining at a meal is not only a question of a lack of space in a room, but rather is instrumental in the creation of a space, just like standing while speaking publicly, attentive silence, and gender-specific conduct, etc. Clearly, the s ma of the individual, along with the community as a whole, is also instrumental in 197 B. Werlen, Sozialgeographie alltäglicher Regionalisierungen, vol. 2: Globalisierungen, Region und Regionalisierung (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1997), 20.

106

Annette Weissenrieder

constituting the space of an ekkl sía, as shown in 1 Cor 6:1–6, 7:17–24, 10:23–11:1; 11:2–16 and especially in 11:17–34 where s ma is defined christologically. And if the space of the ekkl sía also represents the completion of the creation of the space by the subject not only for those who already consider themselves members of the ekkl sía, then the reference to apistos and idi t s, is crucial. Økland refers to the “outsider” in this context when she writes: “Through Paul’s comment, we see that there is a place in the Christian ekklesia even for the ‘unlearned’ who does not understand pneumatic space.”198 Numerous commentaries speak only of the “unlearned” who could join the community. I would like to contradict this interpretation of idi t s, because numerous sources that discuss ekkl sía mention the term with a connotation that is also relevant for our context: IG XII 2.645 b refers to arch n idi t s, as do IG II 17 and CIG 3059. Here the important distinction is not between inside – outside / learned – unlearned, but rather between official and private citizen. No distinction was made in the ekkl sía between officials and private citizens to the extent that both could bring petitions to the ekkl sía; both then needed to convince the ekkl sía of their case in order to argue the matter successfully in a probouleuma. If Paul uses the concept of the idi t s as an argument for comprehensible speech, then only in the sense that he already considers the idi t s, unlike the unlearned person, as belonging to ekkl sía the some extent already. The difference from the members, then, does not have to do with inside and outside, but refers to the charismata that the idi t s may not yet be able to access. Their view of this self-generating space makes one thing clear: this space did exist in Corinth. It was a publicly accessible space. But it is more than this. The ekkl sía represents not only the gathering of the Corinthian community and is therefore a symbol of their cohesion, but it is also, by means of the celebration of the Last Supper, the projection of christological selfunderstanding from inside and outside, which would be reflected in the conduct of people within the space of the ekkl sía. In this sense, the Corinthian ekkl sía not only possessed a space, but rather was this space; the gathering place is the remembrance of the humiliating death of Jesus Christ in that it embodies and represents it physically. A gathering place of the ekkl sía in 1 Corinthians is therefore also always the spatial expression of christological forces which constitutes itself in social reality in the space of the political ekkl sía and also contains its conceptual spatial representation by adopting the organization of meaning of the spatial construction of a political ekkl sía. In silent, attentive sitting, in the ordered speech, in legal vocabulary, etc., the ekkl sía constitutes itself as space which connects binds together religious and political organizations of meaning. 198 Økland,

Women in Their Space, 195 f.

Contested Spaces in 1 Corinthians 11:17–33 and 14:30

107

Captions to figures Fig. 1: Reconstruction of a klinē from Pompeii, Overbeck 1884. Fig. 2: Casa die C. Iulius Polybius (IX 13,1–3, triclinium EE) a) Reconstruction of a wooden bench; b) reconstruction of a klin in Pompeii; Photos: Weissenrieder. Fig. 3: Reclining female figure, Potter’s Quater Corinth: Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst LVI, 1921, p. 170. Fig. 4: Pompeii VI 14,36. Neapel, Museo Nazionale Inv. 111482, images of the tavern; overview; Photo: Michael Larvey. Fig. 5: Pompeii VI 10,1 Room b, Photo: Michael Larvey. Fig. 6: Amiterum, relief with seated and reclining banqueters; mid-first century C.E.; Pizzoli, church of Santo Stefano; DAI Rome 84 VW 935; Photo: Fittschen. Fig. 7: Carthage, seated banquet, late 4th century; DAIRome 63.356; Photo: Koppermann; Carthage, banquet, detail. Fig. 8 and 9: Villa di Iulia Felice (II 4,3) triclinium with benches for setting and with three masonary couches for reclining. Photos: D. Balch Fig. 10: a) Asklepieion in Corinth; BW 1998 03927 © The American School of Classical Studies at Corinth; b) BW 1960 056 18 Asklepieion, plan D; © The American School of Classical Studies at Corinth; c) Reclining in the Asklepieion dining room, BW 2007 9955 © The American School of Classical Studies at Corinth. Fig. 11: Bouleut rion in Corinth, BW 1938 4627 © The American School of Classical Studies at Corinth; a)–b) Bouleut rion in detail. Fig. 12: Plan of ancient Corinth – esp. the agora; BW 1993 036 04 © The American School of Classical Studies at Corinth.

Grief in Corinth The Roman City and Paul’s Corinthian Correspondence1 Laura Salah Nasrallah In a fragmentary papyrus, likely from the fourth century C.E., Alexander writes a condolence letter to Cerdon. From it we can infer that Cerdon’s son has died. “It is necessary to bear the human lot,” Alexander advises. “Therefore, put away the grief of human fault and think that nobody among men is immortal, but only God, and remember the promise of the blessed Paul, as […]” – and here, frustratingly, the papyrus breaks off.2 What was this promise of the “blessed Paul”? What text was Alexander going to cite? Like Alexander, many scholars have seen in Paul’s New Testament letters themes of consolation, a literature that was widespread in contemporaneous philosophical writings in Greek and Latin.3 Paul’s letter 1 I am grateful to colleagues who read these materials in draft, and who are not responsible for the faults that remain. These include Joan Branham, Denise Buell, Cavan Concannon, David Frankfurter, Melanie Johnson-DeBaufre, Betsey Robinson, and Lawrence Wills. My work was greatly enhanced by research and presentation opportunities at the TOPOI Research Center (Humboldt Universität-Berlin), for which I am grateful to Cilliers Breytenbach, and a talk at Princeton University, for which invitation I am grateful to AnneMarie Luijendijk. 2 P. Princ. II 102, cited in J. Chapa, Letters of Condolence in Greek Papyri (Papyrologica Florentina XXIX; Florence: Gonnelli, 1998) 131, 133 (quotation at the latter); thanks to AnneMarie Luijendijk for introducing me to this volume. See also, e.g., Gregory of Nyssa’s Homily for Pulcheria for uses of 1 Thessalonians 4 and especially 1 Corinthians 15, on the occasion of remembering the death of the daughter of Emperor Theosodius I and Empress Flacilla, and mourning an earthquake in Asia Minor. Reference to “the human lot” or similar arguments are common in consolation literature of antiquity; see Cicero Tusc. disp. 3.58 on the oft-quoted exempla of fathers met by news of their children’s death who respond, as did Anaxagoras, by saying something like “I knew my child was mortal,” but also see Seneca Ad Marc. 12.4 on the death (and grief) of divinities. Early Christian apologists take up this latter theme with glee. 3 See texts by Cicero, Seneca, Plutarch, Gregory of Nyssa, et al. mentioned throughout this chapter; for an overview regarding consolation literature and Greek and Roman funerals, see D. J. Ochs, Consolatory Rhetoric: Grief, Symbol, and Ritual in the GrecoRoman Era (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1993); for attention to the lament song/poem in particular, see the famous work of M. Alexiou, The Ritual Lament in Greek Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974).

110

Laura Salah Nasrallah

to the community at Thessalonik , for instance, indicates that the ekkl sia or assembly there had communicated to him concerns about what would happen to those of them who had already “fallen asleep.” Paul responds: “But we would not have you ignorant, brothers and sisters, concerning those who are asleep, lest you should grieve like the rest do, those who have no hope” (οὐ θέλομεν δὲ ὑμᾶς ἀγνοεῖν, ἀδελϕοί, περὶ τῶν κοιμωμένων, ἵνα μὴ λυπῆσθε καθὼς καὶ οἱ λοιποὶ οἱ μὴ ἔχοντες ἐλπίδα, 1 Thess 4:13).4 Paul connects grief, ignorance, and “the rest” – that is, outsiders, thus placing certain affective responses to death outside the bounds of communities in Christ. Yet Paul’s response also indicates that, for communities imminently expecting “the day of the Lord,” the deaths of those they loved were an asyet-incalculable loss. They struggled together to articulate a new identity in Christ that involved such grief.5 We find a similar theme in one of Paul’s later letters, 1 Corinthians.6 In it Paul indicates that the Corinthian ekkl sia, like the one at Thessalonik , was imminently expecting the “day of the Lord” (1 Cor 1:8; 3:13; 5:5; 1 Thess 5:2). In the mean time the Corinthians engaged the topic of grief and in rituals that addressed death, specifically baptism on behalf of the dead. And those in Christ at Corinth were not the only ones thinking of such things. We gain a glimpse of a broader grief at Corinth – or about it – from Antipater of Sidon in the late first century B.C.E. (Anth. Pal. 9.151):7

4 All translations are from the RSV, sometimes slightly modified. Paul goes on: “since we believe that Jesus died and was raised, so also we believe that God, through Jesus, will with him raise those who have fallen asleep” (4:14). Paul asserts that the “dead in Christ” (οἱ νεκροὶ ἐν Χριστῷ, 4:16) will rise first on the day of the Lord, and that those who are left (οἱ ζῶντες οἱ περιλειπόμενοι, 4:15) will be “caught up together with them [those who have “fallen asleep”] in the clouds” on the day of the Lord (ἔπειτα ἡμεῖς οἱ ζῶντες οἱ περιλειπόμενοι ἅμα σὺν αὐτοῖς ἁρπαγησόμεθα ἐν νεϕέλαις εἰς ἀπάντησιν τοῦ κυρίου εἰς ἀέρα, 4:17; ἡμέρα κυρίου, 5:2). This linking of Jesus’ resurrection and believers’ resurrections is something we also find in 1 Corinthians 15. 5 On eating and dying as particular concerns of early Christian and other communities, see R. Ascough, “Of Memories and Meals: Greco-Roman Associations and the Early Jesus-Group at Thessalonik ,” in From Roman to Early Christian Thessalonik : Studies in Religion and Archaeology (eds. L. Nasrallah, S. Friesen, Ch. Bakirtzis; Harvard Theological Studies 65; Cambridge, MA: distributed by Harvard University Press, 2010) 49–72. 6 For consolation in the Corinthian correspondence, see also 2 Cor 1:3–7 especially, with its many references to parakl sis. On pain, see 2 Cor 2:1 ff. See also 2 Cor 4:8, 10: “we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed […] always carrying in the body the corpse of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may be manifest in our bodies”; but note how Paul marks this as “our” task in comparison to the Corinthians’ (“so death is at work in us, but life in you”; 2 Cor 4:12). See also 2 Cor 7:5ff on bodily affliction and divine comfort, as well as Paul’s mention of a letter that “grieved” (elyp sa) the Corinthians. Their godly grief led to repentance and thus salvation or healing. 7 Cited in D. Engels, Roman Corinth: An Alternative Model for the Classical City (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1990) 8; I have modified his translation.

Grief in Corinth

111

“Where is your wondrous beauty, Dorian Corinth? […] Lamented land, no trace of you is left, war seized and consumed your every part. Only we Nereids, the daughters of Oceanus, remain, unravaged, to mourn your passing, like plaintive seabirds.”

Corinth itself was associated with lament, with war and ravaging. This chapter uses literary and archaeological remains to address the questions: What griefs did the Corinthians face? What are the spaces within which such griefs were manifest? What was at the Corinthians’ disposal locally; that is, what did they have at hand to interpret Paul’s writings and to draw their own conclusions? In a way, my paper is a social history of one aspect of first-century Corinth, as well as a contribution to scholarship of New Testament and early Christian studies. What I shall show is that those who dwelt in Corinth in the first century C.E. could have understood themselves to be in a kind of topography of grief, which flowed and pooled in certain regions of the city and its surrounding regions.8 8 Others have done well to foreground topics other than grief in their analysis of the earliest reception of the Corinthian correspondence. A. Clark Wire, for example, has asked about female prophets at Corinth (The Corinthian Women Prophets: A Reconstruction through Paul’s Rhetoric [Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990]), J. Glancy has addressed how slaves would have struggled with Paul’s words (Slavery in Early Christianity [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002] chap. 2); J. Økland has asked about women’s ritual space (Women in Their Place: Paul and the Corinthian Discourse of Gender and Sanctuary Space [JSNT Sup 269; London: T & T Clark, 2004]). This chapter’s focus on grief, however, allows me to consider both slaves’ and women’s reception of this writing, since slavery was considered one of the griefs of the ancient world, and since women’s reproduction was often a cause for grief in antiquity. Several other scholars have taken seriously the archaeological remains at Corinth in order to form better grounds for interpretation of the Corinthian correspondence. See, e.g., Annette Weissenrieder’s contribution on Corinth, 1 Corinthians, and numismatic evidence in this volume. See also J. Murphy-O’Connor, St. Paul’s Corinth: Texts and Archaeology (Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier, Inc., 1983), which is a helpful but incomplete collection of literary and archaeological resources associated with Corinth; B. Winter, After Paul Left Corinth: The Influence of Secular Ethics and Social Change (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2001), which uses such resources (and more) to argue about a pagan “background” with which Corinthians struggled to divorce and differentiate themselves; and Økland, Women in Their Place, which uses archaeological evidence to support her analysis for how women in particular could have had authority and roles within the sacred spaces of Corinth, including the Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore on the Acrocorinth; see also C. Concannon, “Ecclesia Laus Corinthiensis: Negotiating Ethnicity Under Empire” (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University Committee on the Study of Religion, 2010) on archaeological and literary evidence for the complexity of ethnicity in Corinth at the time of the writing of 1–2 Corinthians. In my method of bringing together literary and archaeological sources, I am not looking for a cultural “background” against which to determine what in the Corinthian correspondence may indicate the Corinthians’ “culturally determined responses,” a phrase Winter uses to contrast that implies Paul’s or other Christians’ genuine and unculturally inflected religious rites (Winter, After Paul, x, xii). For more on method, see, e.g., M. Johnson-DeBaufre and L. Nasrallah, “Beyond the He-

112

Laura Salah Nasrallah

1. Grief in the Corinthia In 146 B.C.E. the forces of the Roman general Mummius destroyed the city of Corinth. It survived in a diminished form until Julius Caesar reestablished it as a Roman colony in 44 B.C.E.,9 after which time it again emerged as a leader on the Peloponnesos. Corinth lay on a significant trade route in antiquity, on the isthmus connecting ancient Attica to the Peloponnesos. It nestled inland between its ports of Lechaion to the north and Kenchreai to the south, and near Isthmia, a town renowned for its quadrennial games. To transfer cargo from the Saronic Gulf to the southeast to the Gulf of Corinth to the northwest, ships had to negotiate with Corinth, unless they wanted to circumnavigate the Peloponnesos (fig. 1).10 Corinth controlled a sevenmeter paved roadway called the diolkos that allowed oxen to drag ships or cargo across the narrow spit of land.11 Seneca’s Medea captures something of this geographical importance, as Medea fantasizes that the Sun, one of her ancestors, will help her to burn the city in which her husband Jason’s attentions strayed to the Corinthian princess, and where the king demanded her exile: “Let Corinth, with her twin shores cause of delay to ships, be consumed by flames and bring the two seas together” (35–36).12 Julius Caesar, Nero, and Herodes Atticus all considered exploiting or attempted to exploit Corinth’s location and to effect this violent fantasy of firing through the isthmus by means more banal: a canal. roic Paul: Toward a Feminist and Decolonizing Approach to the Letters of Paul,” in Paul and Postcolonial Studies (ed. C. Stanley; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2011), 161–74 and P. Oakes, Reading Romans in Pompeii (Minneapolis: Fortress and London: SPCK, 2009).   9 For details regarding the politics of this time and Corinth’s role in maritime trade, see Engels, Roman Corinth, esp. chap. 1. There is important ongoing work that studies the settlement of Corinth between Mummius’s destruction and Caesar’s refounding (rather than previous scholarship, which assumed a negligible population). 10 See Strabo Geog. 8.6.20 (“Corinth is called ‘wealthy’ [the reference is to Homer’s epithet for Corinth] because of its commerce, since it is situated on the Isthmus and is master of two harbours, of which the one leads straight to Asia, and the other to Italy; and it makes easy the exchange of merchandise from both countries that are so far distant from each other” (translation from Strabo Geography, Books 8–9 [LCL; trans. H. L. Jones; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1927] 189). C. Williams II, “Roman Corinth as a Commercial Center,” in The Corinthia in the Roman Period (ed. T. E. Gregory; JRASup. 8; Ann Arbor, MI: Journal of Roman Archaeology, 1993); Engels, Roman Corinth. 11 H. Koester, Cities of Paul: Images and Interpretations from the Harvard New Testament Archaeology Project (CD-Rom; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005) “Corinth General Information 1.” Regarding dragging Roman war ships on the diolkos, see A. E. Gordon, “The Latin Epigram at Corinth,” in Corinthiaca: Studies in Honor of Darrell A. Amyx (ed. M. A. Del Chiaro; Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1986), 50–53. See also K. Warner Slane, “East-West Trade in Fine Wares and Commodities: The View from Corinth,” Rei Cretariae Romanae Fautorum acta 36 (2000): 299. 12 Translation from Seneca Tragedies (trans. J. Fitch; LCL; 2 vols.; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002) 1.231.

Grief in Corinth

113

For some ancient writers, Corinth’s history made it an emblem of grief. Cicero uses Corinth as proof that the passion or emotion of grief dulls over time:13 “When I was a young man, I also saw Corinthians working as slaves in the Peloponnese. Any of these people could have uttered that same lament from Andromache: ‘Before my eyes did all these things take flame […]’14 and so on. But perhaps they had sung themselves out before I saw them. For their faces, their speech, their very gait and posture were such that, for all anyone could see, they might have been born in Argos or Sicyon. The ruined walls of Corinth had a greater impact on me, coming on them all of a sudden than on the Corinthians themselves. For they had thought about the event for so long that their minds had become hardened with wear.” (Cicero Tusc. disp. 3.53)15 A letter from Servius Sulpicius Rufus to Cicero echoes the idea that Corinth emblematizes grief. This letter is written to console Cicero for his own overwhelming sorrow upon the death of his daughter Tullia, a grief perhaps surprising and embarrassing in light of Cicero’s philosophical thought and his political significance  – or, alternatively, a testament to the fissure between practice and theory.16 Cicero’s friend writes: “There is an incident which brought me no slight consolation, and I should like to tell you about it, in case it might be able to assuage your sorrow. On my return from Asia, […] I began to survey the regions round about. Behind me was Aegina, before me Megara, on my right the Piraeus, on my left Corinth, towns at one time most flourishing, now lying prostrate and demolished before one’s very eyes. I began to think to myself ‘So! We puny mortals resent it, do we, if one of us, whose lives are naturally shorter, 13 The passage begins: “The proof of this [that grief is a passion that can be mastered] is in the way our griefs are soothed by the passage of time. So great is this effect that in many cases time not only relieves our distress but actually removes it altogether, even though circumstances remain unchanged […].” All translations of the Tusculans are from M. Graver’s Cicero on the Emotions: Tusculan Disputations 3 and 4 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002). 14 This is also cited in Cicero Tusc. disp. 3.45. 15 Quod ita esse dies declarat, quae procedens ita mitigat, ut isdem malis manentibus non modo leniatur aegritudo, sed in plerisque tollatur. Karthaginienses multi Romae servierunt, Macedones rege Perse capto; vidi etiam in Peloponneso, cum essem adulescens, quosdam Corinthios. Hi poterant omnes eadem illa de Andromacha deplorare: ‘Haec omnia vidi […]’, Sed iam decantaverant fortasse. Eo enim erant voltu, oratione, omni reliquo motu et statu, ut eos Argivos aut Sicyonios diceres, magisque me moverant Corinthi subito aspectae parietinae quam ipsos Corinthios, quorum animis diuturna cogitatio callum vetustatis obduxerat. (Latin from http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/cicero/tusc3.shtml#81, accessed on 10/5/09.) 16 While we no longer have Cicero’s Consolatio on the topic (although it is much cited by later authors), we have his Tusc. disp. 3–4, which he was drafting soon after his daughter’s death (Graver, Cicero on the Emotions, xiii–xv).

114

Laura Salah Nasrallah

has died in his bed or been slain in battle, when “in this one land alone there lie flung down before us the corpses of so many towns?” Pray control yourself, Servius, and remember that you were born a human being.’ Take my word for it, I was not a little fortified by that reflexion.17 For Sulpicius and Cicero (and others), Corinth and its surrounding regions are encysted with tragedy. The ruined city walls prick grief, while the resignation of those who still dwell in its ruins becomes an example of grief dulled. The corpses of cities become a consolation, reminding humans that their individual deaths are small things. Ancient consolation literature or philosophical writing from elite men like Cicero, Seneca, or Plutarch usually focuses on the grief over an individual’s death – often the child of an elite, and the loss of his or her promise.18 Yet even Cicero admits that, although he focuses on the grief of the loss of a beloved person, other distresses remain: “For there are certain remarks which it is customary to make [when discussing distress (aegritudo)] about poverty, and others about living without office or esteem, and then there are particular disputations for each of the various topics of exile, destruction of one’s homeland, servitude, physical impairment, blindness, and every other occurrence that is generally regarded as unfortunate” (Cicero Tusc. disp. 3.81).19 Under the emotional genus of distress can be filed a host of other griefs,20 and the very griefs that Cicero rushes past allow us to imagine the grievous lives of many in antiquity: those affected by exile, war, slavery, injury.21 Indeed, these are some of the conditions out of which the new Cor17 Cicero Ad fam. 4.5.4; translation from Cicero The Letters to His Friends (LCL; trans. W. G. Williams; 3 vols.; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1958) 3.271, 273. 18 See e.g. Pseudo-Plutarch, Consolatio ad Apollonium; Seneca Ad Marciam; Plutarch Consolatio ad uxorem (on the loss of their daughter Timoxena). 19 Tractatum est autem a nobis id genus aegritudinis, quod unum est omnium maxumum, ut eo sublato reliquorum remedia ne magnopere quaerenda arbitraremur. Sunt enim certa, quae de paupertate, certa, quae de vita inhonorata et ingloria dici soleant; separatim certae scholae sunt de exilio, de interitu patriae, de servitute, de debilitate, de caecitate, de omni casu, in quo nomen poni solet calamitatis. (Latin from http://www.thelatinlibrary. com/cicero/tusc3.shtml#81, accessed on 10/5/09). Cicero says that by having discussed the philosophical therapy for the passion or emotion of grief from death, he has treated the worst distress and thus the others can more easily be solved by the same logic. We hear echoes of these categories in Seneca Ad Marc. 20.2: “Death frees the slave though his master is unwilling; it lightens the captive’s chains; from the dungeon it leads forth those whom unbridled power has forgiven to leave it; to exiles, whose eyes and minds are ever turning to their native land, death shows that it makes no difference beneath whose soil a man may lie. If Fortune has apportioned unjustly the common goods, and has given over one man to another though they were born with equal rights, death levels all things […].” (translation from Seneca Moral Essays Volume II [1932; LCL; trans. J.W. Basore; repr. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006] 69). 20 See Cicero Tusc. disp. 3.24. 21 P. DuBois (Slaves and Other Objects [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003], esp. 5–6) has argued that slavery looms large in the imagination of every free person in the

Grief in Corinth

115

inth – the colony founded by Julius Caesar – emerged. In the next sections of this chapter, we shall look for some of these griefs in Corinth and in the Corinthian correspondence. 2. The Corinthians Who made up this new, Roman Corinth? Since we are focusing on the local conditions that produced the letter and the possible earliest reception of Paul’s letter at Corinth, the question is a vital one.22 Some inhabitants remained in the region between 146 B.C.E. and the city’s refounding as a Roman colony in 44 B.C.E., but Corinth was largely resettled at that time. Unlike many Roman colonies, Corinth was re-populated not by military veterans but by ex-slaves.23 Numismatic evidence from the first century C.E. indicates that a mix of freedmen and traders became leaders in the city.24 Although freedpersons were not usually eligible for magistracies, Caesar made exceptions for colonies he founded.25 Such a population migration of freedmen away from Rome served Roman elites well. These ex-slaves, still tied by the patronage system to their masters, could conduct business on their masters’ behalf – business from which elites were legally barred – at an important port between West and East.26 Thus Corinth was a place of potential social mobility (what we could call upward mobility), and those of low status could attain wealth and position in colonial Corinth. ancient world and becomes a means of defining what they are not and yet what they could easily become: the free looks no different from the slave, after all (Aristotle Pol. 1254a-b). See also Josephus Bell. Jud. 7.124–136 on the pompus in Rome of Jews and objects from the Jewish temple. 22 Thus the issue is not Paul’s frame of mind or “background” in writing 1 Corinthians, but the text’s early reception in the assembly there. The question is guided by feminist scholarship such as that of Wire, Corinthian Women Prophets; E. Schüssler Fiorenza, Rhetoric and Ethic: The Politics of Biblical Studies (Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress Press, 1999); and C. Briggs Kittredge, “Corinthian Women Prophets and Paul’s Argumentation in 1 Corinthians,” in Paul and Politics: Ekklesia, Israel, Imperium, Interpretation (ed. R. Horsley; Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2000), 103–9. 23 Williams, “Roman Corinth as a Commercial Center,” 33. 24 According to Antony Spawforth’s study, among those from Corinth named in the coinage of the duoviri from the triumvirate to Galba, 19 % were probably freedmen, and 29 % from the families of negotiatores, Italian merchants. He also discovers 8 % provincial Greek elites, 6 % from veterans, and perhaps 2 % Roman elite (19 % are unknown). A. J. S. Spawforth, “Roman Corinth: The Formation of a Colonial Elite,” in Roman Onomastics in the Greek East: Social and Political Aspects. Proceedings of the International Colloquium organized by the Finnish Institute and the Centre for Greek and Roman Antiquity, Athens, 7–9 September 1993 (ed. A.D. Rizakis; Athens: Kentron Hell nik s kai R maik s Archaiot tos, Ethnikon Hidryma Ereun n; Paris: Diffusion de Boccard, 1996), esp. 169 for summary results. 25 S. Treggiari, Roman Freedmen during the Late Republic (Oxford: Clarendon, 1969), 63–64. 26 Williams, “Roman Corinth as a Commercial Center”; Slane, “East-West.”

116

Laura Salah Nasrallah

Yet if Corinth held out the hope of upward mobility, especially to freedmen, it was also populated by those who were still poor. Anthony Spawforth explains: “Notoriously, the majority of Caesar’s Corinthian colonists were ‘of freedmen stock’, τοῦ ἀπελευθερωτικοῦ γένους τοὺς πλείστους (Str. VIII.23 […]). Most of the original freedmen would have been poor, the ‘men without means’, ἄποροι with whose demands for land Appian linked Caesar’s foundation of Corinth (Pun. 136).”27 We may recall the griefs that Cicero quickly passes over; among those griefs, we have thus far found evidence of ex-slaves, migration,28 and poverty in Roman Corinth. Hellenistic and Roman osteoarchaeological evidence particular to Corinth provides us with information about human mortality, and thus with a broader picture. Sherry Fox has analyzed the skeletal remains of a minimum of 94 persons of the Hellenistic and especially Roman period in Corinth. These remains reveal that the average age at death of males was 42.3 years, of females, 39.6 years, numbers that roughly compare with the demographic evidence of contemporaneous Roman Egypt, gleaned from papyrus records of census data.29 But in comparison with similar and contemporaneous data from Paphos, Cyprus, Fox determines that more children were dying in Corinth.30 Fox’s analysis may be further supported 27 Spawforth,

“Roman Corinth,” 169. a world of rapid migration of entire families, what would it mean to settle in Corinth, to experience life and death there? On contemporaneous evidence migration of entire families, see T. Prowse et al., “Isotopic Evidence for age-related immigration to imperial Rome,” American Journal of Physical Anthropology 132 (2007): 510–519; thanks to Steven J. Friesen for introducing me to this material. 29 Further information that may cautiously be applicable to Corinth is found in the demographic analysis of Roger Bagnall and Bruce Frier. From Egyptian census reports dating 11/12–257/8 C.E., they derive the information that “the average age of females at death is about 21.2 years; and of females over age 5, 42.4 years” (The Demography of Roman Egypt [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994], 89). They revise these numbers to “restore a female life expectancy at birth of 22.5 years […] in a population with an estimated annual growth rate of 0.2 percent” (87). About 35 % of female deaths occurred in girls less than 1 year old; more than 50 % occurred in girls less than 5 years old (89). Such statistics do not take into account the fact that many infant deaths would not have been reported in the census, nor the varying demographics due to famine or other catastrophes. In his study of brother-sister marriage in Egypt, Walter Scheidel states that in Roman Egypt only about 40 % of families have both sons and daughters that survive to marriageable age (Measuring Sex, Age, and Death in the Roman Empire: Explorations in Ancient Demography [Ann Arbor, MI: Journal of Roman Archaeology, 1996]). See also Lucian Kataplous e Tyrannos 5: “Charon: Hermes, heave these babies aboard [Charon’s bark] first, for what in the world can they have to say to me? Hermes: “Here you are, ferryman, three hundred of them, including those that were abandoned. Charon: I say, what a rich haul! It’s green-grape dead you have brought us” (translation from volume 2 of Lucian Works [LCL; trans. A.M. Harmon; repr. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999] 11). 30 S.C. Fox, “Health in Hellenistic and Roman Times: The Case Studies of Paphos, Cyprus and Corinth, Greece,” in Health in Antiquity (ed. H. King; New York: Routledge, 2005), 62. 28 In

Grief in Corinth

117

by the high number of child and infant deaths represented in the ca. 100 C.E. Tomb with Sarcophagi at Corinth, although such a tomb is admittedly a chance find and we cannot extrapolate broadly from this datum. Forty-one adults were buried there, along with 25 children and 29 infants, including 16 newborns.31 Infant and child mortality might be particular concerns for the inhabitants of Hellenistic‑ and Roman-period Corinth. But would this lead to grief? We might ask, as does Nancy Scheper-Hughes with regard to the favelas of contemporary Brazil, whether the fact of high infant mortality leads to a detached affect, to being inured to the death of the very young.32 So too, scholars of classical antiquity have questioned whether ancient peoples disregarded their fragile young, since inscriptional evidence marking the deaths of adults occurs at a more frequent rate than that marking the deaths of infants, a conclusion Margaret King rejects based on her study of evidence from inscriptions in Rome.33 Moreover, archaeologist Mary Walbank concludes that the burial of neonates in the Tomb with Sarcophagi at 31 M.E. Hoskins Walbank, “Unquiet Graves: Burial Practices of the Roman Corinthians,” Urban Religion in Roman Corinth: Interdisciplinary Approaches (ed. D. Schowalter and S. J. Friesen; HTS 53; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005), 270, 271. 32 N. Scheper-Hughes, Death Without Weeping: The Violence of Everyday Life in Brazil (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), esp. chap. 7. Regarding both infant mortality and eschatology, consider, e.g., heterogenous experiences of the human lifespan in our own time, as made evident by the term “repro-time,” which Halberstam applies to heterosexual (mainstream U.S.) experiences of time, society, and the biological clock: J. Halberstam, In a Queer Time and Place: Transgender Bodies, Subcultural Lives (New York: New York University Press, 2005), 5. My use of this material derives from Melanie Johnson-DeBaufre’s application of it to 1 Thessalonians and Acts. Halberstam’s articulation of different normative and non-normative frameworks for experiencing temporality could spark our imaginations regarding eschatological thought in the first century as a queer time response to dominant historiographical and theological conceptions; perhaps Augustus’s appropriation of what we might call “eschatological” thought through the utopian imagery of a new age in his court-sponsored poetry (Virgil, Horace) is a dominant domestication of the queer time of apocalyptic, or apocalyptic is a queering of that dominant way of conceiving of a last, golden age. 33 M. King, “Commemoration of Infants on Roman Funerary Inscriptions,” in The Epigraphy of Death: Studies in the History and Society of Greece and Rome (ed. G.J. Oliver; Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2000), 117–54. See also, e.g., Plutarch Consolatio ad uxorem 612A, who, in his consolation to his wife upon the death of their young daughter, discusses ancestral and ancient traditions and laws which suggest a reason other than lack of care over infant death for why their deaths might not be strongly marked: “for our people do not bring libations to those of their children who die in infancy, nor do they observe in their case any of the other rites that the living are expected to perform for the dead, as such children have no part in earth or earthly things; nor yet do they tarry where the burial is celebrated, at the graves, or at the laying out of the dead, and sit by the bodies. For the laws forbid us to mourn for infants, holding it impiety to mourn for those who have departed to a dispensation and a religion too that is better and more divine” (translation from volume 7 of Plutarch Moralia [1959; LCL; trans. P. H. De Lacy and B. Einarson; repr. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000] 605).

118

Laura Salah Nasrallah

Corinth demonstrates a concern for their burial rites, not a disregard for the remains of the young.34 This data – gleaned from papyri, bones and teeth, graves, rather than only from literature preserved through elite channels – captures some information about those of varied status, and gives us a sense of the brevity and fragility of life in ancient cities, particularly Corinth. Amid this populace of freedmen, many rising in status, many still poor, many facing the deaths of their children, what might have been the demographic make-up of the community to which Paul wrote at Corinth? And might they be facing some of the distresses that inspired consolation literature and philosophizing, as Cicero mentioned: exile,35 slavery, and poverty, among others? We find evidence that the Corinthians who received Paul’s letter experienced or continued to experience all three. At least some within the ekkl sia suffered deprivation from poverty.36 1 Cor 11:17–34 indicates that some people among the ekkl sia in Christ did not have enough to eat:37 “or do you look down on the ekkl sia of God, or do you shame those who have not?” (ἢ τῆς ἐκκλησίας τοῦ θεοῦ καταϕρονεῖτε, καὶ καταισχύνετε τοὺς μὴ

34 Walbank, “Unquiet Graves,” 271; her chapter also mentions toys and apotropaic objects buried with children. 35 1 Corinthians, as well as Romans 16, indicates if not exile then the multiple travels and migrations of those whom we call the earliest Christians. 2 Corinthians emphasizes the dangers of such travel. 36 Debates on the social status of the communities to which Paul wrote – and of Paul himself – have thrived over the last century and a half. See especially S. J. Friesen, “Poverty in Pauline Studies: Beyond the So-Called New Consensus,” JSNT 26.3 (2004): 323–61; see also J. Meggitt, Paul, Poverty, and Survival (London: T & T Clark, 1998) esp. 5, 42. Dale Martin critiques Meggitt’s model of 99 % poverty vs. 1 % elite status in the Roman world as overly simplistic; Friesen’s “Poverty Pauline Studies” seeks to improve on Meggitt by making the analysis more subtle, but see also John Barclay’s criticism of Friesen’s attempt (“Poverty in Pauline Studies: A Response to Steven Friesen,” JSNT 26.3 [2004]: 363–66). See S. J. Friesen, “Prospects for a Demography of the Pauline Mission: Corinth among the Churches,” in Urban Religion in Roman Corinth, 351–70 on 1 Corinthians and its wealth of data regarding persons in the early Jesus movement (outside of Romans 16) but note the difficulties of determining prosopographical analysis from this. 37 For this reading I am indebted to Friesen, “Prospects for a Demography,” 363–64. This passage on eating and drinking the Lord’s supper and the life-threatening consequences of doing it improperly have often (and rightly) led to scholarly debate on concepts of the body and illness, of ritual in earliest communities in Christ, of the transmission of traditions concerning Jesus’ last night. The passage at first seems to deal with a ritual or etiquette issue that, for Paul, nullifies the significance of the meal as the “Lord’s supper” (kyriakon deipnon): “When you meet together, it is not the Lord’s supper that you eat. For in eating, each one goes ahead with his [or her] own meal, and one is hungry and another is drunk” (συνερχομένων οὖν ὑμῶν ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτὸ οὐκ ἔστιν κυριακὸν δεῖπνον ϕαγεῖν. ἕκαστος γὰρ τὸ ἴδιον δεῖπνον προλαμβάνει ἐν τῷ ϕαγεῖν, καὶ ὃς μὲν πεινᾷ ὃς δὲ μεθύει, 11:20–21). The hunger of the one does not yet seem an indication of need emerging from poverty. Yet if we look further we find it.

Grief in Corinth

119

ἔχοντας; 11:22).38 While we cannot determine the causes or status of those

who “have not,” we know something of the larger context of poverty from studies of the Roman economy.39 No one questions that the majority of the population of the Roman Empire was poor (recent hypotheses extend from 68 % to 99 %), with poverty defined in this way by Peter Garnsey and Greg Woolf: “the poor are those living at or near subsistence level, whose prime concern it is to obtain the minimum food, shelter, and clothing necessary to sustain life, whose lives are dominated by the struggle for physical survival.”40 Various famines occurred in mid-first-century Greece and the Greek East, and Bruce Winter has suggested that there was a famine in Corinth in the early 50s C.E.,41 drawing on epigraphic evidence regarding the first-century Corinthian curator annonae Tiberius Claudius Dinippus – that is, head of the dole – as well as additional literary and epigraphic evidence. Former head of Corinth excavations Charles Williams states that Corinth’s

38 Friesen, “Prospects for a Demography.” See also 2 Corinthians 8 regarding Macedonia and Corinth: “their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of liberality on their part. For they gave according to their means, as I can testify, and beyond their means, of their own free will. […] I do not mean that others should be eased and you burdened (or, suffer), but that as a matter of equality your abundance at the present time should supply their want, so that their abundance may supply your want, that there may be equality. As it is written, ‘He who gathered much had nothing over, and he who gathered little had no lack’.” Note too the anxiety later in 2 Cor 12 over whether Paul or his co-workers have taken advantage of the Corinthians (pleonekte ) or deceived or burdened them. 39 Read in light of the issue of the grief of poverty, 1 Corinthians reveals multiple concerns about labor and economy. As part of his rhetorical self-construction, where debasement becomes a source of authority, Paul even emphasizes his own refusal of wages (1 Corinthians 9), his own hunger, thirst, nakedness, his state of being slapped (or buffeted) and homeless (4:12). Paul’s commentary on this life of weakness and life near death (4:9; 2 Cor 1:4–11) must be read as the rhetorical intervention that it is (as must all ancient texts). (On Paul’s self-construction not as a proud soldier but as a beaten slave in 2 Corinthians, see J. Glancy, “Boasting of Beatings: 2 Corinthians 11:23–25,” JBL 123.1 [2004]: 99–135) Nonetheless, economic issues and the possibility of poverty (whether Paul’s or the Corinthians) pulse through the letter. In 1 Cor 4:12 (κοπιῶμεν ἐργαζόμενοι ταῖς ἰδίαις χερσίν) as in 1 Thess 4:11, Paul is concerned with the issue of laboring with one’s own hands. The non-Pauline 3 Corinthians spins out the themes both of the resurrection of the flesh and of the dead and of Paul’s near-death sufferings to accomplish his message. 40 P. Garnsey and G. Woolf, “Patronage of the rural poor in the Roman world,” in Patronage in Ancient Society (ed. A. Wallace-Hadrill,; London: Routledge, 1990), 153, cited in Meggitt, Paul, Poverty, and Survival, 15. This poor – those just at or below subsistence level, depending upon your calculations, made up either 99 % of the population (Meggitt), approximately 90 % (Alföldy), or approximately 68 % (Friesen). This shows something of the difficulty of making pronouncements on demographics and economy, given the extant data, but in any case we can see that the majority struggled. 41 Winter, After Paul, 6, 216–225. Winter thinks that Paul’s use of the term anank in 1 Cor 7:26 (a term sometimes substituted for “famine”) applies to this famine. I think anank needs to be understood more broadly and eschatologically.

120

Laura Salah Nasrallah

economy depended upon trade, and that the city and its environs could not supply enough food for its urban population.42 Cicero mentions exile as a subject of grief. Seneca’s Ad Helviam, addressed to his mother from his political exile in Corsica, broadly redefines exile to include those escaping the destruction of their cities, those cast out by civil disorder, those escaping overcrowding, and those driven out by disease or earthquakes or bad soil.43 “The human race is constantly rushing to and fro,” Seneca continues (Ad Helv. 7.5),44 and we find this rushing within the Corinthian correspondence, certainly in Paul himself (esp. 1 Cor 16, 2 Cor 10–12), but also in the co-workers he mentions, such as Apollos (1 Cor 1–4) or Timothy (1 Cor 16), or in the “superapostles” who seem to come into Corinth from elsewhere to preach about Christ (see e.g. 2 Cor 10). So too perhaps individuals or groups within the Corinthian ekkl sia. Finally, Cicero mentions servitude as a traditional subject of discourses on grief. We have already seen that the broader Corinthian population (and its leadership) is characterized by those newly freed from slavery. In the Corinthian correspondence, we find that slaves were part of the ekkl sia to which Paul wrote (see esp. 1 Cor 7:17–24).45 Paul’s twice-repeated injunction “you were bought with a price” (7:23; 6:20) is not merely a metaphor. Paul’s reference to the status of the freedman (apeleutheros) in 7:22 and his injunction to slaves to mallon chr sai – an extremely confusing Greek phrase that either means to remain in one’s slave state and to use it for some benefit, or to do the opposite, and to improve one’s state into freedom46 – are aimed, as we have already seen, at a community within a city largely settled by freedmen who had hopes of upward mobility. For those who heard Paul’s letters read aloud in the assembly, such comments about slavery activated the reality of slavery within the Corinthian ekkl sia, both for those enslaved and for those newly freed. For the already free, it might spark the general 42 Strabo Geog. 8.6.23 on Corinthian territory as unfertile. See also Williams, “Roman Corinth,” 31–33, 38. 43 “And not all have had the same reason for leaving their country and seeking a new one. Some, having escaped the destruction of their cities by the forces of the enemy, have been thrust into strange lands when stripped of their own; some have been cast out by civil disorder; some have gone forth in order to relieve the pressure from over-crowding caused by an excess of population; some have been driven out by pestilence or repeated earthquakes or certain unbearable defects of an unproductive soil; some have been beguiled by the fame of a fertile shore that was too highly praised.” Ad Helv. 7.4–5; translation from Seneca Moral Essays Volume II, 435, 437. On prisoners of war see J. Allen, Hostages and Hostage-Taking in the Roman World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). 44 Translation from Seneca Moral Essays Volume II (LCL), 437. 45 The question of how such slaves might have dealt with Paul’s injunctions regarding porneia, which assume some level of control over one’s own body, was raised and has been well treated by Glancy (Slavery in Early Christianity, chap. 2). 46 S. S. Bartchy, Mallon Chr sai: First-century Slavery and the Interpretation of 1 Cor 7:21 (1973; reprinted Atlanta, GA: Scholars, 1985).

Grief in Corinth

121

fear in antiquity, as Page Dubois has analyzed it, that it is hard to know who is a citizen or slave, and that a small twist of Fate could turn a person into a thing.47 Moreover, slaves in the community must have struggled with the question: How should they cope with the reality and the grief of slavery in this community that both included them and prescribed moral regulations that may have excluded them, given that slaves did not fully control their own bodies and thus could not adhere to certain purity regulations?48 The new Corinth of Julius Caesar was marked by its emergence out of war, slavery, injury, and even poverty and exile (broadly understood as migration). So too the Corinthian ekkl sia seems to reflect the more general reality of the colony: they were ex-slaves, slaves, migrants, poor; they may have been striving for upward mobility, but they were likely in large part living at or below subsistence level and facing the griefs of the city. 3. The City of Corinth: A Topography of Grief As we have seen in the writings of Cicero and Sulpicius, the landscape around Corinth and Corinth itself embody grief. We have seen that its destruction and the demographics of its resettlement indicate the likelihood of forms of grief emerging among the population: the status of slavery, conditions of poverty, experiences of exile and deracination, memories of war. We now approach the city itself, to see how it contains a kind of topography of grief. Although Pausanias writes more than a century after Paul’s visit to Corinth, his antiquarian tendencies mean that he often preserves earlier traditions. Pausanias allows us broader glimpses of Corinthian grief, outside the city center. In the Corinthia49 – that is, in the region of Corinth – we find from Pausanias (and others) the story of the dead-and-raised child-hero Palaimon-Melikertes, worshipped and celebrated at Isthmia, which was under Corinthian control.50 Second-century Corinthian coinage depicts the limp 47 See P. DuBois, Torture and Truth (New York: Routledge, 1990); eadem, Slaves and Other Objects, esp. 5–6. Seneca, for example, discusses Fortuna’s whims in his consolation to Marcia: “All these fortuitous things, Marcia, that glitter about us – children, honours, wealth, spacious halls and vestibules packed with a throng of unadmitted clients, a famous name, a high-born or beautiful wife, and all else that depends upon uncertain and fickle chance – these are not our own but borrowed trappings. […] If you grieve for the death of your son, the blame must go back to the time when he was born; for his death was proclaimed at his birth; into this condition was he begotten, this fate attended him straightway from the womb. We have come into the realm of Fortune, and harsh and invincible is her power” (10.1, 6; translation from Seneca Moral Essays Volume II [LCL], 29, 31). 48 See Glancy, Slavery in Early Christianity, chap. 2. 49 Engels, Roman Corinth, chap. 1. 50 Isthmia by the first century C.E. was mentioned in terms of its “mysteries.” The stories of Melikertes’ death and divinization vary. They converge in their agreement that Melikertes and his mother Ino are plunged into the sea and made immortal. See also R.E.

122

Laura Salah Nasrallah

boy’s body carried on a dolphin’s back.51 We find other griefs monumentalized in the city (fig. 2), for example, in the Fountain of Peirene, famously reworked in Roman times so that it became an emblem of Corinth and a sign of Greco-Roman hybridity.52 Pausanias (Descr. 2.3.2) ascribes the waters to Peirene’s tears after the death of her son Cenchrias by Artemis’ arrow. Pausanias tours Corinth’s city center, the area just to the west of the Forum and near the theater – that is, near the political-administrative and market center of Corinth, as well as near its ancient temple (perhaps to Apollo). He writes:

DeMaris, “Corinthian Religion and Baptism for the Dead (1 Corinthians 15:29): Insights from Archaeology and Anthropology,” JBL 114.4 (1995): 166–168, who summarizes the archaeological finds. E. Gebhard has argued for a continuity of this cult from the Greek to the Roman periods (“Rites for Melikertes-Palaimon in the Early Roman Corinthia,” in Urban Religion in Roman Corinth, 166–67). See also H. Koester, “Melikertes at Isthmia: A Roman Mystery Cult,” in his Paul and His World: Interpreting the New Testament in its Context (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007) 180–91, who finds the Roman period rites at Isthmia significant for the interpretation of Paul’s athletic imagery in 1 Corinthians and for the interpretation of mysteries. O. Broneer (“The Apostle Paul and the Isthmian Games,” The Biblical Archaeologist 25.1 [1962]: 2–31, esp. 31) suggests that the mysteries at Isthmia are an important interpretive backdrop for Paul and Corinth. 51 Pausanias refers to the shrine, and second-century Corinthian coinage bears images of Melikertes and a pine tree, or a dolphin with the child Melikertes clinging to it (Gebhard, “Rites,” 167–68, passim). In Gebhard’s words, “Ino becomes the goddess Leukothea, received by the Nereids; Melikertes becomes the marine deity Palaimon, associated with Poseidon. At the same time, a dolphin carries the dead boy’s body to the Isthmus, where Sisyphus, ruler of Corinth, buries him and celebrates the first Isthmian Games at his funeral” (169). In Euripides’ Medea Ino is likened to Medea (1282–89) in the Chorus’s song. There is some debate about what happened to the Isthmian cult in the years after Mummius’s destruction of the region, and whether the cult rites fairly clearly attested from the Archaic to the Hellenistic period were continued in the Roman; Gebhard thinks that they did (“Rites,” 178). See also Statius Thebaid 6: “After that [establishment of Pythian games] came a black cult observed at Palaemon’s gloomy altars as often as brave Leucothea renews her lamentations and returns to the friendly shore at festival time; Isthmos on either side is loud with mourning and Echionian Thebes makes tearful response.” (lines 10–14; English translation Statius Thebaid, Books 1–7 [LCL; trans. D. R. Shackleton Bailey; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003], 327). For more evidence of the memorialization of mythic death at Corinth, see also Pausanias Descr. 2.6–7 on the brutal death of Pentheus (because of his mistreatment of Dionysos); discussed in D. Birge, “Pausanias and Tree-Worship in Corinth,” in Corinthiaca, 25–28. 52 As E. Robinson has shown, Peirene became an emblem of Corinthian identity in the Roman period, mentioned by authors far distant from Corinth (“Fountains and the Formation of Cultural Identity at Roman Corinth,” in Urban Religion in Roman Corinth, 111–40). The fountain is famous because it was said to have been the location where Bellerophon tamed the winged horse Pegasos (Pindar, Ode 13, cited in Robinson, “Fountains,” 110). See also her Histories of Peirene: A Corinthian Fountain in Three Millennia (Ancient Art and Architecture in Context monograph series; Princeton, NJ: American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 2011) chaps. 2, 7. I am grateful to the author for an advance copy of her work.

Grief in Corinth

123

“As you go along another road from the marketplace, which leads to Sicyon, you can see on the right of the road […] a fountain called the fountain of Glauke. Into this they say she threw herself in the belief that the water would be a cure for the drugs of Medea. Above this has been built what is called the Odeion, beside which is the mn ma of Medea’s children. Their names were Mermeros and Pheres, and they are said to have been stoned to death by the Corinthians owing to the gifts which legend says they brought to Glauke. But as their death was violent and illegal, the young babies (τὰ τέκνα Κορινθίων τὰ νήπια) of the Corinthians were destroyed by them until, at the command of the oracle, yearly sacrifices were established in their honour and a figure of Terror was set up (καὶ Δεῖμα ἐπέσταθη). This figure still exists, being the likeness of a woman frightful to look upon; but after Corinth was laid waste by the Romans and the old Corinthians were wiped out, the new settlers broke the custom of offering those sacrifices to the sons of Medea, nor do their children cut their hair for them or wear black clothes.” (Descr. 2.3.6–7)53 Glauke, daughter of Kreon King of Corinth, is memorialized in a rockcut kr n or fountain just to the south of the theater in Corinth and near the city’s administrative and market center (fig. 3). Although the fountain is archaic in appearance – “a monolithic cube of oolitic limestone” – it probably dates to the latter half of the fourth century B.C.E., when it was hewn out of live rock in the process of quarrying.54 Yet fittings in the porch and tool marks on the fountain itself also reveal Roman reworking, and in the Roman period one could enter to draw from the four basins within.55 At that time, lying near the business, political, and key cultic centers of the city, the Fountain of Glauke’s aesthetics were surprising compared to the increasingly stuccoed and marbled city. Its rough strangeness may have communicated the force and antiquity of Medea’s story and her strange torture and assassination of her rival, the Corinthian princess, by means of a fiery, poisoned crown and wedding dress.56 Near the fountain, according to Pausanias, was a statue of Terror (Deima) and a memorial (mn ma) to the 53 Pausanias Description of Greece Books I and II (1918; LCL; trans. W. H. S. Jones; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998) 263. 54 Early archaeologists assumed it to be the work of Archaic Corinthian tyrants (Robinson, “Fountains,” 128, 131, quotation at p. 128). 55 From ca. 400 B.C.E., see also the small building within which Kreon’s daughter suffers on the Munich krater (C. Sourvinou-Inwood, “Medea at a shifting distance: Images and Euripidean Tragedy,” in Medea: Essays on Medea in Myth, Literature, Philosophy, and Art [ed. J. Clauss and S. Iles Johnston; Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997], esp. 294). 56 “While the original form of Glauke seems not to have been determined by a Roman literary spirit, its maintenance as a rupestral fountain-house, a sort of ‘romantic ruin’ surely as by choice, and it betrays the will of the Corinthians to add another monument of the heroic age to the landscape” (Robinson, “Fountains,” 232).

124

Laura Salah Nasrallah

children of Medea. Terror herself, as well as the deaths of Medea’s children, and King Kreon’s daughter, cluster in a busy sector of the city, just to the northwest of the Roman Forum and south of the theater. Betsey Robinson, an expert on Roman fountains and especially on Peirene, says, “In the Roman period, Peirene and Glauke were both ‘historiated’ landmarks, places where important events were believed to have taken place.”57 Monuments such as the Fountain of Glauke and the Fountain of Peirene were a way for the “new Corinthians,” she writes, to connect to ancient Corinthian traditions – an “adaptive reuse”58 that allowed them to burnish their new identities and migratory selves against the ancient place of Corinth.59 Thus we can think of these mythological griefs as embedded in the ancient landscape of Corinth but evoked and cultivated again, intentionally, in the Roman period, as part of the city’s identity. There is something terrible and terrifying memorialized in Corinth. Over more than five centuries (from Euripides to Pausanias), some memory of the Corinthians’ blood-guilt persisted, if not always ritual expiation for it, and these mythical deaths were linked to the deaths of the Corinthians’ own children.60 57 Robinson,

“Fountains,” 113. Betsey Robinson argues that the monument finds design parallels in Perachora of the fifth and fourth centuries B.C.E., and probably originally dates to the fourth century B.C.E. (130–31). In the Roman period the site was probably damaged by quarrying (the westernmost reservoir was damaged, and a retaining wall constructed; 131), but still stood, impressively a “Greek hold-over” (134) in contrast to the marble surfaces on buildings that were popular in the Roman period. 58 Robinson, “Fountains,” 116. 59 Robinson, “Fountains,” 133–34: “I suggest a new working hypothesis: on inheriting this monument, Corinth’s rebuilders selected it to become another place where fragments of Corinthian history could be localized in the new urban landscape, and thereby incorporated within the collective imagination of the new city. […] Indeed, coming more than a century after the destruction of old Corinth, the Roman reconstruction provides the most opportune ‘moment’ for the attachment of the name ‘Glauke’ and the associated narrative to the fountain. Like their Hellenistic forebears, the Early Imperial Romans of the classes that oversaw the rebuilding of Corinth understood the usefulness of harnessing local mythology, and they recognized that the legendary past became that much more powerful when connected with visible landmarks.” 60 Euripides’ Medea indicates (and provides an etiology for) a cult in or near Corinth, associated with Medea’s children and dedicated to Hera Akraia. Medea refuses Jason’s request to have the bodies of their sons to bury and to mourn. Medea says: “I will bury them myself, / bearing them to Hera’s temple on the promontory (ϕέρουσ’ ἐς  Ἥρας τέμενος Ἀκραίας θεου); / so that no enemy may evilly treat them / by tearing up their grave (τύμβους ἀνασπῶν). In this land of Sisyphus (γῇ δὲ τῇδε Σισύϕου) [that is, in Corinth, since Pausanias says that Corinth was ruled by Sisyphus] / I shall establish a holy feast and rites (σεμνὴν ἑορτὴν καὶ τέλη προσάψομεν) / Each year forever to atone for the blood guilt (τὸ λοιπὸν ἀντὶ τοῦδε δυσσεβοὺς ϕόνου).” (1378–83; translation from Euripides Cyclops Alcestis Medea [LCL; trans. D. Kovacs; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994]). Archaeologists long looked for the cult of Hera on the Acrocorinth, but have instead discovered that it is likely found at Perachora, a nearby promontory northeast of Corinth and under its control in the classical period. For debates on government of this region, see summary in J. Salmon, “The Heraeum at Perachora, and the Early History of Corinth and Megara,”

Grief in Corinth

125

4. Medea, Demeter, and the Vulnerability of Women and Children We recall Medea’s fury at Corinth, which resulted in her fantasy that Helios, the Sun, would burn through it and the isthmus. Pausanias offers as a villain to Medea’s story the Corinthians themselves. The more common story, also set in Corinth, portrays Medea as the witch-queen of Colchis, Jason’s wife, and the killer of her own children.61 Most famously narrated in Euripides’ version from 431 B.C.E.,62 the story was still popular in the Roman period, discussed by philosophers, rewritten into new plays, including Seneca’s, and represented in art. A second-century sarcophagus from the Pergamon Museum in Berlin (fig. 4), for example, foregrounds the torment of Jason’s new beloved and Medea’s heavenly rush upwards, one child slung over her shoulder, another child’s legs dangling off the serpent chariot.63 In the Roman period the story of Medea became a means of thinking through the philosophical problem: How does one correctly tend the emotions (path ) so that love, anger, and grief do not melt together and destroy the self – and others? While it is impossible to demonstrate that the Corinthians The Annual of the British School at Athens 67 (1972): 159–204, esp. 159–61; see also 179 ff. At Perachora, from the Geometric period onward, there is evidence of worship of Hera Akraia and Hera Limenia (oddly reversed, with Hera Akraia worshiped at the seaside and Hera of the Harbor worshipped 200 m up the hill). Koulouria (clay models of rounded bread) were found as cult offerings at both sanctuaries to Hera in the Geometric period (177); so too at the Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore in Corinth (181). Salmon argues, based upon the fabric of the clay in both the Perachora koulouriai and pottery from Corinth more generally that Corinthians were making and dedicating koulouriai at Perachora (183–87, passim). 61 On variable number and names of these children, see C. Ondine Pache, Baby and Child Heroes in Ancient Greece (Urbana/Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2004), 9–48. 62 This is the year of the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta (E. Hall, “Introduction,” in Euripides: Medea Hippolytus Electra Helen [trans. J. Morwood; Oxford: Clarendon, 1997] xiii). On the play initially failing to please, see p. xv. 63 Pergamon Museum of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin – Preussischer Kulturbesitz. Antikensammlung, acquisition number Sk 843b. Seneca was not the only one to have been interested in reworking this story. Chrysippus is said to have “copied out almost the whole of Euripides’ play in one of his works.” Epictetus too gave an account of his interest in Medea (2.27.19–20; 1.28.8–9); all this is discussed in M. Nussbaum, The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994), 446–68. Italian interest in the story had been strong: Ennius, Pavinius and Accius introduced various episodes, and Ovid and Pompeius Macer, Lucan, Curiatus Maternus, Bassus all wrote about the Medea or reworked it (Robinson, “Fountains,” 135). Caesar displayed Tomomachos’s painting of Medea in the Temple of Venus Genetrix in Rome, according to Pliny (Nat.Hist. 35.26; cited in Robinson, “Fountains,” 135); sarcophagi of the second century C.E. offer “scenes of Medea’s children presenting gifts to Glauke and of Medea’s contemplation of infanticide” (Robinson, “Fountains,” 136 and see figure at 137). In these visual representations, Robinson argues, Kreousa/Glauke comes to have a central place in the narrative cycle (ibid., 136–38). Lucian notes the death of Glauke among subjects of death or pantomime (Salt. 42).

126

Laura Salah Nasrallah

themselves were using the story to think through the emotions, we have already seen that the story was recalled and memorialized  – if not ritually addressed – in Corinth in Pausanias’ day. And while Paul is no Stoic philosopher, there are indications in his letters that he was familiar with commonplace Stoic concepts such as that of enkrateia or self-control (1 Cor 9:24–27), and his disquisition on control of desire in 1 Corinthians 7 has analogies to Stoic injunctions to extirpate the passions and Stoic ethical teachings on marriage, as in Musonius Rufus. Stanley Stowers has argued that Paul’s writing in Rom 7:15, 19 – the famous passage where Paul seems to vacillate within himself – echoes Seneca’s Medea.64 Some of those receiving Paul’s letters would have drawn on these popular philosophical notions and perhaps even on the story of Medea herself to interpret his letter and their own griefs and passions. Thus it is worth looking more deeply at the effects of the story of Medea in the Roman period; Euripides’ and Seneca’s stories are set at Corinth, and cluster with other evidence that indicates long-term associations of Corinth with grief and with the loss of children. The story of Medea is full of complex and interrelated griefs in both Euripides’ and Seneca’s versions. In Euripides’ play, Medea’s original griefs stem especially from exile and her loss of status as Jason takes a new wife. Medea had chosen to betray her father and to kill her brother because of her love for Jason; his changed allegiance underscores the complete and irrevocable nature of her exile.65 While Seneca’s plot differs little from Euripides’, his Medea is more of a meditation on the tortured self66 who confuses her emotions (path ) so that grief and hate become the same: 945 Hither, dear children, sole comfort of my fallen house, come hither and link your entwining limbs with mine […] 951 My grief grows again and my hate burns hot (rursus increscit dolor / et feret odium); Erinys, as of old, claims my unwilling hand. O wrath, where thou dost lead I follow (ira, qua ducis, sequor). I would that from my womb the throng of proud Niobe had sprung, and that I had been the mother of twice seven sons! Too barren have I been for vengeance – yet for my brother and father there is enough, for I have borne two sons.67

Seneca also renders Medea into a witch – and his version includes Erinys and Furies (e.g. 13–18)68 – whose anger (or grief) turns not only against her 64 S. Stowers, “Paul and Self-Mastery,” in Paul in the Greco-Roman World: A Handbook (ed. J. P. Sampley; Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2003), 526. 65 See the lines of Euripides’ chorus regarding Medea’s exile (lines 643ff); it is compared to death and considered worse than death. 66 This contrasts with Euripides’ Medea, who looked outwards to Athens and to the relief of escaping Corinth and Jason and surviving her exiled status. 67 On grief and oscillation of the soul see esp. Seneca Medea 910 ff. 68 See also the Munich krater, of early Hellenistic date; see discussion in SourvinouInwood, “Medea at a Shifting Distance.”

Grief in Corinth

127

living sons, but perhaps against a possible pregnancy: “If even now in my uterus (matre) there lies concealed some safety deposit (pignus) from you, I shall examine the inside of my abdomen with a sword and draw it out on the iron (1012–13).”69 Medea’s griefs of exile and loss of status are tangled with the loss of her father and brother, deaths she herself effected, and the impending loss of her sons. Seneca embeds Medea within a larger cultural context: the characterization of women as having unphilosophical responses to grief and other passions, on the one hand,70 and the vulnerability of women to producing offspring and to the loss of that offspring, on the other.71 In the midst of her unphilosophical passions, Medea for Euripides and Seneca is guilty for her children’s deaths. Yet, as we have seen, Pausanias had offered a different story, and in yet another variation on the story, the children’s deaths have something to do with an unsuccessful rite to immortalize them.72 A scholion on Pindar states: He [Pindar] remembers Medea when she lived in Corinth and brought an end to the famine overcoming the Corinthians by sacrificing to Demeter and the Lemnian nymphs. Then, Zeus fell in love with her, but he did not win Medea over since she wanted to avoid the anger of Hera. Because of this, Hera promised her that she would make her children immortal. The Corinthians honor them after their deaths, calling them semibarbarians. (scholion on Pindar Olympian Ode 13.74)73

This account, coupled with Pausanias’s reference to Eumelos’s epic on the topic, indicates a tradition in which Medea accidentally kills her children not in a vengeful act against her husband, but in a magical-religious rite that

Nussbaum, Therapy of Desire, 440. e.g. Seneca Ad Marc.; Seneca Ad Helv.; Plutarch Consolation ad uxorem. 71 Seneca uses the Medea for philosophical deliberation on the nature of the self and the danger of the passions, especially those that emerge from love. One’s wrong judgments of the world – the worth of one’s spouse, the preciousness of one’s children, the value of life itself – lead to fissures in the philosophical self, the erosion of self-mastery. See Nussbaum, Therapy of Desire, 442–51 on love as opening the possibility of violation and on the mixing of Medea’s passions; anger and grief become interchangeable. In the passage immediately following, the one about Medea’s sons compensating for the wrongs she did to her brother and father, we saw in rapid succession the terms grief, anger, and hate (dolor, ira, odium). 72 Pausanias (Descr. 2.3.11) preserves an early tradition from the epic writer Eumelos (eighth-seventh century B.C.E.) that Medea conceals her newborn children and brings them into the sanctuary of Hera “thinking that the concealment would make them immortal. Finally she learned that her hope was in vain, and at the same time she was detected by Jason.” According to Pache, the terminology of the text hints that Medea learns too late that the ritual is not working, and the children die (Baby and Child Heroes, 10). 73 Μηδείας μέμνηται ὅτι ἐν Κορίνθω κατῴκει καὶ ἔπαυσε Κορινθίους λιμῷ κατεχομένους θύσα69 Trans. 70 See

σα Δήμητρι καὶ νύμϕαις Λημνίαις. Ἐκει δὲ αὐτῆς ὁ Ζεὺς ἠράσθη, οὐκ ἐπείθετο δὲ ἡ Μὴδεια τὸν τῆς  Ἤρας ἐκκλίνουσα χόλον. διὸ καὶ  Ἤρα ὑπέσχετο αὐτῄ ἀθανάτους ποιῆσαι τοὺς παῖδας, ἀποθανόντας δὲ τούτους τιμῶσι Κορίνθιοι καλοῦντες μιξοβαράρους. Cited in Pache, Baby and Child Heroes, 11.

128

Laura Salah Nasrallah

many a parent might wish to enact: the immortalization of one’s child.74 This brief scholion not only absolves Medea, in a way, but also brings her story together with the vulnerability of children in antiquity and the cult of Demeter, evidenced on the Acrocorinth. We have already read of Medea’s witchcraft and her possible connection with Demeter, and we have learned of the vulnerability of Corinthian children. The themes of grief and of magic or witchery – and of children – continue as we investigate the cult of Demeter and Kore on the slope of the Acrocorinth (fig. 5). The mysteries associated with that cult seem to have included a remembrance of death and rebirth.75 Of course, Demeter herself in the famous Homeric Hymn to Demeter is well known to have mourned her own daughter, who had been snatched away by Hades/Pluto, and to have engaged in divine acts approaching witchcraft as she attempted to immortalize Demophon, the son of the king and queen of Eleusis, by placing him into a fire. (We saw hints that Medea tried some similar ritual of immortalization.)76 As he mounts the Acrocorinth, Pausanias mentions various sanctuaries,77 including one to Necessity and Force (καὶ Ἀνάγκης καὶ Βίας ἐστὶν ἱερόν), and “a temple of the Fates and of Demeter and (of) Kore” (Descr. 2.4.7).78 As one wends one’s way up the steep mountain overlooking Corinth proper to pay cult to Demeter and Kore, one passes by other gods associated with the mysteries (Isis, Egyptian cult), as well as powerful and hard to control divinities like Anank , Bia, and the Moirai. These latter are testaments to attempts to pay cult to the powers that violently and seemingly arbitrarily control human lives; they also echo some of the gods whom Medea invokes in the first lines of Seneca’s Medea.79 74 Ibid. “Both versions – Eumelos’s and the scholia – agree that Medea wants and hopes to make her children immortal. The attempt to immortalize implicitly becomes the cause of the children’s death.” Pache also mentions a scholion that claimed that the Corinthians paid Euripides to place upon Medea the responsibility for the murders (ibid., 11). 75 We know this from the famous Homeric Hymn to Demeter, from the popularity of the cult in the second century (especially in its primary site in Eleusis), and from scholarly attempts in the twentieth century to understand the religious experience of the ancients through the lens of the individual salvation offered by goddesses such as Demeter and Isis; see e.g. F. Cumont, After Life in Roman Paganism (Yale Silliman Memorial Lectures; New Haven: Yale University Press, 1922; repr. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias, 2002), 116. 76 These stories were reenacted into the Roman period at Eleusis, and, by the second century, initiation into the Eleusinian cult had become a popular pastime of emperors and elites. 77 He also mentions sanctuaries of Isis (2), Serapis (2), and an altar to Helios. 78 “naos and thronos of the Mother of the gods” (2.4.7). On the debate over the reconstruction of this passage, whether Pausanias should be read as indicating three separate temples, see N. Bookidis and R. Stroud, The Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore: Topography and Architecture (Corinth XVIII.3; Princeton, NJ: American School for Classical Studies, 1997), 3–4. 79 Hecate, the Manes, Pluto (Hades), Proserpina (Persephone or Kore), and the Furies

Grief in Corinth

129

By the time of Pausanias, there were three temples on the upper terrace at the Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore.80 One significant cultic change from the Hellenistic to the Roman period at the Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore involves the reuse of a former dining room on the Lower Terrace as the “Building of the Tablets,” as the archaeologists have named it.81 Ten defixiones, or lead tablets inscribed with curses, were found in the “building of the tablets,” disposed near the four bases or pedestals in the south of that room, and in a layer of floor that evidenced burning: some sort of ritual occurred here. A total of 17 defixiones have been found on the site, 16 in Greek. Language marked status in this new colony, at least in the epigraphic record; according to Benjamin Millis’s findings, Greek was largely used for graffiti and unofficial inscriptions; Latin for monumental.82 The defixiones (Erinyes) are all invoked within the first eighteen lines. Note however that Bookidis and Stroud reject that idea of chthonic associations with the Demeter Sanctuary at Corinth, and in a footnote rebuke DeMaris for trying to make this association (The Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore, 434); see DeMaris (“Corinthian Religion,” 667–70). 80 The earliest evidence we have of stand-alone Roman building at the site dates to ca. 77 C.E. when, perhaps after the earthquake of that year, three temples were erected on the Upper Terrace (Bookidis and Stroud, The Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore, 276). Floral and faunal remains continue into the Roman period, but the Hellenistic-period traditions of mass dining had died out (N. Bookidis et al., “Dining in the Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore at Corinth,” Hesperia 68. 1 [Jan.-Mar. 1999]: 1–54). Archaeological remains do not clearly reveal what went on in the Roman period at the Cult of Demeter and Kore, and lead the archaeologists to refuse to periodize events at the sanctuary between the first and fourth centuries C.E. Numismatic evidence does indicate, however, that there was some use of the sanctuary at the time of the writing of 1 Corinthians (Bookidis and Stroud, The Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore, 273–74). The cultic use of the three terraces shifted radically in the Roman period, for the Romans built over the Hellenistic dining couches so that their floors were often at the level where the couches used to be (ibid., 274). 81 The cult of Demeter and Kore on the Acrocorinth seems to have diminished between 146–44 B.C.E., after the sack of Mummius and before the reestablishing of Corinth as a Julian colony. Although there is no indication that the sanctuary sustained damage or was even looted by Mummius, Bookidis and Stroud state that it was still “obviously abandoned after the Romans withdrew,” and that only a “small handful” of objects relate to 146–44 B.C.E. In ca. 400 B.C.E., the period of time in which the cult is best attested, there were at least 36 dining rooms. Water and dry-sieving of floral and faunal remains from the Hellenistic period have revealed a preponderance of pig bones (p. 434), consonant with the traditional offerings to Demeter, and with clay votives of pigs discovered at Corinth, along with small terracotta statues of priestesses holding piglets (nearly 400 figurines). It is interesting that there was no significant difference discovered between the animal and legume remains discovered in the cultic context of sacrificial pits, and the dining area (Bookidis et al., “Dining in the Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore at Corinth,” 41–42). Humans ate what the gods were eating; and perhaps humans ate with the gods. 82 B. Millis (“The Social and Ethnic Origins of the Colonists in Early Roman Corinth,” in Corinth in Context: Comparative Perspectives on Religion and Society [eds. S. J. Friesen et al.; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2010], 13–36) has discovered in the epigraphic record at Corinth a distinction between Latin and Greek: Latin is used by elites for monumental inscriptions, most often, while Greek is found in graffiti and more modest grave inscriptions. This stands in contrast to a city like Ephesos, for example, where monumental inscriptions

130

Laura Salah Nasrallah

may be the deposits of the less than elite. The sanctuary of Demeter was an established site to deposit one’s curse tablets, one’s raw requests to the goddess(es) and gods.83 Three defixiones associated with one woman, Karpime Bab[b]ia, weaver of garlands (στεϕανηπλόκος), may be relevant to the topic of grief.84 One tablet (no. 7 in Stroud’s catalog) consigns this garland weaver to destruction, handing her over to the avenging gods and goddesses (θεοῖς ἀλειτηρίοι[ς] καὶ θεας ἀλει[τ]ηρίαις). Two further tablets (nos. 8 and 9),85 a continuous text attached by a nail, also consign Karpime Babbia to “the Fates to exact justice,” to Hermes, and to Ge. Ananke is called upon as well. We recall the profusion of powerful gods that Pausanias names as he mounts the Acrocorinth. What is particularly interesting, in view of the death of children in Corinth – whether Medea’s or the children’s bones from Fox’s study, is that this defixio implores Hermes of the underworld to make the commissioner of the magical spell fertile and to bring “monthly destruction” upon Karpime Babbia.86 were often in Greek or bilingual Latin-Greek. The writing and reading of the Corinthian correspondence in Greek thus may be significant as a marker of status. There were, however, some bilingual inscriptions; in addition, there is evidence of inscriptions in Greek or Latin that contain solecisms or syntax that reveals that the commissioner or the inscriber was “thinking” in the other language. On the resettlement of Corinth, see Engels, Roman Corinth, 16; see Concannon, “Ecclesia Laus Corinthiensis,” chap. 1 on bilingualism. 83 Much of the evidence from the Building of the Tablets dates from the late first to the second century. The “Building of the Tablets” had at least two phases in the Roman period, although Bookidis and Stroud are careful to say that the state of the site – lowest on the slope, and most subject to erosion and the consequences of plowing – does not offer clear enough evidence for the determination of multiple phases of use in the Roman period (The Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore, 277–83). Yet, in this Building of the Tablets, ten lead tablets or defixiones were found (Stroud, “Magical Tablets from the Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore on Acrocorinth,” 3), arranged in such a way that suggests that they were intentionally deposited on pedestals, in some ritual that involved burning, in this specific room. I am grateful to Professor Stroud for providing me an advanced copy of this work, which will become chapter 5 in the volume on the epigraphy of the Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore at Corinth, co-authored with Nancy Bookidis. The dating of these defixiones, and indeed of the use of the Demeter Sanctuary in the first fifty to seventy-five years of the first century C.E., is challenging to determine. One tablet can be securely dated before 70 C.E. (Stroud, “Magical Tablets,” 21l). 84 These three related tablets were found in the fill of the late second to early third century C.E. in the Building of the Tablets. We can reasonably assume that, despite their later date, they are part of a larger pattern of the leaving of magical tablets in the Roman period. 85 Tablets 8 and 9 again were part of a fill of the late second to early third century C.E., found under the tile floor in the south half of room 7 (the Building of the Tablets). Stroud understands these tablets to contain a continuous text, a reasonable assertion since the two oblong lead tablets were found rolled and pierced together by a nail. (Another iron nail pierced tablet 8 only.) 86 Stroud, “Magical Tablets,” 33–34. Stroud’s reading of this text as a curse that involves the fertility of the suppliant seems right; so too his understanding that the suppliant

Grief in Corinth

131

That children, wanted or unwanted, render one vulnerable is echoed by the chorus of Euripides’ Medea, which guides the audience to sympathize with Medea.87 From fourth-century Athens to some corners of the firstcentury Roman Empire, they sang: “This I say, that those who have never had children, who know nothing of it, in happiness have the advantage over those who are parents […] And those who have in their homes the sweet presence of children, I see that their lives Are all wasted away by their worries.88 First they must think how to bring them up well and How to leave them something to live on. . . For suppose you have found them enough for their living. Suppose that the children have grown into youth And have turned out good, still, if God so wills it, Death will away with your children’s bodies, And carry them off into Hades. What is our profit, then, that for the sake of mortals After all else This most terrible grief of all?”89 (Euripides Med. 1090–1115)90

wishes Karpime Babbia’s destruction to be complete, on the one hand, and to involve her reproductive organs, on the other. In addition, two tablets are inscribed for the destruction of Maximila Pontia, and at least one other (5) mentions Anagke in association with a lawsuit. In another very fragmentary tablet, Kyria Demetra dikia is mentioned, indicating another plea for justice, this one directed to Demeter herself. This theme of the vulnerability of children and of women of child-bearing age is hinted at in Seneca’s play, which, according to Nussbaum, locates Medea’s vulnerability to Jason not only in her unphilosophical rage against his new bride, but also in her own vulnerability to the possibility of pregnancy (Therapy of Desire, 442–51). 87 Euripides presents a Medea who is tortured by love of her children and hatred of her husband as she wavers over their fate. On the rhetorical effect of the Euripidean chorus’s and other characters’ oscillations, which alternately present Medea as a bad woman and a good one, see Sourvinou-Inwood, “Medea at a shifting distance.” 88 … οἷσι δὲ τέκνων ἔστιν ἐν οἴκοις

γλυκερὸν βλάστημ᾽, ἐσορῶ μελέτῃ κατατρυχομένους τὸν ἅπαντα χρόνον. 89 … εἰ δὲ κυρήσαι δαίμων οὕτω, ϕροῦδος ἐς Ἅιδην θάνατος προϕέρων σώματα τέκνων. πῶς οὖν λύει πρὸς τοῖς ἂλλοις τήνδ’ ἔτι λύπην ἀνιαροτάτην παίδων ἕνεκεν θνητοῖσι θεοὺς ἐπιβάλλειν.

132

Laura Salah Nasrallah

Even if these words were first performed in 431 B.C.E. in the context of another crisis, their concept had relevance in the first-century Roman world, as we see through Cicero’s use of a similar quotation from Euripides’ Hypsipyle.91 So too in Corinth itself the spells associated with Karpime Babbia perhaps allow us a glimpse at the grief surrounding children; namely, the desire to have children and to destroy another woman’s chance at the same, in a city marked by the death of real and mythic children and memorials to those deaths. 5. Grief in 1 Corinthians As New Testament scholar Steven Friesen has noted, we find little interest in Paul’s letters in children – and, I would add, dead or alive. We find the idea in 1 Corinthians 7 that those in the ekkl sia would take a higher path were they to avoid marriage and, presumably, its products. But we do find hints of grief in Paul’s letter to the Gentile ekkl sia at Corinth, written from Asia, probably Ephesos, between 52–55 C.E.92 A particularly interesting (and puzzling) passage regarding Corinthian responses to death is found at 1 Cor 15:29, where Paul mentions what seems to be a uniquely Corinthian ritual: οἱ βαπτιζόμενοι ὑπὲρ τῶν νεκρῶν, “those who baptize on behalf of the dead.” 93 90 The English translation is R. Warner in Euripides: The Complete Greek Tragedies, volume 1 (eds. D. Grene and R. Lattimore; Chicago: University of Chicago, 1955–59) 110–111; The Greek is from D. L. Page, Euripides Medea (Oxford: Clarendon, 1938). 91 Cicero Tusc. disp. 3.59: No mortal lives who is untouched by grief and sickness. Many have to bury children and bear new ones; death is ordained for all […].” See Graver, Cicero on the Emotions, 109. 92 Regarding children, see 1 Cor 7:14b. Throughout this first letter that we have from Paul to the Corinthians, there are hints of grief and death. For example, there is the (to modern scholars) odd threat that because some take the Lord’s supper unworthily, they have become weak and ill and have even died (11:30). To give another example, Paul and his fellow-apostles, under the pressure of this end time and of resistance to their message, become the walking dead; according to Paul they were displayed in spectacle before the cosmos and angels and humans ὡς ἐπιθανατίους (“condemned to death,” 4:9). 93 Conzelmann understands ὑπὲρ τῶν νεκρῶν to indicate “vicarious baptism,” that is, the living were baptized on behalf of the dead (1 Corinthians, 275). Conzelmann seems to be splitting hairs when he disagrees with the translation “for the sake of”; from what I understand of him, he and others agree that (see his use of Plato) the Corinthians are being baptized in order to effect something positive for the dead – what that something is remains unclear and is of course linked to the question of what exactly baptism did for the Corinthians. See J.A. Fitzmyer, First Corinthians (Anchor Yale Bible vol. 32; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), 578–79 for an excellent overview of the many interpretive options for this preposition, this ritual, and its possible theological-social meanings. Both Conzelmann and Fitzmyer use the terms “normal” or “normal sense” to refer to an interpretation of ὑπὲρ τῶν νεκρῶν as “on behalf of the dead”; i.e., this meaning makes sense of the usual use of hyper. Fitzmyer oddly concludes, however, that the use of baptizein here is not sacramental, but refers to a drowning or destruction. We have no reason to think this is a ritual instigated by Paul; we find no mention of anything similar in the Pauline letters,

Grief in Corinth

133

The Corinthian correspondence as a whole makes it clear that the Corinthians valued baptism highly (1 Cor 10:2, 12:13 [which includes a portion of the baptismal formula found in Gal 3:28: “Jews or Greeks, slaves or free”]),94 perhaps not only as an initiation rite, but also as one that marked one’s attachment to a particular apostle (1 Cor 1:13–17) and that marked the transition from death to new life within this life itself.95 Such a transition, some of the Corinthians thought, occurred within this life itself: baptism led them into a life now transformed by spirit in ways that Paul did not accept, such as their ways of prophesying and speaking in tongues.96 This passage about “baptism on behalf of the dead” is difficult to interpret. J. Z. Smith has suggested that all of 1 Corinthians should be understood in light of the possibility that the Corinthians understood gn sis and pneuma, wisdom and spirit, in terms of ancestral spirits, while Paul used such terms with a different frame of reference.97 Richard DeMaris has carried through with Smith’s proposal and found some explanation for such a ritual in non-Christian Corinthian death-rituals and cults concerning the dead, using evidence from graves at Corinth.98 Yet we have seen that the archaeological and literary record provides an even broader context for interpreting baptism on behalf of the dead and concerns about grief in the Corinthian correspondence. Paul discusses but does not condemn the ritual of baptism on behalf of the dead. Now if Christ is preached as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised […]. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised. Otherwise, what do people mean by being baptized on behalf of the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized on their behalf? and Paul himself reveals in 1 Corinthians 1–4 that the Corinthians had multiple teachers whose role in the Corinthian community coincided with and even predated Paul’s own. 94 Bapt‑ occurs ten times in 1 Cor, thrice in Rom (6:3–4), and once in Gal (3:27). 95 DeMaris, “Corinthian Religion,” 661–82. 96 On baptism effecting a “realized eschatology” among the Corinthians and concomitant social transformation, see Wire, Corinthian Women Prophets. 97 J. Z. Smith, “Re: Corinthians,” in Relating Religion: Essays in the Study of Religion (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), 349–50. 98 DeMaris (“Corinthian Religion”) and C. Thomas (“Placing the dead: funerary practice and social stratification in the early Roman period at Corinth and Ephesos,” in Urban Religion in Roman Corinth) both point to a crossroads in burial rituals in the first century C.E.: evidence for both inhumation (Greek) and cremation (Roman) were found at that time. DeMaris connects this “crisis” to baptism on behalf of the dead in the Corinthian ekkl sia, and says that after the second century C.E., when death practices stabilized, baptism on behalf of the dead must have ended (thus there is no ongoing conversation about it) (“Corinthian Religion,” 273). Thomas instead sees a struggle over ethnic identity among elites.

134

Laura Salah Nasrallah

Εἰ δὲ Χριστὸς κηρύσσεται ὅτι ἐκ νεκρῶν ἐγήρεται, πῶς λέγουσιν ἐν ὑμῖν τινες ὅτι ἀνάστασις νεκρῶν οὐκ ἔστιν; εἰ δὲ ἀνάστασις νεκρῶν οὐκ ἔστιν, οὐδὲ Χριστὸς ἐγήγερται· […] εἰ γὰρ νεκροὶ οὐκ ἐγείρονται, οὐδὲ Χριστὸς ἐγήγερται. . . . Ἐπεί τί ποιήσουσιν οἱ βαπτιζόμενοι ὑπὲρ τῶν νεκρῶν; εἰ ὄλως νεκροὶ οὐκ ἐγείρονται, τί καὶ βαπτίζονται ὑπὲρ αὐτῶν; (1 Cor 15:12–13, 16, 29–30a)

Paul uses the Corinthian rite of baptism on behalf of the dead as evidence to argue strongly for the resurrection of all the dead. 1 Corinthians 15 is characterized by a series of implicit and explicit questions about resurrection which Paul frames and then sets out to answer. In verses 12–19 he introduces what he states is his main concern: to answer those who question the resurrection of the dead (12). He does so in two parts. First, he argues that there must be a resurrection of the (general) dead because Christ has been raised from the dead. For Paul, Christ’s death is paradigmatic of what seems to be an issue more pressing on his mind and the Corinthians’: everyone else’s resurrection. The tension raised in the query of verse 12 (is there a resurrection of the dead?) is resolved in verses 20–28, where Paul answers in the positive the question of whether Christ has been raised from the dead. He describes Christ’s role as “first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep” (20), as an inauguration of a larger, even eschatological (24), victory over death.99 Yet in verse 29 Paul launches a second proof to the question of whether there is a resurrection of the dead, perhaps one more convincing to the Corinthians: he adduces the truth of the resurrection of the dead from a ritual of “being baptized on behalf of the dead.” The lack of commentary on the ritual indicates that it is something with which the Corinthians were familiar, and, indeed, practiced; the lack of mention of this practice elsewhere in earliest in-Christ literature makes challenging our attempts to gain a broader picture of this ritual. As proof of the reality of the resurrection, Paul points not only to this ritual, but also his own perilous situation: “every hour we are in danger” he insists (30–32). Paul’s immediate emphasis on the constancy of his own dangerous practice implies that baptism on behalf of the dead is also a frequent ritual for the Corinthians, perhaps like other Corinthian rituals for the dead. We find a chamber tomb in Corinth from the Roman period that has evidence of funerary meals eaten within it; altars in a tomb where burnt remains on top indicate some sort of sacrificial use; vessels for carrying food or drink, placed around or above the body of 99 1

Corinthians 15:28 provides a triumphant ending to the argument that the logic of Christ’s resurrection should put to rest any questions about the resurrection of the dead: the Son has subjected all things to himself, including the last enemy, which is death (26), and the Son is subject to God. Indeed, from much of early Christian literature it seems that Christ’s death and resurrection were less interesting than – or a prototype for – the average Christian’s own resurrection.

Grief in Corinth

135

the dead, or even of a hole above the skull, where libations should be poured down for the dead.100 Paul implies that the practice of baptism on behalf of the dead or of keeping oneself willingly proximate to death has ethical implications. Those who differ from him or from those who baptize might say, in an Epicurean vein, “If the dead are not raised, ‘let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die’” (32).101 Some such unethical folk (by implication, among the Corinthians) have no knowledge, Paul accuses; they are agn sian of God (34; cf. 1 Thess 4:13). Paul then continues by inventing the foolish person (36) who asks the question: “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” (35), and concludes the subject with verses that echo his treatment of the topic of death and resurrection in response to the grief of the Thessalonian community. “In order that you might not grieve” (ἵνα μὴ λυπῆσθε, 1 Thess 4:13), Paul describes the sound of the last trumpet (1 Cor 15:52; 1 Thess 4:16) and raising of the dead (1 Cor 15:52; 1 Thess 4:16). Paul explains that the body can transform from perishable to imperishable, from dishonor to glory, from weakness to power, from psychikon (a soul person, we might say) to pneumatikon (spiritual person). Paul describes himself and those to whom he writes as upwardly mobile, awaiting a move toward the heavens (2 Cor 12:2 for Paul, or 1 Thess 4:16–17 for all in Christ), and as awaiting transformation and metamorphosis.102 By the time he writes 2 Corinthians 4–5, Paul takes a different tack, describing human bodies as “earthen vessels” or an “earthly tent” (5:1) that groan and await transformation, and noting that he himself (but not the Corinthians, it seems) carries within himself “the death of Jesus” (4:10). Death and transformation continued to be topics of interest for the Corinthian community, as did grief and comfort.103 1 Corinthians is shot through with expectations of an imminent “day” and its judgment (e.g., 1 Cor 3:11–15, 4:5). Paul, if not the Corinthian community, wants this imminent day as well as the common philosophical approaches of the time to transform the very social and ethical fabric of 100 See

details in Walbank, “Unquiet Graves.” argues that the excellence of those in Christ can be compromised by those who think unethically (33); and Paul brings home this charge by sounding again a familiar refrain from earlier in 1 Corinthians. The root chr st‑ will soon become a homophone and pun for Christians’ own goodness in the world; see e.g. L. Nasrallah, Christian Responses to Roman Art and Architecture: The Second-Century Church Amid the Spaces of Empire (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), chap. 4. 102 On such “upward mobility” see M. Johnson-DeBaufre’s new work. On similarities between 1 Thessalonians and 1 Corinthians, see A. Malherbe, The Letters to the Thessalonians (Anchor Bible vol. 32B; New York: Doubleday, 2000). 103 On the latter cf. n. 6 above. Consider also the crucifixion of Christ as central image of death in 1 Corinthians. 101 He

136

Laura Salah Nasrallah

the new ekkl sia, so that grief, rejoicing, marital relations, and presumably children, are erased under pressure of the kairos: “I mean, brothers,104 the kairos (or time) has grown very short; from now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no goods, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the form of this world is passing away.” Τοῦτο δέ ϕημι, ἀδελϕοί, ὁ καιρὸς συνεσταλμένος ἐστίν· τὸ λοιπόν, ἵνα καὶ οἱ ἔχοντες γυναῖκας ὡς μὴ ἔχοντες ὦσιν καὶ οἱ κλαίοντες ὡς μὴ κλαίοντες καὶ οἱ χαίροντες ὡς μὴ χαίροντες καὶ οἱ ἀγοράζοντες ὡς μὴ κατέχοντες, καὶ οἱ χρώμενοι τὸν κόσμον ὡς μὴ καταχρώμενοι· παράγει γὰρ το σχῆμα τοῦ κόσμου τούτου. (7:29–31)

With this contraction (sustell ) of time,105 and with the passing away of the form of the world, Paul articulates what some have seen as a possible Stoic detachment.106 Certainly, Stoic writers had debated the worth of marriage to the wise man, and the relative merits of poverty or wealth, political engagement or its opposite, for the philosophical person.107 This idea of living “as not” – or philosophically cultivated indifference – is of course echoed not only in Stoic literature like Epictetus, but also in the perhaps first-century 4 Ezra, a text which at its core seems to be Jewish.108 We need not choose between a Stoic or Jewish eschatological “background” for Paul’s statements “as not” in 1 Corinthians 7. The method of my chapter has instead pressed us to look at the Corinthian context: What 104 Here I think we have to translate the potentially gender-inclusive adelphoi as brothers, rather than brothers and sisters; Paul seems to assume a male audience in these instructions, even if elsewhere he acknowledges the power of Corinthian women who are praying and prophesying. 105 See the idea of “messianic time” in G. Agamben, The Time that Remains: A Commentary on the Letter to the Romans (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2005), esp. 19–43, 59–87, and his use of J. Taubes on messianism (The Political Theology of Paul [Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004]). 106 But see Conzelmann consider this and abandon it (1 Corinthians, 133–34). 107 D. L. Balch, “1 Cor 7:32–35 and Stoic Debates about Marriage Anxiety, and Distraction,” JBL 101.3 (Sept. 1983): 429–39. 108 See 4 Ezra 16:40–46 (trans. J. H. Charlesworth, ed., The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, vol. 1: Apocalyptic Literature and Testaments [Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1983], 558): “Hear my words, O my people; prepare for battle, and in the midst of the calamities be like strangers on the earth. Let him that sells be like one who will flee; let him that buys be like one who will lose; let him that does business be like one who will not make a profit; and let him that builds a house be like one who will not live in it; let him that sows be like one who will not reap; so also him that prunes the vines, like one who will not gather the grapes; them that marry, like those who will have no children; and them that do not marry, like those that are widowed. Because those who labor, labor in vain; for strangers shall gather their fruits, and plunder their goods, and overthrow their houses, and take their children captive; for in captivity and famine they will beget their children.”

Grief in Corinth

137

are the conditions in which such an injunction neither to rejoice nor to mourn, and to avoid marriage (and its products: the satisfaction of desire, and possibly children) might have been received? Certainly, Paul’s idea of the shortening of time is sketched quickly in 1 Corinthians; certainly, the Corinthians seem to have understood themselves as possessing wisdom and knowledge and charismata that were perhaps the product of the end of an age. And, certainly, Stoic philosophy was popular and popularized in the first-century world. All these are contexts for the Corinthian reception of Paul’s words. But we can also wonder about the impact of this phrasing on the Corinthians, who lived in an environment of busy marketing and maritime trade, the joyous attainment of high office even for ex-slaves and thus the vulnerability of freedmen to both status and its loss, and a high rate of death for children, to pick up on what Cicero thought were the typical topics that fell under the theme of grief. It is certainly clear from the correspondence in 2 Corinthians that those in the Corinthian ekkl sia did not uniformly accept or appreciate Paul’s earlier communications – including the letter we have as 1 Corinthians. Hearing of the contraction of kairos, those in the Corinthian community who felt themselves to be upwardly mobile, trading on the opportunities of the new Roman colony, may have rejected Paul’s injunction to live as if not rejoicing, as if not participating in the commerce for which the city was famous. Or they and others, pressed by the griefs of infant mortality or perhaps by their ongoing slavery, might see continued mourning as a fine and legitimate response, even as they hoped for the impending end of time. 6. Conclusions Paul takes up the topic of death in his letters for his own reasons – to explain his understanding of the imminent eschaton, or to ruminate on the significance of the resurrection of the dead and of the body. But Paul also takes up the topic of death because the communities to which he writes are concerned with the problem and because they are already dealing with it in their own ways. As we have seen, many griefs pooled within the topography of Corinth, a city used as a sign of grief and destruction in the Roman period: Palaimon from the sea at Isthmia; Demeter and Kore from the Acrocorinth; Glauke in the well below; Medea and her children and the image of Terror nearby, in the city center. Osteoarchaeological evidence hints at a high rate of child death in Corinth in the Roman period. The place of Corinth – and moving around that small and particular space, as well as its outlying regions in Isthmia and Perachora – would have re-shaped those many diverse peoples who had moved to this maritime city. I have argued in this essay that we

138

Laura Salah Nasrallah

should interpret references to grief and death in 1 Corinthians in the context of the communities at Corinth.109 This context of grief likely formed the traditions that the Corinthian ekkl sia in Christ engaged, traditions that predated Paul: baptism on behalf of the dead. This baptism emerged out of a context encysted with the griefs over dead children and memorializations of mythic grief. Baptism, it seems, for the Corinthians ushered in a new way of living, a new status that rendered them pneumatikoi. Paul sought to constrain these pneumatika or spiritual gifts: in 1 Corinthians 13, he defers certain kinds of knowledge and glory to a distant future. The Corinthian ekkl sia, in contrast, may have been transformed from death to life in their new statuses in Christ, and would reasonably have wanted to bring such present transformation to their (many) dead.110

109 Butler wonders whether “loss becomes a condition and necessity for a certain sense of community, where community does not overcome the loss, where community cannot overcome the loss without losing the very sense of itself as community, and if we say this second truth about the place where belonging is possible, then pathos is not negated, but it turns out to be oddly fecund, paradoxically productive” (“Afterword,” Loss: The Politics of Mourning [ed. D. L. Eng and D. Kazanjian; Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004], 468). We have hints of the prevalence of loss and grief in Corinth broadly, and of Paul’s offering of a theological and temporal-historical answer to that grief that abolishes it entirely. The eschatological approaches of many of those earliest communities in Christ offered a different temporal-spatial imagining of the cosmos. Yet, even in a community perhaps marked by a “negated” and yet “productive” pathos – Butler’s words, but something we also see in 1 Corinthians 7 –, we can wonder whether “[w]hatever is produced from this condition of loss will bear the trace of loss […] .” (ibid.). We could even think about eschatological thinking as in part a temporal-spatial reaction to concrete conditions that are grief-producing (as in Cicero’s list of the typical suspects: death, poverty, injury, exile). See Butler on Benjamin, eschatology, and history (p. 469). 110 Grief, it seems, continued to be a topic between Paul and the Corinthians; in the letter fragment we have in 2 Corinthians 7, we find Paul employing some of the typical vocabulary of Greek philosophical and consolatory texts to talk about his sorrows and the Corinthians. Their grieving, he insists, turns to repentance; here he enters into the philosophical debate over whether grief and the movements of the passions that it produces can sometimes be a good thing that produces philosophical correction in the individual (Margaret Graver, Stoicism and Emotion [Chicago: University of Chicago, 2007], chap. 9 [interpreting Cicero et al.]). As in 1 Thessalonians 4, Paul here seeks to differentiate those in Christ who grieve from the broader griefs of the world: ἡ γὰρ κατὰ θεὸν λύπη μετάνοιαν εἰς σωτηρίαν ἀμεταμέλητον ἐργάζεται· ἡ δὲ τοῦ κόσμου λύπη θάνατον κατεργάζεται (“For godly grief works toward a philosophical turning toward salvation, that will not cause future regret or turning [ametamel ton], but worldly grief produces death”; 2 Cor 7:10). This vocabulary of destruction echoes the verbs of the curse spells found at the Demeter Sanctuary; katergazomai is used in both cases (but with no direct object in the spells, thus it means “to kill” in the spells, compared to Paul’s use, where it means “to produce,” in this case death).

Grief in Corinth

139

Captions of figures Fig. 1: Map of Corinth and its ports of Lechaion and Kenchreai, as well as the diolkos for dragging ships and goods across the isthmus. Courtesy of the Harvard New Testament Archaeology Project and with thanks to Brad Bannon. Fig. 2: Plan, Corinth City Center. Courtesy of the Harvard New Testament Archaeology Project. See Koester et al., Cities of Paul, Fortress Press. Fig. 3: Remains of the Fountain of Glauke, looking to the south. © The President and Fellows of Harvard University; courtesy of the Harvard New Testament Archaeology Project and Helmut Koester. Fig. 4: Roman sarcophagus of the mid-second century C.E. Pergamon Museum of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin – Preussischer Kulturbesitz. Antikensammlung, acquisition number Sk 843b. Author’s photograph. Fig. 5: View south to the Acrocorinth from the Asklepieion. Author’s photograph.

Rhetorical Inventio and the Expectations of Roman Continuous Narrative Painting Eleanor Winsor Leach For persons engaged in the study of Roman painting with a particular orientation toward its figurative manifestations, the second century C.E. opens a frustrating void, especially in comparison with the riches of the Campanian cities, Pompeii and Herculaneum. Rationally we know that the eruption of Vesuvius that sealed off our corpus in C.E. 79 is an accidental terminus beyond which house owners would certainly have continued to commission wall decorations in those cities as they no doubt will have done in many places that excavations have not brought to light. Unfortunately the excavations that have been made both in Rome and in Ostia have yielded primarily sites from later periods, and also have not found their walls in such a state of preservation as to reach the level at which figure panels would have been located.1 Into the hiatus come literary texts, the Imagines or Eikones of the Elder Philostratus in two books, written about the middle third century and the one book of his grandson, Philostratus the Younger, dated to about C.E. 300. Both books are made up of literary descriptions of paintings within the rhetorical tradition of ekphrasis. The first of these declares itself a written script based upon performance; the second is more overtly a written emulation of the first. Both texts are in Greek, the preferred language of that sophisticated verbal art culture known as the “second Sophistic” whose practitioners traveled with honorific reception the Mediterranean world giving both lectures and lessons. In the introduction to his collection, the Elder Phi1 For a painted complex found on the site of the Stazione termine in Rome, R. Paris, Antiche Stanze: un Quartiere di Roma Imperiale nella Zone di termine (Milan: Mondadori, 1996); for a survey of extant survivals in Rome see E. W. Leach, The Social Life of Painiting in Ancient Rome and on the Bay of Naples. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). For the few completely preserved walls at Ostia see S. Falcone, Ornata Aedificia: Pitture parietale dalle case ostiensi (Rome: Libreria dello Stato, 2007); for the complete rooms, mainly lacking figure paintings, in the “terraced houses” at Ephesus, N. Zimmermann and S. Ladstätter, Wandmalerei in Ephesus von hellenistischer bis in byzantinische Zeit (Vienna: Phoibus Verlag, 2010).

142

Eleanor Winsor Leach

lostratus describes his work as a combination of these modes. It is a model set of demonstrations based upon a purported visit to a gallery of paintings located on the terraces of a villa on the Bay of Naples. The rhetor praises painting as the most accomplished among the arts of imitation because of the distinctions it creates of light and of shade, because of the specificity of its colors capable of all manner of material representations, but especially for the way that it allows the observer to recognize both character and emotion from the look. Two counters of objectivity we may say and one of subjective interpretation. But interpretation is what the rhetor claims as the purpose of the discourse whose instructive feature is not to be the conventional giving of factual information on the identities and lives of the painters, but description through which the hearers may learn the techniques of appreciating and interpreting works of art. To this end the introduction incorporates its own cast of audience characters appropriately devoted both to rhetoric and to the arts. Given, however, the well-established form of exercise represented by the descriptions, the contemporary student of Roman painting will inevitably ask the question: is it truth or fiction? Since the 1503 Venetian edition of the Elder Philostratus’ Imagines brought this series of ekphrastic exercises to attention, there have been primarily two methods of approaching the question of truth or fiction and of understanding the import of the work for classical culture: the older one centered upon the particulars of description as a putative record of actual paintings seen by the rhetor, the other upon the processes of describing as a window into ancient spectatorship and the reception of works of art. The first and by far the older approach as witnessed by the illustrated edition of 1578 were attempts at the retranslation of verbal details into visual images, which, having been undertaken far in advance of any actual discoveries of real painting, was hopelessly misguided in its notion of composition but in itself interesting.2 Implied here and by far the most common concept of interpretation is the simple belief that the description, being based upon actual paintings that the rhetor himself saw and in whose presence he may have composed his explanations, is an actual record of real works of art with which, give or take, our known repertory of subjects may be compared. But very few exact parallels have emerged from such comparisons. As a footnote or subscript to the assumption is the effort first launched by Goethe but later elaborated by Karl Lehmann to divide and distribute by thematic categories the subjects of the paintings so as to create, reconstructively, the facsimile of an actual gallery.3 This concept involved a hierarchy of subjects 2 Blaise di Vigenère, trans. 1578. Philostrate: Les Images (Facsimile rpt. New York: Garland Press, 1976). 3 K. Lehmann, “The Imagines of the Elder Philostratus,” Art Bulletin 23 (1941): 16–44.

Rhetorical Inventio

143

and sizes, curiously true to the fact that actual subjects themselves came in large or small sizes, but misguided in laying out so many panels or quadri within the confines of single rooms in the manner of a nineteenth century museum gallery, and in the total neglect of the design contexts that would have adapted paintings, were they real and not fictive to their architectural housings. Somewhat in reaction to, but certainly quite opposite to this positivistic approach to the paintings is that of contemporary post-structuralist art historians, notably Norman Bryson4 and Jas Elsner5 for whom the descriptions become not a record of any existing paintings, but rather a source of insight onto the mentality of receptive viewing from which we may take some notion of how the ancient spectator might understand his experience of art. Yet, given that our viewers are celebrated practitioners of that educational and performative school of rhetoric known as second sophistic, their descriptions perhaps are as revealing of invention as of representation. Compositions in continuous narrative might be seen as the area where articulated viewing and composition come together. In a series of recent studies Francesca Ghedini has proposed a compositional typology that singles out a set of some eleven descriptions within the category of continuous narrative.6 My own evaluation questions continuity in a few of these, but adds others. All the same, whatever the count these examples do not ostensibly coincide with our repertoire of known continuous narratives. Even among these there is variation as to whether the duplicate actions unfold within a framework containing one single setting or two stages. Because the reading process is what I want mainly to discuss, I will first define the form by examination of some of these paintings to see what a viewer must contribute to make them meaningful. The distinguishing characteristic of the genre is the persistence of one and the same character within a single framework or framed setting in more than one represented action – as few as two, as many as three, although the framework may itself contain more actions than this. The combination occurs within one single setting of multiple episodes from a single myth, generally with repeated representations of one and the same character. This is to say that frieze representations that tell their stories by a linear succession of episodes or events are not continuous narratives. Rather they assume a 4 N. Bryson, “Philostratus and the Imaginary Museum,” in Art and Text in Ancient Greek Culture (ed. J. Elsner, Cambridge: University Press, 1994), 255–283. 5 J. Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer: The Transformation of Art from the Pagan World to Christianity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 29. 6 F. Ghedini, “Filostrato Maggiore come fonte per la conoscenza della Pittura Antica,” Ostraka 9.1 (2000): 175–195; F. Ghedini, “Le Immagine di Filostrato il Vecchio fra esercitazione retorica e realità,” in Studi Archaeologia in onore di G. Traversari (ed. M. Fano, Rome: Santi, 2004).

144

Eleanor Winsor Leach

coordination of time and space, as for example a painted frieze from the Esquiline that presents the founding of Rome from the building of Lavinium to the maturity of Romulus and Remus,7 or the more famous series of panels, also from the Esquiline depicting a succession of scenes from Homer’s Odyssey in landscape settings that change with the progress of the action.8 Certainly this is a more traditional manner of story-telling with allusions to epic and to historical time/space coordination. In continuous narrative the compression of space makes the temporal connection less certain and raises questions about the order in which scenes are to be read, or whether there is indeed any order at all, which, of course increases the amount of information that the viewer must bring to the narrative. The Pompeian fluorescence of continuous narrative occurs during the period that we call Third Style, commonly assigned to the mid-Augustan through early Julio Claudian eras, from about 20 B.C.E. to 20 C.E. give or take.9 This is a period when the scale of architectural framing becomes more attenuated, requiring viewers to stand close and look closely, which is, incidentally what Horace must be referring to when he says ut pictura poesis – some pictures can be viewed from a distance and others must be seen close at hand. Within these decorative wall schemes the framed image itself is just coming into fashion; these are what I call picture gallery rooms (fig. 1), and the Pompeian examples of continuous narrative from this period are most likely to be the products of one single painters’ workshop, or perhaps one workshop and its imitators, since some examples are derived from others. But what this class of paintings does feature, as will be seen momentarily, is a landscape ambience with irregular terrain, rock formations, trees or foliage and very often animal pasturage. The figures are slight, their emotions indicated by gesture rather than by facial expression, and the actions are often arranged around a central man-placed object in the nature of a shrine with a cult deity, although other buildings may be included. As a component of the natural ambience, I perceive in some instances the arched opening of a cavern usually on the right hand side. But the central object can also be a crag. Attention goes first to the center, but this is not always where the repeated personage is located, so the viewer’s challenge is how to construct a temporal sequence by moving out to the sides.

7 See ROMA: Romolo, Remo e la Fondazione della città (eds. A. Carandini and R. Cappeli; Milan: Electa, 2000), figs. on pp. 161, 216–17. 8 P. H. v Blanckenhagen, “The Augustan Villa at Boscotrecase,” in The Paintings from Boscotrecase (2nd ed.; eds. Joan R. Mertens and C. Faltermeir; MDAIR Suppl. 6, Heidelberg; Mainz, P. von Zabern, 1990). 9 E. W. Leach, The Rhetoric of Space: Representations of Landscape in Republican and Augustan Literature and Art (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), 309–360.

Rhetorical Inventio

145

So in Perseus and Andromeda,10 there are two figures of Perseus but only one Andromeda. On the left the winged hero arrives, and below him the sea monster also is coming on. On the right the hero has alighted and extends his hand to a robed elderly figure. At the right base of the cliff a female figure is seated. But what comes first, and what is omitted? According to the familiar course of the story, Perseus will have two meetings with Andromeda’s father, in the first of which he strikes a pact for the maiden’s hand as the reward of her rescue, and the second in which he claims his prize. But this second action takes place with the monster dead and the princess released from her chains and also entails complications since, in fact, Andromeda has already been promised to another royal suitor not ready to relinquish his claim. Logically then the story begins with Perseus’ arrival, fast forwards to the bargain with the king, fast forwards again across the screen to the hero about to descend on the monster. What then? And who are the figures at the base of the cliff? If we see Andromeda’s mother, Cassiopeia, rashly bragging to the sea-nymphs of her surpassing beauty, then really the story begins here, since this is the mistake that brings on the monster in the first place. Now, if we look at the knock-off (fig. 2), whose figure drawing does clearly indicate a different painterly hand, not much has changed, yet the differences could be significant. The unidentified women have multiplied, and may even be conversing with each other; the hero has moved closer to the monster, and the group of figures in the king’s retinue has increased. How many stages here? This image formed part of an ensemble of which only one pendant painting was recovered, although there was most likely a third. Our Boscotrecase Polyphemus11 has two stages (fig. 10) with the central figure of Polyphemus repeated and with little uncertainty about time, the order of events, but now the space of the painting has compressed a literary order that, since the dominant scene presents an episode we know from Hellenistic mythology, the passion of the Cyclops for the sea-nymph Galatea; the second scene is the recognizably unhappy conclusion of Odysseus’ visit to Polyphemus, with an intervening change from sentimental lover to savage brute now blinded and with a belly-full of Odyssian comrades. Like its pendant Perseus panel (fig. 3), the Polyphemus subject has a repeat version, a part of the same collection of four. Here the knock-off painting has actually dropped the continuous element more or less to leave conjecture to the viewer. Paintings of Daedalus and Icarus, one of which is in this same collection (fig. 4), have less ambiguity, showing two moments of Icarus’ catastrophe, his fall with melted wings and his fallen body, with Daedalus hovering between. 10 Blanckenhagen, 11 Blanckenhagen,

“Bosco Trecase,” Plate 43. “Bosco Trecase,” Plate 42, 44.

146

Eleanor Winsor Leach

But given the presence of spectator figures here who invite viewer entry into the story, we can ask what is amazing them, the plunging body or simply the image of a man in flight. However there is much more ambiguity and opportunity for the viewer’s intervention in the very extensive corpus of Actaeon paintings, just as there is in the implications of the story itself (fig. 5). One set has its central focus on the place from which Actaeon views the goddess and in a posture that seems very deliberate, but in another the center, or almost center, is the action of Actaeon’s being attacked by his dogs. In all of these paintings Actaeon appears at least twice, but in this one we see him three times, raising definite questions about where the story begins. Equally uncertain is the identity of the spectator figure close to a small temple on the right. In almost all versions there is a man-made feature, certainly adding semantic value to a story of a civilized encounter with the wild. My final example here is the least ambiguous in the order of its storytelling and so perhaps the most suggestive concerning the background from which the representation comes to the myth (figs. 6–7).12 The little group on the right identifies the representation as Dirce bound to a bull. For the whole story we can look to poems of Propertius, but also a short summary in the mythological compendium of Hyginus (Fabulae 7–8) identified as a plot line from the tragedy Antiope of Pacuvius, very popular both during and after its time, as multiple references in Roman writers attest. In its turn, this drama is a make-over of a tragedy by Euripides, whose most famous scene, presumably reproduced in Pacuvius, was a debate between the two brothers Zethus and Amphion between the active and the contemplative life. For Cicero the debate concerns physical activity vs. music, which is why the story ends, as we see it here, with the figure of Amphion playing his lyre, from which harmony stones come together to build the walls of Thebes. This narrative has no room for the debate, but the figures of the brothers are clear, as they seize Queen Dirce, who has come to the shrine of Dionysus, seen center, with a troupe of Maenads, but in pursuit of Antiope, their mother who was the originally intended victim for the bull. It should not escape us that this final scene is a messenger scene, but not necessarily the entrance of the Maenads; and the solitary figure with flocks in the upper left corner is in all likelihood the old shepherd who rescued the exposed twins and reared them, so that the same personage, recognizable dressed in working man’s costume, is coming on to let the boys know that Dirce’s victim is their mother. So this image is actually my key to the suggestion that 12 E. W. Leach, “The Punishment of Dirce: A Newly Discovered Painting in the Casa di Giulio Polibio and its Significance within the Visual Tradition,” MDAIR 93 (1986): 158–182; Pls. 49–59.

Rhetorical Inventio

147

many continuous narratives invoke theatrical productions as the enabling source that allows viewers to recognize and recreate the myths. Whether such recognition would go beyond mere factual identification of the figures is another question. For Pompeian paintings some scholars have proposed that a simple thematic grouping of pictures is a principle of selection, which would involve some sense of the content of stories on the commissioners’ or the painters’ part  – presumably both. Naturally this principle applies to, and has been applied to mythological images, not exclusively continuous narrative. I myself have thought that compositional similarities within an ensemble might spur the viewer’s discursive experience (see fig. 1). But with the retirement of the workshop and a major shift in the compositional preference to large-scale paintings depicting a single dramatic moment, the occurrence of continuous narrative diminishes. Now to turn to some literary embodiments of art works whose descriptions invite us to become vicarious viewers. Until the time of the Second Sophistic, these descriptions tend to observe the linearity of frieze composition on the model of the Odyssey landscapes. Such spatially indicated sequence seems to be the pattern of two major ekphaseis in the Aeneid 1.453–57, the Trojan war scenes on the temple of Juno in Carthage and the more objectively presented scenes at the Temple of Apollo carved by Daedalus. Of course the shield of Aeneas, whose compositional structure, like that of Achilles’ shield, defies recreation, is made up of juxtaposed scenes, as are the tapestries woven by the contending Arachne and Minerva in Books five and six of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Furthermore, these really are depictions, not narratives, with the full stories merely indicated, save for Minerva’s image which clearly alludes to and replicates the contest for the naming of Athens on the Parthenon pediment. The one single extended narrative in ekphrasis is that of Catullus’ short epic-like poem whose framing subject is the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, a complex and very visual poem in which the formal artworks description focuses upon a figurative tapestry that highlights the wedding couch in a most ambivalent way. Its “wondrous art” depicts the story of Ariadne shown in two episodes, the first when she discovers that Theseus has deserted her, and the second when Dionysus discovers her and descends to her rescue with a full complement of wild followers. Strictly speaking, this composition also is not a continuous narrative, but a narrative juxtaposition of two parts of the story in two areas of the tapestry; yet it takes on a narrative modality from the fact that Ariadne tells her own story, past and present, to weave a history both in space and in time.13 13 For recent discussions see E. Theodorakoupolos, “Catullus 64: Footprints in the Labyrinth,” in Intertextuality: Greek and Roman Textual Relations (ed. A. Sharrock and H. Morales, Oxford: University Press, 2000), 115–142.

148

Eleanor Winsor Leach

While the narrative opens with her figure standing frozen, like a stone Bacchante, at the edge of the shore, she soon becomes a mobile figure in her own words, as she details the sequence of her actions as she,upon waking, and discovering herself deserted, climbs the island’s rocks to spy Theseus’ departing ship?. In the unseen distance is Crete as the home of her innocent childhood and the act of betrayal on Theseus’ behalf. Athens is also in the distance as we see Theseus’ parting promises to his father, making him through forgetfulness doubly treacherous. But, still unseen by the heroine from another part of the tapestry, Dionysus is arriving, full force with his cortege of wild Maenads, brandishing not only thyrsoi, but the torn-apart limbs of a calf, with snakes twisted about their bodies and with horns and cymbals making an horrendous amount of noise. No such doubly episodic composition exists in painting. Indeed there is no painting that depicts a solitary Ariadne awake and fully aware of her desertion, although several show her in the act of recognition or being awakened by some divinity (fig. 8). Images of a sleeping figure are of two kinds; a few with Theseus surreptitiously boarding ship, and others with Bacchus’ approach to her in this state (fig. 9). In both types the heroine’s posture might seem to echo that of the Vatican Ariadne statue. But in these paintings the god comes on with his retinue in a most decorous manner, very different from the disorderly rout that Catullus describes, as in fact seen in Titian’s depiction of the scene which has to be based on the poet’s description. Is this a happy ending? Although the brilliant pictorialism of this tapestry leaves readers with the sense of having somewhere seen it, it is not necessarily the narrator’s own spectatorship that constructs our experience for, no sooner has he entered into the consciousness of Ariadne than her articulated words preempt the tale, until we arrive at the second episode where the voice returns to describe the Dionysiac rout.14 Still because of its emotional freight and excitement, not to mention the vivid details of the pictures, it comes closest of all Roman ekphraseis to Philostratus’ manner of making a picture. Philostratus does indeed include an Ariadne within his gallery, and she is one of those still sleeping before the eyes of Dionysus in a description that comes closest to correspondence with our known picture types. But now let me return to Philostratus’ construction of viewing. Most literary ekphraseis have, in addition to the knowing narrator, a narrative viewer who may possibly interpret the art-works with a potential by-standing third intelligence to receive the interpretation, as Aeneas’ 14 J. Elsner, “Ekphrasis and the Gaze: Ariadne in Pompeii,” in Through Roman Eyes: Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text (ed. J. Elsner; Oxford: University Press, 2007), 91–109.

Rhetorical Inventio

149

comrade Achates receives without comment Aeneas’ summary response to the Trojan paintings at Carthage; but in the Imagines the narrator controls interpretation and also selects his hearers. Speaking in his own persona as lecturer, Philostratus addresses a two-fold audience consisting, on the one hand, of a group of young men, Neapolitan dwellers, who have been following his lecture circuit around the city, and a ten year-old boy, son of his host in the villa to which the pictures belong. The combination provides two levels of comprehension. While the literate young disciples can be considered familiar with the myths represented, the boy may need further information. He is, as the introduction specifies, a good listener, and his education will occasionally come into play. Placing the boy in front of the group, the rhetor professes to direct his interpretive efforts toward him, inviting the older listeners either to agree or to ask questions about what may not be clear. In fact these young men “eager for words” are themselves in a position to study and acquire technique. A part of this technique is the allegedly impromptu nature of the ekphrasis – an important aspect of Second Sophistic discourse – although paradoxical in pieces being transmitted in written form. But our lecturer insists that his performance was impromptu on its occasion, with the only preparation his having studied the paintings for several days before his presentation, with the thought that they would furnish an appropriate subject for discourse. What the presentation itself of course enacts is a cardinal principle of descriptive rhetoric or ekphrasis, whose virtue as specified by Aelius Theon, first-century author of a handbook on rhetorical exercises, is “clarity and a vivid impression of all but seeing what is described,”15 which we may think the better illustrated when the seeing is done though multiple pairs of eyes. Theon also declares that ekphrastic passages need a point of commencement from which they can range both before and after. We might then begin our vicarious viewing of Philostratus’ pictures from the point of view already mentioned, spatiality and the distribution of figures. It need not take the vicarious viewer long to notice that Philostratus deals with the problematic simultaneity of perception by constructing each description from its own individualized point of perception. Roughly these points of commencement can be seen as panoramic or centralized. Among the former I count two kinds. One is a lead in from literary knowledge, while the other makes the picture itself tell the story. Beginning with the literary type in a panel entitled Scamander (Philostratus, Imagines 1.1 and 1.23), the rhetor inferentially lets us know that we are seeing a burning river, fire upon water, as he asks his ten year-old listener to recall Homer: towered Trojan citadel, 15 G. Kennedy, trans., “The Excercises of Aelius Theon” in Progymnasmata: Greek and Roman Textbooks in Prose Composition and Rhetoric (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 119 and 47.

150

Eleanor Winsor Leach

broadly extended battle plain and all. From here begins a contrast as the picture seems at first to depart from Homer but comes round to him at the end. A subsequent literary allusion in the painting called Amymone calls up the image of Neptune in his sea-chariot as he journeys over calm seas to bring aid at a point of crisis to Achaeans in the contest at the ships, although in this instance his purposeful progress has the rape of the Danaid Amymone as its aim. But in contrast to this specificity, the background allusions are more commonly to an entity called just story with which the given image may or may not agree. The desertion of Ariadne is even referred to an old wives’ nursery tale with which the ten year-old boy may be familiar. These panoramic points of commencement include landscape and atmosphere, as also seen in other examples; but especially the first images to which our attention is called are what I would name choral scenes, massed characters such as revelers in Comus, soldiers of the Egyptian cohort mourning the slain body of Memnon, Bacchantes swarming over Cithaeron, the sisters of Phaeton weeping for their brother’s fall, and a rush of youthful hunters pursuing a boar. The focus that draws us directly to the center may be an event in action, as the announcement of Antilochus’ death to Achilles, the swaddled infant Hermes driving off Apollo’s cattle, or the wreck of Oenomaeus’ chariot in his race with Pelops. By far the most frequent however is the single figure caught in his myth, and almost invariably these are the figures of appealing young men: the flute player Olympus, Narcissus, Hyacinthus, Amphion, Achilles, and the Olympic wrestler Arrichion. Within such spatial patterns, the two-fold actions themselves exhibit different temporal trajectories. Some may be almost simultaneously in progress, as Amphion plays his lyre and the Theban walls are rising in three stages; Phaeton falls and his sisters begin their transformation into mourning trees, or Memnon’s soldiers lament over the body, while his mother Eos has transported it. Simultaneous conflicts rage at the seven gates of Thebes while Creon’s son Monoecus prepares for his destined self-sacrifice. But the Theban landscape can also house sequential stages of action as the Bacchantes tear up Pentheus and his Theban relatives piece together the corpse, with still a third stage in which the Bacchantes themselves come to awareness and Cadmus and Harmonia become serpents. In some cases the narrative moves backwards in time from the initial image, as when first we see the Hyacinth flower and then Apollo in two stages of action: first in his fatal discus cast and then his grief for the death, while Zephyrus who has deflected the instrument laughs from the sidelines. In the birth of Hermes we first see the precocious infant deity driving Apollo’s cattle at the foothills of Olympus, then at the birth scene on the mountain’s summit where nymphs swaddle the new-born baby and Apollo comes to demand

Rhetorical Inventio

151

the return of his herd. Not only do we see at least three figures of Hermes in this painting, but also the mountain peak dominates with settings for all three at its base and summit as with the sharp central crags of earlier Pompeian continuous narrative. In other cases the spatial settings remain vague, but sometimes pictures combine two distinct locations as we see with Cithaeron and Thebes in the Pentheus picture. Theban stories are especially prone to landscape settings, as Zeus enters the palace to court Semele in a cloud of fire, while out on Cithaeron a cave is prepared for Dionysus and Pan celebrates his birth in a hymn. In the Memnon image the scenes are spatially distant. While companions lay out the body on the field of battle, the warrior himself disappears suddenly and appears in another location to which his mother Eos has spirited him and transformed him into the famous statue of black stone. Amphiarus appears in his chariot sinking below the earth on his return from Thebes, but also we see his oracular place at the Gate of Dreams. Most pointed of the double settings are two facets in space as Cheiron teaching Achilles with two kinds of lessons. At the door of the Centaur’s cave he is offering his hunting spoils to Chiron, while in another part of the picture “the same boy” learns horsemanship by riding his teacher like a steed. Thus the coordination of space and story-telling in its different ways is an aspect of each of Philostratus’ descriptions. Since all this is well, good and perhaps not unobvious, you may well ask why a practiced and celebrated rhetor is needed when any ordinary spectator could spin out such descriptions very easily, if the pictures are taken for existing, but without too much difficulty if they are, as I believe we should consider them, fictive. What then is their value for teaching the interpretive appreciation of art? Precise descriptions of detail may count for some of it. Such descriptions can even be seen to figure as sources of instruction, as with the structural anatomy of the lyre in Amphion’s hands, or the loving limb by limb depiction of Apollo’s posture as he hurls the discus. Most important however is the viewer’s affective understanding of the paintings, which, again can be of two kinds: either the emotion that the description teases out of the paintings, or the response. This is the real stuff of rhetorical inventio, which embellishes narrative or image not simply to persuade of its excellence, but also to stir the emotions of the hearer, and this is how the pictures themselves, as we may see, come alive, how they show instead of merely telling. We are given to see this first form of emotion as projected into the picture through reading of gesture or expression. Paradigmatic is the grief of Eos as she enters into the Memnon story causing the sun itself to be downcast, so that night may hasten and cover her theft of the body. The Amymone painting shows us a drama of contrasting mentalities or psychological dispositions. The Neptune we see is radiant, joyous and deeply stirred by a

152

Eleanor Winsor Leach

sudden passion for the Danaid girl, who remains initially unaware of her situation but is immediately after struck by terror, at a loss to know why the god has so quickly emerged from the sea. Trembling she drops her pitcher, whose shining gold poignantly reflects the maiden’s pale face and the surface of the water. Love also masters Dionysus in the Ariadne painting; he is in fact drunk with love, and, to do him justice, the departing Theseus is also in love, but has been made to forget everything. Love and grief are the primary emotions, but there are others such as Zephyr’s mockery of Apollo. Cadmus and Harmonia are astonished as they watch their own transformation into serpents. Even objects or creatures radiate emotions. The stones surrounding Amphion listen and run together. They compete for honor and are happy in their love of music. The horses of the cruel king Oenomaus are full of rage and ready to run, while those of Pelops are obedient and seem to anticipate victory. Another enlivening form of projection attributes sound to the images and sometimes even endows the actors with imagined speech. At the nuptual revelry, the god Comus has already subsided into drunken sleep; the viewer can hear the sound of castanets, the shrill note of the flute and disorderly singing. Peals of laughter rise from the rushing figures, and finally the painter has authenticated the sound gestures that make all the noise when the clenched right fist strikes the left hollowed palm making the hand into impromptu cymbals. The viewer may hear the followers of Oenomaus shout warnings to him at the start of his race. Outside the walls of Thebes Tiresias utters an oracle foretelling the death of Creon’s son Menoecius, with the father unaware. We can tell that Amphion is singing because his mouth opens slightly, showing his teeth. The song itself can be nothing other than a hymn to earth who is giving him walls. Apollo too within Maia’s cave seems to be speaking, and the rhetor imagines his words as he accuses Maia of her son’s commissions and threatens to sink him deep into the earth. Chaeiron animates the scenes of Achilles’ education, first by praising the boy’s skill in hunting: “he catches hares like a lion and can outrun a fawn”; but when he gallops in the meadow with his pupil on his back, he spins a lengthy prophecy for the boy, who will someday ride a real horse: “take many cities and slay many men, you merely running and they trying to escape you.” These examples show the rhetor engaging with his subject to the point of thinking with or through the representation to translate its underlying human situation; but still he maintains his spectatorly distance. A further degree of projection dissolves the boundaries of image and reality through appreciation of the artist’s skill in naturalistic rendition. This is of course the illusion topos long familiar in ancient art historical discourse and particularly prominent in the writings of the Elder Pliny, who employs it to mark the contributions of fourth century Greek artists both in sculpture

Rhetorical Inventio

153

and in paintings to the evolution of artistic naturalism, which is for him the teleological destiny of art (Pliny Nat.Hist. 35. 61–66). But the point of the illusion topos as a test of artistic prowess, even in Pliny, is the superiority of the person who invokes it, watching the deception of others, while he himself remains undeceived. So he tells the story of a fifth century Greek painter whose realistic painting of a curtain deceives a fellow painter’s eye and wins him a contest. Here however our rhetor is neither deceived himself, nor does he wish his hearers to be. Rather he explains as a part of his lessons, the techniques by which deception is produced. In his Theban picture he calls attention to gradations in the ranks of warriors massed on the city walls, receding from full figures to spear points. This, he explains, is perspective. The painter’s challenge is to deceive the eyes as they travel back along the properly receding planes of the picture. The more complicated scene painting of the Scamander story uses Homer to correct impressions; the address directs itself explicitly to the young viewer whose initial response of wonder – how can fire live in water – may obstruct his ability to recognize the Homeric scene. Thus it is necessary to turn away from the painting and recall within the poem itself the escalating conflict of Achilles’ revenge for the death of Patroklus, as it erupts into conflicts among the gods. Given this identification, the viewer can now focus upon its single moment when Hephaestus attacks the river, in order to understand, implicitly, the meeting of fire with water. This too being established, the picture comes to seem wholly Homeric with the Trojan citadel in the background and the Scamander plain extending before it, now engulfed in fire. From this there emerge divine personifications: the river with his long hair already burnt, begging for mercy and the fire god uncharacteristically running, while, in the last analysis, the fire itself turns un-homerically golden. More often however the effect of the natural comes without such technical information. Jas Elsner has notably called attention to the effects of internal replication in the Narcissus painting, where a component of the picture, the reflecting pool, becomes an artist within the larger narrative, painting Narcissus within the context of the whole painted story, which will finally include the flowers into which the self-deluded youth is transformed. But these painted flowers are themselves are so deceptive that a bee has come to settle on them, whether it is a real bee drawn by the flowers or a painted bee that to us seems real. Yet Narcissus’ illusion, although generated by the portrait-painting pool and not by a painting, is all the same a spectator’s deception, insofar as the youth regards his unrecognized selfimage as an autonomous other with whom he attempts to converse. How much embellishment the rhetor might have added to this image might be speculated from real Pompeian examples in which Narcissus seems either

154

Eleanor Winsor Leach

more interested in facing us than his reflection (fig. 10), or else needs an eros to indicate what he is supposed to be thinking.16 This level of engagement is only a more intense version of the erotic appeal projected onto many of the paintings in the form of emotions or sensations that the rhetor invites his listeners to experience or take away. Some of these are aggressively physical. Convincingly painted roses give off sweet scents; and fruits call out to be tasted so insistently that one can only imagine a literal experience of this gallery tour as a dazzling and somewhat unsettling sequence of sensations and arousals. If, however, we can manage to maintain our rational equilibrium in the face of these appealing invocations, we may understand how they serve the purpose of artistic interpretation by having it both ways; the more convincingly that any painting confuses the boundary of representation and reality, the greater the artist’s skill. But the more able the audience to monitor this confusion of boundaries, the more expertly or intelligently it judges that skill. But how intelligently is the rhetor himself judging in the occasions when he actually attempts to communicate with, and even influence the figure or action in the painting? Does he, in fact, sometimes forget both limits and audience in his own participatory desire? The entire Olympus description (Philostratus, Imagines 1) is a monologue confronting the solitary flautist, playing with no other visible audience, and, inferentially to himself; but the rhetor intrudes upon this interaction as he constructs the figure and the music. Because Olympus gazes as he plays intently into a pool of water that returns his reflection, the description flirts with the self-love of Narcissus, but this flirtation transfers to a relationship between the self and the music. Teasingly the water reflects the image only so far as the breast; ripples and foreshadowing conceal and distort the remainder of the figure. But in one notable instance the rhetor himself pays tribute by losing his cool. Like the Olympus monologue the non-mythical landscape “Hunters” opens with an apostrophe to its subject, but where Olympus remains stationary, the subjects of this painting baffle the spectator with their appearance of rapid motion. Immediately the rhetor engages his whole company of spectators in the first person plural in grasping to arrest its visible momentum: “Do not rush past us, ye hunters, nor urge on your steeds till we can track down what your purpose is and what is the game you are hunting. For you claim to be pursuing a ‘fierce wild boar’ and I see the devastation wrought by the creature […].” The boar itself is in view, fiery-eyed and bristling against his pursuers with a description lifted from Homer, and the surrounding landscape is marked by his devastation. For a moment the action would seem to be arrested, and the rhetor in secure control of its 16 Casa

delle Vestali (VI 1,7) PPM IV: 47.

Rhetorical Inventio

155

content, but this mastery leads him immediately to challenge the action with a subtext at odds with what the hunters themselves appear to have claimed. As he will have it, the actual lure that the young men are following is not so much the wild creature as their own leader, a beautiful youth for whom the rest are eager to run into danger. “For why so near? Why do you touch him? Why have you turned toward him? Why do you jostle each other with your horses?” Abruptly, however, the speaker comes to his senses and remembers his instructive role, arrests the motion, and turns to the forgotten audience. The picture has deluded him into believing its subjects alive, giving them not only movement but emotions. In this delusion he has been shouting out to the figures and imagining their response. No less deceived was his audience, who had not uttered a single word to dispel his error. But who has in fact deceived whom? Why have the listeners shown no awareness? Is it the painting that has deluded them, or is it the rhetor’s own self? And likewise what has deluded the speaker; was it his own degree of absorption that prompted him to shift his reading of the scene from the more heroic topic of the boar hunt to the erotic chase? And what does the young men’s perceived silence mean? Are they indeed fellow captives of the painting, or do they silently think that their role model has gone over the top? Recalling his professional objectivity, the rhetor returns to the language of the painting (skopomen oun ta gegrammena). A new focus on the technical aspects again seems to reestablish the spectatorly position and redraw the boundaries of engagement, yet, even as this happens, the hunt continues; the hunters pause by a woodland shrine, and the boar himself reemerges leading his pursuers to a marsh. At this point we may well want to question the spatial parameters of the picture ground, which its mobility would seem to have exceeded, running across at least three different situations for its protagonists and even two for the boar. So what is the import of these descriptions either for painting or for rhetoric? The two cases are in a manner analogous in exceeding the boundaries of their forms. It is not merely that so few of the compositions resemble the familiar renditions of their subjects from two centuries earlier at Pompeii. New topics have been introduced; character casts have increased; postures have been changed; details multiplied. These differences can easily be accounted by the simple notion that Campanian traditions were cut short by the eruption, causing the entire art industry to begin ex novo. As the rhetor however would have it, these are not all contemporary paintings; he calls the collection eclectic, comprising the knowingly selected productions of the most accomplished painters with the best skills. Alternatively, however, if the rhetorical imagination is the only location in which the collection is located, then we will understand it as a composite of recollections that

156

Eleanor Winsor Leach

the rhetor has assembled from memories of diverse sources that meet his standards of what the best skills ought to produce. In either case, tests of probability suggest that the details are rendered with unusual precision and that their elaboration must be attributed to the embellishment that teaches us how to appreciate art. But if we look at the two rhetorical handbooks of exercises usually associated with the Second Sophistic, the progymnasmata by Theon of Alexandria and Hermogenes, we can also see that the embellishments have pushed against the strict limits of ekphrasis. Although these advise the practioner to make his hearers visualize his subjects, they do not recommend making them smell, feel, taste or kiss. Indeed Theon observes that the subjects of ekphrasis are inert or lifeless objects, lacking in moral sense.17 I am not about to call the implications of Philostratus’ images moral, for many of them are pleasurably immoral, but they are scarcely either lifeless or inert. In adding these affective qualities we may think that the rhetor does not so much appreciate painting as rival it, and likewise contests the literary traditions from which the representations often depart. In the opening description of Scamander, we can see a paradigm of such reading, for the picture is, and is not Homer. To understand the subject, the viewer must first turn away from the image to recover knowledge from its source so that the details fall into place, some faithful and some altered. Lacking the larger context of a controlling narrative, these ekphraseis have their real equivalent in the story-telling pictures of the epic tradition with all their possibilities of multiple interpretation. Thus in learning to appreciate painting, Philostratus’ readers, if not the rhetor’s fictive audience, might see their real lesson in the arbitrary subjectivity of interpretation. For each painting possesses its own story, which could even be inadvertent and may exist either in the way in which art simulates life or in what life itself brings to its perception of art. At moment when perception confuses the two, it would seem that life itself has taken over since what the viewer sees may not be what the picture should mean at all. It is not hard to imagine that such extrapolations embroidered with detail and reaching out for affective response are indeed possible representations of the way in which the ancient viewer came to works of art. So, if we can grant the independent integrity of Philostratus’ collection as components in a triangular interassociation composed of image, text and interpretive eye, we can only conclude that the figurative third of this triangle is unrecoverable, that we can in no way accurately view the contents of composition of the eikones. So just for amusement, I will conclude with that one attempt to do so that I mentioned at the outset. In fact from the 17 Kennedy,

“The Excercises of Aelius Theon,” p. 46.

Rhetorical Inventio

157

time that the text became available to the European world of art, the images have generated many spin-off responses, more even than I myself can be acquainted with, although I can mention Raphael’s triumphant Galatea in the Villa Farnesina, or Poussin’s lonely Polyphemus at the margins of his fertile landscape .18 But what I will briefly sample are not creative spinoffs, but literal illustrations intended to clarify the descriptions through translating their words into pictures, or retranslating if you will. I turn to a pioneering European publication of the Imagines, a translation into French by one Blaise de Vignères,19 an elaborate production comprising not merely the translation itself, but a factual preface explaining each myth and a learned commentary or exegesis many times the length of the description, loaded with philological allusions. Additionally, as the preface explains, the illustrations have been monitored for accuracy in their reproduction of the Greek, and, given the proclivity of Philostratus to write often some-what lasciviously, each picture is also accompanied by a little verse extrapolation of the moral value of the story. The title page illustration20 shows that the illustrator has got one aspect of the gallery layout correct (fig. 29). The rhetor sets his scene in a porticus located on a series of five terraces overlooking the sea. For a villa on the Neapolitan coast this configuration is entirely probable, but hardly replicated by the spatial confinement of this u-shaped porticus. All the same, if we overlook this architecture as well as rather baroque elaboration of the dome that must be taken to cover the main block of the villa, the general idea of the display area under a colonnaded porticus with the pictures displayed paratactically along the rear walls of the covered corridors, where one must imagine them to receive the best light, conforms to the trajectory of the discourse viewing the paintings sequentially in stroll. On whatever instinct this illustrator based his reconstruction, it is much closer to what we imagine the distribution to have been within an ancient public picture gallery, such as those in Pompey’s theatre or the porticus of Octavia, than are later attempts to make a modern museum display organized in separate room divisions with thematic selections or hierarchies of size as both Goethe and the Art Institute historian Karl Lehmann had done. This being said, as we begin to turn pages we see also that the illustrations are not in frieze form

18 E. W. Leach, “Polyphemus in a Landscape: Traditions of Pastoral Courtship” in The Pastoral Landscape (ed. J. D. Hunt; National Gallery of Art, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts. Symposium Papers XX; Hanover and London: University Press of New England, 1992), 63–88. 19 Philostrate, Les Images ou Tableux de Platte-Peinture. Traduction et commentaire de Blaise de Vigenère (1578) (ed. F. Graziani; Paris: Honoré Champion, 1995), 2 vols. 20 Images vol. 2 (ed. Graziani), 988.

158

Eleanor Winsor Leach

but rather observe the continuous narrative ground rule of multiple actions contained within a single frame. We might begin with Scamander.21 Like the small boy who wonders at the phenomenon, the illustrator seems concerned to show fire living on water, making it at once plausible in origin yet monumental in effect. But to do so he has Hephestus neither running nor doing battle but swooping headlong in a blazing column, while the river as seen in the right hand corner of the illustration seems not especially damaged as he reclines in a traditional water god’s pose. At the same time he cannot seem to do without some gesture to the divine warfare underlying this phase of the conflict as Juno rides in a supervisory chariot above. Although the rhetor explaining Amphion’s magic reminds us that Thebes was not beforehand a walled city, there is something startling about seeing it as a Renaissance city, recognizably derived from ideal urban backgrounds of historical or other paintings.22 All the same the nicely prefabricated building blocks of his construction lack the joyous spontaneity with which the rhetor characterizes the stones of his Amphion painting, nor does it seem likely that their charmer might be singing a song of the Earth. By contrast the illustration for Pentheus takes the tripartite spatial and temporal composition of the description quite seriously,23 providing four distinct locations and stages, with a Maenadic dance on Cithaeron’s wild summit, a fallen pine tree, a solemn background procession into an apparent replica of the Augustan mausoleum, and a moderately grisly dismemberment scene at the center presenting an interesting contrast with the no less threatening, but less visceral rendition in Pompeii’s House of the Vettii (fig. 33), not to mention the nobly heraldric transformation of the ancestral pair, Cadmus and Harmonia. If we are laughing at these illustrations, I think it is because we find them so foreign to what Philostratus himself could have imagined or what he has made us imagine. Although their awkward schemata can actually seem shackled by their attempts to realize their textual rubrics, in and of themselves many are not bad; their draftsmanship is competent and some would stand comparison, if not with Raphael’s Galatea, at least with many European translations of myth into art. Olympus, for instance is at once faithful to the rhetor’s description and quite pretty.24 But what I hope to have shown by this epilogue is the inevitable arbitrariness that governs the translation of pictures to words and words into pictures, not only because of the subjectivity of the viewing experience but also the idiom of the times. 21 Images

vol. 2 (ed. Graziani), 989. vol. 2 (ed. Graziani), 998. 23 Images vol. 2 (ed. Graziani), 1007. 24 Images vol. 2 (ed. Graziani), 1010. 22 Images

Rhetorical Inventio

Captions for figures Fig. 1: Casa di Amandus Sacerdos (I 7,7; PPM II 46–113) Fig. 2: Casa del Sacerdos Amandus (I 7,7; PPM I 602–05) Fig. 3: Casa del Sacerdos Amandus (I 7,7; PPM I 599–600) Fig. 4: Casa del Sacerdos Amandus (I 7,7; PPM I 595–97) Fig. 5: Casa del Frutteto (I 9,5; PPM II 52–58) Figs. 6–7: Casa di Polibio (IX 13,1–3; PPM X 256–61) Fig. 8: Casa del Meleagro (VI 9,2.13; PPM IV 719) Fig. 9: Casa dei Vettii (VI 15,1; PPM V 540) Fig. 10: Casa di D. Octavius Quartio (II 2,2; PPM III 103–04)

159

B. Contested Domestic Spaces

I. Domus

Architecture and Decoration in the House of Menander in Pompeii* Ivan Varriale

1. Introduction House I 10,4, referred to as “The House of Menander” because of the Greek playwright’s portrait painted inside an exedra of the peristyle, occupies almost 55 % of an insula whose total surface is about 3.300 sq. m. (fig. 1: plan). The entrance, with a big portal flanked by Corinthian pilasters, is in the middle of the northern side of the insula, opened on what certainly was the busiest road of the block. The house was excavated and restored by Amedeo Maiuri between autumn 1927 (atrium and northern colonnade of the peristyle) and summer 1932 (the peristyle and service rooms),1 with an interruption of almost a year between spring 1928 and summer 1929, in order to complete the digging of Villa of the Mysteries.2 In 1933, within a year of the end of the excavation, A. Maiuri published the first complete edition of the house, which did not omit a single aspect; he devoted a considerable part of the book to furnishings, especially to silverware.3 The house was seriously damaged by the earthquake of 1980 and needed a new restoration.4 The interventions started in 1983, which thanks to the Istituto Centrale per il Restauro of Rome involved the adjustment of the coverings. These were philologically rebuilt and renewed using materials that were more suitable than reinforced concrete, considered miraculous during the first restoration5. During these same years Roger Ling, the chief * For the translation I would like to thank Dr. Valentina Revard. 1 A. Maiuri, La Casa del Menandro e il suo tesoro di argenteria (Rome: Libreria dello Stato, 1933). 2 A. Maiuri, La villa dei Misteri (Rome: Libreria dello Stato, 1967). 3 Maiuri, La Casa del Menandro, 241–403. 4 A. De Simone, “La Casa del Menandro e il recente restauro,” in Menander: la Casa del Menandro di Pompei (ed. G. Stefani; Milan: Electa, 2003), 70–83. 5 G. Torraca, “La conservazione delle pitture murali nel peristilio della Casa del Menandro a Pompei,” RStPomp 1 (1987): 140–150. ICCROM intervention on the peristyle

164

Ivan Varriale

of an ambitious project involving the whole insula 10, started the analytic study of the house. The work of documentation of the English team has appeared in a series of monographs that illustrates the complex in all its aspects.6

2. The owner Maiuri attributed the ownership of the house to the gens Poppea,7 because of the finding of a bronze seal bracelet, in the service area, at the threshold of the cubicle (43). On the bracelet there was an inscription: “Q(uinti) Poppaei Erotis,”8 so Maiuri thought the bracelet owner was the procurator9 of the house. Ling10 thinks that the seal alone is not enough to determine the ownership assignment. Due to the dimensions and the splendor of the decorations, he suggests that the owner was a member of the municipal élite.11 A Poppeus parapets (1983 southern parapets, 1985 western, 1986 northern) underlined the usefulness and the limits of the peristyle covering made under A. Maiuri’s direction.  6  The first volume is dedicated to the structures analysis (R. Ling, The insula of the Menander at Pompeii. Volume I: The structure [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997]), the second one to the decorations (R. Ling and L. Ling, The insula of the Menander at Pompeii. Volume II: The decoration [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005]), the third (P. M. Allison, The Insula of the Menander at Pompeii. Volume III: The Finds, a Contextual Study [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006]) to all the findings, except silverware, dealt with in the fourth volume (K. Painter, The Insula of the Menander at Pompeii. Volume IV: The Silver Treasure [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001]), whereas the fifth, still in press, is by A. Varone and deals with the innumerable inscriptions found in the complex. In the huge bibliography about this subject we must mention: R. Ling, “La Casa del Menandro,” in Menander: la Casa del Menandro di Pompei (ed. G. Stefani; Milan: Electa, 2003), 10–45; G. Stefani, “La Casa del Menandro (I 10,4),” in Storie da un’eruzione. Pompei, Ercolano, Oplontis (Catalogo della mostra, Napoli, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, 20 marzo – 31 agosto 2003; eds. A. D’Ambrosio, P. G. Guzzo and M. Mastroberto; Milan: Electa, 2003), 355–361; G. Stefani, Menander: la Casa del Menandro di Pompei (Milan: Electa, 2003).   7 The Poppei Sabini family was already known in Pompeii for its ownership of the House of the Amorini Dorati. Cf. M. Della Corte, Case e abitanti a Pompei (Naples: Fiorentino, 1965), 72–77, 292–299.   8 The seal was found near the bodies of a man and a little girl, together with several furnishings, gathered with different agricultural tools. In the room they found more than seventy objects. Allison, The Insula of the Menander, 228–229, cat. 796–863.   9 Maiuri, La Casa del Menandro, 17–22. 10 R. Ling, “La Casa del Menandro,” in Pompei: Abitare sotto il Vesuvio. (Catalogo della mostra, Ferrara, Palazzo dei Diamanti, 29 Settembre 1996–19 Gennaio 1997; ed. M. R. Borriello; Ferrara: Ferrara Arte, 1996), 65–71, esp. 66; Ling, The insula of the Menander, 142–144; Ling, “La Casa del Menandro,” in Menander, 11 ff. 11 Houses comparable to the House of Menander (1830 smq) can be assigned to individuals who held important offices in the local magistracies: House of Pansa (sqm 2290), property of Cn. Alleius Nigidius Maius, a quinquennalis; House of M. Obellius Firmus,

Architecture and Decoration in the House of Menander in Pompeii

165

Sabinus is mentioned as aedil in an epigraph12 concerning the temple of Fortuna Augusta under the consulate of Q. Futius and P. Calvisius (37–41 C.E.), and Poppea Sabina, Nero’s wife, probably came from this very branch of the family in Campania.13 The prenomen Quintus14 is written in the vestibule of the House and we find the name Sabinus twice inside15 and twice outside16 the domus.17 All this evidence is not enough to attribute the House of Menander to Q. Poppeo Sabino but, as remarked by Antonio Varrone,18 this is an ordinary situation for almost all Pompeian houses. However, Ling’s hypothesis about the domus belonging to a Pompeian upper class member, does not reject the idea of Q. Poppeo Sabino as its owner. Even if he does not appear in the electoral inscriptions in Pompeii, he could be engaged in some other activities in Rome, as already attested for two members of his own gens, elected consuls19 during the Augustan age.

3. General description The luxurious domus develops in an axial sequence made up of fauces, atrium, tablinum and peristyle (fig. 2), which form the residential and representative core of the house. The complex of the atrium, decorated in fourth style, includes the atrium (b) [m 7,25 × 10], and the tablinum (8) [m 4,30 × 4,55], and an exedra (4) [m 3,75 × 3,45]. The other rooms opening on the atrium are basically decorated or totally free from any ornamentation. a duovir (sqm 1780); another duovir, C. Iulius Polybius, lived in a house that was smaller (sqm 765), but rich in decorations. 12 CIL X 827¸ P. Castrén, Ordo populusque Pompeianus. Polity and Society in Roman Pompeii (Rome: Bardi, 1975), pp. 76–78 classifies the inscription under Caligula’s principality (37–41 C.E.). 13 Poppea Sabina owned brick factories in the Pompeian countryside, as testified by a little waxed board from Herculaneum. V. Arangio-Ruiz and G. Pugliese Carratelli, “Tabulae Herculanenses 4,” PP 9 (1954): 55–57. 14 CIL IV 8310. 15 CIL IV 8341 b, c. 16 CIL IV 8260 a, b; 8264. 17 Another inscription was on the right of the entrance: “C. IVLIVM POLYBIVM II VIR FVLBVNGVIS ROGAT” according to Della Corte, who defined as fulbunguis (with golden nails) the House of Menander owner. Maiuri, La Casa del Menandro, 19; A. Maiuri, “Pompei: relazione sui lavori di scavo dall’aprile 1926 al dicembre 1927,” NSc Ser. 6, N. 5 (1929): 354–438, esp. 463, n. 189. 18 A. Varone, “Gli abitanti della casa,” in Menander: la Casa del Menandro di Pompei (ed. G. Stefani, Milan: Electa, 2003), 46–55. 19 C. Poppeus Sabinus and Q. Poppeus Secundus, sons and grandsons of a certain Q. Poppeus (CIL X 6639 e 963), were both consuls in 9 C.E. The first was Poppea Augusta’s mother’s grandfather. See Varone, “Gli abitanti della casa,” note 31.

166

Ivan Varriale

The Rhodian peristyle [m 12,90 × 16,60] surrounds a garden, in which is found a fountain pool and an area used as a summer triclinium.20 Around the portico there are several rooms, taking advantage of the view and the light. On the northern side there are two large rooms (11) [m 3,60 × 4,60] and (12). On the southern side there is a series of exedras, with an apsidal and rectangular plan, used as places to stop in during the ambulatio21. These exedras can be seen from the fauces, thanks to the intercolumniations expanded for this purpose in front of the tablinum.22 Inside one of these exedras there is Menander’s portrait, together with one of Euripides and some theatrical masks, both comic and tragic. Nearby is a cubicle with a double alcove, then used as a library (21)23 [m 3,35 × 3, 90]. On the eastern side there are the most prestigious rooms of the whole house24: two oeci or cubicles (15 and 19) [m 3,60 × 4,65 and m 5 × 5,20], a large dining room used for banquets (18), one of the largest in Pompeii [m 11,50 × 7,50]. In another cubicle (17) [m 4,75 × 3,30], accessible from the peristyle through a short corridor (16) [m 1,50 × 5,20], there are more secluded spaces, suitable for rest. Finally, on the western side of the peristyle, there is a small thermal complex (46–49).25 The dwelling is endowed with a rustic part, east of the residential core, whereas to the west there is another service area. Both these areas are absolutely separated from the representative quarter. West of the peristyle there are a kitchen (27), a latrine (26) and the service areas, also including an

20 Maiuri, La Casa del Menandro, 84, fig. 34, pls. I–III; Ling, The insula of the Menander, 140. 21 I. Varriale, “I cicli decorativi nella Casa del Menandro,” in Circulación de temas y sistemas decorativos en la pintura mural antigua, Actas del IX Congreso Internacional de la “Association Internationale pour la Peinture Murale Antique (AIPMA) (Zaragoza  – Calatayud 21–25 septiembre 2004) (ed. C. Guiral; Zaragoza: Gobierno de Aragòn, 2007), 335–339. 22 H. Drerup, “Bildraum und Realraum in der römischen Architektur,” RM 66 (1959): 147–174, esp. 155–161; A. Wallace-Hadrill, Houses and society in Pompeii and Herculaneum (Princeton N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1994), 54 ff.; Varriale, “I cicli decorativi nella Casa del Menandro,” 335–339. 23 Maiuri, La Casa del Menandro, 88, thinks it was a library with a bed to read volumina. L. Richardson, “The libraries of Pompeii,” Archaeology 30 (1977): 394–402, esp. 397–399, believes it was a library, whereas the exedra (23) was used as reading room. Ling, The insula of the Menander, 6, note 42, and 137, note 205, is more careful and suggests it was only a storeroom. 24 Wallace-Hadrill, Houses and society in Pompeii and Herculaneum, 54. 25 Maiuri, La Casa del Menandro, 227–228, note 20, found several plaster fragments decorated in the second and fourth styles, used to fill a gap in the oven room. D’Avino, Maiuri’s assistant, recognized among these fragments some portions of the II style frescos of the bath’s little atrium, where there is still part of the decoration with clear pickaxe marks.

Architecture and Decoration in the House of Menander in Pompeii

167

hortus (R). They are all hidden26 and reachable through a narrow L – shaped corridor (M). In the south-eastern area, that is connected to the peristyle through another L-shaped corridor (P1, which slopes downhill), and is also accessible from three independent halls opening on the street, there is a very big complex, made up of a stable (29), a courtyard (34), several rooms for the serving staff and some warehouses. A lot of amphora and tools and a wagon were found here, so Maiuri was led to think that this area was the center of agricultural activities and that the owner of the house managed an estate out of town.27 Above this lower-level service area, there were rooms on the first floor, and we know from a guesstimate that about thirty people lived here.28 Although it is in the centre of the old city, the house is structured as a suburban villa, with a residential area totally separated from the service or the rural one. That is not surprising if we consider the great number of Pompeian houses that, during the last years of the life of this city, imitate the structure of the big villas of otium, such as those on the slopes of the western and southern townwalls, even if often in narrow spaces.29 The House of Menander also owes its fame to the great quantity of precious objects found in December 1930. The treasure, the most significant ever found in the Vesuvian region, is made up of 118 pieces of silver and also includes some jewelry and coins to the amount of 1432 sesterces.30 Maiuri 26 About the importance of keeping these areas secret see Wallace-Hadrill, Houses and society in Pompeii and Herculaneum, 44. 27 Allison, The Insula of the Menander, 230 ff. 28 The south-eastern corner of corridor P1 was occupied by a wooden stair; only its two stone steps remain today. Under the stair there is the access to other underground rooms. In the space between the passage walls and the wooden stair, at least twelve human skeletons were found, piled up and confused. Most of them are adult individuals, found in two different groups, at about 2,5 meters from the pavement floor. They were caught by the burning cloud as they tried to escape upstairs. Maiuri, La Casa del Menandro, 13; Ling, The insula of the Menander, 65 ff.; Stefani, La Casa del Menandro (I 10,4), 355–361; E. Lazer, “Resti umani scheletrici nella Casa del Menandro,” in Menander: La Casa del Menandro a Pompei (ed. G. Stefani; Milan: Electa, 2003), 64–69; Allison, The Insula of the Menander, 318–319. 29 P. Zanker, Pompei: società, immagini urbane e forme dell’abitare (Turin: Einaudi, 1993), 151–221. About the houses of Insula Occidentalis see M. Aoyagi and U. Pappalardo, Pompei: (regiones VI–VII) Insula Occidentalis (Naples: Valtrend, 2006). 30 Maiuri, La Casa del Menandro, 265–310; U. Pappalardo, “Gli argenti,” in Le collezioni del Museo del Museo Nazionale di Napoli (ed. A. F. Pedicini; Rome: De Luca; Milan: Leonardo, 1989), 91–102; E. Künzl, “Le argenterie,” in Pompei 79. Raccolta di studi per il decimonono centenario dell’eruzione vesuviana (ed. F. Zevi; Naples: Macchiaroli, 1979), 211–228; T. Giove, “Casa del Menandro (catalogo dei materiali),” in Pompei: abitare sotto il Vesuvio. Ferrara, Palazzo dei Diamanti 29 Settembre 1996–19 Gennaio 1997 (ed. M. R. Borriello; Ferrara: Arte, 1996), 215–229; Painter, The Insula of the Menander; U. Pappalardo, “Le argenterie,” in Menander: la Casa del Menandro di Pompei (ed. G. Stefani; Milan: Electa, 2003), 90–108; T. Giove, “Coins from the insula del Menandro, now in the Naples

168

Ivan Varriale

describes in detail the finding of the treasure under the little atrium of the bath31. The silverware was preserved inside a wooden box reinforced by bronze and carefully wrapped in clothes; they were perfectly conserved. The discoverer classifies the silverware into three categories: argentium potorium (drinking tableware), 21 items in two sets, argentium escarium (eating tableware), 95 items in four sets, and specula (2 pieces).32

4. Architecture and decoration Mythological paintings have often been considered just copies of lost master-works of Greek painting and therefore removed from the original walls and placed inside galleries and museums.33 On the contrary, pictures should be examined in their own context, and the whole house should be considered as figurative space, that is, as architectural space, enriched by images, where the owner carried out different activities. In the House of Menander this kind of approach is possible thanks to the extraordinary preservation of the domus, that keeps in situ most of its frescos and mosaics, and thanks to the documentation published in the last years by Roger Ling, allowing us to read also the portions of frescos ruined by time. In the Roman private house, as testified by Vitruvius (De architectura 6.5.1–2), there was a separation between public areas, where clientes were received, and private areas, destined to receive only hospites. So different activities had to be done at the same time in rooms designed for different purposes. To that end, the architecture helped identify rooms National Museum,” in The Insula of the Menander at Pompeii: Volume III: The Finds, a Contextual Study (ed. P. M. Allison; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 409–434; G. Stefani, “Casa del Menandro,” in Argenti a Pompei. (Catalogo della Mostra Napoli, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, 2006; ed. P. G. Guzzo; Milan: Electa, 2006), 191–223. 31 Maiuri, La Casa del Menandro, 241–403. 32 Künzl, Le argenterie, 220 ff.; Painter, The Insula of the Menander, 53–55; Pappalardo, Le argenterie, 96–97, 103; G. Stefani, “Casa del Menandro,”, 191–223, esp. 196–197; R. Ciardiello, “In argento plane studiosus sum. Argenti romani nel Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli,” Quaderni di Vesuviana 1(in print). 33 M. P. Rossignani, “Saggio sui restauri settecenteschi ai dipinti di Ercolano e Pompei,” Contributi dell’Istituto di archeologia. Pubblicazioni dell’Università cattolica del Sacro Cuore 1 (1967): 7–134; I. Bragantini and F. Parise Badoni, “Il quadro pompeiano nel suo contesto decorativo,” DialArch 2 (1984): 119–128; E. M. Moormann, “La pittura romana fra costruzione architettonica e arte figurativa,” in Romana pictura: la pittura romana dalle origini all’età bizantina (Catalogo della mostra, Palazzo del Podestà e dell’Arengo, Rimini 1998; ed. A. Donati; Milan: Electa, 1998), 14–32; P. D’Alconzo, Picturae excisae: conservazione e restauro dei dipinti ercolanesi e pompeiani tra XVIII e XIX secolo (Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider, 2002); Varriale, “I cicli decorativi nella Casa del Menandro,” 335–339.

Architecture and Decoration in the House of Menander in Pompeii

169

and complexes with the same functions, and if this were not enough, the decorations, with thematic links, reinforced connections and separations already defined by the architecture. With regard to space organization, the House of Menander turned out to be a mass of stand-alone complexes, strongly connected among themselves, where the passage from one complex to another is suggested by visual guide lines and thematic links.

5. The atrium complex In the atrium complex, emphasis given to the openings of the tablinum (8) and the exedra (4), respectively, enriched with engaged columns and jutting pilaster (fig. 3), which reveals the link between these two rooms and the atrium (b). Furthermore, the same decorative pattern used for the wall painting of these three rooms immediately shows the connection among them and the clear separation from the other rooms opening on the atrium34. At the same time the decoration, with visible differences, is useful to create a distinction among the three rooms and underlines their different functions. The main zone, that is the focal point of the wall, shows red panels on a yellow background in the atrium, whereas in the tablinum and in the exedra (4) there are yellow panels on a red background. Partitions, doors and curtains ensured reciprocal dependence among the rooms. The link between the atrium and the peristyle is due to an axial view that enables one to see through the tablinum and to enter the peristyle (fig. 2); here the painted parapets, imitating some paradeisoi, illusionistically extend the garden’s size and throw the viewer into an exotic atmosphere. The view can reach the end of the peristyle, where an architectural prospect, made up of rectangular and apsidal exedras (fig. 13), reproduces the form of theatrical scaenae35. Paintings in the atrium allude to the peristyle decorations thanks to the panel, placed on the portico entrance, which represent hunting images such as those painted on the peristyle parapets (fig. 4)36. The wall painting then helps to shape architectural spaces, to separate different units, and to create passages through them. That is possible because there is a difference between the decorations full of images, that are used in rooms in which persons were to remain for longer periods, and those suitable for a glancing 34 J. R. Clarke, The houses of Roman Italy, 100 B.C.–A.D. 250: ritual, space and decoration (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 170–175; D. Scagliarini Corlàita, “Spazio e decorazione nella pittura pompeiana” Palladio. Rivista di storia dell’architettura e restauro 24 (1974–1976): 3–44; Ling – Ling, The insula of the Menander at Pompeii: The decoration, 42. 35 Drerup, “Bildraum und Realraum,” 155–161. 36 Varriale, “I cicli decorativi nella Casa del Menandro,” 335.

170

Ivan Varriale

view, which are set up so that visitors do not focus their attention on a single point of the wall but are accompanied as they stroll.37 The atrium (b) is embellished with a simple alternation of panels and intervals with architectural perspectives in the main zone with a black socle that follows the same paratactic scheme. In the upper zone there is a frieze38 made up of panels with landscape scenes (fig. 5) that are much bigger (cm 55 × 185) than the landscape pinakes usually found on the fourth style walls. The frieze is too high to be read in detail. It can be interpreted as a fantastic evocation of the seacoast running before the eyes of those who remain in the atrium39. Thus, waiting for the dominus to receive them, the guests could admire the view and have the illusion of standing in front of a real panorama.40 The exedra (4) is quite different because it is conceived as an art gallery and presents three paintings that force those who come in to stop and view them (figs. 6–7). The three pinakes show the death of Laocoön, Cassandra’s prophecy before the wooden horse, and last night in Troy, which visualizes the rape of Cassandra and the meeting between Menelaus and Helen. These images are easily recognizable and suitable for the wide public that had access to the atrium. At the same time, the cyclic representation and reproduction of the same characters shows a fragmentary time sequence with no uniform rhythm41. The first two pinakes (Laocoön’s death and Cassandra’s prophecy before the wooden horse) illustrate single episodes separated by an undetermined interval of time, whereas the third one (the last night in Troy) represents the rape of Cassandra and the meeting between Menelaus and Helen synoptically; here in fact both representations show their simultaneity and reciprocal relation and the effect of actions illustrated in the previous pinakes. The cause and effect relation among the episodes of the cycle offers the guests a cue for discussion.42 Waiting for the dominus to receive them, the visitors viewed the images and interpreted them in different ways, depending on their social status and 37

 Scagliarini Corlàita, “Spazio e decorazione,” 3–34. Bragantini, “Problemi di pittura romana,” AION 2 (1995): 175–197; W. J. T. Peters, Landscape in Romano-Campanian mural painting (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1963), 161–167. 39 About depictions of landscapes with villas see: A. Carandini, “Paesaggi con ville nella pittura vesuviana,” in Storia di Roma: Caratteri e morfologie (eds. A. Momigliano and A. Schiavone; Turin: Einaudi, 1989), 192–200; E. La Rocca, “Paesaggi che fluttuano nel vuoto: la veduta paesistica nella pittura greca e romana,” in Roma: la Pittura di un Impero (Catalogo della mostra, Roma, Scuderie del Quirinale, 24 settembre 2009–17 Gennaio 2010; eds. E. La Rocca, S. Ensoli, S. Tortorella and M. Papini; Milan: Skira, 2009), 39–55. 40 Compare the House of the Citharist (I 4,5.25), where a continuous frieze with views of sea villas was placed on the epistyle of portico (17). Three large fragments of this frieze are kept in the National Archeological Museum of Naples: invv. 9496, 9610, 9606. 41 M. Schmidt, “Iconografia del mito,” in I Greci. Storia, cultura, arte, società. Una storia greca. Definizione (ed. S. Settis; Turin: Einaudi, 1997), 867–896. 42 Varriale, “I cicli decorativi nella Casa del Menandro,” 335–339. 38 I.

Architecture and Decoration in the House of Menander in Pompeii

171

their experience of life. Thus, Brutus’ life by Plutarch43 narrates that Porcia, while moving with her husband who was leaving for the military campaign against Mark Antony and Octavian, noticed a painting showing Hector and Andromache’s parting; watching the hero leaving for the fatal battle, she started to cry and continued to weep each time she looked at the picture. Her continually returning to the painting, although it made her cry, was a kind of comfort to her pain through the recollection of “the most moving goodbye of Greek mythology”.44 The majestic appearance of the atrium was a means for the dominus to symbolize himself in the public sphere.45 So the monumental lararium (fig. 8) emphasized his pietas, whereas the Trojan cycle showed his knowledge of his native land, founded by Trojan exiles according to the legend.46 In the tablinum (8), only the eastern wall is decorated, whereas the western one was broken down to create a sort of cupboard obtained from room (10), which once was a corridor to the peristyle, symmetrical to the corridor (9)47. The eastern wall is made up of a plinth and a black socle, a main zone with yellow panels with red background and with architectural perspectives with white background intervals. The central interval is the widest, and it has a pinax showing “The Rape of Europa”. Lateral panels are similar to drapes, whose tension is underlined by the curvilinear movement of the upper edge. The upper zone with white background is almost entirely lost.

6. The peristyle complex The peristyle (c) has the form of a perfect rectangle (m 12,90 × 16,60) made up of a Doric colonnade; its columns have plaster shafts and capitals that are enriched by an echinus with lotus and volutes and by an abacus with Doric kyma (moulding)48. The intercolumniations are closed by low painted parapets with hunting images and paradeisoi (fig. 4). Despite the regularity Brutus, 23. Zanker, Un’arte per l’impero: Funzione e intenzione delle immagini nel mondo romano (Milano: Electa, 2002), 112–113. 45 A. Wallace-Hadrill, “Case dipinte: il sistema decorativo della casa romana come aspetto sociale,” in Roma: La Pittura di un Impero, 31–37. 46 K. Schefold, La peinture pompéienne. Essai sur l’évolution de sa signification, Bruxelles: Latomus, 1972, 50–52; K. Schefold, “Die Troissage in Pompeji,” in Wort und Bild: Studien zur Gegenwart der Antike (ed. K. Schefold; Basel – Mainz: P. von Zabern, 1975), 129–134; D. Tomei, “Le saghe troiane nella pittura pompeiana,” Ostraka, Rivista di Antichità 16 (2007): 409–445, esp. 418–419. 47 It is possible that the room was used as a closet, due to the finding of two lock disks and of a set of clay dishes. Maiuri, La Casa del Menandro, 55–56. 48 Ling, The insula of the Menander, 142–144, fig. 51 b. 43 Plut. 44 P.

172

Ivan Varriale

of the peristyle, there is not a homogeneous distribution of the number of columns on the four sides. Indeed, it seems influenced by the opening of some rooms towards the peristyle, where the intercolumniation is enlarged. This widening especially occurs in the northern portico with five columns in front of the tablinum (8), whereas the southern side has seven columns and they are placed at the same distance. In the eastern portico the intercolumniations are enlarged in front of rooms (15) and (18), which also has no parapets; here the portico has seven columns (fig. 9), whereas on the western side there are eight, and they are placed at the same distance. Rooms (15–16–17–18–19) on the eastern side of the peristyle form a unitary complex, with the exception of the small room (14) that originally acted as cubiculum, as can be inferred from the second style mosaic49. In the last period it became a storeroom. The eastern portico configuration and above all the disposition of the columns inside the portico are influenced by the function of the rooms opening on it and by their major or minor tendency outwards. There is a larger intercolumniation in front of room (15) in order to allow the people inside to enjoy the view of the garden. On the contrary, from corridor (16) it is impossible to look beyond the peristyle colonnade. In front of the large room (18), supplied with a big door, there is a very large intercolumniation with no parapets, which defines a full opening within the garden. From the great triclinium it is possible to admire figures painted on the southern portico exedras. From room (19) it is only possible to notice the southern portico, whereas the exedras remain hidden. The decoration defines dissimilar functions of different rooms as well. The two external rooms (15 and 19) have, respectively a red and a yellow background decoration and both show mythological pinakes. Room (18), the most important one, has both yellow and red in its main zone, it is characterized by the use of blue for architectural perspectives, and it is rich in details. Furthermore, room (17) is painted in black, red and yellow, but with a simple panels scheme, without intervals or pinakes. The architectural division of the rooms and their relation to pictorial and mosaic decoration can play a primary role in defining the function of each room and the functional relations among them50. The eastern peristyle complex is then made up of an alternation of “closed” rooms which are opened outwards. The oeci are rooms that programmatically open outwards51; considering the typical association of an oecus, whose triclinium function can often be recognized, with one or more diurnal or nocturnal cubicula, we can La Casa del Menandro, 160; Ling, The insula of the Menander, 271. Corlàita, “Spazio e decorazione,” 3–44. 51 Vitruvius De architectura 6. 3.10. 49 Maiuri,

50 Scagliarini

Architecture and Decoration in the House of Menander in Pompeii

173

state that the complex of rooms has a residential and hosting function, and that it is made up of two oeci, with different functions, and two cubicula connected to them. The oecus (15), with the exception of the black socle, has a totally red painted background. Each of the three walls has a mythological painting in the middle (fig. 10). They show: Perseus at the court of Cepheus, king of Aethiopia; Perseus saving Andromeda from the sea monster (Cetus) and the punishment of Dirce; in the lateral panels there are flying Muses.52 The first painting shows Perseus on the right, in the presence of four characters on the left. At the top there is a curtain falling from the ceiling, suggesting that the episode is taking place inside the palace. A heavily draped female figure, with veiled head, stands in a prominent position compared to the other three characters receiving Perseus; she can be recognized as Cassiopeia, Andromeda’s mother. Behind her there are three figures, and among them at least two are males; one of them, slightly more advanced and with a long sceptre, can be identified as Cepheus.53 This representation refers to the meeting between the hero and Andromeda’s family, before the girl’s rescue, when Perseus proposed to marry her in exchange for his intervention. The episode is rarely represented and generally appears as a subsidiary element in mythological scenes with continuous narration of third style, as in the Boscotrecase panel or in the one from Sacerdus Amandus’ House, where attention is focused on the hero’s arrival and on Andromeda’s rescue.54

52 The central parts of northern and eastern walls were restored after an earthquake. According to Ling this probably was the seismic event of 62 C.E. (R. Ling, “Earthquake damage in Pompeii I 10: one earthquake or two?,” in Archäologie und Seismologie: la regione vesuviana dal 62 al 79 d.C.: problemi archeologici e sismologici: colloquium (Boscoreale 26.–27. November 1993) (eds. T. Fröhlich and L. Jacobelli; Munich: Biering & Brinkmann, 1995), 201–209; Ling, The insula of the Menander, 234; Ling and Ling, The insula of the Menander at Pompeii: The decoration, 36–37, Considering the coherence of decorations in all the complex, I think that it could also be another earthquake that happened after the one of 62 C.E. and not much before the eruption of 79 C.E. This hypothesis is supported by several studies: A. De Simone, “I terremoti precedenti l’eruzione: nuove attestazione da recenti scavi,” in Archäologie und Seismologie, 37–43; S. Nappo, “Evidenze di Danni Strutturali, Restauri e Rifacimenti nelle Insulae Gravitanti su Via Nocera a Pompei,” in Archäologie und Seismologie, 45–55; U. Pappalardo, “Osservazioni su un secondo grande terremoto a Pompei,” Archäologie und Seismologie, 191–194; A. Varone, “Più Terremoti a Pompei? I nuovi dati degli scavi di Via dell’Abbondanza,” in Archäologie und Seismologie, 29–35. 53 Maiuri, La Casa del Menandro, 162–163 recognizes a man with a scepter; Ling and Ling, The insula of the Menander at Pompeii: The decoration, 79. 54 K. M. Phillips, Jr., “Perseus and Andromeda,” AJA 1 (1968): 1–23; B. Schmaltz, “Andromeda. Ein campanisches Wandbild,” JdI 104 (1989): 259–281, esp. 262.

174

Ivan Varriale

Here, instead, prominence is given to this particular episode; Cassiopeia’s figure is emphasized and placed in the middle of the composition.55 The second painting, on the eastern background wall, shows Andromeda while she is still tied to the rock and exposed as an oblation for the Cetus. The girl is terrified and, bound as she is, she can not do anything but look delighted at her savior, Perseus, depicted on the right. The hero stands wearing only his chlamys; in his left hand he holds the horrible Gorgon’s head, taken out of a bag, whereas in his right hand, he waves the harpe against the sea monster, while it sinks in the stretch of water before the rock. In this case as well, there is a variant of the well-known iconography, where one typically sees the hero as he helps Andromeda getting off the rock, after having untied her. The best example of this kind of representation is in the House of the Dioscuri (VI 9,6–7)56 and it is generally related to a painting by Nicias the Athenian,57 thanks to a passage from Pliny.58 The last painting, on the southern wall, visualizes “The punishment of Dirce” and represents a more complex composition with many additional figures. They might be more than simple spectators,59 but mythological characters, depicted more than once in a continuous narration from the top to the bottom. On the top, identified by the thyrsus and the cymbal, there is a Bacchante who comes down from a mountain (the Kithairon), followed by two female figures. The woman is grabbed by a man, who is on the right and is lurking behind a rock with other two figures, male and female. This scene probably represents Dirce’s capture: while she was going to Dionysus’ temple, as she was his priestess, she was caught by the twins Amphion and Zethus, instigated by their mother Antiope. The main scene in the middle of the composition is Dirce’s being tied to the bull. On the left there is Amphion, wearing only his chlamys; he talks to Hermes, who is recognizable from the petasus and the caduceus extending out from the left frame of the painting. On the right, there is Zethus, naked as well, who holds the bull by the horns. Dirce, who is already tied to the bull with her arms surrounding the animal’s stomach, is excessively prolonged till she reaches the left corner of and Ling, The insula of the Menander at Pompeii: The decoration, 79. Pompeii: the Casa dei Dioscuri, 155–161. 57 B. Neutsch, Der Maler Nikias von Athen: ein Beitrag zur griechischen Künstlergeschichte und zur pompejanischen Wandmalerei (Leipzig: Noske, 1939); K. M. Phillips Jr., “Perseus and Andromeda,”: 1–23; K. Schefold, “Die Andromeda des Nikias,” in Studies in honour of Arthur Dale Trendall (ed. A. Cambitoglou; Sidney: Sydney University Press, 1979), 155–158; Schmaltz, “Andromeda,” 259–281. 58 Pliny, Nat.Hist. XXV 130–133. 59 The painting can not be compared to the pinakes in the exedra (4) showing the wooden horse arrival inside Troy walls and Laocoön’s death, where there are a vast number of spectators. 55 Ling

56 Richardson,

Architecture and Decoration in the House of Menander in Pompeii

175

the composition with her feet. On the bottom of the right corner there are three naked boys with armour, lying down dead or dying. This could be an allusion to the battle for Lycus’ capture. This episode is represented as contemporary to Dirce’s torture in a painting from the House of Quadrigas in Pompeii.60 However, the three boys do not present any particular characteristic that could certainly identify them.61 The torture scene seems to be a compromise between two different iconographic traditions: one shows the moment of the woman’s being tied to the bull and the other represents the woman dragged by the animal. The episodes dealt with in this room could refer to the same theme and, therefore, they could explain the particularity of the iconography chosen for the three paintings. The association of the three images is characterized by the presence of two paintings that represent episodes from the same mythological cycle, Perseus and Andromeda, and a third painting, the punishment of Dirce, that seems to have no connection to them. This kind of association, with two episodes easily related and a third one whose link is less evident, can be found in several Pompeian rooms and is used with different means of connection62. The importance given to Cassiopeia in the pinakes presenting the Perseus’ myth suggests a reference to the dramatic component. In Euripides’ “Andromeda” Cassiopeia plays the most tragic role, because, although she is the reason for her daughter Andromeda’s sacrifice, she sits by while the girl is at the mercy of the sea monster. In the same way, the pinax with the punishment of Dirce can be connected to the tragic sphere, considering the great notoriety of Euripides’ drama “Antiope”. According to Leach63, Antiope, mainly known through Pacuvius’ Latin translation64, can be considered the principal source for Pompeian depictions. Moreover, the painting in the House of Menander shows Hermes talking to Zethus, and so refers to the tragic representation where the god appeared as a deus ex machina as he helped Lycus; this happened at the same time of Dirce’s

60 E. W. Leach, “The punishment of Dirce. A newly discovered painting in the Casa di Giulio Polibio and its significance within the visual tradition,” RM 93 (1986): 157–182, esp. 168, pls. 36–1. 61 L. Romizzi, Programmi decorativi di III e IV stile a Pompei: un’analisi sociologica ed iconologica (Naples: Loffredo, 2006), 330. 62 Romizzi, Programmi decorativi di III e IV stile, 329–330. 63 Leach, “The punishment of Dirce,” 170 ff.; R. Ling, Roman painting (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 240–397; about illustrated books: K. Schefold, “Buch und Bild im Altertum,” in Wort und Bild: Studien zur Gegenwart der Antike (ed. idem; Basle and Mainz: P. von Zabern, 1975), 125–129; N. Horsfall, “The origins of the illustrated book,” Aegyptus 63 (1983): 199–216. 64 Pacuvius’ tragedy is recalled by Cicero in the De finibus I 4, and in the De Oratore 1, 37, 155.

176

Ivan Varriale

torture, which was not visualized65. Women are certainly the protagonists in this room: Cassiopeia and Dirce are mothers (Dirce is Antiope’s stepmother) who cause the misfortune of their own daughters.66 The huge triclinium (18) shows a paratactic scheme with black socle on which there is a main zone made up of yellow and red panels, separated by blue background architectural foreshortenings (fig. 11). Small pictures or vignettes with Maenads and Muses stand out in the panels’ fields, delimited by carpet borders. In the middle of the background wall, inside the architectural foreshortening, there is a group with Dionysus who, inebriated, is supported by a Satyr67. This composition is known in Pompeii from the cubicle (4) of the Villa of the Mysteries.68 Dionysus inebriated is in the focal point of the room, where the repetitive pattern leads the eye. Moreover, all the subjects depicted in the panels recall the banquet atmosphere where the protagonist is wine.69 This theme fits well with the room’s function: here in fact, the accurate execution of the socle decoration and of the main zone’s lower part was due to its function as a banquet room, where the guests used to lie flat for extended periods. The domestic hospitality seems to gain monumentality through the allusion to symposia that took place in Hellenistic kings’ great convivial tents, set up for the purpose. We know of Ptolemy II Philadelphus’ tent, described by Athenaeus,70 whose source is a passage by Callisseno71 of Rhodes. The tents, that certainly had magnificent dimensions, could host up to one hundred klinai, and they were supplied, outside, with a big preserve where 65 In Dirce’s painter’s crater, the scene of the twins who catch Lycus is placed under a little arc, with a panther skin as an allusion to the Dionysian theme. Hermes is represented at the top, as a deus ex machina. The image of Dirce’s torture, instead, is in middle distance, very far from the scene, as it happened for theatre where violent scenes were not represented but only narrated by the choir or other characters. Dirce’s painter’s crater, Syracuse, National Museum, inv. 36319; Phillips, Jr., “Perseus and Andromeda,” 11, fig. 33. 66 An element that can contribute to insert the three pinakes in a “literary” atmosphere could be the Muses’ presence in the panels free from pinakes. There are eight Muses but only six are still visible. On the left panel of the northern wall there is a Muse with a chiton and a cloak, holding a tragic theatrical mask (Melpomene), and, on the right panel, there is a Muse holding the globe (Urania), whereas on the background wall there is a Muse playing the chitara (Erato) and another one with a stylus and a papyrus roll (Clio), on the southern one with a lyre and a plektron (?) and another one with a pedum, in her right hand, and a diptychon, in the left one (Calliope). 67 E. Pochmarski, Dionysische Gruppen: eine typologische Untersuchung zur Geschichte des Stützmotivs (Wien: Selbstverlag des Österreichischen Archäologischen Institutes, 1990), 14–24, cat. V 1, plt. 1.1. 68 Maiuri, La villa dei Misteri, 182. 69 P. Zanker, “Vivere con i miti: Pompei e oltre,” in Roma: la Pittura di un Impero, 89–97. 70 Ath. V, 196 ff. 71 Calliss., FGrHist 627 F 2, apud Ath. V, 196 A–197 C and Ath. V 197C–203B.

Architecture and Decoration in the House of Menander in Pompeii

177

the king and a few close friends used to go hunting.72 In triclinium (18) the decorative space, both inside and outside, seems to refer to the tents from a formal point of view, even though it doesn’t copy them directly.73 The panels’ structure with pinakes and architectural perspective intervals can be compared to Ptolemy’s coenatio: here the beams are decorated with painted panels and are visible through the curtains with hanging pinakes, as described by Athenaeus74. Thus the external space seems to recall the Nilotic area with a direct allusion to the paradeisoi, where the Hellenistic king used to collect beasts and exotic animals he delighted in hunting. The theme of a Dionysian procession, developed inside room (18), could be compared to Ptolemy’s pompè too; this was opened by Dionysus and his cortege and had to take place in a Nilotic setting, as also underlined by Coarelli,75 who correlates the pompè with the Nilotic mosaic from Palestrina. The decorative syntax with panels and intervals with perspectival architecture is not an exclusive peculiarity of banquet rooms, but it is very common on all the fourth style walls in Pompeii. It is probable that this kind of wall composition takes its inspiration from the Oriental models of convivial tents, and in the big triclinium (18) the external decorative space corresponds to the internal one; so it is a more direct and functional allusion to the expression of luxus ideal, whose most important manifestations were Hellenistic kings’ coenationes. Finally, we can say that the very rich silverware found inside the house is another expression of luxus in convivial contexts; these, in fact, were the most notable things that were offered to guests during Ptolemy’s symposia, according to Athenaeus.76 The pictorial decoration of room (19) has a brown-red dado, leaning on a plinth; the main zone has a yellow background and is divided into three parts, separated through architectural perspectives that are made on the same golden yellow background of the wall. In the middle of the walls there are some mythological pinakes. The architectural perspectives show very refined figurative elements as well. The superior lintel of the two orders 72 E. Calandra, “L’occasione e l’eterno: la tenda di Tolomeo Filadelfo nei palazzi di Alessandria. Parte prima. Materiali per la ricostruzione,” LANX. Rivista della Scuola di Specializzazione in Archeologia – Università degli Studi di Milano 1 (2008): 26–74; eadem, “L’occasione e l’eterno: la tenda di Tolomeo Filadelfo nei palazzi di Alessandria. Parte seconda. Una proposta di ricostruzione” LANX. Rivista della Scuola di Specializzazione in Archeologia – Università degli Studi di Milano 2 (2009): 1–77. 73 A direct reference to them was presupposed for the octagonal room of Nero’s Domus Aurea. E. Salza Prina Ricotti, “Le tende conviviali e la tenda di Tolomeo Filadelfo,” in Studia Pompeiana & Classica in Honor of Wilhelmina F. Jashemski (eds. W. Jashemski and R. I. Curtis: New York: A.B. Caratzas, 1989), 199–231. 74 Ath. V, 196 ff. 75 F. Coarelli, “La pompé di Tolomeo Filadelfo e il mosaico nilotico di Palestrina,” Ktema. Civilisations de l’Orient, de la Grèce et de Rome antiques 15 (1990): 225–251. 76 Ath. V 196 ff.

178

Ivan Varriale

aediculae is decorated with a white figurative frieze on a red background. Only the friezes on the southern wall still remain intact. On the western side there are genre-painting scenes, whereas the eastern side is decorated with battle scenes between Greeks and Amazons, with hinted landscape elements. The central paintings, that remain only on the southern and northern walls, are placed in the middle of the panels and inside painted wooden frames. They seem to imitate actual pinakes hanging from the architecture and placed in front of golden curtains. On the northern wall there is a Maenad who scares a Cupid with a theatrical mask, a scene which takes place in a rocky landscape.77 The painting on the southern wall shows Pan playing the syrinx and a Maenad who is listening to him (fig. 12). The scene takes place in a pastoral landscape, with rocks and peaks and different kinds of trees, such as pines and cypresses. In the middle, sitting on a rock, there is Pan, who is totally naked and plays the syrinx for the Maenad; under the rock there are a pedum and the skin of a goat. The figure, that Maiuri and Ling78 simply identify with a satyr, is characterized by the syrinx, the goat skin, the pedum and the pine standing out behind the scene. These attributes allow us to identify the goat face male figure with Pan playing for a Maenad79. The painting can be compared to a pinax put inside the golden vault (80) of Nero’s Domus Aurea and known thanks to Mirri’s drawing.80 The two surviving pinakes do not seem to belong to any cycle, and they are not the result of a recurrent association, so it is not possible to suggest a hypothesis about the nature of the lost painting. Room (19) is closely connected to the triclinium (18); they form a complex, made up of tricliniar oecus and cubicle81. The function of room (19), even if it has been defined as cubiculum, is anything but clear: this kind of room, in fact, could have several different functions82. The Dionysian theme is predominant in the big triclinium (18), and it is also present in the cubicle (19); here there are centaurs and masks of Silens and Maenads with Dionysus’ sacred objects La Casa del Menandro, 179 ff.; Ling and Ling, The insula of the Menander at Pompeii: The decoration, 82. 78 Maiuri, La Casa del Menandro, 179 ff.; Ling and Ling, The insula of the Menander at Pompeii: The decoration, 82–83. 79 It is possible to compare our pinax to a depiction from House of Jason (IX 5, 18), where Pan plays the syrinx among the Muses. Naples National Museum, inv. 111473; La pittura pompeiana (eds. V. Sampaolo and I. Bragantini; Naples: Electa, 2009), 236, n. 91. 80 I. Iacopi, Domus aurea (Milan: Electa, 2001), 41–49, fig. 47. 81 Scagliarini Corlàita, “Spazio e decorazione,” 3–44. 82 A. M. Riggsby, “Public and private in Roman culture. The case of the cubiculum,” JRA 10 (1997): 36–56. 77 Maiuri,

Architecture and Decoration in the House of Menander in Pompeii

179

hanging from the architecture, and little paintings with characters referring to a Dionysian thiasus, such as Maenads, and the figure that can be identified with Pan or a Satyr. The paintings seem to allude to the power of the arts, through Pan’s figure, who enchants the Maenad with the syrinx sound, and the Maenad figure, who scares Cupid using a theatrical mask. This last theme, a Dionysian one, can probably be related to the one inside the central exedra of the peristyle, connected to the library (21), perhaps used as a reading room. The link with the library and the poets’ representations in the central exedra (23), painted with the same golden yellow background, could suggest that the cubicle (19) was used as reading room as well. In the southern portico, the series of exedras, redecorated during the age of fourth style, had a scenographic function (fig. 13). They were used to give the illusionistic feel of an expansion of the peristyle and garden space. Since the age of the second style, the prospect used to have this function, as testified by the decoration of the exedra (25), showing a fantastic garden. Decorators of fourth style recover the use of older decorations83 and represent the Actaeon and Diana myth (fig. 14)84 in exedra (22) and the Venus’ myth inside a sacred wood (fig. 16) in exedra (24). In the middle (23), on the shorter sides, there are portraits of the poets Menander (fig. 15) and Euripides and, on the longer side, a figure on a throne, maybe Dionysus, between two trapezai with theatrical masks85. Diana and Venus images are depicted as statues raising in the middle of the composition86; the Dionysus figure, sitting in the central exedra, was probably similar to them87.

83 H. G. Beyen, Die pompejanische Wanddekoration vom zweiten bis zum vierten Stil 2.1. (Haag: Nijhoff, 1960), 176–178; Bragantini and Parise Badoni, “Il quadro pompeiano,” 121–122; Romizzi, Programmi decorativi di III e IV stile, 330. 84  E. W. Leach, “Metamorphoses of the Acteon myth in Campania painting,” RM 88 (1981): 307–327; I. Varriale, “La rappresentazione del mito come forma di comunicazione. Il caso di Atteone e Diana,” Annali dell’Università degli Studi Suor Orsola Benincasa (2010): 556–558. 85 Maiuri, La Casa del Menandro, 106–121, sees a third figure in the middle of the long side and he thinks it could be a third poet, Homer or Ennius, whereas Ling and Ling, The Insula of the Menander at Pompeii: The Decoration, 85–88, thinks it could be Dionysus, in the wake of K. Schefold, Die Wände Pompejis. Topographisches Verzeichnis der Bildmotive (Berlin: Walter De Gruyter, 1957), 42 and Clarke, The houses of Roman Italy, 188–191. 86 E. M. Moormann, La pittura parietale Romana come fonte di conoscenza per la scultura antica (Assen/Maastricht: Van Gorcum, 1988), 152–153. 87 It can be supposed an iconography similar Dionysus’ one in room (2) in the House of Naviglio (VI 10,11) in Pompeii. MANN, inv. 9456; Le collezioni del Museo Nazionale di Napoli (ed. A. F. Pedicini; Rome: De Luca; Milan: Leonardo, 1989), 160, n. 259; Moormann, La pittura parietale Romana, 181.

180

Ivan Varriale

Paintings stimulate conversation and meditation, and so they contribute to create spaces in which to rest and think inside the ambulatio.88 Also the exedra (25), that retains a fantastic landscape in the second style, becomes an area reserved to the Penates’ cult during the age of fourth style. A sacellum with a stone altar was built there, and representations of imagines maiorum were found in it (fig. 17). This room is certainly linked to the exedra (24), which is decorated with a representation of Venus, similar to the ones depicted on Pompeian lararia and building façades. Therefore this kind of representation of Venus represents a domestic sacredness.89 The landscape where Actaeon’s dismemberment takes place seems to extend the real garden by a mythical background. Hunting dogs follow deer around Diana’s figure and run in the same direction as the dogs painted on the parapets. Diana stands frontally and towers in the middle of the landscape, leaning on a cave, like a statue on a podium. The Actaeon and Diana myth has philosophical implications and, if associated with the other representations of intellectuals that are next to it and to the adjacent library (21), they allow us to presume a cultured commission.90 Representations of intellectuals are traditionally used to stimulate cultured discussions, as testified by a passage from Cicero’s Brutus (24): here in fact the author invites his guests to sit under Plato’s statue, before starting the discussion. The poets’ portraits (Menander and Euripides), painted in the House of Menander, had the same function; they were connected to the library and imitated the statues that adorned the peristilia of the otium great villas.91 The oecus (11) shows a mosaic in the second style, with a polychrome emblema in opus vermiculatum that represents a Nilotic landscape with pygmies on a boat. After the renewal of paintings during the first phase of the fourth style92, the mosaic was kept, and the new decoration conformed to the humorous spirit of the emblema. A monochromatic white continuous frieze was painted on a red background visualizing a parody of a myth: the battle between drunk Centaurs and Lapith women (figs. 18–19). In the 88 D. Scagliarini Corlàita, “Propter spatia longitudinis. Cicli e serie figurative nelle ambulationes del Secondo e del Quarto Stile pompeiano,” in I temi figurativi nella pittura parietale antica, IV secolo a.C.–IV secolo d.C. Atti del VI Convegno internazionale sulla pittura parietale antica (Bologna 20–23 settembre 1995) (ed. D. Scagliarini Corlàita; Bologna: University Press, 1997), 119–123. 89 T. Fröhlich, Lararien- und Fassadenbilder in den Vesuvstädten: Untersuchungen zur “volkstümlichen” pompejanischen Malerei (Mainz: P. von Zabern, 1991), 148–149. 90 Varriale, “La rappresentazione del mito come forma di comunicazione,” 556–558. 91 Varriale, “I cicli decorativi nella Casa del Menandro,” 335–339. 92 I. Bragantini, “Tra il III e il IV stile: ipotesi per l’identificazione di una fase della pittura pompeiana,” in Pompei, 1748–1980: i tempi della documentazione (ed. I. Baldassarre; Rome: Multigrafica, 1981), 106–118; Ling, The insula of the Menander, 269; Ling and Ling, The insula of the Menander at Pompeii: The decoration, 28–34.

Architecture and Decoration in the House of Menander in Pompeii

181

oecus there were also some pinakes showing genre-painting scenes: navigation, Cherubs at the gym, Dionysus with Maenad, a Satyr playing with a Cherub and the Perseus and Andromeda myth in its most popular version of the fourth style, so as a romantic idyll.93 The householder kept a playful theme because he thought it suitable for the room’s function. Though his decorative scheme was different from the former one, the decorator used models based on the Hellenistic repertory for the most refined themes and models that were in fashion at that time for the pinakes.

7. The bath A similar situation can be found in the thermal area, where the calidarium (48) walls are repainted in the fourth style with figures of athletes, thus using a theme that is functional in the complex and in harmony with the former pictorial and mosaic decoration. The athletes’ depictions recall the physical exercise done inside the thermal bath, and they complement the themes developed in the tepidarium and in the mosaic emblema at the calidarium entrance: this one shows a servitor who brings unguentaries and a couple of strigils to clean the body after the exercises. One of the paintings from the atriolum (46), only partially preserved94, is also intriguing. The decoration creates an illusionistic ambulatory around the room; it is made up of a jutting socle with horizontal bands, concave orthostats forming a portico wall, and a part with ornamental and figurative friezes. In the foreground, there are pillars and herms that function as caryatids and support a false relief frame; on this frame there is the upper zone of the decoration, where a jutting band shows a small frieze with mythical and parodying characters, identified by Greek inscriptions. There are Theseus and the Minotaur, Jupiter’s illicit loves, here with Pasiphaë, and the dispute between Marsyas and Apollo (fig. 20). According to Roger Ling, this could be a mythical Cretan cycle, developing from left to right.95 On the top, a molded frame, similar to white marble, casts an illusionistic shadow on the figurative frieze. According to Maiuri,96 the frieze should be related to a passage from Pliny97: this passage deals with the Egyptian painter Antiphilos, active in the 93 Bragantini, “Problemi di pittura romana,” 175–197; Zanker, Un’arte per l’impero, 120 ff.; I. Bragantini, “La pittura parietale e il mutamento della cultura abitativa,” in La pittura pompeiana (eds. V. Sampaolo and I. Bragantini; Naples: Electa, 2009), 60–67. 94 Maiuri, La Casa del Menandro, 323, n. 20. 95 Ling and Ling, The insula of the Menander at Pompeii: The decoration, 64–65. 96 Maiuri, La Casa del Menandro, 138–139. 97 Pliny Nat.Hist., 34.114 (gryllum deridiceli habitus pinxit, unde genus picture grilly vocantur).

182

Ivan Varriale

second half of 4th century B.C.E. and author of small parodying paintings about someone named Gryllos, who had a ridiculous aspect. From that time, this kind of paintings was given the name of grylloi. Maiuri assumes that the frieze is a late manifestation of this kind of painting, known in Rome before Augustus’ religious reformation. The painting has Greek captions, and Ling connected this element to Greek illustrated books.98 Besides, the shaping strongly recalls Madhià grotesques.99 The only part of the decoration that is preserved as far as the floor is on the northern wall and it is the result of a fourth style “philological” restoration, made after the closing of a door that connected the little atrium to corridor (M).100 If we observe the part of the parodying frieze with Theseus killing the Minotaur, we can notice that figures are executed with a different technique than all the others. Large brown brush strokes define the hero’s complexion, whereas rapid white brush strokes draft figures’ grotesque features, modeled through chiaroscuro. The characters in the eastern part show a totally different technique: they are defined by the outline and details and features are executed with rapid brown brush strokes. Apart from the figures shaping in the “restored” section, we can observe a series of mistakes in the rendering of architecture. The shadow cast onto the miniature frieze by the molded frame is a simple brown band in this part, so the lesbian kyma under the frieze seems to lack plasticity. Even if he imitates the former decoration, the fourth style decorator uses his own canons and the typical technique of this age.

8. Conclusions The House of Menander is an exceptional example of an urban residential building, where architecture and ornamentation are perfectly blended. Decorations are a sign of the owner’s tastes and interests, and they realize self-representation in the public and private sphere, thus revealing social and cultural ambitions. All elements of the atrium meet the criteria of decor and maiestas, echoing public building shapes: the lararium, conceived as a shrine and decorated as if it had marble coverings; engaged columns and antae, that emphasize

Roman painting, 212; Bragantini, “Problemi di pittura romana,”: 175–197. La Casa del Menandro, 137 ff.; A. Adriani, “Microasiatici o Alessandrini i grotteschi Mahdià?,” RM 70 (1963): 80–92. 100 Ling and Ling, The insula of the Menander at Pompeii: The decoration, 3, 20.   98 Ling,

  99 Maiuri,

Architecture and Decoration in the House of Menander in Pompeii

183

the openings of the tablinum (8) and the exedra (4); the gallery of images exposed in the exedra101. In the peristyle complex we can notice the dominus’ attention to the choice of subjects, carefully selected; this is evident where decorations visualize themes that perfectly combine with the oldest ornamentation or when imitative restorations take place, as in the little atrium of the bath102. The sophistication of decorations and their literary implication certainly demonstrate the high social status of the owner, who chose the most unusual and particular scenes to decorate the house. This is attested by the presence of poets’ portraits, by the association of paintings referring to literary works, such as the Trojan cycle, the Perseus and Dirce sagas and their allusion to Euripides’ tragedies, and by the humorous component of both the thermal area visual representations and oecus (11), which Maiuri connected to Hellenistic literature103. All these references to literature and culture would be reinforced by the presence of the library (21). The last aspect we need to consider is the imitation of patrician villas as a model for urban houses. As already mentioned, the architectural structure recalls a villa; in the same way, landscapes with sea villas, deities looking like painted statues in the southern exedras of the peristyle, the large triclinium with a view to the garden and painted as a hunting preserve (paradeisos), were all ways of life in a luxurious otium residence.

Captions to figures Fig. 1: Plan of the House of Menander (I 10,4). Fig. 2: Axial view: fauces (a), atrium (b), tablinum (8), peristyle (c), exedrae (22–25). Fig. 3: View from tablinum (8) through atrium (b) with entrance to exedra (4), to fauces (a). Fig. 4: Paradeisoi painted on top of the peristyle corridor (9) and on low parapets in the peristyle (c). Fig. 5: Portion of frieze in upper zone of atrium (b): seaside villa/portico with fisher­ men. Fig. 6: Exedra (4) with three frescoes in main zone (details in Plate 7). 101 F. Coarelli, Dintorni di Roma (Bari: Laterza, 1981), defines Augustus’ Forum as a sort of patrician atrium with ancestors’ portraits. 102 W. Ehrhardt, “Gli stili pompeiani ed il proprietario: L’esempio della Casa delle Nozze d’argento,” in Nuove ricerche archeologiche a Pompei ed Ercolano. Atti del Convegno Internazionale (Roma 28–30 novembre 2002) (P. G. Guzzo and M. P. Guidobaldi; Naples: Electa, 2005), 170–190. 103 Clarke, The houses of Roman Italy, 187–188.

184

Ivan Varriale

Fig. 7: Three frescoes on walls in main zones of exedra (4): Laocoon’s death, Cassandra’s prophecy before the wooden horse, and the Last Night of Troy, including the rape of Cassandra and the meeting between Menelaus and Helen. Fig. 8: Lararium in the atrium (b). Fig. 9: View across peristyle (c) garden from northeast corner toward rooms 15, 18, 19. Fig. 10: Three frescoes in room (15): Perseus at the court of Cepheus, king of Aethiopia; Perseus saving Andromeda from the sea monster; the punishment of Dirce. Fig. 11: Wall of triclinium (18), a paratactic scheme with black socle, above which is a main zone of yellow and red panels, separated by blue background architectural foreshortening. Fig. 12: Fresco in room (19): Pan enchants Maenad with syrinx sound. Fig. 13: Four exedrae (22–25) south of peristyle (c): visible are Actaeon and Diana myth, then portrait of poet Menander. Fig. 14: Exedra 22: Actaeon and Diana myth. Fig. 15: Exedra (23): portrait of poet Menander. Fig. 16: Exedra (24): Venus Pompeiana inside sacred wood. Fig. 17: Exedra (25): second style frescoes and sacellum with stone altar with representations of ancestors. Fig. 18: Wall of oecus (11) with monochromatic white continuous frieze painted on red background in upper zone: battle between drunk Centaurs and Lapith women. Fig. 19: Detail of frieze in oecus (11). Fig. 20: Painting in atriolum (46): small frieze with parody of mythological characters: north wall, Theseus and Minotaur (“philological restoration” in fourth style); east wall, Aphrodite’s revenge (second style).

Charting the urban development of the Insula Occidentalis and the Casa di Marcus Fabius Rufus at Pompeii Mario Grimaldi1

1. Introduction In 1875, Giuseppe Fiorelli described the Insula Occidentalis as following: “Entering the city by the Herculaneum Gate, one encounters a block of housing on the right that extends to near the Porta Marina and is situated on the slope of the agger of the city walls. Uncovered almost entirely in the early excavations, and then re-interred after some initial research, the block has a front that is accessible from the road but its inner buildings on the slope remain buried.”2 Fiorelli summarized in a few lines something of the history of the area, providing the reader with the urban relationships that linked the houses to the pre-existing road, the Via Consolare, as well as to the city’s fortification walls. The information he possessed was contained in the excavation diaries collected in his Pompeianarum Antiquitatum Historia,3 together with the maps left by the La Vega between 1789 and 1809 (fig. 1).4 1

 Translation by Michelle Lynn Parker. Fiorelli, Descrizione di Pompei (eds. U. Pappalardo and M. Grimaldi, Naples: Massa, 1875; rep. 2001), 431: “Entrando nella città dalla Porta Ercolanese, si trova a destra un caseggiato, che distendesi fino presso alla Porta Marina, ed è poggiato in pendio all’agger delle pubbliche mura. Scoperto quasi interamente negli scavi più antichi, ed interrato poi dopo le prime ricerche, esso forma un’isola che ha la fronte accessibile dalla via, e tiene diruti o sepolti i fabbricati più interni posti sul declivio del colle.” 3 G. Fiorelli, Pompeianarum Antiquitatum Historia nunc primum collegit indicibusque instruxit (Naples, 1860–1864), I–III. 4 The La Vega brothers’ original plan is still preserved in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli in the Archivio Disegni (inv. 2615). For futher information regarding the early years of excavation at Pompeii see M. Pagano, Diari di scavo di Pompei, Ercolano e Stabiae di F. e P. La Vega (1764–1810): raccolte di studio di documenti inediti (Rome: Erma di Bretschneider, 1997); M. Pagano, I primi anni degli scavi di Ercolano, Pompei e Stabiae (Rome: Erma di Bretschneider, 2005) and C. C. Parslow, Rediscovering Antiquity: Karl 2 G.

186

Mario Grimaldi

The section of the narrow, built-up band on the west side of the walls between the Herculaneum Gate and the Casa di Umbricius Scaurus (VII 16,15) had been investigated as early as 1759, during the excavations of the area between the necropolis outside the Herculaneum Gate and the inner part of the city.5 In the organisation and execution of those excavations, this area was designated as a dump for the resulting spoil, creating the so-called “cumuli borbonici.” The complete exposure of these dwellings would not happen for another 200 years, when Amedeo Maiuri carried out excavations in 1961 with the aim of uncovering the entire western edge of the city (fig. 2).6 The planning of the excavations by the Bourbons and Fiorelli’s later division of the Insula Occidentalis into two regiones have compromised the unitary vision of this residential complex within the urban system, which resulted from a precise building plan realized in a particular moment of the city’s life.7 The present contribution aims to reconstruct the phases of urbanization for this part of ancient Pompeii, drawn from two fundamental elements: on one hand, from the research conducted on the Casa di Marcus Fabius Rufus, which can serve as a model for the analysis of the phases of occupation of the broader area; and on the other hand, from some recent data arising from the excavations conducted in the extramural area, in the garden of the aforementioned house (fig. 3).8 Weber and the excavation of Herculaneum, Pompeii, and Stabiae (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). 5 Fiorelli, Pompeianarum Antiquitatum, vol. I (1759), 94 ff; M. Pagano and R. Prisciandaro, Studio sulle provenienze degli oggetti rinvenuti neagli scavi borbonici del Regno di Napoli (Naples: Bardi, 2006), esp. 30 ff. 6 Previously the area had also been partially affected by the American bombings in 1943, regarding which see A. Maiuri, “Isolamento della cinta murale tra Porta Vesuvio e Porta Ercolano,” NSc (1943): 275–294 and A. Maiuri, “Pompei, sterro dei cumuli e isolamento della cinta murale,” BdA I–II (1960): 166–179; L. García y García, Danni di guerra a Pompei. Una dolorosa vicenda quasi dimenticata (Rome: Erma di Bretschneider, 2006), 32. 7 For initial attempts at drawing an overall picture of the urban development of this area and of the north-western part of Regio VI see M. Aoyagi and U. Pappalardo, Pompei Insula Occidentalis, University of Tokyo (Naples-Tokyo: Valtrend, 2006); R. Jones, “The Urbanisation of Insula VI 1 at Pompeii,” in Nuove ricerche archeologiche a Pompei ed Ercolano, Atti del Convegno di Studi Soprintendenza Archeologica di Pompei, Roma 1–3 febbraio 2007 (eds. P. G. Guzzo and M. P. Guidobaldi, Rome: Erma di Bretschneider, 2008): 139–146 and F. Coarelli, “Il settore nord-occidentale di Pompei e lo sviluppo urbanistico della città dall’età arcaica al III secolo a.C.,” in Nuove ricerche archeologiche a Pompei ed Ercolano, Atti del Convegno di Studi Soprintendenza Archeologica di Pompei, Roma 1–3 febbraio 2007 (eds. P. G. Guzzo and M. P. Guidobaldi, Rome: Erma di Bretschneider, 2008), 173–176. 8 The complex was the subject of a broad study which appears in the volume edited by M. Aoyagi and U. Pappalardo, Pompei Insula Occidentalis, which for a number of years has been documenting the state of the paintings of Pompeii. In particular, for the House of Marcus Fabius Rufus see M. Grimaldi, “VII 16 Insula Occidentalis 22. Casa di M. Fabius Rufus,” in Pompei, Regiones VI–VII. Insula Occidentalis (eds. M. Aoyagi and U. Pappa-

Charting the urban development of the Insula Occidentalis

187

The Casa di Marcus Fabius Rufus provides a good example of the history of Pompeian excavations as much as the study of the houses in the Insula Occidentalis itself.9 The following contribution presents a history of the house within the context of its local urban network, analyzing it in relation to the adjacent dwellings of Maius Castricius to the south and the Casa del Bracciale d’Oro (Golden Bracelet) to the north, as well as to the band of buildings between the Herculaneum Gate and the Vico dei Soprastanti.10 The area of the Casa di Marcus Fabius Rufus was initially investigated superficially during the Bourbon period in order to remove some decorations which were then placed in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli.11 When observing the plan drawn up by the La Vega brothers (1787–1809), one can, in fact, see that only the upper floor was surveyed, and that only imperfectly; for example, the circular exedra was shown too far to the south. (fig. 4). The much later investigations of Maiuri, in 1961, served to restore immediately the house which, except for the central circular exedra, clearly had borne the full brunt of the destructive impact of the 79 C.E. eruption. After this restoration the first publications came out, which focused mainly on the most important finds, such as the two dionysiac glass cameo panels lardo, Naples – Tokyo: Valtrend, 2006), 257–418 and M. Grimaldi, “La fase repubblicana della Casa di Marco Fabio Rufo a Pompei,” in Atti del Convegno Internazionale sulla pittura di II stile in età tardo repubblicana (ed. J. P. Moret, Rome: Quasar, 2007), 133–155. The excavation of the garden area of the House of Marcus Fabius Rufus was carried out by the writer under the supervision of Prof. Umberto Pappalardo and with the valuable contributions of Dott.ssa Ciardiello and some students of the Università Suor Orsola Benincasa di Napoli, see M. Grimaldi et al., “Scavi nella Casa di Marco Fabio Rufo,” RStPomp (2008): 115–123.   9 For an introduction to the house, one could compare: I. Bragantini, “VII 16 (Ins. Occ.) 22. Casa di M. Fabius Rufus,” in Pompei Pitture e Mosaici VI (Roma: Istituto della enciclopedia italiana, 1997): 947–1125; G. Cerulli-Irelli, “Le case di M. Fabio Rufo e di C. Giulio Polibio,” in Pompei 1748–1980. I tempi della documentazione Mostra Roma – Pompei, luglio  – ottobre 1981 (Rome: Multigrafica editrice, 1981), 22–33; V. Kockel, “Archäologische Funde und Forschungen in den Vesuvstädten II,” AA 1 (1986): 443–569; E. W. Leach, “The Iconography of the Black Salone of the Casa di Fabio Rufo,” KölnJb 24 (1991): 105–112. I. Sgobbo, “Un complesso di edifici sannitici e i quartieri di Pompei per la prima volta riconosciuti,” RendNap XVI (1938): 5–29; H. Solin, “Die Wandinschriften im sog. Haus des M. Fabius Rufus,“ in Neue Forschungen in Pompeji Kolloquium Essen 1974 (eds. B. Andreae, H. Kyrieleis, Recklinghausen, 1975), 243–266. 10 Until even very recently, these three houses, because of the circumstances of their discovery and their many similar characteristic elements, both decorative and structural, were studied as one complex generically identified as the House of M. Fabius Rufus, see R. Ciardiello, “VI 17 Insula Occidentalis 42. Casa del Bracciale d’oro,” in Pompei, Regiones VI–VII, Insula Occidentalis (eds. M. Aoyagi and U. Pappalardo, Naples – Tokyo: Valtrend, 2006), 69–256 and I. Varriale, “VII 16 Insula Occidentalis 17. Casa di Maius Castricius,” in Pompei. Regiones VI–VII. Insula Occidentalis (eds. M. Aoyagi and U. Pappalardo, Naples – Tokyo: Valtrend, 2006), 419–503. 11 Of these, two (num. inv. 9621 & 9624) belong to the large oecus (32), see M. Grimaldi, “VII 16 Insula Occidentalis 2,” in Pompei, Regiones VI–VII, Insula Occidentalis, 294–307.

188

Mario Grimaldi

(fig. 5).12 At the end of the 1970s, a new series of excavations uncovered the outer garden on the west slope and new restorations were carried out.13 An attempt will be made here to reconstruct the occupation and development of this most westerly side of the city of Pompeii through the analysis of the visible fortifications, of the phases of construction and decoration of the Casa di Marcus Fabius Rufus, and through the incorporation of new archaeological data recovered from the garden area.14

2. Fortifications and Colonial Domus The area encompassed by the Herculaneum gate to the north, the city walls to the west, the Via Consolare to the east and the Vico dei Soprastanti to the south is characterized by terraced houses with Tuscan atria that had their entrances on the Via Consolare (fig. 6). The domus thus occupy the space between the axes of the Via Consolare – Vico del Farmacista (fifth to fourth centuries B.C.E.) and the fortifications (the outermost date from the end of the fourth – beginning of the third century B.C.E.) which, in the west of this area, line the notable rise in elevation between the higher part of the lava platform on which the city is located and the nearby cliffs along the coastline.15

12 A. Maiuri, “Due pannelli vitrei figurati da Pompei,” BdA 46 (1961): 18–23; G. Cerulli Irelli, “Le case di M. Fabio Rufo e di C. Giulio Polibio”; the two glass panels were found in the area corresponding to the oecus (62) together with what remained of the rich decoration which, it would appear, had been stored here, just as happened in the House of Julius Polybius. Today they are kept in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale under inventory numbers 153651–2. In the excavation diaries of 1961 there is some information relating to the excavation of the rooms (54), (56) and (58). 13 G. Cerulli Irelli, “Le case di M. Fabio Rufo e di C. Giulio Polibio.” 14 A contribution towards the reconstruction of the ancient line of the western walls and the first dwellings there was carried out by Roberto Cassetta, regarding which see R. Cassetta, “Pompei. La cinta muraria dell’insula occidentalis,” AIACNews 2 (2006): 10–12 and R. Cassetta-Costantino, “Vivere sulle mura: il caso dell’insula occidentalis di Pompei,” in Nuove ricerche archeologiche a Pompei ed Ercolano, Atti del Convegno di Studi Soprintendenza Archeologica di Pompei, Roma 1–3 febbraio 2007 (eds. P. G. Guzzo – M. P. Guidobaldi, Rome: Erma di Bretschneider, 2008), 197–208. 15 Concerning the typology of the houses see F. Pesando, Domus edilizia privata e società pompeiana fra III e I secolo a.C. (Rome: Erma di Bretschneider, 1997). For the undulations of the lava plateau of Pompeii and for a comparison with the terrace houses of Regio VIII, see F. Noack – K. Lehmann Hartleben, Baugeschichtliche Untersuchungen am Stadtrand von Pompeji (Berlin and Leipzig: W. de Gruyter, 1936); E. Fornari, Neapolis. Planimetria della città antica di Pompei III, tav. 15, (Soprintendenza Archeologica di Pompei, Monografie, 7, Rome: Erma di Bretschneider, 1994), and F. Seiler, “Karl LehmannHartleben e la “nuova” ricerca su Pompei,” in Pompei. Scienza e società, Convegno Internazionale, Napoli 25–27 novembre 1998 (ed. P. G. Guzzo, Napoli: Electa 2001), 63–71.

Charting the urban development of the Insula Occidentalis

189

It is interesting to note the relationship between the natural topography and the built environment of this area. The fortification walls between the Herculaneum Gate and the Porta Marina followed the frequent and abrupt changes in elevation along this slope in a double curtain arrangement, made of different materials and at different times, at least as far as the intersection with the Via dei Soprastanti.16 Similarly, in the section corresponding to the Casa di Marcus Fabius Rufus, the walls, both in opus quadratum, were constructed at different times. The inner wall, closer to the street, was, in fact, constructed in tufo di Nocera at the end of the third century B.C.E. to reinforce the outer and earlier defenses made of Sarno stone, dating to the end of the fourth century/beginning of the third century B.C.E. The earlier defenses continue towards the south in the facade of the adjacent Casa di Maius Castricius (VII 16,17) where a façade in tufo di Nocera is visible above the rows of Sarno stone blocks (fig. 7).17 By observing the arrangement of the rows of Sarno stone in the garden of the Casa di Marcus Fabius Rufus, one can discern in the centre the relationship between the two different “building sites” which at that time were approaching each other. The differences in height should probably be attributed to geomorphological changes in the foundations. The walls were refaced in opus incertum composed of volcanic stone both at the base and at the northern and southern ends up to a height corresponding to the upper floor of the houses dated to the end of the second century B.C.E./beginning of the first century B.C.E. Part of this renovation was an initial external render in hydraulic cocciopesto connected with the utilization of the walls as a foundation for the first underlying floor. In the central 16 On the west side of the fortifications see S. De Caro, “Nuove indagini sulle fortificazioni di Pompei,” AionArchStAnt VII (1985): 74–114, R. Cassetta, Pompei. La cinta muraria dell’insula occidentalis and R. Cassetta, Vivere sulle mura. 17 On the methods of construction of the walls and their relative dating see: A. Maiuri, “Studi e ricerche sulle fortificazioni di Pompei,” MonAnt XXXIII (1930): coll. 113–286; A. Maiuri, “Muro della fortificazione,” NSc (1939): 232–238; A. Maiuri, “Isolamento della cinta murale,” 275–294; S. De Caro, “Nuove indagini sulle fortificazioni di Pompei,” 79–114; C. Chiaramonte Treré, Nuovi contributi sulle fortificazioni pompeiane, Quaderni di Annali della Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia dell’Università degli Studi di Milano 6 (1986); H. Etani, S. Sakai and H. Kiriyama, “Preliminary Reports. Archeological investigation at Porta Capua, Pompeii (Second Season, September–December 1994),” OpPomp V (1995): 55–67; H. Etani, S. Sakai and K. Ueno, “Preliminary Reports. Archeological investigation at Porta Capua, Pompeii (Third Season, September–December 1995),” OpPomp VI (1996): 52–65; H. Etani, S. Sakai and Y. Hori, “Archeological investigation at Porta Capua, Pompeii (Fourth Season, October – December 1996),” OpPomp VII (1997): 145–158; H. Etani and S. Sakai, “Preliminary Reports. Archeological investigation at Porta Capua, Pompeii (Fifth Season, September – January 1997–1998),” OpPomp VIII (1998): 113–134; F. Coarelli, Pompei. La vita ritrovata (Udine: Magnus, 2002), 46–53; R. Cassetta, Pompei. La cinta muraria dell’insula occidentalis, 10–12; R. Cassetta-Costantino, Vivere sulle mura: 197–208.

190

Mario Grimaldi

section, however, some external decoration in white and red, belonging to the last phase of construction, is still visible. The internal line of the second curtain wall, built in grey tufo di Nocera, was higher than the external line in Sarno stone. Inside the Casa di Marcus Fabius Rufus it is visible along the line of the inner rooms of the first underlying floor18, where it was extensively reworked through the opening of windows placed in line with the external windows to bring more light into the rooms e.g. (48) and (49) (figs. 8–9). The arrival of Sulla’s veterans in 80 B.C.E. brought a renewed fervor for building that swept across the entire area.19 In fact, with their land allocations began a wave of public works and the construction of new dwellings, decorated in the second Pompeian style, on top of the walls and in panoramic locations on the vacant slopes or slopes only partially occupied by pre-existing buildings. A later series of large contracts to carry out public works inside and outside the walls as part of a new wastewater management plan is clear by the recent discoveries of a system of cisterns, dated to the end of first century B.C.E./beginning of the first century C.E., in the garden of the Casa di Marcus Fabius Rufus.20

3. The Casa di Marcus Fabius Rufus: Structural changes, decorative embellishments, and ownership The Casa di Marcus Fabius Rufus represents one of the more renowned examples of panoramic architecture in Pompeii. Arranged on four levels that step down towards the sea, and with central gardens on each floor, the house makes a strong case to be the prime example of the urban villa. From the structure of the walls and their decoration, one can recognise at least four principal phases in the evolving history of the house, which may also correspond to separate phases of ownership.21 In its current aspect the 18 The line of the walls in tufo of the second Samnite period is visible from the north, starting from the outside of the kitchens (36–39,43), to the rooms (68) and (72) to the south. 19 F. Zevi, “Pompei. Dalla città sannitica alla colonia sillana: per una interpretazione dei dati archeologici,” in Les élites municipales (Naples: Centre Jean Bérard, 1996), 125–138; F. Coarelli, Pompei. La vita ritrovata, 87–111; I. Varriale, VII 16 Insula Occidentalis 17 419–504 and R. Cassetta-Costantino, Vivere sulle mura, 203. 20 If one compares the arrangement of the houses of the Insula Occidentalis with the terrace houses of the Regio VIII (F. Noack – K. Lehmann-Hartleben, Baugeschichtliche Untersuchungen am Stadtrand von Pompeji; F. Seiler, Karl Lehmann-Hartleben e la “nuova” ricerca su Pompei, 63–71); P. Zanker, Pompei (Torino: Einaudi, 1993); M. Grimaldi, “Scavi nella casa di Marco Fabio Rufo,” RstPomp 19 (2008): 115–118. 21 Regarding possible owners one can trace them backwards from M. Fabius Rufus, identified by graffiti and his signet ring as the last owner of the house (62–79 C.E.).

Charting the urban development of the Insula Occidentalis

191

house seems to be the result of the successive transformation of at least three smaller dwellings, originally dating from the early colony, which also fronted onto the Vico del Farmacista. Their technical and structural characteristics, such as their development on multiple levels, belongs to the late Republic period.22 The Second style decoration is, indeed, visible on all three inhabited levels: in the atrium (2) and in the oecus (32 a–b) on the ground floor, in the rooms (68), (71), (74) and (75) on the first lower floor and in the room (80) on the lowest inhabited level (fig. 10).23

4. Owners and decorative themes The House of Mark Fabio Rufo proposes an important second reading of such events and at the same time it introduces a clear example of the great changes happened between the Late Republic period and the Flavian one. Therefore it could be possible in this instance to summarize the various phases and their different figurative themes in the light of the characters that were the owners, and that until now we have succeeded in recognizing. A first phase of the house must be sought after the introduction of the colony and the arrival in the city of the first Roman veterans. As winners and as new social elites, they chose and occupied the symbolic place of the citizen’s resistance: the boundaries. Regarding the possible owners, it is possible therefore to retrace backwards their fates starting from M. Fabio Rufo, identified from the graffiti and from its ring-seal as the last owner of the house (62–79 C.E.). Preceding him were the C. C. Iuliorum Eupli et Pothini whose names were stamped on a section of water pipe discovered beside the large access stair (40) to the atrium (2), and which is now preserved in the stores of the Soprintendenza Archeologica di Pompei (inv. 18278). They seem to be freedmen of the family Iulia from the period during or after the connection to the Serino aqueduct (10 B.C.E.–62 C.E.). There is not a single reference to the owners responsible for the rooms in the second style on top of the two lines of city walls, although perhaps they can be linked to the municipal elites of Pompeii who were established after the arrival of the Sullan colonists. See P. Castrén, Ordo Populusque Pompeianus. Polity and Society in Roman Pompeii (Rome: Bardi, 1975), 178–179, nr. 205; M. Pagano, “Su una fistula di piombo dalla casa di M. Fabio Rufo,” RStPomp VI (1993–94): 219; F. Zevi, Pompei. Dalla città sannitica alla colonia sillana. 22 Although opus africanum is currently visible in the external perimeter walls and fluted columns of grey tufo di Nocera are present in the portico area (14), it is still not possible to prove the existence of a house on the site from the end of the second century B.C.E., as there are no internal wall or mosaic decorative elements belonging to the first style, unlike in the adjacent house of Maius Castricius, see Varriale, “VII 16 Insula Occidentalis 17,” 419–504. 23 M. Grimaldi, “La fase repubblicana della Casa di Marco Fabio Rufo a Pompei,” 133–155.

192

Mario Grimaldi

The present stamp on fistula acquaria C. C. Iuliorum Eupli et Pothini was recovered from the sides of the main/ entry staircase (40) in the atrium (2) and is preserved in the stores in Pompeii with inv. 18278. It seems, therefore, that they were liberti of the family Iulia in a epoch contemporary or following to the lacing of the Serino aqueduct (10–62 C.E.). Every possible reference of the owners is missing, and the fact that they realized the environments in II style on the double curtain of the boundary walls as the new Roman managerial class took possession of the best places inside and outside the boundaries. Hence the House of Mark Fabio Rufo had a first phase during which probably more domus existed side by side, including that of Castricio, decorated in II style and with an atrium tuscanico. These houses were built keeping in mind the jumps of quota in the saving zone between the road and the inside line of the boundaries. Subsequently, between the first century B.C.E. and the first century C.E., great works were done for the disposal of water and the lacing of the aqueduct; the raising of the levels of stamping. Probably it was so expensive that it did not allow a rich decorative phase in the III style. Between 40 and 62 C.E. there was a very flourishing period from an economic point of view; the owners realized great environments of representation in opus reticulatum of yellow tuff and the scenographic repetition of the ground floor horseshoe with a central open room, both in the first open lower floor on the viridarium (56) and in the garden with the realization of the portico. The last phase is to be recognized immediately after the 62 C.E. earthquake, in which the main interest is the stillness of structures rather than the quality of the decorations. To sum up, the qualitative high-level of the decorations of the first and third phases reflect moments of great economic wealth, while in the second and fourth grade phases the main interest is the structural maintenance and the services. During the eruption, the house was inhabited and the prestige furnishings were gathered in the oecus area [62], as in other residences in Pompeii, as for instance the House of Giulio Polibio on Street of the Abbondanza.

5. Mosaics Of the mosaic decoration contemporaneous with the second style, and thus dating to the earliest phase, the following has survived: mosaics composed of white tesserae with small black crosses with white centers (rooms 32 a–b, 67, 68, 71, 75) and in cocciopesto with flakes of colored marble (room 74 and corridor 81). The remains of what must have been a handsome second style

Charting the urban development of the Insula Occidentalis

193

mosaic survive in the portico (14) on the ground floor, if only partly in situ. The mosaic was composed of marble rectangles arranged to form a multicolored mosaic carpet in a basket-weave pattern (fig. 11). The portico, in which the mosaic was laid, served as a passageway to the large viewing area in front of the adjacent triclinium (21); from here it was possible to enjoy the view of the sea according with the Vitruvian doctrine. A principal function of this space, however, was to connect all the rooms on the west side of the house. The west side, which faced the sea, was closed by a series of ten columns, six of which were of grey tufo di Nocera covered with fluting of white stucco, while the other four towards the north were of brick but also fluted with white stucco. The rooms (15), (17), (18) and (20) must have been small dietae for rest, in view of their proximity to the large triclinium (21) (fig. 12).24 Their layout seems to have been conceived during the third phase of the house; part of the design of a previous floor in the second style is conserved beneath the floor mosaic of room (17).25 The orthogonal reticulate pattern visible in the preparatory sketch of that design, still in situ, was the same as the one found in the fills uncovered during the excavation in the garden, where large fragments of multi-colored mosaic displaying a meander motif with perspective cubes executed on top of an incised and painted sinopia were discovered. This preparation was carried out in the following stages: a layer of cocciopesto was first laid and smoothed, into which a regular grid formed of repeatable squares and rectangles of standard size (m 4,5 × 4,5 and m 2,5 × 2,5) was incised into the surface; bands of color were then drawn within each grid to indicate the color scheme and the number of lines of tesserae.26 The materials used for the tesserae were practically the same as those visible on the inside of the multi-colored mosaic of the portico (14): calcars yellow, green, green, red and black/white (14) (figs. 19a–19b, tav. 1 e tav. 2).

6. Painting The multi-level development of the house can be completely ascribed to the late Republican period.27 Second style decoration, however, is visible on all three inhabited levels, in the atrium (2) and in the oecus (32a–b) on De architectura 6. 5. 3. Bragantini, “VII 16 (Ins.Occ.) 22. Casa di M. Fabius Rufus,” 947–1125. 26 The measurements of the floor fragments were 47 × 57 × 14,5 cm for RP 147, 56 × 50 × 13 cm for RP 137 and 20 × 13 × 12,5 cm for RP 150. During the recent excavation season in 2008, other fragments belonging to the same flooring were found on which the same traces of painted preparation for the placement of the tessarae were conserved. 27 For the second style decoration of the house, see most recently M. Grimaldi, “La fase repubblicana della Casa di Marco Fabio Rufo a Pompei,” 133–155 . 24 Vitruvius 25 I.

194

Mario Grimaldi

the ground floor, in the rooms (68), (71) and (74) on the first lower floor and in the room (80) on the lowest inhabited level. The second style painted decoration was applied to walls of opus incertum containing small pieces of lava dating between 80 and 30 B.C.E. This painting, especially the one that survived in the atrium (2) and in the rooms (68) and (71), appears to be of good quality. Direct comparisons, for example for the cubiculum (71), are with the decoration of the villa at Oplontis, especially the beautiful treatment of the tiny ceramic vessel elements and of the pinakes filled by figures within idyllic/sacred landscapes28 (fig. 12). The quantitative difference in the conservation of the second style rooms in the southern part of the house, those closest to the adjoining Casa di Maius Castricius, compared to those in the zone to the north, in which no trace of a decoration from this period remains, except for the fragment found in situ below the flooring of the atrium (2), is surprising. This could be explained by the restructuring that the house underwent between the end of the first century B.C.E. and the first thirty years of the first century C.E., when the flooring of the ground level was raised due to the problems associated with water run-off and the installation of new pipes connected to the aqueduct. This second phase has Augustan decoration and is characterized principally by a redistribution of the spaces on the ground involving the conspicuous raising of the floor level by one meter and the obliteration of rooms belonging to the first phase. During this phase the height of the second style rooms (32 a–b in red) was reduced and a peristyle with brick columns was built on top, substituting, in this way, an open space for closed rooms. Traces of third style candelabrum decoration, a red background with golden candelabras, can be seen on the first lower floor in the upper register of the remains of a room visible in what is now corridor (63). This room must have been demolished during the monumentalization of the whole complex with the building of rooms (21) and (62).29 Room (82), on the second lower floor, was also built by filling in a former entrance to room (80), decorated in the second style, and applying a mature monochrome third style candelabrum decoration on a black background with a small pinax in the centre. The evolution of space and plan within the house reached its peak, however, during the third phase of occupancy, characterized by a new construction technique of opus reticulatum in yellow tufo. Over this new construction was superimposed opulent decoration in the fourth style with opus sectile floors on all the inhabited levels. The triclinium (21) and the oecus A. Varone, “Notiziario,” RStPomp II (1988): 143–154. height of the floor associated with these rooms was completely changed by the construction of the new lower stories built in opus reticulatum of yellow tuff blocks (C.E. 40–62). 28 See

29 The

Charting the urban development of the Insula Occidentalis

195

(62) were built in opus reticulatum, while the construction of a portico in the garden, accessible from the north via a ramp (45) and from the south through the rooms (85) and (86), was begun. In fact, the external ramp to the portico appears to be flanked by walls constructed in opus incertum to a height of 1.5 m, on top of which was placed a wall in opus reticulatum of tuff blocks, painted with a black lower register, separated from a white middle register by a wide red line.30 At the moment of the 79 C.E. eruption, the external area of the garden was bounded to the north, west and south by walls in opus incertum containing small pieces of lava, which defined the limits of the property in relation to the gardens of the Casa del Bracciale d’Oro (to the north) and the Casa di Maius Castricius (to the south).31 Such boundary walls could indicate, on one hand, that the private ownership near the walls could have happened during the first century C.E., and on the other, that at least from this period on the houses of Marcus Fabius Rufus and Maius Castricius could have been separate. In fact, the garden areas, as well as being at different levels, show no trace of a connection between the two houses. This opulent plan was crowned by the addition of the splendid fourth style paintings visible in the atrium (2), in the oecus (32), on the wall created by filling the spaces in the previous peristyle, and in room (48). The exquisite opus sectile works on the ground floor (10), (21), (29), (32) and on the first lower floor (48) and (62) should also be attributed to this period. The house suffered serious damage during the 62 C.E. earthquake, including the possible collapse of the exedra of oecus [62] and the subsidence of the entire western facade of the first lower floor. This necessitated major structural repairs which resulted in a facade of eight buttresses in opus mixtum of bricks and yellow tuff blocks.32 The internal walls of the building were repaired with the same style of construction, which was then covered by another fourth style decoration on a generally monochrome background that could be ascribed to the Vettii workshop.33 Such re-surfacing is visible on all the inhabited levels and in particular in rooms (44), (49), (59), (62) and (64) of the first lower floor. An example of such works of restoration are visible in the oecus (62), where the new decoration in IV style with a black monochrome base was 30 Concerning the excavation of the western external access ramp to the House of Marcus Fabius Rufus and to its garden, see A. Varone, “Notiziario,” 143–154. 31 The garden is situated to the west of the house near the city walls, built in opus quadratum of sarno stone, and occupies an area of 1,581 sq. m. 32 A. Maiuri, L’ultima fase edilizia di Pompei (Naples: Arte Tipografica, 2002), with introduction and notes by F. Pesando. 33 D. Esposito, “La Bottega dei Vettii: vecchi dati e nuove acquisizioni,” RStPomp X (1999): 23–61 and D. Esposito, Le officine pittoriche di IV stile a Pompei: dinamiche produttive ed economico-sociali (Rome: Erma di Bretschneider, 2009).

196

Mario Grimaldi

performed after the necessary work of reinforcement of the building structure with sarciture in mixed vittatto. However such new layout keeps in mind and voluntarily preserves the central “pictures” of the preceding and more famous decorative phase in IV initial style; as a proof of what it has been mentioned above, here are a series of elements: 1) The “pictures” appear decentralized in comparison with the newspaper kiosks that framed them, and they occupy the median zone. (figs. 13–15) 2) Through a careful autoptical analysis, it is possible to recognize the cuts along the frames of the “pictures” and the following coverage of these with new gangs (figs. 16–18).

7. The west portico and the excavation in the garden From the coins found during the excavation of the garden, it seems that, between 40 and 62 C.E., the construction of a portico in opus reticulatum of yellow tuff blocks, the same construction used widely in the interior of the house in the rooms of the second level, for example in the oecus (62), was begun. The portico was built using pre-existing walls related to a system of interconnected basins parallel to the wall, as the perimeter walls uncovered between 2004 and 2009 show. The structures of this area were also temporarily abandoned, as they show on one hand evidence of a continuity in the history of construction, but, on the other hand, they were found partially covered and obstructed by waste materials from the restoration of the rooms above. The portico was probably intended to have a plan of four ambulatories topped by a diminished barrel vault.34 The portico roof was completed and is still visible in the northern and southern wings to a height of 4.70 m from floor level. Along the eastern wall the collapse of the vault was uncovered in situ during the 2005 season. The interior of the portico has an extensive

34 The north wall, running east-west, appears, in the western part, to be built of opus incertum made of small pieces of lava and is located slightly to south with respect to the eastern part. In the centre of the wall is the entrance, located on the same axis as the eastern part and joined to the opus incertum of the western part by a course of small tuff blocks. The west wall was built in opus incertum during the last phase of inhabitation of the area (C.E. 70–79). It actually cuts the structures to the north and south of the portico, thus suggesting a plan of four wings and a major development in plan toward the west. The east wall, constructed directly on top of an untouched tuff bank, covers the walls in limestone, on the crest, to a distance of 2,8 m. The supports for the addition of the lowered barrel vault are present. The south wall has the same characteristics as the north wall. Actually, both, in contrast to east wall, have a foundation of two walls containing a concrete core with a risega, on top of which the wall in opus reticulatum begins.

Charting the urban development of the Insula Occidentalis

197

covering of coarse plaster, from the vault to the floor, which was never painted. The craftsman’s marks to divide the walls into zones are still visible. It currently appears that the portico was abandoned as it was being completed, probably because of the earthquake of C.E. 62. The interior of the house also shows major reinforcements, built in opus vittatum mixtum composed of yellow tuff blocks and brick, in the south wall of the oecus (62) and in the buttresses on the façade of the second lower floor, and also in the triclinium (21) on the ground floor. These modifications, covered in a new decorative style, despite being almost completed, could have turned out to be so expensive as to cause the abandonment of plans to complete the porticus. During the garden’s final phase, the internal dividing walls of the portico were destroyed and leveled, and some walls were incorporated into new concrete walls built with wooden formwork. The walls functioned as retaining walls for a large fill of waste materials that covered the whole area, raising the ground level by around 1,30 m, with the aim of turning the area into a hortus for plant cultivation in ollae perforatae. In the northern corner, above these fills and inside the edicola 1 to the north, a water collection basin was constructed, which was probably used for the irrigation of nearby plants. The house’s internal spaces were also reconfigured by changing many dividing walls and the creation of storerooms, such as in the cubicula (68) and (71), and in rooms (85) and (86) (fig. 19).

8. Basins The investigations carried out during the most recent seasons (2006–2008) have ascertained the existence of walled structures prior to the construction of the tuff portico. Built in opus incertum of lava blocks joined by mortar and completely covered with hydraulic cocciopesto, they relate to an industrial use of the waste water from the town’s streets. The outflow of storm water from the western slope of Pompeii must have followed the slope to the south, south-west of the Vico del Farmacista and of the Vico dei Soprastanti, which, through openings in the sidewalks, directed the water into cisterns placed below the dwellings. These cisterns, still visible in the residences of the Insula Occidentalis, were placed at different heights and connected by a system of inlet channels. Functioning as settling tanks, they were used to transfer the considerable flow of water that drained from this part of the urban network to beyond the city walls (fig. 20). The basins found in the garden of the Casa di Marcus Fabius Rufus thus necessitate a prior use of the external area of the city in the late Republican

198

Mario Grimaldi

and Augustan periods, i.e. between the second half of the first century B.C.E. and the first decade of the first century C.E., based on the examination of material found in the foundation trenches.35

9. Conclusions The houses of the Insula Occidentalis were uncovered at different times, investigated with different aims and, until now, inadequately synthesized. The first important result of the present study, therefore, has been to reveal the construction of these buildings and to understand their relationship to the natural topographic conditions and the local street network. The second outcome relates to the documentation of the construction and maintenance of the city walls. Third, we can now chart the beginning of occupation in the area alongside the second curtain wall, which includes parts of some dwellings on the south-eastern slope such as the houses of Maius Castricius and of Umbricius Scaurus. Fourth, it is now clear that the establishment of the colony caused the systematic occupation of this area as part of a planned system of terrace houses with Tuscan atria, constructed outside and inside the walls on multiple levels and accessible through stairs located in the atria, such as the houses of the Bracciale d’Oro and of Marcus Fabius Rufus. The spatial limit of these buildings was kept within the outer curtain wall, where they had large windows for the illumination of the inner rooms. Fifth, the excavations beneath these houses demonstrate that the external area of the town – extra muros – became the object of a complex system of water outflow management through a network of connected cisterns. Sixth, during the Augustan period several of the smaller dwellings in this area coalesced into much larger domus. These domus were oriented towards the sea, taking full advantage of the splendid views, and expanded in size beyond the city walls where sumptuous porticoes now occupied the extramural area. The results from the Casa di Marcus Fabius Rufus allow an important rereading of these events, while at the same time present a clear example of the fundamental changes that took place between the late Republican and the Flavian periods. The structural and decorative program of this house, in its earliest phase, was similar to those of its neighbours, for example the Casa di Maius Castricius, which stood side-by-side: each was decorated in the second style, with a Tuscanic atrium, and constructed within the area between the streets and the internal line of the walls so as to allow the 35 To date, five water collection basins have been uncovered, each 3,30 × 3,00 m, connected through a passage on the east-west axis and containing an outlet at the appropriate water level in the north-west part. The structures were leveled for the construction of the new tuff portico.

Charting the urban development of the Insula Occidentalis

199

steepness of the local topography. Then, between the second half of the first century B.C.E. and the beginning of the first century C.E., major infrastructural works relating to water runoff and the connection with the Augustan aqueduct were carried out, which involved the raising of the floor levels. Rich wall decorations in the third style also appeared, but are now almost completely lost due to the later transformation of the houses in this area. In fact, the period between 40 and 62 C.E. was one of great prosperity for the owners of the Casa di Marcus Fabius Rufus (likely freedmen of the family Iulia), as it can be seen from the construction of grand and lavish rooms. On the ground floor, the picturesque repetition of rooms in a horseshoeshaped layout opened onto an open central hall, while a subterranean level opened onto the viridarium (56). The portico that gave into the garden was also a product of this period. The earthquake of 62 C.E. brought about an abrupt and immediate change. It is clear that the main focus of this phase (and indeed for all the houses of the Insula Occidentalis) shifted from the application of fine decorations to the assurance of structural integrity. Social changes accompanied the structural ones. The systematic abandonment of the major living spaces, along with the transformation of the external spaces into horti functioning now as nurseries – such as in the gardens of Marcus Fabius Rufus, Maius Castricius and Umbricius Scaurus – wholly reshaped the social landscape of the neighborhood.

Captions for figures Fig. 1: Panoramic view from the top of the Insula Occidentalis; by Google Earth © 2011 Google-Map data © 2011 Tele Atlas. Fig. 2: Excavation area of the western front of the city, including excavation area of the Casa di Marco Fabio Rufo (on the left); photo by Maiuri Found, March 1962. Fig. 3: Reconstruction vector of the current situation of the Casa di Marco Fabio Rufo with the hypothetical portico reconstructed; Graphics processing by M. Notomista. Fig. 4: Map of the area between the Porta Ercolano and the Casa di Marco Fabio Rufo; by F. and P. La Vega 1787–1809 (Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli, Archivio Disegni, inv. 2615). Fig. 5: Cameo glass panel, a Dionysiac scene from the Casa di Marco Fabio Rufo (Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli, inv. 153652). Fig. 6: Sketch reconstructing the old town above the contour. Terraces to the north are intensified in order to allow habitation, as in Regio VIII (by Seiler 2001); also the current plan in the western Insula Occidentalis, including identification of the most representative homes. Graphics processing by A. Colucci.

200

Mario Grimaldi

Fig. 7: Overview of the western city walls of Pompeii, including the Casa di Marco Fabio Rufo. Fig. 8: Plan of the first lower floor of the houses of Marco Fabio Rufo and Castricio with indications of the outer and inner city walls (I, II and III phases [Samnite]); by Cassetta 2008, p. 199, fig. 3. Fig. 9: Area of archaeological excavation in the garden of the Casa di Marco Fabio Rufo, sage 3 (official excavations record), Republican tanks. Fig. 10: Atrium 2, west wall, southern section, excavation below the pavement with decoration in second style related to an earlier phase. Fig. 11: Portico (14): Floor in opus sectile, polychrome marble chips of rectangular canister. Fig. 12: Ground floor plan of the house; areas with traces of decoration in the second style are highlighted. Fig. 13: Oecus (62), east side, decoration in fourth style, post-earthquake. The “pictures” appear decentralized in comparison with the newspaper kiosks that framed them, and they occupy the median zone. Fig. 14: Oecus (62): north side, decoration in fourth style, post-earthquake. The “pictures” appear decentralized in comparison with the newspaper kiosks that framed them, and they occupy the median zone. Fig. 15: Oecus (62): south side, decoration in fourth style post-earthquake. The “pictures” appear decentralized in comparison with the newspaper kiosks that framed them, and they occupy the median zone. Fig. 16: Oecus (62): detail of the central panel on east side; it is possible to recognize the cuts along the frames of the “pictures” and the later covering of these with new bands of color. Fig. 17: Oecus (62): detail of the central panel on north side; it is possible to recognize the cuts along the frames of the “pictures” and the later covering of these with new bands of color. Fig. 18: Oecus (62): detail of the central panel on south side; it is possible to recognize the cuts along the frames of the “pictures” and the later covering of these with new bands of color. Fig. 19a: Floor in the second style with meanders prospective; sage 3 sector B (US 3009; RP 147 [official excavation reports]), from the garden of the Casa di Marco Fabio Rufo. Fig. 19b: Preparation for the realization of the meanders prospective (RP 150). Fig. 20a: Plan of the first lower floor of the house; areas with traces of decoration in the second style are highlighted. Graphics processing by M. Notomista. Fig. 20b: Plan of the second lower floor of the house; areas with traces of decoration in the second style are highlighted. Graphics processing by M. Notomista. Tav. 1 Reconstruction of the meanders prospective mosaic in the second style including plan and details; Graphics processing by V. Vozza. Tav. 2 Reconstruction of the meanders prospective mosaic in the second style; Graphics processing by V. Vozza.

The Church Sitting in a Garden (1 Cor 14:30; Rom 16:23; Mark 6:39–40; 8:6; John 6:3, 10; Acts 1:15; 2:1–2) David L. Balch Paul casually refers to one who is “sitting” (kathemeno; 1 Cor 14:30) in the assembly (ekklesia; 1 Cor 14:19, 23), a contrast to one who “reclines” (katakeimenon; 1 Cor 8:10) in the temple of an idol. Where in the Roman world would an assembly of persons sit? In the same letter, of course, Paul observes that “not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth” (1 Cor 1:26): most were nonelite.1 The following essay assumes the obvious, that elite diners in Roman triclinia reclined, and against a consensus in current New Testament scholarship, inquires where believers might have gathered to sit for worship and the Lord’s Supper. Contemporary archaeologists and art historians indicate several spaces where Romans sat, including taverns, open gardens, and peristyle gardens. This investigation also asks what furniture would have been available in those spaces. Furnishings have played a minor role in archaeologists’ study of Pompeii. Penelope Allison2 observes that Pompeian painting has been studied extensively, but “the furnishings have […] been omitted from wall-painting studies.” Beds, for example, in triclinium (HH) of the Casa di Julius Polybius (IX 13,1–3) were pushed against the north and west wall decoration and, therefore, would have hidden part of the decoration (figs. 1–4).3 In her Longenecker, “Socio-Economic Profiling of the First Urban Christians,” in After the First Urban Christians: The Social-Scientific Study of Pauline Christianity TwentyFive Years Later (eds. T. D. Still and D. G. Horrell; New York: T&T Clark International, 2009), 36–59. 2 P. M. Allison, “Living with Pompeian wall-paintings,” in Otium: Festschrift für Volker Michael Strocka (eds. T. Ganschow and M. Steinhart; Remshalden: Bernhard Albert Greiner, 2005), 1–7, at 1. 3 Allison, “Living with,” 3. W. F. Jashemski, The Gardens of Pompeii, Herculaneum and the Villas Destroyed by Vesuvius (New Rochelle: Caratzas Brothers, 1979 and 1993), 2 vols, at 2, 249–52, 517, Plan 94. I. Bragantini, “Casa di Polibio” (IX 13,1–3), PPM X: 183–356. For the reader with English, not Italian, I consistently cite the authoritative source by 1 B. W.

202

David L. Balch

study of thirty Pompeian atrium houses, immobile furniture was frequently against wall paintings. “Furnishings of Pompeian houses give a very different perspective on life with Roman paintings than those espoused by Vitruvius or Pliny, or indeed Philostratus or Cebes.”4 Domestic looms, cupboards, and chests were found in atria and gardens, but were removed immediately after excavation, “no doubt so that they did not interrupt our own view of Pompeian wall-paintings.”5 Furnishings have also typically been omitted from studies of dining, except in elite triclinia. What furniture would have been available to believers in Pauline assemblies as they sat down to dine and worship? Complementing Allison’s observations, therefore, I note that excavators found a wooden bench one meter long in Polybius’ peristyle garden (CC; figs. 5–7).6

1. Current State of Research and a Proposed Supplementary Methodology This summary focuses on architectural spaces, not on many other aspects of Greco-Roman symposia/convivia.7 Architectural spaces themselves, of course, do not have meaning; nevertheless, this article is an attempt to widen Jashemski. She thanks her scientist husband, Stanley, for the plans and measurements, and I do too! In Italy artistic creativity abounds; measurements do not. When I refer to the same house or garden a second time, I repeat references to Jashemski and PPM; this article focuses on architectural structures, which I want to make it easy for the reader to find and see. Abbreviations: PPM = Pompei. pitture e mosaici (ed. V. Sampaolo; Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; Rome: Arti Grafici Pizzi, 1990–2003), 10 vols, with a supplement, PPM: la documentazione nell’opera di disegnatori e pittori dei secoli xviii e xix (1995), which I cite as disegnatori. MANN = Museo Archaeologico Nationale di Napoli. PitPom = I. Bragantini and V. Sampaolo, La pitture pompeiana (Naples: Electa, 2009), the catalogue of the new permanent exhibit of Pompeian frescoes in MANN. LCL = Loeb Classical Library. 4 Allison, “Living with,” 4. 5 Allison, “Living with,” 4. 6  M. A. Auricchio, La Casa di Giulio Polibio. Giornale di Scavo 1966/1978 2 vols. (University of Tokyo: Centro Studi Arti Figurative, 2001), at 1, 127, with a sketch of the bench (268), and of the couch found by excavators against the wall (295). For the service areas of this house, P. Kastenmeier, I luogi dei lavoro domestico nella casa pompeiana (Studi della Soprintendenze archeologica di pompei 23; Rome: “L’Erma” di Bretschneider, 2007), 57–58, fig. 39. 7 J. C. Walters, “Paul and the Politics of Meals in Roman Corinth,” in Corinth in Context: Comparative Studies on Religion and Society (eds. S. J. Friesen, D. N. Schowalter, and J. Walters; SuppNT 134; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2010), 343–64, discusses other questions. V. A. Alikin, The Earliest History of the Christian Gathering: Origin, Development and Content of the Christian Gathering in the First to Third Centuries (Leiden, 2009), a dissertation written with H. J. de Jonge, has an extensive collection of evidence. Different, fascinating questions are raised by Willi Braun, “‘Our Religion Compels Us to Make a Distinction’: Prolegomena on Meals and Social Formation,” in Identity and Interaction in the Ancient Mediterranean: Jews, Christians and Others. Essays in Honour of Stephen

The Church Sitting in a Garden

203

our imagination in relation to such spaces and typical dining customs in them, as we also further consider questions of their meaning. Considering the Pauline Lord’s Supper, New Testament scholars discuss Greek symposia and Roman convivia and the rooms in houses (domus and insulae) and temples where those meals occurred. Analysis of triclinia in Roman houses results in suggestions that a host should invite 3 to 9 guests.8 Diners reclined at these meals.9 “At this period in the Mediterranean world, virtually everyone reclined at their formal meals. For the most part, our data indicates that Jews in the Hellenistic period did also.”10 Jerome Murphy-O’Connor argues that the wealthy would gather early in their triclinia, but that the non-wealthy arrived later and sat in the atrium, so that they were physically separated.11 Peter Lampe agrees that the overflow crowd gathered in the atrium, but argues that this would not detract from the symposium events that Paul describes in 1 Cor 14.12 This assumes that “it is in the dining room where Christians would most likely have met.”13 G. Wilson (eds. Z. A. Crook and P. A. Harland; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2007), 41–55. Now R. A. Ascough, “Of Memories and Meals: Greco-Roman Associations and the Early Jesus-Group at Thessaloniké,” in From Roman to Early Christian Thessaloniké: Studies in Religion and Archaeology (eds. L. Nasrallah, C. Bakirtzis, and S. J. Friesen; HTS 64; Cambridge: Harvard University, 2010), 49–72.   8 D. E. Smith, From Symposium to Eucharist: The Banquet in the Early Christian World (Minneapolis; Fortress, 2003), 24–27, with nn. 33, 39; “even if space is available, the gathering should be kept small.” Also Smith, From Symposium to Eucharist, 73, with n. 31 on the Asklepieion at Corinth: “the preferred design for temple dining rooms was to provide several small rooms in standard sizes, either seven-, nine-, or eleven-couch rooms.” M. Klinghardt, Gemeinschaftsmahl und Mahlgemeinschaft: Soziologie und Liturgie frühchristlicher Mahlfeiern (TANZ 13; Tübingen: Francke, 1996), 73, suggests 8 to 16 persons. R. Jewett, Romans (Hermeneia: Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007), 64, bases his reconstruction of Roman congregational size, ethics, and leadership on Murphy O’Connor (see n. 11), who assumes a “maximum size of 30–40 for a house-church congregation … [in] a free-standing villa,” but who later added “shop space on the ground floor of a tenement building,” [which] “might accommodate a group of 10–20”; see Jewett, Romans, 64–69, 86, 142, 971–74, 981.   9 Smith, From Symposium to Eucharist, 10–11. 10  Smith, From Symposium to Eucharist, 137, with nn. 19–20. Compare H. Taussig, In the Beginning was the Meal: Social Experimentation & Early Christian Identity (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2009), 25–26: “The Basics of the Hellenistic Meal,” including “the reclining of (more or less) all participants while eating and drinking together for several hours in the evening.” 11 J. Murphy-O’Connor, St. Paul’s Corinth: Texts and Archaeology (Wilmington: Glazier, 1983, 2nd ed. 2003), 180, with Fig. 8, a plan of the House of the Vettii in Pompeii. Note the critique by D. N. Schowalter, “Seeking Shelter in Roman Corinth: Archaeology and the Placement of Paul’s Communities,” in Corinth in Context: Comparative Studies on Religion and Society (eds. S. J. Friesen, D. N. Schowalter, and J. Walters; SuppNT 134; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2010), 327–41. Compare J. Murphy-O’Connor, Ephesus: Texts and Archaeology (Collegeville: Liturgical, 2008), 192–97; again, he places “groups of ten or so” (197) non-elite believers in elite dining rooms. 12 P. Lampe, “Das korinthische Herrenmahl im Schnittpunkt hellenistisch-römischer Mahlpraxis und paulinischer Theologia Crucis (1 Kor 11,17–34),” ZNW 82 (1991): 183–

204

David L. Balch

It is a puzzle, then, that “the posture of the diners is indicated in only one text [….] It is found in 1 Corinthians 14[:30], where the participants at the worship service are said to be sitting. This would suggest that the posture at the table was sitting rather than reclining […]. Most likely it represented a posture dictated by the size of the group – there was simply not room for all diners to recline.”14 There are several problems with this analysis, the first one in the sentence, “the posture at the table was sitting,” which we can easily visualize in a modern setting. However, in Roman triclinia, participants were not “at table”; rather they were reclining on couches, before which there were indeed small tables, as we saw above in Polybius’ triclinium. Smith does not clarify how one could imagine sitting in Roman triclinia. Second, these discussions typically refer to “the triclinium” in the singular, a practice begun by Murphy-O’Connor, one of whose key examples is the Casa dei Vettii (VI 15,1; Sampaolo, PPM V 468–572). Neither he nor scholars who depend on him notice that this house has four triclinia, not one but three facing the peristyle garden,15 which would change the numbers. Third, I will observe below that this reconstruction ignores peristyle gardens, typically spaces in between atria and triclinia, even though peristyles were becoming increasingly more important in the first century B.C.E. and the first century C.E. The consensus reconstruction simply skips over spaces that were among the most important, where dining also occurred! Contemporary archaeologists have reconstructed benches for sitting in the peristyle of the Casa di Julius Polybius (IX 13,1–3), as we saw above. Again, visualizing diners in three or four triclinia, the atrium, and also in the peristyle of the Casa dei Vettii would significantly change the numbers. Fourth, the current consensus is based on elite Roman domus that have triclinia, beginning with the Casa dei Vettii.16 Non-elite spaces for dining

213. Also Lampe, “The Corinthian Eucharistic Dinner Party: Exegesis of a Cultural Context (1 Cor. 11.17–34),” Affirmation 4.2 (1991): 1–15; Lampe, “The Eucharist: Identifying with Christ on the Cross,” Interpretation 48 (1994): 36–49. Compare Smith, From Symposium to Eucharist, 178, with nn. 8, 10. 13 Smith, From Symposium to Eucharist, 177. 14 Smith, From Symposium to Eucharist, 178. 15 D. L. Balch, Roman Domestic Art and Early House Churches (WUNT 228; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 110, n. 4, citing W. C. Archer, “The Paintings in the Alae of the Casa dei Vettii and a Definition of the Fourth Pompeian Style,” AJA 94 (1990): 95–123, who refers (95) to “the four large rooms for dining and entertaining – e, n, p, and q.” Contrast Murphy-O’Connor, St. Paul’s Corinth (cited n. 11). However, it is problematic to assign only one function, including dining, to any domestic space (see Balch, Roman Domestic Art, 195, n. 2). Actually, the Casa dei Vettii also has two atria (c and v). 16 A suggestive exception is the book by Peter Oakes, Reading Romans in Pompeii: Paul’s letter at ground level (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2009).

The Church Sitting in a Garden

205

are rarely considered.17 On the one hand, architectural form does not absolutely distinguish elite from non-elite spaces. As I will demonstrate below, both have gardens. Both sometimes have peristyles; both sometimes have masonry couches in triclinia. On the other hand, sometimes neither one has a peristyle or a masonry couch in a triclinium. The architectural situation is complex. Finally, two Pauline texts (“for when the time comes to eat, each of you goes ahead [prolambanei] with your own supper […]” [1 Cor 11:21a NRSV], and “so then, my brothers and sisters, when you come together to eat, wait (ekdechesthe) for one another” [1 Cor 11:33]) are debated. Matthias Kinghardt18 observes that the temporal understanding of prolambanei conditions the temporal understanding of ekdechesthe. He argues that 1 Cor 11:33, translated “wait (ekdechesthe) for one another,” and interpreted to mean that the rich who gather earlier should “wait” for the poor who arrive later, is incorrect, suggesting rather that the verb means, “receive one another,” without a temporal connotation. I will not repeat Klinghardt’s philological discussion, but Paul may not be assuming that the wealthy reclined early in their triclinia, with the consequence that they later received the poor, who gathered in atria, where they had to sit. The virtual consensus that Pauline assemblies were always centered in dining rooms (triclinia) is problematic. I will demonstrate below that Romans sat in taverns, open gardens, and peristyle gardens, also possibilities, therefore, for Pauline assemblies. Meetings in gardens rather than triclinia would radically alter estimates about the number of persons who might have gathered to worship Christ; our understanding of ethics and leadership in such spaces would also be different. Posture, reclining or sitting, does typically although not absolutely distinguish elite from non-elite dining spaces, and 1 Cor 14:30 assumes the latter.

2. Supplementary Methodology “Art offers the possibility of approaching the subject from a different viewpoint, one which may reflect the choices and attitudes of a much wider range of patrons, geographically, socially, and culturally.”19 17 My study is based primarily on Pompeii. On Ostian taverns see Janet DeLaine (pp. 340–43, 350 below). Jewett, Romans, 53–55, 64–69, refers to lower-class housing in Ostia, citing secondary literature; he does not show us archaeological settings that demonstrate the conclusions. The article by J. DeLaine in this volume questions earlier dichotomous reconstructions of (Pompeian) domus versus (Ostian) insulae. 18 Klinghardt, Gemeinschaftsmahl, 275–301. 19 K. M. D. Dunbabin, “Nec grave nec infacetum: the imagery of convivial entertainment,” in Das römische Bankett im Spiegel der Altertumswissenschaften (ed. K. Vössing;

206

David L. Balch

Katherine Dunbabin’s comment fits my experience as an interpreter. I have read Paul for many years, but when I go to Pompeii  – which two millennia ago was a Roman colony, as was Corinth – and to the National Archaeological Museum in Naples  – which displays many artifacts and frescoes from Pompeian houses, insulae, and taverns – I look and see new possibilities that I had not imagined. This is not a theoretical argument, but a description of what I have done as an exegete, and the results keep surprising me. After looking in Pompeii and Naples, I do find texts that support what the Roman art and architecture displays. Second, many of the images to which I refer in this article are ancient popular art. At the conclusion of my research, I realized that one professionally painted image does reflect my thesis; the final result then is not a dichotomy. Perhaps it is not surprising that popular art, less often professional art, would give clues about Pauline communities, many but not all of whom were non-elite. So my practical method: I travel to Pompeii and Naples, look, take photographs, then continue looking and reading, often in Italian. Repeatedly, a photograph that seemed unimportant when I took it, after continued looking and reading, turns out to be crucial, in the present case an image of Heracles/Hercules. Finally, at the beginning of an article on Roman domestic art, I again offer a caution: eating and the urge to relate to others sexually are human; these popular Roman images exhibit both, which will offend some viewers / readers and excite others.

3. Sitting in Domestic Spaces 3.1 Sitting in Inns and Taverns in Pompeii I will survey three kinds of spaces, primarily in Pompeii, taverns, outdoor gardens, and peristyle gardens, inquiring about sitting while dining.20 John Internationales Kolloquium 5./6. Oktober 2005, Schloss Mickeln, Düsseldorf; Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2008), 13–26, with 16 figures, at 13. 20 Space is also a question for J. F. Donahue, The Roman Community at Table during the Principate (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 2004), 32–33, e.g. discussing Julius Caesar’s public feast utilizing 22,000 dining couches (Plutarch, Caesar 55.4), which Donahue suggests, meant 198,000 Romans and would have required a minimum of 275,000 square meters. His figures assume 12.5 sq. m. minimum per triclinium. “But surely, as with Caesar’s banquets, we must believe that any and all available outdoor space was utilized” for Tiberius’ (9 B.C.E.) and Caligula’s (37 C.E.) public banquets (Donahue, Roman Community, 10, 32–33, 61, 63). Domitian offered a feast for all at the Coliseum (Statius, Silvae 1.6; Donahue, Roman Community, 16–19, 21–23). Lucullus, celebrating a triumph over Mithridates, served the people 100,000 jars of Greek wine (Donahue, Roman Community, 61). A mosaic from Carthage, now in the Bardo Museum, presents persons at such a public banquet sitting on benches with backrests (Donahue, Roman Community, 5–6, n. 14, with Fig. 1). Dunbabin, “The imagery of convivial entertainment,” 24, discusses the

The Church Sitting in a Garden

207

DeFelice,21 writing on “inns and taverns,” suggests that “Customers probably ate sitting, not reclining, at tables. Inn (VI.10.1) in Pompeii has five preserved painted scenes that show travelers standing or sitting around wooden tables in an inn, being served by a puer cauponis (“serving boy”). Both masonry dining tables and benches [Balch’s italics] for public use are preserved at the upscale Praedia of Julia Felix (II.4.7; figs. 8–10)22 and inn (I.8.15–16).”23 DeFelice’s numbers clarify the prominence of the Roman social custom of sitting to eat at taverns: “My present count [in Pompeii] is ninety-four businesses that served food and/or drink (popina or taberna), but had no facilities for overnight guests. Another forty-two served overnight guests and possibly food and drink (hospitum and caupona) and nine businesses served overnight guests and had access to facilities for horses (stabulum).”24 DeFelice’s three categories total 145 businesses in Pompeii where he supposes customers sat to eat. In one of these inns, the Caupona di Salvius (VI 14,35.36), one fresco divided into four scenes (like a modern comic strip), horizontally arranged in room (1) on the north wall between the two entrance doors, visually repmosaic from Carthage, also arguing that it presents a public banquet for the whole city; earlier, Dunbabin, The Roman Banquet: Images of Conviviality (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2003), 89–92, Figs. 46–47. 21 J. DeFelice,” Inns and taverns,” in The World of Pompeii (eds. J. J. Dobbins and P. W. Foss; New York: Routledge, 2007), 474–86, at 478. Also noting “the choice of dining while reclining or sitting upright” at the Praedia of Julia Felix, C. Parslow, “Entertainment at Pompeii,” in The World of Pompeii (eds. Dobbins and Foss, 2007), 212–23, at 218. 22 See Jashemski, Gardens of Pompeii, 2, 86–88, #143, Plan 27. V. Sampaolo, “Villa di Giulia Felice (II 4,3),” PPM III: 184–310, at 195, #11–12; C. Parslow, “Documents illustrating the excavations of the Praedia of Julia Felix in Pompeii,” Rivista di Studi Pompeiani 2 (1988): 37–48, with 9 figures. F. Pesando and M. P. Guidobaldi, Gli ‘ozi’ di Ercole. Residenze di lusso a Pompei ed Ercolano (Rome: “L’Erma” di Bretschneider, 2006), 153–64. Masonry benches (for children?) are also clear in the House of the Cryptoporticus (I 6,2); Jashemski, Gardens of Pompeii, 2, 34–35, #30–31, Plan 9, Fig. 34; I. Bragantini, “Casa del Criptoportico e Casa del Sacello Iliaco” (I 6,2), PPM I: 193–329, at 198. The extension of one end of the outdoor masonry triclinium in Casa IX 5,11.13 may have been seating intended for children; Jashemski, Gardens of Pompeii, 1, 90, with n. 8; 2, 237, #490, Plan 89. See I. Bragantini, “IX 5,11.13,” PPM IX: 528–99, at 597, #125. Cp. n. 89 below. 23 V. Sampaolo, “Officina di N. Fufidius Successus (I 8,15),” PPM I: 844–46, describes the popular art, probably a religious procession or a secular feast, but does not mention benches for sitting. See M. B. Roller, Dining Posture in Ancient Rome: Bodies, Values, and Status (Princeton: Princeton University, 2006), reviewed by J. R. Clarke, Classical Philology 103/1 (2008): 94–99. 24 DeFelice, “Inns and taverns,” 483, n. 1, adds that another forty-seven are questionable, so not included in the count. J. DeFelice, Roman Hospitality: the professional women of Pompeii (Warren Center: Shangri-La, 2001), 176–306, gives a master list of Pompeian businesses with bibliography on each. Donahue, The Roman Community, 25: “Preserved by the thousands on the Flavian and Severan marble plans of Rome, tavernae played a vital role in the structure of the city.”

208

David L. Balch

resents life in the tavern,25 to be seen and laughed at by non-elite men and women.26 Viewing from left to right, the second painting visually represents two male customers seated on stools, here without a table, who both reach out their right hands toward a barmaid walking toward them, who brings one wine cup in her right hand and a jug of wine in her left.27 Clarke has a wonderfully funny interpretation of this scene and its captions, which I pass over, noting here only that the men are sitting on individual stools while drinking in the tavern. Still viewing from left to right, the third popular painting visually represents two bearded men, also seated on stools, now at opposite ends of a rectangular table, playing dice. The one on the left holds a dice box (fritillus). Irene Bragantini published another inn, the Caupona della Via di Mercurio (VI 10,1).28 The activities in the visual representations of the two caupona have similar content; they are genre paintings. Clarke argues, however, that the two series are significantly different, that the ones in the Caupona of Salvius are jokes, but those in the Caupona on the Street of Mercury are straightforward, with no conflicts or inversions.29 Given the focus of this article on seating, however, the scenes in both Caupona remain intriguing. In the Caupona della Via di Mercurio five “very plebeian” paintings aligned horizontally on the south wall visualize life in a tavern. The second image from the left is of two people playing dice on a seemingly rectangular table, one of them sitting on a stool or a bench beside the table, the other standing.30 The fourth image in the series, second from the right, is of a group of four travelers (with characteristic caps on their cloaks) who are eat25 J. R. Clarke, Art in the Lives of Ordinary Romans: Visual Representation and NonElite Viewers in Italy, 100 B.C.–A.D. 315 (Berkeley: University of California, 2003), 161–68, with color Figs. 7–10, and Clarke, Looking at Laughter: Humor, Power, and Transgression in Roman Visual Culture, 100 B.C.–A.D. 250 (Berkeley: University of California, 2007), 120–25, with color Fig. 12. Also A. M. Mahon, “The taberna counters of Pompeii and Herculaneum,” in Roman Working Lives and Urban Living (eds. A. M. Mahon and J. Price; Oxford: Oxbow, 2005), 70–87, at 77, 83–84, with Figs. 5.7 and 5.10, and DeFelice, Roman Hospitality, 253–54. T. Fröhlich, Lararien und Fassadenbilder in den Vesuvstädten. Untersuchungen zur “Volkstümlichen” pompeianischen Malerei (Mainz: Philipp von Zabern, 1991), 211–14, and I. Bragantini, “Caupona di Salvius” (VI 14,36.36), PPM V: 366–74, with the four scenes in color (371, #7a, 7b). Further, Balch, Roman Domestic Art, 229. 26 Clarke, Ordinary Romans, 164. 27 Clarke, Ordinary Romans, color Figs. 7 and 9; Bragantini, “Caupona di Salvius,” PPM V: 371, figs. #5, 7a. 28 I. Bragantini, “Caupona della Via di Mercurio (VI 10,1),” PPM IV: 1005–28, color Figs. at 1011, 1016, 1018–19, and DeFelice, Roman Hospitality, 247–48. Dunbabin, The Roman Banquet, 81, fig. 41. Also Fröhlich, Lararien- und Fassadenbilder, 214–22, and Balch, Roman Domestic Art, 228–29. 29 Clarke, Ordinary Romans, 169. 30 Bragantini, PPM IV, 1014–15, #11, 13–15; Mahon, “The taberna counters of Pompeii,” 77, Fig. 5.7.

The Church Sitting in a Garden

209

ing seated by a small, round table, the legs of which have the form of animal paws, a type common in the houses of Pompeii.31 The two customers on the left are seated on the same wooden bench. A servant, half the size of the diners, as is typical, is visually represented on the lower right. Eight items, including sausages, dried fruits, and cheeses,32 are hanging on fifteen pegs in a horizontal straight line high on the wall behind the diners. The final, fifth painting in this series is erotic, preserving only a feminine form on a bed.33 A single popular painting is on the west wall of the Caupona della Via di Mercurio.34 Three customers are seated at a rectangular table, this one with straight metal legs. Some vessel is on the table, perhaps a wine jug, and if so, there is no indication of a meal. The customer seated on a wooden bench to the right is holding perhaps a wine jug in the left hand, a wine cup in the right, while talking to a servant, here visually represented as the same height, who is standing behind and leaning into the ear of the seated customer. Whether the three persons seated are not only drinking, but also eating, is not clear. These popular images painted in the two taverns in Pompeii, Region VI, give us several views of customers sitting on stools or benches when playing dice or drinking. However, in both scenes of customers drinking/dining around a table in the Caupona della Via di Mercurio (the fourth on the south wall, the single one on the west wall), some are sitting on benches. Whether the others in these same two images are seated on stools or benches is not clear.35 In these popular images in caupona, noone is reclining.36 Martial confirms the contrast: 31 Bragantini, PPM IV: 1015, #17. Mahon, “The taberna counters of Pompeii,” 83, Fig. 5.10, and DeFelice, Roman Hospitality, 37, Fig. 2.4. 32 Mahon, “The taberna counters of Pompeii,” 83. 33 Bragantini, PPM IV: 1017, #19. 34 Bragantini, PPM IV: 1017, #21; color image, 1018, #22. 35 Compare V. Sampaolo, “Taberna vasaria (I 8,10),” PPM I: 826–33, at 827, a modest domus, one room of which is a triclinium (3). In the pre-Roman, Samnite period, scenes were painted on the exterior, street wall. The popular scene painted on the left may visually represent labor in the shop: four individual workers throwing clay pots are each seated on stools at their own, individual, round tables. Disegnatori, 848, presents cupids sitting on benches preparing garlands of flowers (Casa di Trittolemo [VII 7,5]). Jashemski, Gardens of Pompeii, 1, 268, fig. 397, publishes a painting from the macellum (VII 9,7.8) of cupids and psyches as flower dealers, four of whom are sitting on two wooden benches at a table. See also Jashemski, Gardens of Pompeii, 1, 12, fig. 15, a popular fresco from the Predia of Julia Felix (II 4,3), which visually represents four women, one holding a baby, sitting on two wooden benches in the forum; to the left in the same image, a bald man seated on a stool, is selling metal implements placed on a table in front of him, as well as metal containers placed on the ground. See S. C. Nappo, “Fregio dipinto dal ‘praedium’ di Giulia Felice con rappresentazione del foro di Pompei,” Rivista di Studi Pompeiani 3 (1989): 79–96, with 15 figures (color), at 88–89, fig. 11; Nappo interprets 18 fragments, their sequence and location in the atrium (24). J.-M. Croisille, La Peinture Romaine (Paris: Picard, 2005), 271, fig. 417: two salespersons, each sitting on individual wooden benches with backrests

210

David L. Balch

“The fortune showered upon him lately by his patron – a full ten millions, Maximus – Syriscus, gadding about, got through on tavern stools (in sellariolis vagus popinis) about the four baths. Oh, what stupendous gluttony, to gorge ten millions! And still more stupendous, not even to recline at table (accubare)!” (Epigrams V, 70,37 trans. Ker in LCL) 3.2 Sitting in Gardens in the Open Dining while sitting upright occurred not only in inns and taverns, but also in gardens in the open and in peristyle gardens. Approximately 626 have been found in Pompeii, Herculaneum, and the surrounding villas, some of them in public buildings, a few in tombs, but most in homes; 56 of them have outdoor garden triclinia.38 Gardens were “a place to work and play, a place to cook, eat and worship.”39 There are around three hundred houses in the Vesuvian area with porticoed gardens, some large, some very small. “Even the poor, if at all possible, made place in their modest homes for a tiny garden.”40 Tradesmen in shops, large or small, allotted precious space beside a table with their wares; V. Sampaolo, “Officina coactiliaria di Verecundus” (IX 7,7), PPM IX: 774–78, at 775, gives only the top portion of the image, without the table and two benches. 36 Compare Mahon, “The taberna counters of Pompeii and Herculaneum,” at 70, 72, 76, 77, 83, 84, on sitting in caupona, with further bibliography. For taverns in Herculaneum, see A. Maiuri, Ercolano. I nuovi scavi (1927–1958) (Rome: Istituto poligrafico dello stato, 1958), 432–67, two of which are domus with taverns that have both bars on the street and internal triclinia (IV 12–13, 15–16 and IV 17–18; Maiuri 433–36 and 437–40). 37 Cited by Mahon, “The taberna counters of Pompeii,” 70. 38 W. Jashemski, “Gardens,” in The World of Pompeii (eds. Dobbins and Foss, 2007), 487–98, at 487. For an earlier summary see Jashemski, “The Campanian Peristyle Garden,” in Ancient Roman Villa Gardens (Dumbarton Oaks Colloquium X; Washington D. C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 1987), 31–48, with 36 figures. For literary texts see A. R. Littlewood, “Ancient Literary Evidence for the Pleasure Gardens of Roman Country Villas,” in the same volume: Ancient Roman Villa Gardens, 7–30. P. Soprano, “I triclini all’aperto di Pompei,” in Pompeiana (Biblioteca della parola del passato; Naples: Gaetano Macchiaroli, 1950), 288–310, with figs. 28–32, made an early survey of outdoor triclinia, listing 22 in concrete, 5 biclini, 1 stibadium (VIII 3,15), 7 in wood or other material (including one in the peristyle of the Casa del Menandro), 4 destroyed, and 5 visually represented in frescoes (2 in the Casa dell’Efebo, both discussed below). Soprano’s total is 39, plus 5 frescoes. Jashemski, The Gardens of Pompeii, 1, 346, n. 1 lists 17 more found after Soprano published his article, bringing the total to 56 outdoor garden triclinia. 39 Jashemski, “Gardens,” 487. Compare Jashemski, The Gardens of Pompeii, 1, chap. IV, “Life in the Garden,” pp. 89–101: “eating in the garden,” and chap. V: “Religion in the Garden”: worship of the Lares and Penates, Hercules, Dionysus, Venus, Diana, sacred trees, and Isis. 40 Jashemski, “Gardens,” 487. Donahue, The Roman Community at Table, 39–40, with n. 61: “At Parma in municipal Italy, an eques Romanus once bequeathed thirty-five iugera (about twenty-three acres) of a ‘little garden’ (hortulum), once a marsh, to his sodales so

The Church Sitting in a Garden

211

for gardens.41 Dining occurred in these open gardens: shells, bones of fish, cow, pig, sheep or goat, chicken and bird were found in the garden of the House of the Wedding of Alexander (VI.17[Ins.Occ.].42),42 debris left from meals in the stunningly beautiful water triclinium that faced this open garden (fig. 11).43 Some open gardens had permanent triclinia with masonry couches, the most well-known of which is in the Casa dell’Efebo (I 7,11; figs. 12–13),44 but Jashemski discusses several others. She observes that many restaurants were clustered in the area near the Great Palaestra (II 7)45 and the amphitheater (II 6),46 the most elaborate of which was immediately west (II 9,5.7).47 There is a large masonry garden triclinium, with paintings on the front and inside of the triclinium couches, e.g. of a peacock, another of a fountain from which two birds drink.48 To the east of the triclinium, two fountains decorated with striking mosaics face each other, unique in Pompeian gardens.49 Columns at the four corners of the triclinium support a vine-covered pergola that shaded guests as they reclined.50 that they might spend the return on the land on an annual feast to be held in the garden itself.” 41 Jashemski, “Gardens,” 488. 42 Jashemski, Gardens of Pompeii, 2, 166–67, #313, Plan 58, figs. 199–201. V. Sampaolo, “Casa del Bracciale d’oro” (VI 17[Ins.Occ.],42), PPM VI: 44–145, triclinio (31), at 129–39. In striking color, R. Ciardiello, “VI 17 Insula Occidentalis 41; Casa del Bracciale d’Oro,” in Pompei (Regiones VI–VII) Insula Occidentalis (eds. M. Aoyagi and U. Pappalardo; University of Tokyo: Center for Research of Pictorial Cultural Resources, 2006), 69–256, at 80, 162–86, 254–56. 43 Jashemski, “Gardens,” 490–92, with plan and photos in Jashemski, Gardens of Pompeii 2, 166–67, #313, Plan 58, figs. 199–201. 44 Jashemski, Gardens of Pompeii, 2, 37–41, Plan 10, figs. 37–43. A. de Vos, “Casa dell’Efebo o di P. Cornelius Tages” (I 7,11), PPM I: 619–727, at 713 (color). L. Richardson, Jr., “Water Triclinia and Biclinia in Pompeii,” in Studia Pompeiana & Classica in Honor of Wilhelmina F. Jashemski, vol. 1: Pompeiana, ed. R. I. Curtis (New Rochelle: Aristide D. Caratzas, 1988), 305–15, with figs. 1–5, at 305, figs. 1–2. Soprano (see n. 38), “triclini all’aperto,” 296, fig. 31. Balch, Roman Domestic Art, 231, Figs. 9–10, CD 291–98 (color). 45 Jashemski, Gardens of Pompeii, 2, 91–92, Plan 29. 46  Jashemski, The Gardens of Pompeii, 1, chap. VIII: “Gardens in Restaurants, Inns, and Hotels,” 172, 176, Fig. 261. She notes the importance of this evidence (1, 352, n. 8), since so few inns and restaurants have been found elsewhere in the Roman empire. 47 Jashemski, Gardens of Pompeii, 2, 97, #154–55, Plan 31. A. de Vos, “Casa con osteria a giardino (II 9,5.7),” PPM III: 329–37, #1–14. Jashemski’s eastern entrance #6, De Vos labels as #7; and De Vos displays another western entrance to the same property as #6. DeFelice, Roman Hospitality, 222. 48 De Vos, PPM III: 333, 336–37, #5–6 and 12–14. 49 On mosaic fountains in Pompeian gardens, see Jashemski, Gardens of Pompeii, 1, 41–43. 50 Even the Casa di D. Octavius Quartio (II 2,2) “became a caupona (inn), as did many other luxurious houses all around the amphitheater.” E. S. Prina Ricotti,” The Importance of Water in Roman Garden Triclinia,” in Ancient Roman Villa Gardens (Dumbarton Oaks Colloquium X; Washington D. C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 1987), 135–84, at 170; as evidence, Prina Ricotti observes “a noticeable difference between

212

David L. Balch

Properties nearby also had significant gardens with masonry triclinia (II 8,2.3; II 8,6).51 Intriguingly, one neighboring house transformed into an osteria offers seats, not couches for reclining (II 8,5).52 Across the street was a large vineyard, where the owner probably served guests at the large triclinium near the entrance (I 20,1).53 Immediately north of the amphitheater was a large vineyard (II 5) where Jashemski excavated 1423 vine-root cavities; it also had two triclinia, where, she supposes, visitors to the amphitheater games were served.54 The Caupona di Euxinus (I 11,10–11) was more distant but still in the vicinity of the amphitheater.55 Jashemski’s suggestion is surely correct: “There is no evidence of a masonry triclinium as in some gardens, but no doubt many in the amphitheater crowds were willing to be served less elegantly at tables set up in the garden rooms and under the spreading branches of the two trees. As we have seen, a painting in another restaurant indicates that table service was not unknown in Pompeii.”56

the high quality of the earlier frescoes in the house and the poor quality of the paintings on the walls of the biclinium which are cheap and showy.” See Prina Ricotti, L’arte del convito nella roma antica (Rome: “L’Erma” di Bretschneider, 1983), with 121 Figures, 35 in color. Jashemski, Gardens of Pompeii, 2, 78–82, #133–35, Plan 25. For more on this domus/caupona and the amphitheater see D. L. Balch, “Women Prophets/Maenads Visually Represented in Two Roman Colonies: Pompeii and Corinth,” in The Interface of Orality and Writing: Speaking, Seeing, Writing in the Shaping of New Genres (eds. A. Weissenrieder and R. B. Coote; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010), 236–59, with 12 Figs. 51 Jashemski, Gardens of Pompeii, 2, 92, 94–96, #150–53, Plan 30. A. de Vos, “Caupona con habitatione” (II 8,2.3), PPM III: 316–19, #2. A. M. Sodo, “(II 8,6),” PPM III: 325–28, #3. DeFelice, Roman Hospitality, 219. 52 Jashemski, Gardens of Pompeii, 2, 94, #151, Plan 30. A. de Vos, “(II 8,5),” PPM III: 320–24. Both Jashemski and De Vos note parallels to sitting while dining in triclinium (3) of the Praedia di Giulia Felice (II 4,3), and also with the tavern paintings in VI 10,1. DeFelice, Roman Hospitality, 220. Compare n. 22. Units of the Praedia di Giulia Felice itself were for rent; see F. Pirson, Mietwohnungen in Pompeji und Herkulaneum. Untersuchungen zur Architektur, zum Wohnen und zur Sozial‑ und Wirtschaftsgeschichte der Vesuvstädte (Studien der antiken Stadt 5; Munich: Dr. Friedrich Pfeil, 1999). For the rental notice see F. Bernstein, “Pompeian Women,” in The World of Pompeii (eds. Dobbins and Foss; 2007), 526–37, at 529. 53 Jashemski, Gardens of Pompeii, 1, 178, 227, figs. 334–35; 2, 67, #116, Plan 21. M. G. Cerulli Irelli and A. de Vos, “Caupona del gladiatore e officina di lucerne” (I 20,1), PPM II: 1060–65. DeFelice, Roman Hospitality, 211, is doubtful. 54 Jashemski, Gardens of Pompeii, 1, 201–18; 2, 89–90, #156, Plan 28. 55 Jashemski, Gardens of Pompeii, 1, 172–76; 2, 51–52, #72–73, Plan 14. M. de Vos, “Caupona di Euxinus (I 11,10.11),” PPM II: 570–81: “an osteria, which must have been full of people on the days of spectacles, because the distance from the amphitheater is c. 300 m (6 insulae)”; “the two dolii in the ground in the center of the garden had a capacity of 375 liters, sufficient to contain the annual production of 275 liters in the garden, destined for consumption in the osteria.” (de Vos 570) Mahon, “The taberna counters of Pompeii,” 71–72, 77, 83–84, and DeFelice, Roman Hospitality, 203. 56 Jashemski, Gardens of Pompeii, 1, 175. She refers (1, 167, n. 2) to the paintings in the tavern of Salvius (VI 14,35–36) and the nearby tavern (VI 10,1), both discussed above.

The Church Sitting in a Garden

213

As evidence that Jashemski is correct, I return to the garden triclinium in the Casa dell’Efebo (I 7,11) mentioned above. This masonry triclinium has frescoes both on the vertical ends as well as inside the “U” of its masonry couches; one image visually represents pygmies at a symposium in an outdoor garden. Apparently not disturbed by a crocodile walking by in front of them, five diners are reclining, A. de Vos writes,57 on mattresses around a stibadium, before which is a circular table on which one sees a crater and a ladel (fig. 14). However, the three in the middle are not reclining, but sitting straight up on their mattresses. The second banqueter from the right raises a reed in the hand, so is perhaps a symposiarch, a magister bibendi, moderating the second part of the banquet, the drinking of wine (comissatio). In a second scene on the inside wall of the concrete triclinium, explicitly sexual activity in a garden is visually represented accompanied by a musician playing the double flute, to the stimulating rhythm produced by a foot-clapper (scabillum).58 The scene would be visible to those reclining on the masonry couches, but the image itself does not visualize a convivium. These two scenes in Efebo are combined in an image from peristyle (g) of the House of the Doctor (VIII 5,24; fig. 15).59 A large cloth canopy stretched between trees shelters diners who recline virtually on the ground in the open around a curving couch, facing a round table on which one sees a crater. The symposiast on the left is reclining, but the four on the right are sitting up watching the activity. Crossed sticks hold up an amphora, and a musician plays double oboes for this drinking party. Contemporary viewers may be shocked by the public sexual activity, but these visual images represent symposia/convivia in open gardens, with diners on mattresses close to or on the ground, several of whom are sitting up watching the entertainment, not reclining. Pygmies in Roman art are the colonial Other, and their visual representation concerns Roman imagination, not actual Africans, so they are given traits that correspond to the colonizer’s collective ideology, e.g. civilized/ barbarian, sexually chaste/sexually promiscuous, all marked by physical dif57 A. De Vos, “Casa dell’Efebo,” PPM I: 723, #179, 181 (both color). See Soprano, “triclini all’aperto,” 309–10, #41; Balch, Roman Domestic Art, CD 296 (color). 58 De Vos, PPM I: 727, #187 (color). See Soprano, “triclini all’aperto,” 309, #40; Balch, Roman Domestic Art, CD 298. 59 J. R. Clarke, Looking at Lovemaking: Constructions of Sexuality in Roman Art 100 B.C.–A.D. 250 (Berkeley: University of California, 1998), 44–45, fig. 10; also Clarke, “Three Uses of the Pygmy and the Aethiops at Pompeii: Decorating, ‘Othering,’ and Warding off Demons,” in Nile into Tiber. Egypt in the Roman World (Proceedings of the IIIrd International Conference of Isis studies, Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University, May 11–14, 2005; Leiden: Brill, 2007), 155–69, with 7 figures, at 166, figs. 5–6. Jashemski, Gardens of Pompeii, 2, 217, #442, Plan 81. V. Sampaolo and I. Bragantini, “Casa del Medico” (VIII 5,24), PPM VIII: 604–09, at 606, #5 (color), and Balch, Roman Domestic Art, CD 299, 299a (color). Inventory #113196 MANN.

214

David L. Balch

ference.60 The pygmies’ sex is more explicit than in some Roman art, but on the other hand, when Statius, Silvae I.6.67, describes a banquet of Domitian, the entertainers include “girls easily bought” (trans. Shackleton Bailey in LCL).61 Lucian textually satirizes “philosophical” banquets: Alcidamus the Cynic finds no couch available. “Aristaenetus […] bade him take a chair and sit (thronon […] kathizesthai) […]. What you tell me to do is womanish and weak to sit on a chair or a stool (gunaikeion […] kai malthakon epi thronou kathizesthai e skimpodos), like yourselves on that soft bed, lying almost flat on your back while you feast (katakeimenoi estiasthe), with purple cloths under you. I shall take my dinner on my feet as I walk about the dining room (deipnesaimi emperipaton […] to sumposio), and if I get tired I’ll lie on the floor, leaning on my elbow (keisomai ep agkonos), with my cloak under me, like Heracles in the pictures they paint of him.” (Lucian, Symp. 13–14, trans. Harmon in LCL; fig. 16)62 Later he is “caught stripping the flute-girl and trying to ravish her” (Symp. 46). Roman domestic art caricatures the African Other, and Lucian satirizes philosophical banquets; both authors include more or less explicit sexual activity by “ordinary” Romans. But just as in 1 Cor 14:30, where Paul casually assumes that believers “sit” in worship, so also in the Pompeian visual representations of sexual entertainment at symposia in open gardens, the diners sitting / reclining on mattress pads in the open is a cultural custom simply assumed by the artist. In this fresco we view seating arrangements typical of symposia of the non-elite in the many gardens around the amphitheater, seating arrangements also possible for the worshipping assemblies to which Paul refers in 1 Cor 14:30.63 Statius confirms partially analogous customs for elite diners. Domitian had apparently given him a villa by Alba, but “escaping from narrow doorways and the familiar house and warding off the sun with the foliage of a spreading tree, the sky went into hiding as bright daylight gave way to sudLooking at Laughter, chap. 5, at 87–88. in the informative article by C. P. Jones, “Dinner Theater,” in Dining in a Classical Context (ed. W. J. Slater; Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1991), 185–98. Satius lived in Naples and Rome, c. 50–96 C.E. Compare Dunbabin, “the imagery of convivial entertainment” (cited n. 19), 17, 19, 21–23. 62 Lucian, a Syrian, lived c. 125–180 C.E.; his Symposium is entitled The Carousal, or the Lapiths, modeled on the Symposium of Menippus, the Cynic satirist (Harmon, in Lucian, LCL, 1, 411). 63 Donahue, The Roman Community at Table, 40–41, draws analogous conclusions: “First, for large public banquets an outdoor setting was a necessity on purely practical grounds: there were simply few other places to go […]. Second, Roman banqueting appears to have known no physical boundaries within the urbs […]. Additional venues, whether the porticus, the forum, the grove, or the street, quite naturally came into play […].” 60 Clarke, 61 Cited

The Church Sitting in a Garden

215

den clouds and […] a downpour […]. We scattered, and the servants snatch up the festal fare and garlanded wine. Our picnic has nowhere to go […] The urgent shower […] persuaded us to seek the nearest cover […]. Hither are crowded the repast, the rich couches (tori), the flock of servants (ministrum) […].” (Statius, Silvae III 1.69–8664, trans. Shackleton Bailey in LCL) I will investigate furniture further below, but it is already apparent that the elite sit on professionally crafted wooden, masonry, and marble seats, while the non-elite sit / recline either on the grass (Mark 6:39; John 6:10), perhaps on mattress pads, or on the ground (Mark 8:6), as Alcidamus the Cynic in a more elite setting reclined on the floor on his elbow. 3.2.1 Sitting in Peristyle Gardens For anyone researching the social setting of Pauline worship assemblies, which included dining, Jens-Arne Dickmann’s observations on the originating sources and functions of Roman domestic peristyle gardens are intriguing: “Rather than emphasizing the impact of Hellenistic palaces on Roman private urban architecture, […] we should look at the public buildings of late Hellenistic cities […]. Two main types of public building in the Hellenistic world offer close parallels. One is the type of public feasting area discussed by Börker65 […], the Pompeion in Athens or the Asclepieion at Corinth.66 Here we find the peristyle combined with dining rooms; it seems likely that the porticoes in this context were used chiefly as ambulatories that stimulated conversation and aided digestion. The second, and closer, parallel is found in those Hellenistic buildings normally interpreted as gymnasia, i.e. buildings that served educational purposes. The close link of the exedra characterized by its wide opening with the portico seems to reflect the usage of the area for teaching, the exedra being suited to writing, the portico to debate and rhetorical dispute […]. Delorme67 convincingly 64  Cited by L. Farrar, Ancient Roman Gardens (Gloucestershire: Budding, 1990, 2000), 37. She opens the book with the Fig. of a large, fourth-century mosaic from Carthage, now in the Bardo Museum in Tunis, which represents life on the country estate of Lord Julius (Farrar, Gardens, xii, and her discussion, 37–38). The villa itself is visually represented in the center of the mosaic, which is surrounded by some images of garden scenes. At the top center the matrona reclines on a couch among trees; at the bottom left she stands in front of a wicker chair placed among roses. The dominus is represented on the lower right, seated among trees, with his servants showing him produce of the land. A. Ben Abed-Ben Kader, ed., Image in Stone: Tunisia in Mosaic (Paris: Ars Latina, 2003), has a color fig.: #367. 65 C. Börker, Festbankett und griechische Architektur (Konstanz: Universitätsverlag, 1983). 66 Important for Smith, From Symposium to Eucharist, 73, n. 31. 67 J. Delorme, Gymnasium. Étude sur les monuments consacrés à l’éducation en Grèce (des origines à l’Empire Romain) (Paris: E. De Boccard, 1960), 374 ff.

216

David L. Balch

argued […] for the generally loose arrangement of race-track and cleaningfacilities around the peristyle with its ‘classrooms.’”68 Eleanor Winsor Leach also emphasizes the connections of Roman peristyle gardens to Greek gymnasia. She notes several dialogues of Cicero set in domestic gardens, e.g. one of Scipio Aemilianus, who leads friends from a domestic room into a peristyle, where after walking, they settle on a grassy plot to converse (De Republica 1.9.14). Writing of his villa at Tusculum, Cicero (Tusc. 2.4) names a gymnasium the “Academic,” recalling the philosophical world of Athens.69 Pauline assemblies possibly included both feasting and teaching in this third kind of architectural space, that is, in peristyle gardens – with stools and benches. Contemporary historians of Roman domestic architecture emphasize their growing importance. Even before the Romans, that is, in the middle of the second century B.C.E., some Pompeians began to expand what had been a single portico behind the tablinum into a four-sided cloister or “peristyle” around a garden.70 This shifted prestige from the atrium near the street to the new nucleus deeper in the house, and the tablinum in between the two now became Janus-like. “The house’s largest and most richly decorated rooms now tended to be those round the new nucleus, while the rooms at the back of the atrium were turned round to face the garden.”71 The earliest peristyles, even if large, had a scarcity of rooms around them; e.g. the first and early peristyle of the Casa del Fauno (VI 12,2) had only a single room, but the later, larger peristyle had four living rooms, three with wide openings, which allowed the reception of guests and entertainment on a grand scale.72 Dickmann gives other examples, e.g. also in the Casa dei Capitelli figurati (VII 4,57),73 “the main rooms are ‘turned round’ towards 68 J.-A. Dickmann, “The peristyle and the transformation of domestic space in hellenistic Pompeii,” in Domestic Space in the Roman World: Pompeii and Beyond (eds. R. Laurence and A. Wallace-Hadrill; JRA Supp 22; Oxford: Oxbow, 1997), 121–36, at 124–25. See the programmatic discussion of gymnasia by A. Wallace-Hadrill, Rome’s Cultural Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2008), 169–90. 69 E. W. Leach, The Social Life of Painting in Ancient Rome and on the Bay of Naples (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2004), 37–38. Littlewood, “Ancient Literary Evidence” (cited n. 38), has further references. 70 R. Ling, Pompeii: History, Life & Afterlife (Stroud, Gloucestershire: Tempus, 2005), 42. 71 Ling, Pompeii, 42. See already J. B. Ward-Perkins, Roman Imperial Architecture (Pelikan History of Art; New York: Penguin, 1970, 1981), 185–91, who gives examples of the House of the Mosaic Atrium and of the House of the Stags in Herculaneum. 72 Dickmann, “The peristyle and the transformation of domestic space,” 122, 127, with Fig. 10. For the house plan, Jashemski, Gardens of Pompeii, 2, 145–46, #276, Plan 50, and A. Hoffmann and M. de Vos, “Casa del Fauno” (VI 12,2), PPM V: 80–141. 73 Jashemski, Gardens of Pompeii, 2, 181, #354, Plan 62, fig. 216. M. Staub-Gierow, “Casa dei Capitelli figurati” (VII 4,57), PPM VII: 63–92.

The Church Sitting in a Garden

217

the garden.”74 “The tablinum was transformed into a vestibule, […] and by its spaciousness solemnly ‘announced’ the garden area […] [which] shifted the main living-rooms to the porticoed garden.”75 As both Jashemski and Allison76 observe, dining in peristyle gardens was popular. Soprano77 lists triclinia in gardens, some of which are peristyles; I comment on some of his first examples, but because of space, not on all 39. His first example is a restaurant with both an internal triclinium (l) and an external triclinium inside a peristyle (c) of six columns, operated by freedpersons (I 2,24).78 There are several cauponae in Region 1, insula 2, all near the two Pompeian theaters and the southern Stabian Gate.79 This caupona is decorated with a fresco of a small temple, inside of which there is a statue of Bacchus. A few doors down the street there is a house with a tetrastyle atrium (b), a triclinium (i) with a fresco of Cassandra prophesying, and a peristyle (h) with an external masonry triclinium (I 2,28).80 Immediately across the street from Soprano’s first example is a tannery; in the rear is a large peristyle (h), whose west wall has an external triclinium, perhaps remaining from an 74 Dickmann,

“The peristyle,” 132, with fig. 10. “The peristyle,” 132. Historians debate the decline or continued importance of the atrium, especially when a house has two atria, but they agree on the increased significance of peristyle gardens. P. M. Allison, “Domestic Spaces and Activities,” in The World of Pompeii (eds. Dobbins and Foss, 2007), 269–78, at 274: “Colonnaded gardens seem to have been the most ostentatious spaces […] for display and entertainment, particularly dining.” A. Wallace-Hadrill, “The Development of the Campanian House,” in The World of Pompeii, 279–92, at 287, 289, insists on the continued importance of the atrium. J.-A. Dickmann, “Residences in Herculaneum,” in The World of Pompeii, 421–34, at 423, 426–27. 76 See nn. 39, 75. 77 See n. 38. 78 Soprano, “triclini all’aperto,” 292, #1. Jashemski, Gardens of Pompeii, 2, 25, #10, Plan 5. M. de Vos, “Caupona (I 2,24),” PPM I: 53–57. 79 De Vos, I, 53, gives Albergo (VII 11,11–14; V. Sampaolo, PPM VII: 463–77) as an example, a hotel of many rooms with a smaller pleasure garden (viridarim [m]) and a large open garden (hortus [v]). A graffito includes the word christianos, which is debated. Jashemski, Gardens of Pompeii, 2, 192, #378–80, Plan 70, describes its three gardens, from small to large, two enclosed and one open, noting that the hotel could accommodate more than 50 guests. See S. J. R. Ellis and G. Devore, “Uncovering Plebeian Pompeii: Broader implications from excavating a forgotten working-class neighborhood,” Nuove ricerche archeologiche nell’area vesuviana (scavi 2003–2006) (eds. P. G. Guzzo and M. P. Guidobaldi; Studi della soprintendenza archeologica di pompei 25; Rome: “L’Erma” di Bretschneider, 2008), 309–20, at 316–17: in the new “Entertainment District” near the theaters, the owner(s) of VIII 7,7–11 abandoned industrial activity (possibly fish by-produce processing), “incorporated a large chunk of their neighbor’s land, … [and] opened up an attractive dining area complete with a new triclinium couch, water features, and kitchen” (see their fig. 9). This tavern (VIII 7,7–11) is just inside the Stabian Gate, faces east onto the Via Stabiana, and is just southeast of the small theater (Odeion). 80 Soprano, “triclini all’aperto,” 293, #2. Jashemski, Gardens of Pompeii, 2, 25, #11, Plan 5; M. de Vos, “Casa della Grata metallica” (I 2,28), PPM I: 58–63. 75 Dickmann,

218

David L. Balch

earlier domus (I 5,2).81 A famous mosaic emblema decorated its table: an allegory of death, a skull, below which is a butterfly, perhaps symbolizing the spirit, below which is the wheel of fortune. On either side of the skull, a scale holds symbols of wealth on the left (scepter and purple toga) and of poverty on the right (beggar’s crook and knapsack) in perfect balance (fig. 17).82 From the decumanus that connects the main forum in the west with the Sarno Gate in the east, that is, along the Via dell’Abbondanza, the Casa di Trebio Valente (III 2,1)83 offers a long axial view from the entrance on the street (fauces) to the peristyle (x) with an external triclinium in the rear. Many electoral graffiti are painted on the front of the house,84 and it is one of the few in Pompeii with its own domestic bath (q, y).85 The external triclinium in the rear has four of its own columns that support a pergola; diners would look out into the peristyle at a small pool with a fountain. The wall behind the triclinium has brightly colored blocks of yellow, rose, and white. I append Jashemski’s empathetic description86 of dining in such an elite house, the house of Albucius Celsus (V 2,i). The house has three large dining rooms (including w), all opening off the Rhodian peristyle (r; see Vetruvius 6.7.3), which has a smaller garden on the east (2) and a larger one on the west (5), both with pools. A domestic bath (t, u, v) is located off the eastern garden. The larger garden had a portico before the earthquake of 62 C.E., but afterwards it was removed and replaced by an outdoor masonry triclinium. The table in its center had a small masonry column with an opening in the middle for a jet of water, so that the table also (at other times) served as a fountain. There was a large pool with yet another fountain in front of this garden triclinium, “so that guests could dine with the cooling sound of water nearby. It is easy to appreciate the sentiments scribbled on the garden wall by an ancient Pompeian: ‘How inviting is your house, O Albucius.’ 81  Soprano, “triclini all’aperto,” 294, #3. Jashemski, Gardens of Pompeii, 2, 33, #27, Plan 8. I. Bragantini, “Conceria” (I 5,2), PPM I: 185–92; the mosaic emblema is #11. 82 Large color Fig. in Pompeii (ed. F. Coarelli; New York: Riverside, 2002), 390–91, and J. Berry, The Complete Pompeii (New York: Thames & Hudson, 2007), 234–35. I do not find an inventory number. 83 Soprano, “triclini all’aperto,” 297–98, #8. Jashemski, Gardens of Pompeii, 2, 99–101, #156, Plan 32, figs. 112–16. I. Bragantini, “Casa di Trebius Valens” (III 2,1), PPM III: 341–91. Soprano’s exernal triclinia #4–7 have gardens, but not peristyles. 84 Jashemski, Gardens of Pompeii, 2, 101, Plan 32, figs. 113–14. Bragantini PPM III: 343–45, #1–4. 85 A. O. Koloski-Ostrow, “The City Baths of Pompeii and Herculaneum,” in The World of Pompeii (eds. Dobbins and Foss; 2007), 224–56, at 242–43: “Baths in private houses: new research.” 86 Jashemski, Gardens of Pompeii, 1, 90–92; see 2, 112–13, #180–82, Plan 36, Figs. 123– 25. F. P. Badoni and F. Narciso, “Casa delle nozze d’argento” (V 2,i), PPM III: 676–772.

The Church Sitting in a Garden

219

[…] The beautiful portico looked out on a vegetable garden, […] nor were flowers and vegetables segregated in Roman gardens […]. The more formal entertaining undoubtedly took place indoors in the lavish banquet room, especially in the winter. But no doubt many a guest was entertained in this gracious garden during the long summer months, and enjoyed the cooling breezes and the music of the fountain […].”87 Writers have traditionally observed that women and children often sat at such dinners, but in contrast to the standard view, Roller argues that “it cannot be shown (contra Valerius and Varro) that women of any status ever dined seated as a matter of course.”88 The children of Claudius dined with him, sitting in old-fashioned style at the ends of the couches.89 “It was the regular custom that the children of the emperors should take their meals in sight of their relatives, seated with other nobles of their age at a more frugal table of their own.” (Tacitus, Ann. 13.16, trans. Jackson in LCL). I conclude this brief glance at peristyle gardens by noting significant diversity, ranging from a small caupona operated by freedmen (I 2,24) and a tannery (I 5,2), both with exernal triclinia in peristyle gardens, to elite houses, one with electoral propaganda, its own domestic bath, and a colorful external triclinium in its peristyle garden (III 2,1), another with multiple dining rooms and gardens, one with a water fountain before an external triclinium (V 2,i). Jashemski had sufficient reason to conclude that both the relatively poor as well as wealthy Pompeians enjoyed gardens, whether small or large open gardens or small or larger ones with peristyles.90

Gardens of Pompeii, 1, 91. Dining Posture in Ancient Rome, 98. Compare the observations of C. Osiek and M. Y. MacDonald with J. H. Tulloch, A Woman’s Place: House Churches in Earliest Christianity (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2006), 12–15, 26–36, 45–49, 144–63, e.g. on Quadratilla (Pliny, Ep. 7.24). Donahue, The Roman Community at Table, 107–15, 139–41, clarifies “Female Banquet Sponsors.” For peristyle gardens of the Casa dei Dioscuri (VI 9,6.7), see D. L. Balch, “Values of Roman Women Including Priests Visually Represented in Pompeii and Herculaneum,” in Finding a Woman’s Place: Essays in Honor of Carolyn Osiek (eds. D. L. Balch and J. T. Lamoreaux; Princeton Theological Monographs; Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2011), 3–49, with 20 figs. 89 Suetonius, Claudius 32; Jashemski, Gardens of Pompeii, 1, 90, n. 6, cites both this and the following text. See n. 22. 90 See nn. 38–42. Further research into Soprano’s list, Jashemski’s longer list (Gardens of Pompeii, 2, “Appendix I: A Description of Every Garden,” #1–623), and DeFelice’s related list of businesses (Roman Hospitality, 176–306), would confirm and increase this diversity. For example, I have not described peristyle gardens in the numerous coastal villas, many with larger, more luxurious gardens than any in Pompeii. See S. de Caro, “The Roman Villa on the Bay of Naples and Its Influence on Urban Domestic Architecture,” in Pompeii and the Roman Villa: Art and Culture around the Bay of Naples (ed. C. C. Mattusch; Washington D. C.: National Gallery of Art, 2008), 15–29, with 6 figures. 87 Jashemski, 88 Roller,

220

David L. Balch

3.2.2. The Growing Social and Political Importance of Peristyle Gardens Romans defeated Pompeii in the Social War (80 B.C.E.), and the dictator Sulla sent colonists from the city of Rome, who erected public buildings, e.g. the amphitheater.91 But the important point for this essay is the continuing trend toward building peristyles, opening the tablinum to face the rear, and turning rooms off the atrium around to orient them to the large dining and reception rooms opening off the rear peristyle.92 In the early Empire, the function of atria, where the old elite had received clients, the salutatio, began to change. Expanded wealth transformed older sober atria into spaces of showy display with marble furniture and water fountains with eye-catching mosaics.93 The great dining room(s) off the peristyle began to assume functions of the old atrium. The former audience in the atrium, clients from a wide social spectrum, lost ground to more selective receptions focused in the dining room,94 a change developing before and during the time of Paul the apostle. Some of this upwardly mobile new class imitated luxurious villas that they did not own, an imitation that included ornamental gardens with sculpture and water displays.95 Pompeii, 52, 54–55.  Ling, Pompeii, 59; see nn. 70–75 above. Ling also contrasts (63) the inward-looking urban domus with outward-looking villas built by the Roman colonists, both resulting in two domestic nucleae. With full-page color figs., Pompei (ed. F. Zevi; Naples: Guida, 1992), traces the urban and domestic development of Pompeii from the “Etruscan,” through the Samnite, the Sullan, and finally the Augustan city. Compare F. Pesando, “Le residenze dell’aristocrazia sillana a Pompei: alcune considerazioni,” Ostraka 15/1 (2006): 75–96. 93 Ling, Pompeii, 74. 94 Ling, Pompeii, 75, citing J.-A. Dickmann, Domus frequentata. Anspruchsvolles Wohnen im pompejanischen Stadthaus (Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften 4/1–2; Munich: Dr. Friedrich Pfeil, 1999), 1, 301–12. I have not seen the new second edition. 95 G. di Pasquale and F. Paolucci, eds. Il giardino antico da Babilonia a Roma. Scienze, arte e natura (Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienze di Firenze; Livorno: sillabe, 2007), a stunning exhibit of frescoes, mosaics, and many sculptures in ancient gardens; the section on Greek gardens has the title, “Gardens of the Gods and Philosophers,” 203–27. The book collects sculptures from the gardens of Oplontis (257–69), Cervi (270–75), Amorini Dorati (276–89), Vettii (290–95), and Octavius Quartio (306–13, 328–29). For the exhibition on the web see http://brunelleschi.imss.fi.it/giardinoantico/indice.html. Domus  – viridaria, horti picti (Exhibition, Pompeii and Naples; Naples: Bibliopolis, 1992), with a catalogue of beautiful garden artifacts, including sculpture. Mary Beard, “Art Collections on the Bay of Naples,” in Pompeii and the Roman Villa: Art and Culture around the Bay of Naples (ed. C. C. Mattusch; Washington D. C.: National Gallery of Art, 2008), 71–83, with 11 Figures. For numerous gardens in the city of Rome, whose sculptures strike me as more violent, see M. Cima and E. Talamo, Gli horti di Roma antica (Milan: Mondadori Electa, 2008). K. J. Hartwick, The Gardens of Sallust: A Changing Landscape (Austin: University of Texas, 2004). Il giardino dei cesari. Dai palazzi antichi alla Vigna Barberini, sul Monte Palatino (ed. F. Villedieu; Scavi dell’École française de Rome, 1985–1999; Rome: Quasar, 2001). Pompeians fought with the Roman Mummius against Corinth (146 B.C.E.), which enabled luxurious urbya renewal, e.g. of the Temple 91 Ling, 92

The Church Sitting in a Garden

221

4. Visual Representations of Persons Sitting In villas some of these gardens included marble seats. Pliny96 gives a rapturous description of his villa in Tuscany, which beyond a riding ground (hippodromus; Ep. 5.6.32) includes an alcove: “There you can lie and imagine you are in a wood, but without the risk of rain. Here too a fountain rises and disappears underground, while here and there are marble chairs which anyone tired with walking appreciates as much as the building itself. By every chair is a tiny fountain (Fonticuli sedilibus adiacent) […].” (Ep. 5.6. 40, trans. Radice in LCL). Cicero (Acad Luc 2.3.9) also mentions a seat (sedem) along the walks in the open colonnade planted with trees (xystus) at the Villa of Hortensius. Roman domestic art gives glimpses of life that support Dickmann’s and Leach’s emphasis on the function of the architecture, Roman domestic peristyles as gymnasia where both feasting and teaching occurred. For example, frescoes of the poets Menander and Euripides occur precisely on the walls of exedrae facing a peristyle garden. The rectangular exedra (23) with Menander represented sitting on a chair (fig. 18)97 is near the library of this house.98 A fresco from Workshop IX 8,299 visually represents philosophers, with three columns and two trees in the background,100 which could easily be perceived as representing a peristyle setting.101 Twelve figures are now visible of Apollo (VII 7,32) and of the Casa del Fauno (VI 12,2). See Wallace-Hadrill, Rome’s Cultural Revolution, 131–37, 347.   96 Cited by Farrar, Ancient Roman Gardens, 38, who cites also the following text.   97 R. Ling, “Casa del Menandro” (I 10,4; PPM II: 367); Jashemski, Gardens of Pompeii, 2, 47, #64, Plan 13. L. García y García, Pupils, Teachers and Schools in Pompeii: Childhood, Youth and Culture in the Roman Era (Rome: Bardi, 2005), 131, Fig. 81. Balch, Roman Domestic Art, 8 with n. 27, fig. 2, CD 20 (color). The fresco of “Euripides” has faded.   98 García y García, Pupils, Teachers and Schools, 133, Fig. 83, citing L. Richardson, “The Libraries of Pompeii,” Archaeology 30 (1977): 398, n. 6, who thinks the put-holes in the walls of cubiculum (21) were for shelves; he has not convinced all scholars. Pompeii and the Roman Villa (ed. Mattusch), 121, figs. 1–2.   99 This shop is located in a corner of the insula of the enormous Casa del Centenario (IX 8,3.7); Jashemski, Gardens of Pompeii, 2, 244–45, #506–08, Plan 92. 100 Jashemski, “Gardens,” 490: “The small garden in the House of Polybius (IX 12,1–3), enclosed by a portico on three sides, contained five large trees, with many smaller ones, including eight trees espaliered between the engaged columns on the west wall (fig. 31.2).” 101 Fig. 46 as well as the front and back cover of García y García, Pupils, Teachers and Schools. V. Sampaolo, “IX 8 1e2,” PPM IX: 898–900, #6–10, with five figs. of the single, horizontal fresco; Balch, Roman Domestic Art, 223. For frescoes or statues of teachers, actors, students, or scribes who are seated, see García y García, Pupils, Teachers and Schools, figs. 3, 4, 5, 6, 20, 28, 30, 36, 37, 56, 66, 67, 68, 69, 73, 74, 81, 84, 85; García y García collects numerous visual representations, none of which present a philosopher reclining while teaching. For amazing Figs. of either busts or statues of philosophers and politicians in the large peristyle garden of the Villa dei Papyri near Herculaneum, see ercolano. tre secoli

222

David L. Balch

(93 cm long), but García y García writes that originally there were forty-four in a frieze 4.4 meters long.102 Three of these philosophers are visually represented as seated at the base of a column, twice with trees behind the column; twice their seats are stone, once a marble bench, once a wooden chair.103 None of these philosophers are represented as reclining while teaching. The “Academy of Plato” is represented on a mosaic from the Villa of T. Siminius Stephanus outside the Vesuvian Gate of Pompeii.104 Four philosophers sit under an olive tree on a curved marble bench with lions’ feet, and another sits to the right, while two others stand nearby. Plato, sitting in the center, points with a stick at a sphere in a box on the ground. The background is the Akropolis of Athens, so the scene is set in the great Academy or gymnasium of ancient Athens, which Plato founded for teaching and debate, which continued in that space for nine hundred years.105

5. Furniture for Sitting As Visually Represented in Pompeian Frescoes Ernesto De Carolis published a comprehensive study of furniture (55 beds, 53 tables, 105 chairs with backrests, 53 chairs without backrests [a total of 158 chairs], 20 stools/benches, 3 chests, and 2 cabinets) in Pompeii and Herculaneum as visually represented in frescoes.106 Here I focus on chairs, di scoperte (eds. M. Borriello, M. P. Guidobaldi, and P. G. Guzzo; Naples: Electa, 2008), 167–235, #55–112, with catalogue entries describing each, e.g. Homer standing (#59), “Saffo” (#109), “Dionysos-Platon” (#110). One does not have to have Italian to enjoy the stunning sculptures from this peristyle garden! 102 García y García, Pupils, Teachers and Schools, 74, 76. 103 R. M. Jensen, Understanding Early Christian Art (New York: Routledge, 2000), 34, fig. 5: fourth-century sarcophagus: Jesus seated and teaching. A. Ferrua, Le pitture della nuova catacomba di via Latina (Città del Vaticano: Pontificio istituto di archeologia cristiana, 1960), fig. 108: Paul standing before a seated Christ, who raises his right hand in blessing. F. Bisconti, “The Decoration of Roman Catacombs,” in The Christian Catacombs of Rome: History, Decoration, Inscriptions (Regensburg: Schnell & Steiner, 2002, 2nd ed.), 71–145, at 111, fig. 126: a banquet scene with furniture in the Catacomb of SS. Pietro e Marcellino. 104 García y García, Pupils, Teachers and Schools, 150, fig. 85. Inv. 124545 MANN. Pompeii and the Roman Villa (ed. Mattusch), 214–15, #95 (color). Berry, Complete Pompeii 120–21. Jashemski, Gardens of Pompeii, 2, 283, #577–80, Plan 121. Compare B. Andreae, “Das Mosaik der Sieben Weisen aus Sarsina in der Villa Albani in Rom und sein Verhältnis zum Philosophenmosaik aus Pompeji in Nationalmuseum von Neapel,” in Otium: Festschrift für Volker Michael Strocka (eds. T. Ganschow and M. Steinhart; Remshalden: Bernhard Albert Greiner, 2005), 9–14, with Abb. 1–2; Andreae argues that both mosaics visually represent the Seven Wise Men. 105 Pompeii and the Roman Villa (ed. Mattusch), 214. 106 E. De Carolis, Il mobile a Pompei ed Ercolano: letti, tavoli, sedie e armadi. Contributo alla tipologia dei mobili della prima età imperiale (Studia archaeologica 151; Rome:

The Church Sitting in a Garden

223

stools and benches, not on frescoes in De Carolis’ list that visually represent beds and tables. Professional artists painted the frescoes, an aspect of Roman luxury, which means that the furniture visually represented is typically elite. Given the focus of this article on gatherings of those who were primarily non-elite, this section will brief, giving only impressions, with no intention of being comprehensive. First, noticing gender, several frescoes represent a male seated on a professionally crafted chair, with a female on a masonry bench (fig. 19),107 contrasting seating arrangements perhaps similar to those noted above in the Villa di Giulia Felice and the Casa del Cryptoportico.108 Or Venus sits in an elegant chair, while Mars stands, outdoors with a column in the background (fig. 20).109 Some frescoes visually represent the matron of the house (or Sappho) seated in a thoughtful mood (fig. 21).110 Four women sit on two backless benches in the forum, one holding a baby.111 Two other women are visually represented sitting on a bench in the forum, considering purchasing cloth from an animated salesperson (fig. 22).112 Second, there are numerous visual representations of musicians. Since music was central to symposia,113 the artists may well be representing musicians who would entertain at contemporary dinners. Pindar seated with

“L’Erma” di Bretschneider, 2007); a series of tables give the numbers cited above (195–214). De Carolis also gives graphic reproductions of all the various types of furniture (217–47). See S. T. A. M. Mols, Wooden Furniture in Herculaneum: Form, Technique and Function (Circumvesuviana 2; Amsterdam: J. C. Gieben, 1999), 129–30, n. 810, with cat. no. 24, the one remaining bench in Herculaneum. G. M. A. Richter, Ancient Furniture: A History of Greek, Etruscan and Roman Furniture (Oxford: Clarendon, 1926); also Richter, The Furniture of the Greeks, Etruscans, and Romans (London: Phaidon, 1966). C. L. Ransom, Couches and Beds of the Greeks, Etruscans and Romans (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1905). 107 I. Bragantini, “Casa di Meleagro” (VI 9,2.13; PPM IV: 679). F. Seiler, “Casa degli Amorini Dorati” (VI 16,7.38; PPM V: 782). The scene is debated: Agamemnon or Paris on the chair, Briseis or Helen sitting on a rock or a masonry bench. Note: I discontinue references to Jashemski, Gardens of Pompeii, who does not reproduce frescoes. 108 See nn. 22, 89. 109 A. de Vos, “Casa annessa alla Casa dell’Efebo” (I 7,19; PPM I: 767); M. de Vos, “Casa di M. Lucretius Fronto” (V 4,1; PPM III: 1018). The image reflects Augustan propaganda: war makes peace with love. 110 I. Bragantini, “Casa di Meleagro” (VI 9,2.13; PPM IV: 693). Pompeii and the Roman Villa (ed. Mattusch), 161–62, #59 (color), prints a similar image from a triclinium in the Villa of Arianna in Stabiae, inv. 909 MANN; also PitPom, 456, #245: a woman seated, Villa di Arianna, Stabiae, triclinium 7. 111 V. Sampaolo, “Villa di Giulia Felice” (II 4,3; PPM III: 257); Nappo, “rappresentazione del foro” (cited n. 35), 88–89, #15, fig. 11. 112 Villa di Giulia Felice (II 4,3; PPM III: 254). PitPom, 503, #284; Nappo, “rappresentazione del foro,” 86, #10, Fig. 6. 113 See Jones, “Dinner Theater,” 190, and Dunbabin, “The imagery of convivial entertainment,” 17–19.

224

David L. Balch

Corinna standing, both playing the lyre, appear repeatedly.114 Or a woman who sits directs others playing music while they stand.115 An individual musician, either Apollo or a woman, is seated on a padded chair playing the four-stringed lyre.116 Third, many myths, as well as old and new comedy are visually represented.117 Plutarch (Table Talk 712B; also 673B, 710B–713F)118 writes that at a symposium, it is better to do without wine than without Menander. Ancient stories were contemporized, including the visualization of contemporary furniture, while the plays, perhaps, were acted before the diners. Odysseus, rising from his chair, draws a knife on Circe, while in the upper left of the fresco, a monster represents Odysseus’ companions whom Circe had transformed into animals.119 (Homer, Odyssey 10.314–22, verbally describes elegant chairs, 10.313–16, 352–54, 366–67.) Paris is seated inside a domestic room on a simple chair with two columns in the background, while Helen stands, or the reverse.120 Iphigenia emerges from Artemis’ temple in Tauria, and sees her brother Orestes and Pylades standing; Thoas, king of Tauria, is seated at the left.121 Phaedra sits in an elegant chair, with a column and tree in the background, while Hippolytus stands, with a companion and horse behind him (Ovid, Her. 4.17).122 Apollo’s epiphany in light, as he stands before a throne, with Venus standing beside him, is painted in an exedra facing a peristyle (fig. 23).123 Menander’s comedy Samia presents an old man with an unkempt beard, who sits on a chair, turns toward a person standing on 114 M. de Vos, “Casa del Citarista” (I 4,5.25; PPM I: 162); disegnatori,” 612–13, prints these frescoes in color. I. Bragantini, “Casa VI 14,38,” PPM V: 380. I. Bragantini, “Casa degli Scienziato o Gran Lupanare” (VI 14,43; PPM V: 463). In all three images, he sits while she stands. 115 M. de Vos, “Casa dei Ceii” (I 6,15; PPM I: 431). 116 I. Bragantini, Casa dell’Argenteria (VI 7,20; disegnatori 459). 117 See Jones, “Dinner Theater,” 189, 192–93, and Dunbabin, “the imagery of convivial entertainment,” 13–16. 118 Cited by Dunbabin, “The imagery of convivial entertainment,” 15; she discusses (14–17) Menander’s plays figured in mosaics, one of which has scenes from 11 comedies! All this means that many in Pauline communities were familiar with Menander. 119 V. Sampaolo, “V 2,14,” PPM III: 852. 120 Casa dei “Cinque scheltri” (VI 10,2; disegnatori 192). See B. Bergmann, “The Pregnant Moment: Tragic Wives in the Roman Interior,” Sexuality in Ancient Art (ed. N. B. Kampen; Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1996), 199–218, with Figs. 84–91, at Fig. 90. 121 A. de Vos, “Casa di Pinarius Cerialis” (III 4,4; PPM III: 460–63). Also V. Sampaolo, “Casa dei Vettii” (VI 15,1; PPM V: 562), where the crafted chair is clearer. Croisille, La Peinture Romaine, 83. 122 V. Sampaolo, “Casa V 2,10,” PPM III: 835. A simpler scene appears in I. Bragantini, Casa VI 5,2; PPM IV, 292, but the chair is still elegant. The plot comes close to 1 Cor 5:1–8. 123 V. Sampaolo, “Casa di M. Gavius Rufus” (VI 2,16–17, in exedra [o] facing peristyle [d]; PPM VI: 565). See Balch, Roman Domestic Art, 159. A. de Vos, “Casa annessa alla Casa dell’Efebo” (I 7,19; PPM I: 773). In the first image, the chair has a backrest, but in the second image, it does not.

The Church Sitting in a Garden

225

his left, raises his eyebrows and begins scheming.124 Attis appears standing, before he castrates himself, observed by nymphs, two of whom are standing while one sits (fig. 24).125 Bellerophon with his horse Pegasus stands before king Proteus, who sits on a chair.126 Patrons in Pompeii asked artists to paint myths on their domestic walls, which they perhaps were seeing performed at domestic symposia, staged with contemporary domestic furniture. The apostle Paul too reminds the Galatians (3:1) that “it was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly exhibited as crucified!”127 Occasionally, poets or actors are visually represented seated, including Euripides and Menander.128 Strikingly, three men wearing wreaths as crowns are seated, while a fourth stands declaiming, perhaps a poetic agon.129 A seated philosopher counsels a woman about to embark for Hades on the ship of Caronte.130 In the same house, a philosopher is seated in front of a globe, and the Muse of history, Clio, is also seated with a scroll in her hand.131 In another house Clio reads from a papyrus, taken from a nearby uncovered capsa with six more papyri; the room where this fresco was painted is open to the large south garden.132 Pauline assemblies too featured teachers (Rom 12:7), who after dinner read from scrolls and interpreted them133; the visual world suggests that these teachers were seated, not reclining on triclinium 124 M. de Vos, “Casa dei Quadreti teatrali” (I 6,11; PPM I: 373). W. G. Arnott, trans., Menander (LCL, 2000), 3, 1–189. See n. 118. 125 A. de Vos, “Casa di Pinarius Cerialis” (III 4,4; PPM III: 464–65). 126 V. Sampaolo, “Complesso a sei piani delle Terme del Sarno” (VIII 2,17–21; PPM VIII: 117). Cp. Pompeii – picta fragmenta. Decorazioni parietale dalla città sepolte (ed. P. G. Guzzo; Torino: Umberto Allemandi, 1997), 68–69, #69, inv. 20878 MANN, from Termopolio (I 8,8); this fresco is not in PPM. This legend is associated with the fountain of Peirene in Corinth. 127 See Balch, Roman Domestic Art, 62, 86, 108. 128 R. Ling, “Casa del Menandro” (I 10,4, Esedra rettangolare [23], facing the peristyle [c]; PPM II: 366–67). V. Sampaolo, Casa del Bracciale d’oro (VI 17[Ins.Occ.],42, in triclinium [19]; PPM VI: 70), a poet seated while reading from a scroll. Disegnatori, 249, #19, represents a poet sitting while reading from a scroll to an actor who is standing. 129 V. Sampaolo, “Casa VI 16,36.37,” in triclinium (H); PPM V: 991. 130 I. Bragantini, “Casa del Criptoportico e Casa del Sacello Iliaco” (I 6,2) PPM I: 264, #127. 131 Bragantini, PPM I: 325, #78–79; see García y García, Pupils, Teachers and Schools, 148, citing M. Della Corte, “L’educazione di Alessandro Magno nell’enciclopedia aristotelica di un trittico megalografico di Pompei del II stile,” Mitteilungen des deutschen archäologischen Institutes, Römische Abteilung 57 (1942): 31–78, who argues that these megalographs are connected with the Epicurean school. Croisille, Peinture Romaine, 153. 132 García y García, Pupils, Teachers and Schools, fig. 1. Sampaolo, “Villa di Giulia Felice” (II 4,3), PPM III: 186 and 303–04, #197, 199–200, a fresco now in the Louvre. 133 See Jewett, Romans (cited n. 8), 89–90, 749–50, 942–44. Compare the provocative theses of E. A. Judge, “The Early Christians as a Scholastic Community,” The First Christians in the Roman World. Augustan and New Testament Essays (ed. J. R. Harrison; WUNT 229; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 526–52.

226

David L. Balch

couches, while they taught. I repeat, however, that these images visually represent elite symposia; in conclusion, I return to non-elite settings.

6. Numbers of Non-Elite Diners Sitting in Open Gardens/Taverns Pompeii exhibits triclinia both in open gardens134 and in peristyle gardens.135 Peristyle gardens with masonry triclinia are found both in non-elite taverns operated by freedmen / freedwomen (e.g. I 2,24) and in elite domus (e.g. III 2,1). We do not know where the earliest Pauline assemblies gathered, but it would surely be better to imagine several kinds of spaces, not restricting our imagination to one type of space or specific example, e.g. the triclinium and atrium in the elite Casa dei Vettii. Still, since most in Pauline ekklesiai were non-elite, I will imagine Pauline gatherings in several of the taverns and gardens discussed above. For this exercise, I will employ John F. Donahue’s calculations. His source for the numbers that Caesar feasted is Plutarch, who refers to “dining couches – triclinia – in the traditional sense, that is a set of three couches with each couch accommodating three diners […].”136 Donahue figures 12.5 square meters per triclinium. Considering the taverns and gardens discussed above, how many diners might gather in those spaces? Jashemski observes that the taverns cluster around the amphitheater, which sat 20,000 spectators,137 and also around the two theaters, which seated 1,000 and 3,000 spectators, respectively.138 After events in those public spaces, where would 20,000 or 1,000 people gather to eat and drink, and find further entertainment? They would not all find elite masonry triclinia on which they might recline by water fountains! They would crowd into available, nearby taverns and gardens, where they would sit or recline as did Hercules on the ground; elite owners of houses would and did convert their luxurious spaces into caupona to take money from these thirsty crowds.139 134 In the text above see nn. 42–44, 47–51, 53–54, 57, 59; Jashemski, Gardens of Pompeii, 2, #41, 72–73, 116, 146, 150, 151–53, 154, 313. 135 In the text above see nn. 3, 78, 80–81, 83, 86; Jashemski, Gardens of Pompeii, 2, #10–11, 27, 133–35, 156, 180, 276, 354, 442, 517. 136 Donahue, Roman Community at Table, 32 (cited n. 20). 137 Pompeii (ed. Coarelli), 181. 138 Pompeii (ed. Coarelli), 176, 178. 139 See nn. 50 and 79, the former on the Casa di D. Octavius Quartio (II 2,2), immediately north of the amphitheater, a domus transformed into a caupona. Few authors publishing on Pompeian housing give measurements, but the most authoritative source on Roman gardens, Wilhelmina Jashemski, provides a scale with each of her plans, supplied by her physicist husband, Stanley Jashemski, whose memory I honor! The following numbers, then, are approximate, but close enough.

The Church Sitting in a Garden

227

The owner of the Casa di D. Octavius Quartio (II 2,2) converted the domus into a caupona; the garden with a back gate opening onto the amphitheater plaza is c. 52 × 30 meters (fig. 25).140 The water channel through the center took perhaps a quarter of the space, statues and decorations another quarter, trees and plants, as Jashemski demonstrates, perhaps another 40 percent, which would leave c. 156 sq. m, divided by 12.5 and multiplied by 9, theoretically gives space for 112 thirsty sports fans (fig. 26), celebrating perhaps under “large trees on the east edge of the garden.”141 Down the road the Caupona of Euxinus (I 11,10.11) had an L-shaped counter at the entrance,142 so that it was possible to serve passers-by on the street as well as those who stepped inside. Excavators found three amphora addressed “to the copo, Euxinus, near the amphitheater at Pompeii.”143 Two doors led into a large open area, where Jashemski’s 1964 excavations found thirty-two grapevines and two trees (her figs. 258–59). In the remaining open spaces, she suggests, the amphitheater crowds were served in non-elite style.144 The garden is c. 27 × 15 m., that is, c. 405 sq. m.; her figures suggest that perhaps a third of the vineyard was not planted, leaving an open area of 135 sq. m., divided by 12.5 and multiplied by 9, gives 97 customers clamoring for wine. A larger area west of the Great Palaestra and amphitheater is II 9,5.7, which has a masonry triclinium shaded by a pergola supported by stuccoed columns that faces two mosaic fountains. Jashemski’s 1971 excavation disclosed that “the triclinium had been located in a garden setting, probably a vineyard with the usual trees.”145 The garden is c. 35 × 35 m., so 1225 sq. m.; if we assume that a quarter of it (306 sq. m.) was open, divide by 12.5 and multiply by 9, we have a rowdy amphitheater crowd of 220. Caupona I 2,24, near the small theater,146 has an internal triclinium (l), where the more elite customers could recline, an atrium/tablinum area (b, k) of c. 160 sq. m., plus the external garden triclinium (c) of c. 180 sq. m., around half taken by the triclinium itself. Figuring half the entrance area n. 50. Jashemski, Gardens of Pompeii, 2, 78–83, #133–36, Plan 25, figs. 89–90. Gardens of Pompeii, 2, 83. 142 Mahon, “The taberna counters of Pompeii,” 71–72, 77, 83–84, notes that the counter was 85 m. high, plastered and painted red, and that there were three shelves behind the counter, each 15 cm wide and 10 cm deep. A stove at the end of the counter had roof tile, which made its fire especially hot. The counter had two dolia and was clearly a wine shop, probably serving a variety of wines from across the Mediterranean. 143 Jashemski, Gardens of Pompeii, 1, 172, with fig. 257. 144 Jashemski, Gardens of Pompeii, 1, 175, figs. 258, 260. See n. 55. 145 Jashemski, Gardens of Pompeii, 2, 97, #154, Plan 31. 146 See n. 78. Ling, Pompeii, 54, suggests that the theater was not a Greek hall for musical performances, but an assembly chamber for meetings of the Roman colonists, that is, retired soldiers. 140 See

141 Jashemski,

228

David L. Balch

and a quarter of the garden gives 125 sq. m., divided by 12.5 and multiplied by 9, yields 90 spaces for thirsty theatergoers, plus 9 who could recline on the internal triclinium.

7. Summary and Conclusions 7.1 Summary This article began by quoting Penelope Allison’s observations about furniture in the Casa di Julius Polybius. Excavators uncovered a meter-long bench in the portico of Polybius’s peristyle garden, and they have restored several, which would have enabled residents to sit and enjoy viewing its decorations, trees, flowers, and vegetables (figs. 1–7). The Villa (Predia) di Giulia Felice (II 4,3; Figs. 9–10) and the Casa del Criptoportico (I 6,2) have both masonry triclinia – and also nearby masonry benches for sitting while dining.147 Osteria (II 8,5) provides only benches, not couches.148 Popular art visualizes workers sitting on benches and stools. Beside the entrance to Taberna vasaria (I 8,10), one sees a popular painting of four individual potters throwing clay, each seated on stools at their own, individual, round tables.149 Both in the Casa di Trittolemo (VII 7,5) and in the macellum (VII 9,7.8), we see cupids sitting in pairs on benches preparing garlands of flowers. A long frieze in an atrium (24) of the Villa di Giulia Felice (II 4,3) visually presents several scenes from the forum in which people are sitting on benches, one of four women on two benches, one of them holding a baby, another of two different salespersons presenting bolts of cloth to women sitting in pairs on benches. We see other salespersons on the Via dell’Abbondanza sitting on two wooden benches with backrests beside a table displaying their wares. Stools and benches seem to have been common in gardens, in the forum, and in workplaces, as well as in taverns (see Mark 2:6, 14; 3:32; 4:1; 13:3). Ernesto De Carolis lists frescoes painted on the walls of Pompeii and Herculaneum that exhibit 105 chairs with backrests and 53 chairs without backrests, a total of 158 chairs, plus 20 frescoes with stools/ benches. In the Caupona di Salvius (VI 14,35–36) we see two male customers seated on stools without a table reaching out for the one drink that the barmaid brings.150 In the Caupona della Via di Mercurio (VI 10,1), popular frescoes visually represent travelers seated on wooden benches at a table while eat147 See

n. 22. n. 52. 149 Examples in this paragraph are documented in n. 35. 150 See n. 27. 148 See

The Church Sitting in a Garden

229

ing and drinking.151 These popular images visually present a contrast also reflected textually in Martial (Epigram V 30) and Lucian (Sym. 13–14): the non-elite sit on stools or benches in bars, unlike the elite who recline. Pauline believers were “sitting” (1 Cor 14:30). In a fresco decorating the garden triclinium in the Casa dell’Efebo (I 7,11),152 and in the Casa del Medico (VIII 5,24, inventory #113196 MANN),153 we see seating/reclining arrangements in the open on cushions on the ground around a stibadium. Romans did not always recline when eating, nor did they always eat in a triclinium. The non-elite typically drank and ate sitting on stools or benches in taverns, and they reclined/sat on cushions on the ground in open gardens, as we see in these popular images from Pompeii.154 Strikingly, popular painting still represents them in small groups. Reclining on one’s elbow on the ground is also visualized by professional artists: Hercules, drunk, reclines on his elbow on his lion’s skin on the ground in the presence of Queen Omphale, who is seated with two young women beside her, one of whom leans on a column, while cupids play with the wreath on Hercules’ head and with his club (fig. 16).155 Three Pompeian houses visually represent this scene. Not only Alcidamus the Cynic inside a domus at an elite symposium, but also others reclining on the ground on their elbows in popular taverns would perceive Hercules as a model, drunk, lying on the ground on his elbow, and enjoying life. 151 See nn. 28, 31, 34. Popular frescoes also present women, one holding a baby, sitting on benches in the forum, and workers sitting in front of their shop on benches with their wares on a table in front of them (n. 35). 152 See nn. 44, 57. 153 See n. 59. 154 This contrast is not absolute. Clarke concludes his review (cited n. 23) of Roller, Dining Posture in Ancient Rome, by summarizing as follows: “R. concludes that persons of any sex, age, or status might assume various postures under different circumstances. Free adult men, women, and children could be represented reclining, sitting, or standing. Although the literary and visual sources normally represent the free adult male reclining, while the slave stands and free adult women and freeborn children either sit or recline, the many exceptions demonstrate that the patterns are neither rigid nor unchangeable. ‘The hierarchies of posture in the Roman convivium were relational, not absolute.’” (Roller, Dining Posture, 178; Clarke, in Classical Philology 103/1 [2008], 99). In an email to me (June 12, 2011) Clarke adds, “The tavern paintings show the ordinary way of drinking and perhaps eating in a tavern, and the many paintings of diners on couches show the ideal convivium.” 155 See the quotation of Lucian at n. 62. I. Bragantini, “Scavo del Principe di Montenegro” (VII 16[Ins.Or.].10, triclinium (6); PPM VII: 841). Inv. 9000 MANN; PitPom, 258–59, #107. Also V. Sampaolo, “Casa del Forno di fero” (VI 13,6; PPM V: 167), tablino (7). I. Bragantini. “Casa di Sirico” (VII 1 25.47; PPM VI: 255, 266), exedra (10). J. Boardman, “Omphale,” Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (Munich: Artemis, 1994), VII, 1, 45–54, and 2, 30–43, #28, who cites a few Greek but more Latin texts.

230

David L. Balch

In some situations, clusters of small groups of those drinking and perhaps also dining added up to larger numbers. At imperial public feasts, John F. Donahue explains, “Roman banqueting appears to have known no physical boundaries within the urbs […]. Additional venues, whether the porticus, the forum, the grove, or the street, quite naturally came into play[…].”156 During amphitheater games, Wilhelmina Jashemski concludes, the twenty thousand sports fans went looking for a drink in nearby taverns in open gardens and vineyards. Taverns also clustered around the small theater, so that when the thousand colonial soldiers met, they could relax with each other nearby and enjoy the wine of the region. Pauline assemblies in considerable numbers might have met in these same spaces, in taverns and gardens; they also listened to teachers, and the images I have discovered of teachers visually represent them sitting, not reclining. The thousands whom Jesus fed in Galilee (Mark 6:39; 8:6; John 6:10), who reclined in the open on the grass or on the ground, are both similar to and in tension with eating and drinking at Imperial banquets and after amphitheater events. In the Johannine version of the story, Jesus “sat down (ekatheto) with his disciples” (John 6:3), as in 1 Cor 14:30. But in Mark (6:39–40 NRSV modified), “Then he ordered them to get all the people to sit down in groups (anaklinai [recline] pantas sumposia sumposia [repeated in a distributive sense]) on the green grass. So they sat down (anapesan [reclined]) in groups of hundreds and of fifties.” This version describes the size of Markan assemblies of believers (fifty to a hundred157), larger groups distributed into smaller groups of symposium size (nine) in open gardens / taverns in Rome, a parallel to John F. Donahue’s reading of Plutarch, Caesar 55.4. Mark’s narrative is here transparent to the author’s own time, transposing the space from Galilee to Rome, contrasting Jesus’ feeding of thousands with royal (Mark 6:14–29) and Imperial banquets.158 Another New Testament text verbally represents believers sitting: “In those days Peter stood up among the believers (together [epi to auto] the crowd numbered about one hundred twenty persons) […].” (Acts 1:15) “When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place (pantes homou epi to auto). And suddenly from heaven there came a sound 156 Quoted

n. 63. Mark 6:55, “[they] began to bring the sick on mats (krabattois) to wherever they heard he was.” Also Acts 5:15, the sick are carried into the street and laid on “cots and mats (klinarion kai krabatton [the poor man’s bed])” In these texts, “mats” of the poor seem rather common. 158 Jeffrey Veitch, in his MA thesis at the Graduate Theological Union (Spring 2011), made the argument in this final clause. The former clause, suggesting the transparency of the gospel narrative (Mark 6:39–40) to sizes and configurations of Markan believers gathering in Rome, is the author’s. 157 Compare

The Church Sitting in a Garden

231

like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house (oikon) where they were sitting (kathemenoi).” (Acts 2:1–2) Luke’s readers in Ephesus, Philippi, or Rome must have envisioned diverse architectural possibilities for this scene: 120 believers in the same place “sitting” in a “house.” The adjective “all” (2:1) refers back to the number 120 (1:15). Current scholarly theories deny that this would have been possible. Looking at Roman domestic art and architecture enables us to imagine the spaces actually described in our texts. 7.2 Conclusions This article has two conclusions; one reflects on academic method, and the second interprets contested spaces in Roman cities and houses. First, Roman domestic art and architecture are helpful in understanding where Pauline communities might have gathered in the city of Rome and in Roman colonies like Pompeii and Corinth. a) Reading Lucian, who presents Alcidamus the Cynic reclining on his elbow on the floor, comparing himself to Hercules, b) looking at frescoes in taverns and at the domestic fresco of Hercules lying on his elbow on his lion’s skin on the ground, c) while puzzling about where Pauline communities gathered, is a productive method, combining visual and textual sources.159 Looking at, not just reading about, where Romans actually sat to dine is crucial when researching where Paul’s Corinthian converts sat to feast, drink, and study. This article recommends the method of looking at Roman domestic art and architecture while studying Paul’s epistles. Second, the interdisciplinary study of Roman domestic art and architecture produces surprising results. Negatively, looking for only one or even two typical architectural forms for Pauline gatherings is too restrictive, especially if the setting is architecturally elite. Art and architecture help us multiply possibilities. Positively, some Pauline communities, possibly in significant numbers, gathered in taverns and/or gardens to sit (1 Cor 14:30) together, feast, drink, and also to read, interpret, and debate160 their scrolls of Genesis, of Isaiah, and their letter from Paul. 159 Compare the interdisciplinary approach of L. C. Nevett, Domestic Space in Classical Antiquity. Key Themes in Ancient History (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2010), esp. chap. 3 on furniture, and chap. 5 on Pompeii. 160 Jewish Christians’ interpretation of Isaiah generated disturbances in Rome (C.E. 49), and Claudius expelled them from the capital (Suetonius, Claudius 25.4), a year before Paul arrived in Corinth. See U. Schnelle, Apostle Paul: His Life and Theology (trans. M. E. Boring; Grand Rapids: Baker, 2005), 48–49, 161, 163. This social history is easier to imagine if believers were sitting in taverns/gardens in significant numbers than if small groups of three to nine patrons were reclining in elite triclinia, later receiving thirty clients in their atria.

232

David L. Balch

The English term “tavern” in this concluding thesis differs from the English term “house,” a potential source of confusion. In Pompeii several domus were converted into caupona, e.g. the Casa di D. Octavius Quartio (II 2,2)161 and the Predia (Villa) di Giulia Felice (II 4,3). Both these architectural units have entrances (fauces), atria, triclinia, and peristyle gardens, as well as mosaic floors, frescoed walls, and sculpture. They became “taverns” and were also “houses,” where their owners may well have lived with their slaves. The same is true of the non-elite caupona (I 2,24) operated by freedpersons discussed above162; it has an atrium, tablinum, an internal triclinium, and an external triclinium surrounded by a peristyle with six columns. Paul and Luke might have named each of these “taverns” a “house” (oikos). On the other hand, the Caupona di Euxinus (I 11,10–11)163 was not a “house”; it has a taberna counter on the street, two openings into the garden, frescoes, and a lararium, but no published mosaic floors, no atrium, peristyle, or triclinium. I have focused on the caupona near the amphitheater and the two theaters, an urban context, which demonstrates that many people could and would have crowded into these taverns/houses. On the many days when the games were not scheduled, Christian believers might have gathered in significant numbers in similar spaces in Rome, Corinth, or Philippi. Further research might play with possibilities in the literally hundreds of other gardens in Pompeii. We would do well to follow Peter Oakes, Reading Romans in Pompeii,164 and explore a variety of domestic settings for our texts and communities. In Rome or in the Roman colonies Corinth and Philippi, we might imagine Pauline believers renting spaces in taverns, or simply gathering there for meals with wine. How would our reconstruction of the social dynamics change if we were to reread our texts (e.g. 1 Cor 1:16, 16:15–18, 19, Rom 16:3–5a, 23, Phil 4:2–3, Acts 16:13–15, and 18:1–3) imagining one or several of Paul’s hosts not simply as renting but as proprietors of one of DeFelice’s non-elite taverns / inns,165 rather than as owners (male or female), freedmen, or slaves in either elite domus or small workshops? 161 See

nn. 78, 146. nn. 78, 146. 163 See nn. 55, 142. Ellis and Devore, “Plebeian Pompeii” (cited n. 79), do not give enough information to decide whether VIII 7,7–11 was a “house” before the owners transformed it into a tavern. 164 Cited n. 16. Note the absence of gardens in Ephesian houses (see Hilke Thür, pp. 256–258). 165 In an email to me (June 12, 2011), J. R. Clarke writes, “By taking the action to the garden/restaurants hypothesized by Jashemski around the amphitheater, you’re putting your early Christians in pretty loud and raucous spaces – and out in the open. Your calculations give us fairly big crowds of Christian worshippers as well. I suppose the next question is: Who would allow these pious people who weren’t spending much money on food and drink to take over their gardens for worship and conversation? I think you’d have to 162 See

The Church Sitting in a Garden

233

“I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon of the church at Cenchreae, […] for she has been a benefactor [patron] of many, and of myself as well [….] Gaius, who is host to me and to the whole church [in Corinth], greets you. Erastus, the city treasurer, and our brother, Quartus, greet you.” (Rom 16:1–2, 23) Might we not imagine Gaius or Phoebe or Euodia welcoming the entire church into a house / tavern such as the Praedia di Giulia Felice (II 4,3) or the non-elite caupona (I 2,24), both operated by freedwomen / freedmen, where the believers welcomed into such space would not recline but sit (1 Cor 14:30; Acts 2:2) and dialogue with teachers who were also sitting (Mark 13:3; John 6:3)?166

Captions to figures Figs. 1–3: Casa di C. Iulius Polybius (IX 13,1–3, triclinium EE), reconstructed furniture, dining couches against the decorated wall, with reconstructed small tables beside the couches. Fig. 4: Casa di C. Iulius Polybius (IX 13,1–3, peristyle CC), reconstructed cupboard against the wall painting. Figs. 5–7: Casa di C. Iulius Polybius (IX 13,1–3, peristyle CC), reconstructed benches enable sitting in the portico of the peristyle garden; see digital reconstruction of this type of Roman bench in De Carolis, Il mobile a Pompei ed Ercolano, 240. Fig. 8: Villa di Giulia Felice (II 4,3), door 7, thermopolium (1) on the street; on the right, a view into the rear triclinium (3), with masonry benches for sitting around masonry tables. Figs. 9–10: Villa di Giulia Felice (II 4,3), triclinium (3) with three masonry couches for reclining on three sides of a small masonry table, and also masonry benches for sitting upright around three sides of two more masonry tables. Fig. 11: Casa del Bracciale d’oro (VI.17[Ins.Occ.].42), view from (deteriorated) triclinium (31) toward the large external garden (c. 16 × 13 m. = 208 sq. m.), with a blue ornamental pool just below the ends of the triclinium couches. Fig. 12: Casa del’Efebo (I 7,11), garden triclinium (23, now protected by glass) with columns supporting a pergola, in a garden, with an edicola in the background. Fig. 13: Casa del’Efebo (I 7,11), marble bench in the same garden (23).

conclude that it would be an owner who was a believer.” I agree with the possibility Clarke suggests, with the additional observation that Corinthian believers were not teetotaling North Americans; Paul writes that some of them were getting drunk (1 Cor 11:21). 166 For analogies to the women, Phoebe and Euodia, see the article by F. Pesando in this volume, including a discussion of Eumachia and Julia Felix. I thank John R. Clarke for critical suggestions that strengthen this essay, which does not mean of course that he becomes responsible for my theses.

234

David L. Balch

Fig. 14: Casa del’Efebo (I 7,11), image painted on the inside of the garden triclinium couch, a pygmy symposium out of doors; the five pygmies recline / sit on mattresses on the ground and under a canopy. Fig. 15: Casa del Medico (VIII 5,24), peristyle (g), five pygmies recline / sit around a stibadium under a canopy hung between two trees, viewing explicit sex as entertainment (inv. 113196 MANN). Fig. 16: Scavo del Principe di Montenegro (VII 16[Ins.Or.].10), triclinium (6): Hercules, drunk, reclines on his elbow on the ground, in the presence of Queen Omphale, who is seated with two young women beside her, one of whom leans on a column, while cupids play with the wreath on Hercules’ head and with his club (inv. 9000 MANN; PitPom, 258–59, #107). Three Pompeian houses visually represent this scene (PPM V: 167; VI, 255, 266; VII, 841). Not only Alcidamus the Cynic inside a domus, but also customers in popular taverns would have perceived Hercules as a model, drinking while reclining on the floor or the ground. Fig. 17: Conceria (I 5,2) operated by freedmen. A mosaic emblema decorated the table in the garden (h): an allegory of death, a skull, below which is a butterfly, perhaps symbolizing the spirit, below which is the wheel of fortune. On either side of the skull, a scale holds symbols of wealth on the left (scepter and purple toga) and of poverty on the right (beggar’s crook and knapsack) in perfect balance. Death visually represented here may invite diners to enjoy life! Fig. 18: Casa del Menandro (I 10,4), rectangular exedra (23), with Menander visually represented reading a scroll while sitting on a chair (in situ). Fig. 19: Casa di Meleagro (VI 9,2.13), atrium (2), a male (Agamemnon or Paris) seated on a professionally crafted chair, a slave dealing with his right shoe, and a female (Briseis or Helen) seated on a rock or masonry bench (inv. 9543 MANN; PitPom, 280, #119). Fig. 20: Casa dell’Amore Punito (VII 2,23), tablinum (f): Venus sits in an elegant chair, while Mars stands behind, touching her breast, outdoors with trees in the background (inv. 9249 MANN; PitPom, 256, #105). Fig. 21: Villa di Arianna, Stabiae, triclinium (7), under a coffered ceiling supported by a column, a woman sits on a padded stool with her legs crossed, the left foot on a footstool; her gesture, raising her right hand to her chin, indicates that she is thoughtful, like the Muse Polimnia. (inv. 9097 MANN; PitPom, 456, #245). Fig. 22: Praedia di Giulia Felice (II 4,3), atrium (24), a long, fourth style frieze in the central zone visually represents scenes of daily life in the forum, this one the sale of fabric. Two women, seated on a bench on the left, examine red material presented by a salesperson gesturing vigorously. Behind them is a servant observing. On the right another salesperson with a bolt of cloth is also engaged in a lively discussion with an older and a younger woman, all of whom are standing. Architectural elements are in the background. (inv. 9064 MANN; PitPom, 503, #284). Fig. 23: Casa di Gavius Rufus (VII 2,16–17), exedra (o): the scene, a contest between two divinities of light, is debated. The goddess standing on the right is clearly Venus. The central figure, bathed in light, standing emphatically on a podium before a throne with a torch in his left hand, is Apollo, not Dionysus, I think. Phaethon or

The Church Sitting in a Garden

235

Hesperos is seated on the left with a halo. (inv. 9449 MANN; PitPom, 334–35, #170; Balch, Roman Domestic Art, 157–65). Fig. 24: Casa di Pinarius Cerialis (III 4,4), Attis, standing in the center with a knife, who will castrate himself, and Cybele, a drama observed by nymphs, two of whom are standing while one sits (in situ). Fig. 25: Casa di D. Octavius Quartio (II 2,2), photo of the eastern half of the garden, and of the water channel down the center of a domus, which was converted into a caupona. The southern gate at the end of the water channel faced the plaza in front of the amphitheater. Fig. 26: Casa della Rissa nell’Anfiteatro (I 3,23), visual representation of a riot between Nucerians and Pompeians in the amphitheater (59 C.E.). Perhaps the sports fans had been to the nearby taverns before the event? (inv. 112222 MANN; PitPom, 512–13, #292; Balch, Roman Domestic Art, CD 122). Note: all figures were photographed by David L. Balch and are reproduced by the kind permission of the Soprintendente Speciale per i beni Archaeologici di Napoli e Pompei.

Art and Architecture in Terrace House 2 in Ephesos An example of domestic architecture in the Roman Imperial Period Hilke Thür

1. The significance of Terrace House 2 for Roman housing The insula – block of flats – of terrace house 21 with seven houses represents an especially well preserved housing complex (fig. 1) unique in the eastern Mediterranean area. It can be compared to the cities Pompeii and Herculaneum near Vesuvius. Because of the sudden destruction from a series of earthquakes, the results and findings are complex and give good insight into the way of life of upper class citizens in a metropolis of ancient Asia Minor. Additionally, we know two of the house owners: The large house 6 entered directly from Curetes Street was inhabited in the first half of the second century C.E. – as we learn from an inscription – by C. Flavius 1 For a general introduction written in the time of the excavation see H. Vetters, “Die Hanghäuser an der Kuretenstraße,” ÖJh 50 (1972–75): 331–380; H. Vetters, “Zum Stockwerkbau in Ephesos,” in Melanges Mansel (Ankara: TürkTarih Kurumu Basevi, 1974) 69–92; H. Vetters, “Zur Baugeschichte der Hanghäuser,” in Die Wandmalerei der Hanghäuser von Ephesos (ed. V. M. Strocka; Forschungen in Ephesos 8,1 Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1977), 12–28; Vetters, “Zur Baugeschichte der Hanghäuser des Embolos,” in Römische Mosaiken aus Ephesos I. Die Hanghäuser des Embolos (ed. W. Jobst; Forschungen in Ephesos 8,2, Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1977), 17–28; S. Ladstätter, “Das Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos,” in Zentren und Provinzen der antiken Welt (Anodos Suppl. 1; Trnava: Trnavská Universita, 2001), 31–66; Das Hanghaus 2 von Ephesos. Studien zu Baugeschichte und Chronologie (ed. Krinzinger; Archäologische Forschungen 7; Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2002); H. Thür, Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheit 4. Baubefund, Ausstattung Funde (Forschungen in Ephesos 8,6; Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2005), 1–6; H. Thür, “Zum Stadtpalast des Dionysospriesters C. Flavius Furius Aptus im Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Ein Zwischenbericht,” in Thiasos, Festschrift für Erwin Pochmarski zum 65. Geburtstag (ed. Ch. Franek; Vienna: Phoibos, 2008), 1057–1072.

238

Hilke Thür

Furius Aptus,2 who held high ranking municipal offices and was a priest in the cult of Dionysos. The house was probably owned by his family, which is well known from early Imperial Times and whose members occupied high ranking positions in the city administration. The second prominent Ephesian is C. Vibius Salutaris,3 who very likely lived during the time of Trajan in house 2. He came from Italy and was famous for establishing an important foundation.4 Research in Terrace House 2 is more or less finished; the volumes in the series ‘Forschungen in Ephesos’ are published or in print. The monographs have been prepared with a contextual approach,5 presenting the building history, the decoration and the findings. Study of the architecture of the Ephesian houses considerably enhances our knowledge of life in the eastern Mediterranean area and shows a clear continuation of some Greek housing habits in Roman times. My paper is structured as follows: To start I summarize the history of the excavation and the scientific work. Then I give a general introduction into the housing complex of Terrace House 2 with abstracts on the housing cult and building phases. The next point is the known owners of the houses. In the main part I present the architecture of the Aptus house 6 in more detail, showing its decoration and equipment and discussing the function of the rooms. Finally by summarizing the results I want to pose further questions on the local house owners and the question of their Romanization.

2. History of excavation and scientific work The excavation of the huge complex of Terrace House 2 during the years 1962 to 1985 was carried out in a quite traditional way.6 The removing of the 2 See

nn. 71–78.  Seen nn. 69–70. 4 Inschriften griechischer Städte aus Kleinasien vol. 11,1: Die Inschriften von Ephesos, Teil Ia (ed. H. Wankel; Bonn: R. Habelt; 1979), nr. 27. 5 See nn. 19–23. 6 The enormous masses of rubble have been moved by up to 100 workers, conveyer belts, a small Caterpillar, three trucks and two tractors. S. Ladstätter, “Die Chronologie des Hanghauses 2,” in Das Hanghaus 2 von Ephesos. Studien zu Baugeschichte und Chronologie (ed. F. Krizinger; Archäologische Forschungen 7, Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2002), 9–40, here 12–14; S. Ladstätter, “Vorbemerkungen,” in Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheiten 1 und 2. Baubefund, Ausstattung, Funde (Forschungen in Ephesos 8,8; ed. Krinzinger; Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2010), 1–7. The numbers of the workers and the technical equipment in use has been precisely documented by Vetters in the diaries of the Ephesos excavation, which are in the archive of the Austrian Archaeological Institute in Vienna and in the library of the Austrian Excavation House in Selçuk. 3

Art and Architecture in Terrace House 2 in Ephesos

239

debris was partly prescribed by the topographic situation – the houses are located on a quite steep hillside – and other external circumstances, partly due to not following a clear stratigraphical system. After uncovering the complex of Terrace House 17 from 1958 to 1967 H. Vetters started in 1967 the excavation of Terrace House 2 (fig. 2) at the upper south-east corner of the insula. The uppermost terrace with apartments 1 and 2 was excavated in 1968/9, followed by house 4 in 1970/1971 and houses 3 and 5 in 1972/3. Starting from 1975, the lowest terrace with the large houses 6 and 7 was unearthed and also the tabernae along the Curetes Street were explored. The excavation of Terrace House 2 was finished in 1985. The building structures of Terrace House 2 were found under a 3 to 6 m thick layer of rubble and debris. At the hillside the rooms of the houses were preserved up to the ceilings of the ground floor. Wall paintings, mosaics and marble revetment had to be preserved as soon as possible during and immediately after the excavation. Preliminary protecting roofs were constructed in different systems and times.8 A final roofing project of the uppermost terrace was finished in 19859; this project not providing the best conditions for the conservation of the houses, further work on it was abandoned. In 1999 and 2000 a new roofing system in a light and elegant steel construction with a textile covering membrane (figs. 1, 3) was erected.10 This roof was financed by Austrian sponsors and the Austrian Government. The construction of the visitor walkways was planned and financed by the Turkish government. The whole insula of Terrace House 2 has been open to the public since 2006. During the excavation (1962 to 1985) the excavation director H. Vetters published preliminary excavation reports on an annual basis.11 The decoration of the upper five housing units was published in 1977 by Volker M.   7 C. Lang-Auinger, Hanghaus 1 in Ephesos. Der Baubefund (Forschungen in Ephesos 8,3; Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1996); Hanghaus 1 in Ephesos. Funde und Ausstattung (Forschungen in Ephesos 8,4; ed. C. Lang-Auinger; Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2003).   8 Roofing above room SR 6: Vetters, “Ephesos: Vorläufiger Grabungsbericht 1969,” AnzWien 107 (1970): 111–120, pl. IIIb; and regarding the roof on house 4: Vetters, “Ephesos. Vorläufiger Grabungsbericht 1972,” AnzWien 110 (1973): 186–192, here 191.   9 H. Vetters, “Ephesos. Vorläufiger Grabungsbericht für die Jahre 1984 und 1985,” AnzWien 123 (1986): 98–110. 10 Ein Dach für Ephesos. Der Schutzbau für das Hanghaus 2 (Sonderschriften des Österreichischen Archäologischen Institutes 34; ed. Krinzinger; Vienna; Österreichisches Archäologisches Institut, 2000). 11 F. Eichler, “Die österreichischen Ausgrabungen in Ephesos im Jahre 1967,” AnzWien 105 (1968): 84–92; Eichler, “Ephesos: Grabungsbericht 1968,” AnzWien 106 (1969): 137–143; Vetters published his reports from 1970 (H. Vetters, “Ephesos. Vorläufiger Grabungsbericht 1969,” AnzWien 107 (1970): 111–120) to 1989 (Vetters, “Ephesos. Vorläufiger Grabungsbericht 1986/87,” AnzWien 125 (1988): 97) in the Journal Anzeiger der Akademie der Wissenschaften, Phil.Hist. Klasse (Vienna).

240

Hilke Thür

Strocka (wall painting)12 and W. Jobst (mosaics).13 Each volume contained a preface by Vetters14 on the structure’s building history. At that time, the proposed chronology placed the erection of the houses in Augustan times, and the destruction and abandonment at the beginning of the 7th century C.E.15 This chronology was revised after examining the relevant findings: Terrace House 2 was destroyed by an earthquake during the reign of Gallienus, in the third quarter of the 3rd century C.E.16 It was so thoroughly abandoned after the destruction that no renovation of the housing areas took place. Along the west side of the insula in the 6/7th century C.E. mills and a stone workshop with a stone saw17 were installed; they used a water channel running down the slope.18 After the death of the excavator Vetters, in 1995 a team of archaeologists and architectural specialists began to prepare the publication of Terrace House 2, split into five volumes. The volume on house 4 was published in 12 Strocka, Die Wandmalerei der Hanghäuser in Ephesos (Forschungen in Ephesos 8,1; Vienna: Verlag der österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1977). 13 W. Jobst, Römische Mosaiken aus Ephesos. Die Hanghäuser des Embolos (Forschungen in Ephesos 8,2; Vienna, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1977). 14  “Zur Baugeschichte der Hanghäuser,” in Die Wandmalerei der Hanghäuser von Ephesos (Forschungen in Ephesos 8,1; ed. Strocka; Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1977), 12–28; idem, “Zur Baugeschichte der Hanghäuser des Embolos,” in Römische Mosaiken aus Ephesos I. Die Hanghäuser des Embolos, (ed. W. Jobst; Forschungen in Ephesos 8,2; Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1977), 17–28. 15 This chronology is cited for instance in: P. Scherrer, Ephesos. Der neue Führer (Vienna: Österreichisches Archäologisches Institut, 1995), 110, or even up to our days in W. Letzner, Ephesos – eine antike Metropole in Kleinasien (Mainz: v. Zabern, 2010), 75–79; the English edition (Scherrer, Ephesos. The new Guide, [Turkey: Ege Yayınları, 2000], 106–112) has been revised. 16 This fact first was adduced by St. Karwiese, see St. Karwiese, “Archäologie und Numismatik. Eine neue Evidenz aus Ephesos,” LNV 2 (1983): 281–297; idem, “Das Beben unter Gallien und seine anhaltenden Folgen,” in Lebendige Altertumswissenschaft. Festschrift Hermann Vetters (ed. “Komitee Festschrift für Hermann Vetters”; Vienna: Verlag Adolf Holzhausens Nfg., 1985) 126–130. More evidence has been discovered by H. Taeuber working with the graffiti, see H. Taeuber, “Graffiti als Hilfsmittel zur Datierung der Wandmalereien in Hanghaus 2,” in Steine und Wege. Festschrift für Dieter Knibbe, Sonderschriften 32 (eds. P. Scherrer, H. Taeuber, and H. Thür; Vienna: Österreichisches Archäologisches Institut, 1999), 153–161; idem, “Graffiti als Hilfsmittel zur Datierung der Wandmalereien in Hanghaus 2,” in Das Hanghaus 2 von Ephesos. Studien zu Baugeschichte und Chronologie (ed. Krinzinger; Vienna: Verlag der Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2002) 93–99; see also Ladstätter, “Die Chronologie des Hanghauses 2,” in Das Hanghaus 2 von Ephesos. Studien zu Baugeschichte und Chronologie, 9–40. 17 F. Mangartz, Die byzantinische Steinsäge von Ephesos (Mainz: von Zabern, 2010). 18 G. Wiplinger, “Wasserver‑ und ‑entsorgung in Wohneinheit 1 und 2 des Hanghauses 2 in Ephesos,” in Cura Aquarum in Israel (Schriften der Deutschen Wasserhistorischen Gesellschaft 1; eds. C. Ohlig, J. Peleg and T. Tsuk; Siegburg: Deutsche Wasserhistorische Gesellschaft, 2002), 155–166.

Art and Architecture in Terrace House 2 in Ephesos

241

2005,19 the volumes on houses 1 and 2 came out 2010,20 the manuscripts concerning houses 3, 521 and 622 are nearly finished and the work with house 723 is in progress. The publication of Terrace House 2 is presented contextually. The building features and all of the materials that were excavated and located, as far as they can be ordered to stratigraphic layers according to the moment of destruction, were evaluated together. As a result, we can analyse not only the building features of the final occupational phase and their respective decorative elements (primarily, the wall paintings,24 marble revetment,25 mosaics,26 and marble floors), marble architectural pieces27 but also the portable items. These include sculpture,28 marble furniture,29 small finds,30 19  H. Thür, Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheit 4. Baubefund, Ausstattung, Funde, (Forschungen in Ephesos 8,6; ed. Thür; Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2005). 20  Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheiten 1 und 2. Baubefund, Ausstattung, Funde. (Forschungen in Ephesos 8,8; ed. Krinzinger; Vienna: Verlag der Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2010). 21 Hanghaus 2 von Ephesos. Die Wohneinheiten 3 und 5. Baubefund, Ausstattung, Funde. (Forschungen in Ephesos 8,9; ed. S. Ladstätter; Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, forthcoming). 22  Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheit 6. Baubefund, Ausstattung, Funde (Forschungen in Ephesos 8,11; eds. H. Thür and E. Rathmayr; Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, forthcoming). 23 Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Wohneinheit 7 (ed. E. Rathmayr; Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, forthcoming). 24 Strocka, Die Wandmalerei der Hanghäuser in Ephesos; N. Zimmermann, “Wandmalerei,” in Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheit 4. Baubefund, Ausstattung Funde, 105–131; idem, “Die Wandmalerei der Wohneinheit 1 und 2,” in Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheiten 1 und 2. Baubefund, Ausstattung, Funde, 105–121, 449–471. An excellent overview of the frescoes in Terrace House 2 and Ephesos is now available with N. Zimmermann and S. Ladstätter, Wandmalerei in Ephesos von hellenistischer bis in byzantinische Zeit (Vienna: Phoibos, 2010). 25 K. Koller, “Marmorausstattungen,” in Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheit 4. Baubefund, Ausstattung Funde, 144–151; Koller, “Marmor,” in Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheiten 1 und 2. Baubefund, Ausstattung, Funde, 126–130, 479–486. 26 Jobst, Römische Mosaiken aus Ephesos. Die Hanghäuser des Embolos; V. Scheibel­ reiter, “Mosaikböden,” in Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheit 4. Baubefund, Ausstattung Funde, 152–156; Scheibelreiter, “Mosaiken,” in Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheiten 1 und 2. Baubefund, Ausstattung, Funde, 131–148, 487–509. 27 Thür, “Architekturausstattung” in Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheit 4. Baubefund, Ausstattung Funde, 157–169; G. Plattner, “Architekturdekoration,” in Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheiten 1 und 2. Baubefund, Ausstattung, Funde, 149–155, 510–524. 28 Rathmayr, “Skulpturen,” in Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheit 4. Baubefund, Ausstattung Funde, 207–229; idem, “Götter‑ und Kaiserkult im häuslichen Bereich anhand von Skulpturen aus dem Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos,” Römische Historische Mitteilungen 48 (2006): 103–133; idem, “Das Haus des Ritters C. Flavius Furius Aptus. Beobachtungen zur Einflussnahme von Hausbesitzern an Architektur und Ausstattung in der Wohneinheit 6 des Hanghauses 2 in Ephesos,” IstMitt 59 (2009): 307–336; idem, “Wohneinheit 1 Skulp-

242

Hilke Thür

coins,31 terracotta figurines,32 a considerable amount of glass,33 and a large quantity of pottery, amphorae, lamps, thymiateria, etc.34 The inventory of finds contains almost no furniture or its debris and also very little jewellery. In addition, the existing graffiti were evaluated,35 supplying valuable information about the usage of the different areas of the house, and also the career and other daily activities of the residents.36

3. General description of Terrace House 2 The insula of Terrace House 2 is situated in the centre of the city (fig. 4), near the Agora, on the northern side of the Bülbülda , which was named in antiquity Lepre Akte or Preon.37 On the north side of the insula a row turen,” in Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheiten 1 und 2. Baubefund, Ausstattung, Funde, 333–342; E. Christof, “Wohneinheit 2 Skulpturen” in Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheiten 1 und 2.Baubefund, Ausstattung, Funde, 656–676. 29 U. Quatember, “Marmorinventar,” in Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheit 4. Baubefund, Ausstattung, Funde, 409–414; idem, “Marmorinventar,” in Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheiten 1 und 2. Baubefund, Ausstattung, Funde, 331 f., 649–655. 30 S. Jilek, “Kleinfunde aus Metall und Bein,” in Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheit4. Baubefund, Ausstattung, Funde, 389–404; I. Kowalleck – E. Rathmayr, “Funde aus Metall und Bein,” in Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheiten 1 und 2. Baubefund, Ausstattung, Funde, 322–330, 605–648. 31 M. Pfisterer, “Münzen,” in Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheit 4. Baubefund, Ausstattung, Funde, 359–362; Pfisterer and Ladstätter, “Fundmünzen,” in Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheiten 1 und 2. Baubefund, Ausstattung, Funde, 280–285, 588–591. 32 Lang-Auinger, “Terrakotten,” in Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheit 4. Baubefund, Ausstattung, Funde, 405–408; idem, “Terrakotten,” in Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheiten 1 und 2. Baubefund, Ausstattung, Funde, 343–356, 677–683. 33 M. Schätzschock, “Glas,” in Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheit 4. Baubefund, Ausstattung, Funde, 363–372; idem, “Glas,” in Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheiten 1 und 2. Baubefund, Ausstattung, Funde, 286–321, 552–604. 34 Ladstätter, “Keramik,” in Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheit 4. Baubefund, Ausstattung, Funde, 230–358; idem, “Keramik,” in Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheiten 1 und 2. Baubefund, Ausstattung, Funde, 172–279, 530–587. 35 Taeuber, “Graffiti als Hilfsmittel zur Datierung der Wandmalereien in Hanghaus 2,” in Steine und Wege, 151–161; idem, “Graffiti als Hilfsmittel zur Datierung der Wandmalereien im Hanghaus 2,” in Das Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Studien zu Baugeschichte und Chronologie, 93–99; idem, “C. Vibius Salutaris. Wohnungsbesitzer im Hanghaus 2?” in Synergia. Festschrift für Friedrich Krinzinger (eds. B. Brandt, V. Gassner and S. Ladstätter; Vienna: Phoibos, 2005), 349–353; idem, “Graffiti,” in Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheit 4. Baubefund, Ausstattung, Funde, 132–143; idem, “Graffiti,” in Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheiten 1 und 2. Baubefund, Ausstattung, Funde, 122–125, 472–478. 36 Thür, “Auswertung,” in Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheit 4. Baubefund, Ausstattung, Funde, 415–423; Rathmayr, “Auswertung,” in Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos, Die Wohneinheiten 1 und 2. Baubefund, Ausstattung, Funde, 377–383, 688–696. 37 The discussion about the ancient names of the Ephesian mountains and about the positions of pre classic Ephesos are numerous; a short summary in Scherrer, Ephesos. Der neue Führer, 14–18; idem, “The historical topography of Ephesus,” in Urbanism in West-

Art and Architecture in Terrace House 2 in Ephesos

243

of tabernae runs alongside Curetes Street,38 named in antiquity embolos, which is one of the main boulevards of the city. As an old processional way it is orientated diagonally to the city grid. The building and the insula of approx. 4000 m2 follow the orthogonal street system. On the south side the building complex is bordered by the “Hanghausstraße,” running parallel to the sloping terrain.39 On the eastern and western side, steep “Stiegengassen” (“stair alleys”) surmount the difference in level of 27.5 m. In these small bylanes most of the entrances into the individual houses were situated. The seven houses were erected in the type of peristyle houses on several terraces (fig. 5). In the south on the uppermost terrace of the insula are the houses 1 and 2.40 Their ground floor was built on the terrace, whereas the upper floor could be entered directly from the above “Hanghausstraße.” The middle terrace was occupied in the eastern part by house 4;41 in the western part the small houses 3 and 5 were situated on a 3.20  m higher level.42 On the lowest terrace in the east house 6 was built and in the west house 7. A service area with the rooms (33–35) and (37) was organized on an in-between level of houses 3 and 5 and house 7. The remaining area between the houses 6 and 7 and the embolos was occupied with tabernae. Along the main boulevard several late Hellenistic early Roman grave‑ and honorary monuments are located.43 All seven houses share several common features: All houses are constructed in the type of the peristyle house: the centre of the houses consisted of an open courtyard which was bordered on all four – in some cases three44 – sides with colonnades and porticoes. This area was equipped with highquality decoration including costly materials and items. Public and private ern Asia Minor (Journal of Roman Archeology Suppl. 45; ed. D. Parrish; Portsmouth RI: Journal of Roman Archaeology. Supplementary Series, 2001), 57–93. For newest results see M. Kerschner, Archäologische Forschungen zur Siedlungsgeschichte von Ephesos in geometrischer, archaischer und klassischer Zeit: Grabungsbefunde und Keramikfunde aus dem Bereich des Koressos (ÖJh Ergänzungsheft 9; Vienna: Österreichisches Archäologisches Institut, 2008). 38 H. Thür, “The processional way in Ephesos as a place of cult and burial,” in Ephesos. Metropolis of Asia. An interdisciplinary approach to its archaeology, religion and culture (Harvard Theological Studies 41; ed. H. Koester; Valley Forge, PA: Harvard University Press, 1995), 157–200; recent results are published in: Neue Forschungen zur Kuretenstraße von Ephesos. Archäologische Forschungen 15 (ed. S. Ladstätter, Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2009). 39 U. Outschar, “Keramik macht Baugeschichte,” Römische Historische Mitteilungen 42 (2000): 107–169. 40 Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheiten 1 und 2. Baubefund, Ausstattung, Funde. 41 Thür, Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheit 4. Baubefund, Ausstattung Funde. 42 Hanghaus 2 von Ephesos. Die Wohneinheiten 3 und 5. Baubefund, Ausstattung, Funde (forthcoming). 43 Thür, “The processional way in Ephesos as a place of cult and burial”. 44 House 1, 5, 7.

244

Hilke Thür

activities of the owner centered around these courtyards (fig. 6). The rooms attached to them on one side were more spacious and luxurious. They were used together with the peristyle to receive guests and therefore furnished with marble architecture, frescoes in high quality, revetment in marble and coloured stones, floors covered with marble and mosaics, fountains, sculptures and furniture worked in marble, metal and wood.45 In addition to its representational function, the open courtyard served for lightning and airing the rooms. This could be regulated by opening and closing doors according to daytime and weather conditions.46 Dining rooms, triclinia, can be identified clearly due to finds and decoration. Good examples in Terrace House 2 are the banquet hall, “Marmorsaal” (31) of house 6,47 the room (SR 24) in house 248 and room (26) (fig. 7) in house 5.49 Except for special purpose rooms such as kitchens and toilets, most of the rooms were multifunctional. Contrary to our modern way of life, in antiquity rooms were used according to the needs, the time of day and the season. Furniture was scarce and transported by the servants from one room to the other. Basically the rooms of the houses fall into two groups: well equipped main rooms and simple side rooms50 – such as cubicula, kitchens, storage rooms and toilets. All houses were connected to the public aqueducts; water was constantly flowing into basins and decorative fountains in the peristyle courtyards and dining rooms.51 All houses had toilets (with a seating capacity of 2 to 4 persons) which were cleaned by the excess water from the fountains which

45 Cf.

notes 28–34. Thür, “ Licht in den Festsälen des C. Flavius Furius Aptus im Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos,” in Licht-Konzepte in der vormodernen Architektur (Diskussionen zur Archäologischen Bauforschung 10; eds. P. I. Schneider and U. Wulf-Rheidt; Regensburg: Verlag Schnell und Steiner, 2011) 227–245. 47 H. Thür, “Zum Stadtpalast des Dionysospriesters C. Flavius Furius Aptus im Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Ein Zwischenbericht,” in Thiasos, Festschrift für Erwin Pochmarski zum 65. Geburtstag (ed. Franek; Vienna: Phoibos, 2008), 1057–1072; S. Stöckl, “Rekonstruktion der Innenausstattung des sog. Marmorsaales der Wohneinheit 6 im Hanghaus 2 von Ephesos,” Forum Archaeologiae 44/IX/2007 (http://farch.net). 48 Rathmayr, “Auswertung,” 405. 689; A. Nordmeyer and A. Sommer, “Rekonstruktion der Ausstattung des Raumes SR 24 der Wohneinheit 2 im Hanghaus 2 von Ephesos,” Forum Archaeologiae 44/IX/2007 (http://farch.net). 49 I. Adenstedt, “Die Wohneinheiten 3 und 5 im Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Eine erste Rekonstruktion,” in Synergia. Festschrift für Friedrich Krinzinger, 31–37. 50 A. Wallace-Hadrill, “The social structure of the Roman house,” PBSR 56 (1988): 43–97; J. A. Dickmann, Domus frequentata. Anspruchsvolles Wohnen im pompejanischen Stadthaus (Munich: Verlag Dr. Friedrich Pfeil, 1999). 51 J. Michalczuk, “Brunnen,” in Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheit 4. Baubefund, Ausstattung, Funde, 170–172; Thür, “Brunnenanlagen,” in Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheit 6. Baubefund, Ausstattung, Funde (forthcoming). 46 H.

Art and Architecture in Terrace House 2 in Ephesos

245

was led through them before it passed into the sewage system under the “Stiegengasse.”52 Three houses, units 1, 6 and 7 had private bathrooms.53 The houses have a ground floor of approximately 350  m2 (house 3) to 950 m2 (house 6). Nearly all houses had at least one upper floor, as testified by stairs, mosaic floors and wall paintings as well as by the finds. In this way the floor space was considerably enlarged, sometimes even doubled. The upper floors were furnished in the same high quality as the ground floor; in case of house 4 they were furnished on an even higher level.54 As result we can conclude that rooms in upper floors had not only private functions such as sleeping rooms or areas for family, servants and slaves – as often has been suggested. They must have had the same representative status and were used equally with the rooms on the ground floor. In nearly every house objects and architectural structures connected to domestic cult activities have been observed. Marble reliefs with funeral banquets and a Thracian horse rider had the function to protect the inhabitants.55 Sculptures of gods and goddesses56 were set up in many places. Near the entrance in room (5) of house 4 (fig. 8) in a niche in the wall, a Hellenistic relief with a funeral banquet was found. On the opposite wall of the room a big snake was depicted on a fresco. Together with the relief it served for the protection of the inhabitants and their guests. In the same house another Hellenistic relief with three nymphs decorated a puteal and had a similar function. A similar arrangement is preserved in the south west corner in the peristyle court (SR 22/23) in house 2. A relief with a Thracian horse rider is inserted into the wall. In the nearby northwest corner of the same court three bronze statuettes were found together with a small incense altar; they indicate the presence of a house sanctuary.57 Next to Athena and Sarapis, Isis Panthea was worshipped. In (SR 27) a tymiatherion with a bust of Sarapis was set up. The worshipping of Egyptian gods goes together with the 52  H. Thür, “Latrine 4a,” in Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheit 4. Baubefund, Ausstattung, Funde, 44–45, 84; G. Jansen, “The toilets of Ephesus: a preliminary report,” in Cura Aquarum in Ephesos (Babesch Suppl. 12; ed. Wiplinger; Leuven: Peeters, 2006), 95–98. 53 Rathmayr, “Auswertung,” 379. 381; Thür, “Zum Stadtpalast des Dionysospriesters C. Flavius Furius Aptus im Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Ein Zwischenbericht”; idem, “Badeanlage,” in Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheit 6 (forthcoming); Rathmayr, Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Wohneinheit 7 (forthcoming). 54 Thür, “Auswertung,” in Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheit 4. Baubefund, Ausstattung, Funde, 423. 55 Rathmayr, “Skulpturen,” in Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheit 4. Baubefund, Ausstattung, Funde, 221. 223. 56 Rathmayr, “Götter- und Kaiserkult im häuslichen Bereich anhand von Skulpturen aus dem Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos”. 57 Rathmayr, “Auswertung,” 693–694.

246

Hilke Thür

religious beliefs of the Late Imperial period, the choice of Isis Panthea can additionally be interpreted as the protective goddess of the owner. Several pieces of evidence connected with the imperial cult have been found: in house 7 the portrait heads of emperor Tiberius and his mother Livia have been excavated in situ in a niche in room (38) (fig. 9). They were accompanied by a big bronze snake.58 The sculpture can be interpreted as special devotion of the house owner to the Iulio-Claudian dynasty, by which the owners presumably got the status of Roman citizens. In house 6 another imperial portrait was found, the portrait of Marcus Aurelius. He can be connected with the senatorial ranking of the Aptus family. And last not least the ivory frieze from house 2 with scenes of the life of emperor Trajan shows the relation of the house owner – probably Salutaris – with the emperor Trajan. The above mentioned sculptures of emperors and members of the imperial family show clear evidence for imperial cult in private houses. The chronology of the terrace house 2 can be divided into four building phases, shown in the plans of house 459 (fig. 10). Most of the alterations in house 4 and also in house 5 were caused by an expansion of house 6.60 In phase I, the basic framework of house 4 was built: a peristyle court with rooms arranged in a “U.” In phase I the house had a floor space of 360 m2 and probably consisted of seven main rooms. Phase I can be dated to late Augustan or early Tiberian times.61 In phase II house 4 lost two of the large representative rooms  – due to the enlargement of the marble hall (31) in house 6. In phase II the peristyle porticoes of house 4 (fig. 6) received prestigious frescoes with a red background, depicting Socrates and Urania and mythological scenes (e. g. Achilles) in the upper zone.62 The western rooms were decorated with rustication in stucco (Quaderimitation). Phase II now is dated about 120 C.E.63 and has to be connected with C. Flavius Furius 58 H. Vetters, “Ein weiterer Schlangengott in Ephesos,” in Echo. Beiträge zur Archäologie des mediterranen und alpinen Raumes. Johannes B. Trentini zum 80. Geburtstag gewidmet von seinen Freunden und Verehrern (eds. B. Otto – F. Ehrl; Innsbruck: Institut für Sprachwissenschaft der Universität Innsbruck, 1990), 315–320; Rathmayr, “Götter‑ und Kaiserkult im häuslichen Bereich anhand von Skulpturen aus dem Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos”. 59 Thür, “Rekonstruktion der Bauphasen,” in Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheit 4. Baubefund, Ausstattung, Funde, 96–101. 60 Thür, “Zum Stadtpalast des Dionysospriesters C. Flavius Furius Aptus im Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Ein Zwischenbericht”. 61 Ladstätter, “Keramik,” in Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheit 4. Baubefund, Ausstattung, Funde, 232–238. 62 Strocka, Die Wandmalerei der Hanghäuser in Ephesos, 94–96. 102–111; Zimmermann, “Wandmalerei,” in Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheit 4. Baubefund, Ausstattung, Funde, 106–109; Zimmermann and Ladstätter, Wandmalerei in Ephesos von hellenistischer bis in byzantinische Zeit, 83–86. 63 Dating with pottery: Ladstätter, “Keramik,” in Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheit 4. Baubefund, Ausstattung, Funde, 239 f.; dating with architectural decoration:

Art and Architecture in Terrace House 2 in Ephesos

247

Aptus.64 In phase III house 4 again is diminished by another new room, the apsidal hall (8) in house 6, built shortly after the middle of the second century.65 In phase IV in Severian times most of the rooms were newly decorated with wall paintings66.

4. The house owners As mentioned in the introduction we know the inhabitants and owners of two houses, of house 2 and house 6. In house 2 important epigraphic testimonies were carved into the plaster of the wall-painting in the latrine (SR 29) while it was still damp. In two of these graffiti the probable owner is addressed and prompted to hetero‑ and homosexual activities.67 This man is a well-known personality in Ephesus, the knight C. Vibius Salutaris. He is attested from a founder’s inscription excavated in the theatre.68 The graffito in the latrine is written in Latin, probably to make it understandable for the addressee, who came from the West.69 Logically, Salutaris’ lifetime confines the date of origin of the graffito and the wall-painting to the Late Flavian or Early Trajanic Period. The above cited founder’s inscription mentions silver statuettes of Emperor Trajan and his wife Plotina that were worshipped in the private home of Salutaris. This is one of the few evidences for an emperor’s cult in private living quarters. Nevertheless the commemoration and the admiration for the Emperor in the private atmosphere of house 2 lasted for some time; an ivory frieze that probably adorned a sella curulis was to be found among the inventory of the 3rd century C.E., in its centre Emperor Trajan is shown. Due to its dating it probably was already set up in house 2 in building phase II.70 Koller, “Die Pilasterkapitelle aus dem ‘Marmorsaal’ der Wohneinheit 6. Bemerkungen zu Dekoration und Zeitstellung,” in Das Hanghaus 2 von Ephesos. Studien zu Baugeschichte und Chronologie, 119–136; the latest results will be published by Taeuber, “Graffiti und Steininschriften,” in Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheit 6. Baubefund, Ausstattung, Funde, (Thür and Rathmayr, forthcoming); see also note 78. 64 See below n. 78. 65 For the dating see Ladstätter, “Keramik,” in Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheit 4. Baubefund, Ausstattung, Funde, 240. 66 Zimmermann, “Wandmalerei,” in Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheit 4. Baubefund, Ausstattung Funde, 117–120; Zimmermann and Ladstätter, Wandmalerei in Ephesos von hellenistischer bis in byzantinische Zeit, 94–120. 67 Taeuber, “ Graffiti,” in Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheit 4. Baubefund, Ausstattung, Funde, 132–143; idem, “Graffiti,” in Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheiten 1 und 2. Baubefund, Ausstattung, Funde, 472. 68 Inschriften von Ephesos, 1a, nr. 27, see also G. Rogers, The sacred Identity of Ephesus. Foundations Myths of a Roman City (London: New York: Routledge, 1991), 16–19. 69 Taeuber, “C. Vibius Salutaris. Wohnungsbesitzer im Hanghaus 2?” 70 Rathmayr, “Auswertung,” 693 f.; Taeuber, “Graffiti,” 472.

248

Hilke Thür

The second well known inhabitant is C. Flavius Furius Aptus, who owned the big house 6. His family is well known from numerous inscriptions. The stemma of his family and a relative chronology has been presented in several publications.71 Recently the absolute dating has been revised by E. Rathmayr.72 Recent epigraphic discoveries were made during the restoration of the marble revetment in marble hall (31) which require an even earlier date for Aptus. The career of the family can be outlined as follows: The eldest known members had the name Perigenes; they were grandfather and father of Pythion who held the office of neopoios of Artemis and lived – according to Rathmayr73 – in the Early Imperial Period. His son T. Flavius Perigenes held the offices of Prytanis and Asiarch; he seems to have received Roman citizenship. His son T. Flavius Pythion lived during the reign of Domitian/ Trajan. He was Grammateus 104/5 C.E. and held all high ranking offices in Ephesos. His wife was Fl. Myrton; they had two sons, T. Fl. Aristoboulos and T. Fl. Iulianus (the elder) and two daughters. They also filled municipal offices. T. Fl. Aristobulos was the father of the well-attested owner of house 6, C. Fl. Furius Aptus, who held offices in the city and is testified as priest in the cult of Dionysos74. His son T. Flavius Lollianus Aristoboulos became member of the senate order.75 The lifetime of C. Fl. Furius Aptus was at first dated to the reign of Antoninus Pius;76 then he was put in the 2nd and 3rd quarter of the 2nd century C.E.77 Recently during the restitution work in the marble hall (39) two quarry-inscriptions from the imperial quarry in Dokimeion have been found, which give the dates of 119 and 121 C.E. Moreover in 2010 a dipinto has been found showing in red colour the Latin letters FLAVIA APTI. Due to this, the lifetime and career of Aptus has to be dated earlier. Aptus was 71 Inschriften griechischer Städte aus Keinasien 17,1, Die Inschriften von Ephesos Teil 7,1 nr. 63; C. Schulte, Die Grammateis von Ephesos (HABES 15; Stuttgart: Steiner, 1994), 189–90 Kat. 124; Rathmayr, “Das Haus des Ritters C. Flavius Furius Aptus. Beobachtungen zur Einflussnahme von Hausbesitzern an Architektur und Ausstattung in der Wohneinheit 6 des Hanghauses 2 in Ephesos”. 72 Rathmayr, “Das Haus des Ritters C. Flavius Furius Aptus,” 307–311. 73 Rathmayr, “Das Haus des Ritters C. Flavius Furius Aptus,” 307–308. 74 Vetters, “Ephesos. Vorläufiger Grabungsbericht 1979,” 259; D. Knibbe and B. plikçio lu, “Neue Inschriften aus Ephesos 8,” ÖJh 53 (1981/82): 87–150 here 112 nr. 79 (Inschriften von Ephesos Teil 4: nr. 1267). 75 Rathmayr, “Das Haus des Ritters C. Flavius Furius Aptus,” 308–309; H. Halfmann, Die Senatoren aus dem östlichen Teil des Imperium Romanum bis zum Ende des 2. Jahrhunderts n. Chr. (Hypomnemata 58; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1977), 23–24. 76 Inschriften von Ephesos Teil 7,1, nr. 63; Schulte, Die Grammateis von Ephesos, Kat 124. 77 Rathmayr, “Das Haus des Ritters C. Flavius Furius Aptus,” 309 f.

Art and Architecture in Terrace House 2 in Ephesos

249

already the building owner and patron in building phase II.78 An epigram on a statue base in front of the apsidal hall (8) constructed in Phase III names also Gaius and an unknown Perikles. Therefore either Aptus was still active in the middle of the 2nd century or possibly there were two persons with an identical name.

5. House 6 of C. Flavius Furius Aptus In this paper I want to focus on house 6 (fig. 11). The huge house is situated in the north east corner of the insula, the ground floor level lying about 4 m above the Curetes Street. It occupied – dependent upon the respective building phase – 620 m2 to 950 m2. The centre was formed by a peristyle court with twelve marble columns that covered 240 m2. In the original design the open court area was surrounded with four porticoes and rooms on the south-, west‑ and north sides. The rooms at the north and west measured 4.5 m in depth and were connected with the halls and the court through wide doors. The rooms on the south side measured 7.5 m in depth and were more spacious. Moreover they have been enlarged in the building phases II and III. In the first quarter of the 2nd century C.E. (phase II) – the dining room (31) was doubled in floor space. This was done by removing 500 m³ of rock from the hillside.79 The newly created room (31) with 150 m2 was furbished in a most expensive and exquisite style. Walls and floor were covered with costly marble revetment. Above the basement with green cipollino verde was a middle zone decorated with an architectural system of fluted pilasters and fine worked pilaster capitals.80 This main zone was totally filled with Pavonazetto from Dokimeion. An upper zone was decorated with emblems with colourful opus sectile inlays. Above the revetment the 10 m high hall was painted with a fresco. The floor of the marble hall (31) in most parts is also covered with marble (fig. 12). But a U-shaped mosaic can be interpreted as an area for setting the kline, the dining couches.81 The banquet hall could be furnished with nine 78 Up

to now he has been connected with building phase III and the building of the apsidal hall (8); comp. Thür, “Zum Stadtpalast des Dionysospriesters C. Flavius Furius Aptus im Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos,” 1060; Rathmayr, “Das Haus des Ritters C. Flavius Furius Aptus,” 310. 79 House 4 lost by this building activity two of its big rooms, Thür, Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheit 4. Baubefund, Ausstattung Funde, 97. 80 Koller, “Die Pilasterkapitelle aus dem ‘Marmorsaal’ der Wohneinheit 6. Bemerkungen zu Dekoration und Zeitstellung”. 81 Thür, “Zum Stadtpalast des Dionysospriesters C. Flavius Furius Aptus im Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos,” 1059–1060; Koller, “Marmorausstattung. Böden,” in Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheit 6. Baubefund, Ausstattung, Funde (forthcoming).

250

Hilke Thür

beds82, each holding two to three persons. Within this arrangement of the couches (fig. 13) 27 guests could be placed comfortably. The empty space between the couches and the wall on the one hand allowed a full view of the decorated walls. On the other hand the servants could serve the guests from behind the couches. Probably also several statue bases with portrait busts were displayed in the room.83 In the central open space, small moveable tables could be placed for serving dishes. In the northern part of the room the mosaic stripe was omitted and a water basin suggests another use in this area. One might think of performances including actors, musicians and dancers.84 The ceiling of the marble hall was constructed as a wooden coffer ceiling. Some carbonized wooden beams were found. Their relief decoration of hippocampi and geometric decorations was gilded. From this evidence the ceiling (fig. 14) can be reconstructed.85 During the day light came from the doors in the north wall leading to the peristyle court and – presumably – by windows in the upper zone of the north wall. In addition, two windows in the south wall connected the marble hall (31) with the peristyle courtyard of house 4 on the next terrace. Some more windows may have been placed in the upper zone (fig. 15) of the east and west wall.86 At the same time in phase II the peristyle court was refurbished. The marble plaster in the court and probably the mosaics in the halls were laid out. Between the columns of the south colonnade marble blocks were added to form the back wall of a large fountain (fig. 16). Also the intercolumniations of the columns in the east portico were closed with walls and bow windows 82 Stöckl,

“Rekonstruktion der Innenausstattung des sog. Marmorsaales der Wohneinheit 6 im Hanghaus 2 von Ephesos”. 83 Rathmayr, “Die Skulpturenausstattung der einzelnen Räume. Marmorsaal 31,” in Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheit 6. Baubefund, Ausstattung, Funde (forthcoming). 84 Entertainment during banquets is mentioned in Pliny ep I 15 and by Petronius in the banquet of Trimalchio. Actors and an acrobat are shown in frescoes in room (SR 6) in house 1 (Zimmermann, “Die Wandmalerei der Wohneinheit 1und 2,” in Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheiten 1 und 2. Baubefund, Ausstattung, Funde, 109–114) and room (14 b) in house 4 (Zimmermann, “Wandmalerei,” in Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheit 4. Baubefund, Ausstattung, Funde, 113). In general see C. P. Jones, “Dinner Theatre,” in Dining in the classical context (ed. W. J. Slater; Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1991) 185–198; K. M. D. Dunbabin, “Convivial Spaces, Dining and Entertainment in the Roman Villa,” JRA 9 (1996): 66–80. 85 Thür, “Zur Dach‑ und Deckenkonstruktion des Marmorsaales 31 der Wohneinheit 6 im Hanghaus 2 von Ephesos,” in Antike Holztragwerke (ed. A. v. Kienlin; Byzas 11, Istanbul, 2011), 235–245, idem, “Eine geschnitzte Holzbalkendecke aus dem Festsaal des C. Flavius Furius Aptus im Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos,” in Lignum. Holz in der Antike (Keryx 1; ed. Scherrer; Graz: Uni-Press Graz Verlag, 2011), 197–205. 86 Thür, “Licht in den Festsälen des C. Flavius Furius Aptus im Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos.”

Art and Architecture in Terrace House 2 in Ephesos

251

and a small – but well furnished – private bath was built in (fig. 17): From south to north an apodyterium led to a cold bath (frigidarium), into a steam bath (sudatorium) and a hot water bath (caldarium).87 According to latest results C. Flavius Furius Aptus was the owner of house 6 already in phase II. An inscription carved in the central pillar of the back wall of the fountain (fig. 18) testifies him as a priest of Dionysos Oreios, the Dionysos outside the city in the mountains. Remains from pins on the top of the pillar give evidence of sculpture bases. The excavation report mentions fragments of a Dionysos statuette. Rathmayr reconstructs a bust of Aptus in the centre of the court and – maybe symmetrically arranged – sculptures of the god Dionysos between the outer columns.88 In the following building phase III another new banquet hall was built in the south west corner of the house (fig. 19). Thus the owner – probably Aptus or his son – enlarged the area of the house again, and the neighbouring house 4 lost one of its large rooms. The new room (8) was constructed with a vaulted ceiling and an apse in the south wall. It measured 80 m2 and was more than 10 m high.89 In the north part of the vaulted hall (8) a water basin measuring 4,40 m to 2,10 m was sunk into the floor. Fresh water was provided from a channel that crossed the terrace houses 1 and 2. The water basin might have served for keeping fish in fresh water.90 The decoration of hall (8) is badly preserved, but traces of wall revetment and mortar show a similar system as in the marble hall (31). The room had a big arched window in the north wall, which filled the whole lunette in the north wall of the hall.91 The basin in hall (8) was abandoned in the next building phase IV and a hypocaust system was installed. Heating was provided following 87 Thür, “Zum Stadtpalast des Dionysospriesters C. Flavius Furius Aptus im Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Ein Zwischenbericht,” 1063 (with dating to phase III); Thür, “Badeanlage,” in Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheit 6. Baubefund, Ausstattung, Funde (forthcoming). 88 Rathmayr, “Das Haus des Ritters C. Flavius Furius Aptus,” 315; idem, “Die Skulpturenausstattung der einzelnen Räume. Peristylhof 31a,” in Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheit 6. Baubefund, Ausstattung, Funde (forthcoming). 89 The interpretation of the excavator Vetters as a basilica privata: Vetters, “Basilica privata,” in Classica et Provincialia. Festschrift Erna Diez (ed. G. Schwarz  – E Pochmarski; Graz: Akademische Druck und Verlagsanstalt, 1978), 211–215, is not possible in building phase III, because of the big water basin in the north part of the hall. See: Thür, “Apsidensaal 8,” in Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheit 6. Baubefund, Ausstattung, Funde (forthcoming). 90 A. Galik, G. Forstenpointner and G. Weissengruber, “The Expression of Demand for Particular Fish Food implied by Aquatic Facilities in Living Areas of Noble Households,” in Städtisches Wohnen im östlichen Mittelmeerraum 4. Jh. v. Chr. – 1. Jh. n. Chr. (Archäologische Forschungen 18; eds. S. Ladstätter and V. Scheibelreiter; Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2010), 667–674. 91 Thür, “Licht in den Festsälen des C. Flavius Furius Aptus im Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos”.

252

Hilke Thür

a quite complicated system, via a praefurnium which could be served from house 4.92 The two small rooms (8b) and (8c) situated behind the apse are connected with the heating system. At the west side a small vaulted room (8a) was cut into the rock and decorated richly with stucco. The fields in a rich stucco system have figures and animals from the context of the thiasos of Dionysos and also Aphrodite. Two figures (fig. 20) – only visible in their outlines – have now been identified as Venus and Mars.93 The room (36) in front of the vaulted hall (8) also has a relatively large water basin which covers most of the marble floor. Aside the steps which lead up to the higher level of the floor of hall (8) two statue bases with inscriptions were set up. One of the epigrams again mentions Gaius (Flavius Furius Aptus) together with an unknown Perikles; Aphrodite is asked to protect them. Therefore, the bases must have carried two statues of Aphrodite in the type of Anadymene.94 Room (36) had a function as representative ante-room and entrée to the apsidal hall (8).95 This room and the water basin could function as a water triclinium.96 The west wall was open to another vaulted room (36a). In its south west corner a water basin was installed for keeping fish fresh97 for the meals. This room could have served to show and present the dishes and the costly table silver. Surprisingly, house 6 possesses many large banquet halls, but kitchens or installations for preparing meals on a large scale are generally lacking. On the ground floor rooms for storage and cooking are missing. Only the southern area for banqueting is connected with a small steep staircase to room (32b) in the upper floor. It was connected to room (37) and adjacent rooms, where some storage vessels are preserved. Because of their simple equipment, these structures might have served as a service area. The place92 Thür, “Raum 22,” in Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheit 4. Baubefund, Ausstattung Funde, 72–73; idem, “Zum Stadtpalast des Dionysospriesters C. Flavius Furius Aptus im Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos,” 1061 f.; idem, “Heizsysteme. Räume 8. 8a. 8b,” in Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheit 6. Baubefund, Ausstattung, Funde (forthcoming). 93 Rathmayr, “Das Haus des Ritters C. Flavius Furius Aptus,” 317 f. 94 Vetters, “Ephesos. Vorläufiger Grabungsbericht 1980,” AnzWien 117 (1980): 257– 261; Knibbe – plikçio lu, “Neue Inschriften aus Ephesos 8,” ÖJh 53 (1981/82): 132–134 nr. 140; Rathmayr, “Das Haus des Ritters C. Flavius Furius Aptus,” 316–318. 95 Rathmayr, “Atria in Ephesos? Zu Verteilerbereichen in Peristylhäusern anhand von Beispielen in ephesischen Wohnbauten,” in Städtisches Wohnen im östlichen Mittelmeerraum 4. Jh. v. Chr. – 1. Jh. n. Chr., 213–230; Thür, “Raum 36,” in Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheit 6. Baubefund, Ausstattung, Funde (forthcoming). 96 See n. 126. 97 Galik, Forstenpointner and Weissengruber, “The Expression of Demand for Particular Fish Food implied by Aquatic Facilities in Living Areas of Noble Households,” in Städtisches Wohnen im östlichen Mittelmeerraum 4. Jh. v. Chr. – 1. Jh. n. Chr., 668–674; Zimmermann and Ladstätter, Wandmalerei in Ephesos von hellenistischer bis in byzantinische Zeit, 135.

Art and Architecture in Terrace House 2 in Ephesos

253

ment in between house 6 and 7 may indicate that the area was used together by the servants of house 6 and house 7. Also I want to mention the question whether there can be seen a relation between the rooms of house 6 and the function of the house owner C. Flavius Furius Aptus as a priest of cult of Dionysos. Cultic associations with the god Dionysos are mentioned in several inscriptions found in Ephesos. One of them is the inscription in the peristyle courtyard in house 6, naming C. Flavius Furius Aptus as priest of Dionysos. R. Merkelbach and A. Schäfer assume that Aptus was the patron and priest of a Dionysian cultic association.98 Festive dinners and drinking parties were an important element of the mysteries and cultic activities. In addition to initiation rites and the mysteries performed outdoors, they might have been also celebrated in club houses and private homes of the patrons. House 6 probably constitutes one of the – so far – rare evidences for such a cultic association.99

6. Summary, results and new questions Finally I want to summarize the results for architecture and art and pose some unanswered questions. The dwellings in Terrace House 2 represent the housing type of a peristyle house. The architectural layout of the houses is dominated by the spacious peristyles with their precious architectural decor,100 including bases, columns and capitals, having decorated porticoes on all sides of the open court and one to three floors. Symbolically, these architectural elements are related to public buildings and public space. Therefore, they create a representative and public or semi-public atmosphere. It is noteworthy that the entablature of this private architecture consisted of wooden beams and was not executed in marble. The installation of luxurious marble revetment on the walls and floors relates the houses to those of the aristocracy in Rome and finally the imperial palaces.101 The widespread use of Pavonazetto from the imperial quarry   98 R. Merkelbach, Die Hirten des Dionysos: Die Dionysos-Mysterien der römischen Kaiserzeit und der bukolische Roman des Longus (Stuttgart: Teubner, 1988), 23; A. Schäfer, “Dionysische Gruppen als städtisches Phänomen der römischen Kaiserzeit,” in Gruppenreligionen im römischen Reich. Studien und Texte zu Antike und Christentum 43 (ed. J. Rüpke; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006), 161–180, here 162–167.   99 Scenes of the mysteries may be shown in the famous wall paintings in the villa of mysteries near Pompei, compare E. Simon, “Zum Fries der Mysterienvilla bei Pompeji,” JdI 76 (1961): 11–172. 100 Thür, “Architekturausstattung,” in Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheit 4. Baubefund, Ausstattung Funde, 157–169; Plattner, “Architekturdekoration”. 101 See for instance the : H. Manderscheid, “Was nach den ‘ruchlosen Räubereien’ übrigblieb – zu Gestalt und Funktion der sog. Bagni di Livia,” in Die Kaiserpaläste auf dem Palatin in Rom (eds. A. Hoffmann and U. Wulf-Rheidt; Mainz: v. Zabern,

254

Hilke Thür

in Dokimeion in the main zone (register) in marble hall (31) and in court (31a) indicates the very special status and privileges of the Aptus family and demonstrates this to every visitor. The frescoes in Terrace House 2102 are – dependent on function and use of each respective room  – designed in differing systems (schemes) and qualities. More than half of the rooms are decorated in a ‘Felder-LisenenSystem’; above a lower zone runs a main zone with high rectangular fields separated by lisenes, which have a figural middle motif. The upper zone is decorated with architectural paintings with aediculae. A lot of other rooms are decorated with patterns of irregularly scattered flowers. The paintings are executed in accordance with the intended function of the rooms, which can be divided roughly into main or more “public” rooms and side “private” rooms. The most important rooms, the peristyle courts, are either painted in dark colours (fig. 6) or equipped with marble revetment – real or in painted imitation. Most frescos of the other rooms have a white background. They are decorated with figural central pictures, such as muses, philosophers, cupids, birds or fishes. Differences are evident not only in the systems of decoration but especially in the quality of the workmanship. The same systems and workshops can be observed in different houses. The most striking examples are the identical garland friezes with cupids, decorating the courtyards in houses 1 and 2 as well as room (36a) (fig. 21) in house 6. The frescos in Terrace House 2 represent local fresco systems and traditions; only room (42) in house 6 is different and clearly influenced by frescoes in Ostia.103 The mosaics in terrace house 2 are mostly black and white or polychrome mosaics in geometric patterns.104 Figural mosaics are rare. The floor mosaics in the small house 3, a lion mosaic in room (17)105 and the heads of a Medusa and of Dionysos in room (16a),106 are productions of remarkably 2004), 75–85., here 76–78; H. von Hesberg, “Die Domus Imperatoris der neronischen Zeit auf dem Palatin,” in Die Kaiserpaläste auf dem Palatin in Rom, 59–74, 59–74; E. Segala and I. Sciortino, Domus Aurea (Milano: Electa, 1999). 102 Zimmermann, “Wandmalerei,” in Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheit 4. Baubefund, Ausstattung Funde; idem, “Die Wandmalerei der Wohneinheit 1und 2,” in Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheiten 1 und 2. Baubefund Ausstattung. Funde; Zimmermann and Ladstätter, Wandmalerei in Ephesos von hellenistischer bis in byzantinische Zeit. 103 Zimmermann, “Eine >römische< Malerei in Ephesos,” in Neue Zeiten – Neue Sitten. Zur Rezeption und Integration römischen und italischen Kulturguts in Kleinasien (ed. M. Meyer; Vienna: Phoibos, 2007), 377–383. 104 Scheibelreiter, “Mosaiken,” in Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheiten 1 und 2. Baubefund. Ausstattung. Funde, 142–148. 105 Jobst, Römische Mosaiken aus Ephesos. Die Hanghäuser des Embolos, 102–104; Scheibelreiter, “Löwe und Stierkopf. Zu einem Mosaikbild aus dem Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos,” in Synergia. Festschrift für Friedrich Krinzinger, 309–318. 106 Jobst, Römische Mosaiken aus Ephesos. Die Hanghäuser des Embolos, 97–101.

Art and Architecture in Terrace House 2 in Ephesos

255

high quality. In house 2, a figural mosaic interrupts the geometrical pattern in the south portico of the peristyle court (SR 22/23). The mosaic107 shows a maritime scene. Poseidon and Amphitrite are positioned in front of a small exedra (GEW D) and oriented towards the niche. The decoration of this exedra is excellent, the walls are covered with colourful marble (africano and porphyry). The vault and the lunette are decorated with a glass mosaic108 depicting Dionysos and Ariadne surrounded by the divine vineyard. This relatively small room (fig. 22) without question is the focus of the house or at least of this floor of the house.109 Two more glass mosaics decorate the small half domes in two apsidal wall fountains besides the wide door of the dining room (SR 24)110 in house 2. Nearly nothing is preserved of the glass mosaic in the large half dome of the apse in hall (8); the excavator Vetters mentions floral motives in the diary.111 Another glass mosaic decorated an apsidal niche in portico (31a).112 All the glass mosaics are found in the two houses, whose owners are also known: houses 2, owned by C. Vibius Salutaris, and house 6, owned by C. Flavius Furius Aptus. Both had good relations with Rome and the imperial house. The equipment consisted of perishable materials and is less well preserved, because the destruction by an earthquake was accompanied by a fire catastrophe.113 The preserved objects include the sculptured and gilded beams of the ceiling of marble hall (31)114 and the ivory frieze115 probably from some piece of furniture found in room (SR 19/20) in house 2. Both examples show the value and high quality that has to be expected for the equipment of these houses. In house 6 in phase III (including marble hall (31), the vaulted room [8], the stucco room [8a], the entrée room [36] and the room [36a]) Aptus and 107 Jobst, Römische Mosaiken aus Ephesos. Die Hanghäuser des Embolos, 59–64; Scheibelreiter, “Mosaiken,” in Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheiten 1 und 2. Baubefund. Ausstattung. Funde, 487–489. 108 Jobst, Römische Mosaiken aus Ephesos. Die Hanghäuser des Embolos, 65–74; Scheibelreiter, “Mosaiken,” in Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheiten 1 und 2. Baubefund. Ausstattung. Funde, 489–490. 109 Rathmayr, “Auswertung,” 689–691. 110 Jobst, Römische Mosaiken aus Ephesos. Die Hanghäuser des Embolos, 86–88; Scheibelreiter, “Mosaiken,” in Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheiten 1 und 2. Baubefund. Ausstattung. Funde, 494–495. 111 Diary from 14.9.1973. 112 Scheibelreiter, “Mosaiken, Frigidarium 31aSO,” in Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheit 6. Baubefund, Ausstattung, Funde, (forthcoming). 113 Ladstätter, “Die Chronologie des Hanghauses 2,” 26–29. 114 H. Thür, Zur Dach‑ und Deckenkonstruktion des Marmorsaales 31 der Wohneinheit 6 im Hanghaus 2 von Ephesos. 115 M. Dawid, Die Elfenbeinplastiken aus dem Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Räume SR 18 und SR 28 (Forschungen in Ephesos 8,5; Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2003).

256

Hilke Thür

his family had a full ensemble of halls which could be used for assemblies, meetings and dining. By constructing hall (8), the house owner chose a new type of dining room, whose apsidial plan allowed dining in the new style of a half-rounded setting, called a stibadium. Room (8a) with the stucco vaulting may have been used by the house owner as a small dining room where he could recline together with good friends or where he could separate himself with special and high ranking guests. During hot summer days the room deep in the rock may have been a pleasant and cool place to spend time. The rich decoration of the marble hall (31) (fig. 23), including precious marble revetments, floor and a gilded ceiling, two fountains and several marble statues give a lively picture of the self presentation of a wealthy family in the status of a knight trying to get the rank of a senator. The dwellings in Terrace House 2 represent the architectural type of a peristyle house, i.e. a type predominant in the eastern Mediterranean world – the areas of Greek tradition. They are different from the Roman atrium house which is common in Rome, Italy, the west and north provinces and also North Africa. Atrium houses are mostly missing in the Greek East. Sometimes large houses have a second courtyard; examples in Ephesos are houses 2 (court [27]) and 6 (court/room [36]) in Terrace House 2 (fig. 5) or “Bau Z” in Pergamon,116 but these courtyards do not correspond to Roman atrium houses, neither in the architectural and constructive design nor in their function.117 It is remarkable that the families of the local elite rising into senatorial status did not built atrium houses. The atrium – besides serving as a room for representation and ancestor worship – was mainly the place for the ritual salutatio.118 The importance of this special republican ceremony in the relationship between patron and client in Rome and Italy is well attested, but quite unclear in the Greek East. The question whether the salutatio was practised in the houses in Ephesos and Pergamon has to be discussed in the future. The spacious peristyle courtyards  – normally located near the entrance – of course might have served as the place where the ritual of the salutatio took place. Another striking peculiarity  – as opposed to city houses in Rome and Italy – is the total absence of gardens and even peristyle gardens (gardens in peristyle courts) in Ephesos.119 Absence of gardens is noted not only in 116 M. Bachmann, “Bau Z in Pergamon,” in Bericht über die 42. Tagung für Ausgrabungswissenschaft und Bauforschung 2002 in München (eds. Bankel, Schnuchel, Schulz and Tragbar; Bonn: R. Habelt Verlag, 2004), 214–225. 117 Rathmayr, “Auswertung”. 118 F. Goldbeck, Salutationes: die Morgenbegrüßungen in Rom in der Republik und in der frühen Kaiserzeit (KLIO, Beiträge zur alten Geschichte Beih. NF, Bd. 16; Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2010). 119 Thür and Rathmayr, Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheit 6. Baubefund, Ausstattung, Funde, (forthcoming).

Art and Architecture in Terrace House 2 in Ephesos

257

the Terrace Houses and other known habitations in Ephesos but also in the houses of Pergamon, Priene and Delos.120 This surprising fact seems to go back to the situation in the Greek polis, where space and water were rare and precious within the city walls. Therefore gardens were usually placed mostly near rivers and lakes.121 Good and well known examples of gardens are the gymnasia in Athens, the Academy, the Lykeion and the Kynosarges located outside the city walls, whose trees, fountains and gardens are often mentioned.122 The absence of gardens in the houses of Roman Ephesos can not be explained by lack of water: the city was well supplied with water from five aqueducts.123 Each of the houses in Terrace House 2 was connected with the public water supply, and the numerous fountains in the peristyle courtyards and in the dining rooms with running water show a lavish use of water124. Also a lack of space in the city cannot be the reason for not having gardens; starting from Hellenistic times cities have been walled with plenty of space to allow for the needs of fortification and expected increase in numbers of citizens. The topographic situation of Terrace House 2 on a quite steep slope might have complicated the installation of gardens. Nevertheless, the large courtyards in houses 2, 6 (fig. 16) and 7 might have been used for planting at least a tree, some bushes, or flowers.125 This was not the case, and gardens have been reduced to the open space of the peristyle courtyards embellished with fountains, water basins with springs and also sculptures. Basins sunk in the floor may also have served as water triclina.126 Only the 120 M. Caroll-Spillecke, Der Garten von der Antike bis zum Mittelalter (Mainz: von Zabern, 1992), 168–169. 121 M. Carroll-Spillecke, KEPO . Der antike griechische Garten (Wohnen in der klassischen Polis Bd. 3; Munich: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 1989); Caroll-Spillecke, Der Garten von der Antike bis zum Mittelalter, 153–176. 122 Caroll-Spillecke, Der Garten von der Antike bis zum Mittelalter, 162–164. 123 Wiplinger, “ Wasserver‑ und ‑entsorgung in Wohneinheit 1 und 2 des Hanghauses 2 in Ephesos,” 155–166; Wiplinger, “Wasser für Ephesos. Stand der Erforschung der Wasserversorgung in Ephesos, Türkei,” in Cura Aquarum in Ephesos (ed. idem; Babesch Suppl 12; Leuven: Peeters, 2006), 23–37; Wiplinger, “Die Wasserversorgung von Ephesos in Byzantinischer Zeit,” in Byzanz – das Römerreich im Mittelalter (Monographien des RGZM vol. 84,1–3; eds. F. Daim and J. Drauschke; Mainz: Verlag des Römisch-Germanischen Zentralmuseums, 2010), 593–613. 124 Michalczuk, “Brunnen,” 170–172; Thür, “Sonstige wasserwirtschaftliche Einrichtungen,” in Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheit 4. Baubefund, Ausstattung Funde, 172–175; Wiplinger, “Wasserver‑ und -entsorgung in Wohneinheit 1 und 2 des Hanghauses 2 in Ephesos,” 155–166. 125 In western cities gardens in peristyle courtyards are numerous, see W. F. Jashemski, “The Campanian Peristyle Garden” in: Ancient Roman Gardens. Dumbarton Oaks Colloquium on the History of Landscape Architecture 7 (ed. E. B. MacDougall – W. F. Jashemski, Washington D. C.: Dumbarton Oaks Trustees for Harvard University, 1981) 29–48. 126 J. Richardson Jr., “Water Triklinia and Biklinia in Pompei,” in Studia Pompeiana Classica in honour of W. F. Jashemski (ed. I. Curtis; New Rochelle, N. Y.; A. D. Caratzas,

258

Hilke Thür

owner of house 4 in phase III tried to create a garden atmosphere by covering the walls of the courtyard with an illusionistic garden fresco.127 Single components of garden architecture as water installations, marble bowls on supports with spring fountains are references to gardens and garden paintings in the west.128 The origin of gardens in Roman villas and large town houses from Hellenistic palaces and their gardens and peristyle gardens has been the subject of some controversy.129 The question of Romanization of the local people has often been discussed regarding the western provinces, especially Gaul130 and Britain.131 Discussions dealing with the Greek East are up to now only starting.132 The architectural plan and the lack of any gardens in the houses in Terrace House 2 in my opinion represent an important example of “Becoming Roman, Staying Greek.”

1988) 305–315; K. M. D. Dunbabin, “Triclinium and Stibadium,” in Dining in the Classical context (ed. J. Slater; Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press 1991), 121–148.; E. Salza Prina Ricotti, “The Importance of Water in Roman Garden Triclinia,” in Dumbarton Oaks Colloquium on the History of Landscape Architecture X (ed. E. Blair Macdougall; Washington DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 1987), 137–184. 127 Strocka, Die Wandmalerei der Hanghäuser in Ephesos, 99–101; Zimmermann, “Wandmalerei,” in Hanghaus 2 in Ephesos. Die Wohneinheit 4. Baubefund, Ausstattung Funde, 112–113; Zimmermann and Ladstätter, Wandmalerei in Ephesos von hellenistischer bis in byzantinische Zeit, 131–132. 128 Caroll-Spillecke, Der Garten von der Antike bis zum Mittelalter; D. Michel, “Pompejanische Gartenmalereien,” in Tania. Robert Hampe zum 70. Geburtstag am 2. Dezember 1978 dargebracht von Mitarbeitern, Schülern und Freunden (eds. A. Kahn – E. Simon, Mainz: P. von Zabern, 1980), 373–404. 129  Caroll-Spillecke, KEPO . Der antike griechische Garten; A. Wallace-Hadrill, “Horti and Hellenization,” in Horti romani. Atti dei convegno internazionale 1995 (M. Cima and E. La Rocca; Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider, 1988), 1–12.; I. Nielsen, “The Gardens of the Hellenistic Palaces,” in The Royal Palace Institution in the First Millenium B.C. Regional Development and Cultural Interchange (ed. idem; Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2001), 165–187. 130 G. Woolf, “The Uses of Forgetfulness in Roman Gaul,” in Vergangenheit und Lebenswelt. Soziale Kommunikation, Traditionsbildung und historisches Bewusstsein. Symposion 1995 Freiburg (eds. H. J. Gehrke and A. Möller; Tübingen: Narr, 1996), 361–381. 131 M. Millett, The Romanization of Britain: An Essay in Archaeological Interpretation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992). 132 G. Woolf, “Becoming Roman, Staying Greek. Culture, Identity and the Civilizing Process in the Roman East,” Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 40 (1994): 116–143; Local knowledge and Microidentities in the Imperial Greek World. Greek Culture in the Roman World (ed. T. Whitmarsh; London: Trübner, 1994), 116–143.

Art and Architecture in Terrace House 2 in Ephesos

259

Captions to figures Fig. 1: General view of Terrace House 2 (inside the roof); Photo: H. Thür. Fig. 2: Excavation Photo from the site of Terrace Houses in 1960; Photo Archive ÖAI © ÖAI. Fig. 3: View of Terrace House 2 with the new Roofing (2001); Photo: H. Thür. Fig. 4: City Plan of Ephesos © ÖAW. Fig. 5: Plan of Terrace House 2 © ÖAW. Fig. 6: Visualisation of the Peristyle Court in House 4; Ivan Iliev after H. Thür © ÖAW. Fig. 7: View of room (SR 24) in house 2; Photo: H. Thür. Fig. 8: Visualisation of niche in Room (5) in House 4; Ivan Iliev after H. Thür © ÖAW. Fig. 9: Tiberius and Livia with Bronze Snake in Selçuk Museum; Photo: Niki Gail © ÖAI. Fig. 10 a–f: Plans with building phases of House 4; I. Adenstedt after H. Thür © ÖAW. Fig. 11: Plan House 6; I. Adenstedt after H. Thür © ÖAW. Fig. 12: Visualisation of the Floor in Marble Hall (31) in House 6; Ivan Iliev after H. Thür © ÖAW. Fig. 13: Reconstruction of Furnishing in Marble Hall (31) (Model of S. Stöckl); Photo: A. Sulzgruber. Fig. 14: Visualisation of the coffer ceiling in Marble Hall (31) in House 6; Ivan Iliev after H. Thür © ÖAW. Fig. 15: Visualisation of Marble Hall (31) with Windows; Ivan Iliev after H. Thür © ÖAW. Fig. 16: View of South Colonade in Peristyle Court (31a); Photo: H. Thür. Fig. 17: Isometric Reconstruction of the private Bath in House 6; I. Adenstedt © ÖAW. Fig. 18: The Inscription in Perityle Court 31a naming C. Flavius Furius Aptus; Photo: Niki Gail © ÖAI. Fig. 19: Plan of House 6, Building Phase III; I. Adenstedt after H. Thür © ÖAW. Fig. 20: Photo of Room (8a) with Venus and Mars; Photo: Niki Gail © ÖAI. Fig. 21: Painting in Room (36a) in House 6; Photo: H. Thür. Fig. 22: View of vaulted Room (GEW D) in House 2; Photo: Niki Gail © ÖAI. Fig. 23: Visualisation of Marble Hall (31) in House 6, View to South; Ivan Iliev after H. Thür © ÖAW.

II. Villae

How the Romans saw the frieze in the Villa of the Mysteries at Pompeii Umberto Pappalardo

1. Introduction The Villa dei Misteri is located just outside the city of Pompeii, on a street connected with the Herculaneum gate. It was partially excavated at the beginning of the twentieth century by Giuseppe Spano (1909–1910), and later excavated fully by Amedeo Maiuri (1929–1930). The villa was first constructed in the second century B.C.E., but was subject to numerous renovations, which transformed the farm into a proper suburban villa.1 The period after the foundation of the Roman colony (Colonia Venerea Pompeianorum Sillana, founded by Sulla in the 80s B.C.E.) until the age of Augustus was its time of greatest splendor. The villa was decorated in the second style at the beginning of the first century B.C.E. At that time the owners commissioned a dignified megalografia with natural, life-sized figures. After the earthquake of 62 C.E., which provoked a grave economic crisis in the city, the villa was gradually given over to the production and sale of wine, so it lost its character as a high class villa. The room with the megalografia is nearly seven meters long and almost five meters wide. The wall painting has been preserved to a height of c. 3.31 meters. The fresco is subdivided by painted columns which support 1 For the following see M. Bieber, “Der Mysteriensaal der Villa Item,” Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts Rom 43 (1928): 322 ff.; A. Maiuri, La Villa dei Misteri (Rome: Istituto Poligrafico dello Stato 1931); K. Kerenyi, “Mensch und Maske,” Eranos Jahrbücher 16 (1948): 198 ff.; E. Simon, “Zum Fries der Mysterienvilla bei Pompeji,” Jahrbuch des Instituts 76 (1961): 111 ff.; O. J. Brendel, “Der Grosse Fries in der Villa dei Misteri,” Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts 81 (1966): 206–260; U. Pappalardo, “Nuove osservazioni sul fregio della Villa dei Miste­ri a Pompei,” in La Regione Sotterrata dal Vesuvio. Studi e prospettive (ed. Atti Convegno Internazionale Napoli-Pompei 1979; Naples: Università di Napoli), 599–634; U. Pappalardo, “Il fregio con eroti fra girali nella Sala dei Misteri a Pompei,” Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts Rom 97 (1982): 251–280; U. Pappalardo, “Beobachtungen am Fries der Mysterienvilla in Pompeji,” Antike Welt 13,3 (1982): 10–20; G. Sauron, La grande fresque de la Villa des Mystères à Pompéi (Paris, 1998); P. Veyne, I misteri del gineceo (Bari: Editori Laterza, 2000).

262

Umberto Pappalardo

a horizontal decorated molding ([cornice] 1,06 m). The background is red, with some stone slabs along the base of the wall ([orthostats] 1,62 m). The frieze above the megalografia is a band with meander patterns, a black background, and “peopled scrolls” (0,63 m). The figures of the megalografia, are only slightly less than life-sized, having an average height of 1,60 meters (fig. 1). The Villa of the Mysteries, located near Pompeii, was excavated at the beginning of the 20th century. Today its decoration constitutes one of the most complete and beautiful examples of ancient wall painting. Thousands of pages have been written on the painted frieze – themselves among the most beautiful (from the literary point of view) and the most profound in archaeological literature – but no universally accepted answer has been reached as far as the technique, the dating, the reading and the interpretation of the frieze are concerned. Evidently, “nomen est omen” and the villa wishes to remain mysterious … In the “oecus” the 2nd style gives us the impression that there are figures around the room on a podium against a wall consisting of red orthostates separated by black pilaster strips. The figures (called “megalographiae” by Pliny2) are actually somewhat smaller than life-size (about 1,30 m). Their identification remains uncertain, but all appear to be subordinated to a central group on the back wall representing Dionysos and his companion. The traditional interpretation considers the frieze to be the initiation of a girl into the mysteries of Dionysos and her marriage in the presence of divinities and priestesses. Therefore, there is a mixture of real and mythological figures (fig. 2). From one corner of the room, the matron of the family watches over to see that everything goes off as it should (fig 3). A small Dionysos guided by two priestesses, sings a hymn written on a roll of papyrus. At the same time, other priestesses are preparing the offerings, such as a rustic cake, sacred water and an olive branch for the aspersions. Silenus plays a lyre accompanied by the music of two small satyrs playing a pan-pipe (syrinx). Aura descends from heaven with her mantle blown by the wind (fig 4). An aged Papposilenus and two young satyrs appear isolated on the back wall: the young satyr sees the mask behind him reflected in the water in the cup and so sees in advance what he will look like in old age (Kerényi).3

2 Pliny Nat.Hist. XXXV, 126 (“grandes tabulas”), Nat.Hist XXXV, 132 (“grandes picturas”), different Vitruvius De architectura 7.5.2; 7.4.4 (“megalographiae”). 3 Kerenyi, “Mensch und Maske,” 198 ff.

How the Romans saw the frieze in the Villa of the Mysteries at Pompeii

263

In the center there is Dionysos, drunken and lying on the breast of a goddess. Next to him some priestesses are about to unveil a large wooden phallus hidden in a country basket (Mosaic of Djemila; fig. 5). The young woman who is to be initiated into the mysteries hides her face between the legs of a priestess as she is being beaten by a winged god. Only by supporting the pain can she show that she is now an adult and can therefore be married. Next to her some friends (perhaps Bacchantes) dance and play the cymbals in order to distract her and relieve the pain. Once this test is over, she gets ready for the wedding: a servant dresses her hair while a cupid shows her a mirror. … but to which divinities is the frieze dedicated? (fig. 6) The feminine figure beside Dionysos is always interpreted as Semele or Ariadne, but is she really one of the gods? (fig. 7) One should take the following points into consideration: 1. the goddess is placed on a “podium” that raises her up with respect to the god; that is, she dominates him; (fig. 8) 2. among the 29 figures that compose the frieze, a full eighteen – that is the majority – are feminine; 3. that the goddess and not Dionysos is represented on the central axis of the room. This dominance seems excessive for his mother Semele or his mistress Ariadne, as they play a secondary role beside the god. Who is the goddess then? The sanctuary of Dionysos outside Pompeii with beds (“lectisternia”) in front of the steps shows Dionysos and Aphrodite lying beside him (fig. 9). Dionysos is characterized by the “tyrsos”, “kantharos” and panther. Aphrodite is characterized by the goose and her son Eros, who is bringing her a mirror. The union of the two divinities in the same cult goes back to the Hellenistic period at Alexandria, where Osiris was identified with Dionysos and Aphrodite with Isis (see fig. 8). At Pompeii this union can be explained more simply: Dionysos guaranteed the prosperity of the villa that had become rich particularly because of the production of his wine, while Aphrodite was the patron goddess of the town, which the Romans called “Colonia Veneria Pompeianorum,” that is the colony of the Pompeians under the protection of Venus. That is undeniable proof that Dionysos was venerated at Pompeii alongside Aphrodite-Venus (fig. 9).But we also have an iconographic proof.4 4 M. Wolf, “Der Tempel von Sant’Abbondio in Pompeji. Bauaufnahme und Architektur,” Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts 113 (2007): 277–371.

264

Umberto Pappalardo

A famous cameo in the Museum of Vienna shows us Priapus below the divine couple, and Priapus is notoriously the son of Dionysos and Aphrodite. The group is so similar to the painted one that one could suppose another Priapus in the upper lacuna. We can conclude with a very surprising literary analogy. Lucretius, in the proem of his work De rerum natura, invokes the goddess Venus (the “Aeneadum genetrix”) so that she can convince the god of war, Mars, to give peace to the Romans.5 The literary description of the divine couple appears to be an exact description of the group painted in the Villa of the Mysteries: “[…] since Mars, all-powerful over arms, holds the cruel reins of war, he who often throws himself on your knees, totally conquered by the eternal wound of love; and so, lifting his eyes toward you, his round neck thrown back, he revels in love, full of desire for you (inhians in te), goddess, his avid looks, and, when he is thus leaning back (resupini), his breath hangs from your lips. You, goddess, covering him (super), when he rests on his back (recubantem), intertwined with your divine body, pour from your mouth sweet words asking him, oh glorious one, for a sweet peace for the Romans.”6

Even more surprising is the fact that – even if we know very little about the life of Lucretius – the ancient sources tell us that he was born at Pompeii.

Captions to figures Fig. 1: Pompeii, Villa of the Mysteries, the megalografia. Fig. 2: Pompeii, Villa of the Mysteries, the megalografia. Synoptic drawing. Fig. 3: Pompeii, Villa of the Mysteries, the megalografia. The matron of the family. Fig. 4: Pompeii, Villa of the Mysteries, the megalografia. Silenus playing a lyre accompanied by two small satyrs playing a pan-pipe and Aura descending from heaven. Fig. 5: Pompeii, Villa of the Mysteries, the megalografia. Papposilenus seeing the mask behind him reflected in the water in the cup. Fig. 6: Pompeii, Villa of the Mysteries, the megalografia. Dionysos, drunken and lying on the breast of Aphrodite. Fig. 7: Pompeii, Villa of the Mysteries, the megalografia. A priestess is about to unveil a large wooden phallus hidden in a country basket. Fig. 8: Pompeii, the sanctuary of Dionysos outside Pompeii, maquette. Fig. 9: Pompeii, the sanctuary of Dionysos outside Pompeii, pediment. Dionysos and Aphrodite. Dionysos is characterized by “tyrsos”, “kantharos” and panther. Aphrodite is characterized by the goose and her son Eros, who is bringing her a mirror. 5 Lucretius

De natura deorum proemium I 43. by Umberto Pappalardo.

6 Translation

Beryllos, the Jews and the Villa of Poppaea in Oplontis (Torre Annunziata) Rosaria Ciardiello

1. Introduction Located in modern Torre Annunziata (ancient Oplontis), the Villa of Poppea is an example of a very luxurious Roman house. Discovered in 1964, the villa was excavated over the next twenty years to reveal an otium style villa, an elite holiday home used as a summer retreat. The style and extent of the building suggested it was an important residence, and it was linked to Poppaea Sabina, second wife of the Emperor Nero. Her native town was nearby Pompeii. The oldest part of the house, which follows the classic atrium style, dates to the mid first century B.C.E. However, after this date, presumably as a result of a change of ownership after Nero’s death, a series of extensions occurred on the property which were still in progress at the time of Vesuvius’s eruption of 79 C.E. The building occupies a surface of around 8500 square meters. The main nucleus of the villa dating to the first half of the 1st century B.C.E., included the atrium (5) [m 15,5 × 11,5 ca.], the viridarium (20) [m 8,5 × 9 ca.], the wide living room with columns and several rooms as cubicula (or bedrooms), a triclinium (21) used as dining room [m 12,5 × 9 ca.], an oecus used as living room (15) [m 9 × 6 ca.], and the kitchen and the baths area. The atrium of the Villa of Poppaea had the usual roof top opening, the compluvium, which allowed rainwater to be collected in a central pool, the impluvium, which was once the household’s main water supply. A big garden with two symmetric porticoes opened onto the north of the atrium, and between them the reception room with columns, lined up with the atrium. At the east side of this last, there is the most ancient nucleus of the villa completed, in the south side, by a living room and nearby a wide servants’ quarter with an inner garden. At the north side of the peristilium there is the latrine, while another portico garden opens onto the south-east. It is smaller than the north garden and more isolated.

266

Rosaria Ciardiello

A long passage with two lines of benches connects the more ancient part to the more recent one, built during the Claudio-Neronian age, which has in the centre the swimming pool (61 × 17 m) onto which opens a series of different rooms, some of them with inner uncovered gardens, whose walls are richly decorated with garden paintings. Many fine examples of Roman sculpture were found flanking this area.

2. Beryllos and the Jews The cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum are not unique depositories of the extraordinarily important archaeological and historical visual legacy that remains in the Vesuvian territory, since in antiquity the entire region was occupied by luxurious, richly decorated villas1, for example, those of Pausilypon2, of Sorrento3, Capri44, Boscoreale5, Boscotrecase6, Terzigno7 and Somma Vesuviana8. 1 For

helpful suggestions I would thank Prof. U. Pappalardo, dott. M. Grimaldi and dott. I. Varriale. The rendering in CAD of the paintings from oecus (23) of the Villa Oplontis and from cubiculum of Boscoreale is a work of dott. M. Notomista whom I thank for precious help. For the translation I would thank Prof. D. Balch and Dr. ssa Deborah Chatr Aryamontri. J. H. D’Arms, Romans on the Bay of Naples. A Social and Cultural Study of the Villas and Their Owners from 150 B.C. to A.D. 400 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1970 revised ed. Bari: Edipuglia, 2003); J. H. D’Arms, “Ville rustiche e ville d’otium,” in Pompei 79. Raccolta di studi per il decimo nono centenario dell’eruzione vesuviana (ed. F. Zevi; Naples: Macchiaroli, 1979), 65–86; H. Mielsch, La villa romana (Florence: Giunti, 1990); A. Carandini, “La villa romana e la piantagione schiavistica,” in Storia di Roma. Caratteri e morfologie, vol. IV (eds. E. Gabba and A. Schiavone; Turin: Einaudi, 1989), 101–192; U. Pappalardo, Le ville romane nel golfo di Napoli (Naples: Electa, 2000); La villa romana (ed. R. Ciardiello; Naples: L’Orientale Editrice, 2007). 2 R. T. Günther, Pausilypon. The imperial villa near Naples (ed. D. Viggiani; Oxford, 1913; revised ed. Naples: Electa, 1993); M. Pagano, “Gli impianti marittimi della villa Pausilypon,” Studi di Storia Antica 4–5 (1981): 245–255; G. Vecchio, “Le ville sul mare,” in Napoli Antica (ed. E. Pozzi; Naples: Macchiaroli, 1985), 348–351; S. De Caro and G. Vecchio, “Pausilypon, la villa imperiale,” in Neapolis (ed. F. Zevi; Naples: Banco di Napoli, 1994), 83–94, Plates 212–233; G. Vecchio, La Grotta di Seiano e il parco archeologico del Pausilypon (Naples: Edizioni de Il Mattino, 1999); I. Varriale, “La Villa imperiale di Pausilypon,” in La villa romana (ed. R. Ciardiello; Naples: L’Orientale Editrice, 2007), 147–165. 3 P. Mingazzini and F. Pfister, Surrentum (Forma Italiae, Reg. 1, 2; Florence: Sansoni, 1946); M. Russo, Sorrento. Archeologia tra l’Hotel Vittoria e Capo Circe. Scavi e rinvenimenti dal Settecento a oggi (Sorrento: Centro di studi e ricerche multimediali Bartolommeo Capasso, 1997). 4 Capri antica. Dalla preistoria alla fine dell’età romana (eds. E. Federico and E. Miranda; Capri: La Conchiglia, 1998); C. Krause, Villa Jovis. La residenza di Tiberio a Capri (Naples: Electa, 2005); R. Belli, “Fortune e sfortune dell’archeologia caprese: lo scavo di Gasto,” in Conoscere Capri 2. Studi e materiali per la storia di Capri (eds. M. Amitrano, A. Cafiero and C. Fiorentino; Capri: Oebalus, 2004), 57–71; R. Ciardiello, “Abitare a

Beryllos, the Jews and the Villa of Poppaea in Oplontis (Torre Annunziata)

267

The Villa of Poppea at Oplontis with its exceptional dimensions and state of conservation constitutes one of the richest and most useful examples of this legacy for comprehending relationships between visual representations, architecture, and sculptural decorations, but also for its relation to a particular historical and religious era. On the basis some inscriptions that may related to a member of the imperial court, the villa may probably be attributed to the estate of the wife of the emperor Nero.9 The attribution is in fact connected with the discovery of a large Spanish, two-handled clay jar holding wine or oil (amphora) in room (48) and also with a plate that has an Italian clay seal on which there is a painted inscription: “Secundo Poppeae,” that is, “Secundo’s, slave of Poppea.”

Capri in età romana: il complesso residenziale di Gradola,” in Conoscere Capri. 5. Studi e materiali per la storia di Capri (eds. M. Amitrano, E. Federico and C. Fiorentino; Capri: Oebalus, 2007), 29–45. 5 F. Barnabei, La villa pompeiana di P. Fannio Sinistore (Rome: Tip. della R. Accademia dei Lincei, 1901); A. Sambon, Les fresques de Boscoreale (Paris / Naples: C. et E. Canessa, 1903); P. Williams Lehmann, Roman Wall Paintings from Boscoreale in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953); K. Fittschen, “Zum Figurenfries der Villa von Boscoreale,” in Neue Forschungen in Pompeji (eds. B. Andreae and H. Kyrieleis; Recklinghausen: Bongers, 1975), 93–100; M. L. Anderson, Pompeian Frescoes (The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, 45, 3. 1987–88; New York: The Museum, 1988); M. Pfrommer, Göttliche Fürsten in Boscoreale. Der Festsaal in der Villa des P. Fannius Synistor (Trier Winckelmannprogramm, 12; Mainz: P. von Zabern, 1993); V. J. Bruno, “The Mariemont fragments from Boscoreale in color,” in Functional and Spatial Analysis of Wall Painting, Proceedings of the Fifth International Congress on Ancient Wall Painting, Amsterdam 8–12 settembre 1992 (Leiden: Brill, 1993), 223–233; A. Casale and A. Cirillo, Il tesoro di Boscoreale e il suo scopritore. La vera storia ricostruita sui documenti dell’epoca (Pompeii: Associazione Amici di Pompei, 2004); G. Stefani, “La villa del tesoro di argenterie di Boscoreale,” in Argenti a Pompei. Catalogo della mostra, Napoli, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, 1 aprile – 2 ottobre 2006 (ed. P. G. Guzzo; Milan: Electa, 2006), 180–190; M. Grimaldi, “La Villa di Publius Fannius Synistor a Boscoreale,” in La villa romana (ed. R. Ciardiello; Naples: L’Orientale Editrice, 2007), 221–240. 6 P. H. von Blanckenhagen and C. Alexander, The paintings from Boscotrecase (Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Römische Abteilung, ErgänzungsHeft 6; Heidelberg: Kerle, 1962); R. E. Knauer, “Roman Wall Painting from Boscotrecase: three Studies in the Relationship between Writing and Painting,” Metropolitan Museum Journal 28 (1993): 13–45. 7 C. Cicirelli, “Terzigno,” in Storie da un’eruzione. Pompei, Ercolano, Oplontis. Catalogo della mostra, Napoli, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, 20 marzo – 31 agosto 2003 (eds. A. D’Ambrosio, P. G. Guzzo and M. Mastroroberto; Milan: Electa, 2003), 152–153; 200–221. 8 M. Aoyagi, C. Angelelli and S. Matsuyama, “La cd. Villa di Augusto a Somma Vesuviana (NA) alla luce delle più recenti ricerche archeologiche (campagne di scavo 2002– 2008),” Amoenitas I (2010): 177–220. 9 By that time the villa with its goods had been expropriated for the colony at Pompeii by Sulla (80’s B.C.E.), and was certainly the property of a Roman, not of a local person, nor was it owned by one of the Samnite aristocracy.

268

Rosaria Ciardiello

In addition, in the service corridor (52), near a portrait, there is a caricature with the Latin name “DRACO/NUS,” and a graffito10 in Greek letters, “MNHΣΘEI BHΡIΛΛOΣ”, that is, “remember Beryllus.” The graffito has been related to a passage in Flavius Josephus11 that mentions a Beryllus, tutor and secretary of Nero, who, between 60 and 62 C.E., paid by Syrian leaders, requested that the emperor cancel the equal political rights (isopoliteia) of the Jews in Caesarea. To the contrary, Poppea, who had become empress, carried out a political action in favor of the Jews, being a follower of monotheism and of certain practical religious customs, according to the testimony of Flavius Josephus12, who actually calls her a “woman fearing God”. The empress also assisted the Jewish actor Alityro to gain entrance into the good graces of Nero, so much so that he became one of Nero’s favorite actors. The graffito might then be interpreted as a kind of threat to Beryllus13 by a Jew. Or more probably, according to A. Varone14, this may be the signature left by an anonymous visitor to the villa, which has nothing to do with the philo-Judaism of Poppea. Furthermore, another inscription, engraved on a large clay jar for storing liquids or grain (dolio), names the factory of L. Arriano Anfione, a property

10 On the subject of this inscription and its attribution to the Villa of Poppea: Rendiconti dell’Accademia di Lettere Belle Arti di Napoli XXXIV (1959): 73–88; A. de Franciscis, “Beryllos e la villa ‘di Poppea’ ad Oplontis,” in Studies in Classical Art and Archaeology. A Tribute to P. H. von Blanckenhagen (eds. G. Kopcke and M. B. Moore; Locust Valley (N. Y.): Augustin, 1979), 231–234; C. Giordano, “Poppea e Nerone tra Oplontis e Pompei,” Sylva Mala II (1982): 2–8; S. De Caro, “Un graffito e altre testimonianze del culto della Magna Mater nella villa romana di Oplontis,” in Studia Pompeiana et Classica in honor of Wilhelmina F. Jashemski, 1. Pompeiana (ed. R. I. Curtis; New Rochelle (N. Y.): A. D. Caratzas, 1988), 89–94; A. Varone, “Le iscrizioni,” in Pompei. Abitare sotto il Vesuvio. Catalogo della mostra, Ferrara, Palazzo dei Diamanti, 29 settembre 1996–19 gennaio 1997 (ed. M. R. Borriello; Ferrara: Ferrara Arte, 1996), 197–201, esp. 200–201; L. Fergola and M. Pagano, Oplontis: le splendide ville di Torre Annunziata. Itinerario Archeologico Ragionato (Rome: T & M, 1998); P. G. Guzzo and A. Fergola, La villa di Poppea ad Oplontis (Milan: Motta, 2000), 9–14; L. Fergola, “Oplontis,” in Storie da un’eruzione. Pompei, Ercolano, Oplontis. Catalogo della mostra, Napoli, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, 20 marzo –31 agosto 2003 (eds. A. D’Ambrosio, P. G. Guzzo and M. Mastroroberto; Milan: Electa, 2003), 152–153; L. Fergola, Oplontis e le sue ville (Pompeii: Edizioni Flavius, 2004), 13; R. Ciardiello, “Alcune osservazioni sulle decorazioni della Villa di Poppea ad Oplontis,” Amoenitas 1 (2010): 273–288. The inscription in corridor (52) was found on painted plaster dated by de Franciscis to the years after the earthquake of 62 C.E. 11 Josephus, Ant. 20.182–184; A. de Franciscis, “Beryllos e la villa ‘di Poppea’ ad Oplontis,” in Studies in Classical Art and Archaeology. A Tribute to P. H. von Blanckenhagen, 232. 12 Josephus, Ant. 20.195, 252. 13 de Franciscis, “Beryllos e la villa ‘di Poppea’ ad Oplontis”: 231–234; Giordano, “Poppea e Nerone tra Oplontis e Pompei,” 7. 14 Varone, “Le iscrizioni,” 200–201.

Beryllos, the Jews and the Villa of Poppaea in Oplontis (Torre Annunziata)

269

of the same Poppea, to whom has been attributed, among others, the female marble portrait rediscovered in the garden.15

3. Some observations on excavations and decorations Systematic excavation of the villa began only in 1964, although already between 1839 and 1840, in the course of work laying out the Sarno canal, Bourbon excavators broke into certain zones of the complex (peristyle [32] and portico [40]).16 15 Regarding the portrait attributed to the empress, see S. De Caro, “Le lucerne dell’officina LVC,” Rendiconti dell’Accademia di Archeologia, Lettere e Belle Arti di Napoli 49 (1974): 107–134; A. de Franciscis, “La dama di Oplonti,” in Eikones. Festschrift H. Jucker (Antike Kunst, suppl. 12; eds. R. A. Stucky and I. Jucker; Bern: Franke, 1980), 111–117, here 115–117; S. De Caro, “The Sculptures of the Villa of Poppea at Oplontis. A Preliminary Report,” in Ancient Roman Villa Gardens. Dumbarton Oaks Colloquium on the History of Landscape Architecture (10th, 1984) (ed. E. Blair MacDougall; Washington: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 1987), 79–133. Others think rather of Antonia Minore, wife of Druso. For this proposal see most recently: Fergola, Oplontis e le sue ville, 90–91. On the sculptures and the decorative utility see also A. Salcuni, “La decorazione scultorea delle ville romane,” in La villa romana (ed. R. Ciardiello; Naples: L’Orientale, 2007), 63–81. 16 For specific references to the archaeology of Torre Annunziata see R. Liberatore, “Delle nuove ed antiche terme in Torre Annunciata,” Annali Civili del Regno delle Due Sicilie XII (1834): 95–109 (revised ed. M. Elefante; Torre Annunziata: Biblioteca Comunale E. Cesaro, 1997); M. Ruggiero, Storia degli Scavi di antichità nelle province di Terraferma dell’antico Regno di Napoli dal 1743 al 1876 (Naples: V. Morano, 1883); C. Knight, “William Robinson, ufficiale dei Marines britannici, ‘scopritore’ di Oplontis,” Cronache Pompeiane 5 (1979): 56–173; M. Pagano, “Planimetrie borboniche della villa A e di quella di C. Siculius,” Rivista di Studi Pompeiani V (1991–92): 219–221; L. Fergola, “La villa di Poppea a Oplontis,” in Pompei. Abitare sotto il Vesuvio, 135–141; M. Pagano, I diari di scavo di Pompei. Ercolano e Stabiae di Francesco e Pietro La Vega (1764–1810) (Rome: Erma di Bretschneider, 1997), 84; Fergola and Pagano, Oplontis. Le splendide ville romane di Torre Annunziata; S. De Caro, “Oplontis,” in Pompei. Storia, vita, arte della città sepolta (ed. M. Ranieri Panetta; Vercelli: Edizioni White Star, 2004), 373–399; Fergola, “Oplontis,” in Storie da un’eruzione. Pompei, Ercolano, Oplontis, 152; Fergola, Oplontis e le sue ville, 14–21; Fergola, “Oplontis. Villa di Poppea,” in Cibi e sapori a Pompei e dintorni (ed. Soprintendenza Archeologica di Pompei; Pompeii: Flavius, 2005), 154; M. P. Guidobaldi, “Oplontis,” in Pompei, Oplontis, Ercolano, Stabiae (eds. F. Pesando and M. P. Guidobaldi; Bari: Laterza, 2006); M. L. Thomas and J. R. Clarke, “The Oplontis Project 2005–2006: New Observations on Construction History at Villa A, Torre Annunziata,” Journal of Roman Archaeology 17 (2007): 100–109; J. R. Clarke and M. L. Thomas, “The Oplontis Project 2005–2006: New Evidence for the Building History and Decorative Programs at Villa A, Torre Annunziata,” in Nuove ricerche archeologiche nell’area vesuviana (scavi 2003–2006), Atti del Convegno Internazionale (Roma 1–3 febbraio 2007) (eds. P. G. Guzzo and M. P. Guidobaldi; Rome: Erma di Bretschneider, 2008), 465–471; J. Clarke and M. L. Thomas, “Oplontis Project (2005–2008),” in Vesuviana. Archeologie a confronto, Atti del Convegno Internazionale, Bologna 14–16 gennaio 2008 (ed. A. Coralini; Bologna: Ante Quem, 2009), 427–430.

270

Rosaria Ciardiello

At the moment of the eruption, the edifice was probably not inhabited, but was being restored, because of damage by the earthquake of 62 C.E. Up to the present no trace has been found of inhabitants or of personal property suitable for domestic use, while material for ornamental construction was found outside the villa, having been assembled in anticipation of the work of restoration. For example, the statue of a male centaur, another of a female centaur, and one of a child with a goose were discovered under portico (33), while the bases for the centaur statues were found in the garden, and the bases for the child and goose were located in peristyle (32). Capitals for restoration were placed under the portico, and grand columns for the large portico (60) were deposited momentarily in the living room (21). The primary nucleus of the villa, the atrium, deriving from the typical structure of a domus, dates from the middle of the first century A.B. Certain modifications were made, and numerous rooms were redecorated in the time of Augustus. In the age of Nero, between 40 and 45 B.C.E., important additions in opus reticulatum were realized, with the addition of a new residential quarter built on the east side around a swimming pool (natatio) approximately 60 meters long (200 Roman feet) and 17 meters wide, surrounded by auxiliary rooms (diaetae) and colonnades (portici). This enlargement does not clearly follow precise, balanced architectural canons, which are evident in the original phase of construction. In the case of the Villa of Poppea, the reasons for this choice are not to be sought in the need of adapting to the mountainous/hilly landscape, but rather in the search for a solution free from preconstituted canons, which would respond better to functional exigencies, and at the same time, to aesthetic sensibility. The enormous pool and the marble sculptures demonstrate the high economic status of the proprietor. Not far from the lengthy swimming pool, west of the short end, a gigantic Neo-Attic crater of Pentelic (Attic) marble with a visual representation of the dance of armed warriors (“pirrìchio”) was found. Most of the sculptures seem to be derived from Greek models. For example, the “child strangling a goose,” the prototype of which has been recognized as a work of Boethos of Chalcedon (second century B.C.E.), and an Aphrodite who fastens her sandals, from an original of the third century B.C.E., are arranged according to a sequence that suggests a precise decorative program17, on the one side, a statue of Heracles18, of a Greek 17 R. Ciardiello, “H ΓΛYΠTIKH ΣTHN ΠEΡIOKH TOY BOZOYBIOY,” in ΠOMΠHIA •H• ΘAMMENH ΠOΛH (suppl. of Corpus, ed. T. Cevoli; Daphni: ΠEΡIΣKOΠIO, 2005), 108–113. 18 De Caro, “The Sculptures of the Villa of Poppea,” 79–133, esp. 102, n. 13.

Beryllos, the Jews and the Villa of Poppaea in Oplontis (Torre Annunziata)

271

adolescent19 (ephebe), of the goddess of victory20 (Nike), and on the other north side, a second twin victory goddess (Nike), an Amazon or Artemis or Atlanta21, another Heracles, a twin of the first22, and numerous Corinthian capitals mounted on marble columns that surround the swimming pool.23 A well-known passage of Pliny,24 related to statues of the type of the Oplontis adolescent, confirms that for most Romans who were collectors, philological identification of the figure was important, related to their symbolizing the world of the gymnasium: “placuere et nudae tenentes hastam ab epheborum e gymnasiis exemplaribus quas Achilleas vocant (also naked figures holding spears, made from models of Greek young men from the gymnasiums – that are called figures of Achilles – became popular”). Sculpture around the pool, therefore, must have created a perfectly credible athletic ambiance, considering the dimensions of the pool, in which Roman youths were able to swim competitively, or on the track to race under the propitious eyes of the gods and of the protecting heroes. This vision was in harmony with Hellenistic tendencies in late Roman Republican culture and with the Augustan political attitude to the youth, which was expressed in institutions supporting games, also in sport and paramilitary organizations, and in the parallel promotion of the construction of sport edifices such as the large palestre of Pompeii and Herculaneum, where the future Roman citizen (civis Romanus) might develop his mind and body (mens et corpus). We should not forget, moreover, that the exploration of this garden has not been completed and that the discovery of a fragment of the portrait of a child25, of two statue bases and of two tracks at the edge of the excavations, lead us to imagine that the complex was further articulated. The marvel of the garden in this quarter is not yet exhausted; we mentioned that the area (92) was under preparation, which opens up a window on the refined octagonal room (78), with wall surfaces covered by a marble socle [the lowest of three horizontal bands that decorated the walls] surmounted by panels of inlaid wood. From here the proprietor was able to display for guests the splendid sculptures placed around the swimming pool. To the north of the edifice, on the side facing the countryside and the lower slopes of Vesuvius, the architect designed an extension of the most ancient nucleus of the villa, between the entrance, the atrium (5), and living 19 De

Caro, “The Sculptures of the Villa of Poppea,” 104, n. 15. Caro, “The Sculptures of the Villa of Poppea,” 106, n. 16. 21 De Caro, “The Sculptures of the Villa of Poppea,” 110, n. 18. 22 De Caro, “The Sculptures of the Villa of Poppea,” 102, n. 14. 23 On the sculptures of the villa see recently Fergola, Oplontis e le sue ville, 88–99. 24 Plin. Nat.Hist. XXXIV, 18. 25 De Caro, “The Sculptures of the Villa of Poppea,” 112, n. 19. 20 De

272

Rosaria Ciardiello

room (21), constructing a walkway bordered by a hedge of shrubs, perhaps box-trees. The box-tree was beloved, and employed especially to form hedges of small trees trimmed to represent what the ancients called opus topiarium, an invention that they attributed to the equestrian G. Matius, who lived at the end of the first century B.C.E.26 At the far north of this walkway, two others certainly converged, although only the eastern one has been excavated; both walkways were broader and bordered by shrubs, which in an oblique line extended symmetrically from the ends of the two wings, (33) and (34), of the porticus triplex, which formed the north façade of the edifice27, as if to continue into the garden the passage initiated in the shadow of the colonnade. There is no doubt that at the convergence of the three walkways, so at the optical axis of one entering the atrium, there was a dominating feature, perhaps an edicola or a small temple, of the type presented in visual representations of the second style, with the function of a fountain, since a channel was discovered near the modern stairs that give access to the excavations. In the two rectangular areas delimited by these walkways, four marble statue-fountains of male and female centaurs were arranged28. The statues were deposited near the colonnaded walkways, but the archaeological recovery of their bases in situ is testimony to their original placement. They certainly constituted an allusion to the mythical theme of the “family of centaurs,” and at the same time, suggested to the perceptive guest the antinomy between civilization and savagery29. The oblique footpaths were also enriched by sculptures such as herms, arranged in hedges of shrubbery, portraying Aphrodite30, both the child31 Nat.Hist. XII 13. porticus triplex and the comparisons with pompeian paintings: Vitr., de arch. VI 7, 13–15; Varr. Rerum rust., I 13, 3; Plin. Epist. V 6; see K. M. Swoboda, Römische und romanische Paläste. Eine architekturgeschichtliche Untersuchung (Graz: Böhlau, 1969); A. Boethius, The Golden House of Nero (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1950) 113–114. 28  S. De Caro, “Sculture nella villa di Poppea in Oplontis,” Cronache Pompeiane II (1976): 184–224, esp. 198–219; De Caro, “The Sculptures of the Villa of Poppea,” 79–133, esp. 88, nn. 1–4. 29 The theme of the animals of the wood and the mythical creatures that live there as Satyrs, Sylens, Fauns was preferred in the decoration of ancient gardens, in particular in Pompeii. See H. Döhl, “La scultura,” in Pompei 79. Raccolta di studi per il decimo nono centenario dell’eruzione vesuviana (ed. F. Zevi, Naples: Macchiaroli 1979), 201–210; E. J. Dwyer, Pompeian Sculpture in its Domestic Context. A Study of Five Pompeian Houses and Their Contents, Rome 1982; D. K. Hill, “Some Sculpture from Roman Domestic Gardens,” in Ancient Roman Gardens, Dumbarton Oaks Colloquium on the History of Landscape Architecture (7th, 1979) (eds. E. B. MacDougall and W. F. Jashemski; Washington: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 1981), 81–94; in the same book see also B. Sismondo Ridgway, “Greek Antecedents of Garden Sculpture,” 7–28. 30 De Caro, “The Sculptures of the Villa of Poppea,” 90, n. 5. 31 De Caro, “The Sculptures of the Villa of Poppea,” 92, n. 8. 26 Plin. 27 On

Beryllos, the Jews and the Villa of Poppaea in Oplontis (Torre Annunziata)

273

and the adult Dionysus32, and two portraits, one of a woman33 and the other of a youth34. Not only the dimensions, but especially the architectural principles applied in the composition of the dimensions of the buildings as in the gardens make this architectural complex one of the most significant and famous for us in the Roman world. The exploration of the gardens, which has accompanied the excavations, has demonstrated that the architectural aspects and the gardens were conceived functionally in relation to each other, and certainly the architect was also a topiarius, a designer of gardens35. Moreover, the decisive function of the sculpture in this context should be emphasized, arranged according to a precise decorative program, as well as the visual representations of gardens on the walls, which amplified the effects illusionistically36. The villa presents itself architecturally as a harmoniously structured complex, conceived as a single unit, with interiors designed according to the criterion of functionality, with internal arrangements that guarantee communication between the various domestic nuclei. Salons and auxiliary rooms (diaetae) skillfully linked to each other were placed beside the traditional rooms, all mediated by porches/colonnades, which gives the complex unusual proportions. To sum up, the villa appears as an extraordinary fusion of every component of Roman architectural and decorative culture37, in which beyond doubt the visual representations occupy a notable place, both because of their extraordinary state of conservation and their intrinsic quality, certainly related to the fact that their excavation was followed immediately by restoration. The visual representations were related to the architecture and are connected to the function for which each single stanza was intended. 32 Only the pilaster of the erma was found: De Caro, “The Sculptures of the Villa of Poppea,” 94 n. 9. 33 A. de Franciscis, “La dama di Oplonti,” 111–117, esp. 115–117; De Caro, “The Sculptures of the Villa of Poppea,” 92 n. 7. 34 De Caro, “The Sculptures of the Villa of Poppea,” 90, n. 6. 35 See W. F. Jashemski, The gardens of Pompeii, Herculaneum and the villas destroyed by Vesuvius (New Rochelle: A. D. Caratzas, 1979), 289–314. 36 I. Varriale, “Cicli iconografici nella Casa del Menandro a Pompei,” in Circulación de temas y sistemas decorativos en la pintura mural antigua. Actas del IX Congreso Internacional de la Association Internationale pour la Peinture Murale Antique (AIPMA), Zaragoza – Calatayud, 21–25 septiembre 2004 (ed. C. Guiral Pelegrin; Zaragoza: Gobierno de Aragòn, 2007), 336–339. 37 The villa belongs to type the Romans called “pseudo urbano” (see Vitr., de arch. VI 5, 3: “in urbe atria proxima januis solent esse, ruri autem pseudourbanis statim perystilia, deinde tunc atria habentia circum porticus pavimentatas spectantes ad palaestras et ambulationes”); see D. Mustilli, “La villa pseudourbana ercolanese,” in La Villa dei Papiri (Cronache Ercolanesi, II suppl., eds. D. Mustilli et alii; Naples: Macchiaroli, 1983), 7–18, esp. 14–15 and note 37–38.

274

Rosaria Ciardiello

The atrium, for example, transformed by the second style decoration into a sumptuous Hellenistic palace with three doors, as in a frons scaenae (or architectural façade of a theatrical stage), was the space intended to receive clientes and was, therefore, the place entrusted with the self-representation of the proprietor of the house. The decoration, both austere and grand with imagines clipeatae, indicates the importance of the dominus and his family; here might be exhibited the stemma imaginum with portraits of the ancestors, whose portrayal was sometimes displayed in the lararium, other times in the wall decoration38. In the atrium of the Oplontis’ villa one imagines recognizing the ancestors of the dominus in the imagines clipeatae, even if, in reality, the heads of satyrs obviously appear in the shields. This is reflected in Vitruvius’ definition39 of aedificiorum figuras, columnarum et fastigiorum eminentes proiecturas [“the contours of buildings, the outstanding projections of columns and gables”], which reproduced in visual representations have the exclusive purpose of making the internal space appear more sumptuous. Representational space, whether public or private, is differentiated not only by the richness of the decoration but also by the fact that public spaces present a conservative and austere character, while private ones host visual innovations. Rooms such as cubicula, for example, are spaces in which one may very easily experiment with new decorative arrangements.40 Cubiculum (11), even though the decorative style is stylistically close to that of the atrium, represents a reduction of architectural motifs (columns, 38 See D. Scagliarini Corlaita, “La pittura parietale nelle domus e nelle villae del territorio vesuviano,” in Romana Pictura, la pittura romana dalle origini all’età bizantina Catalogo della mostra, Rimini 28 febbraio – 30 giugno 1998 (ed. A. Donati; Milan: Electa, 1998), 57–64. 39 Vitruvius De architectura 5.5.2; R. A. Tybout, Aedificiorum figurae. Untersuchungen zu den Architekturdarstellungen des frühen zweiten Stils (Amsterdam: J. C. Gieben, 1989). 40 For example in the decoration in white background from Villa Imperiale in Pompeii: U. Pappalardo, “Die Villa Imperiale in Pompeji,” Antike Welt 16 (1985): 3–15; U. Pappalardo, “La Villa Imperiale a Pompei: rapporto preliminare,” Dialoghi di Archeologia, s. 3, 5, 2 (1987): 125–134, esp. 125–127; U. Pappalardo, “La bottega della Villa Imperiale a Pompei,” Mededelingen van het Nederlands Instituut te Rome 54 (1995): 176–190; U. Pappalardo, “I mosaici della Villa Imperiale a Pompei,” in Atti del IV Colloquio dell’Associazione Italiana per lo studio e la conservazione del Mosaico (AISCOM), Palermo, 9–13 dicembre 1996 (eds. R. Carra Bonacasa and F. Guidobaldi; Ravenna: Edizioni del Girasole, 1997), 541–554; U. Pappalardo, “I cicli pittorici nella Villa Imperiale a Pompei,” in I temi figurativi nella pittura parietale antica (IV sec. a.C. – IV sec. d.C.). Atti del VI Convegno Internazionale sulla Pittura Parietale Antica, Bologna, 20–23 settembre 1995 (ed. D. Scagliarini Corlaita; Bologna: University Press, 1997), 271–274; U. Pappalardo, “Les cycles picturaux de la Villa Imperiale a Pompéi,” Mélanges de l’Ecole Française de Rome 113, 2 (2001): 897–912; U. Pappalardo and M. Grimaldi, “La cronologia della Villa Imperiale a Pompei”, in Otium. Festschrift für Volker Michael Strocka (eds. T. Ganschow et alii; Remshalden: Greiner, 2005), 271–274.

Beryllos, the Jews and the Villa of Poppaea in Oplontis (Torre Annunziata)

275

architraves) close to which landscapes appear as, for example, on the north wall or in the lunette. In the wall decoration of the cubiculum, inside a symmetrically arranged imaginary architectural structure, the artist has utilized landscapes, a repetitive formula, which functions to focus the attention of the spectator. Artists repeated the same images in different contexts in the upper ornamental panel of the atrium, on the short sides of cubiculum (11), above the imitation marble of triclinium (14), and in oecus (23)41. This not only allowed the painter to utilize sketchbooks, but also indicates that there is no poetic or philosophical intention in the representation of landscapes. The task consisted exclusively in the realization of a harmonious whole that corresponds to the customer’s wealth. Only with the third style, when landscapes became a central subject of decorations, did they acquire an ideological value42. The existence of several copies of the same subject allows one to believe that illustrative papyri or even proper albums with figured scenes existed43. The books might have served in fact as “agents” specifically for the transmission of chosen figurative patterns, which, in the Hellenistic age, seem first to have enhanced scientific texts and then literary ones. The resulting reciprocal exchange between illustrations in texts and actual paintings is particularly evident in representations of the second style; that compositions depend on illustrations from books is suggested by the addition of the names of protagonists or by elements typical of a theatrical repertoire (stage structures, masked characters, masks, etc.)44. On the other hand, one can hypothesize a relation with the theater not only by the parallelism between actual architecture and visual representations but also by the continuity of themes. The visual representations mirror 41 About the decorations in this room see G. Stefani and M. Borgongino, “A proposito della cassata di Oplontis,” Oebalus. Studi sulla Campania nell’Antichità 4 (2009): 289–321. 42 J. R. Clarke, “The early Third Style at the Villa of Oplontis,” Römische Mitteilungen XCIV (1987): 267–294; J. R. Clarke, “Landscape paintings in the Villa of Oplontis,” Journal of Roman Archaeology 9 (1996): 81–107; A. Rouveret, “Prime forme di pittura di paesaggio: Boscoreale e Oplontis,” in Pittura romana. Dall’ellenismo al tardo antico (eds. I. Baldassarre et alii; Milan: Federico Motta, 2002), 96–100. 43 This is the idea of K. Schefold, “Bilderbücher als Vorlagen römische Sarcophage,” Mélanges de l’Ecole Française de Rome LXXXVIII (1976): 759–797; E. Moormann, “La pittura romana fra costruzione architettonica e arte figurativa,” in Romana Pictura, la pittura romana dalle origini all’età bizantina, Catalogo della mostra, Rimini 28 febbraio – 30 giugno 1998 (ed. A. Donati; Milan: Electa, 1998), 14–32. 44 See Schefold, “Bilderbücher als Vorlagen römische Sarcophage,” 759–797; K. Weitzmann, “An enamelled Glass Beaker with a Scene from New Comedy,” Antike Kunst 24 (1981): 39–49, esp. 45–49; G. Cavallo, “Libro e cultura scritta,” in Storia di Roma. Caratteri e morfologie, vol. IV (eds. E. Gabba and A. Schiavone; Turin: Einaudi, 1989), 693–734; E. F. Ghedini, s.v. “Trasmissione delle iconografie,” Enciclopedia dell’Arte Antica Classica ed Orientale, II suppl., vol. V (1997): 823–837.

276

Rosaria Ciardiello

what Vitruvius45 affirms on the subject of stage designing, which provides for domestic perspectives, colonnades, and landscapes corresponding to the genre of comedy, tragedy, and satyrplays. In this way the same moral principles attributed to diverse theatrical genre were bestowed on domus46. Ancient sources do not indicate the existence of such patterns, nor are any two walls identical in detail and syntax. In the absence of such a pattern, it is consequently possible to imagine that the painters, beginning with a basic pattern, a fixed exemplar of the same decorative elements, invented on the spot solutions that they thought best in relation to the space to be decorated and in relation to necessities. It is, therefore, probable that customers indicated their preferences to the artists, who produced a sketch, which also included the colors to be utilized, essential both for their suitability to the space and for stabilizing the cost of the decoration. The systematic collating of details suitable for diverse spaces in the same house or also in diverse houses indicates that these complexes were often replicated in groups. Even though artists complied with decorative models, it is quite rare to encounter examples in which they reproduce an identical decorative system. It is, therefore, difficult to recognize a particular artist on the basis of purely formal considerations. It is possible to categorize many painters who share magnification of the most common decorative elements47. Precisely the identity of certain secondary particulars in visual representations causes one to ask whether achievements were mediated by auxiliary techniques. One possible hypothesis is that certain artists had detailed models which they reproduced for diverse customers, or that these models circulated among diverse artists. A second hypothesis allows one to imagine the transmission of iconography through cartoons (drawings). In fact, the coincidence observed, for example, between the details of the Villa of Boscoreale and those of the Villa of Oplontis demonstrate that the two decorated complexes are not identical in their totality, but rather in groups of particulars. De architectura 6.6.9. M. L. Anderson, Pompeian Frescoes in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (MMA Bulletin 45; New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1987), about the frescoes of cubiculum from Boscoreale; about different ideas about the problem see Moormann, “La pittura romana fra costruzione architettonica e arte figurativa,” 14–32, esp. 18; U. Pappalardo and A. Capuano, “Immagini della città nella pittura romana: visioni fantastiche o realtà architettoniche,” in Imaging Ancient Rome. Documentation – Visualization – Imagination, Proceedings of the Third Williams Symposium on Classical Architecture, American Academy in Rome 20–23 maggio 2004 (Journal of Roman Archaeology, Supplementary series, n. 61; eds. L. Haselberg and J. Humphrey; Portsmouth: Journal of Roman Archaeology, 2006), 75–90. 47 I. Bragantini, “Una pittura senza maestri: la produzione della pittura parietale romana,” Journal of Roman Archaeology 17 (2004): 131–145. 45 Vitr. 46 See

Beryllos, the Jews and the Villa of Poppaea in Oplontis (Torre Annunziata)

277

This renders it improbable that a single cartoon was employed for each wall, while the coincidence allows one to hypothesize that sketches were employed for the decoration of single walls that repositioned and varied the dimensions in order to create only in appearance a different architectural work. The creativity of Roman artists enabled rapid utilization of diverse sketches in various combinations, exploiting elements of various models and articulating a kind of “patchwork.” And precisely the multiple variety in combinations of traditional elements makes it difficult to determine a chronological sequence for the second style.48 For that purpose it can be added that visual decoration also seems to expand the functional definition of spaces, a phenomenon that interacts with the work of artists who vary their repertoire, techniques, material, sketches, motifs, and colors in relation to the function of the diverse spaces to be decorated49. For example, careful attention to distinguishing static from dynamic functions is particularly evident in second style decoration; within the second style there are specific decorative schemes for triclinia and for cubiculi. The decoration of walls, consistent also with that of the floors, virtually divides a room into two parts, each painted architectural space with its own appropriate perspectival vanishing point: one section closest to the entrance where movement occurs and another further inside reserved for couches and, therefore, for prolonged, stationary activity, which demonstrates that every moment of domestic life is lived in relation to visual representations.50 The scenography of the second style, the geometric rigor of the designs within the massive jumble of fantastic, concrete images, appears extraordinary and complex. Considering certain concrete data and placing actual spaces in relation to painted spaces, there have been recent attempts at re48 An

example is the Villa dei Misteri where the differences in the decorations between the different rooms suggests development over time. So we should imagine a presence of painters in the villa for a long time, maybe a quarter of a century while it is easier to imagine that the decorations of all rooms in II style are contemporaneous, and the differences are only for the use of different models: so Bragantini, “Una pittura senza maestri,” 131–145. 49 Scagliarini Corlaita, “La pittura parietale nelle domus e nelle villae del territorio vesuviano,” 57–64; Varriale, “Cicli iconografici nella Casa del Menandro a Pompei,” 336–339. 50 H. Drerup, “Bildraum und Realraum in der römische Architektur,” Römische Mitteilungen 66 (1959): 147–174; D. Scagliarini Corlaita, “Spazio e decorazione nella pittura pompeiana,” Palladio 23–25 (1974–1976): 3–44; D. Scagliarini Corlaita, “Propter spatia longitudinis: cicli e serie figurative nelle ambulationes del secondo e del quarto ‘stile pompeiano’,” in I temi figurativi nella pittura parietale antica (IV sec. a.C. – IV sec. d.C.). Atti del VI Convegno Internazionale sulla Pittura Parietale Antica, Bologna, 20–23 settembre 1995 (ed. D. Scagliarini Corlàita; Bologna: University Press, 1997), 119–124; G. Sauron, La pittura allegorica a Pompei. Lo sguardo di Cicerone (Milan: Jaca Book, 2007).

278

Rosaria Ciardiello

constructions through axonometric isometric projections (the visual representations of three-dimensional objects in two dimensions in which the angles between any two of the three coordinate axes are 120 degrees). The scenes do not visually represent an actual, physical space; the images, in fact, can consist of extreme distortions of representations of the whole, which remain a fantastic, unrealizable construction. Frequently, wall decorations display colonnades that have neither beginnings nor endings, which allude to a “beyond” that is not revealed; architectural elements do not always respect the proper proportions of Roman architecture as codified by classical treatises, nor is it possible that the fragments visible in the frescoes univocally represent a defined typology. In order to construct a relationship between actual and imaginary spaces, therefore, a reconstruction is produced by the technique of axonometric isometry, representing the painted walls as a glass, through which actual and virtual spaces come into contact. As perspective is by definition determined by the point of view of the one drawing, axonometric projection is a geometric-graphic technique that pretends to be “objective,” in order to represent that which is, therefore, independent of an observer. It is a projection into infinity, in which objects maintain their characteristic measurements, apart from their spatial relationships, independently of the position of an observer. Axonometric projection, therefore, being a kind of abstract representation by images that never pretend to be actual ones seen by humans, retains a strong level of immediacy and legibility, also for non-experts. The reconstruction proposed has, therefore, demonstrated that the principles of illusory relationships are the same as those utilized for constructing actual architectural complexes, demonstrating in this way that, even though the decorations are the result of “patchwork” compositions, in reality, all the single elements form a system among themselves that create a “realistic illusion,” eliminating the distance between actual and fantastic spaces. The evolution of visual representations on walls coincides with a change in its relationship to the spaces decorated. The negation of the wall structure becomes much more evident when most visual representations on walls renounce the representation of defined architectural spaces; the visual images become ever more dreamlike, independent of the spaces where they are portrayed, eventually giving life to a new style of painting. The third style is characterized in fact by the stylization of form that appears deprived of body. The architectural constructions are no longer translatable into three-dimensional forms; ornamental elements dominate, among which are recognized Egyptian motifs, reflecting the conquest of Egypt by Augustus. The walls lose profundity, concluding and closing actual environments, different from the preceding decorative mode, which opened itself to infinity

Beryllos, the Jews and the Villa of Poppaea in Oplontis (Torre Annunziata)

279

near the external world. Such a radical change has been interpreted as a sign of security, thanks to Augustus’ pacification, which privileged the private in place of the public. In this way an atmosphere developed adapted to a rich and refined social class, influenced by the convictions of the emperor; there was no longer any need to search for themes inspired by distant Hellenistic palaces, which could be found rather in the tranquility of familiar places51. The new visual representation on walls of the third style replaces the preceding conception of wall painting; the new visionary perspective is of an illusionary landscape that viewers could intuit beyond the wall itself, a composition on a flat background without spatial profundity.52 This means that columns become thin, fragile bands, and the colored orthostates [stones slabs supporting the base of a wall] become simple monochrome planes. Walls are no longer the place for illusory realization of space, in which one could act. The wall became a simple background for a visual representation no longer constructed with a conception of memesis, but which rather developed the capacity to express also transcendental thoughts, or else, “ideas.” Nature no longer set limits for the imagination of the artist, just as Vitruvius was able to say of these painters: Haec autem nec sunt, nec fieri possunt, nec fuerunt. These decorations fully reflect political developments. The second, naturalistic style is connected to actuality/reality and to the substance of the matter, in which from a direct expression of a historically difficult period; one arrived at a spirituality which was finally consecrated with the pacification brought by Augustus. The plan of calidarium (8) indicates that visual decoration in antiquity underwent a restoration recognizable, for example, on the east and west walls and in the upper [of three horizontal] registers.53 According to W. Ehrhardt, the owner modified the breadth of the room and, therefore, was compelled 51 M. Torelli, “Gesellschaft und Wirtschaftsformen der augusteischen Zeit,” in Kaiser Augustus und die verlorene Republik, Catalogue of the Exhibition (ed. H. G. Martin; Berlin: P. von Zabern 1988), 23–48; U. Pappalardo, “Il terzo stile”, in La pittura di Pompei (Milano: Jaca Book, 1991), 221–228; Moormann, “La pittura romana fra costruzione architettonica e arte figurativa,” 14–32. 52 W. Ehrhardt, “Gli stili pompeiani e il proprietario: l’esempio della Casa delle Nozze d’Argento,” in Nuove ricerche a Pompei ed Ercolano. Atti del Convegno Internazionale, Roma 28 – 30 novembre 2002 (eds. P. G. Guzzo and M. P. Guidobaldi; Rome: Erma di Bretschneider, 2005), 170–190, esp. 189; J. R. Clarke, “The early Third Style at the Villa of Oplontis,” 267–294, esp. 294. 53 Ehrhardt, “Gli stili pompeiani e il proprietario: l’esempio della Casa delle Nozze d’Argento,” 170–190, esp. 189; so recently, M. L. Thomas and J. R. Clarke, “The Oplontis Project 2005–2006: New Observations on Construction History at Villa A, Torre Annunziata,” Journal of Roman Archaeology 17 (2007): 100–109; Clarke and Thomas, “The Oplontis Project 2005–2006: New Evidence for the Building History and Decorative Programs at Villa A, Torre Annunziata,” 465–471; Clarke and Thomas, “Oplontis Project (2005–2008),” 427–430.

280

Rosaria Ciardiello

to rearrange the visual representations. Even though the difference between the original decoration and that of the imitation is clear particularly in the details, the polychrome surfaces and the central fresco conserve invariable the ideological message of the third style. The illusionism of the second style again found place in the ultimate phase of the life of the villa. The perspectival contrast was realized in the sequence of gardens (viridaria; 61, 68, 70, 87), with an internal axis through a series of rectangles that face the swimming pool (natatio), one of the most refined elements of the architecture of the villa during the Imperial period. The illusion of small actual gardens leads from one to the other by means of ample windows, the axiality accentuated by gardens painted on the walls. In fact, the closed walls to the east and to the west are also imagined as broken through by copies of painted windows within a wall with a red background. Above the socle, enlivened by clusters of flowering plants, the pillars of the windows are decorated by vine-shoots of ivy. In the light of the windows, against a background of unrealistic yellow, is silhouetted a panorama of gardens with trees, shrubs, and statue-fountains, such as a female centaur with a square basin, counterbalanced by a companion with a circular basin, while the fountain on the panel nearby exhibits a couple of sphinxes. On the north wall there is a neoattic marble crater with a serpentfooted giant in sublime relief; on its rim stands a magnificent peacock, while other birds flutter between the branches of the central tree and among the lateral shrubs in the background. Therefore, the wall decoration articulated the architectural spaces and separated the diverse nuclei. In this way prearranged paths of visual enjoyment were created for their viewers. The effect was obtained by means of a differentiated use of a rich assortment of the decoration themes. Some were suitable for spaces destined for prolonged activity, others for spaces of transient observation, conceived in a way that the visitor would not have lingered over one single point on a wall, but would have felt them as an accompaniment en route. The study of the decoration contributes, therefore, to understanding the function and the fruition of the grand, highly articulated structure of the residence of the Poppaei at Oplontis, a splendid example of a Roman villa of otium and luxuria, where all the refinement, architecture, art of the gardens, of visual representations, and sculpture of the age were wisely employed in service of the pleasant sojourning of the proprietors.

Beryllos, the Jews and the Villa of Poppaea in Oplontis (Torre Annunziata)

281

Captions to figures Fig. 1: Oplontis, Villa of Poppeae, view (Photo R. Ciardiello). Fig. 2: Oplontis, Villa of Poppeae, plan. Fig. 3: Oplontis, Villa of Poppeae, Portrait of so-called Poppeae. Fig. 4: Oplontis, Villa of Poppeae, service corridor (52), near a portrait, there is a caricature with the Latin name “DRACO/NUS,” and a graffito in Greek letters, “ΜΝΗΣΘΗΙ BHΡYΛΛΟΣ”, that is, “remember Beryllus.” Fig. 5: Oplontis, Villa of Poppeae, view (Photo R. Ciardiello). Fig. 6: Oplontis, Villa of Poppeae, fresco of roman villa with porticus triplex. Fig. 7: Oplontis, Villa of Poppeae, atrium (5) in IInd style (from Mazzoleni‑Pappalardo 2004). Fig. 8: Oplontis, Villa of Poppeae, fresco from atrium (5) in IInd style, detail with imagines clipeatae (from Mazzoleni-Pappalardo 2004). Fig. 9: Oplontis, Villa of Poppeae, view of triclinium (14) (from Mazzoleni‑Pappalardo 2004). Fig. 10: Oplontis, Villa of Poppea, fresco of triclinium (14) detail with imagines clipeatae (Photo I. Varriale). Fig. 11: Oplontis, Villa of Poppeae, view of cubiculum (11) in IInd style (from Mazzoleni-Pappalardo 2004). Fig. 12: Oplontis, Villa of Poppeae, drawing of lunette in cubiculum (11) in IInd style, (from Clarke 1996). Fig. 13: Oplontis, Villa of Poppeae, view of oecus (23) in IInd style (from MazzoleniPappalardo 2004). Fig. 14: Oplontis, Villa of Poppeae, Photo and drawing of glass with pomegranate from oecus (23) (M. Notomista). Fig. 15: Villa of Fannius Synistor in Boscoreale, Photo and drawing of glass with pomegranate (M. Notomista). Fig. 16: Oplontis, Villa of Poppeae, fresco in IInd style from oecus (15) (from Mazzoleni-Pappalardo 2004). Fig. 17: Oplontis, Villa of Poppeae, drawing of fresco in IInd style from oecus (15) with vanishing point (from Mazzoleni-Pappalardo 2004). Fig. 18: Oplontis, Villa of Poppeae, oecus (15), reconstruction produced by the technique of axonometric isometry, representing the painted walls as a glass, through which actual and virtual spaces come into contact (from Mazzoleni-Pappalardo 2004). Fig. 19: Oplontis, Villa of Poppeae, fresco in IIIrd style from room (10bis) (Photo I. Varriale). Fig. 20: Oplontis, Villa of Poppeae, calidarium (8), north wall (Photo I. Varriale).

Space and Interaction Narrative and Representation of Power under the Herodians* Monika Bernett A newly-excavated theater on the Herodium was made public at a press conference in Jerusalem, mid-September 2010. Shortly before his tragic death, Ehud Netzer presented yet another archaeological sensation of this building complex, after successfully discovering the remains of a mausoleum in 2007, which he identified as the burial place of Herod and some of his family members.1 The complexes are located to the right and left of the monumental staircase to the hill-palace (figs. 1 and 2). Like almost all archaeological remains relating to Herod, the Herodium theater exhibits significantly excessive architecture, where the basic structural function has become enriched by complex elements and loaded symbolically. Thus, the buildings are not always easy to comprehend – representing severe challenges to archaeologists and historians. At any rate, the situation of the new theater is as follows2: Sunken in the hill, the relatively small, semi-circular theater (auditorium about 27 m; stage about 24 × 13 m) had a capacity of about 700 people. The rows are divided by a diazoma into lower and upper area and by stairs into several segments. At the top of the auditorium, opposite the center of the stage, there is a two-story box, 7 m wide, 8 m deep and 6 m high (with two adjoining rooms), an architectural rarity in Greco-Roman theaters. The installation of such a box breaks with the conventional location for places of honor in Greek or Roman theaters, which is usually near or at the Orches* I cordially thank Annette Weissenrieder for her interest in these reflections and for the friendly patience that she awaited their completion with. Thomas Soden took the burden of translation and helped with final corrections; I wish to express my heartfelt gratitude to him for this cooperation. – A somewhat more detailed version in German appeared in Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins 127,1 (2011). 1 M. Bernett, “Zum Stand der Ausgrabungen des Theaterbaus am Herodium,” Welt und Umwelt der Bibel 59 (2011): 68–69. 2 See E. Netzer, “In Search of Herod’s Tomb,” Biblical Archaeology Review 37:1 (2011): 36–48, 47 f.

284

Monika Bernett

tra.3 There are certain parallels to the so-called Pulvinar, a two-story box built under Augustus in the Circus Maximus, as well as to the theater of the Hippodrome-complex, which Herod had built north of the Jericho palacedistrict. The walls of the box are decorated with frescoes in the Second Pompeian Style. In the upper register there are illusionistic wall-paintings, which feign window-views of stylized Nile landscapes animated by plants and animals. The style and representations are so far unique to the region. Yet further excavations need to clarify how the structures discovered around the theater are to be interpreted functionally, and how they are connected to the actual palace. Ehud Netzer defended a thesis, that Herod had the theater erected by Italian craftsmen no later than 15 B.C.E., for it to be used during the visit of Agrippa, Augustus’ son-in-law and general governor in the east of the Roman Empire since 17 B.C.E. Then the building functioned as a theater for only about 10 years, until it was torn down after Herod’s death so far that it could be concealed under the conical mound of the Herodium. There are fixtures from this work-phase (partition walls, a fireplace). So, the theater and other palace-architecture were buried with Herod.4 Though no reference can yet be made to the final publication of the theater, this newly-discovered structure can nevertheless point to special features in the context of Herodian representation of political power and dominion. In order to accentuate this I sum up the Herodium-theater as follows: 1. The complex combined Roman and Greek public theater architecture. The semi-circular floor-plan is Roman, natural hillside location and deep Orchestra come from the Greek tradition. 2. The box had a spatial depth of 8 m; action on stage and in the Orchestra could be followed only when one approached relatively near the edge. 3. The construction is not urban-public architecture, but part of an extraurban ruler’s palace, a place of exclusive, courtly interaction and representation of power (for the total Herodium-complex, fig. 3).5 4. With Herod the theater as well as part of the visible exterior structure of the Herodium were buried in order to give artificially to the hill an ideal, remarkably aesthetic conformity.6 Formal allusions to Augustus’ mausoleum in Rome are possible; but the discrepancies are greater. 3 H. H. Schmitt, “Art. Theater,” in Lexikon des Hellenismus (eds. idem and E. Vogt; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2005), 1064–1067, 1065. 4 Cf. Bernett, “Zum Stand der Ausgrabungen des Theaterbaus am Herodium,” 69. 5 For the archaeological state of knowledge, E. Netzer, Stratigraphy and Architecture. Hasmonean and Herodian Palaces at Jericho. Final Reports of the 1973–1987 Excavations, Vol. I (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 2001), 99–108 and idem, The Architecture of Herod, the Great Builder (2nd rev. ed. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008), 189–201. 6 Josephus speaks of the hill as τὸν δὲ µαστοειδῆ κολωνὸν ὄντα χειροποίητον (Jos. Bell. 1.419; similarly Ant. 15.324). Netzer’s new excavations, which have discovered the parts of

Space and Interaction

285

5. Regardless of whether the tomb at the Herodium is in fact Herod’s mausoleum, after Herod’s death, the kind of courtly life as had happened on the hill-palace was discontinued. The theater must have been part of a particular perception of representation of political power via Herod, which his successor and son Archelaus was not to share; either he could not or would not.7 In the following I would like to deal with the question of representation of political power and dominion under Herod and his successors in four steps: (1) the concepts and the state of research; (2) historical situation: challenges and the responses of the Herodians to the discourse on political power and dominion in the early Principate; (3) special features of the narrative in Josephus on the rule of the Herods; (4) special features of the political interaction and representation within the context of Herodian palace architecture.

1. Concepts and State of Research Representation of dominion means communication about political power and rule. Communication mediates itself via sign-systems, such as language, images, shapes, and gestures, which also need a material base, a concrete space for expression and realization. Symbolic and material aspects of inter-subjective understanding are at once inseparable and interact with one another. Historical‑ and cultural-sciences in recent years have been increasingly concerned with aspects of symbolic communication of pre-modern societies.8 A complex methodological access is given by way of specific system-theoretical approaches, in which three assumptions are crucial: a circular glacis-wall (720 m above sea-level, that means 30 m lower than the present upper platform) that is also connected to the theater, (fig. 1), show that Josephus’ texts describe the condition established only shortly after Herod’s death (Netzer, The Architecture of Herod, the Great Builder, IX, XIII). 7 Netzer sees throughout here Herod’s last decrees at work (Netzer, The Architecture of Herod, the Great Builder, IX, XIII). But the texts of Josephus speak only of the fact that Herod in his will decreed to be buried at the Herodium, and one would have followed this (Bell. 1.672; Ant. 17.199). Archaeologically it is clear that there was left of the theater a first staircase up to the hill palace, which disappeared with the mound-work. The monumental, 200-step staircase, which Josephus mentions (Bell. 1.420; Ant. 15.324), was constructed only in connection with the land-fill (cf. fig. 1, 2). 8 Cf. B. Stollberg-Rilinger, “Einleitung,” in Vormoderne politische Verfahren (ed. idem, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2001), 9–24; idem, “Symbolische Kommunikation in der Vormoderne: Begriffe  – Thesen  – Forschungsperspektiven,” Zeitschrift für Historische Forschung 31 (2004): 489–527, and G. Althoff, “Die Veränderbarkeit von Ritualen im Mittelalter,” in Formen und Funktionen öffentlicher Kommunikation im Mittelalter (ed. idem, Stuttgart: Thorbecke, 2001), 157–176.

286

Monika Bernett

1. Political action in pre-modern societies is based predominantly on interaction, i.e., personal communication.9 2. In each case afresh, in the executive processes of interaction10 two basic levels of action can be distinguished: ‘instrumental action’, i.e., action directed to a specific purpose, and ‘symbolic-expressive action,’ i.e., action which carries significance and meaning beyond the instrumental action (this creates a specific symbolic ambience of the instrumental action).11 3. Symbolic communication can be condensed and become reflexive, while referring to other symbol-agents and ‑systems or incorporating them; thus the meaning becomes more complex, less focused, ambiguous. The ‘diversity of possible reference-structures and associative connections’ can be termed as ‘inter-symbolization’.12 This distinction makes it possible to recognize different levels of ‘meaning’, combined with social action. For the power‑ and dominion-related interaction of pre-modern societies, this approach is especially responsive. In these societies, the enforcement of one’s own will against resistance or even the production of obedience to one’s own order can be based on state structures, such as police forces, only to a limited extent.13 Therefore, instrumental political action (to obtain a particular purpose) is accompanied by strong symbolic-expressive elements. This should produce the superiority of the sovereign, the significance of orders by recourse to traditions, values and norms, as well as emphasize well-fare-related benefactions of a ruler. All these acts are usually assembled under the term ‘representation of political power and dominion’. The symbolic-expressive, signifying part of actions are to mark the prominent position of a person or group within a social stratification and thereby communicate those values and norms which underpin this position correctly.14

the condition of personal communication see A. Kieserling, Kommunikation unter Anwesenden. Studien über Interaktionssysteme (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1999); F. Goldbeck, Salutationes. Die Morgenbegrüßungen in Rom in der Republik und der frühen Kaiserzeit (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2010), 20. 10 Cf. regarding performative action Stolberg-Rilinger, “Symbolische Kommunikation in der Vormoderne: Begriffe – Thesen – Forschungsperspektiven,” 495. 11 Regarding a ‘symbolic-expressive action’ see Stolberg-Rilinger, “Symbolische Kommunikation in der Vormoderne: Begriffe – Thesen – Forschungsperspektiven,” 497–499. 12 Stolberg-Rilinger, “Symbolische Kommunikation in der Vormoderne: Begriffe  – Thesen – Forschungsperspektiven,” 500. 13 Cf. M. Weber, Soziologische Grundbegriffe (6th ed. with an introduction by J. Winckel­ mann; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1984), 89. 14 Cf. G. Weber and M. Zimmermann, “Propaganda, Selbstdarstellung und Repräsentation. Die Leitbegriffe des Kolloquiums in der Forschung zur frühen Kaiserzeit,” in Propaganda – Selbstdarstellung – Repräsentation im römischen Kaiserreich des 1. Jhs. n.Chr. (eds. G. Weber and M. Zimmermann, Stuttgart: Steiner, 2003), 11–40, 36.   9 Regarding

Space and Interaction

287

It is important to emphasize that the acts of representation of political dominance – whether by a ruler or by political elite groups – are closely bound to status-discourses of a society. Herein lies a potential for conflict, particularly in historical phases in which new political forces and their agents emerge and societies become stratified in this way anew. Firstly, ‘values and norms’ that a new sovereign claims for his superior status-position, may be contested, because they are new or represent new interpretations of traditional values. Secondly, it can be challenged that the sovereign fulfills the demands of claimed values and norms. Both discourse-situations are especially fruitful situations for representative actions, i.e., therefore, the growth of interactions, in which the proportion of symbolic-expressive aspects is especially high.

2. Historical Situation: Challenges and Herodian Responses to the Discourse on Political Power and Dominion in the Early Principate Herod and his successors had to comply with a dynamic social and political situation. I do not specifically explain this here, but will stress the theme in the formulation of my questions. Herod’s reign was a dynastic change, which was closely connected to the political transformations in Rome. The Roman civil wars staggered until 31/30 B.C.E. with the Judaean powerstruggles between Hasmonean parties, during which Herod’s family was able to maintain Rome’s support. After Actium, victors and survivors in Rome, Italy, the cities and provinces especially of the Eastern Roman Empire had to establish their positions on the ruins of a 20-year civil war and attempt to integrate socially and politically anew. Paul Zanker, in his classic ‘Augustus and the Power of Images,’15 showed to what extent Augustus through symbolic and expressive elements that were received and communicated throughout the entire Empire, cleverly supported his political actions in order to secure his Principate and the predominance of his house. In particular, the imperial cult – which Simon Price first made very clear – was a symbolic field of interaction between the Roman center and its periphery.16 So there was communication possible even between absentees, i.e., a basic condition for interaction, the personal presence in the communicative situation, could be compensated. The emperor and his house, respectively, 15 P.

Zanker, Augustus und die Macht der Bilder (9th ed.; Munich: Beck, 2009).

16 S. R. F. Price, Rituals and Power. The Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minor (Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1984); cf. also M. Clauss, Kaiser und Gott. Herrscherkult im römischen Reich (Stuttgart/Leipzig: Teubner, 1999; repr. Munich: Saur, 2001).

288

Monika Bernett

the Roman supremacy, in ritual acts, prayers, sacrifices, feasts, embassies, etc. were included therewith, and they were thence represented symbolically. The cult did not replace the true interaction between Rome and the subjects of its Empire. It maintained it symbolically. Added to this, all the participants in the imperial cult, not only the emperor and the members of his Domus, but also individual citizens, cities and their elites, provinces, so-called client-kings as well as border-regions, were agents in a permanent competition to mark their status-positions via their services in the imperial cult. Therefore, this cult could take up such a meaning throughout the Empire for a long time not based on its theological depth, but based on its immanent power‑ and status-discources, which expressed symbolically and continued to weave forth the integration between Princeps and Empire in the imperial society/ies.17 Herod is also locatable in this field of activity. He stood as the new ruler in alliance with the Roman sovereigns, after Actium with the Princeps Caesar Augustus, before enormous challenges, what his inner-Judaic acquiescence came to. With Herod, above all after 30 B.C.E. a break is identifiable with patterns of political self-representation established by the Hasmonean rulers. The Hasmonean rulers had pointed proudly to their military successes, to their victories against enemies of the Jewish people, to their land conquests and destroyed pagan cities. Obviously Hasmonean resources flowed, at least that is the result of archaeology, only a small part in symbolic-material representation of political power and dominance and in “conspicuos consumption”.18 Herod, however, figures predominantly as 17 For

the development of the imperial cult in the West, see now C. Witschel, “Die Wahrnehmung des Augustus in Gallien, im Illyricum und in den Nordprovinzen des römischen Reiches,” in Augustus – Der Blick von außen. Die Wahrnehmung des Kaisers in den Provinzen des Reiches und in den Nachbarstaaten (eds. D. Kreikenbom et al., Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2008), 41–120; for the Hellenistic East see G. Frija, “Du prêtre du roi au prêtre de Rome et au grand prêtre d’Auguste: la mise en place du culte impérial civique,” in Des rois au prince (eds. I. Savalli-Lestrade and I. Cogitore; Grenoble: ELLUG 2010), 291–310. 18 Cf. M. Bernett, Der Kaiserkult in Judäa unter den Herodiern und Römern (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007), 146–167; eadem, “Der Kaiserkult in Judäa unter herodischer und römischer Herrschaft: Zu Herausbildung und Herausforderung neuer Konzepte jüdischer Herrschaftslegitimation,” in Jewish Identity in the Greco-Roman World (eds. J. Frey; D. Schwartz and St. Gripentrog, Leiden: Brill, 2007), 205–251; eadem, “Roman Imperial Cult in the Galilee: Structure, Functions, and Dynamics,” in Religion, Ethnicity and Identity in Ancient Galilee (eds. J. Zangenberg; H. W. Attridge and D. B. Martin; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007), 337–356; B. Eckhardt, “Herodes und die Hasmonäer: Strategien dynastischer (De)Legitimation von Herrschaft in Judäa 168–4 v.Chr.,” in Herodes und Jerusalem (ed. L.-M. Günther, Stuttgart: Steiner 2009), 23–46; T. Weber, “Der beste Freund des Königs. Herodes der Große und statuarische Repräsentationsformen in orientalischen Heiligtümern der frühen Kaiserzeit,” in Augustus – Der Blick von außen. Die Wahrnehmung des Kaisers in den Provinzen des Reiches und in den Nachbarstaaten, 249–269; and

Space and Interaction

289

ktistes, as a new empire-founder, city-planner and constructor, in a mixture of biblical-oriental and Hellenistic ruler-appreciation. In the ‘Temple-speech’ in Josephus’ ‘Antiquities,’ during which Herod announces the reconstruction of the Jerusalem temple, this self-understanding is literarily led to a stylistic high-point. The αὐξή of the Jewish people under Herod, i.e., their increase of status in all respects, are a product of peace. Since under the protection of the Romans wars with hostile neighbors were to be no longer maintained, and under his rule there was also peace with the Romans (Ant. 15.382; 387). Herod peacefully gained for the Jews land, fortune and large income, due to friendship with the Romans. As a charitable king, he used his funds for the beautification of the country, for housing and amenities for its residents.19 Together with the rational for the continued building of the temple, which since the return from the Babylonian exile had not achieved the dimensions of Solomon’s temple20 (what the Hasmoneans also could not have accomplished),21 Herod is presented as a new Solomon.22 The political representation of Herod has been treated in the research of the past years under a dominant concern for ‘Romanization’, ‘Hellenization’, ‘Acculturation.’23 The latest state of the discussion reflects, alongside

A. Kropp, “King  – Caesar  – God. Roman Imperial Cult among Near Eastern ‘Client’ Kings in the Julio-Claudian Period,” in Lokale Identität im Römischen Nahen Osten (eds. M. Blömer et al., Stuttgart: Steiner, 2009), 99–150. 19 A. Lichtenberger, Die Baupolitik Herodes des Großen (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1999), 135. 185 neglects this aspect. Regarding monarchial benefaction in Hellenism see K. Bringmann, H. v. Steuben and B. Schmidt-Dounas, Schenkungen hellenistischer Herrscher an griechische Städte und Heiligtümer: Zeugnisse und Kommentare (Schenkungen hellenistischer Herrscher an griechische Städte und Heiligtümer I; Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1995), K. Bringmann, Geben und Nehmen. Monarchische Wohltätigkeit und Selbst­darstellung im Zeitalter des Hellenismus. Mit einem numismatischen Beitrag von Hans-Christoph Noeske (Schenkungen hellenistischer Herrscher an griechische Städte und Heiligtümer II 1; Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2000) and B. Schmidt-Dounas, Geschenke erhalten die Freundschaft. Politik und Selbstdarstellung im Spiegel der Monumente (Schenkungen hellenistischer Herrscher an griechische Städte und Heiligtümer II 2; Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2000). 20 Jos. Ant. 15.385. 21 Implicitly mentioned in Jos. Ant. 15.387. 22 See this thesis of H. Lindner, “Der Bau des größten Tempels (A 15:380–390). Herodianische Propaganda und Josephus’ Auffassung der jüdischen Geschichte,” in Internationales Josephus-Kolloquium Paris 2001 (eds. F. Siegert and J. U. Kalms, Münster: Lit Verlag, 2002), 152–160, 156. 23 For research discussion and a complex terminology see M. Meyer, “Akkulturationsprozesse – Versuch einer Differenzierung,” in Neue Zeiten – Neue Sitten. Zu Rezeption und Interaktion römischen und italischen Kulturguts in Kleinasien (ed. idem, Wien: Phoibos, 2007), 9–18. However, A. Wallace-Hadrill, Rome’s Cultural Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), advocates the coexistence of multiple cultural identities (esp. 9–14, 17–28).

290

Monika Bernett

Ehud Netzer’s synthesis ‘Herod the Great Builder,’24 several conference volumes.25 The victory of a direction – toward Hellenization or Romanization – doesn’t become yet apparent. If one brings to the issue’s end the newest work by Andrew Wallace-Hadrill ‘Rome’s Cultural Revolution,’26 then there can be essentially no such simple answer. For Wallace-Hadrill now makes explicitly clear that in Rome and Italy ever since the Greek colonization in the mid-8th century B.C.E. elements of Greek culture can be observed in the lifestyle, which continued to accumulate since the Roman conquest of southern Italy in the 3rd century B.C.E. and the Greek East in the 2nd century B.C.E., without repressing local self-understanding that conceived of itself as something different.27 This process was accompanied, says Wallace-Hadrill, by an intensive, informal debate about the question which Greco-Hellenistic cultural practices the Roman upper-class should and should not adopt. Since this process but went along with the conquest of the Mediterranean and Western Europe by the nobility, the respective articulation of Roman aristocratic living is a gesture of power and dominion, which other elites of the imperial societies inspired to imitate.28 If in the Augustan Principate then this new ‘Roman culture’, which from Wallace-Hadrill’s point-of-view presented the product of a cultural revolution, was spread by new supporter-groups of Augustus’ Principate in the Empire, the cultural ‘multilingualism’ of this new Roman culture was expressed in multiple forms, whether clothing, language, architecture, edu24 Netzer, The Architecture of Herod, the Great Builder; regarding the building program of Herod see also D. W. Roller, The Building Program of Herod the Great (Berkeley: University Press, 1998); Lichtenberger, Die Baupolitik Herodes des Großen, and S. Japp, Die Baupolitik Herodes’ des Großen: Die Bedeutung der Architektur für die Herrschaftslegitimation eines römischen Klientelkönigs (Rahden: Leidorf, 2000). 25 Herodes und Rom (ed. L.-M. Günther; Stuttgart: Steiner, 2007); Herodes und Jerusalem (ed. L.-M. Günther; Stuttgart: Steiner, 2009); The World of the Herods and the Nabataeans (ed. N. Kokkinos; Stuttgart: Steiner, 2007); Herod and Augustus (eds. D. M. Jacobson and N. Kokkinos; Leiden: Brill, 2009); cf. also the detailed report by Bormann, “Jüdische oder römische Perspektive? Neue Studien zum römisch dominierten Judäa. Ein kritischer Literaturbericht,” Zeitschrift für Religions‑ und Geistesgeschichte 61 (2009): 105–123 and by M. Bernett, “Rom und Jerusalem  – Kaiserherrschaft und herodische Dynastie. Beobachtungen und Fragen zur neueren Forschung,” Klio 92 (2010): 83–93; cf. the review of scholarship regarding the establishment of the imperial cult, Bernett, Der Kaiserkult in Judäa unter den Herodiern und Römern, 4 f., 11–15. 26 Wallace-Hadrill, Rome’s Cultural Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008). 27 Wallace-Hadrill, Rome’s Cultural Revolution, 26–28, 34. In this respect WallaceHadrill goes far beyond the results in Hellenismus in Mittelitalien (ed. P. Zanker; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1976) even if the questions and observations of this fundamental collection of articles are still highly interesting and valid (though fixed between the alternative ‘Hellenization’ vs. ‘(old)Roman culture’). 28 Wallace-Hadrill, Rome’s Cultural Revolution, 36.

Space and Interaction

291

cation and knowledge as well as a conspicuous lifestyle with all its relevant elements. Certainly for the analysis of acculturation processes it is not the final bottom-line, whether someone has adopted Hellenistic, Egyptian, Roman, etc. cultural elements (and has been therefore ‘hellenized,’ ‘egyptianized,’ ‘romanized’ etc.). For an appropriate interpretation of such acts one needs to ask what socio-political status such a person has and which forms of interaction are connected to it. The status‑ and knowledge-discourses included in the relevant actions are what should bring us to a precise analysis of cultures, which reformulate themselves by cultural contacts. Wallace-Hadrill’s results for the cultural transformation processes of the late Roman Republic and Early Principate are very important for the Herod-debate. On the one hand Herod’s building-projects can be classified in this multilingual cultural dynamic and be analyzed by the special choice made out of the symbolic reservoir which this Augustan period provided. On the other hand, one will have much more broadly to analyze the symbols of the ‘languages of power’ that Herod and the elites with claim to superiority used in Herodian-Roman Judea as part of their status-discourse, in order to recognize what codes in which contexts and with what conjectured meanings were used – how much, in other words, Herod and his supporters as well as other cultural groups in Judea powerfully demonstrated cultural multilingualism or remained in conscious monolingualism.29 The framework provided here is too narrow, but as a thesis I would like to formulate that in the period of Herod’s reign a cultural multilingualism in the Jewish populated regions was implemented due to the politicalcultural conditions of the Augustan period, which became the cause for the formation of new group identities with specific cultural codes. Since about 100 B.C.E. there can be observed within the self-differentiating ‘Judaism’ of this region new cultural practices which combined certain approaches and values,30 above all regarding cultic purity.31 To name but 29  Cf. the wide range of relevant material in Akkulturationsprozesse  – Versuch einer Differenzierung. Cf. for the Hellenistic East some papers in Kingdoms and Principalities in the Roman Near East (eds. T. Kaizer and M. Facella; Stuttgart: Steiner, 2010). 30 Regarding the discussion on Iudaios/Iudaioi see S. Cohen, The Beginnings of Jewishness: Boundaries, Varieties, Uncertainties (Berkeley: Berkeley University Press, 1999); S. Mason, “Jews, Judeans, Judaism: Problems of Categorization in Ancient History,” Journal for the Study of Judaism 38 (2007): 457–512; D. R. Schwartz, “‘Judean’ or ‘Jew’? How Should We Translate Ioudaios in Josephus,” in Jewish Identity in the Greco-Roman World (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2007), 3–27. 31 Cf. E. Regev, “Pure Individualism: The Idea of Non-Priestly Purity in Ancient Judaism,” Journal for the Study of Judaism 31 (2000): 176–202; idem, “Non-Priestly Purity and its Religious Aspects According to Historical Sources and Archaeological Findings,” in Purity and Holiness. The Heritage of Leviticus (eds. M. J. Poorthuis and J. Schwartz; Leiden: Brill, 2000), 223–244 and J. Poirier, “Purity beyond the Temple in the Second Temple Era,” Journal of Biblical Literature 122 (2003): 247–265.

292

Monika Bernett

the most striking here comprises: the limestone vessels,32 the Miqwaot,33 Qumran pottery (with dining laws/habits),34 the individual secondary burials in ossuaries in agnatic-cognatic occupied family graves,35 the so-called ‘Household-Judaism,’36 the circulation of Terra Sigillata and the so-called pseudo-Nabatean ware.37 All these cultural innovations combine in the late-Hasmonean-Herodian period, interestingly enough, with segmented group-formations, which compete for prestige and influence in Jerusalem and Judaeo-Palestine.38 The socio-political fragmentation of the populace in the southern Levant39 perhaps maintained itself so strongly under these conditions of the early Principate, where a rich set of various possibilities existed to designate and stabilize group identities via different cultural codes. In the following two areas I intend to study the traces left behind by the political representation of Herod and his successors with the presented criteria: per the narrative on Herodian rule in Josephus as well as per the peculiarities of political communication and interaction in the context of Herodian palace-architecture.

3. The Narrative on Herodian Rule in Josephus For both the Bellum Iudaicum and the Antiquitates Iudaicae it is very striking, the role architecture and building-activities of rulers in general, 32 Y. Magen, The Stone Vessel Industry in the Second Temple Period. Excavations at Hizma and the Jerusalem Temple Mount (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 2002). 33 A. Berlin, “Jewish Life before the Revolt: The Archaeological Evidence,” Journal for the Study of Judaism 36 (2005): 417–470, esp. 451–453. 34 J. Yellin et al., “Pottery of Qumran and Ein Ghuweir: The First Chemical Exploration of Provenience,” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 321 (2001): 65–78; Berlin, “Jewish Life Before the Revolt: The Archaeological Evidence,” 447. 35 See the overview by Berlin, “Jewish Life Before the Revolt: The Archaeological Evidence,” 454 f.; R. Hachlili, Jewish Funerary Customs, Practices and Rites in the Second Temple Period (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2005), 94–114, 520–528 (ossuaries); 235–310 (family tombs); and the concise overview by idem, “Funerary Practices in Judaea during the Time of the Herods,” in The World of the Herods and the Nabataeans, 247–278. 36 Berlin, “Jewish Life before the Revolt: The Archaeological Evidence,” 424–445, 453–457, 466–470; Poirier, “Purity beyond the Temple in the Second Temple Era.” 37 J. Gunneweg, “Pseudo-Nabatean Ware and Pottery of Jerusalem,” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 262 (1986): 77–82. 38 Regarding the different cultural practices see Berlin, “Jewish Life before the Revolt: The Archaeological Evidence.” 39 A. J. Saldarini, Pharisees, Scribes and Sadducees in Palestinian Society: A Sociological Approach (Wilmington: Glazier, 1998); L. L. Grabbe, Judaism from Cyrus to Hadrian vol. I–II (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), II 467–499; S. Mason, “Revisiting Josephus’s Pharisees,” in Judaism in Late Antiquity, Part 3: Where We Stand. Issues and Debates in Ancient Judaism (eds. J. Neusner and A. J. Avery-Peck; Leiden: Brill, 1999), 23–56 (regarding the Pharisee’s); G. Jossa, I gruppi giudaica ai tempi di Gesù (Brescia: Paideia, 2001).

293

Space and Interaction

particularly that of Herod, plays. ‘Power’ and ‘dominion’ become obvious in the disposition concerning architecture and construction. The issue principally has a topical character and all throughout is in the tradition of representation and self-presentation of personal political power.40 Rulers can destroy or spare cities, build up again and resettle residents anew, and organize space and society in this way. Yet Pompeius, Gabinius and Antipater were characterized by this means: the former re-built cities and restored them to their former owners, Antipater was allowed to rebuild Jerusalem’s walls and was then able to create political order, too. With Herod this basic narrative structure is extremely amplified. After Herod had already been presented as the guardian of Jerusalem in the conquest of 37 B.C.E., the great building report Jos. Bell. 1.401–425 has the function to characterize Herod at the height of his power after the great territorial expansion of the years 23–20 B.C.E.: As a city-founder, temple-builder, owner of public and palatial architecture, he appears as an omnipotent ruler, who has infinite material and social resources, in order to create space and thereby even conquer nature, to bestow benefits upon people inside and outside his kingdom, to accord obeisance to gods as well as to commemorate his parents, to maintain his status and to fashion an appropriate ambiance for his self-understanding. (New) City Foundation41 Development of a City/­ Settlement 403: Sebaste (formerly Samaria): city wall, temple of Augustus, 6,000 settlers, land allocation, constitution (eunomia)42

Extra-Urban Buildings

Jerusalem43 404–405: Augusteum/ 401: temple, temple-district, temple-foundation in Paneion47 castle (‘Antonia’);44 402: Herod’s palace ­(basileion) uptown45 418: tower Phasael46

40 A. Demandt, “Symbolfunktionen antiker Baukunst,” in Palast und Hütte (eds. D. Papenfuß and V. Strocka, Mainz: von Zabern, 1982), 49–62 discusses the interest of historiography in architecture and the political self-representation of rulers (and city-states) via building acts. 41 In Jos. Bell. 1.400–425 the founding of Gaba (Ant. 15.294) and the rebuilding of Esebonitis in Perea (ibid.) are missing. 42 Jos. Ant. 15.292, 296 ff., 329. 43 For Herod’s theater and hippodrome there see only Ant. 15.268. Cf. Bernett, Der Kaiserkult in Judäa unter den Herodiern und Römern, 52–66. 44 Jos. Ant. 15.292, 380–403, 409–425; 17.151–160. Detailed architecture of the temple Bell. 5.184–227. 45 Jos. Ant. 15.292, 318. The palace in detail Bell. 5.161–181. 46 Jos. Ant. 16.144. 47 Jos. Ant. 15.363–364.

294 (New) City Foundation

Monika Bernett

Development of a City/­ Settlement

408–415: Caesarea (for407: Jericho:49 second palace merly Stratonos Pyrgos): district (in addition to the royal palace, port, houses, Hasmonean basileia) temple of Augustus, ampitheater, agorai; foundation of penteteric games (Kaisareia)48 416: establishment of the city Agrippias51 (formerly Anthedon)

417: Antipatris (formerly Pegai)53 418: Phasaelis54 (419–421: Herodium, the palace-city, see third column)

Extra-Urban Buildings 417: construction of the fortress Cyprus50

419–421: construction of the fortress Herodium, which is also a palace-district, and of aqueducts; at the foot of the hill another palacedistrict52

422–425: urban improvements outside the kingdom:55 Tripolis: gymnasium Damaskos: gymnasium, theatre56 Ptolemais: gymnasium Byblos: city wall

Ant. 15.293, 329, 331–341; 16.136–172; 17.87. does not mention Herod’s hippodrome there; Jos. Ant. 17.160–167 refers to it as part of the dramatic events around Herod’s death. 50 Jos. Ant. 16.143. 51 Cf. Ant. 13.357; the city is not described in the passage Jos. Ant. 16.142 ff. 52 Jos. Ant. 15.323–325. 53 Jos. Ant. 16.142 f. 54 Jos. Ant. 16.144 f. 55 General information Jos. Ant. 15.327; 16.146. Compared to the Bellum-list, Ant. adds a colonnade on Chios (16.18 f.) and Herod’s participation in the construction of Nicopolis (6.147). 56 Recently discovered, see K. S. Freyberger, “The Theatre of Herod the Great in Damascus: Chronology, Function and Significance,” in Bayt al-‘Aqqad. The History and Restoration of a House in Old Damascus (ed. P. Mortensen; Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2005), 181–202; T. F. Nielsen, “The Roman Theatre: Historical Context and Reconstruction,” in Bayt al-‘Aqqad. The History and Restoration of a House in Old Damascus, 203–226. 48 Jos.

49 Bell.

Space and Interaction

(New) City Foundation

Development of a City/­ Settlement

295 Extra-Urban Buildings

Berytus, Tyros: halls, colonnades, agorai Sidon: theater Laodikeia: aqueduct Askalon: baths, fountains, colonnades Rhodes: temple of Apollo57 Antioch: colonnaded street58 Table 1: Analytical overview of the building report concerning Herod (Jos. Bell. 1.400–425)

The dramatic composition of the ‘Bellum’ then contrasts this image from Bell. 1.43159 to the end of the first book (§ 673) with Herod’s ‘domestic afflictions’ (τὰ κατ’ οἶκον ἀνιαρά, § 431), which are his problems to exercise rule also over his own house, his family, his court. Following a topos of Hellenistic historiography, Tyche let Herod pay for his εὐπραγία outside his realm with domestic mischief.60 Based on this conception Herod’s failure as a ruler is described at length via his interaction with his family and relatives at court. A literary refinement is apparent in that that this interaction takes place in the palaces which had been described as exceptional, grand and lavish in the paragraphs above. Toward the end of his life the antithetical elements are yet again intertwined: the abuse of power over persons in his family, at court and among the populace who were subordinated to him, is closely linked with his buildings (the temple in Jerusalem, the palace and hippodrome at Jericho, the fortress Hyrkania)61 while his splendid burial (the text speaks of πολυτέλεια, πᾶς ὁ βασιλικὸς κόσµος)62 conveys the impression that here last respects were given to a very great king. The narrative on Herodian power and rule in the ‘Antiquitates’ contains the same structural elements, but is organized not so antithetically concerning the narrative succession, even if a few elements of this opposition (inside/outside) have remained.63 The text of the ‘Antiquitates’ intends basically to maintain a chronological framework, that is, the royal interaction at Ant. 16.147; comp. 14.378. Ant. 16.148. 59 Jos. Bell. 1.426–428 (benefactions to Olympia, Phasaelis, Balanea and cities in Cilicia); 429 f. praises the harmony between Herod’s physical virtues and his psyche. 60 Jos. Bell. 1.431. 61 Jos. Bell. 1.648–655, 659, 662, 664. 62 Jos. Bell. 1.671. 63 Jos. Ant. 15.268–341 treats Herod’s architectural projects and benefactions within his realm; 326–330 reflects his benefactions outside his empire. Similar Ant. 16.136–149. 57 Jos. 58 Jos.

296

Monika Bernett

court and outside it relate diachronically to one another. This happens again and again under the leitmotif ‘innovations’ and ‘security measures’.64 Also, the spaces of interaction and opposition are more complex. There is not only a royal interaction in‑ and outside of the realm, but concentric interaction-circuits: within the kingdom on the one hand the ‘people’ i.e., above all the Jews of Jerusalem, on the other hand, the Greeks and Syrians; outside the kingdom: Greeks, foreigners, Diaspora-Jews as well as Rome with the emperor, and his imperial personel and family members. In events within such interactions narratives of building-activities are interjected in order to create special meanings, often at the price of redundancy or chronological inconsistencies.65 I will illustrate this by a few examples. After Herod had gotten rid of all Hasmoneans that could be still dangerous to him (lastly Mariamne, Alexander and Kostobar) by 27 B.C.E., the text of Jos. Ant. 15.266 f. conveys in 74 paragraphs a copious building report about Herod’s building-donations and gifts in‑ and outside of Judea: “The kingdom (βασίλεια) was wholly in Herod’s power, there being no one of high rank to stand in the way of his unlawful acts (παρανουµένοις). [267] For this reason Herod went still farther in departing from the native customs, and through foreign practices (ξενικοῖς ἐπιτηδεύµασιν) he gradually corrupted the ancient way of life, which had hitherto been inviolable. As a result of this we suffered considerable harm at a later time as well, because those things were neglected which had formerly induced piety in the masses.”66 When then the stories of the various building projects and the relevant ‘foreign practices’ connected to them (emperor-worship, worship with games, city foundations, temples) follow, these acts are from the outset under the verdict of παρανοµία and accordingly ἀσέβεια. Herod undertakes the beautification and expansion of the Jerusalem temple allegedly at the height of his power. Josephus frames this long report (Ant. 15.380–425, which is 65 paragraphs) between two critical passages and places at Ant. 15.373–379 the verdict of the Essene Menachem, that Herod 64 Innovations or antitraditional activities see Ant. 15.266 f., 365, 368; 16.1–5. Safety measures see Ant. 15.291–298, 323 f., 327, 366; 16.143 f. 65 In principal one could distinguish between three major construction-narratives in Ant. 15–17, which are characterized by insertions, framing, repetitions, and new focal points. This suggests that Josephus has newly arranged the present material: Narrative I.: 15.268–341, 363–365: Judaea proper (268–325); outside Judaea proper (327, 329; only in general); Caesarea Maritima (331–341); the Augusteum at Paneion (363–365); Narrative II: 15.380–425: temple and temenos in Jerusalem (expanded enormously compared to Bell. 1.401); Narrative III: 16.136–149: inauguration of Caesarea Maritima; more cityestablishments in Judaea proper; tower in Jerusalem; architectural improvements of cities outside of Herod’s kingdom. – Critical remarks: Ant. 15.267; 15.326, 328, 329–330 (merged with the ‘benefits’ for cities and their sovereigns outside Judaea proper); 16.150–159. 66 ἐξ ὧν οὐ µικρὰ καὶ πρὸς τὸν αὖθις χρόνον ἠδικήθηµεν, ἀµεληθέντων ὅσα πρότερον ἐπὶ τὴν εὐσέβειαν ἦγε τοὺς ὄχλους (Jos. Ant. 15.267b). Transl. R. Marcus, LCL.

Space and Interaction

297

though ruling for a long period with God’s will and unforgotten for posterity, however will forget eusebeia and to dikaion. The statement contradicts the entire building project of the temple that Herod undertakes ostensibly in a devotional attitude. A third and final example. After the reconciliation with his sons in the year 12 B.C.E., Ant. 16.136–140 comes the description of the inauguration of Caesarea with festivals in the context of the emperor-cult. Finally, Augustus and Agrippa are quoted, that Herod’s kingdom is still too small for his megalopsychia and he deserves to rule (in a governor’s position) over all of Syria and Egypt (16.141). Eight sections follow as to further building activities in‑ and outside of Judea. Then begins another critique of Herod’s dominant habit of philotimia, to which his beneficent building-acts as a ruler hearkens (Ant. 16.150–159). In Josephus, it can be summed up, the ruler Herod is characterized not only simply as a multi-faceted builder. By means of the building reports emerges a discourse on his status, his perception of status as well as the entitlement of his preeminence. In the two main sources, ‘Bellum’ and ‘Antiquitates,’ although with different narrative-techniques, Herod’s status is devaluated and deconstructed via narratives of his building activities. Still, in the ‘Antiquitates’ a decidedly Jewish counterpoint is designed, when it is emphasized, for which actions and habits ‘the people’ (to plethos, ho ochlos/ oi ochloi) ‘to Ioudaion ethnos’ (Ant. 16.158) actually assigns recognition and status. Ant. 16,158 is against the calculation of a representativ political style, that hopes for recognition in symbolic forms: ‘But, as it happens, the Jewish ethnos is by nomos opposed to such all things and is accustomed to admire righteousness (dikaion) rather than glory (doxa)’.67 This argument is not fed by Hellenistic thought, but by the critique of political power and dominion in Biblical tradition.68 Especially in the Prophetic books of Micah, Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Jeremiah and Habakkuk, the bad king is characterized as an urbanizer and constructor, who exploits the people for luxuriousness in the capital city and for erection of fortresses over the subjects.69 It is very difficult to prove to which extent Josephus found in Nicolaus of Damascus models to describe Herod in his political representation and performance especially in reference to his building activities. I still think 67 Transl.

according to L. Marcus, LCL. Jos. Bell. 2.85; Ant. 17.306; 19.329; cf. also Ant. 15.315; 16.159, 179. 69 Cf. J. Ellul, The Meaning of the City (translat. by D. Pardee; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970); “Every City Shall be Forsaken”. Urbanism and Prophecy in Ancient Israel and the Near East (eds. L. L. Grabbe and L. Heck; Sheffield: Continuum International, 2001); N. Roddy, “The Image of the City in the Hebrew Bible,” in Cities through the Looking Glass (ed. R. Arav; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2008), 11–21; cf. Bernett, “Herodes und die Stadt in Judäa,” 53–55. 68 E.g.

298

Monika Bernett

that the basic concept goes back to Nicolaus, because Hellenistic historiography worked for the characterization of rulers with the tension between large external achievements and failures in the ruler’s ‘house’. Accordingly Hellenistic historiography looks on a king who proves himself successful on both fields of action with supreme praise. A familiar example is the praise of Eumenes II in Polybios, who not only inherited a small empire from his father, but through acuteness, industry and energy made the same into one of the greatest empires of his time, according to Polybios. After these remarks, the text adds: “Next he was most eager to win reputation, and not only conferred more benefits than any king of his time on Greek cities, but established the fortunes of more individual men. Thirdly, having three brothers not far behind him in age and activity, he kept them all in the position of his obedient satellites and guardians of the dignity of his throne, a thing for which one can find few parallels.”70 A parallel in Josephus is Archelaos of Cappadocia, who emphasizes that despite greatest mischiefs he had had to suffer from one of his brothers, he preferred the obligations of nature before the passion of revenge.71 Negative examples are however frequent, what Polybios stresses.72 Antiochos III, Philip V, Genthius of Illyria – their failure as rulers is made clear above all in their imperfections as master of their families and ‘houses’ (as social units).73 An interesting new development of this topos is established in Augustus, who presents himself on the one hand in his res gestae as ktistes, as the ensurer of Rome’s order and its Empire, and on the other hand speaks of domestic misfortune, which he had to endure. This is therefore a tragic fate and not a sign of his failure as emperor. Tacitus and the critical traditions of the history of the Principate conceptualize Augustus more in the contrast between ‘outward splendor’ on one hand, and ‘failure as leader of his Domus’ on the other. The latter signifies above all the alliance with Livia, from where results the succession of the unpopular Tiberius, as well as the exiles of his daughter Julia and his granddaughter for high treason. M. Toher recently argued the theses that Nicolaus of Damascus worked well with this topic in the preparation of his autobiography in which Herod as well as Augustus played important roles, which in turn strongly influenced Josephus’ negative presentation of Herod in the ‘Antiquitates’ from book 15 on.74 Diverse sources show how important, however, building-activity was as a sign of a ruler’s action in the early Principate. This is perhaps most apparent 70 Polybius

32.8, 4–6. Transl. W. R. Paton, LCL. Bell. 1.239. 72 Polybius 32.8, 7. 73 Polybius 20.8, 1–5; 23.10, 12–16; 29.13. 74 M. Toher, “Herod, Augustus, and Nicolaus of Damascus,” in Herod and Augustus, 65–81. 71 Jos.

Space and Interaction

299

in Vitruvius, De Architectura, published in 22 B.C.E. In his Proemium he first describes the state of complete rule over Rome, Italy, and the provinces, which Augustus had established. Then he continues: “But when I saw that you were giving your attention not only to the welfare of society in general and to the establishment of public order, but also to the providing of public buildings intended for utilitarian purposes, so that not only should the State have been enriched with provinces by your means, but that the greatness of its power might likewise be attended with distinguished authority in its public buildings, I thought that I ought to take the first opportunity to lay before you my writings on this theme.”75 In the following section Vitruvius emphasizes then the personal aspect of imperial building: “I began to write this work for you, because I saw that you have built and are now building extensively, and that in future also you will take care that our public and private buildings shall be worthy to go down to posterity by the side of your other splendid achievements76. I have drawn up definite rules […].”77 A passage of Maecenas’ speech in Dio Cassius also shows the ideological charge of a ruler’s building, when Maecenas commends Augustus to impress the world with magnificent buildings and public celebrations in Rome: “Adorn this capital with utter disregard of expense and make it magnificent with festivals of every kind.78 For it is fitting that we who rule over many people should surpass all men in all things, and brilliance of this sort, also tends in a way to inspire our allies with respect for us and our enemies with terror.”79 Such statements may illuminate in part why a general building-boom emerged in the early Principate. Not only did safer times reign in Italy and through the entire Empire, and elites again had more resources at their disposal to finance public or private buildings and thereby to emphasize their status and their effectiveness. But since the triumvirate period the struggle for political dominance was supported with symbolic acts of preeminence, among which building activities were prominent. After Actium Augustus

De architectura 1 praef. 2: Cum vero adtenderem te non solum de vita communi omnium curam publicaeque rei constitutione habere, sed etiam de opportunitate publicorum aedificiorum, ut civitas per te non solum provinciis esset aucta, verum etiam ut maiestas imperii publicorum aedificiorum egregias haberet auctoritates, non putavi praetermittendum, quin primo quoque tempore de his rebus ea tibi ederem, ideo quod primum parenti tuo de eo fueram notus et eius virtutis studiosus. Transl. M. H. Morgan, LCL. 76 pro amplitudine rerum gestarum ut posteris memoriae traderentur. 77 Vitruvius De architectura 1 praef. 3. Transl. M. H. Morgan, LCL. 78 τὸ µὲν ἄστυ τοῦτο καὶ κατακόσµει πάσῃ πολυτειελίᾳ καὶ ἐπιλάµπρυνε παντὶ εἴδει πανηγύρεων. 79 Dio Cassius 52,30.1 f. Transl. E. Cary, LCL. 75 Vitruvius

300

Monika Bernett

exaggerated this habit to mark his superiority on all levels.80 This attitude was imitated by dependent kings like Herod, Juba of Mauritania, and Archelaus of Cappadocia, after Hellenistic building-Euergesie had long been fading.81 In this respect the model of Wallace-Hadrill also applies in this area: Roman-Italian elites first did alter Greco-Hellenistic cultural expressions until the early Principate and thereafter this “new” Roman culture was spread, mainly via Augustan art and architecture, throughout the Empire and was received there in many ways. These real-historical as well as literary processes are at any rate interesting for Josephus, since he adjusts the logic patterns of the characterization of political power and dominion via building activities of a ruler to the successors of Herod. This is particularly significant when he had apparently only a little information about the dynasts. This applies above all to Archelaus, Antipas and Philip, where especially in the Antiquitates building-activity and attitude as master of his house(‑hold) must serve to characterize the ruler. Verbally all the city’s founding stories are very similar. Only for Tiberias there is additional information about conflicts in the city’s founding (Ant. 18, 36 ff.). In addition, the praise of Philippos (Ant. 18.106–108) falls outside the framework, too. The text-section is very difficult to classify in any literary tradition. In any case, it is an exceptional example for a ruler’s abdication of honor and status: easy amenability, abandonment of statusmanifestation, constant concern for the affairs of his subjects, secure and just adjudication, no succession-conflicts. However, even for Agrippa I and Agrippa II, but only in the Antiquitates there are narrated meaningful ‘construction-stories’ (table 2). Agrippa I is compared on this level with Herod and comes off very well – even though he built on smaller scale and less lavishly, but nevertheless was responsible for similar types of building-donations like Herod. In contrast to Herod, Agrippa is shown in Josephus as a good sovereign. In addition to his alledged respectful relation to the Jewish nomos his attitude as Euerget and builder serves as evaluation scheme: While Herod would have cared only for the cities of strangers but no city of the Jews with charities,82 Agrippa was indeed generous toward alloethneis, but toward his homophyloi in comparison was very much more generous and compassionate. 80 Zanker, Augustus und die Macht der Bilder, 73–90 (triumvirate period), 90–96, 107– 124, 141–161, 164–167, 196–217, 240–261 (Augustus’ building program). 81 Cf. the assumptions in Meyer (ed.), Neue Zeiten – Neue Sitten. Zu Rezeption und Interaktion römischen und italischen Kulturguts in Kleinasien; cf. also in Kingdoms and Principalities in the Roman Near East (ed. Kaizer and Facella). J. Creighton (“Herod’s Contemporaries in Britain and the West,” in Herod and Augustus, 361–281) for the local styles of elite representation in the West. Overview in Zanker, Augustus und die Macht der Bilder, 294–332. 82 Jos. Ant. 19.329.

Space and Interaction

301

Finally, his son, Agrippa II, is equated with Herod on negative terms, when in his building report Ant. 20.212 conclusively states: “the hatred of his subjects for him consequently increased because he stripped them of their possessions to adorn a foreign city.”83 Building Activity

Bell.

Ant.

—

17.340: reconstruction of the palace, aqueduct

Archelaus Jericho

17.340: foundation of a κώµη

Archelais Antipas Autokratoris

—

18.27: fortification of Sepphoris in Galilee, => Autokratoris

Tiberias

2.168 founding of 18.36 ff.: founding of Tiberias near the hot Tiberias in Galilee springs of Ammathons at the Sea of Galilee; habit of the new settlers; benefits for settlers; Tora-adverse site of the new city

Ioulias (Perea)

2.168 founding of Ioulias in Perea

18.27: fortifying the city Betramata, => Ioulias after the wife of the Autokrator

Kaisareia (Caesarea)

2.168 founding of Kaisareia at the sources of the Jordan

18.28: expansion of Paneas at the sources of the Jordan => Kaisareia

Ioulias (Gaulanitis)

2.168 founding of Ioulias in Lower Gaulanitis

18.28: elevation of the kome Betsaida at the Sea Gennesaret to a polis, new settlers, fortification (dynamis), => Ioulias after the daugther of Caesar

Philippos

Kaisareia (?)

18.108: a tomb for himself

Agrippa I. Jerusalem Berytus

2.218: third city wall

19.326 f.: building of the third city wall – conflicts 19.335 ff.: building donations and games

83 Transl. L. H. Feldman, LCL. – The “foreign city” is the Roman colony Iulia Augusta Felix Berytus in Syria (near modern Beirut).

302

Monika Bernett

Building Activity

Bell.

Ant.

Jerusalem

—

20.189 f.: enlargement of the Hasmonean palace, in order to observe matters at the temple; 20.191–195: conflicts with priests and Festus because of Agrippa’s observation-post

Jerusalem

—

20.219–223: paving of Jerusalem (permitted by Agrippa II – and financed?)

Neronias

—

20.211 f.: expansion of Kaisareia at Paneion and renamed to Neronias

Berytus

—

20.211 f.: theater-building; foundation of the games; gifts of grain and oil; statues and sculptures from originals of famous artists; splendor of the rule is moved to Berytus

Agrippa II.

Table 2: Building-reports for Herod’s successors in the texts of Josephus; => means: renamed to.

4. Special Features of Political Interaction and Representation in Herodian Palace Architecture The problem may currently only relate in essence to Herod himself, since we only have for him sufficient archaeological data. The situation for Caesarea Paneas, especially for the so-called palace of Agrippa II (Areas D, E, I), is still unclear. The building-complex, which can be projected to an area of 40,000 m2 (100 × 40 m), is only excavated in its southern part and not yet finally published.84 With these dimensions it would be one of the largest palace-complexes in the east of the Roman Empire. Even more interesting, however, is its conception. The technically advanced design and the integration of public, representative and private spaces of interaction in architectural units which were arranged around a large courtyard and had an ingenious entrance-system appears to be very special and would be an 84 V. Tzaferis and S. Israeli, Paneas Volume I: The Roman to Islamic Periods Excavations in Areas A, B, E, F, G and H (Jerusalem: Israel Antiquities Authority, 2008); and V. Tzaferis and S. Israeli, Paneas Volume II: Small Finds and Other Studies (Jerusalem: Israel Antiquities Authority, 2008); M. Hartal, Paneas Volume IV: The Aqueduct and the Northern Suburbs (Jerusalem: Israel Antiquities Authority, 2009). For the results of the excavations see J. F. Wilson and V. Tzaferis, “An Herodian Capital in the North: Caesarea Philippi (Paneas),” in The World of the Herods and the Nabataeans, 131–143, esp. 132–139; regarding the palace: 138 f.

Space and Interaction

303

extraordinary example for the combination of imperial representation and political interaction in appropriate spaces. The directors of the excavations expressed the hypothesis that the background of this special spatial organization is to be sought in the manifold absence of Agrippa II. The personnel, who were equipped by him with executive political power,85 received their own spaces within the palace for these tasks.86 This operation should be seen in connection with the notorious dilemma of the so-called client-kings under the terms of the Principate, whose power and position actually could be maintained only through constant interaction with the emperor, i.e., by personal attendance at his court. But this called for an increase of ‘political art’ in their own kingdoms, in order to fulfill political and administrative tasks there. This problem has been discussed only a little in research so far.87 If the thesis will be archaeologically substantiated, with the palace of Agrippa II one would have a highly interesting discovery of organization of autocratic political power in the context of palace architecture in this period. But also for Herod there are crucial questions: Why did he build so many palaces and palatial fortresses anew or expanded existing structures? Why did he place so much value in the implementation of very costly, latest techniques and styles of architecture? Is there a connection to the political interaction at court – and that means: for the generation and presentation of power? In a recent paper on Herod’s court F. Deanini88 has identified two special characteristics. First, there reigned a ‘certain personal compactness’, resulting from the large number of relatives present at court. In comparison to other Hellenistic courts, at Herod’s court there were disproportionately more relatives as actors. This situation is identified as an important factor which contributed to the aggravating problems for Herod to sustain control over his political center, especially in the last years of his rule. Reasons for this special feature would have been on the one hand Herod’s various marriages, from which came many children. On the other hand, the Jewish marriage customs (ethno-religious endogamy, conversion obligation for the foreign-born husband) would have made it difficult to marry-out the female members of the Herodian house, particularly barely allowing political-dynastic marriages.89 Jos. Vita 49.61; Bell. 2.481. Wilson and V. Tzaferis, “An Herodian Capital in the North: Caesarea Philippi (Paneas),” in The World of the Herods and the Nabataeans, 139. 87 See Bernett, “Rom und Jerusalem – Kaiserherrschaft und herodische Dynastie. Beobachtungen und Fragen zur neueren Forschung,” 86 f. 88 F. Deanini, “Der Hof des Herodes. Zu seiner Struktur und Geschichte,” Historia 57 (2008): 274–297. Cf. also different methodological approaches with J. D. Gauger, “Herodes’ hellenistische Hofhaltung,” in Herodes und Rom, 91–107; N. Kokkinos, “The Royal Court of the Herods,” in The World of the Herods, 279–303; S. Rocca, Herod’s Judea (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 65–96. 89 Jos. Ant. 16.194–199; 227 f. 85 Cf.

86 J. F.

304

Monika Bernett

Second, there were signs that Herod’s court in regards to the formal gradations of the courtiers more closely resembled the early Hellenistic court of the 3rd century with its barely formalized hierarchy. It was not comparable to the courts of the 2nd century, as especially since a ranking order of formalized titles90 was established at the courts of the Ptolemies and Seleucids.91 The loyalty among relatives dominated all other loyalties at Herod’s court. Therefore there were with Herod also no strong groups of ‘friends of the king,’ which in loyal interaction with the king, like at other Hellenistic courts, preserved power and had a stabilizing effect and could tame court-intrigues.92 I would like to bring these theories into context with the archaeological findings. At Herod’s palace-complexes, besides the spatial diversification (multiple building-complexes in each case in Jerusalem, Jericho and Herodion), the monumentality and the combination of Hellenistic and Roman representative residential architecture stands out. The spatial diversification in one place may be rightly due to the personal compactness at the court and could have been a tentative architectural solution for these problems. Then the agnatic and cognatic relative-groups – especially Herod’s siblings Salome and Pheroras, Herod’s wives, and later his sons Alexander and Aristoboulos (from the alliance with Mariamne I) and the son Antipater (from the alliance with the first wife Doris) – seem to have had a separate court annex and their own personnel. The possibility to be part of the court circles’ second order admitted intriguers, who also had access to Herod himself, the chance for calumny, disinformation, acts of denunciation and conspiracies.93 It seems to be obvious that in the reported intrigues people played an important role, who belonged both to Herod’s narrow court as well as had intimate access to the intriguers.94 Herod attempted here again and again to separate within the overall court the interaction-circuit in order to improve control. However, success was limited, so that he, as a second stage of action, either tried to banish the people suspected of intrigue and conspiracy from the court, or, like his sons, to send them out to Rome.95 But because 90 H. H. Schmitt, “Art. Hoftitel,” in Lexikon des Hellenismus: 457–462; G. Weber, “Interaktion, Repräsentation und Herrschaft. Der Königshof im Hellenismus,” in Zwischen “Haus” und “Staat”. Antike Höfe im Vergleich (ed. A. Winterling; Munich: Oldenbourg 1997), 27–71, esp. 55 f. and 70. 91 Deanini, “Der Hof des Herodes. Zu seiner Struktur und Geschichte,” 286. 92 Deanini, “Der Hof des Herodes. Zu seiner Struktur und Geschichte,” 297. 93 Cf. Jos. Bell. 1.468–480, 488–491, 569 f. 572, 585, 638; Ant. 16.83, 189 ff., 200–219; 17.37, 51, 65. 94 Cf. e.g. Herod’s personal staff (Jos. Bell. 1.488–491; Ant. 16.229–260); the Spartan Eurykles (Bell. 1.513–530; Ant. 16.300–310); Herod’s bodyguard Korinthos (Bell. 1.576 f.; Ant. 17. 55 ff.); his wife Mariamne II (Bell. 1.599; Ant. 17.7 f.). 95 See e.g. Jos. Bell. 1.432, 474 (and the diagnoses in 1.482), 478, 494, 572, 588 ff., 617; Ant. 16.237–243; 17.50, 58, 65–68, 90.

Space and Interaction

305

there were several court groups which had the potential to be conspirators and in the absence of competitors heartily took advantage of their chances, such strategies failed. A last resort for Herod was the forcible removal of those aspiring to power, in order to reduce chances of interaction.96 This raises the question, in what way we can put these source-findings of court interaction in relationship with the remains of palace architecture. The diverse architectural units in Herodian palace-architecture (particularly in Jerusalem and Jericho) were already functionally explained with my assumption that the various court circles of second order (Herod’s sisters, wives, children and their respective personnel and additions) received their own assigned spaces, in order to assure proximity and distance from Herod’s closer court as well. There is no need to stress that this organization of the court achieved the feeding of disintegration processes, because the circles of interaction could become independent, and the access to central figures – in Herod’s case above all Salome and Antipater, but also Pheroras, Alexander and Aristoboulos  – could hardly be controlled. One solution would be to control more strongly access and accessibility. It seems to me that the construction of the so-called Winter Palace of Jericho, which was erected in the years after 15 B.C.E., was a response to the notorious court-intrigues. Indeed, Herod built this palace after the latest Roman style, if one looks to the building technique (opus reticulatum) and the decorative decor (Second Pompeian Style in transition to Third Pompeian Style). Nevertheless one can still detect influences from the architecture of the Roman domus, in terms of the organization of entrance to rooms and the accessibility of persons. The Roman atrium-house is distinguished by hampered accessibility; only narrow, door-frame-wide prothyra between ianua and ostium mediated between the street and the atrium, from which in turn all the rooms of the house as well as extensions were accessible.97 Unlike Jericho I (built 35 B.C.E.) and Jericho II (built 25 B.C.E.) where the access areas are noticeably large, one entered the main building of Jericho III only over a bridge which lead to a narrow passage.98 Then two rooms (B51, B90) mediated 96 After Augustus had reconfirmed

Herod as ruler over Judea in 30 B.C.E. the following members of the family circle were executed by Herod because of allegations of conspiracy: 29 B.C.E. his wife Mariamne I, her mother Alexandra and Herod’s brother-in-law Kostobar (second husband of sister Salome); 8 B.C.E. Alexander and Aristoboulos, the sons of Mariamne I; 4 B.C.E. the first born son Antipater (from the Idumean wife Doris). 97 For the historical development of the atrium see Wallace-Hadrill, Rome’s Cultural Revolution, 190–208; regarding the architecture of a Roman house see Goldbeck, Salutationes. Die Morgenbegrüßungen in Rom in der Republik und der frühen Kaiserzeit, 119–146. For prothyrum and prothyra see already Plautus Persae 5.1, 6 (ante ostium et ianuam); Vitruvius De architectura 6.7.5. 98 Netzer, The Architecture of Herod, the Great Builder, 45–54, 248–252.

306

Monika Bernett

access to the western, more ‘general-public’ wing and the eastern, more ‘personal-private’ area (fig. 4).99 The west wing made possible in large, very representative and lavishly-designed rooms (especially B64, B70) the interaction between many people with Herod; one room (B88) apparently served as a special meeting place for him as sovereign, as distinct from his role as a noble symposium participant among other nobles. The eastern wing was primarily a spacious, many-roomed public bath (B68–B39) with a peristyle court (B55); ‘privacy’ should be adopted here in the sense that only a special, invited circle of relatives and friends would have had access to this wing. The relatively narrow passages between the rooms B51 and B90 suggest precise access-control. Considering that the design and the construction of Jericho III occurred in the time after 14 B.C.E., a phase in which intrigues at court increased until the execution of the sons Aristoboulos and Alexander in 8 B.C.E., this new access-concept could have been developed by Herod in order to control court interactions.100 Silvia Rozenberg in her reconstruction and analysis of the very interesting and aesthetically fascinating wall-paintings101 in the Winter Palace of Jericho came to the conclusion that for both wings different color-conceptions had been selected, which should have expressed the different functions of the rooms and spaces; which functions exactly was left rather open.102 In the following a more detailed interpretation will be proposed.   99 ‘Private’ and ‘public’ are basically inapplicable complementary concepts that have no counterpart in ancient terminology. The distinctions gr. κοινός/δηµόσιος vs. ἴδιος and lat. publicus vs. privatus are based above all on the difference between matters of the household (of a citizen or a housemaster) and matters concerning all citizens (housemasters). During the differentiation of personal rule/kingship in Hellenism and at the end of the later Roman Republic where great power is already concentrated in the hands of individual nobiles, this separation of spheres changed, see A. Winterling, “’Öffentlich’ und ‘privat’ im kaiserzeitlichen Rom,” in Gegenwärtige Antike – antike Gegenwarten (ed. T. Schmitt et al.; Munich: Oldenbourg, 2005), 223–244 for imperial Rome; cf. Goldbeck, Salutationes. Die Morgenbegrüßungen in Rom in der Republik und der frühen Kaiserzeit, 24. 126 note 1. Vitruvius distinguishes in houses communia loca, which to all visitors, even invocati, are accessible, from propria loca, that can only be entered by invitees, invitati (6.5, 1 f.). The criteria are therefore accessibility and mutual accord concerning the encounter. 100 Comp. n. 96. 101 S. Rozenberg, The Decoration of Herod’s Third Winter Palace at Jericho. Hasmonean and Herodian Palaces at Jericho. Final Reports of the 1973–1987 Excavations, Vol. IV (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 2008) with drawings Entrée Ill. 496 (B51), 497 (B90); west wing: Ill. 509 (B64), 517 (B88), 508 (B70); east wing: Ill. 494 (B73), 495 (B55); cf. Rozenberg, “The Role of Colour in Herod’s Palace at Jericho,” in Colour in the Ancient Mediterranean World (eds. L. Cleland and K. Stears; Oxford: Archaeopress, 2004), 22–31, pls. 7–11. 102 Rozenberg, “The Role of Colour in Herod’s Palace at Jericho,” 23 f.; S. Rozenberg, “Wall Paintings of the Herodian Period in the Land of Israel,” in The Architecture of Herod, the Great Builder, 350–376; S. Rozenberg, “Wall Paintings of the Hellenistic and Herodian Period in the Land of Israel,” in Herod and Augustus, 249–265.

Space and Interaction

307

The coloring of the wall-socles is interesting in itself: the two entrancerooms (B51, B90) have black socles, the rooms of the ‘public’ west-wing cinnabar red or purple ones. The rooms of the ‘private’ eastern wing have alternately colored socles (yellow-blue, yellow-red). In the western wing the extensive use of white in court B64 is striking. This courtyard leads – via an entire cinnabar-red-framed exedra – into the extreme colorfulness of the so-called throne room (B88). This series of spaces supplies a kind of dramatic climax. Exceptional for the whole geographic region are the large-scale light-blue wall panels in the so-called Triclinium (B70). In the east-wing in B73 and in the peristyle area (B55), blue and cinnabar-alternating panels dominate. These colors were very expensive, because their pigments had to be imported (from Egypt, or Spain). This style of colouring is, with few exceptions, only known from houses of the Roman upper class in the capital and in Campania and should symbolize exclusivity, taste and wealth.103 Concerning the decoration of the rooms in regards to coloring, used materials, and ornament-spectrum, the architects‑ and craftsmen-team that built Jericho III for Herod, copied the standards of the Roman elite and the emperor. The ‘Winter Palace’ was considered on this level surely one of the most expensive buildings of the time. For a Roman senator, it was probably unfamiliar and strange to see all rooms designed only by way of colored areas, tendrils, geometric patterns and stylized architectural elements – and without figurative representation. Here Herod, as in all of his palaces, kept to the prohibition of images. For us today the aesthetic effect of the flat and ornamentally-bound coloration is very strong – but we do not know how the viewing habits of the Roman and Hellenistic Greek visitors reacted to it. Maybe Herod could have made an impression alone through the generous use of very expensive colors. However, it is interesting that the development of the Third Style went in this direction and that Vitruvius also strongly criticized the abundant motivic-figurative floridity of the Second Style.104 As for the house architecture itself, a mixture of Hellenistic and Roman elements is striking at Jericho III. In the conception of the building – and here it is because of Herod’s participation  – the formal elements of the hierarchical arrangement of spatial sequences were taken from the Roman villa, yet combined with egalitarian forms of Hellenistic sociality. From the entrance area B 51/B 90 the degree of access to the king was controlled, directed and marked, as happened in the houses of the late Republican and The Decoration of Herod’s Third Winter Palace at Jericho. Hasmonean and Herodian Palaces at Jericho. Final Reports of the 1973–1987 Excavations, 425–473; eadem, “Wall Paintings of the Herodian Period in the Land of Israel,” and eadem, “The Role of Colour in Herod’s Palace at Jericho,” 24–27. 104 Vitruvius De architectura 7.5.2–7; 7 f. criticism of the extensive use of very expensive colours. 103 Rozenberg,

308

Monika Bernett

early Principate aristocracy, as well as in the emperor’s Domus, in order to control the domestic interaction between the master of the house and visitors of different rank.105 However, Herod had also a 660 m2 large diningroom (about 33 × 20 m, B70) built in the ‘Northern Wing’.106 A Roman senator, and even the emperor Augustus, dined in a Roman style triclinium with no more than 9 people.107 Herod, in contrast, had in Jericho III large banquets in the style of the Hellenistic kings, where clear, individual status hierarchies could not be expressed like in the Roman banquet; probably in a circle of so many guests only the position of the king and close confidants could be singled out clearly.108 The striking combination of cultural, essentially incompatible Roman and Hellenistic representative architectural elements places the theme ‘Romanization in Herodian Judea’ in a new light. Again, it now becomes obvious for the new theater of Herod in Herodium. In these combinations architecture and forms of interaction did not fit together. This leads finally to the question of special features of Herod’s political interaction at court. Thus, F. Deaninis’ thesis of the not clearly ordered hierarchies at Herod’s court, which one can demonstrate in the architecture particularly of Jericho III, is supported also by a (hitherto neglected) Josephus passage. When at Ant. 15.50–61 the arrangement of the murder of Aristoboulos in the pools of Jericho in 35 B.C.E. is described, it says: ‘At first they watched some of Herod’s oiketes and philoi as they were swimming; but after a while, the young man, at the instigation of Herod, went into the water to join them.’109 Oiketai in the Greek domestic personnel terminology are attendants or even slaves. The constellation in Josephus is very astounding, what the hierarchies and interactions at court at this time consist of. The officiating High Priest Aristoboulos can be motivated to go into a pool together with Herod’s friends and courtiers. And also the friends of Herod have apparently nothing against taking a bath with their attendants. I know of no such 105  Cf. regarding the shade of colour Rozenberg, The Decoration of Herod’s Third Winter Palace at Jericho. Hasmonean and Herodian Palaces at Jericho. Final Reports of the 1973–1987 Excavations, 326–333. See for the wall paint Vitruvius 7.5, 8; 7.7–14. 106 Jericho I also had a large dining room (Room 33, ca. 18 × 12,5 m/225 m2). The hall B70 in Jericho III is the largest hall ever discovered in Israel from ancient times. 107 See J. Marquardt, Das Privatleben der Römer (Leipzig 1886 = Darmstadt: WBG, 1980), I 297–309. 108 Cf. for the symposium K. Vössing, Mensa regia: Das Bankett beim hellenistischen König und beim römischen Kaiser (Munich et al.: Saur, 2004), 92–186; G. Weber, “Interaktion, Repräsentation und Herrschaft. Der Königshof im Hellenismus,” in Zwischen “Haus” und “Staat”. Antike Höfe im Vergleich, 27–71, 64 (argument for the equality of participants); for the development of the Roman convivium A. Winterling, Aula Caesaris: Studien zur Institutionalisierung des römischen Kaiserhofes in der Zeit von Augustus bis Commodus (31 v.Chr.–192 n.Chr.) (Munich; Oldenbourg, 1999), 145–160. 109 Jos. Ant. 15.55.

Space and Interaction

309

examples for interaction in Roman aristocratic as well as emperors’ houses, but also none for Hellenistic palace-interaction. Obviously it was difficult during Herod’s rule to find unequivocal criteria to determine the social and political status clearly. Different validity claims competed with each other: the status of a ‘friend of the Roman emperor’ (and therewith the recipient of his favor), the access to the circle of the ‘friends of the emperor’ at court and to Roman provincial governors, the amount and level of conspicous consumption, the right practice of luxury goods and Greco-Roman cultural techniques – as well as the study of Jewish nomos, the knowledge of Jewish Holy Scripture and wisdom traditions, the high-priestly lineage, the right lifestyle in harmony with the Torah. With Wallace-Hadrill one can extend the image of the ‘multilingualism’, which prevailed in the time of the early Principate in Rome and Italy, throughout the imperial regions. Competing normative discourses on status and hierarchy existed also there, and were among the elites expressed in inconsistent forms of status-manifestation. The Herodian representation of power and dominion, their forms of expression and their literary reception should certainly be considered as part of this process.

Captions to figures Fig. 1: Plan of the theater on the northeast slope of the Herodium, west of the grave (the mausoleum of Herod?) discovered in 2007. Plan Ehud Netzer; Copyright: Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Fig. 2: Aerial view (December 2009). Photo Ferrell Jenkins; Copyright: Ferrell Jenkins. Fig. 3: Herodium, plan of the palace-complexes (hill palace, buildings on the northeast slope, “Lower Herodium”). Plan Ehud Netzer; Copyright: Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Fig. 4: Northern wing of the so-called Winter Palace (= Jericho III); Plan Ehud Netzer; Copyright: Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

III. Insulae

The House of the Telephus Relief in Herculaneum: the building history of an aristocratic domus Maria Paola Guidobaldi The Insula Orientalis I is made up of the House of the Telephus Relief (built on three levels, not all of which are completely excavated), the House of the Gem and the House of Marcus Pilius Primigenius Granianus (on a lower level). The eastern end of this urban block, or insula, has never been excavated1 (fig. 1). These three houses had previously been a single enormous residential complex for a long period of their history. Elegant architecture using expensive materials, with valuable furniture and fittings, reveal it to have been an urban villa used by the owner for leisure (fig. 2). This residential complex has an impressive layout and is located both near to the Suburban Baths and, in particular, near to the Terrace of Marcus Nonius Balbus (which lies in front of the baths and contains a funerary altar and cuirassed statue of Nonius Balbus; fig. 3). This has led many scholars, from its excavator Amedeo Maiuri2 onwards, to identify the owner of the house as the senator Marcus Nonius Balbus, originally from Nuceria, but resident at Herculaneum. He was praetor and proconsul of the province of Crete and Cyrene, plebeian tribune in 32 B.C.E. and a supporter of Octavian (later the emperor Augustus). Following many acts of euergetism to Herculaneum, he

1 This article is similar to a chapter in M. P. Guidobaldi and F. Pesando (Gli ozi di Ercole. Residenze di lusso a Pompei ed Ercolano [Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider, 2006]), although with more images. References to directions use the conventional “site north,” where north points to Mount Vesuvius. 2 A. Maiuri, Ercolano. I Nuovi Scavi, vol. I (Rome: Poligrafico dello Stato, 1958), 347; A. and M. de Vos, Pompei, Ercolano, Stabia, Guide archeologiche Laterza (Rome – Bari: Laterza, 1982), 276; U. Pappalardo and H. Manderscheid, “Le Terme Suburbane di Ercolano. Architettura, gestione idrica e sistema di riscaldamento,” RivStPomp IX (1988): 173–190, 173; T. Budetta, “I nuovi scavi nell’area suburbana di Ercolano,” in Ercolano 1738–1988. 250 anni di ricerca archeologica (ed. L. Franchi Dell’Orto; Atti Convegno Internazionale Ravello-Ercolano-Napoli-Pompei 1988; Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider, 1993), 677–690, 682; M. Pagano, Gli scavi di Ercolano (Naples: Marius, 2003), 95.

312

Maria Paola Guidobaldi

was named the city’s patron3; in fact, inscriptions4 reveal that he contributed to the city walls and gates and the basilica (the Roman law court), which was still named the Basilica Noniana after him in 61 B.C.E. as can be seen from a wax tablet5. The city was literally overrun by statues of the senator, located in the most symbolic places. In fact, at least ten inscriptions refer to statues erected in his honor and some of these were paid for by individual cities or communities in Crete. A smaller, but still significant number of the corresponding statues have been found and are today held in the National Archaeological Museum in Naples6. On his death he was awarded great honors, which are summarized in the inscription on his funerary altar which was erected on the terrace in front of the Suburban Baths in the middle of the Augustan period, next to an area that was already used for burials (as shown by the niches for urns in the Suburban Bath’s cella ostiaria7). The Camodeca, I senatori originari della Campania e delle regiones II e III, in Epigrafia e ordine senatorio, II, Tituli 5 (ed. M. Pani; Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1982), 125 ff.; S. Adamo Muscettola, “Nuove letture borboniche. I Nonii Balbi ed il Foro di Ercolano,” Prospettiva XXVIII (1982): 2–16, here 2–6; G. Camodeca, La ricostruzione dell’élite municipale ercolanese degli anni 50–70 d.C.: problemi di metodo e risultati preliminari, in Cahiers Glotz VII, 1996, 167–178; U. Pappalardo, “Marcus Nonius Balbus. Der patronus von Herculaneum,“ in Verschüttet vom Vesuv. Die letzen Stunden von Herculaneum (eds. J. Mühlenbrock and D. Richter; Catalogo Mostra Haltern; Berlin and Bremen, May 2005–April 2006; Mainz am Rhein: Philipp von Zabern, 2005), 171–181. 4 CIL X, 1425. 5 G. Camodeca, “La società ercolanese,” in Gli Antichi Ercolanesi. Antropologia, Società, Economia (ed. M. Pagano; Catalogo Mostra Ercolano 30 marzo–26 luglio 2000; Naples: Electa Napoli, 2000), 67–70, 68. 6 1) Two equestrian statues were donated by the people of Herculaneum and of Nuceria respectively. The first, MANN 6211/cat. 107, associated with inscription CIL X, 1429 (Nuceria), was found without a head, which was replaced with a modern one modeled on the togate statue MANN 6167 known as Nonius Balbus Senior. The second, MANN 6104/cat. 106, associated with inscription CIL X 1426 (Herculaneum), has a modern head by Angelo Brunelli. 2) A togate statue (erroneously known as Nonius Balbus Senior): MANN 6167/cat. 108, associated with inscription CIL X, 1428; this statue belongs to a family group which also includes the statue of his father (MANN 6246/cat. 109, associated with inscription CIL X, 1439), and his mother Viciria (MANN 6168/cat. 110, associated with inscription CIL, X 1440) and which probably stood in the Basilica Noniana. 3) Another statue (MANN 6102) of Nonius Balbus as a heroic nude comes from the theatre, its base is located near the orchestra with a dedicatory inscription from the Herculanenses (CIL X, 1427). The identification of this statue was possible thanks to Umberto Pappalardo who in 1983 made a copy from the imprint left by the portrait head in the volcanic material, which is still perfectly visible in the roof of the eighteenth-century tunnel behind the scenae. The “positive” copy could be used to identify the original statue in the National Museum, which had been taken away by the eighteenth-century Bourbon excavations and given the name “Massimino”; it had become mixed up with sculptures from the Farnese Collection. 7 M. Pagano, “Iscrizione della statua di M. Nonio Balbo trovata davanti alle Terme Suburbane,” RivStPomp II (1988): 238–239, here 238; M. Pagano, “La nuova pianta della città e di alcuni edifici pubblici di Ercolano,” Cronache Ercolanesi XXVI (1996): 229–262, here 236. 3 G.

The House of the Telephus Relief in Herculaneum

313

funerary altar was decorated with two marble statues of sleeping funerary geniuses leaning on torches held upside-down as a sign of mourning.8 Behind this, on a marble base, stood the cuirassed statue of Marcus Nonius Balbus9, placed there by his freedman Marcus Nonius Volusianus.10 All these posthumous honors awarded to Marcus Nonius Balbus refer to a form of hero cult, and the grey tuff steps on the south side of the altar suggest that a priest would have periodically climbed up to carry out sacrifices. This arrangement (funerary altar within a defined area, which served both as a cenotaph as well as a real tomb11), may have been modeled on Agrippa’s monumental cenotaph built in his Horti in the Campus Martius in Rome12. The funerary altar and the cuirassed statue were in a prominent position so that they would be seen from the sea. Both the people of Herculaneum and outsiders approaching the city were thereby prompted to associate the city of Herculaneum with this monument to the man who portrayed himself as a benefactor following in the steps of the mythical founder, Hercules and his descendent Telephus, and was considered the re-founder of the city. Based on the assumption that the House of the Telephus Relief belonged to Marcus Nonius Balbus, there are some scholars13 who have hypothesized that the nearby Suburban Baths were originally an integral part of this large house, later offered by the noble family for public use. However, after close examination of the residential complex’s development and the connections between its various floors, it seems to me that this is unconvincing conjecture. Detailed analysis of wall stratigraphies were recently carried out by Domenico Camardo and Francesco Basile (of the archaeological company Sosandra) as part of a global study of the Insula Orientalis I. This block of houses was a case study for the Herculaneum Conservation Project, whose partners are the Soprintendenza Speciale per i Beni Archeologici di Napoli e   8 Herculaneum archaeological store, inventory no.s 2077/77358 and 3877/77174; M. Pagano, L’Antiquarium di Ercolano (Naples: Electa Napoli, 2000), 79–80 (no. 6–7) and bibliography.  9  Herculaneum archaeological store, inventory no. 2075/77356; Pagano, L’Antiquarium di Ercolano, 75–78 (nos. 4–5) and bibliography. 10 The inscription (inventory no. 3782/79079) is currently held in the archaeological store at Herculaneum, but there are plans to reinstall it on its base. See Pagano, L’Antiquarium di Ercolano, 78 and bibliography. 11 U. Pappalardo (“Nuove testimonianze su M. Nonio Balbo ad Ercolano,” MDAI(R) CIV (1997): 285–297), based on the fact that a terracotta dolium was found within the altar containing the remains of the funerary pyre and a finger bone cut off for ritual purposes. 12 On Agrippa’s cenotaph, see Eugenio La Rocca, La riva a mezzaluna. Culti, agoni, monumenti funerari presso il Tevere nel Campo Marzio occidentale (Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider, 1984), 87–100. 13 Pappalardo, “Le Terme Suburbane di Ercolano. Architettura, gestione idrica e sistema di riscaldamento”; M. Pagano, “La nuova pianta della città e di alcuni edifici pubblici di Ercolano,” 236; M. Pagano, Ercolano. Itinerario archeologico ragionato (Torre del Greco: T&M, 1997), 29.

314

Maria Paola Guidobaldi

Pompei, the Packard Humanities Institute and the British School at Rome.14 It is on the basis of this long, careful and patient analysis and documentation on site that an attempt can now be made for the first time to outline the construction history of this residential complex. Although it should be noted that the relationship of the house to the Suburban Baths and the connection between the various floors are not completely clear and more time for reflection is needed. Certainly until the lower floors of the house are completely excavated some questions can never be answered.15 The architectural and decorative features of the Suburban Baths as they are seen today can be dated to the Flavian period, although it cannot be ruled out a priori that there was not a bath complex in this area in the Augustan period as part of the private residence. The earlier plan, size and connections of these earlier baths are unknown and in any case must be different to the later layout, which is built against of the first lower level of the south wing of the luxury house and blocks some of its windows. Besides, the suggested unified architectural design of the Suburban Baths with the House of the Telephus Relief is based on the erroneous attribution of the second lower level of the south wing of the house to the baths16. Instead it could be hypothesized that in the Augustan period a first and smaller public (not private) bath complex was created. This would have been intimately connected with the Terrace of Nonius Balbus which was used as a palaestra or exercise ground, and the east side perhaps ended at the level of what is now the frigidarium pool, thereby leaving a discreet open space for the south wing of Telephus. In any case, it is absolutely certain that the large block of the Suburban Baths, as it was in C.E. 79, seriously interferes with the architecture of the lower floors of the residential complex. After the original large property was horizontally and vertically divided, the lower floors were then connected to the baths, both with steps from the roof of the bath building to a balcony of the first lower level of the south wing, as 14  For the Herculaneum Conservation Project see M. P. Guidobaldi, “Notiziario – Ufficio Scavi di Ercolano,” RivStPomp XII–XIII 2001–2002 (2003): 241–243, 240; M. P. Guidobaldi, “Notiziario – Ufficio Scavi di Ercolano,” RivStPomp XIV 2003 (2004): 330–333, here 330–331; M. P. Guidobaldi, “Notiziario – Ufficio Scavi di Ercolano,” RivStPomp XV 2004 (2005): 189; M. P. Guidobaldi, D. Camardo and G. Rizzi, “L’Herculaneum Conservation Project e il progetto pilota dell’Insula Orientalis I,” in Nuove ricerche archeologiche a Pompei ed Ercolano (eds. P. G. Guzzo and M. P. Guidobaldi; Atti del Convegno Internazionale, Roma 28–30 Novembre 2002, Studi della SAP, vol. 10; Naples: Electa Napoli, 2005), 9–18, here 9–11. 15 Some important excavation work is foreseen within the Herculaneum Conservation Project. In any case, some work to clean the floor levels in various parts of the residential complex was already carried out in 2005 and more is under way or planned; so far there has been great satisfaction as our understanding of the situation has notably changed and new information is continually being discovered. 16 Budetta, “I nuovi scavi nell’area suburbana di Ercolano,” 682.

The House of the Telephus Relief in Herculaneum

315

well as a connection between service corridor (N) of the baths and a room on the second lower level of the south wing (A)17 (fig. 4). This article will therefore attempt to describe the building history of the residential complex on the basis of more solid archaeological evidence, even if it is partial and in continual development thanks to activities carried out by the Herculaneum Conservation Project team. It is worth remembering that the first layout of the house has been generally, and hurriedly, dated to the Augustan period with subsequent redecorations. The current layout of the House of the Telephus Relief has an atrium (2) area flanked by a stabulum courtyard (6) and a garden with lararium (7) to the north, a differently-oriented peristyle area (9), and the upper level only of the south wing. As we will see, this wing forms the western arm of a pavilion with two or perhaps three arms forming a horseshoe shape and built on three levels; it includes rooms (16)–(19), among which the luxurious triclinium (18) decorated in marble. The house was named after the high-quality sculptural relief in pentelic marble18 that was found in the dieta (17). It was originally painted with colored pigments and belongs to the Neoattic production of the Augustan period. The relief celebrates an episode in Homer: an oracle predicted that Telephus (son of Hercules), who had been wounded by Achilles, could only be healed by the rust from the lance that had inflicted the wound. The scene of healing is shown on the right, while on the left the oracle tells Achilles that he needs to heal Telephus because only under his guidance will it be possible for the Greeks to arrive in Troy. This same scene is shown on a marble tondo19 found in 1960 at the northern end of the street Cardo III; it perhaps came from the Basilica Noniana. It has been reasonably suggested20 that this is further evidence for Marcus Nonius Balbus being connected to both the public building (the interior of which was decorated with images showing the lesser labors of Hercules21 among other things), as well as the luxury residence (fig. 5). There are frequent references to Hercules and his descendants (as will soon be mentioned, a monochrome marble of Hercules and the Hydra was found 17 These connections have never been correctly inserted within the chronological and building phase sequences, and so have evidently confused some scholars in the overall interpretation of the bath complex and the Nonius Balbus residence. 18 National Archaeological Museum in Naples, inventory no. 286787/ ex 76/128; M. R. Borriello, in Homo faber. Natura, scienza e tecnica nell’antica Pompei (eds. A. Ciarallo and E. De Carolis; Milan: Electa, 1999), 254 (no. 322). 19 Herculaneum archaeological store, inventory no. 2219/77515. 20 Pagano, L’Antiquarium di Ercolano, 86–87 (no. 19). 21 See M. Pagano (“Un ciclo delle imprese di Ercole con iscrizioni greche ad Ercolano,” MDAI(R) XCVII (1990): 153–161) and A. Coralini [“Iconologia di Ercole nella regione vesuviana. Dati e prospettive,” in Nuove ricerche archeologiche a Pompei ed Ercolano, Atti del Convegno Internazionale, Roma 28–30 Novembre 2002 (eds. P. G. Guzzo and M. P. Guidobaldi; “Studi della SAP” vol. 10: Naples: Electa Napoli, 2005), 339–354], 341.

316

Maria Paola Guidobaldi

in the peristyle area). These do not seem unrelated to the patron’s, or his descendents’, wish to frame himself as Hercules’s heir and the new founder of the city. The relief was inserted within the painted surface of the northern wall of room (17) and the niche created to hold the slab is still visible. The relief then is a typos, which were particularly appreciated from the late Republican period onwards when, as Cicero tells us,22 they were collected by cultured and wealthy clients.23 It is not certain however that this was its original position, as the decoration of room (17) is later than the Augustan period and therefore later than Marcus Nonius Balbus, who would better explain the deliberate choice of the subject of this prestigious artifact and the tondo from Cardo III, as mentioned above. The House of the Gem next door, in its current form, is instead a residence with a Tuscan atrium and a garden area (15) oriented with regard to the peristyle quarter of the House of the Telephus Relief (cf. fig. 2). The most interesting elements are conserved in the living and reception rooms (6–10) which opened onto a loggia (16) with a view of the Bay of Naples, which is similar to arrangement of the southern areas of the nearby House of the Mosaic Atrium and the House of the Stags. Finally, the group of rooms underneath this loggia (A–N) originally opened onto a terrace (L), but it was later transformed into a windowed corridor. The rooms lost their connection to the upper level and an autonomous entrance was created from the lower end of the street Cardo V (1a) and so in the later years of the city it became the autonomous and modest House of Marcus Pilius Primigenius Granianus. It was severely affected by the Suburban Baths. The three distinct housing units that can be seen today are therefore the result of the division of the single, large residence which had been laid out on three complex levels with a panoramic position overlooking the sea. This large residence existed from the Augustan period until the middle of the first century C.E., although the history of the building begins at least at the end of the second century B.C.E. In a phase that we can date to the late Samnite period, the House of the Telephus Relief was smaller and must have had a Tuscan atrium and two square rooms on either side of the fauces. The area behind this must have been laid out with a sequence of rooms: tablinum (3), cubiculum (4) Att. I,10,3. only other examples of this particular type of decoration known so far from the Vesuvian area are from the House of the Golden Cupids in Pompeii and in a room of a residential building found in the excavation area of the Villa of the Papyri, both redecorated in the second half of the first century C.E. For this latter relief (inventory no. 4282/79613), see A. De Simone, scheda in Gli Antichi Ercolanesi. Antropologia, Società, Economia (ed. M. Pagano; Catalogo Mostra Ercolano 30 marzo–26 luglio 2000; Naples: Electa Napoli, 2000), 22. 22 Cicero 23 The

The House of the Telephus Relief in Herculaneum

317

and andron (5), which led to the back area of the house. Here there was probably another group of rooms and a peristyle with columns in red tuff blocks, which were partly re-used in the Imperial period rebuild. The area which is now the hortus with stable (6) was instead an independent domus with street access at number 3 and another entrance from the lane to the north. The atrium more or less corresponded to the current courtyard of the stabulum.24 The space occupied by the House of the Gem and below it, the House of Marcus Pilius Primigenius Granianus, seems instead to have been part of the House of the Telephus Relief, even if not in their current layout. In particular, the area of the future House of Marcus Pilius Primigenius Granianus seems to have been made up of a series of rooms, used for storage and/or servants quarters and services, which opened onto a wide uncovered courtyard (L), bordered to the south by a large substructure in opus incertum which rose up slightly from the shoreline below. Stairs to the upper level seem to have been installed in room (M) and room (F), the latter leading to the southern area of the future garden (15) of the House of the Gem. In the vaulted roof of the rooms, above which is now a residential area of the House of the Gem, there were at least 11 ventilation openings and a large light well which shows that the area above was not yet built upon. In a phase that can be dated to around the Sullan period, the House of the Telephus Relief was expanded to take over the adjacent domus at street number 3. It was also extended towards the sea, where it was built against the opus incertum city walls which affected the orientation both of this area and the peristyle (9), which is at an angle to the atrium area. The sector facing the sea (which would later become rooms 10–14), seems to have been a large terrace in this phase with a cocciopesto pavement, which extended under what is now the garden (15) of the House of the Gem. Below the panoramic terrace there were rooms built up to the height of the peristyle, as the light well there shows, which lit the room below which has only been partially emptied of volcanic material. On this lower level the façade is the above-mentioned opus incertum wall. In this phase the future House of the Gem is still only the atrium area, connected to the atrium of the House of the Telephus Relief25, while the southern area, as in the previous phase, still has no paved rooms because here there were ventilation holes needed to give light and air to the rooms below of what will become the House of Marcus Pilius Primigenius Granianus.

24 Cleaning the floor level of this area, which has already been partially done, will certainly provide more useful evidence for better understanding the situation. 25 Below the north wall of the atrium of the House of the Gem, in which an opening is clearly blocked, the remains of the earlier pavement can be seen in cocciopesto.

318

Maria Paola Guidobaldi

In the late Republican period the courtyard of the stabulum (6) was created in the House of the Telephus Relief and other smaller works have been noted. This period saw the use of Second Style decoration, which in our case can be dated to the third quarter of the first century B.C.E., on the basis of pavement typologies. This phase saw the more significant changes to affect the area of the future House of Marcus Pilius Primigenius Granianus. The rooms that had previously been used for storage or servants rooms were converted into an elegant set of reception and living rooms which faced onto the loggia which gave onto the sea. Despite an undeniable decline and the change of this area’s use in this last building phase (in fact, thanks to it), the elegant mosaic floors have survived all later changes and are a tangible sign that it was originally a luxurious area. Recent cleaning and excavation carried out by the Herculaneum Conservation Project team have in fact rediscovered the floors already found by Amedeo Maiuri (but not given much attention in his description of the building). In addition, with the simple removal of about 30 cm of volcanic material that had not been removed during the original excavations, unexpected floors were discovered, as were traces of demolished walls and blocked openings that changed the plan of some of the rooms.26 This is the most extensive and coherent set of Second Style floors preserved in Herculaneum and allows us to date the closure of the ventilation holes made in the roofs of the rooms, which were clearly incompatible with the new use. In this phase the façade of rooms (B–H) was slightly set back compared to the later one, which can be dated to the Augustan period and played a function for the terrace of the House of the Gem above27, as will be seen. Room (A), a large rectangular room with a small window open onto the fauces (M), still has its intact floor of cocciopesto mixed with small flakes of white limestone, in which are scattered red, yellow, black and green limestone pieces. The threshold is instead a mosaic of black and white tesserae with a windmill sail motif. Cubiculum (B) is a room that has undergone the most significant modifications to its original layout. Where there is now a window, there had been a door in the Second Style phase which had later been blocked up. By removing a thick layer of sand that was laid down during unidentified works 26 This article will only mention the more relevant features that have so far emerged from the cleaning, excavation and survey work in the kitchen and latrine area (room G and adjacent rooms), but these require additional study and reflection. 27 The oldest wall of the façade in these rooms certainly follows the alignment that can still be seen in the south wall of cubiculum (B). When the new façade was created in a more advanced position it was not possible to knock down the south wall of this cubiculum, as had been done in other rooms, because it supported the vaulted ceiling going north-south. For this reason, between the old and new façades the small vestibule (N) was formed.

The House of the Telephus Relief in Herculaneum

319

above the ancient floor level28, elements of the threshold have emerged for the first time together with the room’s floor (cocciopesto with a network of black tesserae diamonds placed in the corners within a border made up of a single row of black tesserae). The remains of a demolished stone wall29 were also discovered, which divided this cubiculum from a narrow corridor (B’). In its northern wall Amedeo Maiuri found a niche containing kitchen pots on wooden shelving (cf. fig. 2). In corridor (B’) the floor was made of a rougher cocciopesto with large pieces of white limestone pieces inserted. The present room (B) is the result of bringing together rooms (B) and (B’), with the consequent closure of the original door into (B), which was substituted with a small window. A single floor, perhaps in wood, was probably created at this point in order to cover and level off the demolished wall.30 Room (C) is a large exedra which still preserves significant parts of its wall decorations in the schematic Second Style31. The floor is covered by a white mosaic within a double border of black tesserae with a multicolored emblem in the centre. This emblem is made up of four squares within a wave pattern border, which in turn is surrounded by a border of three lines of black tesserae. In each square (only two are well conserved) there is a four-petal rosette in four colors (one is terracotta, white, yellow and red; the other is terracotta, white, yellow and green). The rosettes are within a composite border of alternate rows of black and white tesserae in chess board pattern, followed by triangles (in white, yellow, red and black), or by a line of black and white tesserae in chessboard pattern followed by a dentil motif (white, red, black, yellow and terracotta). It is interesting to note the ancient restoration of one of the rosettes, which was done by incising the form of the flower (whose petals were probably painted in different colors) on a square black tile.32 Room (D) is an elegant cubiculum with a mosaic pavement; the room’s division into an antechamber and alcove is marked in the mosaic with a line of red, white, yellow and black chevrons within a border of black and white triangles. In the centre of the antechamber, an area of white tesserae within a border of six rows of black tesserae contains a multicolored emblem. This is a Hellenistic rosette in which there are six large petals in red, terracotta, 28 Along

the west wall, under the current plaster, a small part of the black wall decoration of the same phase as the cocciopesto floor was found. 29 Largely aligned with the west door jamb of the current opening to cubiculum (B). 30 Conspicuous remains of a wooden floor are still present in room (I), but this important find must be discussed at a later date given that the survey, conservation and analysis of the wood is still under way. 31 Decoration on a white background with regular rectangular panels outlined by narrow red and black bands. 32 Considering the unfinished nature of the restoration, it is not certain if it was still under way at the time of the eruption or if the top layer of colors on the tile were lost due to the high temperature of the volcanic material that filled the buildings.

320

Maria Paola Guidobaldi

white, green/blue and yellow, separated by six smaller yellow petals. The motif is within a black and white chessboard circle, which in turn is within a rectangle. On the east and west walls of the alcove there are inserts for the bed, which seem to have cut through the Second Style decoration at a later time. On the walls there is very simple white plaster that may also be contemporary with the floor. In room (E), probably an oecus, the mosaic decoration includes a white area outlined by a network of diamonds of two rows of black tesserae within a border made up of a band of 11 black tesserae. In the Augustan period, for unknown reasons the residential area of the House of the Telephus Relief (still connected to the House of the Gem) underwent a radical reconstruction: all the rooms of the previous period were in fact knocked down and the large residence was entirely rebuilt in opus reticulatum brickwork. The peristyle was enlarged and columns in opus vittatum mixtum were added, while to the south, on the previous terrace with a cocciopesto floor, rooms 10–14 were built in opus reticulatum (cf. fig. 2). These partly faced onto the southern ambulacrum of the peristyle (10–12) and partly faced onto the sea (13–14). The oecus (10) was given a precious floor in opus sectile; its position and structure with multiple windows can be compared to an oecus Cyzicenus; another example of this type of luxury room can be found at Herculaneum in room (15) of the House of the Stags. Even the floor of oecus (12) was renovated and the marble opus sectile with square elements was used, which in the Vesuvian area is usually associated with wall paintings in the late Third Style and Fourth Style.33 In the previous phase the façade of the lower levels took advantage of the opus incertum city walls, but were then entirely reconstructed in opus reticulatum and a façade was created with large arched openings between reticulatum semi-columns and covered in a smooth white plaster,34 which is now largely lost. Partial excavation carried out within the arches has revealed a corridor covered with a plastered barrel vault; it was about 4 m wide and about 4.7 m high. The floor was of beaten earth with traces of mortar and cocciopesto, along the length of which ran a lead pipe. A room opened in the back wall of this porticoed corridor; however, it is still full of volcanic material and therefore only visible in section. It has been interpreted as a triclinium because there are two brick podiums, in front of which were found the skeletons of a dog and a child wearing a small gold ring.35 This façade with arched openings is the north wing of a large pavilion with at least two if not three arms, on 33 F. Guidobaldi and F. Olevano, “Sectilia pavimenta dell’area vesuviana,” StMisc XXXI (1998): 223–240, here 235–236. 34 Budetta, “I nuovi scavi nell’area suburbana di Ercolano,” 680–682 (Saggio stratigrafico all’esterno della facciata sud – est delle Terme Suburbane). 35 Budetta, “I nuovi scavi nell’area suburbana di Ercolano,” 681.

The House of the Telephus Relief in Herculaneum

321

three floors, of which only the western arm has been excavated for its entire height (even if the second lower level on the level of the ancient shoreline has not been internally excavated). The eastern arm is probably still buried under the eastern edge of the archaeological park. The west arm in its current form is like the south wing of the House of the Telephus Relief (fig. 6). On the second lower level, which is on the same level as the Suburban Baths, there are arcaded openings which were later reduced in size. These openings have never been excavated and, comparing them to the explored part of the north wing, they may have given light to a corridor. At the northern end of this corridor is a room that became room (A) of the bath building, following a late connection with service corridor (N) of the Suburban Baths36 (cf. fig. 4). The connection between the first lower level and the area above is unknown; however, it had a loggia with a series of columns that were closed in at the bottom by a low parapet and onto which opened rooms (24), (25) and (26). In these last two rooms there are still very fine white tesserae that can be dated to the Second Style. In a post-Augustan phase the loggia was closed and transformed into a windowed corridor (cf. Figure 6), this was most likely done in order to strengthen the structure when the third upper level was created, which was on the same level as the atrium and peristyle of the House of the Telephus Relief. It was made up of rooms (16), (17) and (18) which were all connected by corridor (21). Room (18) was surrounded on three sides by a large balcony that no longer exists (fig. 7). In the Augustan period even the area of the House of the Gem was rebuilt in opus reticulatum and extended towards the sea with rooms (6–10) and loggia (16), but did not yet have the day cubicula (11) and (12). In order to gain these rooms, the façade of rooms (B–H) was extended forward37 in the House of Marcus Pilius Primigenius Granianus below, building an opus reticulatum wall which could support the façade of the rooms (6–10) of the House of the Gem above. To support loggia (16) of the House of the Gem, it was necessary to close loggia (L) of the House of Granianus below, building a southern wall, again in opus reticulatum, that transformed the previous open terrace into a windowed corridor38; the residential rooms (A–E) 36 Thanks

to the removal of vegetation on the ancient shoreline and preliminary emergency works carried out in the area by the Herculaneum Conservation Project in summer 2005, it has been possible to access the level of the ancient beach again for the first time in decades and enter room (A). Excavation of this level of the southern wing would answer our questions and clarify its layout and architecture. 37 With the exception of cubiculum (B), mentioned in note 27 above. The opening of rooms (N), (C), (D), (E) and (F) all have opus vittatium door jambs in yellow tuff and wooden lintels, except cubiculum (D) where the lintel is in yellow tuff blocks. 38 Remains of a window are still visible at the western end of the wall. This new arrangement certainly penalized rooms (A–H), which were deprived of light and the view of the sea.

322

Maria Paola Guidobaldi

continued to open on to this corridor. At this point the stairs from room (F)39 to the newly-built room (9) of the House of the Gem were eliminated. Access between the two floors of the residential complex was probably now only possible by using the stairs from room (M) to cubiculum (12) of the House of the Gem (not yet decorated in this phase). This area of the house was redecorated in the Fourth Style period, a beautiful mosaic in triclinium (6) and the opus sectile in the next room (7) still survive. Meanwhile, in the middle of the Augustan period the Terrace of Marcus Nonius Balbus was created with the funerary altar of the city’s patron, and had a clear ideological relationship with the private house and perhaps, as mentioned above, was also related to a smaller public bath complex that preceded the Suburban Baths, for which the terrace probably served as a palaestra. Around the middle of the first century C.E. important changes were made to the atrium area of the House of the Telephus Relief: the connection to the atrium of the House of the Gem was cut off40 and new features were introduced. Behind the entrance hallway (1), which was rather like a small portico, there was now an atrium surrounded by columns on the north, south and west sides41 which were positioned very close to the side walls, unlike the canonical Corinthian atrium. This space evokes the type of peristyle frequently found in Hellenistic houses in Delos, where the columns support rooms on the upper floor, which in this case can only be clearly seen on the north side. Marble oscilla depicting mainly Dionysian scenes were hung between the columns,42 while in the peristyle area a couple of marble slabs were found with monochrome paintings depicting the Sphinx and Hercules fighting the Hydra, using iconography inspired by a sixth century B.C.E. model.43 How this very unusual atrium was roofed is not clear, and a lively debate on this argument has taken place in the context of the 39 The

space left by removing the stairs was closed with a barrel vault; room (F), after the removal of the stairs, became an access corridor to service rooms (G), (I) and the adjacent rooms. 40 In the eastern end of the south wall of the atrium the previous opening can be seen which was blocked, dug through by an eighteenth-century exploration tunnel and closed by Amedeo Maiuri. 41 Three columns on the north and south sides, two on the west side between two semi-columns. Amedeo Maiuri (Ercolano. I Nuovi Scavi) defines this space as an atrium columnatum, a name that betrays the author’s discomfort in classifying this room’s architectural typology. 42 Herculaneum archaeological store, inventory no. 1180/76457; 1181–76458; 1184/​ 76461; 1185–76462: Pagano, L’Antiquarium di Ercolano, 92–94 (no. 28–31), with biblio­ graphy. 43 The monochrome painting is held in the National Archaeological Museum in Naples, inventory no. 152902. Cf. A. Coralini, Hercules domesticus. Immagini di Ercole nelle case della regione vesuviana (I secolo a.C.–79 d.C.) (Naples: Electa Napoli, 2001), 239, E.010.

The House of the Telephus Relief in Herculaneum

323

Herculaneum Conservation Project as the theoretical basis for a shelter that might be planned for this space. Domenico Camardo has found important evidence to suggest a compluviate roof by studying the rainwater drainage system in the atrium area and examining the wall structures and the evidence for roof beam supports44. During the third quarter of the first century C.E. an important redecoration phase can be seen in the Telephus area. Besides oeci (10) and (12) mentioned above, this particularly affected the large rooms in the south wing: room (24) on the first lower floor and room (18) on the main level. Room (24) was in fact redecorated with a marble opus sectile floor45 while the lower part of the walls were clad with precious marbles, above which were wall paintings made up of horizontal bands with geometrical motifs and masks. The redecoration of this room provides the terminus post quem for the construction of the Suburban Baths in their current form, as the bath building closes the room’s eastern window (figure 8) and those of the other rooms on the same level (25 and 26). The large room (18) instead has precious colored marbles on the lower part of the walls (vertical and horizontal panels separated by small bas-relief spiral columns with quasiCorinthian capitals in painted white marble) and a pavement in “irregularly laid” marble opus sectile.46 Other good examples of this at Herculaneum are the triclinium (5), the oecus (7) and the alcove (10) of the House of the Stags and the triclinium (20) of the House of the Alcove. These rooms used squared tiles of different sizes, with dozens of different motifs, distributed without order to show the range of geometrical possibilities offered by the square. Marble discs indicate the table position and shows without a shadow of a doubt that the room was a triclinium. In the final years of the city’s life the property was then subdivided both horizontally and vertically, and was converted into the three houses that can now be seen. The link between the House of the Gem and the Telephus area proper (fig. 9) was cut off and the small garden (15) of the House of the Gem was reorganized and become a mere light well for the area below. With the removal of the previous stairs and with the creation of independent access at the end of the lower Cardo V, this lower area became the autono44 Amedeo Maiuri believed that the atrium roof was compluviate and that when the atrium colonnade was created (the side walls of which support the upper floor) the edges of the impluvium were raised because rain water falling from a greater height needed a deeper basin. However, this explanation for the impluvium does not seem plausible as compluvia at a similar height can be seen, for example, in the Samnite House at Herculaneum or in the House of the Silver Wedding Anniversary in Pompeii, without the impluvium basin needing to be modified in this way. 45 Guidobaldi and Olevano, “Sectilia pavimenta dell’area vesuviana,” 237, table 14.6. 46 Guidobaldi and Olevano, “Sectilia pavimenta dell’area vesuviana,” 236, table 13, 4–5.

324

Maria Paola Guidobaldi

mous House of Marcus Pilius Primigenius Granianus47. At the same time, the lower levels of the House of the Telephus Relief were probably aligned and directly connected to the Suburban Baths. Evidence of this includes the closure of the connection between the first lower level and the peristyle of the main floor with an iron grate, the building of a stairway from the roof of the Suburban Baths to the balcony of room (24) of the first lower level of the south wing of Telephus (fig. 10) and the opening of a door at the end of the bath’s service corridor (N) which, as mentioned above, connected it to the rooms of the second lower level of the south wing of Telephus.

Captions to figures Fig. 1: Plan of Herculaneum, including buildings that have not been excavated but were explored by tunnel and known from eighteenth-century plans. (Image: Ubaldo Pastore). Fig. 2: Plan of the Insula Orientalis I, with the House of the Telephus Relief, the House of the Gem and the House of Marcus Pilius Primigenius Granianus. White: the House of the Telephus Relief with its first lower level. Grey: the House of the Gem and its lower area, which later became the independent House of Marcus Pilius Primigenius Granianus (here the rooms are identified with letters). (Image: Ubaldo Pastore). Fig. 3: Axonometric view of the Terrace of Marcus Nonius Balbus and the Suburban Baths. (Image: Pappalardo 1997). Fig. 4: Plan of the Suburban Baths showing the link between corridor (N) of the bath complex and room (A) of the second lower level of the south wing of the House of the Telephus Relief. Light grey: rooms 22–26 of the first lower level of the south wing. Fig. 5: The Telephus relief (MANN, inventory no. 286787/ ex 76/128) and the tondo of Achilles consulting the oracle (Herculaneum archaeological store, inventory no. 2219/77515). Fig. 6: View of the façade of the western arm of the south wing of the House of the Telephus Relief, showing the first lower level (originally with a series of columns closed in at the bottom by a low parapet, later transformed into a windowed corridor) and the second lower level with arched openings below it on the level of the ancient shoreline. Fig. 7: Axonometric of the so-called south wing, showing the rooms on the same level as the peristyle area (16, 17, 18 and 19), the lost wooden balcony and the first 47 For the House of Marcus Pilius Primigenius Granianus, see M. P. Guidobaldi, “La casa di M. Pilius Primigenius Granianus, Insula Orientalis I,1 a,” in Storie da un’eruzione. Pompei, Ercolano, Oplontis (Catalogo Mostra Napoli marzo–giugno 2003) (eds. A. d’Ambrosio, M. Mastroroberto, P. G. Guzzo; Milan: Electa, 2003), 112–120.

The House of the Telephus Relief in Herculaneum

325

lower level (window of room 24 and the arched opening on corridor 23). (Image: Maiuri 1958). Fig. 8: House of the Telephus Relief, room (24) of the first lower level of the so-called south wing. The western window of the room was blocked by the Suburban Baths. (Image: Domenico Camardo). Fig. 9: House of the Telephus Relief, blocked opening that connected the garden of the House of the Gem with the House of the Telephus Relief proper, and its modification into a window. (Image: Domenico Camardo). Fig. 10: The connecting stairway between the roof of the Suburban Baths and the rooms of the first lower level of the south wing of the House of the Telephus Relief.

Housing Roman Ostia1 Janet DeLaine From the very beginning of the systematic excavations of Ostia in the early decades of the twentieth century, domestic architecture has been one of the main foci of attention (fig. 1). Unlike the atrium houses of Pompeii which appeared to fit so reassuringly with Vitruvian prescriptions, here was a new type of housing of the second century C.E., not only closer to the manystoried rented apartment blocks Martial, Juvenal and the legal codes seemed to be describing, but also more like the contemporary twentieth century domestic architecture of Rome. The excitement at this discovery is palpable in the many articles published by the director of excavations Guido Calza,2 and by the 1940s the influence of the Ostia structures could be seen in contemporary architecture, just as there was a strong contemporary feel to reconstruction drawings of the Ostian insulae.3 As excavations progressed, a second previously unknown housing type emerged, the rich domus of late antiquity, with their lavish marble decoration, columnar reception rooms, and fountain courtyards, which the excavators associated with a leisured, 1 All buildings in Ostia are given their standard Italian names and addresses, to make it easier to identify them both on the 1:500 plan of Ostia in Scavi di Ostia I. Topografia generale (ed. G. Calza; Rome: Libreria dello Stato, 1953), and in the standard archaeological guide (C. Pavolini, Ostia [2nd ed.; Rome-Bari: Gius. Laterza & Figli, 2006]). This paper is part of a long-term study of the urban development of Ostia, carried out with the unfailing and generous support of the Soprintendenza Archeologica di Ostia, particularly Anna Gallina Zevi and Jane Shepherd, and funded by grants from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the British School at Rome, and the University of Oxford. For material and valuable discussions I would like to thank Stella Falzone, Michael Heinzelmann, Axel Gering, Nayla Muntasser, and my former graduate students Peter Rose, Saskia Stevens and Hanna Stöger. 2 For example G. Calza, “La preminenza dell ‘Insula’ nella edilizia romana,” Monumenti Antichi 23 (1914): 541–608, and “Contributi alla storia della edilizia imperiale romana. Le case ostiensi a cortile porticato,” Palladio 5 (1941): 1–33. 3 V. Kockel, “Il ‘palazzo per tutti’. La decouverte des immeubles de location antiques et son influence sur l’architecture de la Rome fasciste,” in Ostie – port et porte de la Rome antique (ed. J.-P. Descoeudres; Genève: Musées d’art et d’histoire, 2001), 66–73, and cf. G. Calza, “Le origine latine dell’abitazione moderna (I),” and I. Gismondi, “Le origine latine dell’abitazione moderna (II),” in Architettura e Arti Decorative (1923): 3–18 and 49–63.

328

Janet DeLaine

potentially Christian, elite, retired to Ostia from the uncertain conditions of the capital.4 From the 1920s onwards, excavations below the buildings of the imperial level uncovered the remains of atrium houses from the late Republican and early imperial periods, but these have never until very recently5 attracted the same level of interest as the insulae and the late antique domus, and publication is very limited.6 Nevertheless, with the remains of these late Republican houses and the addition of the large domus and suburban villa of the later first century C.E. discovered by the geophysics project of the German Archaeological Institute,7 Ostia provides as wide a range of domestic housing as can be found anywhere in the empire except for Rome itself; only an imperial residence is missing. This chapter therefore attempts a new synthetic overview of housing in Roman Ostia from the late Republic to the fifth century C.E. in the light of recent findings.

1. Housing the wealthier classes In the study of Roman housing, it is all too easy to set up a dichotomy between the single-family domus, typified by Pompeii, and the rented apartments of the multi-occupancy insulae of mid-imperial Ostia. Yet if we look at what survives of the residential accommodation at Ostia of the mid first century C.E., it was not very different to contemporary Pompeian houses preserved by the eruption of Vesuvius, as Meiggs long ago noted.8 Limited excavation below the second century levels, mainly in the first half of the twentieth century, has revealed a number of atrium and atrium-peristyle houses to add to the very few still extant in the city at the end of its life, all originally of late Republican or very early imperial date.9 Houses of similar date have been identified within the old castrum, along the western 4  G. Becatti, “Case ostiensi del tardo impero,” Bollettino d’Archeologia 33 (1948): 102–128, 197–224. 5 For the excavations since 1997 of the Domus dei Bucrani, in the Schola del Traiano (IV.v. 15), see B. Perrier, “Les trois edifices successifs: Schola du Trajan, Domus à Peristyle, Domus aux Bucranes,” in Villas, maisons, sanctuaires et tombeaux tardo-republicains (eds. A. Gallina Zevi and B. Perrier; Rome: Quasar, 2007), 15–32. 6 Scavi di Ostia I, 103, 107–11, fig. 29. 7 M. Heinzelmann M., S. T. A. M. Mols, M. McKinnon, “Ostia, Regionen III und IV. Untersuchungen in den unausgegrabenen Bereichen des Stadtgebietes. Vorbericht zur vierten Grabungskampagne 2001,” Römische Mitteilungen 109 (2002): 225–242; A. Martin, M. Heinzelmann, E. C. De Sena, and M. G. Granino CeCere, “The Urbanistic Project on the Previously Unexcavated Areas of Ostia (DAI – AAR 1996–2001),” Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome 47 (2002): 265–269. 8 R. Meiggs, Roman Ostia (2nd ed., Oxford: OUP, 1973), 13–14. 9 Domus di Giove Fulminatore (IV.iv.3); Domus della Nicchia a Mosaico (IV.iv.3).

Housing Roman Ostia

329

extension of the decumanus towards the sea, at the start of the via della Foce, along the southern extension of the cardo as far as the old Porta Laurentina, and in several places east of the castrum (fig. 2). In the absence of full publication for most of these, dating is difficult, but the majority, if not all, appear to fall into the first century B.C., often with Augustan or early Julio-Claudian reworking.10 Among the smallest of these are the three under the later Casa Basilicale (I.ix.1; fig. 3), apparently without peristyles, which led Meiggs to suppose that such atrium houses were ‘not limited to the rich’.11 Nevertheless, they compare well, in terms of size and level of decoration, with the better Pompeian houses with similar symmetrical plans, atria and good decoration.12 In its final phase, the largest of the three, House A, had two triclinia flanking the tablinum, a very large impluvium with a fine marble puteal, and complex geometric mosaics in several rooms. Less is preserved of the other two, but the tablinum of B had an opus sectile floor of palombino, while the best-preserved room of C, presumably a triclinium although usually designated a tablinum, had a complex geometric mosaic with vegetal elements, designed to allow for the typical U-shaped arrangement of couches. Despite the apparent absence of peristyles, these are hardly the trappings of ‘modest’ houses, as Pavolini describes them.13 The largest atrium-peristyle houses at Ostia are in fact similar in size to some of the most famous of Pompeian houses.14 If indeed the Domus di Giove Fulminatore (IV.iv.3, fig. 2) in its original form did include a large 10 See note 6. Although some of the earliest phases were dated to the late second century B.C.E. in Scavi di Ostia I, this largely depended on stylistic dating of construction techniques, themselves predicated on parallels from Rome, and more importantly from Ostia itself. Now that the dating of the late Republican city walls has been convincingly moved from the 80s to the late 60s B.C.E. (F. Zevi, “Costruttori eccellenti per le mura di Ostia. Cicerone, Clodio e l’iscrizione della Porta Romana,” Rivista Istituto Archeologia e Storia dell’Arte 19–20 (1997): 61–112), some of these dates need to be amended. The first phase of the Domus dei Bucrani has been dated on archaeological grounds to about 60 B.C.E. (S. Aubry, “La datation des phases de construction et de destruction de la Domus aux Bucranes: céramiques et monnaies,” in Villas, maisons, sanctuaires et tombeaux tardorepublicains [eds. A. Gallina Zevi and B. Perrier; Rome: Quasar, 2007], 46–47.) 11 Meiggs, Roman Ostia, 238. 12 For the floors see Becatti, Scavi di Ostia IV. Mosaici e pavimenti marmorei (Rome: Liberia dello Stato, 1961), 19–21, and Tav. IV–V, LXXIII. The surviving areas of the three houses in I.ix.1 range from approximately 240 to 300 m2. In comparison, the third quartile of Wallace-Hadrill’s study of a sample of Pompeian houses [A. Wallace-Hadrill, Houses and society in Pompeii and Herculaneum (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 79–82], into which many of the typical Pompeian atrium houses fall, ranges from 175 to 350 m2, with the fourth quartile from 350 to over 3,000 m2. 13 Pavolini, Ostia, 99–100. 14 Most of the Ostian examples in fact are comparable to the Pompeian houses in Wallace-Hadrill’s fourth quartile of large and richly decorated domus (see note 12).

330

Janet DeLaine

peristyle later occupied by the Terme Bizantine,15 it must have covered over 2,000 m2, larger than the Casa dei Vettii or the Casa di Meleagro (both c. 1,140 m2) at Pompeii, and not very much smaller than the Casa del Labirinto (c. 2,320 m2). The quality of decoration of these houses, where evidence remains, is equally impressive. This can be seen in the first century B.C.E. phase of the recently-excavated Domus dei Bucrani and its Augustan successor, the Domus a peristilio, where the excavators have argued that the wall paintings can only be matched in houses from the Palatine in Rome.16 These then are presumably the houses of Ostia’s upper levels of society, those who supplied its decurions and magistrates in the critical years of the first century B.C.E., when the city was first sacked by Marius, then invaded by pirates, and – to judge from the naval iconography of the two early Augustan funerary monuments outside the walls – was involved in the civil wars which ended with Actium.17 These rich houses continued in operation at least to the end of the JulioClaudian period, but in the second half of the first century things began to change. The domus at III.ii.1–2 on the western decumanus was eventually replaced by a large fullonica,18 and a new domus (the later Domus della Fortuna Annonaria), this time possibly without an atrium, was established at V.ii.8.19 This is also the period of the two large domus in the unexcavated area revealed by the German geophysical survey, also built around large central courts and apparently without atria (fig. 4).20 The domus in the east of the city beyond the Terme del Nuotatore (fig. 4a), richly decorated with opus sectile and marble veneer, at roughly 4,300 m2 was larger than any of the known earlier Ostian residences, and indeed just larger than the Casa del Fauno, the largest of all Pompeian houses. Just outside the late Republican 15 See S. Lorenzatti, “La domus di Giove fulminatore,” Bolletino di Archeologia 49–50 (1998): 79–98, mainly for the later phases of the house. 16 See T. Morard, “Le plan de la Domus aux Bucranes et son système décoratif: pavements  – parois peintes  – stucs  – plafonds,” in Villas, maisons, sanctuaires et tombeaux tardo-republicains (eds A. Gallina Zevi and B. Perrier; Rome: Quasar, 2007) 55–80, and cf. S. Falzone, Ornata Aedificia. Pitture parietali dalle case ostiensi (Roma: Libreria dello Stato, 2007), 33–38. 17 For the most recent account of Republican Ostia see F. Zevi, “Appunti per una storia di Ostia repubblicana,” MEFRA 114 (2002): 13–58, especially 55–56. 18 C. De Ruyt, “Un exemple de discontinuité des fonctions monumentales dans un quartier de la ville romaine d’Ostie (Reg. III, Ins. II),” Revue belge d’archéologie et d’histoire de l’art 65 (1996): 5–16. 19 J. S. Boersma, Th. L. Heres, H. A. G. Brijder, J. J. Feye, M. Gnade and S. L. Wynia, Amoenissima Civitas. Block V.ii at Ostia: Description and Analysis of Its Visible Remains (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1985), 156, 198. 20 Martin et al., “Urbanistic project,” 265–69; Heinzelmann et al., “Ostia. Regionen III und IV,” 233–39; F. A. Bauer, M. Heinzelmann, A. Martin, “Ostia. Ein urbanistisches Forschungsprojekt in den unausgegrabenen Bereichen des Stadtgebietes. Vorbericht zur 2. Grabungskampagne 1999,” RM 107 (2000): 394–410.

Housing Roman Ostia

331

walls to the south along the coast, beyond the later Trajanic Terme della Porta Marina, and so in origin a suburban villa, was the largest and most elaborate residence so far known at Ostia, erected in the third quarter of the century and covering roughly 9,500 m2 (fig. 4b). This was a residence fit for Rome or the Bay of Naples, with a long garden area in addition to the main block, similar in overall size to the Villa dei Papiri at Herculaneum, and forming the first of a long line of villas which eventually extended south along the Laurentine coast.21 Here, then, are the best contenders for the previously vexed question of where the elite of Ostia lived in the mid imperial period. All continued into the later third century, although over the course of the second century, some of the Republican or Augustan domus were indeed replaced by commercial structures. Nevertheless, others continued to be grand houses, including the Domus di Giove Fulminatore (IV.iv.3), the largest of the excavated houses which probably lost its peristyle only in the third century,22 while the late Republican Domus di Apuleio was largely rebuilt in the middle of the second century and further refurbished at the end of the third.23 The Domus a peristilio, according to the latest excavations, also continued to function and was not replaced by the so-called Schola del Traiano until the Severan period.24 If Zevi and Bocherens are correct in identifying the Domus a peristilio as the Ostian residence of Caius Fabius Agrippinus, consul of C.E. 148 and probably at one time patron of Ostia, then this provides some kind of benchmark for identifying houses belonging to the upper echelons of Ostian society in the mid imperial period, however relatively modest it may seem at only c. 1,700 m2.25 Although there is no evidence at all about the ownership of the residences identified in the geophysical survey, we should presumably be looking at families of senatorial or equestrian status, possibly of long standing at Ostia, and most likely to be found among the patrons and senior magistrates of the city, such as the local Egrilii Plariani, whose senatorial careers seem to have taken off precisely in the late Julio-Claudian and early Flavian periods.26 21 A. Claridge, “The villas of the Laurentine Shore,” Rendiconti della Pontificia Accademia romana di archeologia 70 (1998): 307–317. 22 Lorenzatti, “Giove fulminatore,” especially 94. 23 F. Coarelli, “Apuleio a Ostia?” Dialoghi d’Archeologia 7 (1989): 27–42. 24 Perrier, “Trois edifices,” 15, 20 note 12. 25 Ch. Bocherens and F. Zevi, “La schola du Trajan et la domus du consul Caius Fabius Agrippinus a Ostie,” Archeologia Classica 58 (2007): 257–271. Their suggestion that Fabius Agrippianus may be a descendant (by birth or adoption) of C. Fabius Agrippa, duumvir of the early empire, and putative original owner of the house, is seductive but unprovable. 26 Meiggs, Roman Ostia, 503–4; F. Zevi, “Nuovi documenti epigrafici sugli Egrilii Ostiensi,” Mélanges de l’École Française de Rome: Antiquité 82 (1970): 279–320.

332

Janet DeLaine

At the same time, and particularly in the first half of the second century, other forms of high-status housing emerged as part of the combined residential and commercial multi-storey insulae which are so much associated with imperial Ostia. The most conspicuous of this group comprises a small number of dwellings arranged around their own internal courtyards, despite being part of high-rise structures: the Insula delle Muse (III.ix.22), the Insula di Giove e Ganimede (I.iv.2),27 and the rich dwelling which preceded the Casa di Diana (I.iii.3–4) (fig. 5).28 At roughly 750, 540, and at least 480 m2 respectively in overall size, they are all at the lower end of the range of the top quarter of house sizes in Wallace-Hadrill’s sample at Pompeii,29 without even taking into account their extensive integral upper floors, reached from inside the dwelling, or the large garden which the Insula di Giove e Ganimede shared with its attached medianum apartments (I.iv.3–4). The parallels we should be making, in terms of overall size, are with Pompeian houses such as the Casa di Iulio Polibio (c. 740 m2), the Casa di Trebio Valente or the Casa del Poeta Tragico (both c. 550 m2). Further comparisons strengthen the case for considering these as domus. The two largest reception rooms of the Insula delle Muse, and that of the Insula di Giove e Ganimede (measuring c. 49, 56 and 63 m2 respectively) are larger than the famous Corinthian oecus of the Casa del Labirinto at Pompeii, which is c. 45 m2. Overall, it is notable that these Ostian houses tend to have fewer, larger rooms than their Pompeian counterparts, at least on the ground floor, which suggests a different attitude to the use of space; there is not enough evidence, however, to determine whether this reflects different sizes and/or types of households, or different patterns of social interaction. The upper floors of these houses are possibly the key, but unfortunately we have insufficient evidence to reconstruct their layouts. Several elements of the organisation of two of these houses suggest the possibility for self-presentation and social differentiation. Their entrances, framed by pilasters and pediments in coloured brick, were carefully sited for visibility and impact. That of the Insula di Giove e Ganimede was aligned with the street directly behind the new civic temple (the ‘Capitolium’) facing the forum (fig. 6), while the Insula delle Muse faced onto a wide street, run27 See J. DeLaine, “The Insula of the Paintings at Ostia 1.4.2–4. Paradigm for a city in flux,” in Urban Society in Roman Italy (eds T. J. Cornell and K. Lomas; London: UCL Press, 1995), 84–7, and J. DeLaine, “High status insula apartments in early imperial Ostia – a reading,” Mededelingen van het Nederlands Instituut te Rome, Antiquity 58 (1999): 175–187 for detailed discussion of the Insula di Giove e Ganimede, and some comments on the Insula delle Muse. 28 A. Marinucci, “La Maison de Diane (I iii 3–4),” in Ostie – port et porte de la Rome antique (ed. J.-P. Descoeudres; Genève: Musées d’art et d’histoire, 2001), 230–44. 29 See above note 12. The Casa di Diana with all its tabernae occupies 880 m2, but it is not clear whether any of the area these occupy were once part of the original house.

Housing Roman Ostia

333

ning from the important via degli Aurighi roughly parallel to the western part of the decumanus maximus, and opening into a broad plaza in front of the main entrance to the Case a Giardino complex.30 Both of these houses had suites formed from a pair of interconnecting rooms (a well-lit outer room providing the only natural light for an inner cubiculum), which can be argued to have functioned as the private quarters of the dominus (the ‘master’s suite).31 The layout is more elaborate in the Insula delle Muse where the pair of rooms are accessed from a short hall opening off the arcade of the court. The door to this hall, and the door to the outer room of the suite in the Insula di Giove e Ganimede, were located so as to be visible from the entrance to the house, providing the same kind of possibility of formal reception usually associated with salutationes and the tablinum of an atrium house. Where it still exists, the very high quality of the decoration is a further indication of high status. In the Insula delle Muse, fine complex black-andwhite geometric mosaic floors were combined in the original Hadrianic phase with elegant wall paintings, including the architectonic scheme with figures of Apollo and the Muses from which the house takes its name and a similar scheme with remains of mythological panels from one of the large reception rooms, both reminiscent of later Pompeian decoration.32 The Insula di Giove e Ganimede had similar, if rather simpler, mosaic floors, but the wall painting is a later second century replacement of poorer quality than those in the Insula delle Muse.33 Nevertheless, in its main reception room it includes the only complete surviving mythological panel in Ostia, which may suggest that the original decoration was similar to that of the Insula delle Muse. With the third of these insula-domus, recently discovered under the Casa di Diana, it is mainly the decoration which speaks of its high status as the original layout can only be partially recovered.34 The fine mar30 The precise significance of this street and plaza is hard to reconstruct, but the fact that the formal entrance to the small Trajanic warehouse/market at III.ii.6, marked with brick columns and pediment, is aligned precisely on this street suggests its importance even before the construction of the Insula delle Muse and the Case a Giardino. 31 On these suites in general see G. Hermansen, Ostia. Aspects of Roman City Life (Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 1982), 17–33, and the discussion in DeLaine, “Paradigm”. 32 See Becatti, Mosaici, 128–33 and Tav. CCXXV for the floors, and B. M. Felletti Maj and P. Moreno, Le pitture della Casa delle Muse, Monumenti della pittura antica scoperti in Italia III, Ostia 3 (Rome: Poligrafico dello Stato, 1967) for the primary publication of the wall paintings, with Falzone Ornata, 56–68 for a succinct analysis. 33 Becatti, Mosaici, 14–16 for the mosaics, and S. Falzone, Scavi di Ostia XIV. Le pitture delle Insulae (Rome: Liberia dello Stato, 2004) 61–82, for the later paintings. 34 For the details see Marinucci, “Maison de Diane,” although his interpretations are not without problems. The mosaic of the western corridor appears to pass under the east wall of the tabernae forming part of the later Casa di Diana, which would suggest that the house originally had rooms on its west side as well.

334

Janet DeLaine

ble opus sectile floor of the large room at the rear, designed to allow for the traditional arrangement of dining couches, identifies it as the main reception and dining room, again comparable in size to the oecus of the Casa dei Labirinto at Pompeii. Even more surprising for Ostia in the second century, the central courtyard, originally paved in mosaic, was transformed shortly after by the insertion of a central fountain, elaborately-shaped and sheathed in marble and coloured glass mosaic, surrounded by a marble pavement (fig. 7). Both of these marble features are of exceptional quality and find parallels mainly in imperial contexts, such as Hadrian’s Villa at Tivoli.35 These three are thus most easily categorised as luxury town houses, ‘modern’ versions of the atrium houses of the preceding centuries, possibly for members of Ostia’s elite who had country estates elsewhere in the area, or made their money from commerce or associated trades further afield. The type of grouping here called the ‘master’s suite’ is, for example, more commonly seen in the domus of Roman North Africa than in earlier housing in Italy,36 and it may be that the idea comes with the notable number of Africans involved in commercial enterprises that appear in the epigraphic record, and who must have had at least seasonal residences in the city.37 It is worth noting that the Insula delle Muse occupies an area roughly the same size as the living quarters (without the peristyle) of the Domus a peristilio at Ostia, and is larger than the Domus della Fortuna Annonaria. Although the latter had a stone colonnade around its courtyard rather than a brick-faced concrete arcade, the ‘domus’ had fewer reception rooms and gave over a larger area for tabernae than the ‘insula’. A potential purchaser or someone looking to rent a substantial town house might consider both of these, and make a decision – as we might – on grounds of personal taste, suitability, and location. What they do not necessarily represent, I would argue, are differences in social or economic status of the potential occupants. This short account of higher status housing already indicates the wide range of potential forms, but without taking into account several smaller and less easily categorised residences from various periods. These include: the core of what became the Domus dei Tigriniani (III.i.4), probably dating to the second century C.E.;38 IV.ii.5 behind the Terme del Faro, in its 35 Cf. M. De Franceschini, Villa Adriana: mosaici, pavimenti, edifici (Rome: “L’Erma” di Bretschneider, 1991). 36 Cf. J. DeLaine, “Designing for a market: ‘medianum’ apartments at Ostia,” Journal of Roman Archaeology 17 (2004): 170–1. 37 See M. Cebeillac-Gervasoni, “Gli ‘Africani’ ad Ostia ovvero ‘Le Mani sulla citta’,” in L’Incidenza dell’Antico. Studi in memoria di E. Lepore (eds A. Storchi Marino, L. Breglia Pulci Doria, C. Montepaone; Naple: Luciano, 1996), 3, 557–567, for Africans at Ostia. 38 See G. Calza, “Ancora sulla Basilica Cristiana,” Rendiconti della Pontificia Accademia 18 (1941–42): 136 for the original dating to the mid second century, and Th. L.

Housing Roman Ostia

335

main phase Hadrianic to Antonine;39 and the Severan phase of the later Caupona del Pavone (IV.ii.6).40 The ground floor areas range from c. 250 to 380 m2 and all had internal courts, while at least the last two had integral upper floors and elements of fine decoration. All of this places them again within Wallace-Hadrill’s third quartile for Pompeii, of small atrium houses with some fine decoration.41 There may also be more of these houses in the unexcavated areas, where the geophysical survey is insufficiently detailed to identify such less regular types of plans. Altogether, then, there are far more residential units that have some claim to being classed as domus than is usually recognised, even without including the so-called ‘medianum’ apartments about which so much has been written, and to which we now turn.

2. The ‘medianum’ apartments Of the roughly 100 apartments at Ostia with regular plans, about 40 have been classified as ‘medianum’ apartments.42 The name was given to them by Gustav Hermansen, following ancient legal sources which discussed questions of liability for things thrown into the street from the common rooms of multi-occupancy apartments on the upper floors of insulae.43 He identified the medianum as the long central living space, from which all other rooms were accessed, as the characteristic feature in a discrete group of Ostian apartments. I have argued elsewhere that there are problems with this identification, not in the least since Hermansen’s examples are all ground floor apartments, but the name has gained common usage, and it does help identify a typologically coherent group which are not atrium or courtyard houses.44 The ‘medianum’ type of plan, here typified by the Insula di Bacco Fanciullo (I.iv.3, fig. 8) has one, or more commonly two, large reception rooms usually of different sizes (A and B) at either end of the long rectangular ‘medianum’ (M), all of which took light through large glazed windows Heres, “Alcuni appunti sulla Basilica Cristiana (III.I.4) di Ostia Antica,” Mededelingen van het Nederlands Instituut te Rome, Antiquity 42 (1980): 94–95 for a Trajanic date. 39 See most recently S. Falzone, Le pitture delle Insulae (180–250 circa d.C.). Scavi di Ostia 14 (Rome: Libreria dello Stato, 2004) 119–26. 40 C. Gasparri Le pitture della Caupona del Pavone, Monumenti della Pittura Antica III,4 (Rome: Poligrafico dello Stato, 1970), 7–14. 41 See note 12. 42 For descriptions of many of these see J. E. Packer, “The Insulae of Imperial Ostia,” Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome 31 (1971), and for the statistics A. Gering, “Habiter a Ostie: la fonction et l’histoire de l’espace ‘privé’,” in Ostie – port et porte de la Rome antique (ed. J.-P. Descoeudres; Geneva: Musées d’art et d’histoire, 2001), 202. 43 Hermansen, Ostia, 24–53. 44 DeLaine, “Medianum,” 148–9.

336

Janet DeLaine

opening onto the street or an internal courtyard or garden, and two or more private rooms or cubicula (C), often poorly lit, opening off the other side of the ‘mediamum’. There were sometimes further rooms behind A or B (here B and b form a ‘master’s suite’, as identified above in contemporary domus), and many had combined latrines and kitchens, often separated from the main living spaces by a corridor. The largest also had extensive integral upper floors, although rooms A, the largest reception/living spaces, were often double height. This type of apartment was, in fact, well-suited to insertion into long narrow blocks the width of either one (e.g. II.vi, 3 and 6, V.iii, 3, fig. 9) or two (e.g. the Casa a Giardino complex, III.ix) rows of tabernae. While the surviving ones generally occupy the ground level, they were once presumably far more common on upper floors. The one possible example which survives from Rome is precisely on the piano nobile of the insula at the foot of the Capitoline Hill,45 while a similar arrangement has been reconstructed on the first floor above III.x.1 at Ostia.46 To achieve any distinction as a residential form, however, it depended on the use of window glass to provide strong natural light, which in atrium/peristyle houses was obtained directly from the internal courts, and thus presumably did not develop fully before the middle of the first century C.E. at the earliest. The simplest, as well as the smallest and earliest, of the better-known ‘medianum’ apartments are the Casette Tipo (III.xii–xiii), dating to about C.E. 100 (fig. 10). These consist of just two blocks each made of two ground floor apartments, with the remains of staircases from the street, showing that there was at least one, and more probably two or even three, floors of independent apartments above. They do not however appear to have had any integral upper floors, although the poor state of preservation, to a height of barely 1.5 m, makes it impossible to be sure. As well as the standard arrangement of reception/living rooms A and B, medianum M, and individual rooms C, all have their own kitchens and double latrines (marked K/L). Traces of wall painting and mosaic floors survive in all,47 and the street between them is paved in basalt, despite this only giving access to the two buildings; presumably this extra expense was at the instigation of the owner(s) of the property (or properties). One of the unexplained and intriguing aspects of the Casette Tipo, which to some extent contradicts their modern label of ‘Standard Houses’, is the 45 S. Priester, Ad summas tegulas. Untersuchungen zu vielgeschossigen Gebäudeblöcken mit Wohneinheiten und Insulae im kaiserzeitlichen Rom (Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider, 2002), 77–86, Taf. 78. 46 A. Gering, “‘Medianum-apartments’: Konzepte von Wohnen in der insula im 2. Jh. n.Chr.,” Mededelingen van het Nederlands Instituut te Rome, Antiquity 58 (1999): 109–11. 47 For the floors see Becatti, Mosaici, 138–139.

Housing Roman Ostia

337

degree of variation in their plans. Although all occupy roughly the same amount of space (c. 118–127 m2 depending on how the space under the external stairs was used), and all have a medianum type plan, only the western pair (III.xiii) are mirror-images of each other. Both the other two are different. III.xii.1 has no room B, but instead has three cubicula and a very small kitchen/latrine at the end of the medianum. In contrast, III.xii.2 has an entrance corridor beside the kitchen/latrine as well as an entrance, perhaps the main one, directly into the largest room A rather than into the medianum. The construction details appear to show that these variations were part of the original plan. This suggests either that they were introduced at the request of the buyers, which would mean that each separate block had two owners, or that the owners/developers were adapting to the needs of the prospective tenants, or that they anticipated a rental market which was interested in these specific variants. In other words, these are to some extent designed spaces, or at least very specific variations on an established pattern, which is arguably indicative of the needs of the occupiers, and not just owners. Nevertheless, in discussions of Ostian apartments the Casette Tipo have generally been considered as examples of lower class housing, designed as multiple-occupancy rental units with the ‘medianum’ as a common space where cooking and eating took place. This is partly due to their construction, the walls being thinner and the construction technique rougher than in the somewhat later and grander examples of this type, such as the Case a Giardino, and the external staircases only of wood. Certainly these are among the smaller apartments with a fully-developed medianum plan, but they are still larger than the three small domus for rent in the Insula Arriana Polliana at Pompeii, if we accept Pirson’s reading of that building,48 and indeed than some of the smallest Pompeian atrium houses such as VI.xv.9. In addition, the underlying spatial organisation, with the main rooms opening off a central space with a circulation function, is virtually identical to that of an atrium house, particularly those without side rooms or with only one row of them.49 The main difference is that all but one of the Casette Tipo open directly off the street, without the filtering possibilities of a long entrance passage, which argues that these are not designed for any type of formal reception such as salutatio. This can, however, also be argued for the small atrium houses with which these can be most easily compared. Altogether I would suggest that we should consider the Casette Tipo as respect48 F. Pirson, “Rented accommodation at Pompeii: the evidence of the Insula Arriana Polliana V.i.6,” in Domestic Space in the Roman World: Pompeii and Beyond (eds. R. Laurence and A. Wallace-Hadrill; Portsmouth: Journal of Roman Archaeology Supplement 22, 1997), 165–181. 49 Cf. Packer, Insulae, 8–9.

338

Janet DeLaine

able, while not luxurious, independent housing with parallels at Pompeii, rather than as mass housing. What is beyond dispute is that these are the earliest of the fully-developed medianum apartments that survive at Ostia, and may therefore represent a relatively early stage in the evolution of this distinctive type.50 If the Casette Tipo represent the early phase of the medianum type of apartment at Ostia, then those of the Case a Giardino complex (III.ix.3, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12–21, plus two later incorporated into the Domus dei Dioscuri; fig. 10) exemplify its mature phase.51 Seventeen ground-floor apartments, all as far as we can tell with integral upper floors, were arranged around a large open space, cut off from the bustle of the surrounding area in the manner of a modern condominium, with limited entrances to the inner space which could be closed off as required. One of the better preserved is the Insula delle Pareti Gialle (III.ix.12), with the standard pattern of reception rooms A and B at either end of the ‘medianum’ (M), all well-lit through large windows opening onto the inner garden, and two cubicula opening off the inner and darker side of the medianum. In this apartment the kitchen and latrine are in a cramped but reasonably lit space under the internal stairs, but the medianum is rather more square in shape than normal and the inner room opening off A would be more commonly found opening off B. This is a substantial apartment of over 300 m2 in ground floor area, and up to 570 m2 altogether, making it one of the largest of the medianum apartments in the complex. As with all those in which decoration remains, this has complex floral geometric mosaics in its more important rooms, and, from a second phase, richly-coloured wall painting. Of the 14 apartments where the ground plan survives more-or-less intact, only the eight central ones (III.ix.13–20), arranged in two blocks of four, are very closely similar. Otherwise the same kind of minor variations within an overall scheme occur here as in the Casette Tipo, but most show even more variety in details of layout such as room size and number. There can be anything between two and four cubicula, and while some have quite large separate rooms for the kitchen/latrine, others seem to manage with

50 The suite of rooms forming the lower floor of the Casa di Giuseppe II (VII.ii.39) at Pompeii approaches the medianum in plan, suggesting an evolution from the middle of the first century C.E. See L. Richardson, Pompeii. An architectural History (Baltimore, 1988), 238–39. 51 See the useful study by R. Cervi, “Evoluzione architettonica delle cosidette ‘case a giardino’ ad Ostia,” in Città e monumenti nell’Italia antica. Atlante tematico di topografia antica 7 (eds. L. Quilici and S. Quilici Gigli; Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider, 1999), 141– 156, and A. Gering, “Die Case a Giardino als unerfüllter Architektentraum. Planung und gewandelte Nutzung einer Luxuswohnanlage im antiken Ostia,” Römische Mitteilungen 109 (2002): 109–140 for the phases of development.

Housing Roman Ostia

339

the space under the stair, or presumably had these on the upper floor.52 Two (III.ix. 10 and 4) have integral tabernae, in both cases with a rear door into the main reception room A, while the most recently discovered, the Casa delle Ierodule, has two rooms B flanking the medianum, and a large central reception room with a columnar opening onto it. Once again the amount of variety is surprising, and precludes that these are simply a speculative development aimed at an unknown clientele. A close examination of the building materials and techniques shows clearly that this whole complex is a single building project, so that the variation must be part of the architect’s original design.53 Indeed, apartments III.ix.3 and 4 show clear elements of a modular approach to design, with the first having one more cubiculum than the other and hence producing a longer medianum, somewhat in the manner of modern designs for apartment blocks involving different-sized units.54 These are not the only ground floor ‘medianum’ apartments which occur in groups, as part of designed complexes with independent upper floor apartments reached from an external staircase. The virtually identical ‘medianum’ apartments I.iv.3 (fig. 8) and 4 form part of the same construction as the Insula di Giove e Ganimede, and share its large garden. In contrast, both II.iii.3 and 4, and V.iii.3 and 4, are unequal pairs with one larger and one smaller unit. In the case of V.iii.3 and 4 (fig. 11), the insula includes six tabernae, and the two apartments were originally linked internally, as if for members of the same family or group who might have shared domestic staff. In all these cases the entrances to the medianum apartments are distinguished by decorative pilasters crowned by pediments in the same way as some of the more exclusive horrea and the richer domus.55 In the case of II.iii.3–4, the pilasters flank both the shared entrance corridor to the two ground floor apartments and the external staircase, suggesting that at least some of the upper floor apartments would have been substantial and well-appointed. Many such decorated staircases are to be found on important streets, such as the via Laurentina and the via degli Horrea Epagathiana, although the actual arrangements of these upper floors are almost never preserved. The one exception is neither a medianum apartment nor has a framed entrance, but is non-the-less instructive. The Insula delle Volte Dipinte (III.v. 1, fig. 12) has a spacious self-contained upstairs apartment, with a large reception or living space in the corner farthest from the entrance, 52 See S. Stevens, “Reconstructing the Garden Houses at Ostia. Exploring Water Supply and Building Height,” BABesch 80 (2005): 113–123 for latrines on upper floors. 53 J. DeLaine, “Building activity in Ostia in the second century AD,” in Ostia e Portus nelle loro relazioni con Roma, Acta Instituti Romani Finlandiae 27 (eds. C. Bruun and A. Gallina Zevi; Rome: Institutum Romanum Finlandiae, 2002), 73–4. 54 DeLaine, “Medianum”. 55 See H. Stoeger, “Monumental Entrances of Roman Ostia. Architecture with Public Associations and Spatial Meaning,” BABesch 82 (2007): 347–363 for these entrances.

340

Janet DeLaine

which could have taken light from two sides, at least four rooms with narrow doorways which could have functioned as cubicula, and what originally may have been another larger room and a fifth cubiculum. Most importantly, this large apartment also had its own kitchen with running water, latrine and bathroom, the water from the latter being directed by the slope of the floor to flush the latrine. Because of the unusual plan of this and the ground floor apartment, based on a central corridor, the building has sometimes been interpreted as a hotel, but there is no independent evidence why this should be the case, as Packer has already noted.56 Instead, at roughly 187 m2, this is the equivalent, in terms of total area, of some of the smaller atrium houses of Pompeii. Although being arranged on a different sort of plan, this apartment encourages the belief that the upper floors of the large medianum complexes, and particularly those of the central blocks of the Casa a Giardino, were not necessarily divided into smaller units but replicated the arrangements of the ground floor, and duplicated some of their amenities. For the latter, Stevens has recently argued that there were four floors, with toilets on at least three floors, and running water on at least the second.57 Ostia appears, therefore, to have been supplied with a considerable amount of accommodation which, at least in its original form, was designed for long-term rentals to an economically comfortable clientele. Specific evidence is lacking, but we might see these as the more prosperous members of the many collegia which serviced the city and its commerce, such as the fabri tignarii, the fullones, or the mensores frumentarii. At the upper end of the range at least, there are large, well-appointed and even luxurious apartments which are in many ways comparable to the smaller domus, while even the smaller ones could hardly be categorised as ‘lower class’.

3. Where did the rest of the population live? While the different types of domus and high status apartments have largely been identified, locating where the rest of the population lived is more difficult. As is to be expected, the urban landscape is dominated by commercial, rather than domestic, architecture, especially along the main city streets (fig. 13).58 Much of this consists of one‑ or two-roomed tabernae, the basic retail or productive unit, over 800 of which have been indentified in the excavated area at Ostia, while the geophysical survey suggests there were 56 Packer, “Insulae,” 11–12, 170–1. The idea goes back to T. Kleberg, Hôtels, restaurants et cabarets dans l’antiquité romaine (Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksells, 1957), 46. 57 Stevens, “Reconstructing”. 58 See in general J. DeLaine, “The commercial landscape of Ostia,” in Roman Working Lives and Urban Living (eds. A. MacMahon and J. Price; Oxford: Oxbow 2005), 29–47.

Housing Roman Ostia

341

many more.59 While the ground floors of some buildings consisted entirely of two rows of tabernae back-to-back, it was more common for them to front other types of buildings, especially public baths, high-rise residential blocks, other commercial structures, and even high status housing. Often these tabernae must have supplied living quarters for those employed there, in back rooms, on mezzanine floors reached from inside the tabernae, or simply in the back of the single spaces. That these were indeed living spaces as well as commercial premises is suggested by the occasional remaining evidence for latrines, for example in the large corner taberna of the Insula di Giove e Ganimede, added under the internal stair after it was separated from the house. Entrances to other low status residential accommodation appear among the tabernae lining the streets, most often in the form of external staircases to upper floors. Although our understanding of apartment living comes mainly from the well-preserved ground-floor apartments, upper floor ones were certainly far more numerous in the ancient city. Often all that survives of them are these staircases, many of which are to be found in insulae which are entirely commercial on the ground floor, such as the seven units which make up I.viii.6–10, each consisting of two to five tabernae on the ground floor (fig. 14). The late Antonine phase of the Casa di Diana (I.iii.3–4, fig. 15) preserves a rare arrangement of rooms on the first floor, and the remains of staircases at this level confirm that there was at least one, and most probably two, further floors. The layout suggests that many of these upper floor apartments were small, only two to four rooms. On the same floor of this insula there is a rather different arrangement, a row of narrow, poorly lit cells off a corridor with a larger, presumably shared, single living room at the far end (fig. 15, 6). While this type of accommodation is not often discussed, the fact that there is another example above the Horrea Epagathiana (I.viii.3),60 and a further one on the second floor of the insula at the foot of the Capitoline Hill in Rome,61 suggests that this was a more common solution than is usually recognised. The building is designed so that the upper floor inhabitants, in addition to the external staircases from the street, had access to a large communal latrine and a water supply from 59 See G. Girri, La taberna nel quadro urbanistico e sociale di Ostia (Roma: “L’Erma” di Bretschneider, 1956), for the standard account of the excavated tabernae, and M. Heinzelmann, “Bauboom und urbanistische Defizite – zur städtebaulichen Entwicklung Ostias im 2. Jh.,” Ostia e Portus nelle loro relazioni con Roma, Acta Instituti Romani Finlandiae 27 (eds. C. Bruun and A. Gallina Zevi; Rome: Institutum Romanum Finlandiae, 2002), 108–112, and especially Tafel IV.2 for preliminary results from the geophysical survey. The unpublished detailed plan suggests there were many more. My thanks to Michael Heinzelmann for access to this plan ahead of publication. 60 Included in Hermansen’s list of medianum apartments (Hermansen, Ostia, 47–8). 61 See most recently Priester, Ad summas tegulas, 67–77, Taf. 71.

342

Janet DeLaine

the cistern on the ground floor by way of two internal staircases, and may have had an upper floor latrine. The same building had two similar small apartments on the ground floor, and each of the eight tabernae had its own internal upper room, while two also had back rooms. Overall, the accommodation provided by the tabernae units was not necessarily inferior to that of these small purely residential apartments in terms of space, although in this case the former had less direct access to the block’s facilities. Although not all the arrangements on the ground floor are easy to interpret and the plan has no direct parallels elsewhere at Ostia, the Casa di Diana is useful in displaying a range of what might usefully be labelled as ‘lower class’ housing. While all of this was presumably rental accommodation, the two to four-room apartments could have been rented on a monthly or yearly basis by respectable but not very wealthy elements of society who owned no property of their own. The group accommodation was more likely rented by the day or week, particularly by the transient or seasonal populations we might expect in a harbour city like Ostia, a type of boarding house or pensione. We have however no direct evidence of this, nor of how many individuals occupied each apartment. Equally impossible to identify are examples where a small apartment was actually shared by a number of unrelated individuals, rather than the small nuclear family we might assume, although the legal sources strongly suggest this was a common happening.62 Other small apartments with rather more elaborated plans and some pretensions to higher status can be found throughout the excavated area of the city. Gering identifies nearly 400, of which just over 100 have regular plans with classifiable elements.63 Some, such as III.xvi.5 and III.xi.1 (fig. 16), are fairly irregular, carved out of left-over spaces behind tabernae facing the main streets, and often with a direct connection to one of the tabernae. Others were constructed in pairs within rectangular blocks, either on identical but mirror-image plans either side of a central staircase to separate upper floor apartments, for example III.xvi.2 (fig. 16). In this particular case, despite the staircases indicating internal upper floors and separate apartments reached by external staircases, the internal walls on the ground floor were only slender timber-framed partitions, something to be found also in III.i.12–13 where the internal walls have now entirely disappeared. Other modular arrangements can be identified, comprising one larger and one smaller apartment on similar plans but with an extra room in the larger apartment, such as Insula I.xiv.9 (fig. 16), a rectangular block of 62 The standard discussions of rental accommodation are B. W. Frier, “The Rental Market in Early Imperial Rome,” Journal of Roman Studies 67 (1977): 27–37, and Landlords and Tenants in Imperial Rome (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980), with references to the legal sources. 63 Gering, “Medianum apartments,” and “Habiter a Ostie,” 202–7.

Housing Roman Ostia

343

some 375 m2 facing onto the via degli Horrea Epagathiana. A monumentalised decorative doorway embraces both stairs to independent apartments on the upper floors and a corridor leading to the two ground-floor apartments of c. 91 and 52 m2. These had the added shared facility of a water fountain in a niche, fed by a lead pipe from the aqueduct. The smaller apartment also had direct access from one of the tabernae, while another taberna had a door through to the internal corridor, suggesting that whoever operated that business might also have had access to the water supply, or even have lived in the larger apartment. The main room in each apartment (A) opens via a wide doorway at the end of a corridor, which also gives access to one or two smaller rooms with narrower doorways (C), which presumably were designed to fulfil the function of cubicula.64 It is indeed but a short step from here to the Casette Tipo, and Gering has argued for an underlying concept of modular increments in the design of many of these small apartments, the ultimate form of which was the medianum type.65 The integral tabernae found in many examples of all sizes serve to emphasise the direct connection that existed between commercial and residential space in imperial Ostia. Ostia in the second century therefore presents a very wide range of possible residential accommodation, from a single room behind or above a taberna, through apartments of different sizes and degrees of refinement, to large and luxurious town-houses on different plans, and finally to the few really large domus. Despite the focus in much of the modern literature on the medianum apartments, these appear to have formed only a relatively small percentage of the overall housing stock. The street level of the city was rather dominated by commercial structures, but it is a mistake to treat these as separate from the residential buildings. Many, perhaps even most, commercial structures were also residential, with much of the domestic fabric of the city to be found on their upper floors, the only likely exceptions being the horrea. This is invariably true for the insulae incorporating tabernae with their ubiquitous external staircases leading to accommodation on the upper floors. Here is presumably where most of the population of Ostia lived, both permanent residents and those very many from all walks of life who were in transit, from grand merchants and those working in the commercial sector over the summer sailing period, to new arrivals on their way to Rome, and sailors or passengers waiting for a ship. Apart from the houses of the very wealthiest Ostians and the largest of the warehouses serving the 64 Gering,

“Medianum apartments,” 104 makes a useful distinction based on statistical analysis of the Ostian evidence between rooms, usually under 10 m2, with closable doorways of 1.30 m or less for individual use, and larger rooms with wider doorways for communal use, ranging from the single shared living space as here, to a range of living and reception rooms in grander residences. 65 Gering, “Habiter a Ostie,” and “Medianum-apartments”.

344

Janet DeLaine

needs of the whole community and possibly even storing goods for Rome, the domestic and commercial landscapes are often indistinguishable.

4. Housing the late antique population Under the difficult political conditions of the third century C.E., Ostia is generally argued to have suffered a critical decline, to be re-invented as a seaside retirement town for the Roman aristocracy later in the fourth century. The richly decorated elite houses of late Roman Ostia have thus often been seen as reflecting a very different way of life in a very different city from that represented by the multi-storey apartments of the second century C.E. Although the main study of this group of houses remains that of Becatti, we now have to add several more to the 13 he identified.66 These include the Domus Tigriniani (III.i.4), once believed to be a Christian basilica;67 the domus at IV.iv.7 studied by Guidobaldi;68 and the so-called Schola degli Augustali.69 Laird has argued convincingly that in its final form at least this was a domus, the collection of sculpture which first suggested the association with the Augustales being connected with the presence of a lime kiln rather than decorating the supposed schola, although it could easily also have been the decoration of the late antique domus itself.70 I would argue that the Schola del Traiano (IV.v. 15) has equally been misidentified, as it has many parallels with high-status domestic architecture, something even Bollmann notes as exceptional for the headquarters of a collegium,71 and there is no inscriptional evidence tying the building incontrovertibly to any association.72 Instead it should also be included as the third successive 66 Becatti,

“Case ostiensi”. Brenk and P. Pensabene, “Christliche Basilika oder christliche ‘Domus der Tigriniani’?,” Boreas 21–22 (1998–99): 271–299; A. Gobbi, “Nuove osservazioni sulle fasi costruttive della c.d. Basilica Cristiana di Ostia Antica,” Rivista di Archeologia Cristiana 74.2 (1998): 455–80, arguing for two late antique phases. 68 F. Guidobaldi, “Una domus tardoantica inedita di Ostia ed i suoi pavimenti,” Atti del II Colloquio dell’Associazione Italiana per lo Studio e la Conservazione del Mosaico. Roma 1994 (Bordighera: Istituto Internazionale di Studi Liguri, 1995), 525–40. 69 M. L. Laird, “Reconsidering the So-called ‘Sede degli Augustali’ at Ostia,” Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome 45 (2000): 41–84. 70 For the limekiln see also P. Lenzi, “‘Sita in loco qui vocatur calcaria’: attivita di spoliazione e forni da calca a Ostia,” Archeologia Medievale 25 (1998): 251, note 23. I would like to thank Cristina Murer for the suggestion that these belonged to the late antique house. 71 B. Bollmann, “Les collèges religieux et professionnels romains et leurs lieux de réunion a Ostie,” in Ostie – port et porte de la Rome antique (ed. J.-P. Descoeudres; Geneva: Musées d’art et d’histoire, 2001), 176. 72 A. Sakaguchi, “Schola del Traiano: the Seat of the Shipbuilders’ Association,” in Report of the Investigation of Ostia Antica in 2009. Japanese Research Group of Ostia 67 B.

Housing Roman Ostia

345

domus on the site, particularly since it was apparently occupied into the fifth century.73 This is, however, only part of the picture. As Pavolini pointed out more than 20 years ago, a number of pre-existing elite houses continued to be used in late antiquity, being merely updated with the latest refinements.74 In addition, as more of the known ones are studied further, the proportion which clearly had their origins in the second or third century (if not before) continues to grow, and new creations of the fourth century are relatively few. So far only two, the Domus di Amore e Psiche and probably the Domus del Ninfeo, appear to have actually originated in the late fourth to early fifth centuries. The concentration of construction and embellishment in the late third to early fourth century may be related to the third-century earthquake which damaged both the suburban villa in Regio IV and the Case del Giardino in Regio III.75 The transformation was clearly a gradual process over the third and fourth centuries, and the sense of continuity is strong. These late antique domus even cover a similar size range to the second century elite housing. Indeed, the largest house in late Roman Ostia was not one of the new fourth century houses but the Flavian domus recently discovered in Regio V, it too restored in the fourth century, and surviving even into the sixth.76 The late antique domus may appear splendid in comparison to their second century predecessors at Ostia because of the survival of their rich decoration, but a comparison with the contemporary domus at Rome shows how relatively modest most actually were.77 Almost all elements of the late domus design can also be shown to be already in existence in the larger ground-floor apartments and peristyle domus of the second century C.E.78 The larger houses were designed around a small central court, a ubiquitous feature of Mediterranean houses of the Hellenistic-Roman period. The arrangement of rooms around the courts particularly demonstrate strong continuity or gradual development between Antica, 1–10 (Internal pubblication, 2010), demonstrates convincingly how tenuous is the generally accepted connection to the shipbuilders. 73 Perrier, “Trois edifices,” 20 note 12 for a summary of the dating. The full discussion is forthcoming. 74 C. Pavolini, “L’edilizia commerciale e l’edilizia abitativa nel contesto di Ostia tardoantico,” in Società romana e impero tardoantico II (ed. A. Giardina; Rome-Bari: Laterza, 1986), 255–69. 75 Heinzelmann et al., “Ostia. Regionen III und IV,” 233–39; Gering, “Case a Giardino,” especially 322, note 6, suggesting the earthquake of C.E. 275. 76 Bauer et al., “Urbanistisches Forschungsprojekt,” 394–410. 77 Cf. F. Guidobaldi, “L’edilizia abitativa unifamiliare nella Roma tardoantica,” in Società romana e impero tardoantico II (ed. A. Giardina; Rome-Bari: Laterza, 1986), 165–237. 78 For a recent resessment of the formal aspects of the late domus see R. Tione, “Nuove soluzioni funzionali nelle domus tardoantiche di Ostia attraverso la lettura delle tecniche edilizie e delle tipologie architettoniche,” AEsp 77 (2004): 221–238.

346

Janet DeLaine

the second and fourth centuries C.E., rather than the complete break that was once assumed. Compare for example the Casa delle Muse and the Insula di Giove e Ganimede discussed above (fig. 5), both created in the second century C.E. as part of larger apartment blocks, with the similar sized Domus dei Pesci (IV.iii.3) or the somewhat larger Domus delle Colonne (IV. iii.1) (fig. 17a and b), third century houses further developed in the fourth. The non-axial entrances, the individualisation of one (or occasionally two) main reception room(s) set deep within the house, the location of a second well-decorated reception area closer to the entrance, and the double suites of two interconnected rooms (‘master’s suites’) appear in both groups. In the late houses, these are all elements that have been argued to have been strongly influenced by the domestic architecture of Roman North Africa,79 but, as discussed above, it can now be argued that the influence in domestic architecture went back to at least the early second century, given the strong commercial ties between Ostia and this region that already existed. The arrangement of rooms around these features allows for the same kinds of structured viewing typical of the earlier dwellings. Key elements are entrance and reception experiences, with privileged views suggested to all visitors, but whose full enjoyment is confined to the invited guest. A common feature is the placement of the main audience or reception point for general visitors between the entrance and the grand dining room, in such a way that the visitor would be intercepted by the patron or his majordomo at the point at which the lavish arrangements of the inner rooms would be just visible, normally across a court, and potentially prevented from continuing further. In the second-century Insula di Giove e Ganimede the entrance experience allowed a fleeting glimpse of the rich wall decoration of the main dining hall, with its elaborately framed painted mythological panel; to view this decoration more closely the visitor would either have to have been invited to dinner or into the patron’s inner sanctum.80 Two centuries later, in the Domus delle Colonne, the plainer side of the fountain in the central court faced the arriving visitors, who could be intercepted before they could explore further, while the much richer aedicular fountain basin was deliberately framed to be seen to best advantage from the position of the guest-of-honour at the banquet (fig. 18). Even with the smaller hall-type arrangements, elements of continuity can be identified. This is most easily seen in the late fourth century Domus di Amor e Psiche (I.xiv.5) (fig. 17 c). Despite its lavish marble floor and monumental nymphaeum, the design is basically that of the medianum apartment, with the main living spaces be79 Becatti (“Case ostiensi,” 49–50) first suggested the connection based on the decoration, especially for the Domus dei Dioscuri. 80 DeLaine, “High status housing,” 180–84.

Housing Roman Ostia

347

ing separated from the outside through an entrance vestibule and passage, which, like the medianum, had a controlling function. A similar hierarchical structuring of spaces is also evident in the late antique houses in terms of decoration, although there was a much wider use of marble for floors and in wall veneer, reflecting the greater availability of second-hand material. Nevertheless many parallels can be made in terms of the motifs of mosaics and marble floors and the distribution of decoration. The floors provide the most material for comparison. Until the recent discovery of the early second-century domus apartment under the Casa di Diana and the very large domus in Regio III and V, it was usual to draw a clear contrast between the geometric black-and-white carpet mosaics of the second century apartments and domus, and the opus sectile or coloured mosaics of the late domus.81 Now it is clear that already in the second century marble opus sectile could be used for grand floors in combination with black-and-white geometric mosaics for lesser spaces. Thus the pattern notable in a number of late antique houses such as the Domus del Protiro (V.ii.5),82 the Domus dei Pesci or the Domus delle Colonne appears firmly founded in earlier practice rather than a new invention.83 Even the choice of type of motif for specific types of location is similar: compare the long repeats of the directional motifs in the passages of the domus under the Casa di Diana (fig. 5c) with those in the Domus dei Pesci (fig. 16a); or the fourth century ‘carpet square’ mosaics of the four rooms at the north-west corner of the peristyle of the Domus delle Colonne (fig. 17b), with many of those of the Hadrianic Insula delle Muse (fig. 5a). The continuity suggested by these examples is demonstrated most clearly in those houses, such as the Domus dei Pesci, where second or early third century mosaics were clearly retained in the late antique restructuring of the house.84 Other elements normally associated with the late houses are now known to have been anticipated in the earlier high status apartments. The columned entrance to the main reception room was already used in the Hadrianic Insula delle Ierodule (III.ix.6).85 Likewise the decorative marble fountain had 81 For most of the floors discussed see G. Becatti, Scavi di Ostia IV. Mosaici e pavimenti marmorei (Rome: Poligrafico dello Stato, 1961), and Marinucci, “Maison de Diane” for the domus under the Casa di Diana. 82 Boersma et al., Amoenissima, Fig. 87. 83 For the floors of the Domus delle Colonne and the Domus dei Pesci, see Becatti, Mosaici, 179–183, Tav. CCXXVI and CCXXVII. 84 See Becatti, Mosaici, 181–2, nn. 335–336, tavv. CIC, CCXXVII for the earlier mosaics and F. Zevi, R. Geremia, A. Leone, and L. Moreschini, “Ostia: sondaggio stratigrafico in uno degli ambienti della domus dei Pesci (1995–1996),” Notizie degli scavi di antichità, 15–16 (2004–2005) [2007]: 27–29 for the dating of the phases. 85 S. Falzone, A. Pellegrino, E. Broillet, “Les peintures de la Maison des Hiérodules,” in Ostie – port et porte de la Rome antique (ed. J.-P. Descoeudres; Geneva: Musées d’art et d’histoire, 2001), 346–47.

348

Janet DeLaine

a precursor in the richly decorated second century domus apartment under the Casa di Diana.86 The location of this marble and mosaic fountain in the central courtyard and its relation to the main reception room can be paralleled, as we have seen, in the late antique Domus delle Colonne. Only the aedicular fountain walls, best represented by those in the Domus di Amore e Psiche, the Domus del Ninfeo (III.vi.1) (fig. 19), and the Domus della Fortuna Annonaria, appear specific to the late antique period. Domestic sculpture is the only other element not found in the earlier houses of Ostia, but it is highly likely that this is more a matter of such sculpture rarely being left in situ than of genuine absence, as the statue of Jove in the late second century garden shrine of the Insula di Giove e Ganimede might suggest. Overall, it can be argued that continuity in underlying spatial and decorative organisation with the larger ground-floor apartments and peristyle domus of the second century is on the whole stronger than the superficial changes introduced by a greater use of marble. It is not even the case that these late houses were self-standing and independent rather than part of an apartment block. Not only do most of the larger fourth century domus have internal upper floors extending the available living space, as did their second century predecessors, but they also commonly have both integral external staircases giving independent access to upstairs apartments from the street and separate tabernae as part of the structure, indicating a continuity in the importance of urban rents from commercial and domestic space which was arguably such an important factor in the second century city. The connection seems to break down only in the very late houses, such as the Domus di Amore e Psiche, carved out of a commercial property where the external staircase was put out of use. More than the decoration, and to some extent the water displays, the only really new feature of these late domus is the introduction of underfloor heating for one or at most two main rooms in some houses. In terms of the upper levels of Ostian society, therefore, the evidence strongly suggests that pre-existing patterns of residential changed only slowly over time, so that the apparently ‘new’ phenomenon of the rich late-antique domus represents a far less radical change than has often been thought. The domus with its garden where St Augustine was staying when his mother dies in 387 C.E.,87 was presumably little different in overall concept to those occupied by other visiting North Africans over two centuries earlier. Ostia may have experienced practical and economic difficulties following the late third century earthquake which led to some contraction of the com-

86 Marinucci,

87 Augustine,

“Maison de Diane,” 234–236. Confessions, 9.10.23.

Housing Roman Ostia

349

mercial aspects of the city, as noted by Pavolini,88 but alterations and adaptations to the lower class residential/commercial insulae continued into the fourth century, suggesting again some continuity of lower class inhabitants and small-scale retail and production.89 On the north side of the city, along the Tiber, even where the ground floors of dwellings such as the Insula di Giove e Ganimede were filled in, staircases were maintained and the upper levels of the building continued to be inhabited, presumably by those at the lower end of society (fig. 20).90 Although we are still far from understanding the late phases of the less elaborate dwellings, partly because much of the evidence was swept away in the excavations of the later 1920s and 30s in their concern to uncover the imperial city, the sondages associated with the German geophysical programme have begun to reveal tantalising glimpses of simple structures built on the ruins of domus and insulae alike, including several phases in the area of the villa suburbana in Regio IV starting as early as the late third century.91 Elsewhere the collapse and/or deliberate demolition of insulae and the erection of rough huts with beaten earth floors is more to be assigned to the end of the fourth century and into the fifth and sixth. This is an area which would repay further investigation.

5. Conclusions A short article of this nature can only just begin to outline the complex development and infinite variety in the housing stock of Ostia from the first century B.C.E. to late antiquity. The state of the evidence is clearest and therefore most nuanced for the mid imperial period, very patchy in the late Republic because of the limited excavation (and publication) of structures below the imperial city, and limited largely to high status housing in the late antique period. Nevertheless, this broad overview has shown a surprising degree of continuity or at least of recurring patterns. Firstly, it is now possible to identify a range of high status housing from at least the middle of the first century B.C.E. right through at least the fourth century C.E., with the mid-imperial period providing the greatest variety in form, but all comparable in terms of size and quality of decoration, if not in plan, with the richest domus of Pompeii, despite the very different nature and population of the two sites. The continuing interest demonstrated in the surviving buildings for formal 88 Pavolini,

“L’edilizia,” 249–52. Rose, A systematic study of the urban landscape of Ostia in the 3rd c AD (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Reading, 2005). 90 DeLaine, “Insula of the Paintings,” 94–99, fig. 5.10. 91 Martin, “Urbanistic project,” 263–269. 89 P.

350

Janet DeLaine

entrances, large reception rooms, and a hierarchy of decoration, privileging the visitors admitted to the innermost heart of the house, suggests the persistence of traditional social rituals for the residences of the wealthiest and most powerful members of the community, from daily salutationes to lavish dinner parties. At the same time, large apartments, either at street level or on upper floors, appear to have been developed to cater for merchants and shippers from elsewhere in the empire, whose needs for entertaining at Ostia were perhaps more restricted since their main clientes were to be found in their home towns. The other area of continuity is the very close connection between residential and commercial functions not only of insulae but also of many domus. External staircases to upper floor residential units are ubiquitous across almost all non-public building types, and, where the evidence allows, these can be seen to take a wide variety of forms, from quite large and luxurious apartments, to simple two‑ to four-roomed dwellings, to small cells sharing a common living space, thus catering for a very wide cross-section of Ostia’s permanent, seasonal and transient populations. The tabernae which dominate the streetscape of Ostia provide another source of potential accommodation in themselves, but it is notable how often they are integral with more substantial residential units, from small apartments to substantial domus. Nor are external stairs revealing upper floor apartments or integrated tabernae just a phenomenon of the mid empire, as the same pattern can be identified in the rich domus of the fourth century, once thought to be the seaside retreats of a Christian elite, escaping the declining conditions of Rome after the removal of the seat of power to Constantinople. Instead, it would seem that, at least until the end of the fourth century, Ostia had sufficiently maintained its mercantile and commercial character to make it worth the while of its elite to continue to exploit the rental potential of their urban property.

Captions to figures Fig. 1: Ostia, Insula di Giove e Ganimede, façade on the via di Diana. (Photo: author). Fig. 2: Ostia, schematic plan of Flavian period showing known domus. (Adapted from Scavi di Ostia I, fig. 30, and Martin et al., “Urbanistic project”, figs 8 and 10). Fig. 3: Ostia, Casette Repubblicane, plan of excavated remains. (Courtesy of the Soprintendenza Archeologica di Ostia). Fig. 4: Ostia, high status housing identified from geophysical survey. a) domus in Regio V; b) villa suburbana in Region IV. (Adapted from Martin et al., “Urbanistic project”, figs 8 and 10).

Housing Roman Ostia

351

Fig. 5: Ostia, high status domus-insula. a) Insula delle Muse; b) Insula di Giove e Ganimede; c) domus under the Casa di Diana. (a) adapted from Becatti, Mosaici, Tav. CCXXV; b) author; c) adapted from Marinucci, “Maison de Dianne”, fig. 7). Fig. 6: Ostia, Insula di Giove e Gaminede, wide entrance to vestibule from street behind Capitolium (Photo: author). Fig. 7: Ostia, domus under the Casa di Diana, marble and mosaic fountain. (Photo: author). Fig. 8: Ostia, Insula di Bacco Fanciullo, plan. (Author). Fig. 9: Ostia, Insula V.iii, schematic plan. (Author). Fig. 10: Ostia, Casette Tipo, schematic plan. (Author). Fig. 11: Ostia, Case a Giardino, plan. (Adapted from Cervi, “Evoluzione”, fig. 1). Fig. 12: Ostia, Insula delle Volte Dipinte: a) ground floor; b) first floor. (Adapted from Becatti, Mosaici, Tav. CCXXII and Packer, Insulae, fig. 21). Fig. 13: Ostia, tabernae on the via degli Aurighi, with the Case a Giardino behind. (Photo: author). Fig. 14: Ostia, Insula I.viii.6–10, small commercial/residential properties. (Adapted from Scavi di Ostia I, 1:500 plan). Fig. 15: Ostia, Casa di Diana: a) ground floor; b) first floor. (Adapted from Packer, Insulae, figs. 2, 3). Fig. 16: Ostia, small apartments (III.xvi.5; III.xvi.2; I.xiv.9; III.xi.1). (Author). Fig. 17: Ostia, late houses. a) Domus dei Pesci; b) Domus delle Colonne; c) Domus di Amore e Psiche. (Adapted from Becatti, Mosaici, Tav. CCXXVII, CCXXVI, CCXXI). Fig. 18: Ostia, Domus delle Colonne, view from main reception room A to fountain. (Photo: author). Fig. 19: Ostia, Domes del Ninfeo, fountain. (Photo: author). Fig. 20: Ostia, Insula di Giove e Ganimede, late wall at first floor level resting on ground floor fill. (From G. Calza, “Gli scavi recenti nell’abitato di Ostia,” Monumenti Antichi).

C. Contested Sacred Spaces: Temples, the Imperial Cult, and Mithraea

Exploring the economic, political, and social significance of the great Porticus in Herculaneum1 Tina Najbjerg One of the most intriguing structures to have emerged, at least partially, from the twenty meters of volcanic material that covered the ancient Roman town of Herculaneum on the Bay of Naples after the catastrophic eruption of Vesuvius in 79 C.E., was a large, porticoed building, which here will be referred to as the Porticus. Excavated via underground tunnels in the beginning of the 18th century by orders of the Bourbon king of Naples and Sicily, Carlos III, the Porticus was robbed of most of its painted and sculpted décor and subsequently reburied in 1760, when the tunnels that crisscrossed its interior threatened to cause the modern buildings above to collapse. Two centuries later, in 1960, Italian archaeologists uncovered the southwest corner of the Porticus which is the only visible part of the building today (fig. 1). Several of the statues and painted wall fragments that were removed from the building between 1739 and 1760 became famous objets d’art, first exhibited in the king’s palace in Portici, then in the Naples Archaeological Museum. Studied in isolation and appreciated as well-executed examples of Roman Painting and Sculpture, these objects slowly gained a new life of their own, one that was, however, completely detached from their original context in the Herculanean structure.2 Meanwhile, the use of the Porticus remained enigmatic. For two and a half centuries after its discovery in 1739, scholars variously argued that the 1 This article grew out of my dissertation, Public painted and sculptural programs of the Early Roman Empire: A case-study of the so-called Basilica in Herculaneum (Ph. D. diss., Princeton Univ. 1997), and it summarizes some of the issues discussed in detail in my book on the Porticus, entitled Locus Augustalibus et civibus: Reconstructing the great porticus in Herculaneum (in progress). 2 For a detailed case-study that follows one of the painted fragments from the Porticus on its journey to fame, see T. Najbjerg, “From Art to Archaeology: Recontextualizing the Images from the Porticus in Herculaneum,” in Antiquity Recovered: The Legacy of Pompeii and Herculaneum (eds. V. C. G. Coates and J. L. Seydl; Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2007), 59–72.

356

Tina Najbjerg

building functioned as a temple to Jupiter, a temple to Hercules, a temple devoted to the worship of the emperor (an augusteum), a forum, a basilica, a gymnasium, a market, a voting structure, and an imperial cult building.3 However, a detailed reconstruction and contextual study by this author that combines the evidence provided by the building’s architecture and topography and by its painted and sculptural décor demonstrates the complexity and fluidity of the Porticus, not only in terms of its function, but of its social, economic, and political status.4 It thus seems that the Porticus grew from being an extension added, c. 45 C.E., to the headquarters of the private organization of Augustales, to being a polyvalent and semi-public structure that served a multitude of functions, such as a market, a place in which the emperor was worshipped, and a school, in addition to its use as a meeting place for the Augustales. Judging from the high status of its many patrons, possibly even including the emperor Vespasian, the Porticus had, by the time of its destruction in 79 C.E., become one of the most significant buildings in Herculaneum, economically, politically and socially. I shall here suggest that the combination of location, scale, architecture, décor and polyvalence was what propelled the relatively short-lived Porticus to its great popularity. Today, the Porticus sits at the fringes of the excavated area of Herculaneum, rarely noticed by visitors to the site (fig. 2). In the first century C.E., however, the building was centrally located in the busiest section of the ancient town. To the west, across the wide avenue or decumanus that passed through its front hall, the Porticus faced two politically important structures: the Collegio or headquarters of the Augustales and the town’s basilica, two buildings separated by the smaller street or cardo that ran west towards the harbor. To the south, the Porticus bordered onto a cluster of tall apartment buildings that also faced the decumanus. The area east of the building remains buried underneath the modern houses of Resina, but here the Porticus may have backed onto the most important avenue, the decumanus maximus.5 If the decumanus maximus indeed ran in a north-south direction east of the Porticus (indicated with stippled line in fig. 2), the suggested location of Herculaneum’s still missing forum just north of the Porticus makes sense, as decumani maximi traditionally led to the center of

3 I briefly discuss the previous identifications in T. Najbjerg, “A reconstruction and reconsideration of the so-called Basilica in Herculaneum,” Journal of Roman Archaeology suppl. 47 (2002): 150–153. See also Najbjerg, Locus Augustalibus et civibus, chapter five. 4 See Najbjerg, Locus Augustalibus et civibus, chapter five. 5 See R. De Kind, “Houses at Herculaneum. An analysis of town planning and of measurements in insulae III and IV,” CronErc 23 (1993): 162 and fig. 1 for his proposed location of Herculaneum’s decumanus maximus.

The great Porticus in Herculaneum

357

a Roman town.6 In this scenario, the Porticus would have bordered onto the south end of the forum, and the northernmost of its two quadrifrontes would essentially have served as a magnificent entry into Herculaneum’s political, economic, and social center. The Porticus benefitted greatly from this prime location, which would have made it a constant presence in the daily lives of the townspeople. Another key element that made the Porticus a highly visible and much admired monument in the first century C.E. was its architecture. Today, most of the building remains buried underneath the modern town of Resina (Ercolano); only the southwest corner of the structure emerges from the tall escarpment that encircles the excavated section of ancient Herculaneum (fig. 1). However, a combination of the visible architecture and plans made by the eighteenth-century excavators demonstrates that the Porticus consisted of a large, rectangular courtyard, open to the sky, paved with marble slabs, and surrounded on three sides by covered porticoes (fig. 3).7 The building measured approximately 73.84 m in length, and 37.50 m in width at the front and 38.80 m at the central part.8 As such, it stands as one of the largest “public” structure known in Herculaneum thus far, only surpassed by the theater and the nearby palaestra. Shallow niches, large and small, graced the back walls of the lateral porticoes, and at the rear, two arched and semi-circular niches flanked a large, square exedra. Two large podia abutted the lateral colonnades towards the front, accessible via steps from the porticoes (fig. 4). The front hall or chalcidicum of the Porticus was also open to the sky and paved with marble. Two tall, four-sided arches (quadrifrontes) and a flat wall that connected them, framed the chalcidicum to the north, south and west. Although barely visible from the west because of its close proximity to the Collegio degli Augustali, the western wall essentially functioned as the facade of the Porticus. It was perforated by five openings, four of which were arched (fig. 4). The central opening, probably rectangular in shape, was blocked by a tall podium with a small base on top that was accessed by a set of stairs from the west. The “legs” of this central opening 6 The location of Herculaneum’s still unidentified forum has been hotly debated for centuries. The most recent studies place it between the Porticus and the theatre and between the existing decumanus inferior and the suggested location of the decumanus maximus to the east of it (see for example W. Johannowsky, “Problemi urbanistici di Ercolano,” CronErc 12 (1982): 147; De Kind, “Houses at Herculaneum,” 163; M. Pagano, “La nuova pianta della città e di alcuni edifici pubblici di Ercolano,” CronErc 26–27 (1996–97): 230 and plan of Herculaneum on 233. 7 For a detailed reconstruction of the architecture of the Porticus and photos of the visible remains, see Najbjerg, “A reconstruction and reconsideration of the so-called Basilica in Herculaneum,” 122–165, figs. 2–19. 8 For a detailed explanation of how I reconstructed these dimensions, see Najbjerg, “A reconstruction and reconsideration of the so-called Basilica in Herculaneum,” 124–143.

358

Tina Najbjerg

possibly supported a slanted roof that would have covered the podium. These same posts and two pillars south of them also supported a porch or a second storey above the Collegio degli Augustali, thus essentially joining the Porticus to the Collegio.9 The layout of the Porticus, with its front hall encompassing the broad decumanus and its intersection with the Cardo III, meant that visitors who were heading towards the forum, either via the decumanus or the cardo III, would have to pass through the tall quadrifrontes that signaled the entrance to the Porticus (fig. 1). From here, they would be enticed by the extravagant décor, discussed below, to visit the interior of the building and expose themselves to the many messages inherent there. The northernmost of the two quadrifrontes, which functioned as a base for a gilded quadriga (see below), would have towered above the forum, marking the Porticus as a building of great importance; the golden victory chariot, gleaming in the Mediterranean sun, may even have been visible from the sea, and as such served as a beacon that would have guided maritime visitors to the building and, ultimately, to the forum. The Porticus, essentially an open, rectangular court, surrounded on three sides by raised and covered porticoes with a central exedra in the rear, also gained status and recognition from its architectural type. As I have discussed elsewhere, the Herculanean building emulated the great public porticoes and imperial fora in Rome, especially late Republican and Augustan structures such as the Saepta Iulia, the Forum of Iulius Caesar, the porticus Liviae, and the Forum of Augustus.10 Its striking similarity to other buildings closer by, in Pompeii and Cumae, suggests that the porticus type, originating in the Hellenistic East, by the middle of the first century C.E., when the Porticus was constructed, had gained great popularity as a tool by which the local elite emulated the architectural benefactions of the emperor in Rome. Useful in its architectural flexibility which allowed it to be inserted into existing cityscapes, as was the case in Herculaneum, the porticus type not only functioned as propaganda for the local elite, who paid for their construction, but served to increase the prestige of the towns that housed them.11 In addition to its many other uses, as shall be discussed   9 This

joint forms the basis of my argument, first published in Najbjerg “A reconstruction and reconsideration of the so-called Basilica in Herculaneum,” 143–146 and 157–163, that the Porticus originally was constructed as an extension to the Collegio. The function of a fifth pillar further to the north is uncertain but may have supported a roof above the sidewalk between the Porticus and the other building across from it, here referred to as the real basilica. 10 Najbjerg, “A reconstruction and reconsideration of the so-called Basilica in Herculaneum,” 153–155. 11 For a more detailed discussion of the typology of the porticus, with bibliography, see Najbjerg, “A reconstruction and reconsideration of the so-called Basilica in Herculaneum,” 153–155.

The great Porticus in Herculaneum

359

below, the Porticus in Herculaneum, then, would also have stood out as a monument of civic pride for the local denizens. Between the suggested construction of the Porticus c. 45 C.E. and its destruction in August of 79 C.E., patrons of different social strata continuously outfitted the building with sculptural decorations that gradually added to its political and social importance. In the Claudian period (41–54 C.E.), around 46 C.E., the decurions erected a statue of Claudius that most likely stood in the central niche in the rear of the building.12 Two other portrait statues were placed in the large niches in the lateral walls in this early period: a bronze statue of Claudius’ uncle, the previous emperor Tiberius (14–37 C.E.), possibly recycled from the adjoining Collegio degli Augustali (fig. 5), and, I suggest elsewhere, a bronze statue of Claudius’ third wife, Messalina, which was later outfitted with a portrait of his fourth and final wife, Agrippina II.13 In 48 or 49 C.E., a soldier named Seneca, who was stationed with the 13th cohort in Claudius’ birth place, Lugdunum (Lyons), dedicated in his will a bronze statue of this emperor, which was prominently erected in the semi-circular and arched niche in the SE corner of the Porticus (fig. 6).14 A similar bronze statue of Augustus in the opposite niche, patron(s) unknown, may have been dedicated at the same time (fig. 7–8).15 Shortly after Claudius’ wedding to Agrippina II in 49 C.E., somebody, possibly the local Augustalis, Lucius Mammius Maximus, paid for the erection of a bronze statue of the emperor’s new wife making a typical bridal gesture with her right hand (fig. 9).16 This must also have 12 AE (1979), 174; G. Guadagno, “Supplemento epigrafico ercolanese,” CronErc 8 (1978): 140–141, no. 10; Najbjerg, Locus Augustalibus et civibus, cat. no. I–12. 13 Tiberius bronze statue and epigraph: MN 5615; CIL 10.1414; D. Boschung, “Gens Augusta. Untersuchungen zu Aufstellung, Wirkung und Bedeutung der Statuengruppen des julisch-claudischen Kaiserhauses” in Monumenta Artis Romanae 32 (eds. Mainz am Rhein: P. von Zabern, 2002), 122, 123, no. 42.8, pl. 94.3 (claims inscription does not belong with statue); G. Lahusen and E. Formigli, Grossbronzen aus Herculaneum und Pompeji. Statuen und Büsten von Herrschern und Bürgern (Worms: Wernersche Verlagsgesellschaft, 2007), 40–42, figs. 1–15, cat. no. S3 (believe the statue to have been discovered in theater); Najbjerg, Locus Augustalibus et civibus, cat. no. S–11/I–7. Messalina/Agrippina II bronze statue: MN 5609; Boschung 2002, 120, 122–123, no. 42.6, pl. 94, fig. 1; Lahusen and Formigli, Grossbronzen aus Herculaneum und Pompeji, no. S 5, 53–60; Najbjerg, Locus Augustalibus et civibus, cat. no. S–12. 14 Claudius bronze statue: MN 5593 (epigraph: MN 3718; CIL 10.1416); Boschung, “Gens Augusta,” 119, 122, no. 42.2; Lahusen and Formigli, Grossbronzen aus Herculaneum und Pompeji, no. S 7, 70–72; Najbjerg, Locus Augustalibus et civibus, cat. no. S–7/I–6. 15 MN 5595. Boschung, “Gens Augusta,” 119, 122–123, no. 42.1, pl. 93,1; Lahusen and Formigli, Grossbronzen aus Herculaneum und Pompeji, cat. no. 1, 16–27, figs. 1–52; Najbjerg, Locus Augustalibus et civibus, cat. no. S–6. 16 MN 5612. Boschung, “Gens Augusta,” 120, 122–123, no. 42.7, pl. 94, fig. 2 (not identified as Agrippina II); Lahusen and Formigli, Grossbronzen aus Herculaneum und Pompeji, no. S 6, 61–69, figs. 1–35; Najbjerg, Locus Augustalibus et civibus, cat. no. S–13.

360

Tina Najbjerg

been the time when the head of the Messalina statue was replaced with the portrait of Agrippina.17 Claudius’ marriage to Agrippina II and, more specifically, his adoption of her son Nero in 50 C.E. prompted the erection of the most generous sculptural benefaction ever granted the Porticus. Between the time of the adoption and Claudius’ death in 54 C.E., L. Mammius Maximus dedicated a group of portrait statues that represented the eight members of the Julio-Claudian family who played the greatest role in Claudius’ political and dynastic propaganda:18 the deified Augustus, founder of the dynasty;19 Augustus’ deified wife and Claudius’ grandmother, Livia;20 Tiberius, the former emperor and Claudius’ uncle;21 Antonia II, Claudius’ mother;22 his beloved brother Germanicus;23 his wife Agrippina II;24 Britannicus, Claudius’ young son by Messalina,25 and finally Nero, his adopted son and heir apparent.26 With the possible exception of the dedication to Agrippina II, none of the statues that belonged with Mammius’ dedication have been identified.27 The statues and/or busts would have been positioned in the 17 For my argument that bronze statue MN 5609, depicting Agrippina II, originally portrayed Messalina, see Najbjerg, Locus Augustalibus et civibus, chapter three, and cat. no. S–12. 18  For a detailed discussion of Claudius’ military and dynastic propaganda and how the Porticus sculpture adhered to it, see Najbjerg, Locus Augustalibus et civibus, chapter three. 19 Augustus, divus: AE (1979), 172. Guadagno, “Supplemento epigrafico ercolanese,” 138–139, no. 7; Najbjerg, Locus Augustalibus et civibus, cat. no. I–8. 20 Livia, diva augusta: CIL 10.1413. G. Guadagno, “Supplemento Epigrafico Ercolanese II,” CronErc 11 (1981): 137, no. 76; Najbjerg, Locus Augustalibus et civibus, cat. no. I–2. 21 Tiberius: AE 1979, 173. Guadagno, “Supplemento epigrafico ercolanese,” 139–40, no. 8; Najbjerg, Locus Augustalibus et civibus, cat. no. I–16. 22 Antonia II, augusta: CIL 10.1417. Guadagno, “Supplemento Epigrafico Ercolanese II,” 138–139, no. 80; Najbjerg, Locus Augustalibus et civibus, cat. no. S–4/I–3. 23 Germanicus: CIL 10.1415. Guadagno, “Supplemento Epigrafico Ercolanese II,” 138, no. 78; Najbjerg, Locus Augustalibus et civibus, cat. no. I–15. 24 Agrippina II: CIL 10.1418. Guadagno, “Supplemento Epigrafico Ercolanese II,” 139, no. 81; Boschung, “Gens Augusta,” 120, 122, 123, no. 42.15; Najbjerg, Locus Augustalibus et civibus, cat. no. I–4 (associating the inscription with one of the bronze statues of Agrippina II in cat. nos. S–12 and S–13). 25 AE 1979, 175. G. Guadagno (“Supplemento epigrafico ercolanese,” 142, no. 11) suggested that the dedicatee in this inscription was Nero. For my alternate identification of the dedicatee as Britannicus, see Najbjerg, Public painted and sculptural programs of the Early Roman Empire, 174, 239, cat. no. S20–I9, and Najbjerg, Locus Augustalibus et civibus, cat. no. I–9. 26 AE 1992, 287. M. Pagano, “Nuovi frammenti di albi da Ercolano,” in CronErc 22 (1992), 192, was the first to note that the name of the dedicatee in this inscription had been erased deliberately. He subsequently suggested that the dedicatee was to be identified with Messalina, Britannicus, or Octavia. For my identification of the dedicatee as Nero, see Najbjerg, Locus Augustalibus et civibus, chapter three and cat. no. I–17. 27 D. Boschung, “Gens Augusta,” 123, associates the bronze statues of Augustus (MN 5595) and Tiberius (MN 5615) from the Porticus with Mammius’ dedications to the same

The great Porticus in Herculaneum

361

small and large niches in the side walls of the lateral porticoes, and one or two may have belonged with the equestrian statues that would have topped the many, possibly eleven, large pedestals in the front hall (see figs. 1 and 3). In addition, a golden victory quadriga was erected on top of the northernmost quadrifrons.28 The presence of small-scale portrait figures of Nero and Britannicus on front of the chariot suggests, I argue elsewhere, that the quadriga was dedicated (donor unknown) to Claudius sometime after his quasi-triumph in 51 C.E.29 Both Mammius’ sculptural dedication and the golden quadriga represented extraordinarily generous benefactions by, at least in one case, local patrons, who would have received local and perhaps even imperial attention with these donations, thereby raising their own as well as the Porticus’ political and social status. Although this trend seems to have continued into the Neronian period, with the possible addition of the two colossal, seated statues of the deified Augustus and Claudius in the central exedra (fig. 10–11),30 the Porticus received an extra boost in popularity, when it underwent a major reconstruction in the Flavian period that perhaps was funded by the emperor Vespasian himself. Although the few visible architectural remains of the Porticus do not show any concrete evidence of repair, architectural additions and notable changes to the sculpted and painted décor in the Vespasianic period suggest that the building suffered damage after the earthquake in 62 C.E.31 Thus the three, possibly four, small statue bases positioned along the east side of the arched facade seem to have been later additions to the architecture, perhaps functioning as pedestals for some of the Julio-Claudian statues that were removed from their positions in the interior niches of the Porticus in the Flavian period (see below). The large, central podium and the huge equestrian statue, both blocking important openings in the Porticus facade, individuals. For my argument against his thesis, see Najbjerg, Locus Augustalibus et civibus, chapter three and cat. nos. I–8 and S–11/I–7. 28 The famous quadriga from Herculaneum has not been published since its preliminary study by E. Gabrici, “La Quadriga d’Ercolano,” Bd’A 1 (1907): 1–12. A. Allroggen-Bedel, “Das sogenannte Forum von Herculaneum und die borbonischen Grabungen von 1739,” in CronErc 4 (1974): 100, was the first to suggest that the victory chariot and horses originally stood on the northernmost quadrifrons of the Porticus. 29 MN 5004 and 5005. Le Collezioni del Museo Nazionale di Napoli (Rome: De Luca Edizioni d’Arte; Milan: Leonardo Editore, 1986–1989) Vol. II, 112–113, nos. 81–82. E. Gabrici, “La Quadriga d’Ercolano,” 5 and 10, suggested that the figures portrayed Lucius and Gaius Caesar. For my identification of the boys as Britannicus and Nero, see Najbjerg, Locus Augustalibus et civibus, chapter three and cat. no. S–18/I–14. 30 Augustus: MN 6040. Boschung, “Gens Augusta,” no. 42.4, pl. 92.1; Najbjerg, Locus Augustalibus et civibus, cat. nos. S–9. Claudius: MN 6056. Boschung, “Gens Augusta,” no. 42.5, pl. 92.2; Najbjerg, Locus Augustalibus et civibus, cat. no. S–10. Both statues were found without heads and restored as Augustus and as Claudius in the 19th century. 31 For my suggested changes in the architecture after 62 CE, see Najbjerg, “A reconstruction and reconsideration of the so-called Basilica in Herculaneum,” 148–150.

362

Tina Najbjerg

also seem to have been late additions to the architecture, although their date is not immediately discernible.32 These structural changes (and possible repairs that are no longer visible) may have been funded by Vespasian himself. Giuseppe Guadagno has proposed that the fragments of a gigantic marble inscription that was discovered near the front hall of the Porticus recorded a great benefaction by this emperor towards the Herculanean citizens.33 A similar inscription from Herculaneum recorded Vespasian’s repair of the Temple of the Mother of the Gods in 76 C.E.,34 and Guadagno suggested that the large plaque commemorated Vespasian’s repair of yet another building in Herculaneum after the earthquake. The large size of the inscription (5.20 m wide) plus the proximity of its discovery to the Porticus makes it likely, I argue elsewhere,35 that it originally hung on the interior facade of the Porticus, and thus recorded the earthquake repair of the building by Vespasian sometime around 76 C.E.36 The citizens of Herculaneum and/or the patrons of the Porticus would have taken advantage of this extraordinary benefaction by Vespasian to increase their own and Herculaneum’s status in the competition for imperial attention among the Campanian towns, and they would have made sure that this imperial action was displayed prominently on the interior (east) facade of the Porticus, where it would have caught the eye of visitors on their way to the forum from the southern section of the town. The reason why Vespasian may have devoted funds to repair this particular building and thus catapulted it to great recognition and popularity will be discussed below. Most demonstrable are the dramatic changes to the sculptural and painted displays in the Porticus in the Flavian period, changes that must have been spurred on by the suggested attention paid to the building by Vespasian. Thus several of the Julio-Claudian statues from the interior niches were removed, some possibly relocated to the small statue bases in the front hall, to make room for portrait statues of the new emperor and the individual members of his Flavian dynasty.37 The group consisted of Vespasian,38 his two 32 These architectural changes are discussed in greater detail in Najbjerg, “A reconstruction and reconsideration of the so-called Basilica in Herculaneum,” 148–149. 33 Guadagno, “Supplemento epigrafico ercolanese,” 134–136, no. 2. 34 CIL 10.1406. 35 Najbjerg, Locus Augustalibus et civibus, chapter 5. 36 Guadagno, “Supplemento epigrafico ercolanese,” 136, no. 2. 37 In chapter three of Najbjerg, Locus Augustalibus et civibus, I explain in detail and show with maps the various changes to the sculptural groups in the Porticus from c.45 CE to August 24, 79 CE. 38 Not published or identified. On October 31 and November 3 and 7, 1739, the Bourbon excavators discovered an over life-sized statue of a nude male figure and its pedestal in one of the large niches of the north wall of the Porticus. For my identification of this statue as Vespasian, see Najbjerg, Public painted and sculptural programs of the Early Ro-

The great Porticus in Herculaneum

363

sons Titus (fig. 12)39 and Domitian,40 his daughter or more likely his wife Flavia Domitilla (both dead by the time the group was erected),41 Domitian’s wife, Domitia,42 and Titus’ daughter Iulia.43 Just like the Claudian sculptural groups in the Porticus reflected that particular emperor’s political ideology, thanks to the local donor(s)’s close attention to the political situation in Rome, so the Flavian group mirrored Vespasian’s propaganda and dynastic aspirations.44 For example, when the statues of the “good” members of the previous, Julio-Claudian dynasty, such as Augustus and Claudius, were left standing alongside the new Flavian portraits in the Porticus, it reflected a trend in Vespasianic propaganda, seen also in contemporary coinage, by which Vespasian sought to portray his reign as a continuation of Augustus’, with specific emphasis on the peace that came with a secure dynastic transition. Unlike Augustus, Vespasian could boast two mature heirs to his throne, and Titus and Domitian played a key role in Vespasianic dynastic propaganda. In the Porticus, their importance is signaled by the placement of their portrait statues (in the large, lateral niches), by their appearance (Titus in full cuirass to denote his military role in his father’s regime [fig. 12]; Domitian in a toga and thus a magistrate [?]), and by the fact that either their wives (Domitia) or their children (Iulia) are included, thus demonstrating their ability to continue the Flavian dynasty. The inclusion of several women in both the Claudian and the Flavian sculptural groups in the Porticus also demonstrates the local patrons’ sensibility and acuity in recognizing the great political role played by imperial women such as Livia (diva), Agrippina II, and Domitia in Rome. Personages like Antonia II, Flavia Domitilla (post-mortem) and Iulia Titi were less important politically in the Claudian and the Vespasianic periods (Iulia became a key player during the reign of her father and uncle) and seem to have been honored in the Porticus mainly because of their dynastic role as mothers or wives of the man Empire, 143, 227, cat. no. S3, and Najbjerg, Locus Augustalibus et civibus, chapter three and cat. no. S–2. 39  MN 6059. Boschung, “Gens Augusta,” 119, no. 42.3; Najbjerg, Locus Augustalibus et civibus, cat. no. S–8. 40 Not published or identified. On November 5, 1739, a fragmentary statue of a togate male figure was discovered in a large niche in the north wall of the Porticus. For my identification of the figure as Domitian, see Najbjerg, Locus Augustalibus et civibus, cat. no. S–3. 41 Flavia Domitilla: CIL 10.1419. Guadagno, “Supplemento Epigrafico Ercolanese II,” 139, no. 81; Boschung, “Gens Augusta,” 121, no. 42.17; Najbjerg, Locus Augustalibus et civibus, cat. no. S–5/I–5. 42 Domitia: CIL 10.1422. Guadagno 1981, 140–41, no. 85; Boschung, “Gens Augusta,” 121, no. 42.19; Najbjerg, Locus Augustalibus et civibus, cat. no. S–1/I–1. 43 Iulia Titi, augusta: AE (1979), 176; Guadagno, “Supplemento epigrafico ercolanese,” 142–143, no. 12; Boschung, “Gens Augusta,” 121, no. 42.18; Najbjerg, Locus Augustalibus et civibus, cat. no. I–10. 44 For a discussion of Vespasian’s political and dynastic ideology and its impact on the Porticus, see Najbjerg, Locus Augustalibus et civibus, chapter three.

364

Tina Najbjerg

emperor (or, in Iulia’s case, potential mother of a future heir). It is notable that while the Julio-Claudian statues in the Porticus were dedicated both by private individuals such as Seneca the soldier and L. Mammius Maximus, the freedman and later Augustalis, and by the decurions, who constituted the town’s highest order and thus its elite class, all the Flavian statues in the Porticus (whose dedicatory inscriptions survive) were dedicated by the decurions. The class distinction between the building’s sculptural patrons in the Claudian and the Vespasianic periods may reflect, I suggest, a heightened appreciation of the Porticus in the local perception, prompted by Vespasian’s attention to the building after the earthquake. Also in the Vespasianic period, the interior of the Porticus was painted by some of the best artists that Campania had to offer, another act that increased the building’s status. Thanks to the Bourbon excavators, who carved out whole sections of the interior walls, placed them in wooden frames, and treated them with varnish before presenting them to the king, the Naples Archaeological Museum today contains an assortment of painted fragments, several of which originated in the Porticus. Because of King Carlos III’s interest in esthetically pleasing “pictures,” the excavators focused on removing sections that contained painted panels or individual figures, while they ignored the painted framework that surrounded them (and destroyed sections not deemed worthy of the king’s attentions).45 Despite the loss of the painted fragments’ original context, a detailed study by this author that combines the existing fragments in Naples, the eighteenth-century excavation reports and royal publications,46 and comparisons to the painted décor in the adjoining Collegio degli Augustali, demonstrates that the walls of the Porticus were painted in the fourth Pompeian style, a highly eclectic and “busy” style that combined elements of the three previous styles, and that the predominant colors seem to have been red, white, black, yellow, and perhaps blue.47 In the same study, I suggest that the image depicting Iupiter in the Clouds (fig. 13) originally graced the rear wall of the central 45 For a detailed description of the Bourbon methods of removing painted wall sections, see Najbjerg, Locus Augustalibus et civibus, chapter four. 46 Michele Ruggiero, superintendent of the excavations at Pompeii and Herculaneum from 1875 to 1893, collected and transcribed the daily records from the eighteenth-century underground excavations in his Storia degli scavi di Ercolano ricomposta sui documenti superstiti (Naples: Tipografia dell’Accademia delle Scienze, 1885). In this invaluable publication, Ruggiero attempted to match the descriptions in the excavations records with objects in the Naples museum, using as a source King Carlos’ own publication of the excavated objects from Herculaneum: Le antichità di Ercolano esposte, of which the first was published in 1757, the second in 1760. 47 For a detailed reconstruction of the individual fragments from the Porticus, their framework, date, style, color, context, and meaning, see Najbjerg, Locus Augustalibus et civibus, chapter four. Also Najbjerg, Public painted and sculptural programs of the Early Roman Empire, 254–348 with catalogue of paintings.

The great Porticus in Herculaneum

365

exedra, where it would have been positioned behind and above the statue of the reigning emperor.48 It may have been flanked by two pendant images of seated amazons.49 In the semi-circular and arched niche in the northeast corner of the Porticus, the image of Theseus with the slain Minotaur and the Athenian children (fig. 14) would have been positioned below the representation of Marsyas teaching young Olympus to play the double flute (fig. 15).50 The famous images of Hercules finding his son Telephus (fig. 16) and Chiron teaching young Achilles to play the lyre (fig. 17) would have occupied similar positions in the semi-circular and arched niche in the southeastern corner (fig. 18).51 The approximately 0.50 m tall frieze that ran the length of the building above the lateral niches and perhaps continued onto the rear wall, was painted with scenes such as Hercules’ young friend Hylas being abducted by water nymphs (fig. 19),52 the young hero Bellerophon in the court of King Iobates,53 Hercules bringing back the

48 MN 9553. M. M. Gabriel, Masters of Campanian Painting (New York: H. Bittner, 1952) 32–34, fig. 6a, pls. 13–15; Najbjerg, Public painted and sculptural programs of the Early Roman Empire, 270–271, 292–293, cat. no. P25*, figs. 189 and 158; and Najbjerg, Locus Augustalibus et civibus, cat. no. *P–26, with bibliography. 49 MN 9365 and MN 9368. Collezioni Vol. I, nos. 147 and 146; Najbjerg, Locus Augustalibus et civibus, cat. nos. ***P–33 and ***P–34, with bibliography. 50 Theseus: MN 9049. Collezioni Vol. I, 174; A. Allroggen-Bedel, “Documente des 18. Jahrhunderts zur Topographie von Herculaneum,” CronErc 13 (1983): 148–150, 153; Najbjerg, Public painted and sculptural programs of the Early Roman Empire, 257–258, 283–286, 293, cat. no. P1, figs. 153–156; and Najbjerg, Locus Augustalibus et civibus, cat. no. P–1, with bibliography. Marsyas and Olympus: MN 9151. Collezioni Vol. I, 148–149, no. 178; Allroggen-Bedel, “Documente des 18. Jahrhunderts zur Topographie von Herculaneum,” 148, 153; Najbjerg, Public painted and sculptural programs of the Early Roman Empire, 268–270, 283–286, cat. no. P24*, figs. 187–188; and Najbjerg, Locus Augustalibus et civibus, cat. no. *P–24, with bibliography. 51 Hercules and Telephus: MN 9008. Collezioni Vol. I, 148–149, no. 187; AllroggenBedel, “Documente des 18. Jahrhunderts zur Topographie von Herculaneum,” 148–150, 153; Najbjerg, Public painted and sculptural programs of the Early Roman Empire, 258– 259, 283, 284, 286, cat. no. P–3, 159–163; and Najbjerg, Locus Augustalibus et civibus, cat. no. P–3, with bibliography. Chiron and Achilles: MN 9109. Collezioni Vol. I, 148–149, no. 177; Allroggen-Bedel, “Documente des 18. Jahrhunderts zur Topographie von Herculaneum,” 148, 153; Najbjerg, Public painted and sculptural programs of the Early Roman Empire, 259, 283–286, cat. no. P–4, figs. 164–167; and Najbjerg, Locus Augustalibus et civibus, cat. no. P–4, with bibliography. 52 MN 8864. R. Ling, “Hylas in Pompeian Art,” Melanges de l’ecole francaise de Rome 91 (1979): 779, 792–794, 801–802, 811, pl. 4; Najbjerg, Public painted and sculptural programs of the Early Roman Empire, 261, 275, 288, 289, cat. no. P10, figs. 170–171; Najbjerg, Locus Augustalibus et civibus, cat. no. P–10, with bibliography. 53 The image of Bellerophon has been missing since the 18th century. It was described by its excavators in StErc, 364, 365–366 and depicted in Pd’E 3, pl. 48. See also Najbjerg, Public painted and sculptural programs of the Early Roman Empire, 261–262, 288, cat. no. P11, fig. 172; and Najbjerg, Locus Augustalibus et civibus, cat. no. P–11, with bibliography.

366

Tina Najbjerg

Erymanthean boar,54 a servant between two athletes,55 Hercules strangling the Nemean Lion (fig. 20),56 the carpenter Argos presenting the ship Argo to Minerva and Hercules (fig. 21),57 and Hercules killing the Stymphalian birds.58 The image depicting baby Hercules strangling the serpents sent by Iuno (fig. 22) was discovered in one of the large, lateral niches, suggesting that each of these niches contained similarly sized and shaped panels, such as, for example, the incomplete fragment showing Medea before slaying her children (fig. 23).59 Curious to our modern sensibility is the notion that a visitor’s view of these central images would have been partially obstructed by the life-sized or larger-than-life statues that stood on pedestals in front (see above). Around the niches and between the raised pilasters that divided the walls into sections, painted images of architectural landscapes provided fictitious views through the walls (Durchblicke), young men and women engaged in unspecified religious rituals stood on painted “shelves,” and scantily clad women, surrounded by golden, baroque frames, reclined against a luscious, red background (fig. 24).60 54 MN 9006. Najbjerg, Public painted and sculptural programs of the Early Roman Empire, 263, 289, cat. no. P13, figs. 175–176; Najbjerg, Locus Augustalibus et civibus, cat. no. P–13. 55  MN 9054. Pd’E 3, pl. 47; Najbjerg, Public painted and sculptural programs of the Early Roman Empire, 263, 264, 289, cat. no. P15, figs. 176, 178; Najbjerg, Locus Augustalibus et civibus, cat. no. P–15, with bibliography. 56 MN 9011. Collezioni Vol. I, 148–149, no. 184; Najbjerg, Public painted and sculptural programs of the Early Roman Empire, 263, 264, 331–333, cat. no. P16, figs. 179–180; Najbjerg, Locus Augustalibus et civibus, cat. no. P–16, with bibliography. 57 MN 9522. P. Herrmann, Denkmäler der Malerei des Altertums (Munich: F. Bruckmann, 1904–1931), 116, pl. 87; Najbjerg, Public painted and sculptural programs of the Early Roman Empire, 264–265, 290, cat. no. P18, figs. 172, 182; Najbjerg, Locus Augustalibus et civibus, cat. no. P–18, with bibliography. 58 MN 9007. Pd’E 5, pl. 24; Najbjerg, Public painted and sculptural programs of the Early Roman Empire, 271, 291–292, cat. no. P26*, figs. 190–191; Najbjerg, Locus Augustalibus et civibus, cat. no. *P–25, with bibliography. 59 Baby Hercules: MN 9012. Collezioni Vol. I, 183; Najbjerg, Public painted and sculptural programs of the Early Roman Empire, 259, 287, cat. no. P5, figs. 168–169; Najbjerg, Locus Augustalibus et civibus, cat. no. P–5, with bibliography. Medea: MN 8976. Collezioni Vol. I, 150–151, no. 194; Najbjerg, Public painted and sculptural programs of the Early Roman Empire, 274–275, 293, cat. no. P28*, figs. 195–197; Najbjerg, Locus Augustalibus et civibus, cat. no. ***P–31, with bibliography. 60 The painted image of Leda and the swan from the Porticus is today in the Louvre, as is a pendant image of a reclining woman with a harp, also from the Porticus (Louvre P18 and P13). W. Helbig, Wandgemälde der vom Vesuv verschütteten Städte Campaniens (Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtel, 1868, 1900) and V. Tran Tam Tinh, Catalogue des peintures romaines [Latium et Campanie] du musée du Louvre (Paris: Éditions des musées nationaux, 1974), 56–57, nos. 31 and 32, published both paintings as pendants from Herculaneum but did not recognize them as originating in the Porticus. Both images were identified for the first time in Najbjerg, Public painted and sculptural programs of the Early Roman Empire, 262, n. 596, 264, 328–329, 333 cat. nos. P12 and P17, figs. 173–174, 181. A third fragment, depicting a reclining woman with a drinking horn, is in the Naples museum:

The great Porticus in Herculaneum

367

Together with the impressive collection of imperial portrait statues that filled the building, the high quality of the painted images and their use of expensive colors indicate that the Porticus now had reached its apex in regards to political and social status. After the building’s repair by Vespasian, the local elite and the richest freedmen in Herculaneum probably competed to decorate and thus be associated with the Porticus. The building, as a result, would have achieved an even greater popularity, as visitors would have come from near and far to gaze, not only upon its impressive sculptural displays but also its elaborate painted decoration. While the patron(s) of the luxurious and costly painting project are unknown (most likely the Augustales or the decurions paid for it), its unbridled celebration of Hercules and, by extension, of Vespasian, suggests that the Porticus was decorated in grateful response to Vespasian’s suggested repair of the same building. Images of Hercules naturally appeared in most public and private houses in Herculaneum who claimed the demi-god as its divine founder, but in the Porticus and in the joining Collegio, the Herculean imagery not only celebrated the town’s patron god but associated Vespasian visually with Hercules, thereby serving as visual panegyrics to the emperor who had done so much for the building and for the town.61 In the Porticus, images on the lateral walls that focused on showing Hercules’ brute strength in ridding the world of monsters culminated in the famous scene in the southeastern arched niche, where the hero is celebrated as the nurturing father figure who saves his child, Telephus, from death by exposure (fig. 16). Hercules’ world-weary stance in this picture contrasts starkly to his demeanor in the other known depictions of him in the Porticus and elsewhere, and together with the figures of peace and abundance that here surround father and son, the composition highlights qualities in Hercules that were not normally depicted in the arts at the time: he here stands out as a savior of children and thus future races (Telephus was destined to be the founder of the great kingdom of Pergamon) and as the bringer of peace. My thesis that these were (some of) the intended messages in this powerful image is corroborated by the fact that the same issues were highlighted in the pendant painting of Theseus and the Minotaur in the niche in the northeast corner of the Porticus (fig. 14). The composition in this image also underplays the hero’s physical strength and instead focuses on his fatherly MN 9290. Najbjerg, Public painted and sculptural programs of the Early Roman Empire, 263, 264, 289–290, cat. no. P14, figs. 174, 177. All three images will be published in Najbjerg, Locus Augustalibus et civibus, cat. nos. P–12, P–19, and P–14. 61 On Hercules and the imperial imagery in the Collegio, see J. F. Fears, “Herculanensium Augustalium Aedes and the Theology of Ruler Cult,” Proceedings of the XVth International Congress of Classical Archaeology. Amsterdam, July 12–17, 1998 (Amsterdam: Allard Pierson Museum, 1999), 166–169. Also E. M. Moormann, “Sulle pitture della Herculanensium Augustalium Aedes,” CronErc 13 (1983): 175–177.

368

Tina Najbjerg

image and rescue of the Athenian children. The slain minotaur is barely visible in the bottom left corner of the image, Theseus’ club looks more like a royal scepter than a weapon, and the artist has added more children to the composition than normally appear in other representations of this myth. In addition, the painter added Artemis/Diana to the composition (she is seated in the upper left corner), surely a reminder to the viewer of a neverbefore-noted detail of the myth of the Cretan minotaur, in which Theseus gratefully sacrifices to Artemis in her capacity of savior of children (sotera) on his way back to Athens from Crete.62 The nude figures of Hercules and of Theseus in these two images seem to have been modeled on three-dimensional works of art, or statues, that were famous in Antiquity: Hercules on the Farnese Heracles and Theseus on Praxiteles’ Hermes carrying the infant Dionysus. Yet, even if the ancient viewer was unfamiliar with these statues, he would have picked up upon the other visual clues that were designed to make him compare the heroic figures in the painted corner niches to the suggested statue of Vespasian between them in the central niche. Like Hercules and Theseus, Vespasian was here probably shown in the heroic nude, perhaps in a stance similar to his portrait statue from the Collegio degli Augustali in Misenum, which also seems to have been modeled on the Praxiteleian Hermes.63 Moreover, in the painted images, each hero is accompanied by a seated divinity: Hercules by the large figure of the Mother of the Gods or Rhea, and Theseus by Artemis/Diana; Vespasian was similarly flanked by the colossal seated statues of the deified “Augustus” and “Claudius” (fig. 10 and 11). Finally, both painted images emphasized the ruler aspect of the heroes: Hercules wears a filleted wreath and Iupiter’s eagle sits by his feet; Theseus carries a scepterlooking club and is surrounded by children who are kneeling before him in the submissive gesture of subjects before an all-powerful ruler. Vespasian’s status as ruling emperor would have been underscored by the central and heightened location of his statue on the wide pedestal in the central exedra in the rear wall, by the suggested location of the painted image of Iupiter behind the statue (fig. 13), and by the fact that his statue was flanked twice by the deified emperors of the previous dynasty: Colossal statues of Augustus and Claudius, both seated in the manner of the cult statue of Iupiter Optimus Maximus in Rome, were placed on either side of Vespasian in the central exedra, and over life-sized bronze statues of the same two deities stood in front of (and partially obscured) the images of Hercules and Theseus in the semi-circular corner niches (fig. 6–7). All of these visual clues 62 Pausanias

2.31.1. an image of the nude statue of Vespasian in the headquarters of the Augustales in Misenum, see A. De Franciscis, Il sacello degli Augustali a Miseno (Naples: Arte tipografica, 1991), fig. 47. 63 For

The great Porticus in Herculaneum

369

served to make the ancient viewer compare Vespasian to the two Greek heroes and the two former, deified rulers and to appreciate the same qualities in him as were highlighted in them: Vespasian had helped rid the world of monsters (Nero), and he not only had brought peace to Rome after a bloody civil war in 68–69 C.E. and thus saved the Roman people, but he was the father of two adult heirs, Titus and Domitian, and thus the genitor of a new and peaceful dynasty and, like Hercules, the bringer of a new Golden Era. While the location, architecture, and painted and sculpted decoration thus combined to increase the social and political status of the Porticus in Herculaneum to a point where public and private individuals and groups competed to be associated with the building, the Porticus was not a museum or an art gallery. Nor should we spend time seeking to impose one specific function on the building, as has been the tendency in the scholarship on the Porticus in the 250 years since its initial discovery. Instead, as I have argued elsewhere, the building served its local community in a variety of ways, thus appealing to a broad slice of the local population. Among other things, the Porticus seems to have been used as headquarters for the Augustales, as a market, as a school, and as a place in which the entire town could worship the emperor. It may even have been details of the building’s multi-faceted nature that prompted Vespasian to repair it, thus further increasing its popularity. From the start, the Porticus was intended to expand the headquarters of the Augustales in Herculaneum. Certain details in the architecture of the Porticus facade and of the Collegio degli Augustali across the street indicate, I have argued, that the former was purposely constructed in the Claudian period to connect to the smaller and earlier (Augustan or Tiberian) structure of the Collegio and that the two buildings essentially functioned as one.64 An inscription discovered near the Collegio and the fact that the organization dedicated two statues of the deified Iulius Caesar and the deified Augustus in the building, seem to identify it as the headquarters of the Augustales.65 Fragmentary marble slabs, discovered nearby, list about 450 names, divided into centuriae, of mostly freedmen or former slaves but also free citizens; these lists, the so-called Alba Augustalium, probably identified 64 For my detailed argument on this connection, see Najbjerg, “A reconstruction and reconsideration of the so-called Basilica in Herculaneum,” 143–146, 157–163. 65 For a summary of the evidence regarding the identification of the Collegio degli Augustali in Herculaneum, see Najbjerg, “A reconstruction and reconsideration of the so-called Basilica in Herculaneum,” 159, n. 98, with bibliography. A more detailed discussion can be found in M. Laird, Evidence in context: the public and funerary monuments of the serviri Augustales at Ostia (Diss. Princeton Univ. 2002), 80–90 and in her forthcoming publication on the Augustales. On Laird’s reasonable doubt that the inscription belonged with the Collegio, see Laird, Diss. 2002, 88–89.

370

Tina Najbjerg

all Augustales in Herculaneum.66 If this interpretation is correct, the lists seem to indicate that the ordo Augustalium was especially popular in Herculaneum, a notion that corroborates my thesis that the Augustales by the Claudian period had outgrown their existing headquarters in the Collegio and were allowed to build the Porticus as an extension. Another inscription or rather an imprint in the lava, discovered between the Porticus and the Collegio, records the act by which a piece of land was given to the Augustales to build upon.67 Probably referring to the permission by the decurions to allow the Augustales to extend their existing structure across the decumanus and connect it with an older structure on the east side of the street, the inscription reinforces the notion that the Augustales enjoyed a particularly high status in Herculaneum. The new structure would have provided the Augustales ample space for their group activities, that probably included meetings, communal meals, and food and money distributions. Although the Porticus originated as a space for the essentially private organization of Augustales, its architecture and the many sculptural dedications by people and groups other than the Augustales suggest that the building was considered a public structure and was used by a variety of people. Unlike the Collegio, whose two narrow entrances were easily closed, the architecture of the Porticus with five openings into its front hall, interior porticoes, and courtyard did not lend itself well to being sealed off from the outside world. Although there must have been occasions on which the Augustales would have used the courtyard for private meetings, the Porticus was essentially open to the public at any time. Its public nature is also indicated by the variety of individuals and groups who dedicated statues in the building. While the extravagant sculptural donations by the Augustalis Lucius Mammius Maximus in the Porticus (see above) may have represented an attempt by this particular individual to join the organization of Augustales,68 Seneca the soldier, the decurions, and the unidentified 66  CIL 10.1401–3 and AE 1978, 119. Allroggen-Bedel 1974, 101, 102; G. Guadagno, “Frammenti inediti di Albi degli Augustali,” CronErc 7 (1977): 114–123; Najbjerg, “A reconstruction and reconsideration of the so-called Basilica in Herculaneum,” 159–161. Against this interpretation: A. Wallace-Hadrill, “Imaginary feasts: pictures of success on the Bay of Naples,” in Ostia, Cicero, Gamala, Feasts, and the Economy. Papers in memory of John H. D’Arms, JRA suppl. 57 (eds. Zevi, A. G. and J. H. Humphrey; Portsmouth, R. I.: Journal of Roman Archaeology, 2004), 121–126. I am grateful to Peg Laird for the reference. 67 CIL 10.1462. Guadagno, “Supplemento Epigrafico Ercolanese II,” 151–152, no. 111; Najbjerg, “A reconstruction and reconsideration of the so-called Basilica in Herculaneum,” 162–163. 68 The fact that L. Mammius Maximus did not record himself as an Augustalis on his eight extravagant sculptural dedications in the Porticus suggested to M. Laird (Evidence in context, 126–128) that this gift perhaps constituted an act of generosity towards the group and their building, by which Mammius hoped to be included into the ordo Augustalium.

The great Porticus in Herculaneum

371

group(s) who donated some unspecified object in the front hall, would most likely not have financed these costly additions to the Porticus’ décor if use of the building was restricted to the Augustales. If placed in a private structure, these concrete acts of euergetism would not be visible to as broad an audience as they would in a public structure, and to be recognized for one’s beneficence was, after all, the intension behind many of these sculptural dedications. Some of the ways in which the Porticus might have served the general public and not just the Augustales, although the organization may have been involved, include as a market, as a school, and as a place for worshipping the emperor.69 Thus the many scales discovered in the building in the eighteenth-century excavations may indicate that the Augustales used the structure as a venue in which to sell luxury goods. The large, open courtyard and shaded porticoes would have lent themselves well to the placement of temporary booths and stalls. A small base on top of the podium in the Porticus facade either indicates that sacrifices were performed on it (although the victims would have to have been slaughtered in front of it, not on top) or that goods were presented from here. The suggestion that these “goods” might have included slaves must also be entertained.70 While the function of the mysterious podium may never be discovered, it is noteworthy that it was accessed by two sets of stairs in its west side, directly in front of the entrance to the Collegio degli Augustali.71 This suggests that whatever activity happened on or from this podium was administered by the Augustales. One of the public activities in the Porticus that may have caught the attention of Vespasian and thus further increased the building’s local popularity was its possible use as a school. I have proposed elsewhere that the Augustales used their building as a venue for teaching Herculaneum’s elite youth rhetoric, thus supplementing their physical instruction in the nearby palaestra with a civic education.72 The wide, shaded porticoes would have provided the teachers with comfortable spaces in which to instruct their students, and the two low podia in the courtyard, accessed via stairs from the porticoes, would have served as tribunals from which the students could practice giving speeches and arguing cases. Roman orators like Cicero (De orat. 33, 118; Part. Orat. 39, 140) and Quintilian (12. 2, 15–20) emphasized 69 The various functions of the Porticus are discussed in detail in Najbjerg, Locus Augustalibus et civibus, chapter five. 70 E. Fentress, “On the block: catastae, chalcidica and cryptae in Early Imperial Italy,” JRA 18 (2005): 230. 71 For a photo of the podium from southwest, see Najbjerg, “A reconstruction and reconsideration of the so-called Basilica in Herculaneum,” 130, fig. 15. 72 Najbjerg, “A reconstruction and reconsideration of the so-called Basilica in Herculaneum,” 163. See also Najbjerg, Locus Augustalibus et civibus, chapter five, where I discuss in detail the Porticus’ proposed use as a school of rhetoric.

372

Tina Najbjerg

the importance for budding orators to train in ethics and to be prepared to speak on a variety of topics within that field, such as virtue and vice, right and wrong, piety and patriotism, on duty neglected or fulfilled, and to be able to argue one’s case by using examples from mythology, history, or real life.73 In order to provide their students with such examples, teachers would therefore instruct them in public places where they would be surrounded by statues, painted images, and, presumably, people. The teachers who used the Porticus as a place of instruction (the Augustales?) would here have had a plentiful supply of visual materials upon which to draw: Hercules, Theseus, and Bellerophon exemplified the virtuous hero; Theseus, Augustus, Claudius, and Vespasian the powerful patriarch and ruler; Medea and Iuno the treacherous woman; Chiron and Marsyas the wise teacher and patron; Leda the lascivious woman; the young men and women engaged in rituals illustrated religious piety, etc. Comparisons could be made between all of these characters, and new associations could be detected and discussed by different students. The patrons of the painted images in the Porticus, whether the Augustales or the decurions, deliberately chose images that depicted young protagonists whose actions would be more likely to attract the students’ sympathy. Even though the walls of the Porticus were not decorated with these colorful mythological images until the Vespasianic period, probably after the suggested repair of the building by the Flavian emperor, the Augustales may have used the building as a school from the beginning, and, given Vespasian’s interest in the education of youth, this usage may partially have been the catalyst for his decision to restore it after the earthquake in 62 C.E. According to Suetonius (Vesp. 18), Vespasian was the first emperor to establish an annual salary of one hundred thousand sesterces from the imperial treasury for teachers of Latin and Greek rhetoric, and in 74 C.E., the same emperor issued an extraordinary edict that exempted grammarians and teachers of rhetoric “who train the minds of the youth to gentility and civic virtue” from paying taxes, forbade anybody from harming or suing them, and gave them undisturbed right to maintain societies wherever they chose, even in sacred precincts.74 Even if teaching was far from a lucrative profession, the Augustales, mainly freedmen who made a good living from trade, might have been tempted to formalize and expand their instruction of Herculaneum’s elite youth with these generous salaries, tax breaks, and highly desired imperial protection in a profession that had, until Vespasian, Bonner, Education in Ancient Rome (London: Methuen, 1977, 87. 1936, no. 128. Translation: Roman Civilization. Selected readings, Vol. 2 (N. Lewis and M. Reinhold, eds.; New York; Chichester: Columbia University Pres, 1990), 207. 73 F.

74 AE

The great Porticus in Herculaneum

373

not been held in high regard.75 The organization now had every reason to keep running a school of rhetoric in the Porticus and to decorate it with images that not only celebrated the emperor but showed off the building’s partial use for education. A final issue that must be discussed regarding the Porticus’ involvement with the public is its relationship with the cult of the emperor. While some scholars’ identification of the Porticus as an “imperial cult building” or an augusteum, meaning a structure devoted entirely to the worship of the emperor, must be regarded as too simplistic, the emperor was undeniably worshipped in the building.76 Of the two things required for sacrifice in the Roman world: an altar and an image of the divinity, excavations in the Porticus have, thus far, only procured the latter. For example, I suggest elsewhere that the still unidentified statue of Claudius from the decurions would have stood in the central exedra in the rear wall (which thus functioned as a sacellum), where it would have served as the cult statue of this emperor throughout the Claudian period.77 In the Neronian period, this statue would have been replaced by the colossal, seated statues of Augustus and Claudius, both divi (fig. 10–11). In 69 C.E., a statue of Vespasian would most likely have been placed between the two divi of the previous dynasty, and three months before the destruction of the Porticus in August of 79 C.E., Titus’ statue (fig. 12) replaced that of his father as the cult statue in the sacellum.78 No altar was ever discovered inside the Porticus, however. Perhaps the eighteenth-century excavators missed it, when their tunnels criss-crossed the interior, in which case the altar is still sitting there, buried underneath twenty meters of volcanic material. Or, the altar was portable, a viable solution given that the Porticus was used for a variety of other purposes other than sacrificial rituals. More problematic is the question as to who administered the sacrifices and who worshipped in the Porticus. The Augustales were not priests and were not to be confused with the flamines Augustalis, who were the official priests of the state-sponsored worship of the emperor; yet, little is known about the Augustales’ involvement with the worship of the emperor in

75 It is interesting to note that Domitian during his reign decided to curtail his father’s law and to limit teachers to instruct freeborn youth only. In his edict (AE 1936, no. 128), Domitian accuses teachers of instructing and taking fees from domestic slaves “for gain,” not for “culture.” 76 “Imperial cult building”: Allroggen-Bedel, “Das sogenannte Forum von Herculaneum und die borbonischen Grabungen von 1739,” 108; “augusteum”: Pagano 1996–1997, 242, 243. 77 Najbjerg, Locus Augustalibus et civibus, cat. no. I–12. 78 Najbjerg, Locus Augustalibus et civibus, cat. nos. S–2 and S–8.

374

Tina Najbjerg

general and on a local level.79 In the small municipium of Herculaneum, the organization may have been charged by the local government with administering the worship of the emperor in the Porticus, a building which perhaps belonged to them. The actual worship of the emperor, however, would almost certainly have been open to the public. We may even envision a scenario in which the Augustales were not involved with the sacrificial rituals in the Porticus at all, except in so far as they provided the public with a space in which to worship the emperor and an image to sacrifice in front of. Any individual, whether local or traveling, could thus bring his or her portable altar to the Porticus, pay the Augustales a small fee, and then worship the image of the emperor in the central sacellum, as he or she saw fit. The Augustales probably also worshipped the emperor in the Porticus, either individually or when they gathered there as a group, but they may have done so on behalf of their organization only, not on behalf of the town. The Porticus in Herculaneum stands out, today as it did in Antiquity, as one of the greatest monuments of first-century C.E. Campania. From a humble beginning around 45 C.E., when it was added on to the existing headquarters of the Augustales and consisted of little more than a brick shell with a few statues in its niches, it rose to become a structure of seemingly unparalleled visual, economic, social, and religious power in Herculaneum. I have argued here that the building’s success was caused by a partly fortuitous, partly intentional, mixture of central locality, high visibility, architectural recognizability, rich décor, and a polyvalent nature that helped attract the attention of people of all ages and from all walks of life: from young students and lowly soldiers to the elite members of the local government and the emperor himself.

Captions to figures Fig. 1: View from south of the visible remains of the Porticus in the NE corner of the excavated area of Herculaneum. Courtesy of the German Archaeological Institute in Rome (Inst. Neg. 66.1459). Fig. 2: Map showing the excavated areas of Herculaneum, superimposed on the modern town of Resina (Ercolano). The Porticus appears top center. Design and computer rendering by M. Pagano and U. Pastore. Fig. 3: Reconstructed plan of the Porticus in Herculaneum. Design and computer rendering by Tina Najbjerg and Derek Jones.

79 For the most recent study on the Augustales, see Laird 2002 and forthcoming study by her.

The great Porticus in Herculaneum

375

Fig. 4: Reconstructed view of the Porticus from east. Design and computer rendering by Tina Najbjerg, Arthur Banks and David Koller. Fig. 5: Tiberius. Bronze. Naples Archaeological Museum. MN 5615. H 2,30 m. From K. Kluge and K. Lehmann-Hartleben, Die antiken Großbronzen I (Berlin-Leipzig 1927) pl. 19. Fig. 6: Claudius. Bronze. Naples Archaeological Museum. MN 5593. H 2,40 m. Soprintendenza Archeologica della Provincia di Napoli e Caserta  – Napoli, Neg. no. 4035. Fig. 7: Augustus. Bronze. Naples Archaeological Museum. MN 5595. H 2,50 m. From H. G. Niemeyer, Studien zur statuarischen Darstellung der römischen Kaiser. Monumenta Artis Romanae 7 (Berlin 1968) pl. 27. Fig. 8: Reconstructed view along northern portico of the Porticus toward semicircular niche in NE corner with bronze statue of Augustus (MN 5595). Design and computer rendering by Tina Najbjerg, Arthur Banks, and David Koller. Fig. 9: Agrippina II. Bronze. Naples Archaeological Museum. MN 5612. H 2,06 m. Soprintendenza Archeologica della Provincia di Napoli e Caserta  – Napoli, Neg. no. 1831. Fig. 10: “Augustus.” Marble. Naples Archaeological Museum. MN 6040. H 2,15 m. Soprintendenza Archeologica della Provincia di Napoli e Caserta  – Napoli, Neg. no. 5771. Fig. 11: “Claudius.” Marble. Naples Archaeological Museum. MN 6056. H 2,22 m. Soprintendenza Archeologica della Provincia di Napoli e Caserta  – Napoli, Neg. no. 5772. Fig. 12: Titus. Marble. Naples Archaeological Museum. MN 6059. H 2,11 m. Fig. 13: Iupiter in the clouds. Painted wall fragment. Naples Archaeological Museum. MN 9553. H 0,70 m; W 1,42 m. Fig. 14: Theseus. Painted wall fragment. Naples Archaeological Museum. MN 9049. H 1,94 m; W 1,55 m. Fig. 15: Marsyas and Olympus. Painted wall fragment. Naples Archaeological Museum. MN 9151. H 1,26 m; W 1,12 m. Fig. 16: Hercules and Telephus. Painted wall fragment. Naples Archaeological Museum. MN 9008. H 2,18 m; W 1,82 m. Fig. 17: Chiron and Achilles. Painted wall fragment. Naples Archaeological Museum. MN 9109. H 1,25 m; W 1,27 m. From Le Collezioni del Museo Nazionale di Napoli I.1 (Rome 1986) p. 60. Fig. 18: Reconstruction of semi-circular niche in southeastern corner of Porticus. Design and drawing by Tina Najbjerg. Fig. 19: Hylas. Painted wall fragment. Naples Archaeological Museum. MN 8864. H 0,46 m; W 0,96 m. Soprintendenza Archeologica della Provincia di Napoli e Caserta – Napoli, Neg. no. 1291.

376

Tina Najbjerg

Fig. 20: Hercules and the Nemean lion. Painted wall fragment. Naples Archaeological Museum. MN 9011. H 0,47 m; W 0,83 m. Fig. 21: Minerva and Hercules at the presentation of the ship Argo. Painted wall fragment. Naples Archaeological Museum. MN 9522. H 0,52 m; W 1,33 m. Soprintendenza Archeologica della Provincia di Napoli e Caserta – Napoli, Neg. no. 1327. Fig. 22: Baby Hercules strangling the serpents. Painted wall fragment. Naples Archaeological Museum. MN 9012. H 1,23 m; W 1,29 m. Fig. 23: Medea. Painted wall fragment. Naples Archaeological Museum. MN 8976. H 1,33 m; W 0,42 m. Soprintendenza Archeologica della Provincia di Napoli e Caserta – Napoli, Neg. no. 2405. Fig. 24: Leda. Painted wall fragment. Paris, Louvre; P18. H 0,38 m; W 0,87 m.

“Do you not know that you are God’s temple?” Towards a new perspective on Paul’s temple image in 1 Corinthians 3:161 Annette Weissenrieder In his Civitas Dei, Augustinus writes, “selbst auch die Maße der Länge, Höhe und Breite weisen auf einen menschlichen Leib hin, in dessen Wahrheit er der Weissagung gemäß zu den Menschen kommen sollte und gekommen ist. Denn die Länge des menschlichen Leibes beträgt sechsmal so viel als die Breite von einer Seite zur anderen und zehnmal so viel als die Tiefe, diese Tiefe seitlich vom Rücken zum Bauch gemessen,”2 thereby comparing Christ’s proportions to the measurements of the Ark. Hrabanus Maurus (fig. 1) uses this passage in a figural poem, depicting Christ standing with outstretched arms within the frame of the image. The body’s size, shape and proportion is used as the basis for the architectural creation. In an anthropomorphic system of measurement, man (or the Son of Man) is used as a metrological unit and interpreted in a Christological sense. The same can also be seen, for instance, in Albertus Magnus and Hildegard von Bingen (fig. 2).3

1  The present essay summarizes some aspects of my book project Tempel, Kirche und Zivilgesellschaft im 1. Korintherbrief, which will be completed this year. I would like to thank Helmut Koester, David Balch and the conference participants, especially Hilke Thür, for their additional suggestions. My thanks also go to H. Lanz for permission to reproduce photographs from the catalogue, and the American Numismatic Society in New York for the possibility of working with the original coins in several visits. 2 Augustinus, De civitate dei XV 26.1. 3 Hildegard von Bingen takes this a step further, however, in that she not only compares human beings’ size and shape to architectural creations, but also applies the macrocosmmicrocosm thesis to the creation of the world. In doing so, she departs from the basic Vitruvian concept; but at the same time, she provides the basis for further concepts, such as those developed by Luca Paciolis, Walter Ryffs and Diego de Sagredos. See for further details F. Zöllner, Vitruvius Proportionsfigur. Quellenkritische Studien zur Kunstliteratur im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert (Manuskripte zur Kunstwissenschaft; Worms: Wernersche Verlagsgesellschaft, 1987).

378

Annette Weissenrieder

Can we also assume an orientation toward this anthropomorphic system of measurement when Paul in 1 Corinthians 3:16 asks: “Do you not know that you are God’s temple, and that God’s pneuma dwells in you?” In his rhetoric Paul assumes that the image of “God’s temple” is directly meaningful to his audience, especially in connection to Corinth, this image being found only in the two letters to the Corinthians. In the first letter to the Corinthians, several schísmata (conflicts) within the Corinthian community are mentioned. In the first major section of the letter, internal differences in the community between different groups, or authorities, are as addressed. The difficulties come from the fact that authorities threaten to split the community into different groups, putting the self-identification of the group at stake. This is evident in Paul’s message. In the third chapter, the roles of Apollos and Paul in the community are mentioned explicitly. The community, to which his message is addressed, appears in the imagery of plant, building, and temple. For us, a contemporary audience, the image is unfamiliar. It is no longer in our encyclopedia. In general, two possible interpretations of the temple-image are discussed, and they often overlap. The first interpretation takes as its point of departure the spiritualization of the temple, as first discussed by Hans Wenschkewitz in 1932.4 His interpretation assumes that through the revelation of God in Jesus Christ a substitution of the Jerusalem temple cult takes place. The ethos of Jesus takes the place of the cult and the spiritualization of cult laws takes the place of cult terminology. The Pauline image of the temple is understood here as a turning away from the existing sanctuary in Jerusalem. Despite vigorous criticism, this thesis is still represented even in recent scholarship, albeit with some modification.5 Greg Beale demonstrates that 4 H. Wenschkewitz, Die Spiritualisierung der Kultusbegriffe. Tempel, Priester und Opfer im Neuen Testament (Leipzig, 1932), 8 = Angelos 4 (1932): 70–320, 74; see e.g. also with some distinction: M. Fraeyman, La spiritualization de l’idée du temple dans les épitres Pauliniennes (ALBO 2,5; Louvain: É. Nauvelaerts, 1948); B. Gärtner, The Temple and the Community in Qumran and the New Testament (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965); C. F. D. Moule, “Sanctuary and Sacrifice in the Church of the New Testament,” JTS (1950): 29–51; M. Newton, The Concept of Purity at Qumran and in the Letters of Paul (London: Oxford University Press, 1985); F. J. McKelvey, The New Temple: The Church in the New Testament (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969), who writes, that the eschatological temple “made without hands has displaced the temple made with hands” where “the temple in Jerusalem surrendered its redemptive significance to Christ and his church and thereby dropped out the plan of God” (p. 74 f.); G. F. Snyder, First Corinthians: a Faith Community Commentary (Macon: Merver University Press, 1992), 41–42 writes: “the faith community has now replaced the Jewish temple […] the movement from Jewish temple to the Christian faith community became an absolute necessity for the first Corinthians.” Similar: T. S. Wardle, Continuity and Discontinuity: The Temple and Early Christian Identity (PhD dissertation; Duke University, 2008). 5 For a critical discussion of this view see especially E. Schüssler-Fiorenza’s excellent essay “Cultic Language in Qumran and in the New Testament,” CNQ 38 (1976): 159–177;

“Do you not know that you are God’s temple?”

379

the “Old Testament tabernacle and temples were symbolically designed to point to the cosmic eschatological reality that God’s tabernacling presence, formerly limited to the Holy of Holies, was to be extended throughout the whole earth”.6 For Beale the Jerusalem temple is to be replaced by a literal non-physical temple, which is “fulfillment of the end-time temple prophesied in the Old Testament” and that is the church.7 Friedrich Wilhelm Horn summarizes the view in this way: “Because the community of the temple and the spiritualization of the temple are in conflict, one must assume a distancing from Jerusalem.”8 In the second interpretation, “God’s temple” is understood as an ecclesiological metaphor. An exegetical tendency can be seen here: anything no longer textually determined can and must be interpreted metaphorically. Inevitably, the metaphor of the community as “God’s temple” is interpreted in many different ways.9 God’s dwelling place is seen reflected in it, as A. Robertson and A. Plummer assert,10 or the communication of faith, Martin Pöttner emphasizes.11 In this spirit Malina summarizes: “The Corinthians need not to be concerned about the Jerusalem Temple or pilgrimage or whatever is bound up with Israelite temple worship, since what that temple offers can be experienced in their gathering.”12 And J. Økland in her book Women in Their Space writes in contrary to the above mentioned first position, “that 1 Corinthians does not represent the ekklesia as a substitution of the Jerusalem sanctuary, rather takes it as a model.”13 see also her later assumption “Rhetorical Situation and Historical Reconstruction in 1 Corinthians,” NTS 33 (1987): 386–403.   6 G. K. Beale, The Temple and the Church’s Mission: a Biblical Theology of the Dwelling Place of God (Downers Grove, Il: Inter Varsity Press, 2004), 25.   7 Beale, The Temple and the Church’s Mission, 253.   8 F. W. Horn, Das Angeld des Geistes. Studien zur paulinischen Pneumatologie (­FRLANT 154, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996), 73 (my translation).   9 An interesting view is provided by D. Boyarin, A Radical Jew: Paul and the Politics of Identity (Contraversions: Critical Studies in Jewish Literature, Culture and Society, Berkeley: University of California, 1994), 28, 78 ff., who argues for the ideal Jerusalem sanctuary, a kind of heavenly prototype, which might have been imitated in Corinth. Paul, he says, argued from a Diaspora position and was not referring to the actual Jerusalem temple. In this sense, Boyarin refers back to Philo Spec.Leg. 1.66 f. and TestHi 49. 10 A. Robertson and A. Plummer, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the First Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians (IKK; 2nd ed.; Edinburgh: Clark, 1983), passim. 11 M. Pöttner, Realität als Kommunikation. Ansätze zur Beschreibung der Grammatik des paulinischen Sprechens in 1 Kor 1,4–4,21 im Blick auf literarische Problematik und Situationsbezug des 1. Korintherbriefes (Münster: LIT, 1995). 12 B. J. Malina and J. J. Pilch, Social Science Commentary on the Letters of Paul (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg, 2006), 75. 13 J. Økland, Women in Their Space: Paul and the Corinthians Discourse of Gender and Sanctuary Space (London: T&T Clark, 2004), 166. And J. H. Neyrey (Paul in Other Words: A Cultural Reading of His Letters [Louisville: Westminster Knox, 1990], 50)

380

Annette Weissenrieder

A variation on this interpretation says that Paul chose the temple metaphor to describe his subject, the community, because it was a metaphor that both Jews and Gentiles would have understood.14 This doesn’t explain, however, the anthropomorphic treatment of the temple which is esp. noteworthy in 1 Cor 6:19. In the following I will endeavor to move beyond the alternatives “metaphorical” or “spiritual” interpretation, using the sacred architecture of antiquity as a possible frame of reference by drawing on evidence and stocks of materials that can be shown. Sacred architecture was both oriented toward the Roman emperor and connected with the symmetry and proportionality of the human body. In order to illustrate my thesis, I will make use of ancient coins, or numismatics. This method is further supported by the fact that Paul refers in his text to architectural terms and measurements found in the only remaining extant architectural treatise from antiquity, Vitruvius’s De architectura libri decem.15 Vitruvius Pollio, architect and engineer at the time of the emperor Augustus,16 describes in his work the practical, concrete context of architecture in terms of politics, mathematics, and rhetoric.17 In addition, my thesis will be supported by numerous inscriptions from buildings of antiquity. writes: “Paul transferred that socialized sense of sacred space from Mount Zion and the temple building to the assembled Christian group.” 14 J. R. Lanci, A New Temple for Corinth. Rhetorical and Archaeological Approaches to Pauline Imagery (New York: Peter Lang, 1997). 15 On Vitruvius and the history of the reception cf. L. A. Ciapponi, Vitruvius. Catalogus translationum et commentariorum: Medieval and Renaissance Latin Translations and Commentaries, III (ed. F. E. Cranz III; Washington, 1976), 399–409; P. Gros, “L’auctoritas chez Virtuve. Contribution à l’étude de la sématique des orders dans le De Architectura,” in Munus non ingratum. Proceedings of the International Symposium on Virtuvius’ De Architectura and the Hellenistic and Roman Architecture. Leiden 20–23 January (eds. H. Geertman and J. J. De Jong; Leiden: Brill, 1989), 126–133; idem, “Munus non ingratum. Le traité Vitruvien et la notion de service,” in Le project de Vitruve. Object, destinataires et réception du De Architectura. Actes du colloque international organisé par l’École francaise de Rome, l’Institut de recherche sur l’architecture antique du CNRS et la Scuola normale superiore de Pise (Rome, 26–27 mars 1993) (ed. idem; Rome: École française, 1994), 75–90; idem, Vitruve et la tradition des traits d’architecture. Fabricatio et ratinatio, receuil d’études (Rome: École française, 2006); G. Germann, Einführung in die Geschichte der Architekturtheorie (Darmstadt 1980); Vitruve. De architectura. Concordance (eds. L. Callebat, and P. Bouet et al, Hildesheim et al.: Olms-Weidman, 1984); H. Knell, Vitruvs Architekturtheorie (Darmstadt: WBG, 1985); P. N. Pagliara, “Vitruvio da testo a canone,” in Memoria dell’antico nell’arte Italiana. A cura di Salvatore Settis. Vol. III (Turin: Enaudi, 1986), 3–85, I. K. McEwen, Vitruvius. Writing the Body of Architecture (Cambridge, MA and London: Mit-Press, 2003). 16 See for Vitruvius’s biography B. Baldwin, “The Date, Identity, and Career of Vitruvius,” Latomus 49 (1990): 425–434. 17 See in extension F. Zöllner, “Anthropomorphismus: Das Maß der Architektur von Virtuv bis Les Corbusier,” in Ist der Mensch das Maß aller Dinge? (ed. O. Neumaier, Möhnsee, 2004), 307–344.

“Do you not know that you are God’s temple?”

381

Seen in this light, Paul’s concept of “God’s temple” gains a programmatic character: it could be an argument against the idolatrous tendencies of the community, made clear by the divisions into various parties. Paul posits against these a depersonalization of faith and the dwelling of God’s pneuma. Let us first allocate to the connection between temple-building and human, after which we will investigate the power-political function of the temple in Corinth since Augustus. Architectural-theoretical observations in 1 Cor 3 will follow, and finally I will draw conclusions based on this method of investigation.

1. Temple and human being according to Vitruvius Sacred buildings in particular are often connected with a theoretical concept that seeks to manifest the closeness between divine power and the human being by means of the architectural concept alone. During antiquity, the following is true well into the 16th century and again later 1957 by Le Corbusier18: the measure of the human body is the measure of the temple or a building. It is due to Vitruvius’s De architectura that anthropomorphic thought has played such an important role in a naturally inorganic area like architecture. The most extensive discussions of human and architectural measurements are found in his third and fourth books dedicated to temple building.19 The human body is according to Vitruvius on the one hand a representational model for the harmony of the parts of an organism; at the same time however it is also the basis for the measurement itself. In this way the measurements of the entire body as well as those of individual members such as finger, hand, foot and forearm supply the names for the individual dimensions of the anthropomorphic measurement system.20 Digitus, palmus, pes 18 Le Corbusier’s goal was to create overarching illustrations based on the human body that permeate the shape of the structure, thereby combining all of the individual elements into one unit; see S. Braunfels, “Vom Mikrokosmos zum Meter,” in Der “vermessene” Mensch. Anthropometrie in Kunst und Wissenschaft (Munich: Heinz Moss, 1973), 43–74, here 72–74. 19 The concept of architectural theory was not known during the ancient era. Only the ten books of Vitruvius can be described as architectural theory, but preliminary approaches to such a theory can be seen in the descriptions of buildings (see B. Wesenberg, “Zu den Schriften der griechischen Architekten,” DiskAB 4 (1983): 39–48). Hermogenes, whose architectural ideals have been passed down to us by Vitruvius, also seems to have played a central role. See therefore L. Haselberger, “Der Eustylos des Hermogenes,” in Hermogenes und die hochhellenistische Architektur (eds. W. Hoepfner and E. L. Schwandner; 1990), 81–83 and R. Tomlinson, “Vitruvius and Hermogenes,” in Munus non ingratum, 71–75. 20 Vitruvius De architectura 3.5 “It is worthy of remark, that the measures necessarily used in all buildings and other works, are derived from the members of the human body, as the digit, the palm, the foot, the cubit, and that these form a perfect number, called

382

Annette Weissenrieder

and cubitus – finger breadth, palm, foot, and cubit are introduced in the first book as the major units of measurement: Vitruvius digiti Fractions Greek homo 96 1/1 orgyi á cubitus 24 1/4 p chys 20

5/24

18

3/16

pes

16

1/6

caput

12 11 10

1/8 11/96 5/48

8 4 2 1

1/12 1/24 1/48 1/96

palmus digitus

English fathom (length of the outstretched arms) cubit (distance from the point of the elbow to that of the middle finger) pyg n (–) distance from the elbow to the first point of the fingers pygm (–) distance from the elbow to the knuckles poús foot (from the ankle downwards = 4 palms) spidam big margin / span orthod ron hand’s breadth lichás lesser span (spare between the ­forefinger and thumb) dichás palm palaist narrow palm kóndylos two finger’s breadth dáktylos one finger’s breadth

Sources from antiquity and recent archeological finds show that this measurement system based on the extension of body proportions was also used in buildings.21 However, Vitruvius was by no means the first to see the human body as the basis for metrology; the idea comes from Polycleitus of Argos, a well-known sculptor whose teachings did not remain confined to the realm of art. They are also reflected in ancient medical and philosophical texts. In the 2nd century C.E., for instance, the physician Galen writes that physical beauty depends on “beauty in the proportion of the members en t t n morí n symmetría […] of finger, obviously, to finger, of all the finger to palm and wrist, of these to forearm, of forearm to upper arm, and of all to all, as it is written in Polycleitus’ Canon. Polycleitus first gave us full information in that book about all the proportions of the body, then he confirmed his account in action by fashioning a statue in accordance with the by the Greeks τέλειος. The ancients considered ten a perfect number, because the fingers are ten in number, and the palm is derived from them, and from the palm is derived the foot. Plato, therefore, called ten a perfect number, Nature having formed the hands with ten fingers, and also because it is composed of units called monádes in Greek, which also advancing beyond ten, as to eleven, twelve, & c. cannot be perfect until another ten are included, units being the parts whereof such numbers are composed.” (Translation: Morgan LCL). 21 Cf. the explanation by A. Petron t s, Das Problem der Bauzeichnungen bei den Griechen (Athen: Dodona, 1972), 29; L. Haselberger, “Bericht über die Arbeit am jüngeren Apollotempel von Didyma,” Istanbuler Mitteilungen 33 (1983): 90–123.

“Do you not know that you are God’s temple?”

383

demands of the theory; and he gave to the statue, as he did to the treatise, the name Canon. All physicians and philosophers place beauty of body in the proportion of the members, and health in the proportion of the elements, whatever they may be, to each other.”22 Polycleitus, and therefore all of his successors, determined average values, meson, for the ideal human proportions by taking measurements that depended upon a significant number of preconceptions. However, compared with the natural form, the findings for the body are incomplete and tendentious; the measurers interpreted the body with an eye to creating a structure in which each unit is the expression of a certain function; in other words, the proportions of the body parts are derived from their functional relationships to one another. Vitruvius does apply the human scale to architecture that is built by and for human beings, but particularly for sacred buildings and residences. The human body not only influences the harmony of the temple building in general, but is especially formative for the individual columns. In fact, the columns represent human beings. This fact is clear not only in those places, where the statues appear to hold up the entablature, but is also contained in the term “column” itself: column, stylos, from “to straighten up.” Furthermore, the column’s drums are called vertebrae and the intersection between the column and the capital is called the neck.23 A good demonstration of this perspective can be found in the later Codex Torinese Saluzziano, which includes a chapter modeled after the proportions of the human face (fig. 3). Column styles differ according to whether the proportions are derived from the male or female body: either the heavy, sturdy proportions of the “Doric column” or the light and elegant proportions of the “Ionic column”24 (figs. 4–6; we have mostly Doric columns in Corinth). 22 See Gal. De Placitis Hippocratis et Platonis 5.3.15 f. and De Usu Partium XVII 1 (Tallmadge May) and II,441 f. (Helmreich). In my opinion, the homo mensura statement by Protagoras is fundamental here, although his interpretation is highly controversial. See B. Huss, “Der Homo-Mensura-Satz des Protagoras,” Gymnasium 103 (1996): 229 ff. and Die Philosophie der Antike: Sophistik . Sokrates . Sokratik . Mathematik . Medizin (eds. G. B. Kerfeld and H. F. Flashar; Basel: Schwabe & Co, 1998), 28 ff. The problems arise from the way in which the teachings were passed down; the oldest textual evidence is found in Plato, who includes the sentence multiple times in his dialogue Theaitetos, where it is generally translated as “Man is the measure of all things.” In the context of the ancient philosophical and medical sources, I would translate it as follows: “The perception of the body is the measure (of therapy).” 23 Cf. F. Ebert, Fachausdrücke des griechischen Bauhandwerks vol. 1: Tempel (Würzburg: Druck der Königlichen Akademie, 1911). 24 Vitruvius, De architectura 4.1.7. Quaerentes novi generis speciem isdem vestigiis ad columnam muliebrem transtulerunt gracilitatem, et fecerunt primum columnae crassitudinem altitudinis octava parte, ut haberet speciem excelsiorem. Basi spiram supposuerunt pro calceo capitulo colutas uti capillamento concrispatos cincinnos praependentes dextra ac sinistra conlocaverunt et cymatiis et encarpis pro crinibus dispositis frontes ornaverunt trun-

384

Annette Weissenrieder

From the 5th century on there is a variation of the Ionic style, distinguished from the Ionic mostly by the shape of the capital. This is of course the Corinthian style, which, according to Vitruvius, imitates “virginal tenderness”25 and which he connects with a corresponding legend (fig. 6). Therefore, we could see: The human being was the measurement for the temple. This statement can further be still substantiated by construction inscriptions like the one from Mytilene and Eleusis.26 In long lists these construction inscriptions give all dimensions mass of the used materials with the measure of the human limbs. Therefore one can say: It is the human organism or the human figure with which the work of the gods is felt. However, Vitruvius’s considerations are going further: Vitruvius describes the design of sacred architecture as based on symmetry and proportion, eurythmia and pattern (decorum), and explains that this design corresponds coque toto strias uti stolarum rugas matronali more demiserunt. Ita duobus discriminibus columnarum inventionem, unam virili sine ornatu – nudam speciem –, alteram muliebri subtilitate at ornatu symmetriaque sunt mutuati. “But in that, seeking a new proportion, they used the female figure as the standard: and for the purpose of producing a more lofty effect, they first made it eight times its thickness in height. Under it they placed a base, after the manner of a shoe to the foot; they also added volutes to its capital, like graceful curling hair hanging on each side, and the front they ornamented with cymatia and festoons in the place of hair. On the shafts they sunk channels, which bear a resemblance to the folds of a matronal garment. Thus two orders were invented, one of a masculine character, without ornament, the other bearing a character which resembled the delicacy, ornament, and proportion of a female.” (Translation: Morgan LCL). 25 Vitruvius, De architectura 4.1.9: Virgo civis corinthia iam matura nuptiis inplicata morbo decessit. Post sepulturam eius, quibus ea virgo viva poculis delectabatur, nutrix collecta et conposita in calatho pertulit ad monumentum et in summo conlocavit, et, uti ea permanerent diutius subdiu, tegula texit. Is calathus fortuito supra acanthi media folia et cauliculos circum vernum tempus profudit, cuius cauliculi secundum calathi latera crescents et ab angulis tegulae ponderis necessitate expressi flexuras in extremas partes volutarum facere sunt coacti. “The invention of the capital of this order is said to be founded on the following occurrence. A Corinthian virgin, of marriageable age, fell a victim to a violent disorder. After her interment, her nurse, collecting in a basket those articles to which she had shewn a partiality when alive, carried them to her tomb, and placed a tile on the basket for the longer preservation of its contents. The basket was accidentally placed on the root of an acanthus plant, which, pressed by the weight, shot forth, towards spring, its stems and large foliage, and in the course of its growth reached the angles of the tile, and thus formed volutes at the extremities.” (Translation: Morgan LCL). 26 For more detail, see the overview by R. Rehm, “Archäologisch wichtige Inschriften,” in Allgemeine Grundlagen der Archäologie (ed. U. Hausmann; HAW 6.1; Munich: Beck, 1969); W. Müller-Wiener, Griechisches Bauwesen in der Antike (Munich: Münzer, 1988); see also H. Lattermann, Griechische Bauinschriften (Straßburg: Karl Trübner, 1908); R. L. Scranton, “Greek architectural inscriptions as documents,” HarvLibrBull 14 (1960): 159–182; M. Chr. Hellmann, Recherches sur le vocabulaire de l’architecture grecque, d’après les inscriptions de Délos (Paris: Ecole Française 1992); Greek and Roman Technology. A Sourcebook. Annotated Translations of Greek and Latin Texts and Documents (eds. J. W. Humphrey, J. P. Oleson and A. N. Sherwood; London 1998); Chr. Höcker, Metzler Lexikon antiker Architektur. Sachen und Begriffe (Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler, 2004).

“Do you not know that you are God’s temple?”

385

to the composition of the human body: “The design of Temples depends on symmetry […]. Symmetry arises from proportion, which the Greeks call analogía. Proportion is a due adjustment of the size of the different parts to each other and to the whole; on this proper adjustment symmetry depends. Hence no building can be said to be well designed which wants symmetry and proportion. In truth they are as necessary to the beauty of a building as to that of a well formed human figure, which nature has so fashioned, that in the face, from the chin to the top of the forehead, or to the roots of the hair, is a tenth part of the height of the whole body.”27 Vitruvius goes on to list the individual proportions of the human body in order to show that the geometric forms circle and square can be derived from the body.28 This anthropomorphizing metrology has its basis in the necessity of early sculptural production methods.29 Symmetry arises from one fixed measurement that is then made the basis for all other meas27 Vitruvius, De architectura 3.1.2. corpus enim hominis ita natura composuit, uti os capitis a mento ad frontem summam et radices imas capilli esset decimae partis, item manus pansa ab articulo ad extremum medium digitum tantundem, caput a mento ad summum verticem octavae, cum cervicibus imis ab summo pectore ad imas radices capillorum sextae, a medio pectore ad summum verticem quartae. “In truth they are as necessary to the beauty of a building as to that of a well formed human figure, which nature has so fashioned, that in the face, from the chin to the top of the forehead, or to the roots of the hair, is a tenth part of the height of the whole body. From the chin to the crown of the head is an eighth part of the whole height, and from the nape of the neck to the crown of the head the same. From the upper part of the breast to the roots of the hair a sixth; to the crown of the head a fourth. […].” 3.1 (Translation: Morgan LCL). Similiter vero sacrarum aedium membra ad universam totius magnitudinis summam ex partibus singulis conventissimum debent habere commensus responsum. Item corporis centrum medium naturaliter est umbilicus. Namque si homo conlocatus fuerit supinus manibus et pedibus pansis circinque conlocatum centrum in umbilico eius, circumagendo rotundationem utrarumque manuum et pedum digiti linea tangentur. Non minus quemadmodum schema rotundationis in corpore efficitur, item quadrata designatio om eo invenietur. Nam si a pedibus imis ad summum caput mensum erit eaque mensura relata fuerit ad manus pansas, invenietur eadem latitude uti altitude, quemadmodum areae, quae ad normam sunt quadratae. “Just so the parts of Temples should correspond with each other, and with the whole. The navel is naturally placed in the center of the human body, and, if in a man lying with his face upward, and his hands and feet extended, from his navel as the center, a circle be described, it will touch his fingers and toes. It is not alone by a circle, that the human body is thus circumscribed, as may be seen by placing it within a square. For measuring from the feet to the crown of the head, and then across the arms fully extended, we find the latter measure equal to the former; so that lines at right angles to each other, enclosing the figure, will form a square.” 3.1.3 (Translation: Morgan LCL). 28 The information with regard to the figures of circle and square, of the homo ad circulum and homo ad quadratum, brought fame for Vitruvius, especially through the 1949 book by R. Wittkower, Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism; this figure is considered a symbol of architecture. 29 Cf. in addition the sculpture of the ancient Near East and Greek antiquity which is subjected in its construction to the law of frontality; cf. N. Speich, Die Proportionslehre des menschlichen Körpers: Antike, Mittelalter, Renaissance (Andelfingen, 1957), 9 ff.

386

Annette Weissenrieder

urements, for example the diameter of a column, from which the system of measurement for the entire temple is derived.30 Symmetry is therefore an organizational concept according to which individual components are brought into harmonious relationship.31 This ordering of individual components happens according to the principle of proportionality. As we read in Vitruvius, “Symmetría is the proper agreement among the members of the actual work, and the relation between the different parts and the whole composition, in accordance with a certain part selected as standard. In the human body there is a balanced quality of eurythmía between forearm, foot, palm, finger, and other small parts; and so is it with the construction of buildings. In the case of temples, symmtría may be calculated from the thickness of a column […].”32 For their part, symmetry and proportionality are not only related to the human body and sacred architecture, but are also connected to political power relations and rhetoric. Thus it is surely worth noting that the two main architectural principles that were fundamental in Hellenism, symmetry and proportionality, were superseded by the concept of utilitas. The ideals of Greek temple architecture were evaluated and revised on the basis of their utility and their spatial function. Fundamental to this was the dissolution of the polis association, as has been shown extensively by Joachim Fritz. Seen in this context, the principle of eurythmía and decorum gains in importance. While eurythmía describes a conscious employment of illusionary effect, which can be seen, for example, in the curve of the stylobate or the swelling of columns, and therefore describes that which is optically effective,33 the concept of pattern decorum derives from the theory of language,34 which follows the concept of dignitas (dignity) and describes the representation of respective rank or station: The grades of the divine hierarchy are to be adhered to just as with the hierarchy of social rank.35 Schlikker 30 Symmetry

is derived from “sym-metron” – co-measure. Therefore, all objects produced with measure are called symmetrical. 31 P. Spahn, “Individualisierung und politisches Bewusstsein,” in Anfänge politischen Denkens in der Antike. Die nahöstlichen Kulturen und die Griechen (ed. K. Raaflaub, Munich: Oldenbourg Verlag, 1993): “Die Gruppe wird dadurch als soziale Einheit noch wichtiger. Dafür gibt es bei Alkaios eine Reihe von semantischen Indizien: neuartige Ausdrücke (zum Beispiel Komposita mit syn‑) und poetische Bilder, die kollektives Handeln und ein starkes Zusammengehörigkeitsgefühl ausdrücken.” 32 Vitruvius De architectura 1.2.4. (Translation: Morgan LCL) 33 The origin of the eurythmic theory is interpreted by Friedrich-Wilhelm Schlikker, Hellenistische Vorstellungen von der Schönheit des Bauwerkes nach Vitruv (Berlin, 1940), 95 as being parallel to the rhetoric of Cicero. 34 See M. Beard, “Cicero and Divination: The Formation of a Latin Discourse,” Journal of Roman Studies 33 (1986): 33–46. 35 Cf. B. Schweitzer, Zur Kunst der Antike. Ausgewählte Schriften Band 1 (Tübingen: Wasmuth, 1965), 12 ff.

“Do you not know that you are God’s temple?”

387

summarizes, “Die optische Rücksichtnahme entwickelt sich dadurch von der bloßen Beseitigung von Sehfehlern zur bewußten künstlerischen und monumentalen Steigerung. Das ganze Baugelände wurde schließlich auf die Ansicht von einem Standpunkte aus eingerichtet, der heilige Bereich wurde zur Bühne.”36 In this sense the temple architecture is a speaking architecture which respects the rank gradations among the gods and visually obviously brings up the ruling structures and power structures of the ruling. The temple becomes the stage for the emperor. The city and temple serve the dramaturgy of power, and are subject to it. In a city like Corinth, which was rebuilt under the Romans, the proportions shifted toward the colossal. This is true of the width of the city armory, the dimensions of the procession routes and the temples. However, it also applies to clothing choices: the clothing of the powerful, with its numerous adornments (see e.g. Augustus of Prima Porta), stands in opposition to the simple clothing of the citizenry. Proportionality and symmetry are now subordinated to outward appearances; these in turn are shaped by the political leadership, which must stage the outward appearance of the everyday on a daily basis. In this sense, construction work had become a symbol of the power that Vitruvius exercised. This is perhaps clearest in the Prooemium, where Vitruvius writes, “When, however, I found that your attention, not exclusively devoted to state affairs, was bestowed on the state of the public buildings, so that the republic was not more indebted to you for its extended empire, in the addition of so many provinces, than for your numerous public buildings by which its grandeur is amply manifested, I considered it right that no time should be lost in laying these precepts before you. My reverence for the memory of your virtuous father, to whom I was well known, and from whom, now a participator in council with the gods, the empire descended to you, has been the cause of your good will towards me […].”37 Since the euergetism of Roman construction had long been dormant, the building boom marked not only a shaping of a separate Roman identity, but also a transformation of Greek identity into Roman. Vitruvius also explains this transformation through the very popular concept of ancient medicine (a corresponding Roman theory of medicine had not yet been developed) and its geographical microcosm-macrocosm theory. This theory sees Rome and Italy in opposiHellenistische Vorstellungen von der Schönheit, 5. De architectura 1.2: Cum vero adtenderem te non solum de vita communi omnium curam publicaeque rei constitutione habere, sed etiam de opportunitate publicorum aedificorum, ut civitas per te non solum provinciis esset aucta, verum etiam ut maiestas imperii publicorum aedifiorum egregias haberet auctoritates, non putavi praetermittendum, quin primo quoque tempore de his rebus ea tibi ederem, ideo quod […] (Translation: Morgan LCL). 36 Schlikker, 37 Vitruvius

388

Annette Weissenrieder

tion to the north (cold) and south (hot) and ascribes a kind of superiority to the south and north (according to Vitruvius) that is not found in this sense in the medical treatises, thereby simply reinforcing colonial politics.38 These observations are especially interesting when one thinks of the hierarchical construction of the temple: at the bottom are human beings, also represented by columns. Together they support the divine realm, which culminates in the gables and their elaborate ornamentation. As strictly as the gods in Greece were separated from the world of the rulers, just this changes in Rome: the basic motifs of the myths change along with the change in rulership. One could raise the objection here that this (Roman) conception was completely unknown outside of Rome and therefore in Corinth. Exactly the opposite is the case, however: Vitruvius conceives of his work rather for the new founded colonial city of the expanding empire. There is even evidence that Jewish and Christian sacred buildings of late antiquity base their fundamental proportions on Vitruvius (fig. 7). One can even presume that in building the Jerusalem temple, Herod had a Caesereon in mind, as Jostein Adna39 has shown recently. We have seen that the human body constitutes the basis for symmetry and proportion for the construction of a temple. This is to emphasize that there is an equivalence between the physical organism and architectonic space, which is to say that the temple building is, according to the Codes of antiquity, rooted in bodily experience. This is true for the proportion and the symmetry of the temple, but not regarding eurythmía and decórum: The grade of divine hierarchy between the gods and the emperor is most important. Looking now at Paul’s discussion of God’s temple, we see that the image is meant to be taken literally. The sentence “Do you not know that you are God’s temple” does not deal with a “spiritualization” of human being through a metaphorical image of the temple. Rather, the equivalence between physical and architectonic-sacred space represents a comprehensive foundation for identification. This can then be further differentiated in individual cases (see esp. 1 Cor 6:19). In terms of the city of Corinth, this becomes especially clear when we look at numismatic evidence. The joining of ruler and temple building, and therefore the equivalence of physical and sacred architectural space, is constitutive.

this, see also my introductory remarks on the treatise De aere aquis locis of the Corpus Hippocraticum, in the sourcebook Embodying New Testament Anthropology in Context. A Sourcebook (eds. A. Weissenrieder and Troy W. Martin, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, forthcoming). 39 Cf. J. Adna, Jerusalemer Tempel und Tempelmarkt im 1. Jahrhundert n.Chr. (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1999). 38 On

“Do you not know that you are God’s temple?”

389

2. The Visibility of the Temple in Corinth and the Imperial Power of Rome as Personalization of the Temple In its architectural manifestation, Corinth in the 1st century C.E. was wholly a Roman city, characterized by specifically Roman building types.40 Pausanias, whose commentaries, as we know, must be viewed with a certain amount of caution, writes of Corinth in the description of his travels: “The things worthy of mention in the city include the extant remains of antiquity, but the greater number of them belong to the period of its second ascendancy.”41 Hardly any inscriptions or archaeological evidence remain from the so-called Greek period, or before 44 B.C.E. As a point of comparison therefore, only numismatics present them.42 We have at hand coins from Corinth from the period since 700 B.C.E.; only from the time of the complete destruction of the city around 146 B.C.E. do we have no numismatic specimens.43 According to Imhoof-Gardner there is no other Greek 40 It is surely significant that the number of coins minted by the city significantly declined under Caligula, but also under Claudius. For more on this, see K. Harl, Civic Coins and Civic Politics in the Roman East, A.D. 180–275 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University Press, 1986), table on page 107. However, the consequence of this was that the state coinage was much more strongly represented. This essay will look only at the city mints in order to gain an impression of how the relationship between the temple, the Divinity and the Emperor were central in the city of Corinth. Also unclear is the role of the Triumviri monetales, the three magistrates who were responsible for the Roman minting process. Was it their job to position the coins as advertisements for the respective emperors? On Caligula, see also the more detailed essay by A. A. Barrett, “The Invalidation of Currency in the Roman Empire: The Claudian Demonetization of Caligula’s Aes,” in Roman Coins in Public Life under the Empire: Togo Salmon Papers II (eds. G. MacKay Paul et al.; Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 1999), 83–93¸ see also: H. Jucker, “Bildnisstrafen gegen den Toten Caligula,” in Praestant Interna. Festschrift für Ulrich Hausmann (ed. B.von Freytag, D. Mannsperger and idem, Tübingen: Wasmuth, 1982), 110–118. 41 Paus. 2.2.6 (Translation: Meyer). 42 Although numismatic research on Corinth has seen significant progress in recent decades – especially through the outstanding sourcebook Roman Provincial Coins I: From the Death of Caesar to the Death of Vitellius (A. Burnett, M. Amandry, and R. P. Ripolles, London: British Museum Press, 1992) – there is still a lack of agreement on some central issues. [See therefore Burnett’s introductory chapter “Authority and Magistrates” in the above mentioned collected essay book]. A helpful discussion is the one passed down to us by Dio Cassius: “None of the cities should be allowed to have its own separate coinage or system of weights and measures; they should all be required to use ours. They should send no embassy to you unless its business is one that involves a judicial decision; they should rather make what representations they will to their governor and through him bring to your attention such of their petitions as he shall approve. In this way they will be spared expense and be prevented from resorting to crooked practices to gain their object; and the answers they receive will be uncontaminated by their agents and will involve no expense or red tape.” (52.30.9; LCL). 43 The question debated in numismatic literature as to whether Corinthian coins also represent proposed construction projects will not be addressed in detail here, although

390

Annette Weissenrieder

city of antiquity where numismatic evidence gives us insight into temples and statues as in Corinth.44 With the Corinthians the temple indeed has an old architectural tradition; it only became one of the major symbols of the city as expressed on coins, however, in the 1st century B.C.E. We can follow a comparable tendency in Rome. When I refer here to coins as historical sources, I am well aware that their value as sources has been granted very different levels of credence in scholarly literature. On the one hand, it is assumed that the coin was the most effective and fastest form of communication, and thus that it always referred to current political events: In antiquity coins were one of the media by means of which a holder of political power could reach almost all of his subjects. Images on coins may have had the function to increase the power of the central hierarchy to reach and broadcast its message into the most remote regions.45 Therefore coin imprints can reflect political agendas.46 Fundamentally, the following applies: The world of images with which people surround themselves or express themselves and the world in which they live and move stand in complex relationship to one another. A very this issue is not insignificant in relation to the realism and reconstruction possibilities of the buildings depicted on the coins. See F. Prayon, “Projektierte Bauten auf römische Münzen,” in Praestant Interna. Festschrift für Ulrich Hausmann (eds. B. von Freytag, D. Mannsperger and idem, Tübingen: Wasmuth, 1982), 319–330; P. N. Schulten, Die Typologie der römischen Konsekrationsprägungen (Frankfurt: Numismatischer Verlag, 1979), 35 f. See also P.v. Hill, “Buildings and Monuments of Rome on Flavian Coins,” NumAntCl 8 (1979): 205 ff.; see M. E. Hoskins Walbank, “Image and Cult: The Coinage of Roman Corinth,” in Corinth in Context. Comparative Studies on Religion and Society (St. J. Friesen, D. N. Schowalter and J. C. Walters; Suppl. to Novum Testamentum 134; Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2010), 151–198. 44 Gardner in Imhoof-Blum and Gardner Paus. 2.2.1 “Corinth is no longer inhabited by any of the old Corinthians, but by colonists sent out by the Romans. This change is due to the Achaean League. The Corinthians, being members of it, joined in the war against the Romans, which Critolaus, when appointed general of the Achaeans, brought about by persuading to revolt both the Achaeans and the majority of the Greeks outside the Peloponnesus. When the Romans won the war, they carried out a general disarmament of the Greeks and dismantled the walls of such cities as were fortified. Corinth was laid waste by Mummius, who at that time commanded the Romans in the field, and it is said that it was afterwards refounded by Caesar, who was the author of the present constitution of Rome. Carthage, too, they say, was refounded in his reign.” 45 H. Bredekamp, Kunst als Medium sozialer Konflikte. Bilderkämpfe von der Spätantike bis zur Hussitenrevolution (Frankfurt a.M.: suhrkamp, 1975). 46 Cf. e.g. B. H. Mattingly, The Emperor and his Clients. Todd Memorial Lecture II (Sydney: Australasian Medical Pub. C, 1948), 4 f.; M. Grant, Roman History from Coins: Some Uses of the Imperial Coinage to the Historian (Cambridge: Cambridge University Print, 1958); C. H. V. Sutherland, Coinage in Roman Imperial Policy 31 B.C. – A.D. 68 (London: Methuen & Co, 1951); idem, “The intelligibility of Roman Imperial Coin Types,” JRS 49 (1959): 46–55, here 46 ff.; Ch. Howgego, Geld in der antiken Welt. Was Münzen über Geschichte verraten (Darmstadt: WBG, 2000), 80 ff.

“Do you not know that you are God’s temple?”

391

few researchers would say that there is no informational value in coins. The main argument given in this case is that coins are not mentioned by ancient historians, and that the general populace, which was illiterate, could not understand the legends on the coins in any event.47 Can we presume that the common people could apply to the temple motif in relation to the imperial cult on coins in Corinth as well? Following the re-founding of Corinth by Julius Caesar as Colonia Laus Iulia Corinthiensis,48 a series of temple depictions appear on coins, which for the most part can be traced to actual temples in Corinth. The depiction of a temple in antiquity, however, has more meaning than a mere reference to a building that is architecturally new and therefore an enriching addition to the city. The depicted temples were almost always connected with a Roman ruler on the obverse of the coin and, at least until Nero, also with the name of the duoviri, rulers in Corinth, who were each elected for one year. For reasons of space, I will briefly mention only three types of Corinthian coins in order to demonstrate the relationship between the sacred and imperial cults in Corinth.49 This first coins (fig. 9; see also 8), evaluated as one of the first coins issued under Augustus 27 and 26 B.C.E., shows the bust of Julius Caesar with a laurel wreath on the reverse and Augustus on the obverse and the emphasis is placed between the Divus Iulius and the present ruler Augustus.50 This combination is usual at Rome but less common for the provincial colonies. This type of coin indicates an important fact: the imperial cult did not begin with Caesar, but in fact with Octavian Augustus, since we do not know of any corresponding coin from Corinth that names only Julius Caesar. The only epigraphic monument that comes close is a fragment of an inscription found in the theatre in 1926: DIVO IUlio CAESARI [sacrum] (“[Sacred] to the deified Julius Caesar”).51 We know that Julius Caesar had not yet been deified at the time of Corinth’s founding. In addition, the shape of the letters also suggests a later creation date, probably Early Empire. Would it thus be 47 Cf. A. H. M. Jones in Essays in Roman Coinage Presented to H. Mattingly (eds. R. A. G. Carson and C. H. V. Sutherland; Oxford: University Press, 1956), 13 ff. and M. H. Crawford in Studies in Numismatic Method Presented to P. Grierson (eds. C. Brooke et al.; Cambridge: University Press, 1983), 47 ff. 48 Cf. RPC 1116 = Corinth. Results of Excavations conducted by the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Vol VI–VIII Part 1–3 (ed. A. B. West et al, Cambridge Massachusetts; Princeton and New Jersey 1931–1966) in following abbreviated with Corinth VI 16. 49 However, the excavation reports show a high density of coins minted in Rome, along with several Greek mintings. 50 RPC 1132 = Corinth VI 34. 51 See Corinth VIII 3, 50. Two further inscriptions are referring to Augustus: “dIVO auGUSTO sacrum” and “divo aUGUSto sacRUM CN corneliuS SPERATUS AUG OB IustitiaM.” See Corinth VIII 3,51 and 52.

392

Annette Weissenrieder

possible to use this coin as a way of determining the inscription’s chronology? Some aspects are interesting: as is generally known, Antonius long refused to be inaugurated as the flamen Divi Iulii and to act as high priest. We might wonder whether he was trying to prevent Octavian from ipso facto becoming Divi Filius, the son of a god. Suetonius, in any case, tells us that Octavian arranged to have the young Antonius, the younger of Fulvia’s sons, captured at the statue of the Divus Iulius where he should have received asylum qua lex templi, and then had him executed (Suet. Aug. 17.10). In doing so, Octavian positioned himself as Divi Filius above the Divus Iulius, curtailing the latter’s rights while at the same moment claiming to be his only heir (not coincidentally, he also had Caesar’s son Caisarion murdered; see Suetonius, ibid.). One thing is clear: The existence of the office of flamen in Corinth, to which a Roman citizen – an elevated citizen such as a magistrate, that is – may have been appointed annually by the colonial senate (ordo decurionum), demonstrates that there was an imperial cult in Corinth in honor of the Divus Iulius. Archaeological findings point us toward the Augustales, where a corresponding inscription names a cult statue of Emperor Augustus. However, the coin also indirectly points to another aspect: there was a caesura between the imperial cult (the dynastic claims by Octavian Augustus and some of the following Emperors to be the sole heirs of Caesar in a political as well as religious sense) and the people, who emphasized and held fast to the unattained and unattainable divinity of the Empire’s founder, Divus Iulius Caesar, in contrast to the current all-too-human Emperor. We can summarize: This coin can be understood in the context of the cult of Divus Iulius of which we are informed by an inscription honoring Julius Caesar. This inscription honoring the first high-priest of Achaia includes the flamen divi Iulii and we can assume that there was a temple dedicated to Divus Iulius in Corinth.52 The central role played by the imperial cult in Corinth is demonstrated by additional coins that are dedicated to members of the imperial family; in the context of this essay, the most interesting of these are the ones showing Livia on the obverse side, along with other women from the Emperor’s house, Jul. 88: […] in deorum numerum relatus est, non ore modo decernentium, sed et persuasione uolgi. Cf. L. R. Taylor, The Divinity of the Roman Emperor (Philological Monographs of the American Philological Association; Middletown: American Philological Association, 1931); G. Dobesch, Caesars Apotheose zu Lebzeiten und sein Ringen um den Königstitel: Untersuchungen über Caesars Alleinherrschaft (Wien: Selbstverlag des Österreichischen Archäologischen Instituts, 1966); H. Gesche, Die Vergottung Caesars (Frankfurter Althistorischer Studien 1; Kallmünz: Lassleben, 1968); A. Wlosok, Römischer Kaiserkult (Wege der Forschung; Darmstadt: WBG, 1978); S. R. F. Price, Rituals and Power: the Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1984); M. Clauss, Kaiser und Gott: Herrscherkult im römischen Reich (Stuttgart, Leipzig: Teubner, 1999). 52 Suet.

“Do you not know that you are God’s temple?”

393

and a temple on the reverse (fig. 10–11). This type of coin is also – though more rarely  – found for Augustus and Tiberius. The hexastyle temple is usually inscribed with GENT(i) or IULI(ae) on the architrave. Among the provincial coinages is no other example with this inscription so that we can assume that it had a special meaning for the Corinthians.53 At first glance it may seem surprising that women from the imperial family are depicted on coins, given that we generally assume a sociological model in ancient times that separates the private and public spheres. The political sphere in this era was purely masculine, and the private was the realm of the woman, relating to family and the home. This also seems to be why, until now, scholarship has seen the significance of the Empresses depicted on the coins as merely representational.54 However, the social reality was different. Public and private spheres were much more closely interwoven; the court was treated as a res publica, but at the same time it was also considered to be a domus (house), as A. Winterling demonstrated.55 Thus the perception of women in the public arena was relatively flexible, as the inclusion of women in the two large friezes of the Ara Pacis shows. Here, the female members of the family are shown in the unofficial part of the sacrifice, the supplicatio, and they are particularly emphasized by their participation in the religious sacrificial rite.56 In this light, how can we understand the Corinthian coins described above, and to what extent do they indicate a cult? Immediately after the death of Augustus in Nola in 14 C.E., the Emperor was consecrated and Livia became the first priestess of the Divus Augustus,57 53 Hoskins Walbank, “Image and Cult: The Coinage of Roman Corinth,” 156–157 has convincingly shown that other versions of the coin with versions of the inscription, CAESAR or AUGUSTUS, which have been interpreted as a series of coins dated from the time of Augustus have been discussed incorrectly, because the coins can not longer be found. 54 Cf. A. Alexandridis, Die Frauen des römischen Kaiserhauses. Ihre Untersuchung ihrer bildlichen Darstellung von Livia bis Iulia Domna (Mainz: Verlag Philipp von Zabern, 2004) who does neither make a distinction between coins and reliefs or statues nor focus on the Roman Provinces. An exception is the book by U. Hahn, Die Frauen des römischen Kaiserhauses und ihre Ehrungen im griechischen Osten anhand epigraphischer und numismatischer Zeugnisse von Livia bis Sabina (Saarbrücker Studien zur Archäologie zur Alten Geschichte 8; Saarbrücken: Saarbrücker Verlag, 1992). 55 A. Winterling, Aula Caesaris. Studien zur Institutionalisierung des römischen Kaiserhofes in der Zeit von Augustus bis Commudus (31 v.Chr.–192 n.Chr.) (Munich: Ol­ denbourg, 1999). 56 Tonio Hölscher, in his essay “Fromme Frauen um Augustus. Konvergenzen und Divergenzen zwischen Bilderwelt und Lebenswelt,” in Römische Bilderwelten. Von der Wirklichkeit zum Bild und zurück: Kolloquium der Gerda Henkel Stiftung am Deutschen archäologischen Institut Rom (eds. idem and F. Hölscher; Heidelberg: Verlag Archäologie und Geschichte, 111–131, here page 121 ff.) discussed imagery in which women play a central role. It is significant that women are still represented as cult figures even if they were active in a cult of male deities. 57 Cf. Vell. Pat. 2,75,3; Dio Cass. 56,46,1. In Rome, there was no sacerdotium beyond the Vestal virgins. After Livia becomes a priestess, we find flaminae more often.

394

Annette Weissenrieder

which gave her a position in Roman society that was normally inaccessible to women. Livia was adopted into the Julian family in accordance with the testament left by Augustus, which meant changing her name: Julia, or also Augusta. It is noteworthy that we find the title Sebast for Livia even during her lifetime, as an inscription made during a poetry contest proves.58 In the eastern part of the Roman Empire, but particularly in Corinth, the number of coins minted in her name and statues dedicated to her increased.59 It is worth noting that while Livia embodies traditional feminine virtues such as 58 Année Epigraphique 1920, 1: Dedication of a poem to Julia Sebaste. The question as to whether Livia was already known as Sebaste during her lifetime is the subject of much scholarly debate. For more detail, see: Hahn, Die Frauen des römischen Kaiserhauses und ihre Ehrungen, 70 f. note 40. 59  Vell. Pat. II 130,5: mater, eminentissima et per Omnia deis quam hominibus similar femina, cuius potentiam nemo sensit nisi aut levatione periculi aut accessione dignitas. The following pieces of evidence are central for Corinth, but cannot be discussed here in detail: 1. Sanctification of a poiema for Livia: ΘEA IOYΛIA ΣEBAΣTH. 2. Sanctification of a building to DIVA AUGUSTA, grandmother (ava) of Tiberius Claudius Augustus Germanicus 3. Inscription of honor for L. Castricius Regulus. Duovir quinquennalis 22–23 C.E. which mentions the so-called DIA (AUGUSTA) 4. Coin with Demeter on the obverse and on the reverse Livia(?), with ears of corn and a scepter, coin of Tiberius 21–22 C.E. (P. Caninius Agrippa L. Castricius Regulus II viri quinq) (M. Amandry, Le monnayage des duovirs corinthiens [Athens: Ecole française d’Athènes, 1988]), 166 ff.; H. Cohen, Description Generale des Monnaies De La Republique Romaine, Communement Appelees Medailles Consulaires I [2nd ed.; Paris: Roullain, 1883].205 Nr. 188, RPC I 1150, see also the comments by F. W. ImhoofBlumer and P. Gardner (Ancient Coins Illustrating Lost Masterpieces of Greek Art. A Numismatic Commentary on Pausanias; Chicago: Argonaut Publ., 1964): “It would seem probable from comparison of the coins that the temple describes by Pausanias as that of Octavia was really of the Gens Julia. The seated lady holding scepter and patera may be copied from the statue of the temple. In details it exactly resembles the figure on the coins of Tiberius commonly called Livia, but more probably really standing for a personification of the Gens Julia.” (page 22). 5. Inscription honoring Diana, which indicates the sanctification of a sanctuary for Livia: Livia as Diana Pacilucifera Augusta, at the time of Tiberius 14–37 C.E., see the following inscription on the coin: (DIANA) PACILUCIVE(RA AUG)USTA (Corinth VIII.2 Nr. 15) 6. Coin, which potentially shows Livia (?), who is wearing a veil and sitting clockwise to the right with a patera and scepter) at the time of Tiberius 21–22 C.E., the coin potentially designates Livia as Vesta; but it is questionable, if the coin was minted honoring Drusus Minor, L. Castricius Regulus P. Caninius Agrippa IIviri quinq (Amandry, 165 ff.; RPC I 1149). 7. Coin whose place is unknown, Agrippina Maior sitting on a throne with scepter and ears of corn signifying and designating her as Demeter, inscription ΘEA, coin of Caligula 37–41 C.E. (Mt. VI 675, Nr. 430, Trillmich, 138) 8. Inscription honoring Agrippina Minor as ΘEA ΔAMATHΡ ΣEBEΣTA (IGR IV 1104) 9. Coin with the head of Agrippina on the reverse of the coin with a crescent, potentially designated as a astral deity, perhaps signifying Artemis?, coin of Nero (54–59 C.E.) Duovir: C. Iulius Laco, (Cohen I2, 276, 8)

“Do you not know that you are God’s temple?”

395

pietas on the early coins (fig. 11), at the same time she is also identified with one of the numerous female deities, such as Tyche, Ceres or Aphrodite. It is also interesting that imperial women were idealized in the narrower sense; the women represented were always shown as either youthful or mature women, but without any of the extreme signs of age that are often found in depictions of the Emperors. Empress Livia is also often depicted with the Julio-Claudian knot at the nape of her neck, which firmly established her as the antithesis of the Greek Cleopatra (fig. 10). Other important characteristics are (fig. 12): The covered head: Livia is often shown with her head covered, a symbol that can be interpreted in several ways. Scholars see the covered heads of imperial women as a sign of deification, creating a comparison with divine figures or indicating a posthumous representation.60 The garland of grains: According to Pliny, the garland comes from Romulus,61 who used it as an insignia of the Arval Brethren; it was also used for the fertility cult of Dea Dia, according to an inscription that we find confirmed in an epigraph. The garland can thus be interpreted as a symbol of pietas in the context of a priestly office that was open to women. The scepter: On ancient coins, it is common to see representations of gods carrying scepters. Thus scholars cite the scepter insignia as an argument against associating the image with an Empress: It is questionable whether the scepter is a symbol connected with Livia. We have already noted that the Corinthian coins with the inscription Gens Iulia are unique. Referring to Pausanias mentioning a temple of Octavia “beyond the Agora,”62 Imhoof-Blumer and Gardner draw the con10. Coin of Claudia Octavia, reverse: bust of Octavia who is sitting to the left and looking above a crescent which potentially denotes a deity (Artemis?), coin of Nero, perhaps minted at the time of 54–55 C.E. (Cohen I2 313, Nr. 4). The following cults are worshiped in relationship with women, members of the imperial family: – Aphrodite: temple complex or building (7–6 century B.C.E.); sanctuary in the port of Corinth; coins with the image of Aphrodite from Roman period. – Artemis temple (naos) (Paus. 2.2.3) – Demeter: sanctuary of Demeter and Kore below Acrocorinth – Temple (naos) of Demeter and Kore and temple of Eueteria (goddess of cornucopia) and of Kore – Table of marble: name of Zeus Boulaios, of Demeter and Kore (2nd century B.C.E.) Corinth VIII 3.13, no. 42. 60 D. L. Cairns, in Women’s Dress in the Ancient Greek World (ed. L. Llewellyn-Jones, 2002), 73 ff. Even if we consider that the covering could have another connotation, it always indicates a form of separation. 61 Plin. Nat.Hist. 18.6. H. R. Goette, “Corona spicea, corona civica und Adler,” AA (1984): 573–589, 579 argues for the crown of wreath as a sign for the Quindecim viri sacris faciundis who are bringing a sacrifice. 62 Paus. 2.3.1.

396

Annette Weissenrieder

clusion that a seated figure on a coin minted under Tiberius represents the cult statue of Octavia – a well-known personification of Livia, which is, as we have already seen, a widely used coin type under Tiberius. The temple honoring gens Iulia became the temple of Octavia, identified as the Temple E. Now we should consider whether this type of coin comes from a cult honoring Octavia, and if so, which temple can be associated with it. Recently, Mary Hoskins Walbank in particular argued in her excellent essay “Image and Cult” vehemently against the possibility of a Temple E honoring Octavia (as a personification of Livia) in Corinth,63 since there are no other references to any kind of temple cult in her honor in the Roman Empire. Instead she identified Tempel E as the Capitolinum. Her argument is not necessarily new. As early as 1941, Sarah Freeman suggested a similar thesis, although with a somewhat different focus. She connects “Temple E” with the shrine of Jupiter Capitolinus, which lay “beyond” the theatre.64 However, more recently this thesis has been disproven on the basis of cartographic research. Romano, for instance, in his essay “City Planning,” showed that65 the precinct of Temple E was not a part of the original plan of the colony. The date of the construction of Temple E has been associated with the time of Tiberius (13–34 C.E.). Williams has argued that the date of the construction of the south colonnade of the Temple E temenos may have been within the late Augustan or possibly Tiberian period, in the same general area to which the coin might be referring.66 But in the early Roman period, we know of an altar that is oriented towards the area of Temple E and was older than Temple E, and can be called a Corinthian adaption of the abovementioned Ara Pacis, where male and 63 Unfortunately, her 1986 dissertation The Nature and Development of Roman Corinth from 44 BC to the End of the Antonine Period is not available for me anywhere, so we must rely on the brief arguments given in her essays. 64 Corinth I.ii: Architecture (eds. R. Stillwell, R. L. Scranton, and S. R. Freeman, Cambridge, MA: 1941), 232–236. 65 D. G. Romano, “City Planning, Centuriation, and Land Division in Roman Corinth: Colonia Laus Iulia Corinthiensis and Colonia Flavia Augusta Corinthiensis,” in Corinth, the Centenary: 1896–1996 (eds. C. K. Williams and N. Bookidis, Athens 2003), 279–301, who summarizes regarding temple E, “It should be noted that Temple E and the precinct that surrounds it would technically have been outside the Forum as originally planned. This complex originally occupied a western appendage of 2 × 4 actus or 8 square actus in the earlier phase, possibly from the late 1st century B.C., and 3 × 4 actus, or 12 square actus, in the later phase in the A.D. 70s. In either case this area would have been added to the original 24 square actus of the Forum. It is clear that this area was an addition, for a number of modifications in the city grid were necessitated once the temple was sited (…).” (page 287). 66 C. K. Williams, “A Re-Evaluation of Temple E and the West End of the Forum of Corinth,” in The Greek Renaissance in the Roman Empire (eds. S. Walker and A. Cameron, London: 1989), 156–162.

“Do you not know that you are God’s temple?”

397

female members of Augustus’ family celebrated his victory.67 Fantham takes this altar to be the first visual representation of Roman public art that shows a mortal woman along with men, both represented as godlike.68 In summary, these coins can be said to indicate an imperial cult that was probably located in Temple E and could be related to Octavia (Livia); this would, however, be the only one of its kind in Roman antiquity which is a strong argument. The depiction of Livia (Octavia) on the temple coins in Corinth might indicate the emphatic significance of religion, drawing upon traditions in the Hellenic East, where women were also able to hold public positions as priestesses. Since the wife of the Emperor and other women in his family now needed to be given a public role in Rome, a religious role was chosen: that of priestess closely related to the imperial cult. A third type of coin shows Nero and his ability to take the place of the cult statue in the temple (fig. 13). This coin can be read in the context of an inscription that describes a collective imperial cult at Corinth: “The tribesmen of the Calpurian tribe (set up this statue), on account of his excellence and unsparing and most lavish generosity both to the divine family and to our colony, for their patron Gaius Iulius Spartiaticus, son of Laco, grandson of Eurycles, of the Fabian tribe, procurator of Caesar and the Augusta Agrippina, military tribune, decorated with the public horse by the deified Claudius, flamen of the deified Julius, twice quinquennial duovir, president of the Isthmian and Caesarean Sebastean games, high priest for life of the Augustan house, the first of the Achaeans to hold this office.”69 The date of this inscription is controversial, depending on the reference to Nero’s B. Stanley Spaeth, The Roman Goddess Ceres (Austin: University of Texas, 1996), 125–151. 68 E. Fantham at al, Women in the Classical World (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 295 ff. 69 C. Iulio Laconis f. Euryclis n. Fab. Spartiati(co) (p)rocuratori Caesaris et Augustae Agrippinae, trib mil., equop(ublic) (ex)ornato a divo Claudio, flam. Divi Iuli, pontiff., IIvir. Quinq. Iter., Agonothete Isthmion et Caesa. (S)bastean, archieri domus Aug. (in) perpetuum, primo Achaeon, Ob v(i)rtutem eius et animosam f(usi)ss(im)amque erga domum divinam et erga coloniam nostr. Munific(i)entiam tribules Tribu(s) Calpurnia(e) (p)atrono. See L. R. Taylor and A. B. West, “The Euryclids in Latin Inscriptions from Corinth,” AJA 30 (1926): 389–400. 67 See

398

Annette Weissenrieder

mother; I am following, however, the suggestion by the majority of scholars and suggest the occasion for the institution of the new cult was the accession of Nero in 54. Bernadette Puech has argued that the new cult of which was Spartiaticus was high priest was celebrated at Corinth.70 Returning to the coin, no commentator has reflected on the implications to this coin which may reflect another Emperor cult in Corinth in the first century C.E. The depictions indicate therefore an identification of the temple and cult images with the current political ruler. Were the emperors in this way brought into connection with the gods, and therefore worshipped as gods? Excellent contributions to this issue were presented first by the Italian archaeologist Eugenio La Rocca and later by S. F. Price.71 At the outset they make clear that even the issue of the relationship between emperor and god assumes a sharp division between the divine and human spheres, a division that seems evident when seen in a Jewish or Christian context, but is wholly absent in Greek and Roman antiquity.72 Price’s particular achievement is to have directed scholarly interest toward the anthropological dimension of this problem. The degree and quality of divinity in the imperial cult are ancient phenomena, difficult to define using modern terminology – as, for instance, when Domitian refers to himself as dominus et deus73 and uses forms of the Genius or Divus Augusti.74 The cult of the ruler is a form of religion, it is theomorphic ruler cult. Religious rituals constitute cultural systems of meaning which structure, interpret and give order to the world. When they are applied to the ruler, they define his position in the order. The ruler cult has its origin in a situation of transition and conflict – a situation in which cultural systems of meaning have to be reordered and restructured. We find just such a situation in Corinth. Since Alexander, the autonomous Greek poleis were confronted with kings who were Greeks and not Persians or Orientals, as the kings they had seen previously. They had no model for how to deal with this power. The kings were therefore classified as gods, whom they resembled in power and 70 B. Puech, “Grands-Prêtres et helladarques d’archaie,” REA 85 (1983): 15–31, here 24 f.

71 Cf. also the extensive discussions in E. La Rocca, “Theoi epiphaneis. Linguaggio figurativo e culto dinastico da Antioco IV ad Augusto,” in Macht und Kultur im Rom der Kaiserzeit (ed. K. Rosen, Bonn: Bouvier, 1994), 9–62, bes. 11 ff. Cf. 72 Cf. also S. R. F. Price, Rituals and Power. The Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minor (Cambridge: University Press, 1984), 7 ff.11 ff. 73 Suet. Dom. 13.2. 74 Cf. therefore T. Hölscher, “Rezension on T. Mikocki, Sub specie deae. Les impératrices et princesses romaines assimilées à des déesses,” in Archeological 47 (1996): 119 f. I also agree with A. Alexandridis doubts on the distinction proposed by T. Mikocki (Sub specie deae. Revista di archeologia Suppl. 14 (Rome 1995), 7), who was recommending different forms of visual divinisations in three steps: “le culte commun des mortels et des dieux,” “assimilation,” and “deification.”

“Do you not know that you are God’s temple?”

399

method; this model was also adopted for the Roman emperor. This is all to say that a division between imperial and divine power is utterly foreign to the thought of antiquity. For this reason, the use of the temple as an image of the emperor is especially possible in the 1st century C.E. after Augustus. And there is no question that the ruler cult was a religion according to ancient categories, while according to our categorization it would be considered more of τιμή, or reverence.75 It remains unclear, however, what the images of the theomorphic ruler cult are meant to represent, whether actual worship of a god or reverence for a godlike figure. If we see the ruler cult in terms of “worship” as actual worship of the ruler as a god, we then see a blending together of ruler and deity in the theomorphic images. If this is the case, it is religious worship because the ruler acts as a god. If on the other hand we see the ruler cult as reverence for a godlike figure, we will understand the theomorphic images of the ruler instead as the expression of the idea that rulers manifest themselves in a similar way to the gods, whose temples they embody. They receive, then, reverence similar to that given the gods. In the case of Corinth, numismatic evidence points towards a godlike manifestation of the rulers. Can we presume that the common people like the readers of the Letter to the Corinthians would have associated the emblems on the obverse and verso of the coins with the princes and potentates? In my opinion there can be no doubt about it. There are several reasons for this: For one, it is noteworthy that as a rule there is no indication of the monetary value on the coins. The motifs on coins, therefore, communicated in such a way that one could do mostly without the values. This then suggests further that the motifs became so familiar through being used over a long period of time. Coins admittedly were originally currency in the sense of bearing value and served as a means of exchange, or commodity, although they were not at first the primary mode of monetary interchange. However, from the beginning on − provided with inscription and image by the state – they served also for intentional transmission of news. For this reason coins are readily called “the newspaper of the little people” or also “biblia pauperum” in numismatic academic literature.76 “In short the coin is consequently the state’s metal money with the subsidiary function of an instrument for news and communication.”77 75 Cf. in addition the demonstration by Varro: There are three kinds of the theologia, the mythical one of the poets, the physical one of the philosophers and the political one of the statesmen. 76 R. Göbl, Antike Numismatik. Bd. 1: Einführung Münzkunde, Münzgeschichte, Geldgeschichte, Methodenlehre. Praktischer Teil (Munich: Battenberg Verlag, 1978), 23 (in italics). 77 Göbl, Antike Numismatik, 29 (in italics).

400

Annette Weissenrieder

Moreover, the agenda of images on coins, as we have seen, is reinforced by means of reliefs, cameos, altars but also by means of the apotheoses at different temples. Although the forms of the new imperial cult were the same as those earlier dedicated to Alexander, the imperial cult after Augustus represented a completely new phenomenon. One thing is clear: while the ruler’s cult before Augustus was organized only by a few cities and for special occasions, now it was also found in the free cities and in provincial governments. The imperial cult became the most common cult. According to Zanker78 these reliefs do not allow any doubt that they also could be read by the average viewer. They not only point back to the past but also to the present in that they show Augustus and his followers as the Divus Iulii who stabilized the land with respect to external politics. What can we conclude about the Codes of Roman antiquity based on this numismatic evidence from Corinth? The coins suggest that an equivalence between physical and sacred space in the ancient world can be understood so to speak as two sides of the same coin. Based on the coins it can be shown that the orientation of the ruler towards the temple grew even stronger, eventually going so far that the ruler enters even into the cult sphere. When Paul writes then in 1 Cor 3:17, “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s spirit dwells in you?”, his message is tied in with the Codes of Roman antiquity, as represented in Corinth in the form of coins. His argument is only successful because he can assume knowledge of the equivalence between physical and sacred space, proof of which we have even today in numismatic findings from Corinth. But can we identify anything more in the text of 1 Cor 3:5–17 that would point to the awareness of a fund of architectonic knowledge, the exegetical reappraisal of which would lead to a better understanding of the text of 1 Cor 3:5ff?

3. The architectonic dimension in 1 Cor 3:5–17 Paul refers to naós theoú – the temple of God. The term naós characterizes especially the dwelling of the “abode of God.”79 Naós is the sanctuary in Augustus, 179 f. A New Temple for Corinth, 6–9 argues that Paul uses the term naós because this is a multivalent term that makes sense for Christians and Jews; J. Økland, in her book Women in Their Space, follows this argument in writing that “Paul seems rather to draw on the Jerusalem discourse of sanctuary space, where the sanctuary was a symbol of unity.” In my view Paul’s concept of naós gains a programmatic character: it is an argument against the idolatrous tendencies of the community and may refer to the naoi at the Forum in Corinth. In chap. 3, he compares the deifying way of honoring the Emperors as gods with the idolatrous tendencies in the Corinthian assembly, made clear by the divisions into 78 Zanker, 79 Lanci,

“Do you not know that you are God’s temple?”

401

the strict sense, the inner temple, as compared with the broader hierón.80 Naós is usually translated as temple although it can also mean a shrine or a small cult room. But this does not seem to be plausible because Paul mentions also the foundation of the temple. Paul refers twice in chapter 3 to a building or temple of God, in the temple of which he claims a central role: as sophòs architékt n he takes responsibility for the foundation of the building. Connected with the concept “wise architect,” in the New Testament a Hapaxlegomenon, is the aura of the purely practicing architect who concerns himself with the Artes mechanicae.81 Pliny for example names several building masters of Trajan in his Naturae historiae who were able to solve the construction difficulties of obtaining water or building a theater, and even Vitruvius had practical experience as a military engineer. The title “wise architect” however goes beyond mere practical experience in that handiwork becomes a science. Only by writing and not simply building could an architect gain a lasting reputation, as Vitruvius explain at length.82 As a wise architect therefore Paul takes responsibility for the foundation of the temple. In antiquity, this has as much to do with the selection of the plot of land or building site as with the laying of the temple’s foundation. Precisely this selection of an appropriate site for a temple puts the architect in a position of great responsibility, according to Vitruvius: the health and well-being of the worshippers, after all, depended on the right choice of building site. In addition a survey of temple grounds from the Roman Empire shows that each deity is assigned a specific type of landscape: while Asclepius shrines can various parties honoring several leaders like Apollos and Paul. Against these, Paul posits a depersonalization of faith with pneuma. 80 See e.g. A. Robertson and A. Plummer, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the First Epistle of St. Paul tot he Corinthians, 66; A. C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 315 and Økland, Women in Their Space, 71 ff. 81 There is also reference to 1 Cor 1:18 ff. The Greek term architékt n (Herodotus 3,60; 4,87) comes from tekton-tektosune (carpenter’s handwork), which indicates that an architect was first confronted with wood and then with stone as a building material. Thus architecture describes the sum total of a variety of activities. These may have been combined into one person in the context of organizing large construction projects. Often, architects were not autonomous figures, but were integrated into the institution of a polis. Only in the Late Classical period did the architect develop into a specialist with a theoretical background, someone who was then permanently employed by royal courts, the priesthood and polis committees. Instead of being specialized craftsmen, they often worked with stone, wood, wax, metals, paint, sculpture, engineering, mechanics and poliorcetics. In this, the architect played the role of an intermediary. However, architects were compensated as craftsmen, as numerous inscriptions demonstrate; see N. Himmelmann, “Entlohnung künstlerischer Tätigkeiten in Bauinschriften,” JDAI 94 (1979): 127–142; H. Lauter, Zur gesellschaftlichen Stellung des bildenden Künstlers in der griechischen Klassik (= Erlanger Forschungen, Reihe A, vol. 23. Mit einem Exkurs: Paradeigmata / Anhang: Fünf klassische Bauurkunden; Erlangen, 1979); B. Wesenberg, “Kunst und Lohn an Erechtheia,” AA (1985): 55–65. 82 Vitruvius De architectura I.

402

Annette Weissenrieder

be found nearby springs, shrines to Hera are found on fruitful plains and those to Athena are always on top of a mountain. Schweitzer writes: “Alleiniger Träger des Ausdrucks [eines griechischen Bauwerks A. W.] war die ringsum den Baukörper begrenzende Peristase, in deren Formen die Spannung und der Ausgleich der inneren Kräfte versinnlicht erschienen. Der Tempel kehrte sein Gesicht nach außen. Er wurde als plastischer Körper empfunden und gestaltete sein Verhältnis zum Raum nicht anders als die gleichzeitige Skulptur.”83 The laying of the foundation however has even more significance than the choice of surrounding landscape: with the foundation the capitals and thereby the symmetry of the temple grounds were determined, and possible rough patches of ground leveled.84 Noteworthy is the term themélion, because one would otherwise expect the technical term for foundation to be stoibá (lat. stereobatae),85 meaning a firm and even base for the weight of the building that is nonetheless hardly visible. If one refers to inscriptions listing work that must be paid for and performed in a special sequence for laying a foundation, for instance the building inscription on the Temple for Aphrodite in Epidaurus, the distinction between base layer and step becomes apparent.86 The stones to be purchased for the foundation, stoibá, are mentioned before the kr pis, the massive step aboveground. In contrast, the term themélion refers to more than just the foundation. Taking the building inscriptions into consideration, there is no question that this 83 B. Schweitzer, “Das Problem der Form in der Kunst des Altertums,” Allgemeine Grundlagen der Archäologie. Begriffe und Methode, Geschichte, Problem der Form, Schriftzeugnisse (ed. U. Hausmann; Munich: C. H. Beck, 1969), 163–203. 84 Vitruvius De architectura 3.4.1: Fundationes eorum operum fodiantur, si queat inveniri, ab solido et in solidum, quantum ex amplitudine operis pro ratione videbitur, extruaturque structura totum solum quam solidissima. Supraque terram parietes extruantur sub columnas dimidio crassiores quam columnae sunt futurae, uti firmiora sint inferiora superioribus; quae stereobates appellantur, nam excipiunt onera. (…) Sin autem solidum non invenietur, sed locus erit congesticus ad imum aut paluster, tunc is locus fodiatur exinaniaturque et palis alneis aut oleagineis aut robusteis ustilatis configatur, sublicaque machinis adigatur quam creberrime, carbonibusque expleantur intervalla palorum, et tunc structuris solidissimis fundamenta impleantur. “If solid ground can be come to, the foundations should go down to it and into it, according to the magnitude of the work, and the substruction should be built up as solid as possible. Above the ground the wall should be one-half thicker than the columns it is to receive, so that lower parts which carry the greatest weight, may be stronger than the upper part, which is called the stereobata: nor must the mouldings of the bases of the columns project beyond the solid. Thus, also, should be regulated the thickness of all walls above ground. The intervals between the foundations brought up under the columns, should be either rammed down hard, or arched, so as to prevent the foundation piers from swerving.” (Translation: Morgan LCL) 85 See Vitruvius De architectura 4.1: supraque terram parietes extruantur sub columnas dimidio crassiores quam columnae sunt future, uti firmiora sint inferior superioribus; quae stereobates appellantur, nam excipient onera. 86 IG IV 1497 (temple building inscription in Epidaurus); IG IV 1485 (temple building inscription of the Tholos-building); IG IV 823 (temple building inscription of Trözen).

“Do you not know that you are God’s temple?”

403

term is a comprehensive concept: it contains both the belowground and aboveground foundation and is contrasted with the rooms that it supports. Several inscriptions  – for example the one from Mytilene, calling for the height of the existing foundation to be increased by two cubits – demonstrate that this was a common building term (to nun keimenon themélion).87 It is the underground foundation with the massif above the ground, the stepped platform, as we can see in many building inscriptions.88 These steps or layers are a sign: this building rises up out of the profane world and, like an offering, is set on its own base.89 The fact that Paul refers to the themélion in 1 Corinthians is remarkable because of the archaeological evidence found in Corinth: the Forum in Corinth lacks a real hierón, or sanctuary. None of the temples known to us until now have a fence or a wall that makes a distinction between the sacred space of the sanctuary and the public life in the Forum. Instead, the Forum has numerous naoi, small temples, which were part of the public space and were not considered a holy space. The only thing differentiating the naoi from public life was that they were built as podium-temples whose steps elevated them above ground level. Taking this background into consideration, the use of the term themélion is clear. Paul’s use of the term naós theoú for the assembly gains additional significance in this context: by being called naós theoú, the assembly in Corinth seems to be a part of the Forum in Corinth. The distinction from the public space is created through two aspects: the dwelling, pneuma,90 and the grounded foundation as Christ.

87 See

IG XII 11. Lattermann, Grosse Bauinschriften, 108, mentions inscriptions of Mytilenien and Trözenien. 89 F. Teichmann, Der Mensch und sein Tempel, 48. Vitruvius De architectura 4.5.4: Gradus in fronte constituendi ita sunt, uti sint semper inpares; namque cum dextro pede primus gradus ascendatur, item in summon temple primus erit ponendus. Crassitudines autem eorum graduum ita finiendas censeo, ut eque crassiores dextante nec tenuiores dodrante sint conlocatae; sic enim durus non erit ascensus. Retractiones autem graduum nec minus quam sesquipedales nec plus quam bipedales faciendae videntur. Itdem si circa aedem gradus future sunt ad eundem modum fieri debent. “The bases being thus completed, we are to raise the columns on them. Those of the pronaos and posticum are to be set up with their axes perpendicular, the angular ones excepted, which, as well as those on the flanks, right and left, are to be so placed that their interior faces towards the cell be perpendicular. The exterior faces will diminish upwards, as above-mentioned. Thus the diminution will give a pleasing effect to the temple.” (Translation: Morgan LCL) 90 For Paul’s understanding of pneuma see J. R. Levison, “The Spirit and the Temple in Paul’s Letters to the Corinthians,” in Paul and His Theology (ed. S. E. Porter; Leiden: Brill, 2006), 189–215. See also Økland, Women in Their Space, who takes “the ‘dwelling’ as an indication that Paul is here identifying the ekklesia with the sanctuary in Jerusalem.” While this comment seems meaningful for 1 Cor 3:16–18, it is questionable in terms of 1 Cor 6, since here an individual is described as a temple. 88 H.

404

Annette Weissenrieder

Through Paul’s reference to the aboveground foundation as Christ, he transforms the understanding of the composition of a temple: while temples were often built in a strictly hierarchical manner and were based on the divine, set apart from the earth because the gable was the place of the gods, here the divine – with Christ as the foundation – is not separate, but the base. The space for the assembly was meant to be the divine earth. The perspective was, however, not a horizontal one, but vertical. Columns could symbolize human beings, but they always reached up to the divine celestial sphere, the heavens or the kingdom of God. That the laying of the foundation is described as a central task of an architect can be seen clearly in the architectural theory of antiquity and supported by available physical evidence. Furthermore, it is striking that Paul makes two more references in his text to the building of a temple. The first reference that comes to our attention consists of two rows of three materials: gold, silver, and “expensive stones” (marble); and wood, charcoal and straw. Up until now both of these two rows have been interpreted in terms of their resistance to fire and therefore the first set is favored over the second. But if we direct our attention to their function in the ancient temple, it becomes clear that wood, charcoal and straw are all used in the building of a temple. Let us begin with the term lignum, which Paul used in describing wood: What is special is that, unlike the terms denoting processed wood that is no longer living and is separated from the roots of the tree, Paul and also the translator of the Vulgate use terms that describe the wood in its organic form. This wood is still part of the organic and living world. In the ancient understanding it is still alive. Dynamis and pneuma are another hallmark of the living wood. Thus the choice of this term indicates that the wood was still seen as something animate, which in Justin can also stand for the Cross. We also notice that both Vitruvius and Pliny distinguish between fire resistant woods such as larch and cedar and unresistant ones. Vitruvius writes for example of larch: this wood “neither catches fire, nor can it burn at all by itself […].91” The reason he gives is that the wood “[…] has no open 91 Vitruvius De architectura 2.9.14: Latrix vero, qui non est notus nisi is municipalibus, qui sunt circa ripam fluminis Padi et litora maris Hadriani, non solum ab suco vehementi amaritate ab carie aut tinea non nocetur, sed etiam flammam ex igni non recipit, nec ipse per se potest ardere, nisi ui saxum in fornace ad calcem coquenda, remittit, sed longo spatio tarde comburitur. Quod est minima ignis et aeris e principiis temperatura, umore autem et terreno est spisse solidata, non habet spatia foraminum, qua possit ignis penetrare, reicitque eius vim nec patitur ab eo sibi cito noceri, propterque pondus ab aqua non sustinetur, sed cum portatur, aut in navibus aut supra abiegnas rates conlocatur. “The larch, which is only known in the districts on the banks of the Po and the shores of the Adriatic, on account of the extreme bitterness of its juices, is not subject to rot and attack of the worm, neither

“Do you not know that you are God’s temple?”

405

pores through which the fire can penetrate.” For this reason it is cultivated, as is cypress, for ceiling panelling.92 Charred posts of alder, olive, or oak are “driven into the ground with machines.”93 Vitruvius describes beams with columns, pilasters and projecting piers. He also mentions deck planks, beams and cross-bracing. Several inscriptions use tá xyla in a general sense for the wood parts of the roof and ceiling. Xyla can also mean rafters. The term appears several times in inscriptions when a city’s buildings, city walls and temple beams must be restored after the city’s occupation and destruction.94 Vitruvius explains further that “the spaces between them [the stones A. W.] are filled with straw and charcoal and then the foundation wall is constructed with very sturdy masonry.”95 In addition both serve as filling material in the laying of the foundation. Charcoal is put into the spaces between the beams, which are then sealed with clay.96 The terms, which we see in 1 Corinthians 3, occur together in the context of the construction of the roof and the roof surface. The various inscriptions refer to three different roof designs; one variant includes all three of the concepts mentioned by Paul and closely resembles what is known as a net casing: a second layer of wood is placed on top of the first layer of roof rafters or smaller beams. The shorter beams are shaped into pins and hold the upper layer in place. The unique feature of this roof construction is that the beams are inserted on both ends. This design serves as a basis for adding reeds, which are held by additional planks and iron nails to fill the gaps even further. Reference is also made to straw as one of the fillers; it is found in the filling of clay mud that is also used in the roof construction. This net casing is typical of smaller temples, profane small buildings and private homes. In addition to the wood beams and the reeds, Paul also mentions straw: Straw is more frequently incorporated into the clay layer, as can be seen from numerous inscriptions that mention a stone molding or even a strip of wood that serves – along with the nails – to prevent the clay from slipping.

will it take fire or burn of itself, but can only be consumed with other wood, as stone is burnt for lime in a furnace; nor even then does it emit flame nor yield charcoal, but, after a long time, gradually consumes away, from the circumstance of its containing very little fire and air. It is, on the contrary, full of water and earth; and being free from pores, by which the fire could penetrate, it repels its power, so that it is not quickly hurt thereby. Its weight is so great, that it will not float in water, when transported to any place, and is either conveyed in vessels, or floated on fir rafts.” (Translation: Morgan LCL) 92 Vitruvius De architectura 2.9.13. 93 Vitruvius De architectura 3.4.2. 94 Polybius V 89.6; IG XII 3.24.10. 95 Vitruvius De architectura 3.4.2. 96 Vitruvius De architectura 3.1.4; see also 7.1.2.

406

Annette Weissenrieder

Wood and straw have yet another function: they are mentioned by Vitruvius many times as basic ingredients of images of gods, for example that of Diana in Ephesus, which are then further ornamented.97 Painted straw also serve in the temple grounds as ornamentation, although Vitruvius is critical of the practice.98 Along with these functional materials, Paul names gold, silver,99 and marble. While bronze, and less often gold,100 were used to ornament pediments, the aforementioned precious metals and valuable stones gave the pediment and images of gods their magnificent appearance. In particular, gold and silver experienced a shift in significance during Romanization: While numerous sources in Hellenistic times show a certain tentativeness towards gold and silver, this is no longer true for the Roman Empire. This reluctance may have had a religious basis, as demonstrated by numerous texts that associate almost all gods with the luster of gold.101 Accordingly, gold objects are primarily intended to function as cult objects, or they are designed as votive offerings to a temple, which enables the temples to perform financial transactions.102 Gold and silver took on a central role as a war tribute that was very popular among the Roman rulers. This can also be seen in Corinth, especially for Corinthian wine cups.103 As a result, they form the center of each shrine. We see then that the building materials mentioned by Paul refer to actual materials used in the building of the temple: the foundation, the construction of the roof, columns, and statues. The difference between the two groups should therefore not be interpreted in terms of flammability, even if it seems reasonable from a modern viewpoint. The difference is rather that between material for the foundation of the temple and material for holy images. That is to say however that even if the materials gold, silver and precious stones do not burn, the holy image is nonetheless destroyed, just as are the obviously flammable materials wood, charcoal and hay. This conjecture is supported by a second notable reference in the text: in the scholarly discussion of 1 Cor 3:12–15 it is unanimously assumed, following traditional interpretation, that a future reckoning, Judgment Day, is portrayed in the lexeme h méra (day) which is automatically completed: [kyríou] (cf. for example Mal 3:5; Dan 7:10; 2 Thess 1:5–10 and 1 Pet 1:7; 4:17). Indeed such a representation is not foreign to Paul. But does an inDe architectura 2.9.13. De architectura 7.5.3 f.   99 Vitruvius De architectura 7.7.1; 8,3,5; Plinius Nat.Hist. 3,30; 4,112; 6,30; 6,74; 6,150. 100 Vitruvius De architectura 7.8.3. 101 Aphrodite: Od. 4.414; Artemis Il. 16.16; 6,205; 9,259; Ares Od. 8.285; Athene Eur. Ion. 9; Dionysos Eur. Bacch. 553; Ovid Met. 9,589; Zeus Eur. Hel. 241 and more often. 102 Plut. Praec. Ger. 26.218 E. 103 Plinius Nat.Hist. 33.56.   97 Vitruvius   98 Vitruvius

“Do you not know that you are God’s temple?”

407

terpretation of an eschatological judgment by fire seem likely, considering the example of the plant in 3:5 ff. and the function of the building materials as part of the temple and holy images? Already in 1:7 f. Paul interprets the judgment connotation of the talk about the apokálypsis tou kyríou the most. This is not explicitly about an eternal judgment. This is even less the case in 3:12–15. In fact this segment of the text deals exclusively with a possible burning-down of a building meant for worship and constructed with inappropriate materials, and the discussion of economic consequences for the epoikodom n. This point of view is supported firstly by the present form of the verbs, which do not suggest a future interpretation per se. In addition, Paul points in neighboring passages to a present interpretation of the verbs, by means of héti and nýn on the one hand and áchri t s h ras on the other (3:2 f.; 4:11; 4:13). The reference is to the component “fire” rather than to that of judgment. Let us return here to Pausanias: “As you go from Corinth, not into the interior but along the road to Sicyon, there is on the left not far from the city a burnt temple. There have, of course, been many wars carried on in Corinthian territory, and naturally houses and sanctuaries outside the wall have been fired. But this temple, they say, was Apollo’s, and Pyrrhus the son of Achilles burned it down. Subsequently I heard another account, that the Corinthians built the temple for Olympian Zeus, and that suddenly fire from some quarter fell on it and destroyed it.”104 Corinthian local tradition documents therefore that the temples were burned down by fire and left in rubble and ashes. The connotation of a destruction by fire is well documented in Josephus and Philo, both of whom make reference to situations of war.105 This interpretation is cast into doubt by the understanding of apokalýptetai. Most scholars designate the day (the Lord) as the subject. This has two consequences: fire is interpreted as concomitant of the day, so that en is understood modally (instrumentally); and at the same time the present apokalýptetai is interpreted as future. The result is a judgment fire that incorporates visions of the apocalypse. Origen is often pointed to as the principal proponent of this interpretation.106 However, there is no further evidence to be found in Paul. Otto Michel in his article apokalýpt in TDNT warns that “the usual translations […] whether from the church or out of current preconceptions, […] bring a bias to the text.”107 For this reason I 104 Paus. 2.5 (Translator: Eckstein); cf. also Paus 3.2: “Die Korinther hatten zwar die größte Lust, an einem Seezug gegen Asien teilzunehmen. Indessen war ihnen unversehens der Tempel des olympischen Zeus abgebrannt, und da sie dies für ein übles Vorzeichen hielten, blieben sie, wenn auch unwillig, zurück.” 105 Jos. Ant. 15.123; Bell. 1.334; Philo Deus Imm. 73. 106 Orig. Cels. 5,15 (GCS 3,16 f.). 107 Michel, “Art. ἀποκαλύπτω,” TDNT 1 (1931): 566.

408

Annette Weissenrieder

believe it is advisable to continue to interpret apokalýptetai as present, referring to the work as subject: the fire is therefore concomitant of the work. This thesis is further substantiated when one considers ancient church interpretations such with Ambrosiaster (36). According to these interpretations, Paul speaks of the fire that is concomitant to a building and is worthy of being worshipped. This brings us to the following conclusion: numismatic findings indicate that it is possible that this excerpt is based on actual circumstances in Corinth. Considering the evidence from architectural theory, this idea even seems extremely likely. If this is true, Paul concentrates totally on actual known characteristics of the temple, evidence of which we find in Vitruvius’s architecture-theoretical treatise and in inscriptions. It is worth noting that these comments are especially applicable to verses 11–15. And it is interesting that these verses, while visually concrete, remain vague on a literary level.

4. Consequences for the understanding of 1 Corinthians 3:5–17  5  6  7  8  9 10

What (tí) then (oun) is Apollo? What (tí) is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each (hekáston). I planted, Apollo watered, but God gave the growth. So (h ste) neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything (oudén), but only God who gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters are equal, and each (hekáston) shall receive his wages according to his labor. For (gár) we are God’s fellow workers, you are God’s field, God’s building (theoû oikodom ). Through the favour of God granted me, I laid a foundation (themélion) as a clever architect (sophos architekt n), but another (állos) builds upon it.

11 12

Let each (hekáston) one direct his attention to how he builds upon it. For no one can lay out another (állos) foundation than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now, if someone (tís) builds upon the foundation with gold, silver and marble, wood, charcoal and straw,

“Do you not know that you are God’s temple?”

14 15

the work of each (hekáston) one will become visible, for the day (h méra) will make it clear, because it is revealed (apokalúptetai) by fire; and the fire itself will prove by testing of what sort the work of each (hekáston) of one is. If someone’s (eí tinos) work which he built up survives, he will receive his reward; if someone’s (eí tinos) work burns down, he or she will suffer loss, but the person self will be saved, though thus as through fire.

16 17

Do you not know that you are God’s Temple and that the spirit of God dwells in you? If someone (eí tis) spoils (phtheír ) the Temple of God, God will destroy (phtheír ) that person; for the temple is holy and that are you.

13

409

In 1 Cor 1:10–4:21 Paul takes as his theme differences within the community between various groups and authorities. The fundamental question of the duty and role of the author is raised with fragile regularity in the course of the message. In 3:5–17 however only the divisions which originate in the groups around Apollos and Paul are addressed. Paul sees it as his duty to heal these divisions. He seeks to do this with help of the images of planting, building and the temple. The passage is given internal coherence by the fact that planting, building and temple intertwine in the text, and that many rhetorical figures overlap in the excerpts. While we can recognize a symmetry of construction in the first section, in which planting is the theme, a break follows in the second image. The use of the lexeme hekáston as determined by the Polyptoton figure deserves special attention. The first two times it is used, it refers clearly to Apollos and Paul. Both are designated in 5c and d as servants of the faith by that “which the Lord gave to each” and in verse 8 both are promised the suitable payment for their work. In contrast, it is not Paul who is included in hekáston in verse 10b, where it says “another builds on it.” Verse 13a and b are also still unclear, where the work of each is revealed. But it is made clear beyond misunderstanding by állos in verse 10b that Paul is also excluded. Paul’s role is limited to themélion tithénai, the laying of the foundation. A double vagueness arises in connection with hekáston állos and tis. Who can be considered for the construction? Peter is in verse 5 explicitly not mentioned and seems therefore to be out of the question. And also Christ cannot be considered for epoikodomein, as the periphrastic completion of themélion in verse 11b makes clear. Is Paul therefore continuing a conflict with Apollos against a background of communicative vagueness, without saying it openly? An argument against this, in my opinion, is the overall

410

Annette Weissenrieder

structure of the excerpt. In verses 5–7 the duties of Paul and Apollos are described as planting and watering, while God is thought of as the one who gives the actual growth. Paul and Apollos are also the ones who receive payment because they work for God (v. 9a). Verse 10 seems to carry the parallel further, as Paul identifies himself as the one who lays the foundation and another as the one who builds upon it. If one assumes this other to be Apollos, the symmetry of the text would suggest that at this point God should also have a role. But precisely this does not appear and is not mentioned in verses 11–15. In this way the major difficulty in verses 11–15 are easily understood narratologically: in terms of the expectations of the reader, the text could end with verse 10b and still fulfill the conditions laid out by the preceding arguments: the laying of the foundation is the relevant deciding and fundamental factor. This important task is assigned, significantly, to Paul. The parties are dissolved before God and their authorities, who are God’s servants. Verses 16–17 refer directly to v. 10. The invisible temple which they are themselves is picked out as a central theme. But the person, who brings the community in decay, will be destroyed by God. The text speaks here of the destruction and in this connection twice uses the verb phthéir  – destroy – in the present tense and future (phtheir ):108 it is the temple of God, therefore also the Corinthians themselves who can be destroyed. Only if the temple is threatened as a site of the praesentia dei will the person be punished with the judgement. Verses 11–15 signal therefore the focus on the visible sacred building and idolatry. They themselves are the true and holy sacred building, God’s temple. This is where they should direct their attention. Therefore I do not believe that Paul is arguing against the temple in Jerusalem here, and I also showed that the creation of community is not in danger of being taken over by the final judgment. Instead, what Paul is really introducing here is the idea of the community’s dependence on the body that he discusses further in 1 Cor 6:19 and thus the physicality of the temple. In a more abstract sense, he is describing the physicality of a space that is redefined by each individual and based on the one foundation, which is Christ. Thus idolatrous tendencies are also out of the question. 108 J. Shanor, “Paul as Master Builder: Consturction Terms in First Corinthians,” NTS 33 (1988): 470–471 points out that the word refers to a damage done to a building under construction; K. Yong Lim, “Paul’s Use of Temple Imagery in the Corinthian Correspondence: The Creation of Christian Identity,” in Reading Paul in Context: Explorations in Identity Formation. Essays in Honour of William S. Campbell (eds. K. Ehrensperger and B. J. Tucker; London: T & T Clark, 2010), 201 argues that “Paul could not have made it clearer that any destruction of God’s temple is tantamount to a serious offence and a sacrilegious act of desecration, and the warrants a corresponding severe penalty of divine judgement” (p. 201).

“Do you not know that you are God’s temple?”

411

In conclusion, temples of antiquity are able to represent the connection between two worlds, human reality and the divine, the visible and the invisible. God’s community in 1 Cor 3:5–17 and 6:19 is made visible as God’s temple without being actually physically portrayed. They are themselves the standard of measurement for the temple. In this way the temple does not represent the reality of human beings, as did the visible ancient temples with their cult images. Instead, the temple changes them. The transformation is completed in their inner human being. The community’s participation in the divine reality secures their visible foundation, Christ.

Captions to figures Fig. 1: Hrabanus Maurus, De laudibus sanctae crucis. Liber primus figure 1; around 900; Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek: Cod. 652: Christ image in the form of a figurative poem. Fig. 2: Hildegard von Bingen, Liber divinorum operum, Second Vision, Biblioteca governativa, Cod. Lat. 1942 fol. 9 v. Fig. 3: Turin, Biblioteca Reale, Codice Torinese Saluyyiano 148, fol. 114v–115v. Figs. 4–6: Column Styles. Fig. 7: Francesco di Giorgio Martini; Cod. Ash. 361, fol. 10v. Fig. 8: Obverse: Head of Augustus – Reverse Head of C. Iulius Caesar with a laurel wreath, Amandry Xb. D2R; 10–4 B.C.E.; Lanz 335. Fig. 9: Obverse: Head of Augustus – Reverse Head of C. Iulius Caesar with a laurel wreath, Amandry VIII a D1 R 2,3; 27–26 B.C.E.; Lanz 331. Fig. 10: Obverse Bust of Livia with a knot at the nape of her neck – Reverse temple façade with six columns, on the architrave GENT IULI; Amandry XVI 10 Df Rib2; Lanz 383. Fig. 11: Obverse veiled bust of Livia Pietas with a diadem – Reverse temple façade with six columns, on the architrave BENT IULI; Amandry XV 120 Dh RILI; Lanz 385. Fig. 12: Obverse Head of Drusus Minor – Reverse veiled Livia (?) with ears of corn in her right and a scepter in her left hand sitting on a throne; Amandry XV Db1 R IIg; Lanz 378. Fig. 13: Obverse Head of Nero with laurel wreath  – Reverse temple façade with four columns on a two-step Podium; in the inner temple: Nero (?) with a Toga and a Phiale (?) in the right, standing en face; Amandry XXIII 13 Db2 RII a1, 2; Lanz 480.

Cult Statues of Augustus’ Temple of Apollo on the Palatine in Rome, Artemis’/Diana’s Birthday in Ephesus, and Revelation 12:1–5a David L. Balch “A great portent appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. She was pregnant and was crying out in birthpangs, in the agony of giving birth. Then another portent appeared in heaven: a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads. His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. Then the dragon stood before the woman who was about to bear a child, so that he might devour her child as soon as it was born. And she gave birth to a son, a male child, who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron.” (Rev 12:1–5a NRSV).

Adela Yarbro Collins investigates the history of religions context of this pregnant woman and argues that the astral attributes belong to three high goddesses: the Ephesian Artemis, Isis, and Atargatis, and further, that the image would be familiar to anyone living in western Asia Minor, to which Revelation was written. Without repeating her evidence, I quote her conclusion: “in Revelation we then we seem to have a fusing of Leto and Isis traditions. Such a combination is not surprising since analogous birth stories were associated with the two goddesses. The narrative of ch. 12 reflects the pattern of these myths, particularly the pattern of the Leto myth. The description of the woman reflects the typical image of Isis.”1 Both Leto and Isis struggle to give birth to their divine sons, opposed respectively by Hera and Seth. The description of the dragon (Rev 12:3–4), its seven heads, red color, and attack on the stars, is Semitic, although the third element is also Greek. The battle in heaven (Rev 12:7–9), often a struggle for kingship of the gods, is a motif current in Accadian, Greek, Hittite, Ugaritic, and Jewish myths, but the closest parallel is to the Jewish myth of the rebellion of Satan.2 1 A. Yarbro Collins, The Combat Myth in the Book of Revelation (Eugene: Wipf and Stock,1976; reprint 2001), 75–76. 2 Yarbro Collins, The Combat Myth, 84. Note the critique of D. E. Aune, Revelation 6–16 (Word Biblical Commentary 52B; Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1998), 671, and the

414

David L. Balch

I accept the influence of the Leto and Isis myths on Rev 12, as argued by Yarbo Collins. Investigating the iconography of Leto and Isis sheds further light on the meaning of these stories, namely, we see more than that the woman giving birth in Rev 12 has textual parallels in the Leto and Isis traditions, as valuable as that insight is. The visual tradition allows us to locate the image architecturally, and so to see the social, religious, and political functions of the Leto/Isis stories, namely, their cooption by the emperor cult, and their subsequent subversion by the Jewish-Christian author of Revelation. These myths were visually represented in the so-called Casa di Livia on the Palatine hill in Rome, that is, in the house of the wife of Augustus, and then again in the Temple of Apollo that Augustus built as part of his sacred domestic complex on the Palatine. Further, in Augustus’ Temple to Apollo, these myths of a divine mother giving birth to the future ruler of the world (Augustus) were related to other images, both to one of Apollo killing the Pytho, “the accursed monster,” in that social-politicalreligious context, the Egyptian Cleopatra, as well as to Apollo defeating the Giants, alluding to Apollo’s assistance in defeating the Titans of a later day, the Gauls. These stories were crucial not only in Rome, but also in Ephesus, one destination of the Apocalypse of John. Leto gave birth both to Apollo and to his twin sister, Artemis/Diana, whose great temple was built in Ephesus. Whereas in Rome the male god Apollo was central, with a focus on his military defeat of the Asians/barbarians, in Ephesus the female goddess Artemis/Diana was central, whose mother’s struggle to give birth to her and her twin brother was integrated into the Great Mother myths of Asia Minor.3 Ephesian ritual symbolized Hera’s opposition to the divine births; Hera virtually becomes demonic. Ephesian priests of Artemis/Diana, ritually acting out this myth, allowed themselves to be represented not only as eusebeis (“pious”), but also as philosebastoi (“lovers of Augustus”).4 The visual and ritual representations allow us to see more clearly that the author of Revelation, in verbally visualizing and subverting familiar myths, rituals, and visual representations, was denying that a divine mother had given birth to the future emperor of the world, namely Augustus and his imperial successors, including Vespasian and Domitian. On the contrary, the colonizing Romans who oppose God and the Messiah (Rev 12:10), that is, Jesus (12:17), discussion in D. L. Balch, Roman Domestic Art and Early House Churches (WUNT 228; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 142–43. 3 F. E. Brenk, “Artemis of Ephesus: An Avant Garde Goddess,” in With Unperfumed Voice: Studies in Plutarch, in Greek Literature, Religion and Philosophy, and in the New Testament Background (Potsdamer Altertumswissenschaftliche Beiträge 21; Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2007), 319–33. 4 See n. 81 below.

Cult Statues of Augustus’ Temple of Apollo on the Palatine in Rome

415

are represented by the ancient serpent, the Devil and Satan, who was conquered “by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they did not cling to life even in the face of death” (12:10–11). I will first summarize my previous research on the visual tradition and then amplify it. Previously, I have written on the iconography of the Isis Temple in Pompeii, where the pregnant mother Io is visually represented twice, an image probably deriving from the similar image in the Imperial Casa di Livia in Rome. Greeks had long identified their story of the pregnant Io with that of the pregnant Egyptian Isis. Next, this article deepens the investigation of these visual representations by examining Augustus’ Temple of Apollo in Rome. Outside that temple Apollo was visually represented sacrificing, seeking absolution from Zeus after killing the female snake monster, the Pytho, so that he could take possession of Delphi. Inside the Temple of Apollo, the cult statues were of Leto, Apollo and Artemis, precisely the Greco/Roman/Egyptian birth story subverted in Revelation 12. Contemporary poets interpret Augustus’ Temple religiously and politically: Apollo assisted Augustus in defeating the Egyptian Cleopatra and other barbarians/Asians. The barbarian-Asian-Jewish author of Revelation subverted these myths, rituals, and visual representations, verbally visualizing them rather as symbolizing the birth of the Messiah, the ruler of all the nations (12:5).

1. Brief Summary of Previous Research: Isis/Io in the Temple of Isis, the Market, and Houses of Pompeii, and in the so-called Casa di Livia in Rome The temple of Isis in Pompeii has an ecclesiasterion, a large room where worshippers probably gathered and ritual banquets were held (fig. 1).5 Both the north and the south walls of the ecclesasterion are each an “iconostasis” with three images.6 The central image on each wall visually represents Io, narrated, for example, in the tragedy by Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound 561–886. She is one of the young, beautiful women with whom Zeus had sex, which makes his wife, Hera, angry. Hera sends Argos Panoptes (“allseeing”), who depending on the author has four or many eyes, a monster born of no agreed parents,7 to guard her, a scene visually represented on the Roman Domestic Art, 148, with bibliography. an interpretation of a visitor viewing the frescoes walking around the ecclesiasterion counterclockwise beginning from the northeast and proceeding to the southeast, see F. E. Brenk, “’Great Royal Spouse who Protects Her Brother Osiris’: Isis in the Isaeum at Pompeii,” in With Unperfumed Voice, 346–65, at 355–56 and 387–89. 7 Ken Dowden, “Argos,” OCD (1996, 3rd ed.), 154. 5 Balch, 6 For

416

David L. Balch

north wall of the ecclesiasterion in the Temple of Isis, and also in the Pompeian market (macellum), as well as in the domus of Pompeii (fig. 2).8 Argos is tricked and killed by Hermes, Zeus’ messenger. Aeschylus then narrates Io’s suffering as she wanders the world, but she is finally received in Egypt by Isis, visually represented in the central fresco on the south wall of the ecclesiasterion in the Temple of Isis (fig. 3),9 and crucial for interpreting this image, also in the so-called Casa di Livia on the Palatine hill in Rome, that is, in Augustus’ wife’s house (fig. 4).10 When Greco-Roman artists, originally Nicias in the fourth century B.C.E.,11 visually represented Isis, they utilized their own myth of Io. The authors Herodotus and Diodorus had already identified Io with Isis.12 “All Egyptians sacrifice unblemished bulls and bull-calves; they may not sacrifice cows; these are sacred to Isis. For the images of Isis are in woman’s form, horned like an ox, as the Greeks picture Io […].” (Herodotus, Histories 2.41, trans. Godley in LCL13) “And they say that Perseus also was born in Egypt, and that the origin of Isis is transferred by the Greeks to Argos in the myth which tells of that Io who was changed into a heifer …. In general there is great disagreement over these gods. For the same goddess is called by some Isis, by other Demeter, by others Thesmophorus, by others Selene, by others Hera, while still others apply to her all these names […].” (Diodorus of Sicily, Library of History 1.24–25, trans. Oldfather in LCL) Writing in 2003, an article republished in Roman Domestic Art and Early House Churches in 2008, I concluded that one of the two myths which Yarbro Collins has shown to inform Revelation 12, Isis/Io giving birth opposed by Seth/Hera/Argos, was visually represented in Pompeii, on the island of Delos, and, crucially, in the Imperial domus on the Palatine hill. I argued that the author of Rev 12 is subverting this Imperially co-opted myth of Isis/Io/Venus.14

Roman Domestic Art, 148–51, with CD 177–79, 181a. Roman Domestic Art, 150–51, with CD 189–90. 10 Balch, Roman Domestic Art, 149–52, with CD 177a. 11 Balch, Roman Domestic Art, 153. 12 K. Waldner, “Io,” Brills New Pauly 6 (2005): 885–86, and Nicolas Yalouris, “Io,” LIMC 5.1 (1990): 663. 13 Compare Herodotus 2.38 and 3.27. Herodotus wrote before 425 B.C.E. Diodorus wrote between 60 and 30 B.C.E. 14 Balch, Roman Domestic Art, 155–56, 166. Compare J. W. van Henten, “Dragon Myth and Imperial Ideology in Revelation 12–13,” in The Reality of Apocalypse: Rhetoric and Politics in the Book of Revelation (ed. D. L. Barr; SBLSS 39; Atlanta: SBL, 2006), 181–203.   8 Balch,   9 Balch,

Cult Statues of Augustus’ Temple of Apollo on the Palatine in Rome

417

2. Cult Statues in Augustus’ Temple of Apollo on the Palatine: Leto/Latona, mother of twins, Apollo and Artemis/Diana I now amplify my previous research into the visual tradition of a divine mother giving birth despite divine, even demonic opposition by investigating the cult statues of the Temple of Apollo on the Palatine, Latona, Diana, and Apollo (Pliny, Nat. Hist. 36.4.24–3215), precisely the three gods in the second myth that informs Rev 12 as argued by Yarbro Collins, and in the most important temple in the Roman empire, the temple which Augustus attached to his own domus!16 Augustus transferred the Sibylline books from the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus to the Temple next to and connected to his own domus (Vergil, Aeneid 6.72).17 That Temple of Apollo was the equivalent in the Roman Imperial world of St. Peter’s in Rome today, and the three cult statutes the equivalent of Michelangelo’s Pietà!18 Two scholars, among others, help clarify the Temple to Apollo on the Palatine, Paul Zanker19 and Barbara Kellum.20 Augustus ascribed his early victory over Sextus Pompey 15 “(24) The son of Praxiteles [flor. 364–61 B.C.E.], Cephisodotus, inherited also his skill. […] At Rome his works are the Latona in the Temple of the Palatine Apollo […]. (25) These artists are rivalled in merit by Scopas [flor. 395–350 B.C.E.] […]. He was responsible also for the Apollo on the Palatine. […] (30) The contemporaries and rivals of Scopas were Bryaxis, Timotheus and Leochares […]. (32) There is a Diana by Timotheus at Rome in the temple of the Palatine Apollo, a statue for which a head was made as a replacement by Avianius Evander.” (trans. Eichholz in LCL, my emphases) On Apollo and Artemis/ Diana see the clear iconographical description and analysis by the great art historian E. Simon, Die Götter der Griechen (Munich: Hirmer, 1998), 108–55, and her Die Götter der Römer (Munich: Hirmer, 1990), 27–34, 51–58. 16 P. G. P. Meyboom, “The Creation of an Imperial Tradition: Ideological Aspects of the House of Augustus,” in The Manipulative Mode: Political Propaganda in Antiquity: A Collection of Case Studies (eds. K. A. E. Enenkel and I. L. Pfeijffer; Mnemosyne; Brill: Leiden, 2005), 219–63, with 9 figures, at 239: “So the Princeps literally lived on the threshold of the Apollo temple. […] The existence of the passage [from his house] leading to the temple is the more striking because no other access to the temple’s terrace has been preserved.” See his figures 1, 2, 6. 17 Zanker, Power of Images, 108. 18 Recent excavations have clarified the relationships between the architectural structures: I. Iacopi and G. Tedone, “Bibliotheca e Porticus ad Apollinis,” RM 112 (2005–2006): 351–84, e.g. Tav. 8 of the whole complex, the Tempio di Apollo, Casa di Augusto, Portico delle Danaidi, and the Biblioteca. For an older plan including the Casa di Livia, see P. Zanker, “Der Apollontempel auf dem Palatin. Ausstattung und politische Sinnbezüge nach der Schlacht von Actium,” in “Città e architettura nella Roma imperiale,” Analecta Romana, Instituti Danici, Supplementum 10 (1983): 21–40, with 8 figures, at 22, fig. 1. See Meyboom “The Creation of an Imperial Tradition.” 19 P. Zanker, The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1988, repr. 1990). 20 B. Kellum, “Sculptural Programs and Propaganda in Augustan Rome: The Temple of Apollo on the Palatine,” in Roman Art in Context: An Anthology (ed. E. D’Ambra; Upper

418

David L. Balch

(36 B.C.E.) to the help of Apollo and Diana,21 and built Apollo a temple (dedicated 28 B.C.E., commemorated by Horace, Odes 1.3122). Apollo was also given credit for the victory over the Parthians. The Casa di Augusto was connected to the Temple by a ramp, so that he lived not only next to but with his God (Ovid, Met., 15 864–65: Phoebus domesticus), which no Roman noble had done before; parallels are rather to Hellenistic kings, e.g. to the Attalaids in Pergamon,23 but intriguingly, also parallel to the Durchblicke in second style wall frescoes.24 In late Republican wall decoration within Roman houses, typically, views open up to temples or to tholoi (round architectural structures within which one could often see the statue of a god) beyond the domestic walls (fig. 5).25 Art seems to have preceded politics. Artists painted visual representations of gods inside houses, and then Augustus actually built a temple to Apollo as a wing of his domestic complex. “House and Temple were one,” near where Romulus had lived (see Suetonius, Augustus 7.2).26 Nevertheless, Zanker cautions that this should not be interpreted as a king’s palace in Rome.27 When the time had come for the saeculum aureum (17 B.C.E.), Augustus again invoked Apollo and Artemis/Diana, had the Sibylline Books purged of inappropriate prophecies, and placed them in golden vessels at the feet of their cult statues in the new temple on the Palatine, a guarantee that the “Golden Age” would last forever.28 Zanker quotes the Carmen Saeculare (the “Centennial Hymn/Ode”)29 composed by Horace, which honored Apollo and Diana and the astral divinities, the sun and the moon, identified with them: “O Phoebus, and Diana, queen of forests, radiant glory of Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 1986, reprint 1993), 75–83. Compare E. Lefèvre, Das BildProgramm des Apollo-Tempels auf dem Palatin (Xenia 24; Konstanz: Universitätsverlag, 1989), M. J. Strazulla, Il principato di Apollo. Mito e propaganda nelle lastre ‘Campana’ dal tempio di Apollo Palatino (Studia archeologica 57; Rome: “L’Erma” di Bretschneider, 1990), and P. Gros, “Apollo Palatinus,” LTUR (1993): 1.54–57. 21 Zanker, Power of Images, 50. 22  [The Poet’s Prayer:] “Grant me, O Latona’s son, to be content with what I have, and, sound of body and of mind, to pass an old age lacking neither honour nor the lyre!” (trans. Bennett in LCL). 23 Meyboom, “House of Augustus,” 256, with n. 104; 258, with n. 106; 261, 263. 24 Zanker, “Apollontempel,” 23–24. 25 E. W. Leach, The Social Life of Painting in Ancient Rome and on the Bay of Naples (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2004), 76–78, discussed in Balch, Roman Domestic Art, 16–17, 29–31. 26 Zanker, Power of Images, 24; A. Celani, Opere d’arte greche nella Roma di Augusto (Naples/Perugia: Edizioni scientifiche Italiane, 1998), 175. 27 Zanker, Power of Images, 25. Meyboom disagrees (see nn. 16, 23 above). 28 Zanker, Power of Images, 51, 167. Also M. Beard, J. North, and S. Price, Religions of Rome: vol. 1, A History (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1998), 71, 205, and vol. 2, A Sourcebook, 139–45. 29 Zanker, Power of Images, 169–172 (a more contemporary translation).

Cult Statues of Augustus’ Temple of Apollo on the Palatine in Rome

419

the heavens (lucidum caeli), O ye ever cherished and ever to be cherished, grant the blessings that we pray for at the holy season when the verses of the Sibyl have commanded chosen maidens and spotless youths to sing the hymn in honor of the gods who love the Seven Hills.” (Horace, Carmen Saeculare, lines 1–4, trans. Bennett in LCL) “Do thou, Apollo, gracious and benign, put aside thy weapon and give ear to thy suppliant sons! And do thou, O Luna, the constellations’ crescent queen (regina bicornis) to the maidens lend thine ear!” (lines 33–36) Similar astral associations appear on the cuirassed statue of Augustus from the Villa of Livia at Prima Porta, a marble copy of a bronze original. On Augustus’ breastplate, the sun god Sol in his chariot appears above Apollo, the moon goddess Luna above Diana, and between them Caelus spreads out the canopy of the heavens. Luna is characterized as noctiluca or lucifera. The torch emphasizes the moon’s association with Diana, who uncharacteristically holds a torch alongside her quiver.30 Carved ivory panels decorating the doors of Augustus’ temple of Apollo visually represented the slaying of the children of Niobe and the Gauls driven out of Delphi (Propertius 2.31.12–14, who lived c. 54 to 2 B.C.E.), which art historians understand to refer to Apollo, the God of vengeance. Niobe boasted that she was superior to Leto, since she had many children, while Leto bore only Apollo and Artemis. Leto asked her children to avenge the insult, so Apollo shot all Niobe’s sons, and Artemis the daughters (figs. 6–8). The second ivory panel refers to the Gauls’ attempt to sack Delphi in 279 B.C.E., but Apollo defended the sanctuary (fig. 9).31 Both were examples of human hubris. As Apollo and Artemis avenged their mother, so they assisted Octavian in avenging his divine father, and as the later emperor would have it, in protecting Rome, now not from the Gauls, but from the Egyptian Cleopatra. Power of Images, 190–92, figs. 148a and b citing Horace, carmen 4.6.37–40.  Fig. 9 relates this to Ephesus, an image of the only existing frieze from Ephesos dating from the second century B.C.E., a visual representation of the battle between the Greeks and the Gauls/Galatians, depicted on the door at the eastern end of the Arkadiane, the major street connecting the harbor (west) with the theater (east). See P. Schneider, “Bauphasen der Arkadiane,” in 100 Jahre österreichische Forschungen in Ephesos. Akten des Symposions, Wien 1995. Textband (eds. H. Friesinger and F. Krinzinger; DÖAW.PH 260; Archäologische Forschungen 1; Wien: Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1999), 467–78, at 476, n. 51 for bibliography. B. Sismondo Ridgway, Hellenistic Sculpture II  : The Styles of ca. 200–100 B.C. (Madison: University of Wisconsin, 2000), 115–17, with plates 37–38. The defeat of the Gauls, originally visually represented in Pergamum, was also seen in Athens; see figs. 10–13, and B. Sismondo Ridgway, Hellenistic Sculpture I: The Styles of ca. 331–200 B.C. (Madison: University of Wisconsin, 2001), 290–91, with plates 144–47: dead giant, Amazon, Persian, and Dying Gaul. Sismondo Ridgway also discusses (I, 284–90, plates 141a–b) the Gaul Killing Himself and his Wife, now in Palazzo Altemps, Rome. 30 Zanker, 31

420

David L. Balch

Propertius’ words praise the external view of the temple: “Apollo’s golden portico has been opened by mighty Caesar. The whole of it had been marked out for a promenade with Afric columns, between which stood the many daughters of old Danaus.32 Here I thought that Phoebus’ statue was fairer than Phoebus himself as he sang with silent lyre and parted lips of marble; and around the altar stood Myron’s herd, four steers by the sculptor, statuary which seemed alive. Then in the middle rose the temple, of dazzling marble, dearer to Phoebus even than his Ortygian33 home; upon the pediment of this stood the chariot of the Sun, and doors which were a famed piece of African ivory; one door lamented the Gauls cast down from Parnassus’ peak, the other the deaths of Niobe and her children.” (Propertius, Elegy 2.31.1–14, trans. Goold in LCL) This Apollo statue is of marble, stands with an altar, and is surrounded by Myron’s steers, the Apollo of Actium, now a God of peace making an offering. Apollo himself is an exemplum pietatis. Then according to Zanker,34 Propertius describes the cult statues inside the temple: “Then between his mother and his sister the god of Pytho himself, wearing a long cloak plays and sings.” (lines 15–16) Neither Augustus himself nor his opponents were anywhere visually represented in the Temple, since the vanquished were also Romans.35 Instead of his own triumphal chariot, Augustus displayed a marble quadriga with Apollo and Diana, sculpted by Lysias, as well as the Apollo of Actium.36 In an apparently magnanimous gesture, he melted down 80 silver statues of himself in Rome, and instead gave golden tripods to the temple (Suetonius, Augustus 52; Dio Cassius 53.22.3; Res Gestae 24).37 Zanker brands this as convenient, since Augustus was changing his focus from self-glorification to religious devotion, thereafter representing himself almost exclusively in a toga, often capite velato.38 The gigantic golden tripod painted in oecus (15) of the Villa 32 I do not discuss the porch of Danaus and his fifty daughters. See Zanker, “Apollontempel,” 27–31; Kellum, “Sculptural Programs,” 80–81 (citing Ovid, Tristia 3.1.60–62). Art historians debate the Danaids’ relationship to the bronze statues in the Villa dei Papiri near Herculaneum. See E. W. Leach, “Hypermestra’s Querela: Coopting the Danaids in Horace Ode 3.11 and in Augustan Rome,” Classical World 102 (2008): 13–32 with 10 figures, and J. F. Miller, Apollo, Augustus, and the Poets (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2009), chap. 4. 33 At least three places claimed to be the site where Leto/Latona gave birth to Apollo and Artemis. Ortygia is only a ritual procession distant from Ephesus, a city with some of the house churches that John addressed in the Apocalypse. See below. 34 Zanker, “Apollontempel,” 31–33. 35 Zanker, “Apollontemple,” 29. 36 Zanker, Power of Images, 85. 37 See R. M. Schneider, Bunte Barbaren: Orientalenstatuen aus farbigen Marmor in der römischen Repräsentationkunst (Worms: Werner, 1986), 67–72, cited by Celani, Opere d’arte greche, 185, n. 990. 38 Zanker, “Apollontempel,” 36 and idem, Power of Images, 85–86.

Cult Statues of Augustus’ Temple of Apollo on the Palatine in Rome

421

di Oplontis (fig. 14), Zanker suggests, was probably inspired by the votive tripod that Augustus set up in the Temple of Apollo.39 Augustus used the sphinx as his seal, so perhaps it is not surprising to see a sphinx painted near the garden (68) of this same Villa di Oplontis (Balch CD 80). Augustus’ worship of Apollo had political potential: Apollo was the god of harmony and moderation.40 Augustus promoted archaic sculptural form, possessing special religious aura. Myron was thought to be the greatest classical sculptor of animals, and Myron’s four steers were displayed before the Temple of Apollo (Propertius 2.31). They stood around an Apollo of Actium pouring a libation at an altar, perhaps itself an archaic, classical statue.41 La Rocca42 discovered that the contemporary Temple of Apollo built by one of Mark Antony’s generals, whom Octavian pardoned, C. Sosius, after his triumph over Judaea in 34 B.C.E., displayed a classic Amazonmachia in the gable (a triangular decorative feature at the end of a building/temple; figs. 15–18). Two other great, ancient sculptors, Bupalus and Athenis, were favored by Augustus: “(9) The very first men to make a name as sculptors in marble were Dipoenus and Scyllis, who were born in the island of Crete (580–577 B.C.E.) […]. (11) Before the time of Dipoenus and Scyllis there had already lived in the island of Chios a sculptor Melas, who was succeeded by his son Micciades and his grandson Archermus; and the sons of Archermus named Bupalus43 and Athenis, were quite the most eminent masters of the art at the time of the poet Hipponax (540–537 B.C.E.) […]. (13) At Rome there are statues by them on the angles of the pediment of the Temple of Apollo on the Palatine and on almost all the buildings for which the emperor Augustus of Revered 39 See Balch, Roman Domestic Art, 15, Plate 5, with CD 71 and 71a. Zanker, Power of Images, 268 (Fig. 209) and 270–271. 40 Meyboom, “House of Augustus,” 243–44. 41 Zanker, The Power of Images, 242. 42 E. La Rocca, “La decorazione frontonale del tempio di Apollo Sosiano,” Archeologia laziale 2 (1979): 75–76, plate XXV.1, “frammento di amazzone a cavallo,” and La Rocca, “Der Apollo-Sosianus-Temple,” in Kaiser Augustus und die verlorene Republik (ed. M. Hofter; Ausstellung, Antikenmuseum Berlin; Mainz: P. von Zabern, 1988), 121–36, discussed by Zanker, Power of Images, 66–69, and Zanker, “Apollontempel,” 33, with n. 52, observing that the Amazonmachia could be interpreted as a parable both for Sosius’ victory over the Jews (with the triumph in Rome in 34 B.C.E.) and as Octavian’s triumph over “Orientals.” Sosius’ temple also exhibited original Greek sculptures. See A. Viscogliosi, “Apollo, Aedes in Circo,” LTUR (1993): 1.49–54. The archaeological artifacts of this temple are exhibited in Rome; see Centrale Montemartini. Musei Capitolini (M. Bertoletti, M. Cima, and E. Talamo, eds., Rome: Electa, 2007), 7, 54–60 [English]. In the same museum see also a three-sided candelabrum base of pentelic marble with panels of Apollo, Artemis, and Leto represented in archaistic style (M. C. inv. 2771, beginning of the Augustan age, from the via della Conciliazione [1848]): Figs. 24–26. 43 Bupalus was active in Asia Minor and on the Greek islands, especially Delos, and specialized in Apollo. See Celani, Opere d’arte greche, 92, nn. 408–13.

422

David L. Balch

Memory was responsible […]. (14) All these artists used only white marble from the island of Paros […]. (15) We should not forget to mention that this art is much older than that of painting or of bronze statuary […].” (Pliny, Nat. Hist. 36.4.9–15, trans. Eichholz in LCL, with my italics).44 For Augustus and his contemporaries, archaic was sacred, and ancient sculptures made places sacred,45 so he placed these sculptors’ works in his temples. Sculptural booty from Greece, three fourth-century originals according to Pliny (Nat. Hist. 36.24, 25, 32, quoted n. 15), were the cult statues within the Temple: Apollo by Skopas, Leto by Cephisodotus, and Diana by Timotheus. Art historians argue that we have a reproduction of all three on the Sorrento Base (figs. 19–23, 24–26),46 now in the Museo Correale in Sorrento. I will, first, further relate the cult statues to Augustus’ preference for the archaic, then, second, discuss interpretations of the statues. This religious policy corresponded with aesthetic/cultural Atticism, as seen in Dionysius of Halicarnassus,47 who gives a sense of the vehemence with which this aesthetic/moral policy was presented: “In the epoch preceding our own, the old philosophic Rhetoric was so grossly abused and maltreated that it fell into a decline. From the death of Alexander of Macedon it began to lose its spirit […]. Another Rhetoric stole in and took its place, intolerably shameless and histrionic, ill-bred and without a vestige either of philosophy or of any other aspect of liberal education. Deceiving the mob and exploiting its ignorance, it […] made itself the key to civic honours and high office […]. So in every city, and in the highly civilized ones as much as any (which was the final indignity), the ancient and indigenous Attic Muse, deprived of her possessions, had lost her civic rank, while her antagonist, an upstart that had arrived only yesterday or the day before from some Asiatic death-hole, a Mysian or Phrygian or Carian creature, claimed the right to rule over Greek cities […].” (Dionysius, “The Ancient Orators,” 1, trans. 44 Cited

by Zanker, “Apollontempel,” 33. “House of Augustus,” 244: “Now the arts of the classical, and even of the archaic Greek period, became the ideal means of the propagation of the piety and morality of days bygone […] Now these styles achieved also a moral and even a sacral quality.” The late classical altar of the Artemision (4th cent. BCE) is quoted on the Ara Pacis. See U. Muss and A. Bammer with M. Büyükkolanci, Der Altar des Artemisions von Ephesos (Forschungen in Ephesos XII/2, Österreichischen archäologischen Institut inWien; Wien, Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2001), 131–32, 135–36, 140. 46 G. E. Rizzo, “La Base di Augusto,” BCom 60 (1933): 7–109, esp. 51–77. C. Cecamore, “Apollo e Vesta sul Palatino fra Augusto e Vespasiano,” BCom 96 (1994–1995): 9–32. M. Guarducci, “Enea e Vesta,” RM 78 (1971): 73–118, esp. 90 ff., plates 66–69. U. Pappalardo, “Sibilla Cumana: Chi l’ha vista dove? Mito e realtà,” Archeologia Viva 126 (Nov/Dic 2007): 30–39, at 35, the relief as painted by the Frenchman Lancelot Théodore Turpin de Crissé around 1810. Meyboom, “House of Augustus,” 246, n. 77, interprets the images on the Sorrento base as those of Apollo, Diana, and Cybele, but this would not correspond to the cult statues in the Temple of Apollo. 47 Zanker, “Apollontempel,” 34. 45 Meyboom,

Cult Statues of Augustus’ Temple of Apollo on the Palatine in Rome

423

Usher in LCL) Dionysius characteristically opposes Greeks to Asians, so that Alexander’s expansion of Greek culture beyond Hellas to barbarian countries represents a decline of culture itself.48 The Attic/Asian contrast also refers to the conflict between Octavian and Antony, a conflict between Rome and Egypt, Octavian and Cleopatra, Apollo and Isis, or Apollo and Heracles/Hercules. Teracotta panels from Augustus’ Temple to Apollo visually represent the fight between Apollo and Hercules for the Delphic tripod.49 Both gods face each other and reach out their hands for the tripod between them,50 meaningful because of Antony’s claim to be descended from Hercules, while Augustus emphasized Apollo. The chief theme of the terracotta plate is “adoration of the sacred sign of Apollo.”51 In the Sorrento base Apollo in the center strides forward in a chiastic pose, carrying a cithara on his left arm. He wears a long chiton tied around the waist with an ample kolpos, and has a himation over his shoulders.52 His sister Artemis with a long torch is to his right, his mother Leto/Latona with a long scepter to his left, the humble Sibyl below.53 Kellum54 discusses the cult statue of Apollo inside the temple as if he is sacrificing, but Zanker argues that the Actium Apollo before an altar is the one outside the temple. Still, both Zanker and Kellum suggest parallels to other visual representations of Apollo sacrificing as discussed by Erika Simon.55 She draws a 48 D. L. Balch, “Metabole Politeion. Jesus as Founder of the Church in Luke-Acts: Form and Function,” in Contextualizing Acts: Lukan Narrative and Greco-Roman Discourse (ed. T. Penner and C. Vander Stichele; SBLSS 20; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003), 139–88, at 150–51, with n. 47 (with further bibliography). Dionysius wrote The Ancient Orators in his early period, in Rome c. 20–10 B.C.E. 49 Kellum, “Sculptural Programs,” 77, with fig. 28. Zanker, “Apollontempel,” 34. D. von Bothmer, “The Struggle for the Tripod,” in Festschrift für Frank Brommer (eds. U. Höckmann and A. Krug; Mainz: Philipp von Zabern, 1977), 51–63, mit Tafeln 17–19. A. H. Borbein, Campanareliefs. Typologische und Stilkritische Untersuchungen (Heidelberg: F. H. Kerle, 1968), 176–78, Tafel 33.1–2: “Der Dreifussstreit.” Also D. Mannsperger, “Apollon gegen Dionysos. Numismatische Beiträge zu Octavians Rolle als Vindex Libertatis,” Gymnasium 80/4 (1973): 381–402, plates XXI–XXIII. Meyboom, “House of Augustus,” 244, with n. 75. 50 Zanker, “Apollontempel,” 34, Abb. 7. 51 Zanker, “Apollontempel,” 35. Another terracotta plate from the Temple represents two women facing a sacred pillar, on which hang Apollo’s attributes: lyre, quiver, and bow (Zanker, “Apollontempel,” 35, Abb. 8; Kellum, 79, “Sculptural Programs,” fig. 29), a sacred pillar that is also visually represented on the wall in the Casa di Augusto, room 5 (Balch, Roman Domestic Art, CD 92–93). 52 Celani, Opere d’arte greche, 96. Simon, Götter der Römer (cited n. 15), 31–32, with plate 31. 53 Art historians debate whether the Sibyl was actually represented by a statue, or whether she was symbolically inserted by the artist sculpting the Sorrento Base (Celani, 180, n. 954). 54 Kellum, “Sculptural Programs,” 82. 55 Zanker, “Apollontempel,” 32, n. 49; Kellum, “Sculptural Programs,” 82, n. 13. E. Simon, Opfernde Götter (Berlin: G. Mann, 1953), mit 4 Tafeln. Simon, 39–46, gives many

424

David L. Balch

parallel to Neo-Attic reliefs from the Augustan period.56 Here too Apollo strides forward, holding a cithara in his left, a patera in his right. (The right hand is missing from the Sorrento base.) Artemis here too holds a torch, the mother Leto a septre in her left hand. Behind Leto there is a tripod before a Corinthian temple, which Helbig, followed by Kellum, suggests is the Temple of Apollo on the Palatine.57 The sacrificing Apollo is young, making an absolution to Zeus after killing the female snake monster, the Pytho, in order to take possession of Delphi.58 “Apollo, after all, in seeking absolution for killing the Pytho was to become himself the great granter of absolution to mortals. The sight of Apollo making an offering […] may well have reminded a Roman visitor of the action that had first precipitated the offering – the killing of the Pytho (conceivably yet another allusion to Cleopatra) – but also of the god’s role as a giver of absolution. Horace, in bemoaning the horrors of civil war in Odes 1.2, seeks expiation for the nation’s sins and his first thought is of augur Apollo [Odes I.2.32], his final one of the youth himself, Octavian/Augustus [I.2.43–44]. Indeed, as Augustus himself states in the Res Gestae, pardon was part of the Augustan peace (1.3). But in good Roman fashion too, there is also the reminder that this was a peace that stemmed from victory, for it is not Artemis as on the Karlsruhe vase but a winged Nike who assists Apollo in making his offering.”59 Strikingly, Helbig and Kellum agree that a key myth symbolized in the Temple of Apollo on the Palatine is that of Apollo killing the female snake monster Pytho, that is, Octavian defeating Antony and Cleopatra. Horace (Ode 1.37, “the fall of Cleopatra”) praises Caesar’s “purpose fixed to put in chains the accursed monster” (fatale monstrum).”60 Therefore, in the most important temple in the empire, the one in which the emperor lived in a domus/temple with his god, two Apollonian myths are symbolized: outside the temple, Apollo killing Pytho, and inside, the three, or with the sibyl, four cult statues of mother and twins, Leto, Apollo, and Artemis, recalling the mother birthing the twins in conflict with a goddess and the sea.

examples of Apollo as an offering deity, with and without an altar, alone, with Artemis, or with Artemis and Leto. 56 W. Helbig, Führer durch die öffentlichen Sammlungen klassischer Altertümer in Rom: Die Staaatlichen Sammlungen, Villa Albani (Tübingen: Ernst Wasmuth, 1972), 4.217–18, #3240. 57 For demonstration that the Apollo temple on the Palatine was Corinthian, see H. Bauer, “Das Kapitell des Apollo Palatinus-Tempels,” RM 76 (1969): 183–204. 58 Kellum, “Sculptural Programs,” 83, citing Simon, Opfernde Götter, 13–46. 59 Kellum, “Sculptural Programs,” 82–83. 60 Kellum, “Sculptural Programs,” 78, compares Horace Epode 9 (“After Actium”); Ode 1.37.6–8; Propertius 3.11.29–56.

Cult Statues of Augustus’ Temple of Apollo on the Palatine in Rome

425

Celani objects,61 however, to Zanker’s interpretation exclusively in terms of the Roman golden age (aurea aetas), noting Augustus’ devotion to the earlier Greek Apollo of Delos, who rose to assist Augustus at Actium (Propertius IV 6,27), and who first prophesied the foundation of Rome (Vergil, Aeneas II 94 ff.). Schneider62 suggests the presence in the Palatine sanctuary of a grand bronze tripod supported by three barbarians, as seen in Athens by Pausanius (I 18,8), imitating a “binary schema” in the sanctuary of Apollo and Artemis in Delphi, which referred to the defeat of the Gauls (Pausanius X 23,1), a “historical manifestation of the divine.”63 Galatomachia, prominent in Pergamon in Asia Minor, is attested in Italy by the first quarter of the second century B.C.E.64 The Greek myth is narrated in the early sixth century B.C.E. in the Homeric Hymn to Pythian Apollo65: “But near by was a sweet flowing spring, and there with his strong bow the lord, the son of Zeus, killed the bloated, great she-dragon, a fierce monster wont to do great mischief to men upon earth, to men themselves and to their thin-shanked sheep; for she was a very bloody plague. She it was who once received from gold-throned Hera and brought up fell, cruel Typhaon to be a plague to men. Once on a time Hera bare him because she was angry with father Zeus, when the Son of Cronos bare all-glorious Athena in his head […]” (lines 300–10) Hera prayed: “Hear now, I pray, Earth (Gaia) and wide Heaven above, and you Titan gods who dwell beneath the earth about great Tartarus […].” (lines 334–35) “Whosoever met the dragoness, the day of doom would sweep him away, until the lord Apollo, who deals death from afar, shot a strong arrow at her. Then she, rent with bitter pangs, lay drawing great gasps for breath […].” (lines 356–58) “And the holy strength of Helios made her rot away there; wherefore the place is now called Pytho, and men call the lord Apollo by another 61 Celani, Opere d’arte greche, 185, refers to T. Mavrojannis, “Apollo Delio, Atene e Augusto,” Ostraka 4.1 (1995): 85–102, at 97–102. 62 Schneider, Bunte Barbaren, 78–82. 63  Celani, Opere d’arte greche, 177–78, n. 945, who refers to R. Neudecker, Die Skulpturenausstattung römischer Villen in Italien (Mainz: P. von Zabern, 1988), 105–14 (Villa dei Papiri), and T. Hölscher, The Language of Images in Roman Art (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2004), 34, 39–41. 64 F. Coarelli, “La cultura figurative,” in Storia di Roma vol. 2, 631–70. L’impero mediterraneo (eds. A. Momigliano and A. Schiavone; Torino: Giulio Einaudi, 1990), 637 ff. refers to a clay frieze of Civitalba, as well as to an analogous frieze in Rome, 638, n. 19; P. Bienkowski, Les Celts dans les arts mineurs gréco-romains (Kraków, 1928), fig. 174ab. Compare G. Nachtergael, Les Galates en Grèce et le Sotèria de Delphes: recherches d’histoire et d’épigraphie hellénistiques (Mémoires de la Classe des lettres, Académie royal de Belgique, serie 2, tome 63.1 [1977]); and Lefèvre, Apollo-Tempels, 19–24. Sismondo Ridgway, Hellenistic Sculpture II: The Styles of ca. 200–100 B.C., chap. 2, with plates 1–31. 65 See N. Richardson, ed., Three Homeric Hymns: To Apollo, Hermes, and Aphrodite. Hymns 3, 4, 5 (Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics; Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2010).

426

David L. Balch

name, Pythian; because on that spot the power of piercing Helios made the monster rot away.” (lines 371–73) “And so farewell, son of Zeus and Leto […].” (line 545; trans. Evelyn-White in LCL) I quote one final text narrating the birth story, one that has hardly been cited in commentaries. In Alexandria, Egypt, Callimachos wrote Hymn II: To Apollo, Hymn III: to Artemis, and Hymn IV: to Delos; the Loeb editor dates the final one to 271 B.C.E.66 In this same century, the Ptolemies of Alexandria ruled Ephesus (c. 255–c. 196 B.C.E.), so that economic and cultural goods flowed between Callimachos’ city and Ephesus.67 Because the surrounding countryside did not produce enough agricultural goods for an expanded population, in later Roman times too Ephesus was dependent on food imported from Egypt.68 Citizens of these two great cities had opportunities for almost three centuries before John wrote Revelation to relate Isis to Leto and her daughter Artemis.69 “But when thou gavest thy soil to be the birthplace of Apollo, seafaring men gave thee this name in exchange, since no more didst thou float obscure (a-delos) upon the water […]. (Callimachos, Hymn IV: “To Delos” lines 51–53, trans. Mair in LCL) And thou [Delos] didst not tremble before the anger of Hera, who murmured terribly against all childbearing women that bare children to Zeus, but especially against Leto, for that she only was to bear to Zeus a son [Apollo] dearer even than Ares. Wherefore also she herself kept watch within the sky, angered in her heart greatly and beyond telling, and she prevented Leto who was holden in the pangs of child-birth. And she had two look-outs set to keep watch upon the earth. The space of the continent did bold Ares watch, sitting armed on the high top of Thracian Haemus, and his horses were stalled by the seven-chambered cave of Boreas. And the other kept watch over the far-flung islands, even the daughter [Iris] of Thaumas seated on Mimas [in Ionia], whither she had sped. There they sat and threatened all the cities which Leto approached and prevented them from receiving her […]. (55–69) Yea and one day hereafter there shall come upon us a common struggle, when the Titans of a later day shall rouse up against the Hellenes barbarian sword and Celtic war […].70 (171–75) But thou Asteria [Delos], H. van Tress, Poetic Memory: Allusion in the Poetry of Callimachus and the Metamorphoses of Ovid (Mnemosyne 248; Leiden: Brill, 2004), chap. 4: Hymn to Delos. 67 S. Witetschek, Ephesische Enthüllungen 1. Frühe Christen in einer antiken Grossstadt: zugleich ein Beitrag zur Frage nach den Kontexten der Johannesapokalypse (Biblical Tools and Studies; Leuven: Peeters, 2008), 13–14, 35, 95, 136, 419. 68 Witetschek, Ephesische Enthüllungen, 55–56, 65. 69 See Witetschek, Ephesische Enthüllungen, 90–99. For the importance of this birth narrative see Simon, Götter der Griechen, 124. 70 Mair in LCL, Note e: “From 300 B.C. there was a great southward movement of the Celts from the Balkan peninsula. In 280–279 they invaded Greece, where they attacked Delphi, but were miraculously routed by Apollo. It was shortly after this that a body of 66 See

Cult Statues of Augustus’ Temple of Apollo on the Palatine in Rome

427

lover of song […], since thy heart was kindled, seeing the unhappy lady in the grievous pangs of birth: ‘Hera, do to me what thou wilt. For I heed not thy threats. Cross, cross over, Leto, to me.’ (200–05) So didst thou speak, and she gladly ceased from her grievous wandering […]. (205–06) And Hera was grievously angered […]. (239) Hence that child in after days strung the lyre with just so many strings – seven strings, since seven times the swans sang over the pangs of birth. No eighth time sang they: ere that the child lept forth […].” (253–55) As these texts demonstrate, both myths are open to political/military interpretation: Apollo killing Pytho may refer to Octavian defeating Cleopatra, and the struggle of Leto against forces earthly and celestial to give birth to Apollo and Artemis was understood to refer to Greek battles with the Celts/Galatians, in both cases Greeks and/or Romans against eastern barbarians/Asians. And this is clear in the sculptured decoration, both in the Temple of Apollo on the Palatine and the Temple of Apollo built by Sosius (see n. 42). These myths, told orally, written textually, sculpted visually, and celebrated ritually were so powerful and pervasive that it is not difficult to imagine a Jewish/Christian author in Ephesus wanting to subvert them.

3. The Ritual Birthday of Artemis/Diana in Ephesus Is this Imperial Roman iconography relevant to the Temple of Artemis/Diana in Ephesus, so to the addressees of John’s Apocalypse?71 The central focus of this paper concerns the iconography of Augustus’ Temple to Apollo in Rome, but I also briefly indicate that this key Imperial myth corresponds to the central myth and ritual of the temple of Artemis/Diana in Ephesus. Texts mention a fusion of goddesses (Isidorus, Hymn 1.19–26; Apuleius, Metam. 11.2,5, identifying e.g., Isis, Leto, Artemis/Diana, and Aphrodite/ Venus), however illogically.72 Intriguingly, statues also visually represent them settled in the district of Asia afterwards knows as Galatia (circ. 240 B.C.).” Two and a half centuries later one of the two ivory doors of Augustus’ Temple of Apollo on the Palatine continues this identical theme, the defeat of the Gauls/barbarians. See n. 31 and the related quotation of Propertius, Elegy 2.31.1–14. 71 See U. Muss, “The Sacred Identity of the Ephesian Artemesion during Roman and Early Christian Times” below. Also the three temples to Leto, Apollo and Artemis in Xanthos (Lycia): C. Le Roy, “Le développment monumental du Létôon de Xanthos, Rev. archéol. (1991), p. 341–51. 72 Discussed in Balch, Roman Domestic Art, 150–51. Isidorus, Hymn 1.18–20: “the Syrians celebrate you as Astarte, Artemis, and Nanaia, and the people of Lycia invoke you as Leto. As Mother of the gods the Thracians celebrate you, the Greeks as Hera enthroned, and as Aphrodite […].” (my trans.) Apuleius, Metam. 11.2, “O blessed queen of heaven, whether Thou be […] the celestial Venus […] or whether Thou be the Sister of the god Phoebus, who hast saved so many people by lightening and lessening with thy

428

David L. Balch

such syncretism. A beautiful example is the Venus Esquilina, now exhibited in the Capitoline Museum, Rome (fig. 27). In 1874 an underground room full of statues was discovered, the ancient location of the horti Lamiani, now the piazza Vitorio Emanuele.73 Nude, with the body of an adolescent, Venus is about to immerse herself in the bath; beside her is a box full of pink stones, on top of which rests a vase, from which an Egyptian cobra emerges. This statue, dated to the age of Claudius, visually represents Aphrodite/Venus identified with Isis.74 Paulo Moreno identifies her rather with Cleopatra VII herself as Isis/Aphrodite, a direct comparison with the Venus Genetrix, within the sanctuary erected by Caesar.75 Moreno76 argues that the statue is related to the style of Stephanus, the greatest sculptor in the age of Caesar.77 Tacitus, ann. 3.61,78 gives the mythical background of the mysteries in Ephesus: “Apollo and Diana, they [the Ephesians] stated, were not, as commonly supposed, born at Delos. In Ephesus there was a river Cenchrius, with a grove Ortygia where Latona, heavy-wombed and supporting herself medicines the pangs of travail and are now adored at the sacred places of Ephesus […]” Apuleius, Metam. 11.5: “the Egyptians […] do call me by my true name, Queen Isis.” (trans. Adlington in LCL). 73 M. Cima and E. Talamo, Gli horti di Roma antica (Rome: Electa, 2008), 82, 87, with plate 24; a map (29) indicates locations of Roman aristocrats’ gardens. 74 Cima and Talamo, Gli horti, 87. 75 P. Moreno, Cleopatra Capitolina (Messina: Editinera, 2009), 28 [Italian and English]. See R. Carpenter, “Observations on Familiar Statuary in Rome,” MAAR 18 (1941): 30–35, plates 13–14: “the Esquiline Venus.” Further, Isis was visually represented in Italy surprisingly early, e.g. the Nile mosaic from the late second century B.C.E. at Palestrina, a few kilometers east of Rome (figs. 28–30): P. G. P. Meyboom, The Nile Mosaic of Palestrina: Early Evidence of Egyptian Religion in Italy (RGRW; Leiden: Brill, 1995). P. H. Schrijvers, “A literary view on the Nile mosaic at Praeneste,” in Nile into Tiber. Egypt in the Roman World (Religions in the Graeco-Roman World 159; Leiden: Brill, 2007), 223–44, at 233, dates the mosaic rather in the twenties B.C.E., after Actium. Among the many scenes are a temple dedicated to Osiris, perhaps Canopos or Memphis, as well as the temple dedicated to Isis at Philai. The goddess was already Isis/Fortuna: O. J. Brendel, “Two Fortunae, Antium and Preneste,” AJA 64 (1960): 41–47. See also F. Coareli, “Iside e Fortuna a Pompei, “La parola del passato,” 49 (1994): 119–29, and La pittura pompeiana (eds. I. Bragantini and V. Sampaolo; Naples: Electa, 2009), 424–25, 434–35, discussing Isis/Fortuna in two lararia in Pompeii, the Bottega (IX 7,22; PPM IX 869), corridoio (g) and Casa (IX 3,15; PPM IX 335), ambiente C. 76 Moreno, Cleopatra capitolina, 50. 77 Compare the visual representation of Isis Panthea, with attributes of Isis, Artemis, Athene, and Nike in the “lararium” of Hanghaus 2 in Ephesus: M. Aurenhammer, “Sculptures of Gods and Heroes from Ephesos,” in Ephesos. Metropolis of Asia. An Interdisciplinary Approach to its Archaeology, Religion, and Culture (ed. H. Koester; HTS 41; Valley Forge: Trinity, 1995), 251–80. 78 Cited by L. Portefaix, “The Image of Artemis Ephesia – a Symbolic Configuration Related to her Mysteries?” in 100 Jahre österreichische Forschungen in Ephesos 611–17, at 612. The birth of Artemis is on Thargelion 6 (May 6). Residents of Ephesos/Selçuk still celebrate a spring festival on the night before called Hydrelles, I thank Ulrike Muss for this note.

Cult Statues of Augustus’ Temple of Apollo on the Palatine in Rome

429

by an olive-tree which remained to that day, gave birth to the heavenly twins” (trans. Jackson in LCL). The Ephesians apparently appropriated the Delian myth of the birth of Artemis/Diana, and transferred it to a grove near their own city. Strabo 14,1,20 (C 640)79 gives more information about the rituals: “For here is the mythical scene of the birth, and of the nurse Ortygia, and of the holy place where the birth took place, and of the olive tree nearby, where the goddess is said first to have taken a rest after she was relieved from her travail. Above the grove lies Mt. Solmissus, where, it is said, the Curetes stationed themselves, and with the din of their arms frightened Hera out of her wits when she was jealously spying on Leto, and when they helped Leto to conceal from Hera the birth of her children, […] A general festival is held there annually; and by a certain custom the youths vie for honour, particularly in the splendour of their banquets there. At that time also, a special college of the Curetes holds symposium and performs certain mystic sacrifices.” (trans. Jones in LCL) The celebrations were divided into two parts; the first, of interest here, focused on the birth of the divine twins, a cult drama showing the distress of the pregnant Leto searching for an appropriate place to give birth, and finding a refuge in Ortygia, protected by the Curetes from the wrath of Hera. The second part consisted of two festive meals, which I will not discuss. Rogers discusses the role of the Curetes, Ephesian priests who reenacted the birth of Artemis, frightening Hera by the din of their weapons. Lists of their names, dated from the early Empire to between C.E. 95 and 98, were published within the new Augustan Prytaneion in Ephesus, which probably indicates a transfer of theological responsibility for the celebration of the mysteries from the temple of Artemis to the new religious center in the upper city.80 Rogers81 concludes: “[…] starting with the list B 8 = IvE 1008, from between AD 54 and 59, the Curetes allowed themselves to be represented not only as eusebeis [“pious”], but also as philosebastoi [“lovers of Augustus”] […]. It may be the case that their language shows the extent to which the godhood of the emperor not only had brought about the creation of a new cult with entirely new priests, but also had begun to have an effect on old cultic associations […]. Although the Curetes still performed their traditional roles as the demonic protectors of Artemis during the celebration of the mysteries, they did so from their new, home base in the religious center of Roman Ephesos, and in a language which made clear their piety toward Artemis was matched by their piety toward the Emperors.” […] “The pedestrians who looked up at the list of Curetes on 79 Cited by Portefaix, 613, and by G. M. Rogers, “The Mysteries of Artemis at Ephesos,” 100 Jahre österreichische Forschungen in Ephesos, 241–50, at 242. 80 Rogers, “The Mysteries of Artemis at Ephesos,” 245. 81 Rogers, “The Mysteries of Artemis at Ephesos,” 248 and 250.

430

David L. Balch

the Doric columns of the new Prytaneion could not fail to understand that the ancient demonic protectors of Artemis also paid reverence to the rulers of the Roman world.” “By its feast days the chief cult [Artemis/Diana] gave public life a temporal structure. ‘In a world without weekends, these festivals were the only holidays’ (Lane Fox). On Artemis’ birthday, probably little else happened.”82 The chief ritual was a weapon-dance of the newly born twins against their enemy, Hera, a motif apparently taken over from Delos.83 These mysteries may have had an astrological dimension, since “beautiful” Artemis wore a half-moon on her head as well as zodiac signs and four Victories on her chest, so that devotees were surely seeking help against the influence of the stars.84 Finally, as in many other places, Caesar moved into the temple of the local Goddess: Caesar’s family was honored in the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus.85

Conclusions This paper has sought to show that the pregnant woman of Rev 12 is related to Leto, Artemis/Diana, Isis/Io, and Aphrodite/Venus, not only in texts, as demonstrated by Yarbro Collins, but also in visual representations. However, this composite myth was adapted locally, so we would not expect the same emphases in Alexandria, Ephesus and Rome. Whereas for Augustan Rome Apollo was the main power, in Ephesus Artemis/Diana was central.86 Examining the iconography of Isis, we learn more about Augustan Imperial religion. A fresco of Io, identified textually and visually with Isis and Venus, was painted in the so-called Casa di Livia in Rome, a fresco reproduced in the domus of Herculaneum and Pompeii, as well as in the Pompeian market and the Temple of Isis in that city. Venus Genetrix/Isis/Io was pregnant with the future divine ruler of the world, a birth opposed by powers divine as well as political. These myths were interpreted in specific political and historical contexts. A second myth was visually represented by Augustus in his house/temple complex on the Palatine hill: the cult statues in the Temple of Apollo were of Leto and her twins, Apollo and Artemis, images we see on the Sorrento 82 Witetschek, Ephesische Enthüllungen, 75. An Augusteum was near the artemision, perhaps also a cult for Dea Roma. See U. Muss, “Republik und Kaiser im Artemision von Ephesos,” in Neue Zeiten – Neue Sitten. Zu Rezeption und Integration römischen und italischen Kulturguts in Kleinasien (ed. M. Meyer; Wiener Forschungen zur Archäologie 12; Vienna: Phoibos, 2007), 243–50, with 8 figures. 83 Witetschek, Ephesische Enthüllungen, 77–78. 84 Witetschek, Ephesische Enthüllungen, 78. 85 Witetschek, Ephesische Enthüllungen, 73, 106–07, 109–10, 114, 123. 86 Witetschek, Ephesische Enthüllungen, 85.

Cult Statues of Augustus’ Temple of Apollo on the Palatine in Rome

431

Base. Like Io/Isis, Leto struggled to give birth against divine opposition by Hera, a myth interpreted by Callimachos (271 B.C.E.) and by one of the ivory doors on the Palatine temple to Apollo (28 B.C.E.) as symbolic of Greco-Roman defeat of eastern barbarians, the Gauls.87 Writing Revelation 12, John, an eastern Jewish/Asian/barbarian author, subverted this complex myth, visually represented earlier by Augustus and ritually celebrated by Ephesians in their most important sacred annual festival, the birthday of Artemis against the opposition of Hera. The mother of God does not give birth to the conquering, colonizing Roman emperor, but to “a child who is to rule the nations” (Rev 12:5a). The great dragon/serpent is thrown down, and a voice proclaims “[…] the authority of his Messiah, [whose comrades] conquer […] by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony” (Rev 12:10bc, 11ab NRSV).

Captions to figures Fig. 1: Tempio di Iside (VIII 6,28; PPM VIII 732, 781–82), ekklesiasterion (13,2 × ​ 7,65 m.), beyond a wall with four arches; a photo from within the south portico surrounding the Temple of Isis in Pompeii. Fig. 2: Tempio di Iside (VIII 6,28; PPM VIII 825), ekklesiasterion, central fresco on the north wall: a cow, Io sitting on a rock, Hermes with caduceus, Argos Panoptes (“all seeing”). Inv. 9548 MANN. Fig. 3: Tempio di Iside (VIII 6,28; PPM VIII 837), ekklesiasterion, central fresco on the south wall: Io on the viewer’s left, borne by the river god, is received by Isis, who has a cobra wrapped around her left arm and a crocodile below her feet. Horos/ Harpocrates, her son, sits on an urn in the lower right. Above Isis are a priest and a priestess of Isis before an altar. Inv. 9558 MANN. Fig. 4: Casa di Livia, Rome: fresco of Hermes, Io, Argos (restored), in situ. Fig. 5: House VI 17 (Ins. Occ.),41 (PPM VI 36), cubicolo (17), south wall: fresco of monumental portal of alabaster columns with Ionic capitals, an entrance to a sanctuary, with bunches of fish and birds visually represented on either side as ex voto. Before the temple, which has a Doric frieze, one sees a tholos, inside which there is a statue of Venus Anadyomene. Balch, Roman Domestic Art, 16–17; PitPom 202–03, #72. Inv. 8594 MANN. Fig. 6: Casa del Marinaio (VII 15,2; PPM VII 749), esedra (z), north wall: fresco dominated by tetrastyle temple, in which a deer stands, symbol of Artemis, who with her brother Apollo, massacres Niobi’s children, who had insulted their mother, Leto/ Latona. PitPom 270, #115. Inv. 111479 MANN. 87 On the Gauls, the Galatians to whom Paul wrote, see A. C. Niang, Faith and Freedom in Galatia and Senegal: the Apostle Paul, Colonists and Sending Gods (ed. R. A. Culpepper; Biblical Interpretation 97, Boston: Leiden, 2009).

432

David L. Balch

Fig. 7: Statue of Niobe’s son, killed by Artemis and Apollo, from the Horti of Caesar in Trastevere, uncovered in Via Aurelio Saffi (1956), pentelic marble, Museo Montemartini, Rome, inv. 3027. Fig. 8: Statue of one of the fourteen children of Niobe. This statue is fifth century B.C.E., decorated the Horti Sallustiani (now Via Collina and Piazza Sallustico), where it was found (1906) with two other statues now in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotheck in Copenhagen. Palazzo Massimo, Rome, inv. 72274. A. La Regina, ed., Palazzo Massimo alle Terme, Museo Nazionale Romano (English Edition; Milan: Electa, 1998), 74–75, and R. Carpenter, “Familiar Statuary” (cited n. 75), 28–29, plate 12: “Stumbling Niobid.” Fig. 9: Greeks defeating Gauls, Ephesos Museum, Vienna, Austria. The museum audio guide explains: “This model frieze is of great importance both for history and for art history. It is the only existing frieze from Ephesos dating from the second century B.C., and it is one of the earliest known depictions of an historical battle. It shows the battle between the Greeks and the Galatians. The Celtic Galatians had begun to invade Asia Minor during the early third century B.C. This frieze probably depicts a scene from the final war against the Galatians, in which Eumenes II, king of Pergamon, was able to win a decisive victory in 166 B.C. As Ephesus had also been threatened by the Galatians, she honored her victorious savior by erecting a monument with this frieze depicting a cavalry battle. On the right the frieze depicts an armored Greek whose horse is jumping over a fallen Galatian. In the background you can see a so-called signum. On its left a Galatian is trying to use his shield to protect himself. Below is a Galatian falling from his horse headfirst. This frieze demonstrates the superiority of the Greeks and alludes to their imminent victory.” For location at the eastern end of the Arkadiane in Ephesus and bibliography, see n. 31. Figs. 10–13, #10: four statues of Small Pergamene Votive Offering: #11 giant (inv. 6013 MANN), #12 Amazon (inv. 6012 MANN), # 13 Persian (inv. 6014 MANN), wounded Gaul (inv. 6015 MANN). Roman copies of second century C.E., from Greek original of second century B.C.E. From MANN captions: “These less than life-sized statues form a group with other examples now in different collections (at the Vatican, Venice, Paris, Aix-en-Province). Together they constitute a copy of a votive offering made by a Pergamene dynast, probably Attalus II, placed along the south wall of the Athenian Acropolis in 167–166 B.C. They represent four battles, two mythological (the Gigantomachy and the Amazonomachy) and two historical (the battles of Marathon and against the Galatians)…. The Athenian votives were composed of bronze statues. It is likely that they themselves were copies of a series located at Pergamon. This complex composition, consisting of at least 50 sculptures, was designed to celebrate, by evoking the greatest epic battles between gods and men, the Pergamene victories over the Galatians, who were a constant threat to the Attalid kingdom.” See La collezione Farnese (ed. C. Gasparri, photos L. Spina; Mondadori Electa, 2009), 120–23. Fig. 14: Villa di Oplontis, triclinium (14), tripod, in situ. Balch, Roman Domestic Art 15, CD 71, 71a. Figs. 15–18: Temple of Apollo Sosianus, Rome, built after C. Sosianus triumphed over the Jews in 34 B.C.E. He was condemned to death after the battle of Actium, because he had sided with Mark Antony, but Octavian pardoned him, and this new

Cult Statues of Augustus’ Temple of Apollo on the Palatine in Rome

433

architectural project can be interpreted as a tribute to Octavian and an attempt to be forgiven. The city of Rome commissioned excavations in the 1930s, and later the fragmented statues were identified as the pedimental group. #16 statue of an Amazon on Horseback, Museo Montemartini, inv. 3291; Parian marble, representing an Amazonmachy, a reconstruction now exhibited in the Museo Montemartini, Rome. #17 statue of an Amazon with attic Peplos, identified as Hippolyta. Museo Montemartini, inv. 3457, Parian marble. #18 statue of Theseus, Museo Montemartini inv. 3529, Parian marble. Sculptures of Ancient Rome: The Collections of the Capitoline Museums at the Montemartini Power Plant (eds. M. Bertoletti, M. Cima, and E. Talamo; Milan: Electa, 1999), 28, plate II.52; 60, plate II.52e; 71–79, plates II.52h and i. Figs. 19–21: Sorrento Base, sketched by the Frenchman Lancelot Théodore Turpin de Crissé c. 1810, published by courtesy of Prof. Mario Russo, Director of Museo Correale, Sorrento, published earlier by Umberto Pappalardo in Archeologia Viva 126 (Nov/Dic 2007) 35. #20–21: my photos of the Sorrento Base. Figs. 22–24: Three-sided base of neo-Attic candelabrum, with Apollo, Artemis, and Leto represented individually on the three sides. #22 Leto, as ‘married’ woman, with right hand hoisting her veil, with left hand holding torch. #23 Apollo, playing lyre, similar in appearance to a harp, but strummed with plectrum, not plucked, and #24 Artemis, her quiver of arrows visible behind her, holding a torch with both hands, Beginning of the Augustan age, from via della Conciliazione (1848). Museo Montemartini, inv. 2771, Pentelic marble. Fig. 25: Statue of Esquiline Venus, portrayed as emerging from water and combing her hair. The cobra coiled around the vase relates this figure to Aphrodite-Isis, a goddess of Hellenistic origin. This eclectic work dating to early Roman Imperial age is influenced by the severe style. From an underground chamber in the Horti Lamiani (1874). Capitoline Museum, inv. 1141, Parian marble. Figs. 26–27: Nile mosaic, Praeneste Museum (a few kilometers east of Rome). This Hellenistic mosaic, one of the largest and most important currently known, presents a wide perspective map of Egypt. The Nile is pictured flooding the land in its course from Upper Egypt, near the border with Ethiopia (high above), to the Mediterranean coast (below). Execution date: end of second or end of first century B.C.E.. Originally located as the rear apse floor of large hall at the north side of the Praeneste Forum, a hall dedicated to the worship of an Egyptian deity, Isis, or perhaps Serapis. As early as the second century B.C.E., intensive trade between Praeneste and Egypt favored the process of identification of Fortuna Primigenia with Isis. Alexandrian artists worked in Italy from the second century B.C.E., e.g. Demetrius, called Topographer, the painter of landscapes, who moved to Rome in 165 B.C.E. The mosaic has undergone significant restoration work. Drawings made prior to its seventeenth century restoration, now preserved in Great Britain, have enabled researchers to know its original layout. #27 particular of temple to Osiris or Isis. Fig. 28: Fortuna’s cult had a double identity, fertility and prophecy, mirrored in her sanctuary in Praeneste. Syncretism between Fortuna Primigenia and Isis, another goddess with a maternal identity, probably occurred in Praeneste. This assimilation of Egyptian cults is seen in this colossal statue in gray marble originally placed in the Forum area. The head, probably made separately in white marble, is missing. The

434

David L. Balch

statue is a late Hellenistic original, dating to the end of the second century B.C.E., and probably represents Isis, often dressed in black. Praeneste Museum.

Abbreviations BCom

= Bullettino della commissione archeologica communale di Roma.

OCD

= Oxford Classical Dictionary.

inv.

= inventory number.

LIMC

= Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae.

LTUR

= Lexicon Topographicum Urbis Romae.

MAAR = Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome. MANN = Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples. PitPom = La pitture pompeiana, eds. Irene Bragantini and Valeria Sampaolo (Verona: Mondadori Electa, 2009). PPM

= Pompei: pitture e mosaici (1990–2003), 10 vols.

RM

= Mitteilungen des deutschen archäologischen Institutes, Römische Abteilung = Römische Mitteilungen.

Note: Figs. 7, 15–18, and 24–26 are reproduced with the kind permission of the Sovrintendenza per I Beni Culturali di Roma and the Directors of the Musei Capitolini and Cenrale Montemartini Fig. 8 is reproduced with the kind permission of the Soprintendenza Speciale per i beni Archeologici di Roma. Figs. 19–23 are reproduced with the kind permission of Prof. Mario Russo, Director of the Museo Correale, Sorrento. Figs. 28–30 are reproduced with the kind permission of the Praeneste Museum. All other figures are reproduced with the kind permission of the Soprintendente speciale per i beni Archaeologici de Napoli e Pompei. All photos are by David L. Balch.

The Changing Face of Mithraism at Ostia Archaeology, Art, and the Urban Landscape L. Michael White*

1. Introduction Founded at the beginning of the third cent. B.C.E.,1 Ostia was Rome’s principal port from the early Republican period into the second cent. C.E. Even after it was eclipsed to some degree by Trajan’s new harbor at nearby Portus, Ostia continued to thrive as a center for certain kinds of shipping, travel, and domestic occupation well into the sixth cent. and beyond. Older theories about the rapid demise of Ostia in the 3rd–5th centuries have been abandoned in the light of new and compelling archaeological evidence for its * Since 2001, the author has directed  the UT•OSMAP excavations of the Ostia Synagogue.  The UT•OSMAP project is supported by the Institute for the Study of Antiquity and Christian Origins (ISAC) at the University of Texas at Austin and operates under auspices of the Soprintendenza Speciale per i Bene Archeologici di Roma, Sede Archaeolgi di Ostia Antica, with special thanks to Dott. Angelo Pelligrino and Dott.ssa Paola Germoni and the wonderful staff at Ostia Antica. It is also an affiliated project of the American Academy at Rome. A brief, year-by-year summary of this work is now available on the ISAC website at www.utexas.edu/research/isac/web/OSMAP/OSMAP_Home. html as well as FASTI ONLINE at http://www.fastionline.org/micro_view.php?fst_ cd=AIAC2521&curcol=main_column. A thorough report on the current findings of the project, some of which are also relevant methodologically for this study of the mithraea, is forthcoming as L. M. White, “Site Formation and Construction in the Ostia Synagogue:  Results of the UT Excavations.” 1 For the most recent views on the founding of Ostia see F. Zevi, “Sulle fasi piu antiche di Ostia,” in ‘Roman Ostia’ Revisited: Archaeological and Historical Papers in Memory of Russell Meiggs (eds. A. Gallina Zevi and A. Claridge; London: British School at Rome 1996); idem, “Les debuts d’Ostie,” in Ostie – port et porte de la Rome antique (ed. J.-P. Descoeudres; Geneva: Georg, Musée d’art et d’histoire, 2001), 3–9 and A. Martin, “Un saggio sulle mura del castrum di Ostia (Reg. I, ins. x.3),” in ‘Roman Ostia’ Revisited: Archaeological and Historical Papers in Memory of Russell Meiggs, 19–38; idem, “The Rises in Level at Ostia, Regio I, insula x 3,” in Atti del II Colloquio Internazionale su Ostia Antica (Mededlingen van het Nederlands Institut te Rome vol.58; eds. S. T. A. M. Mols and C.E. van der Laan; Assen: Van Gorcum, 1999), 74–76. The traditional views are discussed by R. Meiggs, Roman Ostia (rev. ed.; Oxford: Clarendon, 1973), 16–27.

436

L. Michael White

continuation well into the Middle Ages.2 At its zenith in the 3rd cent. C.E., it was home to 50–60,000 people and covered some 130 hectares, extending well beyond the city walls to the south and east.3 The excavated portions of the city known to us today represent only a quarter of its full expanse along on the southern side of the Tiber alone. With fifteen known mithraea and at least two other sanctuaries of similar plan, Ostia represents the largest concentration of archaeological remains for the cult of Mithras from a single city in the Roman world.4 Some of its artistic monuments were among the earliest modern discoveries of the cult, beginning in the late 18th cent. One of these is a full round sculpture group 2 For the most recent work in light of archaeological evidence on the survival of Ostia into the early medieval period see M. Heinzelman and A. Martin, “Rediscovering a ‘WellKnown’ City: Final Results of a Joint DAI-AAR Urbanistic Research Project at Ostia,” colloquium presentation for Ostia, Port City of Imperial Rome: Current Projects, Recent Research, AIA Annual Meeting, January, 2004 (unpublished) and A. Martin, “Imports at Ostia in the Imperial Period and Late Antiquity: The Amphora Evidence from the DAI – AAR Excavations,” in The Maritime World of Ancient Rome (MAAR Supp. 6; ed. M. Hohlfelder; Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2008), 105–118; for the older view see Meiggs, Roman Ostia, 83–101. 3 The city walls enclose an area of approximately 69 hectares (690,000 m2), once thought to be the full extent of the city, other than the extramural area at the Porta Marina. The excavated portions cover some 33 hectares. The new estimate of the size and extent of the city are those of M. Heinzelmann, based on the extensive geophysical survey conducted by the Deutches Archäologisches Institut Rom between 1996–2001 (see M. Heinzelmann, “Ostia Antica – Neue geophysikalische Untersuchungen in den unausgegrabenen Arealen des Stadtgebietes,” in Classical Archaeology towards the Third Millenium: Proceedings of the XVth International Congress of Classical Archaeology [eds. R. F. Docter and E. Moormann; Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1999], 69–70); idem, “Neue Untersuchungen in den unausgegrabenen Gebieten von Ostia: Luftbildauswertung und geophysikalische Prospektionen,” in Atti del II Colloquio Internazionale su Ostia Antica, 24–25; idem, “Ostia, Regio III. Untersuchungen in den unausgegrabenen Bereichen des Stadtgebietes. Vorbericht zur dritten Grabungskampagne 2000,” RM 108 (2001): 313–328 and the link on the Ostia Group website at http://www.ostia-antica.org/heinzelmann/daiproj.htm. His new plan of the city is forthcoming; it includes an additional area (ca. 50 hectares) on the other side of the river, the Ostian Transtiberim. The population estimate given above is that of G. R. Storey, “Peopling Ostia: Reviewing Population Estimates for the Imperial City,” paper presented at colloquium Ostia, Port City of Imperial Rome: Current Projects (AIA Annual Meeting, 2004; unpublished). It is based on the new Heinzelmann estimates of the size but with a much lower density than that assumed by Meiggs (Roman Ostia, 532–4); however, the resultant total comes out the same, but spread over a larger expanse. 4 Vermaseren proposed that there were some 45 mithraea in imperial Rome; however, only thirteen (perhaps only twelve) actual sites are presently known. Coarelli calculates that the same density of mithraea as found at Ostia on the scale of Rome (in terms of both space and population) would yield an unthinkably large total (some 2,000), but he thinks the actual number is still far larger than Vermaseren proposed, perhaps nearly 100. See F. Coarelli, “Topografia Mitriaca di Roma,” in Mysteria Mithrae. Atti del Seminario Inernazionale (ed. U. Bianchi; EPRO 80; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1979), 69–84; for his catalogue of known mithraea from Rome, see pp. 78–9; for his comparison with Ostia, see pp. 77 and 81–4.

The Changing Face of Mithraism at Ostia

437

of Mithras slaying the bull (or “tauroctony”) now in the Vatican. Measuring 0.84 m in height and 1.42 m in width, the inscribed statue was discovered at Ostia by Robert Fagan between 1794 and 1800.5 With it were found a lion-headed Kronos-Aion statue (H. 1.60 m) and a Kronos-Aion relief (H. 1.07 m) that also formed part of Cumont’s early understanding of the cult’s central doctrines.6 Another early discovery was a large tauroctone in high relief in pavonazetto marble (H. 1.09; W. 1.17 m). It was found by Giuseppi Petrini between 1802–1804 while conducting early “excavations” commissioned by Pope Pius VII. With it were found several inscriptions, including two naming the dedicator of the relief, Aulus Decimius Decimianus.7 The location of the so-called Mitreo Petrini remained a mystery for some time, but it is now generally assumed to be the same as Mitreo delle Sette Sfere, 5 The exact location and form of the Mitreo Fagan is no longer known. It is reported to have been found and partially excavated “in a crypta of an imperial palace” in the area between the mouth of the Tiber (Tor Boacciana) and the Palazzo Imperiale complex (see fig. 1.7). Both the Terme Maritime (III.8.1–2) and the Palazzo Imperiale have been proposed; see nn. 77 and 126 below. The sculptures now reside in the Chiaramonti Lapidaria, of the Vatican Museum (no. XXXIII.1); the great expansion of this section of the museum dates to the pontificate of Pius VII (1800–1823), after whom the Lapidaria is named. The three Fagan sculptures were moved to Rome during his pontificate (see also n. 7 below). For description and photos, see G. Becatti, Scavi di Ostia II: I Mitrei (Rome: Libreria dello Stato, 1954), 119–21 and Tav. XXXIV.2 [hereafter SdO II]; M. J. Vermaseren, Corpus Inscriptionum et Monumentorum Religionis Mitriacae (2 vols.; The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1956/60), no. 310 and fig. 84 [hereafter CIMRM]. The earliest known reports of mithraic finds in Rome date to the latter half of the 16th cent. (e.g. Vermaseren, CIMRM, nos. 327 and 381), but the monuments largely remained in private collections until the end of the 18th cent. The proliferation of monument finds and most of the mithraea known today from Rome date largely to the 19th and early 20th cent. For example, the San Clemente mithraeum in Rome was discovered in 1867 (Vermaseren, CIMRM, no. 338), just after the Viscontis excavated the Palazzo Imperiale complex at Ostia (1860–61) and the same year in which they excavated the M.d. Animale. [Hereafter we shall use this abbreviated form for the discussion of the individual mithraea at Ostia. For the full list see the Catalogue and fig. 1.]. For a further bibliographical comment on the archaeological corpora see also n. 11 below. 6  Becatti, SdO II, 119 and Pl. XXXVI; Vermaseren, CIMRM, nos. 312–31. These two pieces are now also in the Vatican: the former in the Library, the latter in the Chiaramonti Lapidaria. For Cumont’s early treatment see The Mysteries of Mithra (ET from the 2nd ed. of Textes et Monuments vol. 1; Chicago: Open Court, 1903; reprint, New York: Dover, 1956), 104–110 and fig. 20 (the statue from Ostia). On the problem of the identity of the Lion-headed god, see now Beck, “Mithraism since Franz Cumont,” 2087–88. 7 Like the Fagan sculptures already discussed, these finds were moved to the Vatican and are now housed in the Chiaramonti Lapidaria XXXIII.10. The four inscriptions are CIL 14.60–63 (Vermaseren, CIMRM, nos. 246–249). One must guess that the Fagan finds a few years earlier had prompted Pope Pius VII to explore for more art treasures at Ostia. There was as yet, however, no systematic excavation. That work would begin between 1855 and 1871 directed by Carlo Ludovico Visconti and Pietro Ercole Visconti under the auspices of Pope Pius IX. As we shall discuss below, a number of the other early mithraic discoveries occurred in this period, including the M.d. Palazzo Imperiale, the M.d. Animale, and the M.d. Sette Sfere. Ostia remained a papal property until 1870.

438

L. Michael White

discovered by C. L. Visconti in 1864 and excavated by Lanciani in 1886.8 The latter takes its name from the striking decorative motif of seven arches in the black and white mosaic of the central aisle. Not only have such motifs bequeathed thematic names (“Seven Spheres,” “Seven Gates”) to these well-known mithraea at Ostia,9 but they have also been central in much of the traditional interpretation of the initiatory grades and organizational structure within the cult.10 Consequently, the modern study of Roman Mithraism – its architecture, its organization, and its arts – owes much to the Ostian evidence.11  8  See Becatti, SdO II, 53 and 123, Tav. XXXIV.1. While the Petrini finds were discussed by F. Cumont, Textes et monuments figurés relatifs aux mystières de Mithra (Brussels: H. Lamertin, 1896–99– II, nos. 82 and 134–136), he was unaware (or at least unsure) that they belonged to the M.d. Sette Sfere, which had been so important in his initial studies of Mithraism. See also n. 10 below. The first to make the connection was Ludovico Paschetto (Ostia, Colonia Romana: Storia e Monumenti [Dissertzioni della Pontificia Accademia Romana di Archeologia II,10; Rome: Tipografia Poliglotta Vaticana, 1912], 87–89); Paschetto comments on the curiosities surrounding Petrini’s find reports. A crucial link is the fact that the remainder of the Sette Sfere sanctuary and its art are remarkably well preserved, but the monuments of the front wall, and especially a representation of the tauroctone, are missing. If it is the case that the Petrini finds are indeed from Sette Sfere, as seems most likely, then it is probably a further testimony to the “excavation methods” used by these early explorers. It would seem that Petrini did not explore the remainder of the area; he must have only tunneled in from above. The remainder of the area was discovered by Visconti in 1864.   9 The M.d. Sette Porte was only discovered later, during the explosion of work at Ostia between 1938 and 1942. It will be discussed below. 10 Franz Cumont’s earliest work on Mithraism (in 1891, at age 23) was a thesis on the M.d. Sette Sfere, excavated only a few years earlier by Lanciani (in 1885–86); see F. Cumont, Notes sur un temple mithriaque découvert à Ostie (Recueil de travaux publiés pas la Faculté de philosophie et letters de Université de Gand, 4e fasc.; Gand: Clemm, 1891); also Cumont, Textes et monuments, no. 84. See also Vermaseren, Mithras. The Secret God (London: Chatto & Windus, 1963),138–153; R. Merkelbach, Mithras (Königstein: Hain, 1984), 77–132; in both the symbols of the “seven grades of initiation” draw heavily on the Ostian evidence, and especially the two mithraea (“Seven Spheres” and “Seven Gates”) and the “ladder mosaic” from the M.d. Felicissimo, which was not known to Cumont. See fig. 1.14; cf. Becatti, SdO II, 105–112; Vermaseren, CIMRM, 299; L. A. Campbell, Mithraic Iconography and Ideology (EPRO 11; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1968); R. Beck “Mithraism since Franz Cumont,” ANRW II.17.4 (1984): 2002–2115; idem, The Religion of the Mithras Cult in the Roman Empire (London and New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 102–112. 11 The principal corpora of mithraic monuments are those of Cumont, Textes et monuments and Vermaseren, CIMRM, now supplemented by a number of individual studies in the series Études preliminaries aux religions orientales dans l’empire romain, inaugurated by Vermaseren in 1961. From these corpora, Cumont and Vermaseren each generated synthetic studies of the cult (volume 1 of Cumont’s Textes et monuments became The Mysteries of Mithra published separately as a second edition) and Vermaseren’s Mithras, The Secret God. The principal study of all the known Ostian mithraea is that of Becatti’s SdO II (1954), which is generally followed in most later work on the city, including Meiggs, Roman Ostia (1st ed. 1960), M. F. Squarciapino, I Culti Orientali ad Ostia (EPRO 3; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1962), 37–59, and S. Laeuchli, Mithraism at Ostia: Mystery Religion and Christianity in the Ancient Port of Rome (Evanston: Northwestern Unviversity Press, 1967). It is also summarized very nicely but updated, with extensive illustrations by J-T.

The Changing Face of Mithraism at Ostia

439

That being said, however, quite a lot has changed in our understanding of Mithraism since the magisterial studies of Cumont and later Vermaseren.12 Significantly, only the first edition of Cumont’s Textes et monuments (1896–99) and his earlier articles, as well as Vermaseren’s early work (1951) on the mithraic monuments of Rome, were available at the time of Becatti’s comprehensive study of the Ostian evidence (1954). Conversely, only three of the Ostian mithraea plus the Fagan and Petrini sculptures were actually known to Cumont at the time his 1896–99 studies were completed. Indicative of the problem is the fact his dating of all of three of these mithraea has now been shown to be incorrect.13 Furthermore, thirteen of the seventeen sites presently known were discovered after 1900, and nine of these after 1938 (see the Catalogue and fig. 1). In the present study, I shall focus primarily on the date, distribution, and spatial configuration of the mithraea and related sanctuaries at Ostia, with an eye on local patterns and diachronic developments. I shall not attempt to treat the history or growth of Mithraism more generally, except insofar as issues arise from the particular cases under discussion. Instead, I shall attempt to take into account some of the more recent trends both in Ostian archaeology and in the study of Mithraism, including, but going well beyond, my own previous work on patterns of architectural adaptation.14 More importantly, we shall situate the study of the known sanctuaries within the local urban social context of Ostia itself in an effort to offer new perspectives both on the changing character of Ostian Mithraism and on the spatial and artistic function of the Ositan mithraea. One feature of the artistic programs of the Ostian mithraea that has long been overlooked is the surprising amount of “non-mithraic” decoration or symbolism found associated with these sanctuaries. In large measure, this type of “generic” art has either been dismissed as not contributing to our understanding of Mithraic ideology and practice or forced to conform aribitrarily to some mithraic symbolism. To what extent this should be the case will bear closer scrutiny as we proceed. Bakker on the Ostia Group website: http://www.ostia-antica.org/dict/topics/mithraea/ mithraea.htm. My synopsis here owes much to Jan-Theo Bakker’s work, but is augmented by my current archaeological work at Ostia during the last several years. From 2005–2010 I have been able to conduct on-site studies of several more of the mithraea. 12 See R. L. Gordon, “Franz Cumont and the Doctrines of Mithraism,” in Mithraic Studies: Proceedings of the First International Congress of Mithraic Studies (ed. J. R. Hinnels; Manchester: Manchester University Press; New York: Rowan and Littlefield, 1975), 215–48; Beck, “Mithraism since Franz Cumont,” 2002–2115. 13 The three were M.d. Animale (fig. 1.1), M.d. Palazzo Imperiale (I.7), and M.d. Sette Sfere (I.2), all of which he dated to before the 160’s C.E. For Cumont’s dating of the monuments, see n. 17 below and Beck, “Mithraism since Franz Cumont,” 2022. 14 L. M. White, The Social Origins of Christian Architecture, (2 vols.; Harvard Theological Studies 42; Valley Forge: Trinity Press International, 1996–1997), I: 47–59; II: nos. 79–82, 86.

N

16

8

3

10

14

1

11

5

9 13

2

15

14

17

12

6

Mithraea of the mid to later second cent. (Antonine period) Mithraea of the end of the second or beginning of the Mithraea of the end of the second or beginning of the third cent. (Severan third period) cent. (Severan period )

Mithraea of the mid to later second cent. ( Antonine period )

Late Second Late Second to Early Third Centuryto Early Third Century

Mithraea of the third cent. and later Sanctuaries with mithraic features, third cent. and later Sanctuaries with mithraic features, third cent. and later

Mithraea of the third cent. and later

Third Century and Later Third Century and Later

1: ofPlan of Excavated of Ancient Ostia, showing location theknown known mithraea mithraea and and related Fig. 1:Fig. Plan Excavated areasareas of Ancient Ostia, showing thethe location ofofthe relatedsanctuaries sanctuaries (based on Meiggs 1973, adapted and annotated by the author). (based on Meiggs 1973, adapted and annotated by the author).

7

4

440 L. Michael White

1923

late 2nd cent.

6. Mitreo Aldobrandini – II.1.2 Orientation: NNW

rectangular edifice abutting the city wall (only partially excavated)

c. 20.40‑ 23.28 (est.) × 3.94

16.30 × 4.50 4.50 × 1.40–50 [1 6.50 × 4.50] 15–18+ [2 9.80 × 4.30] (? + portable benches)

1

1867

ca. 198

5. Mitreo degli Animale (“Mithr. of the Animals”) – IV.2.11 Orientation: NW Figs. 2–5

2

?

?

“crypta of an imperial palace”(?) (exact location & form not known)

4. Mitreo Fagan (Reg. III ?) ca. 190–192 1794–1800 Orientation: ? (not excavated) commercial edifice (?) adjacent to precinct wall of Campus Magnae Matris

7.05 × 5.80

2

cella of a converted warehouse (horrea) adjacent to an insula

ca. 170–180 1938–42 3. Mitreo delle Sette Porte (“Seven Gates”) – IV.5.13 Orientation: E Figs. 11B & 16

entry rooms (A-B) + vestibule (D) + room(s) in Edif. IV.2.10

?

adjacent room(s) and corridor of the horrea

none – access is through rooms of the house

portion excavated (not excavated) 1.40 × 1.34–1.40 12–14+

?

L 7.00 × 1.90 R 7.00 × 1.80 22–28

L 7.75 × 1.40 (usable) R 8.4 × 1.60 27–32

11.20 × 4.95

2

small vestibule + courtyard and rooms of the house

L1 6.25 × 1.25 L2 5.00 × 1.25 R1 5.50 × 1.25 R2 4.50 × 1.25 21–28*

room annexed to house (Domus del Apuleio)

17.75 × 4.00 [1 7.0–8.25 × 4.00] [2 6.0 × 4.00] [3 3.50 × 3.25]

Ancillary Rooms

Podia size/ capacity

ca. 170–180 1802–4; 2. Mitreo delle Sette Sfere 1864/ (“Seven Spheres”) – II.8.6 1885–86 Orientation: N Fig. 13

1939–40

Size Phases of the hall as ­Mithraeum (in meters) 2

1. Mitreo dei Pareti Dipinti (“Painted Walls”) – III.1.6 Orientation: WSW Figs. 11A & 12

ca. 162

Established Year of Discovery/ (all dates Excavation Type of Edifice CE) domestic quarters & peristyle of a house

The Sanctuaries (Nos. at left refer to Fig. 1) Orientation of the Cult Niche

Catalogue of Ostian Mithraea (see Fig. 1)

third cent. (Severan period)

The Changing Face of Mithraism at Ostia

441

1

1

vaulted chamber beneath sanctuary of a collegial hall portion of a horrea

1939

3rd cent.

second half 1938–42 of 3rd cent.

second half 1919 of 3rd cent.

11. Mitreo di Fructosus – I.10.4 Orientation: ENE

12. Mitreo presso Porta Romana – II.2.5 Orientation: S

vaulted service corridors beneath a bath complex

1

1–2

10. Mitreo delle Terme del Mitra (“Baths of Mithras”) – I.17.2 Orientation: S

rooms of a private domus in an insula complex

1938–42

3rd cent.

2

2–3

  9. Mitreo di Lucrezio ­Menandro – I.3.5 Orientation: SSE Fig. 6C & 17

hall (loggia) with piers adjacent to horrea

rectangular hall off peristyle of a large insula and bath complex

14.96 × 5.90

5.0 × 6.0

15.37 × 4.55

8.15 × 4.20

12.00 × 8.5

16.70–85 × 5.35

Size Phases of the hall as ­Mithraeum (in meters)

1939–40

ca. 193–200 1860–61 or 200–225

Established Year of Discovery/ (all dates Excavation Type of Edifice CE)

  8. Mitreo della Planta Pedis 204–211 (“Footprint”) – III.17.2 Orientation: E Fig. 15

  7. Mitreo del Palazzo ­Imperiale Reg. I/III Orientation: N Figs. 9–10

The Sanctuaries (Nos. at left refer to Fig. 1) Orientation of the Cult Niche

L 9.75 × 1.50 R 8.1 × 1.50 30–38

L 4.15 × 1.45 R 4.30 × 1.45 14–17

L1 7.75 × 1.25 L2 6.25 × 1.25–1.6 R1 7.75 × 1.4 R2 5.1 × 1.4 27–31*

a vestibule to the side of the main hall + a larger room before the hall

None – except the social areas of the collegium

a small vestibule + use of other service rooms (probable)

entry rooms & large room of adjacent house + a room behind altar

vestibule, + several large rooms

L ca. 4.5 × ? R ca. 7x ? c. 20–23 ? L 8.00 × 1.15 R 7.15 × 1.15 15–20*

Vestibule (80) & 2 special rooms (79/81) + entry rooms (76 & 78)

Ancillary Rooms

L 10.25 × 1.6 R1 7.80 × 1.6 R2 2.45.3* 33–40

Podia size/ capacity

442 L. Michael White

second half 1914–15 of 3rd cent.

1892/ 1909

3rd cent.

17. Sabazeo (“Sabazeum”) – V.12.3 Orientation: E

1939

second half 1940 of 3rd cent.

16. Sacello delle Tre Navate 3rd cent. (“Chapel with Three Aisles”) – III.2.12 Orientation: SSW Fig. 15

Other Sanctuaries with Mithraic spatial features

15. Mitreo dei Serpenti (“Serpents”) – V.6.6 Orientation: S Fig. 14

2

1?

cella of a horrea

1

tabernae of a commercial building

adapted from renovated portico and shrine, annexed to insula complex

1

1

Podia size/ capacity

L 9.60 × 1.80 R 9.10 × 1.7 32–38

vestibule + large room of adjacent edifice

2 adj. rooms of edifice also for mithraic use

none – corridor and adjacent rooms of the insula ?

Ancillary Rooms

13.00 × 5.60

L 10–12.10 × 1.75 ? R 10–12.10 × 1.80 not fully excavated 34–48

17.40–18.70 × L 14.10 × 2.1–2.20 vestibule + 6.90–7.75 R 12.50 × 1.8–2.20 kitchen & outer space 44–53

11.97 × 5.15

10.35–11.10 × L 9.40 × 1.50 4.05 R 10.10 × 1.20* 26–33

8.00 × 6.10 L1 3.96 × 1.70 [1 3.96 × 6.10] L2 2.45 × 1.90 [2 3.74 × 6.10] R1 3.96 × 1.60–90 R2 3.74 × 2.30 22–28

Size Phases of the hall as ­Mithraeum (in meters)

rooms of a medianum house

two vaulted rooms on the ground floor of a rebuilt insula

Established Year of Discovery/ (all dates Excavation Type of Edifice CE)

14. Mitreo di Felicissimus – second half 1940 of 3rd cent. V.9.1 Orientation: E Fig. 14

13. Mitreo del Caseggiato di Diana – I.3.3–4 Orientation: NNW Figs. 6A-8

The Sanctuaries (Nos. at left refer to Fig. 1) Orientation of the Cult Niche

The Changing Face of Mithraism at Ostia

443

444

L. Michael White

2. Chronology and Development of Mithraea (see fig. 1) All fifteen of the known mithraea of Ostia, with one possible exception, are secondary installations in existing edifices of various types, including warehouses (horrea), commercial structures, bath complexes, collegial halls, apartment buildings (insulae), and, of course, private houses. The table accompanying fig. 1 will hereafter serve as the reference Catalogue of Ostian Mithraea for the purposes of this study. Following Becatti, I have included two other sanctuaries (the Sacello dei Tre Navate and the Sabazeo) because their plan and layout clearly resemble that of a mithraeum, even though there is no direct evidence of mithraic cult activity.15 Like most mithraea, they too were secondary installations, and thus deserve some discussion here. In Column 5 the chart summarizes the setting of each mithraeum; Column 6 gives the size of the mithraic hall (or spelaeum) proper, while Column 7 gives the size and capacity of the podia and Column 8, any ancillary rooms. In a number of cases, there were multiple stages of renovation and reconfiguration of these edifices prior to introduction of the sanctuary, as well as after. Thus, as I have discussed previously, reuse, rebuilding, and continuing adaptation were typical of the urban social environment.16 The first point to observe about the development of Mithraism at Ostia is its relatively late appearance. Whereas Cumont had dated the earliest Ostian evidence to the very beginning of the 2nd cent.,17 none of the sanctuaries can 15 Although not included in the Catalogue (also not discussed by Becatti), a third possible case is that of the Domus Fulminata at Reg. III.7.4 discovered in 1941. In the center of the peristyle is a biclinium arrangement, having central aisle and an altar with aedicula behind on the third side; however, the podia are freestanding and there is a fountain at their foot. It is now thought to be a private ancestor cult organized along the lines of a collegium; cf. L. B. van der Meer, N. C. L. Stevens, and H. Stoeger, “Domus Fulminata. The House of the Thunderbolt (III, vii, 3–5),” BABesch 80 (2005): 91–111. The house seems to have been built in the Flavian period, probably by a descendant of P. Lucilius Gamala. Another descendant of the same name is also known from the Antonine period. If the biclinium was added in this later phase, then it might well be influenced by the arrival of mithraic cultic activity. If it came from the earlier phase of the house, then mithraic influence would be unlikely. On the relative chronological development by this later P. Lucilius Gamala see also below at n. 122. 16 White, Social Origins I, 47–59. 17 Cumont (The Mysteries of Mithra, 36–47) dated the proliferation of the Mithras cult into Italy and the western Empire to the Flavian period (69–96 C.E.). He generally saw much of the Ostian evidence then known (prior to the beginning of new excavations in 1938) as coming from the early to mid-2nd cent.; he thought the cult was already well established by the end of the 2nd cent. For example, he erroneously dated the sculpture group of the M. Fagan (see n. 5 above), based on others of similar design, to the reign of Trajan (The Mysteris of Mithras, 210; cf. Cumont, Textes and Monuments, nos. 69 & 75; Vermaseren, Mithras, The Secret God, 29–30 and CIMRM., nos. 593–94). Instead, Beccati (SdO II, 119) dates it to the very end of the 2nd cent., a fact confirmed by two inscriptions (CIL 14.64 and 66) giving the name of the dedicator as C. Valerius Heracles and a consu-

The Changing Face of Mithraism at Ostia

445

be dated prior to the second half of the second century C.E., while the vast majority date to the Severan period and later. Meiggs, following Becatti, had already recognized the basic problem. Nonetheless, Becatti had dated twelve of the seventeen sanctuaries before the end of the second century and all the rest by the middle of the third. Only one (M.d. Felicissimus)18 was dated by Becatti after 250.19 Of course, it must be remembered that all of the mithraea presently known at Ostia were excavated before 1942, the majority under Calza and Becatti beginning in 1938; however, there was no systematic use of stratigraphic archaeology in this period or earlier. Most of the dating was based on inscriptions (where possible) in conjunction with standard masonry typologies from Ostia and Rome, and the chronological parameters then assigned to them.20 More recent archaeological work has called a good bit of this evidence into question and pushed most of the dates later. The Catalogue is generally in chronological order based on the most recent archaeological evidence and the author’s own field work. 2.1 Mitreo degli Animale (IV.2.11; Cat. no. 4, figs. 2–5) For example, both Cumont and Becatti thought the M.d. Animale, which was situated in a small hall adjacent to the precincts of the Campo della Magna Mater (IV.1.1–10), was the earliest of all the mithraea at Ostia and one of the earliest in the Roman world (see figs. 2 & 3). Discovered in 1867 while excavating the far western side of the Magna Mater sanctuary, the excavator, C. L. Visconti (who had excavated the Palazzo Imperiale mithraeum only a few years earlier) had erroneously identified it as an initiation chamber for cult of Cybele and Attis. He thought a head of Mithras with lar notation for the year 190. See also below n. 124. On the date of the British Museum tauroctone group (Vermaseren, CIMRM, no. 593–94) see also now R. L. Gordon, “The Date and Significance of CIMRM 593 (British Museum Townley Collection),” Journal of Mithraic Studies 2.2 (1978): 148–74. Although Cumont was the first to recognize that the M.d. Animale (fig. 1.5) – excavated by Visconti in 1867 but misidentified – was in fact a mithraeum, he claimed that it was the earliest one at Ostia, dating from the early part of the 2nd cent. (The Mysteries of Mithra, 179; Cumont, Textes et monuments, no. 295). Finally, he dated the M.d. Palazzo Imperiale to before 162 C.E. (so Cumont, The Mysteries of Mithra, 65–67; Textes et monuments, no. 83). In each of the last two cases, the dating was based on inscriptions found in situ, but which are now known to be in secondary use. Both cases will be discussed further below. 18 As noted above (n. 5) we shall use this abbreviated form for the names of the individual Ostian mithraea. 19 Becatti, SdO II, 143; Meiggs, Roman Ostia, 374. 20 See Gismondi in Scavi di Ostia I: Topographia Generale (ed. G. Calza; Roma: Libreria dello Stato), 181–211 [hereafter SdO I] and Meiggs, Roman Ostia, 535–553. For recent reconsiderations of these older typologies at Ostia, especially for the later periods, see T. L. Heres, Paries: A Proposal for a Dating System of Late-Antique Masronry Sturctues in Rome and Ostia (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1982) and J. M. Spurza, A New Study of the Palazzo Imperiale at Ostia (unpublished PhD Dissertation, Princeton University, 1999).

446

L. Michael White

radiate crown was Attis.21 Cumont (1896/99) was the first to recognize it as a mithraeum, but he dated it to before ca. 140 and calls it “the most ancient mithraeum known to us.”22 His assumptions were based on two inscriptions with consular notations found in the mithraeum;23 however, both originally came from the Magna Mater sanctuary instead and only moved there secondarily.24 Becatti generally followed suit, dating the construction of the earlier edifice to the reign of Trajan (98–117), but he rightly recog21  Visconti presumably thought it was of a similar type to the famous emasculated Attis with radiate crown that he found the same year in the portico of the Magna Mater sanctuary; however, the hairstyles are quite different, as later noted by Cumont. A Persian cap belonging to this statue was found later by Visconti and was used by Cumont in properly identifying the statue as a Helios-Mithras in a tauroctone group (Becatti, SdO II, 90). Also, the actual sanctuary of Attis from the Magna Mater precincts had not been found at the time of Visconti’s earlier excavations; it only came to light when the eastern half of the complex was excavated in 1938–40. Also on this statue of Mithras see nn. 39 and 40 below. 22  Cumont, Textes et monuments, 414–18; The Mysteries of Mithras, 67, 179. See n. 17 above. Cumont also assumed from the proximity of the M.d. Animale to the Magna Mater temple that the two cults “traveled together” and that there was considerable interaction between them; cf. F. Cumont, Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism (ET from the 2nd French edition; London: Routledge & Sons, 1911; reprint New York: Dover, 1956), 65–67. He further assumed, based on Visconti’s finds, that there was more interaction between the two cults. In reality, there is little or no evidence of a direct relation between the cults as such, although it is possible that certain individuals might be members of both. 23 Cumont, Textes et monuments, nos. 560 d and e. 24 The two inscriptions are CIL 14.33 (Vermaseren, CIMRM, 285) and CIL 14.67 (Vermaseren, CIMRM, 286). They date to 143 and 142 C.E. respectively, based on consular notations in the inscription (Torquatus and Herodes [Atticus] in the first; L. Cuspius Rufinus and L. Statius Quadratus in the second). They were among several inscribed marble bases reportedly found by Visconti in the “initiation hall” (later identified as the mithraeum; see n. 21 above). All of these inscriptions were honorifics for members of the dendrophoroi, a collegium within the Magna Mater cult whose members performed special ritual duties in conjunction with the Megalensium, the principal festival of the Cybele cult in Rome. The confusion of Visconti and Cumont was perhaps understandable given the fact that these monuments seem to have been moved to the mithraeum at some later point in time, perhaps in the early 3rd cent., when their dedicators and honorees were no longer around, and perhaps after the mithraeum had been abandoned. It is just possible that they were stored there by officials of the Magna Mater cult or of the dendrophoroi themselves. The Schola of the Dendrophoroi is shown on fig. 2, the suite of rooms (no. 10) along the northern side of the Magna Mater sanctuary. The one farthest to the west, immediately opposite the mithraeum, was clearly added or enlarged in the fourth century. The Magna Mater sanctuary was refurbished in the later fourth cent. under the auspices of a local vir clarissimus named Volusianus. This may be C. Ceionius Rufus Volusianus Lampadius, praefectus Urbi in 365–366 C.E. Similarly, one of the clearly mithraic inscriptions associated with M.d. Animale (CIL 14.70), to be discussed below, was actually found moved to the nearby Schola of the Dendrophoroi (IV.1.10) in the Magna Mater sanctuary. Taken together, these facts suggest that the M.d. Animale had gone out of operation by the late third or fourth century. It is thus possible that the space had been taken over by the Dendrophoroi, who added the western hall (10) sometime in the 4th cent. This fact would also help to explain Cumont’s false assumptions regarding a more direct connection between the two cults. See n. 22 above and n. 40 below.

The Changing Face of Mithraism at Ostia

447

nized that the two inscriptions noted by Cumont were in secondary usage in the mithraeum.25 Becatti then shifted the installation of the mithraeum to “second half of the second century, perhaps around 160” based on two key considerations: first, the mosaics and statuary appear to be more in line with the later second and early third century styles, and second, that the introduction of the mithraic sanctuary came after the construction of the precincts of the Magna Mater sanctuary, which was placed in the Hadrianic to early Antonine period.26 Here the masonry of the mithraeum complex is an important clue to the history of its construction. The early precinct walls of the Magna Mater sanctuary, as well as the podium beneath the Metroon (or Temple of Cybele) and the altar in front of it, were made of Opus reticulatum (see fig. 2). This type of masonry may generally be dated to the Julio-Claudian period and probably represents the earliest phase of the present Magna Mater sanctuary.27 The Metroon and other areas of the sanctuary were substantially rebuilt in the Hadrianic period, once again near the end of the second cent. C.E., and at least twice more in the third and fourth centuries, respectively. Part of this early perimeter wall extends to the north and defines the western boundary of the next block to the north (IV.2), where the mithraeum was installed in its southwest corner. Both the southern and western walls of the mithraeum preserve portions of this early Opus reticulatum wall, but only in the lower courses (figs. 3 and 4a, b). Prior to introduction of the mithraeum, however, the perimeter wall of Block IV.2 had been rebuilt in Opus 25 Becatti, SdO II, 92. The dating of the construction by the original excavators, at least as understood in the time of Becatti, is taken from the master index of SdO I: 233–38. 26 Becatti, SdO II, 92: “Lo stile dei mosaici […] un gusto che se inquadra meglio nel II che nel III secolo d.C, e anche le due sculture trovate dal Visconti hanno la levigatura e la tecnica della seconda metà del II secolo d.C., onde penserei che dopo la costruzione del tempio della Magna Mater, […] sia sorto il mitreo nella seconda metà del II secolo d.C. forse intorno al 160 d.C.” Both Vermaseren (CIMRM, no. 278) and Squarciapino (Culti Orientali ad Ostia, 49) follow Becatti’s date. J-T. Bakker is more cautious, merely saying “second half of the second century;” his caution is justified, as I discuss below. 27 These precinct walls were built along the city wall on the southern side of the complex, where a portico was added later, probably in the Hadrianic or early Antonine period. Recent archaeological and epigraphic studies have shown that the city wall dates to no earlier than about 60–50 B.C.E. Hence, the sanctuary was installed here at some time well afterward. The layout of the precincts dates to the Augustan or Tiberian period, while the development of the sanctuary proper dates to middle years of the first cent. C.E. On the date of the city walls, see now F. Zevi, “Cicero and Ostia,” in Ostia, Cicero, Gamal, Feasts, and the Economy: Papers in Memory of John H. D’arms (eds. A. Gallina Zevi and J. H. Humphrey; JRA Supplements 57; Portsmouth: Journal of Roman Archaeology, 2004), 15–31 and Heinzelmann, “Ostia, Regio III. Untersuchungen in den unausgegrabenen Bereichen des Stadtgebietes. Vorbericht zur dritten Grabungskampagne 2000,” 320–24. On the phases of the Cybele sanctuary see now Mar, et al., “Sanctuarios y urbanismo en Ostia. La excavación en el campo de Cibeles,” in Atti del II Colloquio Internazionale su Ostia Antica, 20–22.

448

L. Michael White

latericium and heavily reinforced. The phases and process of rebuilding can be seen in the presence of an earlier doorway in the western perimeter wall, just beside the altar platform (see figs. 3 and 4a).28 It belonged to the earlier construction in Opus reticulatum, but was later sealed with rough blocks, probably before the wall was rebuilt in Opus latericium. Sometime after the perimeter wall was rebuilt, the shops and rooms around the open “Southwest Court” (IV.2.10, 11–14) were added using Opus latericium and Opus mixtum. This rebuilding most likely dates to the Hadrianic period (117–138), based on the type of bricks used;29 however, there was a later Severan phase of remodeling. The general lay-out of the southwestern quarter of the block thus corresponds to the first (Trajanic-Hadrianic) phase of the construction of the bath complex (Terme del Faro) in the southeastern quarter of the block (IV.2.1). The double hall with piers (B–D, figs. 2 & 3) that would eventually become the southern part of the mithraeum was constructed sometime later, probably in the Hadrianic or early Antonine period, by using this new perimeter wall as its western face (see figs. 3 and 4b). Its construction may be contemporaneous with the second phase of the Terme del Faro, which can be dated to the reign of Marcus Aurelius (160–180).30 The double hall (B–D) itself seems to have had either a double barrel vault or a series of double arches, carried by three bays with four piers each.31 In form this hall bears some similarity to service rooms or cisterns known from other bath complexes or commercial loggia in Ostia.32 The northern section of the mithraeum (Rm E and area A), where the sealed doorway was located, seems to have originally been an open area at the entrance to the double hall adjacent to the southernmost rooms of Edifice 10 (perhaps apartments or shops). This adjacent edifice (10) continued to be accessible during the mithraeum phase by a narrow door (H) beside the altar platform. plan (his fig. 19 on SdO II, 89, drawn by Giorgio Pascolini) did not show this door, nor the fact that the lower portion of this section of the wall up to the door is actually in Opus reticulatum, while the upper sections and the continuation of the wall to the north of the doorway are in Opus latericium; see fig. 4a and b. 29 The grand Hadrianic building program at Ostia took place in the mid-120’s, but some of the larger projects, such as the Terme di Porta Marina, were not completed until well after his death. On the Hadrianic building program see Meiggs, Roman Ostia, 35–41 and Becatti’s treatment of the urban development in Calza, SdO I, 129–150. 30 It should be noted that the Terme del Faro received a new cistern (Rm 13) during its Antonine renovation (ca. 160–180). See M. A. Ricciardi and V. S. M. Scrinari, La Civiltà dell’Acqua in Ostia Antica vol. 2 (Rome: Fratelli Polombi Editori, 1996), 171–72 (s. 36). 31 Two of these rows had free-standing piers, but on the west they were set against the perimeter wall. On the north, they were integrated (as pilasters) into the side wall, which was likewise a new construction in Opus latericium. 32 Compare the loggia (also from the Hadrianic-Antonine period) in which was installed the M.d. Planta Pedis; cf. the Appendix below and fig. 15. 28 Becatti’s

The Changing Face of Mithraism at Ostia

449

In other words, the mithraeum was constructed by combining the earlier double hall (B–D) to the south with a portion of Edifice 10 (E–A); the mithraeum proper (E–D) measured 16.30 × 4.30 m. The presence of stairs in the outer areas indicates that there were upper floors at least over some portion of Edifice 10, and perhaps over the double hall as well. Whatever its original uses, this area was only converted into a mithraeum at some later point in time, probably from the later Antonine period down to the end of the second century. Based on other epigraphic evidence, a more precise date at the end of this range will be suggested below. The northern crossing wall of Rm E and the altar platform (G) seem to be of a later construction at the time the mithreaum was built; the steps and antae of the platform use Opus vittatum and Opus latericium (see fig. 5). The adaptation of these two spaces for use as a mithraeum resulted in an unusual pattern of access and layout. First one approached the mithraeum (fig. 2) either from the back of the bath complex or from the “Southwest Court” (IV.2.10–14) via the courtyard of the Cassegiato dell’Ercole (IV.2.3). The latter, in turn, had entrances from the far side of the block either from the Cardo Maximus or the northern perimeter street, the Via della Caupona. One could also enter the “Southwest Court” through the commercial building (IV.2.7) directly to the North along the Via della Caupona. Thus, while the mithraeum was far removed from the street, its entry area was directly off a generally “public” space with a good bit of commercial traffic. Given the rather small size of the sanctuary, one can imagine that the majority of its members were from the immediate neighborhood.33 The entrance (A) was from the northwestern side, or “front” of the mithraeum (fig. 3), where a thin partition wall separated this outer entry area from the altar platform (G); another balustrade was installed to partition the two halls (B & D) of the southern edifice. One then passed into the outer hall (B) to turn into the rear of vestibule D at C. The piers in the vestibule (D) then served as niches flanking the central aisle; the area was revetted in marble but had no podia or seating areas. The niches may have originally contained statuary or other art on the walls, but nothing remains. Only the black and white mosaic from the central aisle is still in situ (figs. 5 and 7). The small spelaeum proper was installed in the front room E, with podia F (L. 4.50, W. 1.50 m) on either side of the central aisle (W. 1.30 m). If these were the only podia the capacity of this mithraeum was rather small, about 15–18 people (see the Catalogue, column 7).34 J.-T. Bakker suggests, however, that portable couches might have been used in room D, perhaps

33 We

34 See

shall return to this point later in the study. the discussion below on “spatial considerations” (pp. 433–436).

450

L. Michael White

in some of the niches; area H was a narrow passageway adjacent to the altar platform (G) that led to a doorway into Edifice 10.35 The altar platform (G, fig. 4c) measures L. 1.70, W. 2.40 m, and H. 1.40 m. It is one of the “thronum” types, in which square antae or pilasters (resembling the “arms” of a chair) extend on either side of the steps rising to total height of 0.55 m.36 On top of the platform (H. 1.40 m) stood an aedicula, and presumably this is where the tauroctone statue group was situated. As noted earlier, the head and Phrygian cap of a tauroctone group were discovered in the Visconti excavations; the head and hat had holes for metal “rays” of a solar crown. The head and neck alone measure 46 cm in height, and it appears that this statue was a full round tauroctone scultpure of some scale. Becatti compares it in scale, style, and date to the statue by Criton the Athenian from the M.d. Terme del Mitra.37 If it were as large as the Criton statue (L. 1.93; H. 1.70 m), then the ceiling at M.d. Animale would have to be at least ca. 3.25 m. in height (at the present floor level, which is likely higher than the original). The large latericium piers at the crossing wall with Edifice 10 suggest that the front hall of the spelaeum (E) was also given a vaulted ceiling or that they used the arch of the aedicula to create a cave effect. The height of these ceilings may be a further indication of the scale of the original hall B–D and perhaps a hint at its function. With this we turn to the one piece of clearly datable evidence known from the environs of this mithraeum, a dedication naming the pater and saceredos M. C(a)erellius Hieronymus (CIL 14.70; CIMRM no 282). This same person shows up on the roster of the Collegium fabrum tignuariorum (or Builders Guild) dating to 198 C.E. (CIL 14.4569, Dec. III.7).38 As noted earlier, this inscription was actually found nearby in the Schola of the Dendrophoroi, just across the wall in the Magna Mater sanctuary (IV.1.10); other than the mosaic floors with their mithraic symbols and two 35 On the portable couches see J-T. Bakker, Living and Working with the Gods. Studies of Evidence for Private Religion and its Material Environment in the City of Ostia (100– 500 AD) (Amsterdam: Giessen, 1994), 115; on the passageway, see Becatti, SdO II, 87. 36 This type is found in the M.d. Aldobrandini, M.d. Pareti Dipinti, M.d. Palazzo Imperiale, and M.d. Serpenti. In case of the first two there is also an inscription that refers to it as a thronum. See Becatti, SdO II, 40 (CIL 14.4314) and 60 (Vermaseren, CIMRM, nos. 233 and 266 respectively). I will argue below that there is also an epigraphic reference to this altar G as a thronum that came originally from M.d. Animale; see n. 60. 37 See nn. 17, 21, and 39; for the Criton tauroctone, see Becatti, SdO II, 32–34 and Tav. XXVII–XXX; Tav. XXXI shows the comparisons between the head of the Criton (1) statue with that from M.d. Animale; see also Vermaseren, CIMRM, nos. 230–231 and fig. 69. 38 In the guild roster, his name is given as Cerell(ius) Ieroni(mus), with no “H” and an “I” instead of a “Y” (as in CIL 14.70). The spelling is similar to that used in CIL 14.4313 (Caerelius Hieronimus), found in the M.d. Diana, on which see below. Becatti says, however, they are “most probably” the same person; see Becatti, SdO II, 13 and Vermaseren, CIMRM, no. 222 (both in relation to the M.d. Diana). For sake of consistency, I will hereafter use the spelling Caerellius Hieronimus in discussion of all three inscriptions.

The Changing Face of Mithraism at Ostia

451

fragments of marble statuary of Mithras,39 it is the only clearly mithraic testimony remaining in or near the sanctuary. Becatti, of course, noted the later date for Hieronimus but assumed that his role in the mithraeum came from a secondary phase of its operation; he also thought that Hieronimus might be a priest of Attis as well, although this now seems most unlikely.40 Instead, it seems that the inscription was probably moved to the Schola of the Magna Mater sanctuary only after the mithraeum had gone out of use, at which time other, more portable, objects were transferred to a another location.41 As will be discussed below, the dedications of Hieronimus included a thronum, as an altar platform, which seems to belong architecturally to M.d. Animale, and thus suggest that he was responsible for the architectural layout of the sanctuary.42 Without any other clear indication of date, the Hieronimus inscription would suggest that the M.d. Animale was built ca. 198 C.E. This date also fits better with the style of the black and white mosaics in the central aisle, as earlier noted by Becatti. There also does not seem to be any indication of a secondary renovation of the mithraeum. Thus, it likely continued in use until some time in the mid- to later third century, at which time it seems to have been abandoned. But the cult proper, or at least its movable artifacts, were removed to another location.43 Where is not certain, but recent archaeological work on the M.d. Diana may offer a possibility.

39 One of these was a head with seven holes in the hair for fastening metal rays. It was originally identified by Visconti as Attis (see above n. 19). A Phrygian cap found later also belongs to this statue. The head and neck alone measure 46 cm in height, and it appears that this statue was a full round tauroctone group of some scale. Becatti compares it in scale, style, and date to the statue by Criton the Athenian from the M.d. Terme del Mitra. See Becatti, SdO II, 90–91 and Tav. XXXI.2–3; Vermaseren, CIMRM, no. 280. 40 Becatti, SdO II, 92. Based on the wording of CIL 14.70, Becatti speculated that Hieronimus might have held a priesthood in the cult of Attis; however, the titles used in the this inscription (pater, sacerdos, and antistes) are typically mithraic. On these titles see White, Social Origins II: no. 82 n. 152 and no. 88a,b nn. 182, 184. CIL 14.4313 (see nn. 47 & 63) further confirms that Hieronimus was a priest of Mithras as Sol Invictus (sacerdos Solis). 41 Quite a number of other monuments were moved into the Magna Mater sanctuary during its third and fourth century renovations. 42 The inscription is CIL 14.4313, which was found in the vicinity of the M.d. Diana. See nn. 39–40 and 62–63. 43 There is increasing evidence for significant earthquake damage at Ostia. One apparently large earthquake event seems to have occurred in around 275 C.E. While there is nothing specific to suggest that this mithraeum was damaged or destroyed at this time, I do note with some curiosity two aspects of the site’s state of preservation: (1) there were very few objects found in the ruins, only a few marble fragments and the in situ mosaics, which also show some damage; (2) there is no report of the roof remains, especially in Room E, which must have been added, or at least rebuilt, at the time of the construction as mithraeum, nor of the upper sections of the walls. Altogether these facts suggest that the edifice was abandoned and all the portable contents removed already in ancient times.

452

L. Michael White

2.2 Mitreo del Caseggiato di Diana (I.3.3–4; Cat. no. 13; figs. 6–8) In similar manner, it was once thought that the M.d. Diana, dated by Calza to the early Antonine period (ca. 140 C.E.), was also one of the earliest known in the Roman empire.44 This supposition seems to be dependent more than anything on the cramped and rather “primitive” character of the sanctuary, installed secondarily in two vaulted rooms at the back of an early Antonine insula or apartment building (fig. 6a).45 Becatti, on the other hand, had dated the edifice to ca. 150 and the installation of the mithraeum to the very end of the second century (ca. 198).46 His basis was an inscription (CIL 14.4313; CIMRM 223b), noted above, that seems to pair the pater and principal donor of the M.d. Diana, M. Lollianus Callinicus, with the priest, M. Caerellius Hieronimus. The latter is known from the guild roster of the Collegium fabrum tignuariorum (or builders guild) for the year 198 C.E. (CIL 14.4569, Dec. III.7), while the inscription discussed previously (CIL 14.70) associates him with the M.d. Animale.47 Recent archaeological work (1994–97) on the Caseggiato di Diana complex has shown, however, that the original edifice dated to the Hadrianic period (117–138), but that it had been substantially rebuilt several times prior to the construction of the mithraeum. The second edifice (fig. 7, Phase II) dates to the early Antonine period; it contained a large marble fountain in the cortile (30) and an opus sectile triclinium suite (Rms 27/28).48 It was then renovated at the very end of the second century (Phase III) and substantially rebuilt (Phase IV) again sometime between 225–250,49 especially 44 The edifice was excavated by Calza in 1914–15; Becatti, SdO II, 9; cf. Vermaseren, CIMRM, no. 216 and White, Social Origins II, no. 79. The edifice is often called the Casa di Diana, as in Becatti and C. Pavolini, Ostia. Guide Archeologiche Laterza (rev. ed. Bari: Editori Laterza, 2006), 84–87; however, the designation caseggiato has now become more standard at Ostia for this type of insula or apartment building; cf. J. E. Packer, The Insulae of Imperial Ostia (MAAR 31; Bergamo: Istituto Italiano d’arti grafiche, 1971), 127–134 and 94 (plans 2 & 3). 45  Later evidence to the contrary, in the form of datable inscriptions, was assumed to reflect ongoing usage and later adaptations. See Becatti, SdO II, 13. 46 Becatti, SdO II: 9; followed by Vermaseren, CIMRM, nos. 216 and 223; Squarciapino, Culti Orientali ad Ostia, 39; Packer, The Insulae of Imperial Ostia, 133. 47 See also at n. 39 above and nn. 62–63 below. One other inscription bearing the name of Lollianus Callinicus clearly comes from the M.d. Diana – CIL 14.4310, found inscribed on the altar in the sanctuary; it reads: M. Lollianus / Callinicus pater / aram deo / do(num) de(dit) (cf. Vermaseren, CIMRM, no. 220). 48 The room numbers used here are those of Marinucci rather than those of Packer, The Insulae of Imperial Ostia, plans 2–3. 49 For the new excavations see S. Falzone, “Alcune riflessioni sulla decorazione pittorica della Casa di Diana,” in Atti del II Colloquio Internazionale su Ostia Antica, 149–163, A. Marinucci, “La distribuzione dell’acqua nella cosiddetta Casa di Diana,” in Atti del II Colloquio Internazionale su Ostia Antica, 32–35, A. Marinucci and S. Falzone, “La Maison de Diane (I iii 3–4),” in Ostie – port et porte de la Rome antique, 230–244,

The Changing Face of Mithraism at Ostia

453

on the northern side of the edifice, after it was partially destroyed by fire. In its final phase (V), dated between 250–350, the front room of the edifice (31) was converted into a stable. Among other features, the rebuilding of Phase IV involved raising the ground floor level as much as 60 cm (including covering over the fountain in the cortile and covering the opus sectile of Rm 28 with a plain black and white mosaic) and construction of a new cross vault in the northwest apartments (Rms 25 & 26, later the mithraeum) by taking over a portion of the adjacent triclinium, including all of Rm 27 and the eastern wing of Rm 2850 (see figs. 7 & 8a). While the footprint of the building remained the same, the interior configuration of rooms on the northern side changed dramatically. This new layout of the ground floor apartments was also carried through the upper stories.51 Specifically, it means that the west partition wall between rooms 25/26 and 28 was completely rebuilt from the ground level upward. Consequently, the rebuilding project of Phase IV must have involved demolition of some portion of the superstructure of the edifice, including the vaulted ceilings of the first floor, at least along the northern side.52 Finally, Rms 25 & 26 received a black and white mosaic floor and was painted with geometric frescoes of a late Severan style dating from the 3rd cent. renovation (fig. 8b,c).53 The frescoes were apparently retained when the suite of rooms was converted to a mithraeum, even though they have no visible mithraic themes.54 Since the renovations to create the mithraeum are clearly secondary to this last major rebuilding, it now appears that its establishment should be dated and A. Marinucci and A. Pellegrino, “Pavimenti musivi della cosiddetta Casa di Diana Ostia,” in Atti del VI Colloquio dell’AISCOM, 225–232. The dates for the five phases of the edifice are Marinucci’s, but there are some questions still remaining as his final reports on the new excavations have not yet been published. See also Pavolini, Ostia, 85 who employs Marinucci’s phases. 50 The remnant of the earlier partition wall and threshold between 25 & 27 as well as a section of the opus sectile floor of the earlier triclinium suite can now be seen beneath the mosaic floor of the mithraeum. See fig. 7a. 51 See Packer, The Insulae of Imperial Ostia, 132–4 and Pl. 3. 52 In Rms 27–28 and 25–26, it appears that the walls of the ground floor were razed to approximately 60 cm above the opus sectile floor of Phase II, and thus at about the same level as the floors of Phase IV. See fig. 7a. The front (southern) portions of the edifice show less damage; in Rms. 31, 7, 8, and 4 substantial portions of late Antonine frescoes from Phase II, are well preserved. See S. Falzone, “Alcune riflessioni sulla decorazione pittorica della Casa di Diana,” 155–7; idem, Ornata Aedificia: Pitture parietali dale case ostiense (Rome: Libreria dello Stato, 2007), 110–21. 53 Falzone, “Alcune riflessioni sulla decorazione pittorica della Casa di Diana,” 150–51. The same type of frescoes are found in Rm. 22 and in the second story rooms along the street. 54 The portion of the frescoes preserved on the west and south walls of Rm. 25, just above the level of the 3rd cent. black and white mosaic (fig. 7b,c respectively) would have been covered by the podia of the mithraeum later installed in that room.

454

L. Michael White

to Phase V, in the mid-third century, if not later.55 A late date is also suggested by the fact that the altar of the mithraeum, which has a dedication by Lollianus Callinicus (CIL 14.4310), was reused from some sort of shrine to Hercules; it contains an inscription (CIL 14.4280: AQUA SALVIA / HERCLI • SACR) on the reverse side, which was placed upside-down against the wall of the aedicula.56 Given the revised date for the installation of the mithraeum in Rms. 25–26, it may well be that a number of mithraic objects were reused here from another mithraeum. This possibility is suggested by two other inscriptions found at Ostia. One (CIL 14.4311) is a dedication on an architrave made by the same Lollianus Callinicus and Petronius Felix to the mithraic nemesis Ahriman (Ariminium); it was found in 1899 some distance away in the Via della Fontana (Reg. II.6), immediately to the west of the Terme di Nettuno.57 The other (CIL 14.70) is the mithraic dedication by Caerellius Hieronimus, designated pater and sacerdos, discussed above. It seems therefore that Hieronimus was probably a member of the earlier mithraic conventicle, M.d. Animale (IV.2.11; figs. 1.5).58 It appears also that the thronum mentioned in the other inscription (CIL 14.4313) as dedicated by Hieronimus and Callinicus  – if Callinicus’ name is restored correctly there59 – referred originally to a feature of the M.d. Animale, most probably

55 Marinucci placed the introduction of the mithraeum at ca. 250, at the beginning of his Phase V; however, he may be overly optimistic. For Jan-Theo Bakker’s review of Marinucci’s thesis regarding the building, with some alternatives as to usage and dating, see http://www.ostia-antica.org/regio1/3/3-3p3.htm. 56 See also n. 45 above. Becatti, SdO II, 12; Meiggs, Roman Ostia, 350. The inscription had been subsequently modified to read AQUAE SALVIAE / ET HERCLI • SACR prior to its reuse and recutting by Callinicus. Whether this was an actual temple of Hercules – the status of which at Ostia has been something of a puzzle (cf. Meiggs, Roman Ostia, 347–50; D. R. Boin, “A Hall for Hercules at Ostia and a Farewell to the Late Antique ‘Pagan Revival,’” AJA 114 (2010): 253–266)  – or some other sort of shrine, perhaps a sacred spring, cannot be ascertained. The altar had been broken before it was reused in the mithraeum; the remaining portion was found in 1940 in situ along the southern Cardo Maximus, where it had been reused in the construction of a wall (cf. Becatti, “Nuovo documento del culto di Ercole a Ostia,” Bullettino della Commissione archeologica Comunale di Roma 70 (1942): 115–120). The hole in the middle of the altar was cut at the time of Callinicus’ tertiary reworking; however, the wreath carved onto the reverse face from the original inscription was already present. On the late continuation of traditional cults, such as that of Hercules, and specifically the fourth century restoration of a cellam Herculis, see now Boin, “A Hall for Hercules at Ostia and a Farewell to the Late Antique ‘Pagan Revival.’” See also n. 34 below. 57 Becatti, SdO II, 13; cf. Vermaseren, CIMRM, nos. 221 and 222. For the text, see n. 63 below. 58 Becatti, SdO II, 13 and 92; cf. Vermaseren, CIMRM, no. 282. See the discussion above. 59 See nn. 62–63 below.

The Changing Face of Mithraism at Ostia

455

the stepped altar platform.60 Moreover, the aedicula of the M.d. Diana is not a true “thronum” in form.61 There is, however, a further interpretation of the material evidence, if we consider the possibility that the dedication of Lollianus Callinicus and Petronius Felix (CIL 14.4312) is not contemporaneous with that of Caerellius Hieronimus (14.4313). The two inscriptions are on opposite faces of the same marble slab but are in different hands.62 More importantly, the Hieronimus inscription (4313) does not actually preserve the name of Callinicus. Close study of the inscription leads me now to doubt seriously that the previous restoration of Becatti, followed by Vermaseren, is correct.63 60  The altar platform of M.d. Animale (see fig. 4c) is more of a “thronum” type, as seen in several of the other mithraea of Ostia, including M.d. Aldobrandini, M.d. Pareti Dipinti, and M.d. Palazzo Imperiale. It has a large rectangular base (2.40 × 1.70 m), with three steps stretching across the front. The steps rise to a height of 55 cm, less than halfway to the top of the platform (1.40 m), and are framed left and right with “arms” that are the same height as the platform, thus giving the appearance of a throne. The inscription from the M.d. Aldobrandini (CIL 14.4314) refers to a thronum that has been subsequently revetted with marble in a renovation; cf. Becatti, SdO II, 40; Vermaseren, CIMRM, no. 233; White, Social Origins II, 369–70 (no. 80). An inscription from the altar platform of M.d. Pareti Dipinti (Ostia Inv. 7952; Becatti, SdOII, 60; Vermaseren, CIMRM, no. 266) also calls it a thronum. See also the discussion of the last inscription below at n. 189. 61  Becatti, SdO II, 14 assumes that the thronum refers to the aedicula of the M.d. Diana. Based on the discussion that follows, I could easily imagine Callinicus reusing the earlier inscription but recutting it to refer to some new feature in the M.d. Diana, including the aedicula itself. Unfortunately, the last portion of the inscription is too badly damaged to make out the object of the dedication. 62 The hands of the two inscriptions are noticeably different in execution of the letters as well as layout of the text on the slab, and the letters are of different size. Those of CIL 14.4312 (the inscription of Callinicus) are 2.5–3.4 cm in height, while those of 14.4313 (the inscription of Hieronimus) are only ca. 2.0 cm. The two inscriptions are shown in Becatti, SdO II, Tav. XXXIX, nos. 2 and 4. They are rather clearly not produced by the same stonecutter. 63 On this earlier date for M. Caerellius Hieronimus see CIL 14.4569 discussed at n. 38 above. This second inscription of Hieronimus (CIL 14.4313), an opisthograph with CIL 14.4312 on the reverse (the dedication by Callinicus), was found nearby, but not actually in, the Caseggiato di Diana complex; it was found a year earlier (1914) in a taberna in the adjacent insula (Reg. I.1–2) along the Decumanus. Since its discovery it has been associated with the Caseggiato di Diana mithraeum based solely on the presence of the name Callinicus. It should also be noted that the name of Callinicus is clearly present on this stone, but only in the inscription on the other side of the slab (4312), where he is named with Petronius Felix Marsus. The two are named together also in CIL 14.4311 (aster dedication to Ahriman) discussed above (see nn. 45 and 56). Callinicus’ presence in CIL 14.4313, however, is a conjectural restoration (see Becatti, SdO II, 14; cf. Vermaseren, CIMRM, no. 223), as only the final two letters [..vs] are preserved at the beginning of the third line. The text is as follows: M. M. Caer[ellius Hiero] / nimus et ̣ [………] / us sacerdo / tes Solis / thronum / fecerunt. Not reported by Becatti (nor discussed by either Becatti or Vemaseren) is the fact that a portion of a letter is preserved after the word et in line 2; it might be a C, G, O, or Q (as noted by the editor of CIL 14, L. Wickert). There is space for approximately 10 more letters after it. Needless to say, there are any number of other appropriate names or name combinations to fit the space, Callinicus being one of them.

456

L. Michael White

That is to suggest that Lollianus Callinicus and Petronius Felix were reusing an earlier mithraic inscription of Hieronimus, very likely taken from the M.d. Animale and datable to ca. 198, in constructing a new mithraeum in the Caseggiato di Diana in the later third century. A further possibility that has not previously been considered is that the altar reused in the M.d. Diana, with its earlier dedication to a sacred spring of Hercules, also came from one of the insulae or bath complexes adjacent to the M.d. Animale.64 In addition to the lettering, noted earlier, another factor arguing against his name as the proper restoration here is the fact that the gap is sufficient only for his cognmen, presumably (pace Becatti and Vermaseren) to be restored as ̣ [allinic] / us, with the C being the partially preserved letter on line 2. But if that were the case, the inscription clearly could not contain his trinomen (M. Lollianus Callinicus); there is not sufficient space and the partially preserved letter is clearly not an M or L. Moreover, the first line of the inscription clearly does give Hieronimus’ trinomen, and it would be odd in the etiquette of Roman dedications to give the full name for one but only the cognomen of the other, when they were of equal social rank and partners in the dedication. Yet every other Ostian mithraic inscription of M. Lollianus Callinicus (CIL 14.4310, 4311, and 4312) uses his full name. On these grounds, then, I rather seriously doubt that Callinicus was the co-dedicator of CIL 14.4313; the missing name was likely a trinomen beginning with one of the typically abbreviated praenomena, e.g., Cl(audius), G(aius), or Q(uintus). This leads naturally then to the further conclusion that the two inscriptions on this stone are not contemporaneous, as previously assumed. Gordon (“Who Worshipped Mithras? [Review Essay of Clauss 1992].” JRA 7 (1984): 459–74, here 472) briefly notes the problem of this inscription as read by Becatti and Vermaseren, and more specifically, as then discussed by M. Clauss, Cultores Mithrae. Die Anhängerschaft des Mithraskultes (HABES 10; Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1992), 34 nn. 11–13, where some of the information is further confused; cf. M. Clauss, The Roman Cult of Mithras: The God and His Mysteries ( ET by R. L. Gordon; London: Routledge, 2001), 139. 64 For the altar see n. 56 above. It is worth noting, then, that the main entrances into the block of buildings (IV.2.1–14) in which the M.d. Animale (IV.2.11) was located, just the north of the Magna Mater sanctuary (IV.1.1–10), is now called the Cassegiato e Portico dell’Ercole (IV.2.2–4) because of a small tufa relief of Hercules found there; see fig. 2. The Caseggiato dell’Ercole was initially built during the reign of Marcus Aurelius (160–180) but expanded in the late Antonine period. The western half of the complex seems to have housed the showroom of the Ostian painters. In the center of this insula was a long paved courtyard entered either from the south from the Cardo Maximus (through the portico along the street, IV.2.2) or from north from the Via della Caupona by a grand vestibule (at IV.2.3.25). From this courtyard one could enter the Terme del Faro (IV.2.1) to the south, where it abutts the perimeter wall of the Magna mater sanctuary or pass through to the “Southwest Court” and its surrounding insulae. The M.d. Animale lies in this rear area, also abutting the perimeter wall of the Magna Mater sanctuary. Finally, it is worth noting that the courtyard of the Caseggiato dell’Ercole contains a small covered water basin at its southern end and nearby the large cistern (IV.2.1.13) that supplied the Terme del Faro and the basin in the courtyard. Since the displaced fragment of the altar from M.d. Diana was also found along the southern Cardo, one wonders if it might have originated in or near this complex, adjacent to the M.d. Animale. Finally, I note that the later fourth cent. cellam Herculis inscription (AE 1941 no. 66; 1948, no. 127) discussed by Boin, “A Hall for Hercules at Ostia and a Farewell to the Late Antique ‘Pagan Revival,’” was actually found in the Via del Pomerio, near the southern end of the Tempio Rotunda (near I.10.4 and IV.4.7), and thus just to the north of this area but on its western side. It is noteworthy, then, that

The Changing Face of Mithraism at Ostia

457

Taken together, these factors seem to suggest that the installation of the M.d. Diana represents a late relocation and “scaling down” of the M.d. Animale.65 In light of this scenario, then, we would suggest that some of the monuments of Callinicus associated with the M.d. Diana (including the two inscriptions CIL 14.4312 and 4311)66 had been subsequently reused or spoliated after it went out of use. Since both inscriptions pair M. Lollianus Callinicus with the same co-dedicator, Petronius Felix, a Marsus,67 it now seems best to associate them with the late third century installation of the M.d. Diana. As for its discontinuation, a mid‑ (late ?) fourth century date is possible, but it is merely a guess based on the dispersal of its monuments.68 In any event, it does not appear that there were any subsequent phases of the Via del Pomerio continues to the south after a slight bend as the Via di Iside and, if continued to the southern city wall, would have bounded the western side of the blocks along the southern Cardo. See fig. 2. M. Heinzelmann’s new city plan (see Heinzelmann, “Neue Untersuchungen in den unausgegrabenen Gebieten von Ostia: Luftbildauswertung und geophysikalische Prospektionen,” and Heinzelmann-Martin, “Rediscovering a ‘Well-Known’ City: Final Results of a Joint DAI-AAR Urbanistic Research Project at Ostia”) suggests that the Via di Iside did exactly that, bending again sharply to the east to run nearly parallel to the southern Cardo along the western side of IV.1–3 and coming to the city wall very near the western edge of the Campo della Magna Mater. (I have added the putative route of the southern portions of the Via di Iside to Fig. 4, based on Heinzelmann’s unpublished plan.) The Via della Caupona would have intersected both streets, bounding the northern perimeter of the entire area of Reg. IV.1 and 2. Although Boin, “A Hall for Hercules at Ostia and a Farewell to the Late Antique ‘Pagan Revival,’” makes a good case for a “hall of Hercules” in the Porta Marina Baths (IV.10.2), we might also consider whether there was something like a “spring of Hercules” associated with this complex known as the Caseggiato dell’Ercole along the southern Cardo and near the M.d. Animale. 65 The Terme del Faro adjacent to M.d. Animale were substantially renovated during the reign of Caracalla (211–217) and again at the end of the third cent. (275–300). One wonders, then, if this latter renovation also marked the end of usage of the mithraeum and the transfer of some of its membership and monuments to the Caseggiato di Diana. The reuse of the Hieronimus inscription in the M.d. Diana at least makes it a distinct possibility. 66  CIL 14.4312 (found with 4313 in a shop along the Decumanus in I.1–2): [M. Lollia] no Callinico / [patre Pe]tronius Felix / [Marsus sign]um deo / [donum] ded(it) / [….. ] atus xinu[ …..] / fecit. CIL 14.4311 (found in the Via della Fontana, Reg. II.6): [M(arco) L]olliano Callinico patre / [P]etronius Felix Marsus / signum Arimanium do(num) ded(it). 67 Marsus is rare as a proper name. It typically refers to someone from the tribe of the Marsi, who were famed as snake-handlers and magicians. At this late date it probably designates someone who practices magic associated with snakes. The prevalence of snakes in mithraic iconography is extensive, but the presence of Petronius Felix in this relative late mithraeum may suggest some sort of priestly function. 68 The area of the Via della Fontana (Reg. II.6), where CIL 14.4311 was found in 1899, shows evidence of continued use and renovation down to at least the first quarter of the fifth century, based on coins found in the Casa dell’Ercole Bambino (II.6.3–4), while the molino (Caseggiato delle Fornaci, II.6.7) at its northern end clearly has an early fourth century phase of construction. Another possibility is suggested by the presence of a medieval lime kiln found in one of the alleyways.

458

L. Michael White

renovation and repair in this mithraeum, and Marinucci’s phasing of the edifice ends at ca. 350 C.E. Finally, we should consider some of the spatial features and use of the mithraeum in light of its revised date. It is now rather clear that the M.d. Diana was only installed in the very rear quarters of the insula in Phase V (250–350), when the front quarters (rooms 31 and 22) had been converted into stables and the courtyard received a cistern. The ground floor of the insula does not seem to have any domestic use by this period. J.-T. Bakker has suggested that the stables were likely used for the animals that drove the mills in the bakery next door (Caseggiato dei Molini, I.3.1; see fig. 6B).69 It is also worth noting that the front corner of the molino (Rm 25; fig. 6B), abutting the Caseggiato di Diana, housed a Sancturay of Silvanus also used as an Imperial Cult sanctuary to Caracalla (211–217) and later Decius (249–251).70 Bakker has shown, too, how this sanctuary functioned in the public grain dole of Ostia via the streetfront shop (Rm 24).71 For sake of comparison, we note that a Sanctuary of Silvanus is also added in the suite surrounding the mithraeum of the Palazzo Imperiale complex, to which we shall turn next. A relief of Silvanus was also found in the M.d. Aldobrandini,72 while another dedication to Silvanus was found in the M.d. Planta Pedis.73 These facts lead to a few concluding observations about the M.d. Diana. First, with mostly commercial establishments on the ground floor and stabled animals just down the same narrow corridor (Rms 3, 18, 19c) that provided access to the mithraeum (see fig. 7, Phase V), one could hardly call the setting posh. The quarters are rather cramped, and the view of the altar from the rear podia is limited at best. At most, the podia could hold only about 14–16 people, and even that would be tight. Second, apart from the 69 He also notes that the gens M. Caerellii was represented by leading figures of the bakers guild of Ostia. See Bakker, Living and Working with the Gods, 145–67; 207–8; idem, “Les boulangeries a Moulin et les distributions de ble gratuites,” in Ostia – port et porte de la Rome; and http://www.ostia-antica.org/regio1/3/3-1.htm. One problem here is that the molino was previously assumed to have been destroyed by fire in ca. 275–300 C.E., very near the time that the mithraeum was installed but well after the rebuilding of the Caseggiato di Diana in ca. 225–250 (according to Marinucci’s dates). One wonders if the same fire that partially destroyed the molino also destroyed the rear portions of the Caseggiato di Diana. If so, it might have occurred either just before or, more likely, just after the Severan phase, while the later third cent. phases of the molino represent a partial rebuilding and continued use that involved the Caseggiato di Diana next door. 70 On the walls are a fresco of Caracalla and a graffito (CIL 14.4530) of Calpurnius, a local night watchman of the Seventh Cohort of Ostia (II.5.1 – Caserma dei Vigili) celebrating the emperor’s decannalia in 215 C.E. There is also evidence for imperial honorifics during the time of Decius, in the mid-third century. 71 See n. 69 above. 72 Becatti, SdO II, 43 and Tav. V.2 Vermaseren, CIMRM.; no. 236. 73 Becatti, SdO II, 84; Vermaseren, CIMRM, no. 276: Silvano / sancto / sacrum / Hermes / M. Iuli Eunici.

The Changing Face of Mithraism at Ostia

459

narrow corridor immediately outside, only Rm 24 might be thought to offer a vestibule or ancillary space for gathering and other mithraic activities. Yet, these areas would seem to afford very little privacy. While the large Rm 28 next door (the former triclinium) might have afforded a suitable space, there was no direct access as the earlier door from Rm 27 (later 25) to 28 was sealed. As we have already seen in the case of M.d. Animale, most of the other mithraea have such ancillary spaces, even when the spelaeum proper is rather small. One would guess that many of the shops of the ground floor were rented out, and we must wonder whether the mithraeum rooms were purchased outright or just rented, presumably by Lollianus Callinicus. Lastly, I note that a number of possibly mithraic ornaments were actually found in Rms 17–19 of the Caseggiato dei Molini next door, including a bronze statue of a scorpion and series of astrological reliefs on bronze sheets that resemble those typically associated with mithraea.74 They seem to have been affixed to the walls of this area of the molino. One wonders, then, if the mithraeum had some closer ties to the bakery workers next door, who in turn facilitated its installation in the neighboring insula. If so, it begins to suggest a different social location, group constituency, and spatial network for this particular mithraic conventicle. 2.3 Mitreo del Palazzo Imperiale (Reg. I; Cat. no. 7; figs. 9–10)75 Having now proposed that the M.d. Diana is actually a subsequent relocation of the M.d. Animale, we should now turn to the case of the M.d. Palazzo Imperiale, where something similar took place at the beginning of the third century. The so-called Palazzo Imperiale complex (fig. 9) was discovered by P. E. and C. L. Visconti, working under the auspices of Pope Pius IX, in 1857, and excavated from 1858–64. It was one of the first systematic M. F. Squarciapino, “Plachette con simboli dello Zodiaco,” ArchCl 5 (1953): 260–262, Tav. 1 & 2 and http://ostia-antica.org/regio 1/3/3-1.htm. They include both the constellations Sagittarius, Leo, Scorpio, and Gemini and the planets Mars, Venus, and Sol, each as a separate plaque. Compare the groups of symbols in the M.d. Animale and M.d. Sette Sfere. 75 Becatti, SdO II, 53–57 (followed by Vermaseren, CIMRM, no. 250 and Squarciapino, Culti Orientali ad Ostia, 44) lists it as being in Region III. This numbering is somewhat misleading and represents an older view of the city plan at Ostia. Reg. III represents the area to the west of the Via della Foce and north of the Decumanus, as shown on fig. 1. But at its discovery the Palazzo Imperiale complex was separated from the other excavated areas and was generally associated with the area to the west, i.e., Reg. III. In reality, however, the Via della Foce would have angled to the west and passed just south of the complex before intersecting the Tiber just beyond the inner harbor. Since the area to the east and above the Via della Foce is part of Reg. I in the official numbering system at Ostia, then, the Palazzo Imperiale complex is properly designated as Reg. 1, as is typically done now in most publications. Cf. Pavolini, Ostia, 128. 74 See

460

L. Michael White

excavations at Ostia.76 Many of the finds, including those from the mithraeum were removed to the Vatican. Its designation as an “Imperial Palace” is a misnomer.77 In reality it was an early Antonine balneum or bath complex flanked to the south by a large insula complex of the Severan period, made all the more impressive by its two courtyards with mosaic floors. On the north of the balneum were a Hadrianic warehouse and shops, later complemented by another Severan period insula.78 The baths, sometimes called the Terme di Antonino Pio, were built in ca. 145–50 under patronage from a member of the imperial family, Vibia Matidia the Younger (daughter of Trajan’s niece of the same name), the sister of Hadrian’s wife Vibia Sabina.79 The mithraeum itself, once called the Mitreo Visconti,80 was excavated in 1860–61.81 At that time it was the first to be fully excavated and conserved.82 76 The excavations did not reveal the entire complex. Subsequent excavations were undertaken in the 1880’s and 1980’s, and new excavations are currently being conducted by Dr. Joanne Spurza in collaboration with Dr. Gregoire Pocardi. 77 The title had become popular by the early 1900’s and especially after 1912 (Spurza, A New Study of the Palazzo Imperiale, 39–42); Paschetto, Ostia, Colonia Romana, 393 calls it “(un) signorile edificio variamente denominato ‘Terme Antonino’, ‘Palazzo Imperiale’, e anche ‘Palazzo di Gamala’.” That it was a imperial palace was a view garnered in part from the misapplication of the inscription accompanying the M.d. Fagan sculptures, which seemed to refer to a “(c)ryptam palati.” In the early excavation literature, it was usually called the “maritime baths” (terme marit(t)ime or terme marina, following the coinage of Visconti in the 19th cent.) or the “Terme Antonino (Pio);” cf. Spurza, A New Study of the Palazzo Imperiale, 6–8. Properly speaking, the Terme Maritime as now used at Ostia designates the bath complex in Reg. III.8.2 along the shore to the west of the so-called Garden Houses. This bath complex was probably discovered in the late 18th century, but not fully excavated. It could possibly be where the Fagan statues were found; however, no mithraeum was discovered in the later excavation of the building. For the name Terme Maritime as a source of further confusion in modern scholarship on mithraism, see below n. 95. 78 See Spurza, “Il cortile centrale del cosidetto Palazzo imperiale ad Ostia antica,” Archeologia laziale 10 (1990): 157–163; idem, “Redefining the ‘Palazzo Imperiale’ at Ostia,” AJA 94 (1990): 305–310; idem, “Urban Renewal at Severan Ostia: Keeping Up with the Antonines,” AJA 99 (1995): 318; idem, “The Building History of the Palazzo Imperiale at Ostia: Evolution of an Insula on the Banks of the Tiber River,” in Atti del II Colloquio Internazionale su Ostia Antica, 129–142; A New Study of the Palazzo Imperiale. For this discussion, I am dependent on Spurza’s exhaustive analysis of the history of excavations and her own on-going studies of the site. For her careful study of the history of excavation, see Spurza, A New Study of the Palazzo Imperiale, 1–47. 79 The scale of the complex and the fact that Visconti found a fistula with Matidia’s name on it, likely contributed to the assumption that it was an imperial palace. For the history of excavations see Spurza, A New Study of the Palazzo Imperiale, 15–47. 80 Paschetto, Ostia, Colonia Romana, 289. 81 On the history of the Visconti excavations of the mithraeum and its adjoining areas, see Spurza, A New Study of the Palazzo Imperiale, 24–37. 82 At the time of its discovery and excavation, the locations of the earlier finds by Fagan and Petrini were not known. The site of Petrini’s finds (M.d. Sette Sfere) would be “rediscovered” by Visconti in 1864, but not excavated until 1885–86. The M.d. Animale was discovered and excavated by Visconti in 1867.

The Changing Face of Mithraism at Ostia

461

Because of its large size (16.70 × 5.25 m in the spelaeum alone), regular plan, and suite of full round sculptures of Cautes and Cautopates, it immediately became important in the early studies of Mithraism.83 Moreover, both Cumont and Becatti assumed that it represented a fully developed mithraic “architecture” in the middle of the second century C.E., specifically “before 162.”84 The basis for this dating was the identical dedicatory inscriptions from the two bases of the statues of Cautes and Cautopates found in the mithraeum in semicircular niches in the middle of each podium85 (see fig. 10.). On the front of each base, the inscription in red letters identifies C. Caelius Ermeros, an antistes, as the donor, and on the side they carry a consular notation for the year 162 C.E. The full text is as follows (CIL 14.58, 59): on the left side POSITI • XV • K(alends) FEBRUARIAS Q • IVNIO RUSTICO (et) L • PLAV T[IO] cup   AQVI LIN[O]    CO(N)[S](ulibus)

on the front C. CAE [relief] LIVS ERMEROS • ANTISTES • HVIVS • LOCI • FECIT • SVA PEC(unia)

Translation: Erected on the 15th day of February, in the consulship of Q. Junius Rusticus and L. Plautius Aquilinus.

Translation: C. Caelius Ermeros, antistes of this place, made (this statue) from his own funds.

Another inscription of Caelius Ermeros (CIL 14.57) was found on the small marble altar centered on the first two steps of the platform.86 Subsequent discoveries allowed Visconti, followed by Becatti, to date the baths properly to the reign of Antoninus Pius; therefore, Becatti concluded from the Caelius Ermeros inscriptions that the mithraeum was installed a bit later, just at the beginning of the reign of Marcus Aurelius (160–180 C.E.).87 As The Mysteries of Mithra, 65–67. The Mysteries of Mithra, 67; Becatti, SdO II, 133. 85 Becatti, SdO II, 54. An 1860 engraving of the sanctuary at the time of excavation (SdO II, Tav. IX) shows the two statues on the altar platform flanking a tauroctone relief. No relief was found, although fragments of a statue group, probably a tauroctone, were found on the altar platform; see Becatti, SdOII, 56. Becatti clearly says, however, that the statues of Cautes and Cautopates came from the niches along the front of each podium. This fact is confirmed by Paschetto’s description of the Visconti finds (Ostia, Colonia Romana, 392). Becatti (SdO II, 134) also suggested that the Fagan sculptures might have come from the Palazzo Imperiale mithraeum, but on this point see n. 126 below. 86 In this case his name is spelled Hermaeros but the rest of text is the same as that on the front of the statue base above: C. Caelius Hermaeros / antistes huius loci / fecit / sua pec(unia). See also nn. 91–92 below. 87 Becatti, SdO II, 57; cf. Squarciapino, Culti Orientali ad Ostia, 44–45. 83 Cumont, 84 Cumont,

462

L. Michael White

a result, it was long considered one of the earliest and most firmly dated of the Ostian mithraea, as typically assumed since Cumont.88 Despite these “firm” conclusions, it appeared that the mithraeum must have had a later phase of renovation in the third century. Becatti had already recognized that the black and white mosaic of the central aisle was of a later style, and he associated the double inscription in the mosaic, a dedication by L. Agrius Calendio (CIL 14.56), with a secondary phase from the early Severan period.89 Further evidence of later phases was found in the rooms leading to the entrance of the mithraeum, where a shrine of Silvanus was installed in a niche with a polychrome mosaic datable to the time of Caracalla (southeast corner of Rm 78, see fig. 10).90 But there were other questions to be answered. Becatti correctly observed that C. Caelius Ermeros was also an antistes and dedicator to the M.d. Pareti Dipinti (Cat. no. 1), based on another inscription found in situ there.91 He concluded that Caelius Ermeros must have been a priest (antistes) in two mithraea simultaneously.92 Vermaseren seems initially to have followed Becatti in this point, suggesting that the M.d. Pareti Dipinti came after M.d. Palazzo Imperiale, during the time of Marcus Aurelius or Commodus.93 Elsewhere he proposed that the 88  Cumont, Textes et monuments, 2.240 (no. 83); 1903: 65–69. Following Becatti’s work, Meiggs (Roman Ostia 1st ed., 1960) expressed the prevailing view on the architectural development of Ostian mithraism: “The earliest firm evidence dates from 162, when the Mithraeum in the so-called ‘Imperial Palace’ […] was completed,” while the Mithraea of the Seven Gates and the Animals are “roughly contemporary.” See Meiggs, Roman Ostia, (1st ed. 1960), 374. 89 Becatti, SdO II, 57. The two inscriptions are identical and are a single line centered before the niche in the side podia in such a way that cultists reclining on each podia would be able to read it. The text reads: Soli invict(o) Mit(hrae) d(onum) d(edit) L. Agrius Calendio. Becatti associated this person with a Calendio noted in the list of members of the Collegium fabrum tignuariorum for the year 198 (CIL 14.4569, Dec. 15 [frag. b, line 1]). It should be noted that this is the same roster containing the name of M. Caerellius Hieronimus known from the M.d. Animale (discussed above at nn. 39 and 63), but only the cognomen is preserved thus making Becatti’s suggestion uncertain. The date for the renovation of the mithraeum by Agrius Calendio probably comes at least half a century later. See below. 90 C. C. van Essen, “Verslag van wetenschappelijke onderzoekingen in 1950 verricht. Chronologie der Romeinse mozaieken,” Mededlingen van het Nederlands Institut te Rome 8 (1954): 64–119, here 77–8. 91 On a marble cippus H. 30 cm; for the text see Becatti, SdO II, 67, Squarciapino, Culti Orientali ad Ostia, 45, and Vermaseren, CIMRM, no. 269: C. Caelius E[r]/meros / antis/ tes h[ui]/ius loc[i]/ fecit / s(ua) p(ecunia). The text is almost identical to that in CIL 14.57 (n. 86 above), but with slightly different orthography, lineametry, and abbreviations, the latter two owing to the space. This cippus was badly damaged, and perhaps abandoned. The inscription was discovered after 1938 and is not contained in CIL 14. 92 Becatti, SdO II, 67. 93 Vermaseren, CIMRM, no. 269 n. [in reference to the inscription from M.d. Pareti Dipinit]: “The same person was therefore a priest in two sanctuaries, probably he founded this new community;” Becatti’s statement is basically the same: “era dunque antistes in due

The Changing Face of Mithraism at Ostia

463

Palazzo Imperiale mithraeum was the later of the two, Severan in date, and that the Ermeros monuments were reused there.94 On the latter point, as it turns out, he was correct, but ironically it was based on a serious confusion on his part.95 Nonetheless, following this curious but tantalizing lead in Vermaseren, I had earlier conducted a detailed study of the construction history of the M.d. Pareti Dipinti and proposed that it had two distinct phases of construction as a mithraeum.96 The mithraeum was originally installed in the Antonine period, and in a second phase it was enlarged and new benches added. The enlargement dates to the very end of the second cent.97 Given the date of Caelius Ermeros known from the statues of Cautes and Cautopates, it seems most likely now that all these monuments had originally been installed in the earlier M.d. Pareti Dipinti, probably in its first phase of mithraic renovation (ca. 162 C.E.), and moved only later to the

mitrei ostiensi” (Becatti, SdO II, 67). The final clause of Vermasernen’s statement clearly referring to Pareti Dipinti as “this new community,” seems to be paraphrasing Becatti [referring to the same inscription]: “farebbe supporte l’esistenza di questo mitreo, intorno all’epoca di Marco Aurelio o anche di Commodo, pensando che la costruzione di questo mitreo segua quella del mitreo del Palazzo Imperiale” (Becatti, SdO II, 68). 94  Vermaseren, CIMRM, no. 255 n. 95 In his discussion of the Caelius Ermeros inscriptions from the M.d. Palazzo Imperiale, he adds a rather contradictory note: “As the Mithraeum is probably contemporaneous with the therms of Septimius Severus, these monuments can origin (sic) from an older Mithraeum and reused (sic) here” (Vermaseren, CIMRM, no. 255 n.). Where did Vermaseren get the idea that the baths of the Palazzo Imperiale were Severan in date? First, Vermaseren’s colleague, C. C. van Essen rather clearly dated the Silvanus mosaic from the adjacent room (78) of the Palazzo Imperiale to the time of Caracalla (211–217); cf. Van Essen, “Verslag van wetenschappelijke onderzoekingen,” 77–78, cited by Vermaseren at CIMRM no. 252. But second, and rather ironically, Vermaseren seems to have confused the names of the baths of the Palazzo Imperiale, which were sometimes called the Terme Maritime and sometimes the Terme di Antonino Pio, with the clearly Severan bath complex at Reg. III.8.2 that is now usually called the Terme Maritime (see n. 75 above). Thus we note Vermaseren’s erroneous use of this latter location (“Reg. III, Is. VIII”) in his main entry for the Palazzo Imperiale mithraeum in CIMRM no. 250, where he also calls it “Terme Maritime.” It must also be remembered that earlier listings of the Palazzo Imperiale complex placed it in Reg. III instead of Reg. I, as discussed above at n. 66. Vermaseren must have derived the Severan date from Becatti’s architectural survey in SdO I, 151–2 (as Vermaseren cites the same reference to Bloch given there), clearly referring to the Baths at III.8.2 but not calling them by name, and then in the Chronological Index of SdO I, 237, where Becatti lists the edifice at III.8.2, now called the “Terme Maritime,” as a Severan complex. 96 White, Social Origins I, 49; II, 370–77 (nos. 81–82). Spurza, A New Study of the Palazzo Imperiale, 245 follows my earlier reconstruction. See also J. Spurza, “The Life of a Shrine: the Mithraeum of the ‘Palazzo Imperiale at Ostia,” AJA 95 (1991): 322–25. 97 For a profile of the architectural history see the Appendix below. Becatti, SdO II, 67–68 also assumed that there was a second phase, at which time the mithraic paintings that give it is name were added. He dates them to the end of the 2nd cent. On the other hand, Becatti assumed that the plan of the hall was already set in Phase I.

464

L. Michael White

new and larger M.d. Palazzo Imperiale, near the beginning of the 3rd cent., or perhaps in a later phase.98 In her recent work on the Palazzo Imperiale complex, Joanne Spurza has confirmed that the expansion of the Antonine bath complex – to include an insula with cortile and the suite of rooms containing the mithraeum – was a product of two Severan phases of construction, the first in the last decade of the 2nd cent.; the second, in the first quarter of the 3rd cent. (see figs. 9 & 10).99 Construction of the mithraeum proper (Rm 75) may belong to the first of the two Severan phases; however, it seems to have been renovated substantially in the second phase, and probably again in the middle to latter part of the 3rd cent. The anterooms 79, 80, and 81 belong to the early Severan project, while Rms 76 and 77 and the north wall of the mithraeum proper (between Rms 75 and 74) all belong to the second Severan phase (200–225 C.E.). The narrow “curtain walls” that close the spaces between the load bearing piers on the east side of Rm 75 are also a curious mix; some seem to belong to the first Severan phase, while others seem to be later additions or repairs.100 Meanwhile, the early excavators reported several openings into the hall directly from the cortile of the balneum (72) and from Room 76; there is also a high window between the mithraeum and Rm 78.101 Excavations in the 1960’s revealed three floor levels in the mithraeum, and   98 The

date might also be later. See discussion below. A New Study of the Palazzo, 245–46. For her detailed masonry analysis of the mithraeum suite, reflected in my fig. 10, see pp. 90–92 (the Hadrianic mixtum of the west wall); pp. 162–171 (for the Opus latericium and Opus vittatum); and the detailed description of the masonry types on pp. 107–109 and 129–40. The designations used in my fig. 10 for the two types of Opus mixtum are my own and reflect slightly broader typological categories than Spurza’s more detailed analysis; they were developed in conjunction with my masonry studies in the Ostia Synagogue complex (IV.17.1–2), for which Joanne Spurza served as a consultant. My Opus mixtum B includes her “types 2–4” while my Opus mixtum C is the same as her “type 1,” the distinctive type with brick-and-block quoining, dating to the early Antonine period (145–150) and used in the balneum. It is now known in several other buildings of the same date at Ostia, including an early phase of the Terme di Musiciolo [IV.15.1–2], analyzed as part of my Ostia Synagogue project. 100 As shown in fig. 10; the middle section (shown in solid gray) is in Opus latericium and seems to be coeval with the latericium piers (Spurza, A New Study of the Palazzo Imperiale, 170), but above it is either a later patch wall (like vittatum) or modern restoration (Spurza, A New Study of the Palazzo Imperiale, 164). The other sections contain some traces of Opus vittatum, but are very poorly preserved. On the other hand, the presence of a partial wall at the north end of this wall (between the first two piers) is clearly shown in Visconti’s drawing from the original excavations (cf. Paschetto, Ostia, Colonia Romana, 389), but see Spurza, A New Study of the Palazzo Imperiale, 165. 101 Visconti’s orignal plan of the edifice at the time of excavation was reprinted by Paschetto, Ostia, Colonia Romana, 389. It was the basis for Cumont’s plan (The Mysteries of Mithras, 65), which was adapted by Vermaseren in CIMRM no. 250. Both Cumont and Vermaseren show a narrow doorway (D) entering the front of the mithraeum beside the altar from the portico of the baths (72).   99 Spurza,

The Changing Face of Mithraism at Ostia

465

thus show three distinct phases of use commencing with the early Severan construction.102 Spurza has concluded that the construction of the first phase of the mithraeum was a conscious design of the early Severan project (ca. 193–200) and thus a planned architectural form.103 If so it would be quite remarkable among Roman mithraea. Her arguments on the archaeological evidence are indeed persuasive; however, I have a few reservations. It is possible that the space (including the hall with piers [75] and the anterooms [78–81]) was created at the time that the early Severan insula was built, but that the mithraeum itself was installed only later, either as a subsequent renovation of Phase I or at the time of the construction of Phase II (ca. 200–225), when Rms 76 and 77 were added.104 Thus, a date around or after 200 is possible. In either case, the layout of the mithraeum, as we now know it, is a result of the substantial architectural modifications undertaken in Phase II. Later still, further interior renovations were undertaken in Phase III. The altar platform and the entire front area of the mithraeum were enlarged and modified at least in Phase II, if not also later. It appears that the monuments of Caelius Ermeros were installed either in the first or second phase, while the mosaic floor with the inscription of Agrius Calendio belongs to the third.105 We shall return to issues of spatial arrangement and access in a later section of this study.

102 Spurza, A New Study of the Palazzo Imperiale, 246–47. She notes also that the cortile of the balneum (72–73) was repaved in the mid-third cent. at about the same time the mosaic of Agrius Calendio was installed. 103 Spurza, A New Study of the Palazzo Imperiale, 247. 104 In large measure there are two main architectural issues: the first is fact that the northern crossing wall that defines the hall is clearly from the Phase II construction. The second is the presence of five large piers that form the eastern flank of the hall and the measures taken to close the spaces between them. If the thin “curtain walls” were indeed constructed at the time of the piers, then it is possible that the hall was already intended to become a mithraeum. Spurza thinks they were. Even so, one must wonder why, if they intended to create a fully segregated hall, they used these open piers, like a loggia of some sort, rather than constructing a solid wall. On the other hand, if these “curtain walls” were added at some later time, then it suggests that the installation of the mithraeum was a secondary program. These questions cannot be resolved without further archaeological excavation. Until then all these proposals must be considered tentative. 105 Spurza (A New Study of the Palazzo Imperiale, 246) assumes they were moved here in Phase I. In light of the fact that M.d. Pareti Dipinti was also renovated near the end of the 2nd cent., this scenario seems less likely, and thus Phase II, and conceivably Phase III, are also quite possible in my view. If the podia are contemporaneous with the mosaics, then they were perhaps designed with Caelius Ermeros’ statues of Cautes and Cautopates in mind. We might then suggest that the statues and other monuments were relocated to the Palazzo Imperiale mithraeum at the time of Agrius’ Calendio’s renovation, by which time the M.d. Pareti Dipinti had been abandoned.

466

L. Michael White

3. The Development and Spread of Mithraism at Ostia We may now observe that the origins and initial spread of Mithraism at Ostia is an Antonine phenomenon, at least insofar as the archaeological record is concerned. The earliest datable mithraea at Ostia now seem to be the M.d. Pareti Dipinti (Cat. no. 1) and the M.d. Sette Sfere (Cat. no. 2). The former, as noted above, is probably the earliest now known at Ostia, dating to ca. 162. It was installed in the tablinum suite of a peristyle house and then expanded in a second phase.106 (See the Appendix plus figs. 11A and 12). The M.d. Sette Sfere (Cat. no. 2; fig. 13) was located in a converted room (II.8.6) annexed to the Domus del Apuleio (II.8.5). The sanctuary seems to have been established during the Antonine period.107 The annexation and reconfiguration of the space probably occurred at just about the time the mithraeum was installed, at which time the SW portion of the house was likewise remodeled and a kitchen added. The precise date of the installation will be discussed below. The mithraeum apparently also went through a major renovation in a second phase. Because this mithraeum is one of the better known, and generally well documented, we shall not discuss it in detail here. The house, as it appears now, was renovated using Opus mixtum and Opus latericium sometime after 148 C.E., based on brickstamps.108 Based on a fistula (a lead water pipe with stamp) that identifies the owner as L. Apuleius Marcellus, Filippo Coarelli has argued that he was none other than Apuleius of Madauros, author of The Golden Ass.109 He argues further that Apuleius was responsible for installing the mithraeum at about the same time that the house was rebuilt, and thus ca. 150 C.E. He does not take into account the subsequent remodeling of the SW portions, associated with the annexation. In his recent studies, Roger Beck has generally followed Coarelli’s argument regarding the ownership,110 but focused rather on examining its elaborate astrological symbolism and religious syntax along the lines first sug-

106 Becatti, SdO II, 59–68; Squarciapino, Culti Orientali ad Ostia, 46–47; Vermaseren, CIMRM, nos. 264–70; White, Social Origins II, nos. 81–82. 107 Becatti, SdO II, 47–51, 123–24; Squarciapino, Culti Orientali ad Ostia, 43–44; Vermaseren, CIMRM, nos. 239–49. 108 Hence a date as early as 148–150, as assumed by Coarelli and others, is certainly possible but not absolute. 109 F. Coarelli, “Apuleio a Ostia?” Dialoghi Archeologica 7 (1989): 27–42. 110 R. Beck, “Apuleius the novelist, Apuleius the Ostian householder and the Mithraeum of the Seven Spheres: further explorations of an hypothesis of Filippo Coarelli,” in Text and Artifact in the religions of Mediterranean Antquity: Essays in Honour of Peter Richardson (eds. S. G. Wilson and M. Desjardins; Waterloo: University of Ontario Press, 2000), 551–567.

The Changing Face of Mithraism at Ostia

467

gested by R. L. Gordon.111 Beck calls Sette Sfere “the ideal mithraeum,”112 and he has shown that the particular astrological symbolism depicted in its iconography derives from the alignments of the Spring equinox of the year 172/3.113 It must be noted, however, that this dependence on the calendar of 172/3 creates difficulties for Coarelli’s chronology, if not his identification of the owner. Coarelli’s thesis must relegate the astrological mosaics to the second phase renovation of the mithraeum by A. Decimius Decimianus.114 Recent work on the author Apuleius places him in Oea in Africa Proconsularis from 156 to 158/9, when he delivered his Apologia. Afterward he lived and declaimed in the courts of Carthage through most of the 160’s.115 His Metamorphoses (or Golden Ass) most likely dates to this later period and perhaps as late as ca. 180.116 While it is possible that he had already visited in Rome as early as the 150’s, it does not appear that he stayed for any length of time. If he was the owner of the house in Ostia, it can only have been for a short time in the early 150’s, while still quite young or else much later.117 111 Beck, “Mithraism since Franz Cumont”; idem, Planetary Gods and Planetary Orders in the Mysteries of Mithras (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1988); idem, “Cosmic Models: Some Uses of Hellenistic Science in Roman Religion,” Apeiron 27 (1994): 99–117; idem, “The Mysteries of Mithras: A New Account of their Genesis,” Journal of Roman Studies 88 (1998): 115–28; idem, The Religion of the Mithras Cult in the Roman Empire; cf. R. L. Gordon “The Sacred Geography of the Mithraeum: The Example of Sette Sfere,” Journal of Mithraic Studies 1.2: 119–65 [= R. L. Gordon, Image and Value in the Greco-Roman World: Studies in Mithraism and Religious Art. Aldeshot: Variorum, 1996, art. VI]. 112 Beck, “Cosmic Models”; idem, The Religion of the Mithras Cult in the Roman Empire, 102–16. 113 R. Beck, “Sette Sfere, Sette Porte, and the Spring Equinoxes of A.B. 172 and 173,” in Mysteria Mithrae, 515–29; idem, “Cosmic Models”; idem, “The Mysteries of Mithras”. 114 CIL 14.60–61 (= SdO II, 123; CIMRM nos. 246–247). These inscriptions were found in 1804 by G. Petrini, while the remainder of the Domus del Apuleio and the M.d. Sette Sfere were only discovered by Visconti in 1864 and excavated by Lanciani in 1886. Becatti dates the tauroctone relief, with which these inscriptions were mounted, to the second half of the second century. The text of CIL 14.61 is the most important for our understanding of the phases: A. Decimius A(uli) f(ilius) Pal(atina) Decimianus aedem / cum suo pronao ipsumque deum solem Mithra / et marmoribus et omni cultu sua p(ecunia) restituit. It is worth noting that these inscriptions refer explicitly to a restoration project for the edifice and pronoas, including the marble reliefs (marmoribus), but there is no reference to the mosaic work. The date of this renovation must be in the late 2nd or 3rd cent. Another inscription (CIL 14.62 = CIMRM no. 248) mentions the deidication of an altar by L. Tullius Agatho. It is not clear to which phase it belongs; it mentions the name of the pater and priest M. Aemilius Epaphroditus, also contained in a fourth inscription (CIL 14.63= Vermaseren, CIMRM, no. 249). It seems, therefore, that the mosaics can as easily be associated with the first phase, even though Becatti dated them to the 3rd cent. on the basis of style (SdO II, 51). 115 See S. J. Harrison, Apuleius, A Latin Sophist (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 4–8. 116 Harrison, Apuleius, A Latin Sophist, 9–10. 117 Apuleius of Madauros was born in the 120’s, and so would have only been in his mid-20’s, at the most, when the Domus del Apuleio was rebuilt. As Harrison (Apuleius, A

468

L. Michael White

Much of Coarelli’s thesis hangs on the fact that Apuleius (assumed to be the L. Apuleius Marcellus known from the fistula) took his cognomen from his patron, a Q. Asinius Marcellus known as patronus coloniae at Ostia, assuming that the dates are proximate.118 The connection is then drawn to the author by having him honor this same person in the Golden Ass by naming a character after him  – namely the Roman Isis priest and mystagogue of the protagonist Lucius.119 The novel, however, as noted above, is likely a much later work. In light of the dates, then, it is a stretch to link the author Apuleius with an early establishment of the mithraeum in ca. 148–150.120 If we assume that the installation of the mithraeum came later, at least after 160 and probably around 172–175, taking the mosaics as terminus post quem, it may suggest a different sequence. The masonry of the mithraeum also indicates a slightly later date than the construction of the adjacent house. Its older reticulate walls were rebuilt in Antonine Opus latericium with piers of Opus vittatum. The piers were likely installed to carry crossing arches, or more likely a vaulted ceiling for the spelaeum.121 Likewise, the access to Latin Sophist, 1–2) notes, we do not know his full Roman trinomen, and it is improbable that his praenomen was Lucius, same as the character in the novel, a long-standing problem in the traditions associated with the so-called “ass-tales” of Apuleius and Ps-Lucian. On the last, see E. J. Kenney, Apuleius, The Golden Ass: A New Translation (London: Penguin, 1988); idem, Apuleius: Cupid and Psyche (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1990) and von H. Thiel, Der Eselroman 2 vols. (Zetemata 54; Munich: C. H. Beck, 1971–72). 118 The association is based on two inscriptions, one found in the vicinity of the Quattro Timpieti. They are CIL 14.4447: Q(uinto) Asinio Q(uinti) fil(io) / Trom(entina) / Marcello / co(n)s(uli) praetori q(uaestori) Augus(ti) / curioni salio Palat(ino) / trib(uno) mil(itum) leg(ionis) III August(ae) / Xviro patr(ono) col(oniae) / decur(ionum) decreto / public(a) e. Also CIL 14.4448: [Q(uinto) As]inio Q(uinti) f(ilio) / [T]rom(entina) / [Ma]rcello / [patr(ono) c]ol(oniae) / iuv[enes de]curion(um) / q[ui Ostia]e ludunt / [patro]no. Coarelli dates these inscriptions to ca. 150; however, I cannot see any firm basis for this date. Calza had earlier argued that this was the same individual who served as suffect consul for 96 C.E. It might also be his son, as suggested by Wickert in CIL 14.4448. The son is probably the same individual noted on brickstamps of the early Hadrianic period (CIL 15.853). But it should be noted that another inscription, not discussed by Coarelli (CIL 14.4542, a fragment from the Fasti Ostiensis) also seems to mention this person in public office at Ostia, apparently at the time of an earthquake ([terrae m]otus fuit). Unfortunately, a precise date is not possible, but a rebuilding of temples after an earthquake, where the approvals of the pontifex Volkani would be required, might well be a reference to the rebuilding of the Quattro Tempietti undertaken by P. Lucilillius Gamala the younger after ca. 160, cf. CIL 14.376. Unfortunately the Gamala inscription mentions that the baths of the deified Antoninus were “consumed by fire,” but does not say what necessitated the rebuilding of the temple of Venus. 119 Cf. Metam. 11.27, where the word-play on the name Asinius (from the Latin for ass) is also noted. 120 For other reservations regarding Coarelli’s hypothesis, see also Harrison, Apuleius, A Latin Sophist, 1 n. 2. 121 See also Becatti, SdO II, 51, who simply dates its construction to the Antonine period based on the secondary masonry of the piers; however, he dated the mosaics to the third cent.

The Changing Face of Mithraism at Ostia

469

the mithraeum and the addition of a kitchen in the SW room of the house (nearest the mithraeum) required some reconfiguration of the western porton of the house. In other words, the house was modified secondarily to accommodate the addition of the mithraeum. The rebuilding of the four republican temples (Quattro Tempietti) just in front of the mithraeum was undertaken with patronage from the younger P. Lucilius Gamala sometime after 160.122 In any case, the physical relationship of the mithraeum to the house next door is an important aspect of its installation and operation, and I shall return to these spatial issues in a later section of this study. With these two earliest mithraea of the Antonine period we may also associate the M.d. Sette Porte (Reg. IV.5.13; Cat. no. 3; see fig. 11B) whose black and white mosaic bears a strong similarity to that in M.d. Sette Sfere, and thus of a similar date (ca. 170–180).123 Installed in a cella of a first century warehouse (IV.5.12), its back wall was rebuilt in Hadrianic-Antonine Opus latericium to contain an arch for a tauroctone relief. The neighboring cella to the north gave access to the adjacent cortile of Dionysus to the east (IV.5.9), while the southern portions of the horrea (IV.5.14) had been replaced in the Hadrianic or early Antonine period by a hall structure, about the same time as the construction of the bath complex directly to the north (IV.5.10–11).124 A coin of Faustina, wife of Antoninus Pius, who died in 140 C.E., was found under the altar and provides a clear terminus post quem for the installation of the mithraeum. Other than the mosaic, there is little mithraic imagery in the decoration; the walls were painted with generic garden scenes, perhaps of late Antonine or Severan date.125 There are thus three mithraea – M.d. Pareti Dipinti, Sette Sfere, and Sette Porte – dating to the middle Antonine period (ca. 162–180) that constitute our earliest evidence for the cult at Ostia. The M.d. Fagan sculptures belong to the very end of the Antonine period, although the still unknown sanctuary to which they belonged may better be classed with the next wave of ex122 CIL 14.376.21–2, where it records this work after his renovation of the baths following the death of Antoninus Pius, as noted in the same inscription (376.18–20). See also n. 115 above. 123 So Beck 1979; Becatti, SdO II, 99 had dated its renovation as mithraeum to 160–170. The mosaics and paintings, however, he dated to the 3rd cent. (SdO II, 96–97); Squarciapino, Culti Orientali ad Ostia, 50–51; Vermaseren, CIMRM, nos. 287–93. 124 The baths (Terme delle Sei Colonne) date to the reign of Antoninus Pius; cf. SdO I, 237; G. Poccardi, “Thermes et bains de l’Ostie antique,” in Ostie – port et porte de la Rome antique, 161–171, fig. 3 offers a new phase plan. 125 For comparison, see S. Falzone, Ornata Aedificia, 144–49 in discussion of the paintings from the nearby Cortile del Dioniso, also with garden scenes against an opus sectile background. It is worth noting that there are two other small shrines in the Cortile, one dedicated to Dionysus himself, and the other a chapel to Isis. I shall return to this point later.

470

L. Michael White

pansion.126 This picture stands in some contrast both to the earlier assumptions of Cumont127 and to the earliest range of datable materials (beginning in the Trajanic period) known from other locations.128 More to the point, however, the Ostian evidence flatly contradicts Manfred Clauss’ claim that the western, and dominantly Italian, form of the cult originated “specifically [in] the area of Rome and Ostia.”129 On the other hand, the picture at Ostia is quite consistent with the general expansion of the cult in the “middle period” (ca. 150–250), as proposed by Richard Gordon; he concludes: “The impression of strong growth between the mid-2nd c. and mid-3rd c., with a particular Schub between 180/90 and 230/40, can be roughly confirmed from the use-dates of excavated Mithraic temples.”130 126 Becatti, SdO II, 134 suggests that the Fagan sculptures were actually from the M.d. Palazzo Imperiale, based on the reference in one of the inscriptions to a “[c]ryptam palati.” The date of the Fagan tauroctone sculpture, however, is clearly 190, based on the dedicatory inscription of C. Valerius Heracles, which gives a consular date under Commodus and Septimianus (CIL 14.65, also discussed at n. 17 above). The full text is as follows: C. Valeri/us Heracles Pat(er) / et C. Valerii / Vitalis et Nico/mes sacerdo/tes s(ua) p(e)c(unia) p(o)s(ue)r(unt) / D(e)d(icatum) idi(bus) Aug(ustis) im(peratore) / Com(modo) / VI et Septi/miano co(n)s(ulibus). As in the case of the M.d. Terme del Mitra (Cat. no. 11, 3rd cent.) a tauroctone statue of Antonine date might have been reused in a later mithraeum. Thus, while the date of the Fagan mithraeum itself could be later, a second inscription (CIL 14.66) suggests that it came from roughly the same time, although perhaps as late as the end of Commodus’ reign in 192. The text is: C. Valerius Heracles pat[e]r e[t] an[tis]/ tes dei iu[b]enis inconrupti So[l]is invicti Mithra[e / c]ryptam palati concessa[m] sibi a M. Aurelio / [Commodo Antonino Aug(usto)]. A further indicator of later phases is the fact that the dedicatory inscription by C. Valerius Heracles (CIL 14.64) on the Fagan taurocone also shows signs of secondary usage through the addition of a second name (L. Sextus Karus), in a second hand (cf. Becatti, SdO II, 119; Vermaseren, CIMRM, no. 311). It is possible, therefore, that these objects could have been reused in one of the later phases of the M.d. Palazzo Imperiale, alongside the reused statuary of Caelius Hermeros (which also bear consular notations). One further indicator might be the fact that one of the Fagan reliefs had traces of red paint (Vermaseren, CIMRM, no. 314.); the interior of the M.d. Palazzo Imperiale was also painted red. Unfortunately, none of this evidence is conclusive. 127  See n. 17 above. 128 See now Clauss, The Roman Cult of Mithras, 21–32 and R. L. Gordon, “Who Worshipped Mithras? [Review Essay of Clauss 1992],” JRA 7 (1994): 459–74, here 460–61. Gordon rightly notes the caution of Ramsay MacMullen that it is difficult to gauge the real efflorescence of Mithraism from the epigraphaic record alone; cf. R. MacMullen, Paganism in the Roman Empire (New Haven: Yale UP), 1981, 118–120. Gordon also deals with one of the earliest monuments (Vermaseren, CIMRM, 593) which he dates to the beginning of the 2nd cent. C.E. (Trajanic); see “The Date and Significance of CIMRM 593 (British Museum Townley Collection),” Journal of Mithraic Studies 2.2: 148–74 [= Image and Value in the Greco-Roman World, art VII]. 129 Clauss, The Roman Cult of Mithras, 22. Beck (“Cosmic Models: Some Uses of Hellenistic Science in Roman Religion,” 467) challenged this supposition, even though he used the earlier dates of Becatti as his evidence. At Rome the earliest datable mithraeum is probably that of the Castra Peregrinorum, which dates to ca. 180. 130 Gordon, “Who Worshipped Mithras?” 460.

The Changing Face of Mithraism at Ostia

471

In similar fashion, the next wave (Gordon’s Schub) of expansion in the Severan period is likewise confirmed at Ostia, as shown by the construction of M.d. Animale, M.d. Palazzo Imperiale, and M.d. Planta Pedis.131 The M.d. Aldobrandini probably belongs to this period as well.132 In keeping with these two early phases of the cult, we may surmise that the expansion of Mithraism itself follows the general trends of urban development now known at Ostia; it escalated steadily from the great Hadrianic building program into Antonine period to its zenith in the early 3rd cent. By then the number of mithraic conventicles had nearly doubled with the construction of seven more, although some of these probably represent relocation and/ or decline of earlier sanctuaries or monuments, as we saw earlier in the case of M.d. Diana and M.d. Palazzo Imperiale. Consequently, the number of active mithraic conventicles at any one time did not simply follow a straightline increase over this period. The two other sanctuaries with mithraic spatial features also belong to this period and likely reflect local trends in social-cultic dining influenced at least in part by mithraic practice. We shall return to this point later. At least some of the mithraea likely continued into the 4th, but after that the archaeological record goes cold. Neither new mithraea nor renovations can be documented after the end of the 4th cent. While we know that a number of the other traditional Ostian cults continued to the end of the 4th cent. and beyond,133 it would appear that by then the efflorescence of Mithraism at Ostia had passed.134

4. Spatial Considerations in Ostian mithraea 4.1 How many people attended these mithraic gatherings? A prominent feature of mithraic ritual was its cult dinners. Cumont and, to a lesser degree, Vermaseren thought of them as “sacramental meals” in something like the Christian sense. That notion has been persuasively challenged in more recent scholarship, although the meals themselves remain important for our understanding of mithraic practice.135 They were princithe construction and Severan date of the M.d. Planta Pedis, see the Appendix. SdO II, 43. 133 See Boin, “A Hall for Hercules at Ostia and a Farewell to the Late Antique ‘Pagan Revival,’” 255–57. 134 For Becatti’s assessment of the later history see SdO II, 138–39. Cumont, Becatti, and others have traditionally looked to the so-called “pagan revival” of the 4th cent., and the period down to the Theodosian edicts, as the last phase; however, Clauss (The Roman Cult of Mithras, 29–31) puts it in a different category. See also Beck, “Cosmic Models,” 178–79. 135 See J. P. Kane, “The Mithraic Cult Meal in its Greek and Roman Environment,” in Mithraic Studies, 313–51; Beck, “Mithraism since Franz Cumont,” 2083. 131 For

132 Becatti,

472

L. Michael White

pally convivial in nature but also associated with important days or festivals of the cult. But both the etiquette and ritual form of Roman dining and the attendant activities and services associated with it require us to give some thought to its spatial implications. In the Catalogue of Ostian Mithraea (column 7), I have provided a calculation of the maximum capacity of each of the Ostian mithraea based on the size of the podia. As for the method of calculating these numbers, a word of explanation is in order. We know the general conditions of ancient dining from numerous sources, including the dining rooms of the collegial halls of Ostia such as the Caseggiato dei Triclini (seat of the builders guild at Reg. I.12.1).136 A person reclined on the podia resting on the left elbow and forearm with head toward the center of the room. Many of the podia have a narrow mensa along the front edge where the food and drink would have been placed. The traditional triclinium had couches on three sides with an open area in the middle for serving; the stibadium used fixed benches (or podia) in either a U-shaped or square thee-sided arrangement. In either case, the middle area was open and all the diners faced into the middle. Unfortunately there have been few attempts to address the particular nature of mithraic cultic dining in light of the physical spaces that we know from archaeology. In the case of the typical layout of a mithraeum where there is an altar platform or cult niche on the axial end of the hall, there is no third side or medius lectus, to the arrangement. Thus, we need to take into account the fact that those on the right-hand podium would naturally be facing the altar area, while those on the left podium would be facing the opposite direction. It is very hard to imagine that they changed the normal reclining posture. The axial orientation of the altar does not affect the interaction of the diners on the podia; however, we might assume that those on the left bench would need to face the other direction from time to time in keeping with particular rituals of the cult. This feature of mithraic dining practice is somewhat unusual and deserves further study beyond what can be undertaken here. These factors call into consideration how much space we should allow for each person, and here too there are several variables. For example, the depth of the podium, if too narrow, would force the people to lie at more of an angle along the bench and thus take up more space laterally. For a sense of scale, a depth of 1.22 m = 4 ft; 1.524 m = 5 ft; and 1.83 m = 6 ft. Of course, when reclining in this posture, the knees are naturally flexed, so that 136 See K. M. D. Dunbabin, “Ut Graeco More Biberetur: Greeks and Romans on the Dining Couch,” in Meals in a Social Context: Aspects of the Communal Meal in the Hellenistic and Roman World (eds. I. Nielsen and H. S. Nielsen; Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 1998), 81–101, here 90–98; D. E. Smith, From Symposium to Eucharist: The Banquet in the Early Christian World (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003), 1–125.

The Changing Face of Mithraism at Ostia

473

one does not extend to full height. But even if we assume smaller stature for these ancient humans, anything narrower than about 1.40–1.50 m would begin to require a bit more lateral space for each person. In fact, most of the podia in the Ostian mithraea are precisely in the 1.40–50 m range, although some are smaller (as small as 1.15 m at M.d. Menandro or 1.25 m at M.d. Pareti Dipinti and M.d. Terme del Mitra) and some larger (as much as 1.70–1.90 m at M.d. Serpenti and M.d. Sette Porte). On the other hand, we know generally that the ancients were not as timid about being cramped together physically. Jan-Theo Bakker has done the only other comparative calculation of this sort that I know about for the Ostian mithraea.137 He allows 50 cm of lateral space for each person, but judiciously notes that in some cases (specifically M.d. Sette Sfere) that architectural features encroach on the space and make some portions unusable for ordinary reclining. Bakker’s ratio is certainly possible, I think, assuming there is enough depth for people to be comfortable. On the other hand, it might be a little too tight (four people in 2 linear meters of space), especially for those mithraea with narrower benches. As a result I have made two calculations – one at 50 cm per person and one at 60 cm per person – to yield a “normal” range.138 Thus, my range for each mithraeum at Ostia is derived from using these two measures divided into the total combined length of the podia in each mithraeum. In certain cases, however, these ratios are probably too small. For example, the podia in the M.d. Pareti Dipinti are only 1.25 m deep, but even that is misleading because the mensa takes up 25 cm. At only 1 m of depth, then, we must guess that these benches could accommodate fewer diners, if they were reclining in the usual manner. Then there is a further difference between the two sections of this mithraeum. For example, in the front room, the podia are slanted and contoured to make reclining more comfortable, whereas in the back room, added later, they are nearly flat.139 The sloped benches actually provide a little more reclining space than flat ones of the same horizontal depth. Even so, at only 1 m, they are generally not wide 137 Bakker, Living and Working with the Gods, 114–15. Meiggs (Roman Ostia, 372) made a general observation along these same lines but without more precise calculations for the individual mithraea. 138 He arrived at the second number as follows: three people per 2 m (or 66 cm per person) seems like too much space, at least for the most crowded types of gatherings, say on December 25th. At 5 people per 3 meters, however, each person has 60 cm, which is almost exactly two Roman feet. In this connection I note that I am continually impressed in my own archaeological work at Ostia by the accuracy and consistency among the local builders and masons in executing both area surveys and architectural plans using the Roman foot (or 29.57 cm) and its increments. In short, it is no accident that the Roman foot was a basic unit of spatial design. 139 On the building history, see the Appendix.

474

L. Michael White

enough to accommodate a person reclining at a nearly 90° angle to the wall. As a result, if we imagine them lying at more of an angle along the bench we must use Pythagorean proportions to calculate the space needed. In such cases we should increase the lateral ratio to ca. 1 m per person in order to yield a minimal average of 1.4 m of “body length” at an angle on the podium. In this case, then, the capacity for this particular mithraeum would drop to half of Bakker’s estimate. Even so, this ratio is probably a bit too low if we imagine that the diners would actually conform somewhat to this angled posture. Consequently, for Pareti Dipinti and similar mithraea with narrower benches, I have calculated the podium capacity as a range using the width values 0.75 and 1.00 m; these cases are marked with an asterisk (*) in the Catalogue. In the final analysis these calculations are merely estimates and provide only a relative scale for examining the internal spatial aspects of the mithraea. It must be remembered that these are not “averages” of actual membership or attendance, but maximal capacities for individual mithraea in specific types of evening gatherings. Of course, this count would only apply to those members reclining on the podia and does not reflect others in attendance but serving different functions. Nor does it reflect the nondining activities of the cult. What we cannot estimate is the degree to which, on any given occasion, they might have been willing to cram even more cultores into the available space.140 In order to gain a fuller picture of the spatial aspects of the Ostian mithraea, then, we must also take into account any additional rooms that might be used for other regular cultic functions. 4.2 Space and Access in the Ostian Mithraea Most of the Ostian mithraea have some sort of ancillary rooms or areas that served in some way for the activities of the cult, similar to the so-called “mithraic school” and outer court of the San Clemente mithraeum in Rome. At Ostia, the notable exceptions are either very early or very late. One of these is the late M.d. Diana, which has already been discussed in this regard; there is only a common passageway fronting the little mithraeum (see fig. 7). In the case of the two earliest mithraea (M.d. Pareti Dipinti and M.d. Sette Sfere), it would appear that provision was made for a small entry vestibule that restricted access and view of the interior, but the adjacent rooms and/ or courtyard of the house presumably afforded the principal access and additional spaces for certain functions (see figs. 10–11 and 13). In both cases, it would appear that the kitchen facilities of the house were used for food preparation for the mithraic meals. The kitchen in the SW rooms of 140 I want to thank my friend and colleague Dennis E. Smith for engaging in some helpful conversation about these issues.

The Changing Face of Mithraism at Ostia

475

the Domus del Apuleio (fig. 13), nearest the mithraeum entrance, seem to have been added in a secondary renovation at the time that the mithraeum was installed. We note also that in these earliest two mithraea, access to the spelaeum was mediated through the “private” areas of the house proper at quite some distance – both physically and symbolically – from the street.141 In the case of the M.d. Sette Porte (no. 3; IV.5.13; fig. 11), likewise early, access to the spelaeum came directly from the central corridor of a 1st cent. horrea (IV.5.12), where it had been installed in one of the storage rooms (c); however, by the time it was installed (Antonine period), it seems that the configuration of the warehouse had changed both by internal renovation and by new construction on all sides. The neighboring buildings included a double hall to the south (IV.5.14; Hadrianic-early Antonine)142 that terminated in a vaulted archway leading into the horrea. A bath complex (IV.5.10–11, Trajanic and Antonine) that blocked off the north end of the corridor, and possibly truncated the northernmost rooms (a and f) of the horrea.143 Finally, a cortile and garden (Cortile del Dionysio, IV.5.9; Antonine) were built to the East. The horrea itself thus seems to have been rebuilt in the Hadrianic-early Antonine period, at the same time that the southern hall structure was added. Several of the storage rooms, but notably c (later the mithraeum), d, and e, show additional signs of construction at this time (also using Opus mixtum of a type similar to that in the southern hall),144 very likely to support a new roof above the remaining area of the horrea proper. As a result, the area of the six remaining storage rooms of the horrea was used in part for access to these new buildings, specifically the garden (through Rm. b), and possibly for other activities of the cult.145 141 For the theory and methods of spatial analysis see M. Grahame, “Public and Private in the Roman House: Investigating the Social Order of the Casa del Fauno,” in Domestic Space in the Roman World: Pompeii and Beyond (eds. R. Laurence and A. Wallace-Hadrill; JRA Supp. 22; Portsmouth: Journal of Roman Archaeology, 1997), 137–64. 142 Heres, Paries: A Proposal for a Dating System, 519, fig. 93 assigns a date of ca. 150 to the southern portion of this hall. 143 See Poccardi, “Thermes et bains de l’Ostie antique,” fig. 3 for the construction phases of the Terme della sei colonne. The construction of the bath complex might have also caused a re-configuration of the roofing system for the horrea, or it was perhaps abandoned for some time. 144 If the southern hall (IV.5.14) is Antonine in date (ca. 150), as suggested by Heres (Paries: A Proposal for a Dating System), then the horrea was probably rebuilt at the same time. The mithraeum was installed sometime later, probably ca. 170–180. See the discussion above at n. 124. 145 It should be noted that the doorway from Rm. b to the east, was original to the first phase of the horrea in the mid-1st cent. The area to the east (later the Cortile di Dionysio) had previously been occupied by a peristyle house of the Augustan period. Immediately to the west of the horrea, the lot that later became the collegial hall known as the Schola Traiani (IV.5.15) had also been the site of an Augustan house. The small horrea may have originated in some way as a private facility associated with these houses. In the second

476

L. Michael White

Whether these rooms had become the exclusive property of the cult cannot be determined, but it is possible. At the very least, one must suspect some sort of temporal concession in their use, otherwise, there would be no service rooms for food preparation or other functions of the cult. We should note further that there were two other shrines located in and nearby the Cortile del Dionysio, one of Dionysus and one of Isis. Both seem to be small sanctuaries serving small cell groups, either neighborhood, collegial, or semi-private in nature. Something similar may be going on in the small M.d. Fructosus (I.10.4; Cat. No. 11), which was installed in the mid to later 3rd cent. in the vaulted favissae beneath the elevated podium of the sanctuary of a collegium adjacent to the Tempio Rotunda (I.11.1) on the western edge of the Forum.146 The collegium was most likely the guild hall of the stuppatores (“flax-dealers”), whose workshop was located immediately to the north at I.10.3; both were entered from the Via del Pomerio to the west. According to an inscription, Fructosus was both the patron of the corporation and founder/donor of the mithraeum.147 In this case, then, one must assume that there was at least some overlap in membership, as Fructosus himself and a few others also held mithraic meetings in the precincts of the collegium. In all, likelihood, then, it means that the other social areas of the collegium, which included a large century, beginning at the time of Hadrian or a bit later, considerable new building took place, and the horrea was partly destroyed and rebuilt. Thus, its original connection to the eastern areas is unclear. The Cortile of Dionysus (IV.5.9) and the small bath (IV.5.6) to the south of it were built in the Antonine period, but the communication with the small horrea (now also containing the mithraeum) was clearly continued. 146 The construction of the collegium is dated to the reign of Alexander Severus (222– 235 C.E.), but the cella of the temple was never completed. According to Herodian (7.3.5–6), the Emperor J. Verus Maximinus (or Maximin Thrax, 235–238 C.E.) confiscated their funds. The mithraeum was installed only after an interval, sometime in the middle (Becatti) or latter portion (Hermansen) of the 3rd cent. The raised vaulting of the new roof was built in a rough Opus vittatum more typical of the late 3rd–4th cent. It is noteworthy, then, that the Tempio Rotunda next door was expanded and completed under Maximinus’ successor, Gordian III (238–244 C.E.). The guild-hall to its East, usually called the Domus del Tempio Rotundo (I.11.2–3), was rebuilt in the late 3rd cent. C.E. and again in the 4th; cf. Heres, Paries: A Proposal for a Dating System, 378–85 and fig. 70. The M.d. Fructosus seems to have been destroyed (intentionally?) by fire in the 4th cent. Cf. Calza, SdO II, 153–54; SdO II, 26–27; Squarciapino, Culti Orientali ad Ostia, 40; G. Hermansen, Ostia: Aspects of Roman City Life (Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 1982), 61–62; and Bakker, Living and Working with the Gods, 113. 147 Becatti, SdOII, 28. The two-line inscription reads:  --‑]rius Fructosus patron(us) corp(oris) s[tuppatorum te‑]/mpl(um) et spel(aeum) M(i)t(hrae) a solo sua pec(unia) fec(it). The names Fructosus Senior and a Fructosus patronus are also recorded on a 3rd cent. guild roster (CIL 14.257) of the Corp(us) St[uppatorum], presumably the same guild. The Stuppatores also had an office on the East side of the Forum of the Corporations, Statio 1, shared with the “Rope-Makers”; its mosaic inscription (CIL 14.4549.1) refers to them as Stuppatores Res(tione)s[q(ue)].

The Changing Face of Mithraism at Ostia

477

cortile with lateral rooms flanking it, plus a kitchen and service rooms, were available to the mithraists for particular activities, including food preparation for their meals. In this case, one would guess that the shared arrangement was managed, at least in part, as a function of special days or times. The other possibility is that Mithras had become, in practice at least, the patron deity of the guild, although that is generally taken to be unlikely.148 In each of these cases so far, additional space seems to have been available, but their irregular and unspecific character derives from the process of adaptation by which the mithraea were installed. The second wave of the cult’s growth at Ostia in the early Severan period, as discussed above, seems to show greater effort generally to expand and regularize these ancillary spaces. Here the building history of M.d. Palazzo Imperiale is illustrative (see fig. 10). Already in its first phase (ca. 190–200), as reconstructed by Spurza,149 the spelaeum proper was entered through a series of four rooms (78–81) directly from the portico (82) of the large cortile of the sourthern insula. Then in its second phase (ca. 200–225), another room (76) was added to the N of Rm 78 that provided access from the portico (72) of balneaum to the N. This addition was not limited to the mithraeum proper but included adjacent rooms (77, 84, and 7) that formed a new vestibule to the balneum court. At least one of these (77), also seems to have been connected at some point in time to the mithraic suite of rooms by creating a new doorway. At about this same time, the shrine of Silvanus was added to Rm 78. These adaptations result in two important spatial features: first, controlled but more-or-less immediate access from two public areas of the complex, and second, a complex suite of ancillary chambers both to mediate this access and to serve other spatial needs of the cult.150 For example, Rm 79 contains benches on its southern walls. So, not only is this spelaeum the largest at Ostia in terms of podium capacity, but the entire mithraic suite also has considerably more designated space for the various activities of the cult. Again, one must suspect that these spaces were governed by different rules of access during special cultic func148 The patron deity of the stuppatores of Portus was Minerva; cf. Becatti, SdO II, 27 and CIL 14.44. But since the cella proper at Ostia was never completed, it may suggest an unusual circumstance. 149 See the discussion above. Spurza (A New Study Study of the Palazzo Imperiale, 246–47) thinks the layout of the mithraeum was an intentional plan of the Severan construction project and thus “unique” among Ostian mithraea. My own view is a bit more cautious in seeing the actual installation of the mithraeum as a secondary adaptation of the newly created space, even if coming shortly afterward. Likewsie, several other Ostian mithraea, especially those of the early to mid-3rd cent. adopt a similar model of ancillary entry suites (as noted also by Spurza). Of special interest in this regard is M.d. Menandro (fig. 6c), where both the spelaeum and the ancillary rooms were created by secondary adaptation, after an earlier remodeling. 150 See also Spurza, A New Study of the Palazzo Imperiale, 247–49.

478

L. Michael White

tions. On the other hand, it would appear that this particular conventicle had a more prominent or “open” position relative to the bath and insula complex in which it was situated. That is to suggest that the predominant make-up of this conventicle likely came from the apartment dwellers of the Palazzo Imperiale insulae. Here we should take some note of one of the non-mithraic halls with similar plan, the so-called Sacello delle Tre Navate (Cat. no. 16; III.2.12; fig. 15).151 It was situated along the southern edge of a large insula complex, the Caseggiato degli Aurighi (or “Insula of Charioteers”), built in the 140’s. The interior of the sanctuary is laid out like a mithraeum with benches along the sides flanking a long central aisle. An apsidal shrine with side-walls defined the western end of the hall. The hall was constructed by enclosing a portico on the south end of the insula by walling up the intercolumniations between the piers. A low roof was carried by an interior colonnade separating the central aisle from the benches; because the columns sit on the outer edge of each bench, the present roof treatment is clearly in phase or later than the interior plan.152 A kitchen and entry vestibule front the building on its north end. The sanctuary was installed sometime in the mid-2nd cent. or later, and a Severan date has been proposed for its present form.153 The sanctuary clearly has a religious character, as shown by an altar scene in black and white mosaic just before the elevated dais of the apse. The scene shows a burning altar flanked by a pig (r.) and a sacrificial knife and krater (l.). There is also a piscina in the rear portion of the central aisle. Precisely which deity was being worshipped remains uncertain, but there is none of the usual mithraic iconography. Some of the art may suggest Dionysiac imagery. One distinct possibility is that an older (Hadrianic-Antonine) apsidal shrine in the open space adjacent to the insula was intentionally taken over and reconfigured spatially into its present form. If so, this process of adaptation suggests a conscious effort to integrate its expanded functions, something like a religious dining club, into the quotidian life of the apartment complex. What is notable in this case is the degree to which the sanctuary could be accessed with very limited spatial mediation via several different areas of the insula and adjacent bath complex (see fig. 15). In some ways, the visual space down these long, narrow corridors is greater than the actual distance, even though there were no physical barriers. But as with the relaBecatti, SdO II, 69–75. present roof might have been carried on wooden columns, while the present brick-work columns were added later. 153 The apse seems to be older than the present form of the hall as its upper extremities rises above the level of the present ceiling. Becatti, SdO II, 75 proposes a mid-2nd cent. date for its present form, but this seems unlikely. Also, the frescoes clearly reflect two distinct phases of use, as do the floor treatments. 151 See

152 The

The Changing Face of Mithraism at Ostia

479

tively “unlocked” access routes of the M.d. Palazzo Imperiale, we should perhaps remember the way that the physical presence of humans in the halls or doorways might have changed the access vectors when needed.154 Conversely, the “cultic community” (if that is the right term) of the Sacello, by this same mechanism of spatial accommodation, was able to use the secondary areas immediately adjacent to the sanctuary proper for its “overflow” functions (whatever they might have been), as needed. As in recent studies of the spatial dimensions of the Roman house, what constituted privacy might vary by time and function. Again, it suggests that the participants in this sanctuary were primarily residents of the insula itself. Finally, several scholars have noted that in a number of the Ostian mithraea, the main doorway into the spelaeum is off-center of the main aisle or enters at a right angle from the end of one of the side walls. They thus keep the person entering from seeing down the central aisle toward the cult niche until they have formally entered the hall.155 Such is the case in nine of the sanctuaries: M.d. Pareti Dipinti,156 M.d. Setti Sfere, M.d. Animale, M.d. Palazzo Imperiale, M.d. Terme del Mitra, M.d. Menandro, M.d. Diana, M.d. Porta Romana, and M.d. Felicissimus. At least one more, M.d. Fructosus, was entered from a (relatively) narrow corridor that made a right-angle turn necessary. In the remainder, however, the main entrance was directly on the center aisle without any visual barrier, at least as preserved. For example, in M.d. Sette Porte the corridor of the horrea fronting the spelaeum is 4.8 m wide, and the doorway is directly on the center aisle. Consequently, if there was a concern to restrict the vision of those entering, it required other spatial adaptations, or it assumed that the mithraists had greater control of the surrounding areas, at least at key times or occasions. Meanwhile, a number of the mithraea had a secondary doorway near the cult niche. They include M.d. Animale, M.d. Planta Pedis, M.d. Menandro, M.d. Terme del Mitra, and M.d. Porta Romana. Becatti proposed that the narrow passage beside the aedicule in M.d. Animale was specifically for the priests (and associated with the adjacent rooms of House 10).157 This is surely one possibility, but perhaps not limited to the priests alone. In any event, we must assume that these additional points of entry were specifically controlled during key ritual moments or on certain days. Or to put it another way, access was negotiated by time and function. 154 Spurza (A New Study Study of the Palazzo Imperiale, 249–51) also compares the ancillary space and access issues of Sacello delle Tre Navate and M.d. Menandro with M.d. Palazzo Imperiale. 155 Noted by Becatti, SdO II, 134–35, Bakker, Living and Working with the Gods, 114, and Spurza, A New Study of the Palazzo Imperiale, 248. 156 See fig. 12. In the second phase it is certain; in the first phase it is probable, in my view. 157 See fig. 2; discussed above, at n. 35; cf. Becatti, SdO II, 87.

480

L. Michael White

Here the recent work of Dirk Steuernagel is helpful. He argues that mithraism at Ostia was organized more along the lines of collegia or guilds, a view shared to some extent with both Roger Beck and Anna-Katarina Rieger.158 Steuernagel goes farther to suggest that this organization was drawn from the local social structures of either individual guild associations or neighborhood groups who organize themselves after the fashion of a collegium but operating as a cultic dinner club. On this point he discusses M.d. Menandro and Sacello delle Tre Navate as prime examples; both are situated in close proximity to insulae.159 Our analysis of several of the other mithraea show analogies for M.d. Palazzo Imperiale, M.d. Animale, and M.d. Serpenti, all of which are closely associated with either insulae or residential quarters.160 At least two others, M.d. Terme del Mitra and M.d. Felicissimus are closely associated with bath complexes, while baths are also associated with M.d. Palazzo Imperiale, M.d. Animale, M.d. Porta Romana, and Sacello delle Tre Navate.161 Alternatively, when we find mithraea in primarily non-residential areas (as in the case of M.d. Planta Pedis, M.d. Fructosus, M.d. Porta Romana, and possibly M.d. Sette Porte) then one begins to suspect that the constituency may be more directly related to an established social group, such as a guild, or drawn from a proximate commercial network like that of Fructosus and the guild of Stuppatores. Jan-Theo Bakker has argued for something similar for the relationship of he M.d. Diana to the bakers next door in the Cassegiato dei Molini.162 Likewise, M.d. Planta Pedis (see fig. 1, no. 8, and fig. 14)163 is located near a bath but in an area of mostly commercial buildings, although the Temple and Collegial Hall of the Serapis Cult are next 158 See D. Steuernagel, “Ancient harbour towns – religious market places? Formation and social functions of voluntary associations in Roman Ostia,” Hephaistos 24 (2006): 141–151; cf. Beck, “Cosmic Modells;” A.-K. Rieger, Heiligtümer in Ostia. Studien zur antiken Stadt 8 (Munich: F. Pfeil, 2004), 272. 159 Steuernagel, “Kult und Community: Sacella in den Insulae von Ostia,” RM 108 (2001): 41–56, here 47–51. 160 See discussions above for M.d. Palazzo Imperiale and M.d. Animale. For M.d. Serpenti see fig. 15 and Becatti, SdO II, 125–28; Becatti discusses the presence of what seem to be mithraic graffiti in the adjacent Cassegiato del Sole, which opens the possibility that the some members of the mithraeum resided in the immediate vicinity of this insula complex. Relative to the next point, it is worth noting that there seem to be commercial centers in this complex that may suggest that many of the residents worked in the same economic sector. 161 The M.d. Porta Romana is in a horrea, but just across a small alleyway from the Terme dei Cisiarii (“Baths of the Muledrivers or Teamsters”). In this case, then, it is possible that a guild connection is also at work. 162 See above n. 69. 163 Becatti, SdO II, 77–85; Squarciapino, Culti Orientali ad Ostia, 47–48; Vermaseren, CIMRM, nos. 272–77. The archaeology and architecture is discussed in the Appendix below.

The Changing Face of Mithraism at Ostia

481

door. At least some signs point to social connections to members of the Serapis cult.164 To some extent both types of groupings are “neighborhood” constituencies and very likely depend on social networks for recruiting new initiates.165 This picture is further supported by the generally “working class” make-up of most of the membership. A few higher members of the guilds are clearly present, usually in the role of patron, pater, and priest,166 such as Fructosus himself (discussed above), as well as S. Pompeius Maximus, sacerdos and pater partum of the M.d. Aldobrandini; the latter was also quinqennalis of the Corpus trajectus togatensium (a local guild of small ferry operators).167 There are a few others as well.168 As Richard Gordon noted, however, there is an almost complete lack of members of the Roman aristocracy or local decurionate at least prior to the 4th cent.169

5. Art, Space, and Vision By way of conclusion, we may make a few observations on the use of art in the Ostian mithraea. As already noted, most attention has traditionally been focused on the better documented iconography of the myth of Mithras: the tauroctony, the birth of Mithras from the rock,170 other mythological figures (e.g., Kronos-Aion and the torch-bearers), scenes depicting Mithras and Sol, and the astrological symbols (the planetary spheres and the zodiac). The early work of Cambell (1969) and more recently of Gordon (1976, 1988) and Beck (1988, 1998, 2006) have given us a much clearer understanding of suggested also by Becatti, SdO II, 81–83; also discussed in the Appendix. Beck, “Cosmic Modells”; Gordon, “Who Worshipped Mithras?”; Clauss, Cultores Mithrae. For a more detailed treatment of the application of Network Theory to Roman social history see L. M. White, Social Networks in the Early Christian Environment: Issues and Methods for Social History (Semeia 56; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 1991). 166 See White, Social Origins I, 57–58. This fact has further implications for reconsidering the socalled “seven grades of initiation” as I suggested in my earlier study; the vast majority of mithraic dedications come from only three of the “grades,” corax and/or leo (often in conjunction), priests (sacerdos, antistes, heliodromos), and pater. On this point see also R. L. Gordon, “Reality, evocation, and boundary in the Mysteries of Mithras,” Journal of Mithraic Studies 3.1 (1980): 53–54 [= Image and Value in the Greco-Roman World, art V]; Clauss, Cultores Mithrae, and R. Beck, “The Mysteries of Mithras,” in Voluntary Associations in the Graeco-Roman World (eds. J. S. Kloppenborg and S. G. Wildon; London: Routledge, 1996), 178–81. 167 Note also M.d. Aldobrandini (fig. 1, no. 6) was located very close to the Tiber at the eastern edge of the city; cf. Becatti, SdO II, 42–43; CIL 14:403, 4313 [=Vermaseren, CIMRM, nos. 235 and 233, respectively]. 168 See Bakker, Living and Working with the Gods, 116–17. 169 R. L. Gordon, “Mithraism and Roman Society,” Religion 2 (1972): 103, 109–10 [= Image and Value in the Greco-Roman World, art. III]. 170 Although not found at Ostia. 164 As

165 See

482

L. Michael White

the mythological and astrological cohesion of this art.171 There is little that I could add to their discussion.172 As far the Ostian evidence is concerned, these elements are very well represented, and bear testimony to the highly standardized features of this artistic corpus. We may summarize as follows: A representation of the tauroctony in full round sculpture or high relief is substantially preserved from the following Ostian mithraea: Sette Sfere, Fagan, Terme del Mitra. – Fragments of a tauroctone in sculpture or high relief were found in the following: Animale, Palazzo Imperiale, Planta Pedis. – An architectural feature (platform, aedicula, or niche) suggests the presence of some sort of tauroctone depiction (but with no sculpture fragments discovered)  – (a) aedicula or thronum (statuary): Diana, Pareti Dipinti, Aldobrandini, Serpenti, and Porta Romana (probable); (b) niche (relief): Sette Porte, Fructosus, and Felicissimus. – Altars with mithras in low relief: Pareti Dipinti (a Sol-Mithras type). – Statues of the “Lion-headed Deity” (Kronos-Aion): Fagan, Palazzo Imperiale. – Statues of the Torch-bearers: Pareti Dipinti, Sette Porte, Palazzo Imperiale, Fructosus, Serpenti (probable), Diana (possible). – Altars with the Torch-bearers in low relief: Pareti Dipinti. – Paintings or Mosaics of the Torch-bearers: Pareti Dipinti, Sette Sfere, Sette Porte. – Representations of the Seven Spheres: Sette Sfere, Sette Porte. – Representations of Astrological Symbols: Sette Sfere, Sette Porte, Animale, Felicissimus. A separate category of mithraic art seems to be devoted to depictions of specific rituals, especially having to do with initiation or the mithraic “grades.”173 At Ostia, only the frescoes from the second phase of the M.d. Pareti Dipinti174 seem explicitly to be of this sort. The “Ladder Mosaic” 171  For Bakker’s very accessible summary with good illustrations see http://www.ostiaantica.org/regio2/8/8-6.htm. 172 By focusing more on the archaeology and the social factors in the development of the Ostian mithraea I do not mean to suggest that the mythological or iconographic elements of the cult are any less important. They are, as both Gordon and Beck have shown, central to the very nature of the cult. Pace Gordon “Additions & Corrections 5” (in Image and Value in the Greco-Roman World), my own earlier work was an effort to correct the lack of attention given to the social factors, which are still in need of further research, as this study has tried to show. 173 Bianchi (“Prolegommenon II: C. The initiation structure of the Mithra’s mysteries,” in Mysteria Mithrae, 32) calls attention to the fact that a different ordering of planets and gods occurs when referring to the progression of the soul through the planetary spheres versus when referring to the initiatory “grades.” 174 See Becatti, SdO II, 59–68; also well discussed and illustrated by Bakker at http:// www.ostia-antica.org/regio3/1/1-6.htm.

The Changing Face of Mithraism at Ostia

483

from the M.d. Felicissimus also represents the symbolism of the “grades” and the planets. While such ritual elements still clearly show connections to the basic astral mythology of the cult, there are key differences that need further examination. This brings us to the non-mithraic art associated with the Ostian mithraea. We begin with depictions of or dedications to Silvanus, which, as discussed earlier, occur in M.d. Palazzo Imperiale, M.d. Aldobrandini, and M.d. Planta Pedis, and in close proximity to M.d. Casa di Diana. Some earlier studies sought to equate Silvanus in mithraic contexts symbolically with Saturn.175 Silvanus is also associated prominently at Ostia with the local imperial cult (especially under Commodus, Caracalla, and Decius), as well as with certain guilds (notably the bakers). One wonders then if a similar socio-political connection is at work in at least some of the mithraea, especially where ties to specific civic guilds are indicated. Bakker argues that it was for the M.d. Diana (and the Bakers guild),176 and we might have a similar suspicion for M.d. Aldobrandini (Ferrymen’s guild), and perhaps M.d. Porta Romana (Teamsters). Given the political misfortunes of the Corpus Stuppatorum after the imperial transition from Alexander Severus to Maximin Daia (in 235),177 we might also suspect imperial patronage and/ or rivalries there, although that seems to be before the M.d. Fructosus was installed. While some of the mithraea do seem to have had an intentional interior décor, it does not always seem to be a direct representation of mithraic mythology or themes. Such seems to be the case in the M.d. Palazzo Imperiale, so far as can be detected from the scanty remains; the interior walls were painted all (or mostly) in red, perhaps to showcase the statuary and other features no longer preserved. In addition, there is a relatively high persistence of generic or purely “decorative” art used or retained in many of the Ostian mithrae, especially in the wall treatments. Such can be clearly seen in the first phase of the M.d. Pareti Dipinti, where the walls of the inner hall simply retained the typical Antonine frescoes that had been there before the mithraeum was installed. We saw something similar in M.d. Diana, which retained Severan geometric frescoes and generic black and white floor mosaics. Among others where generic art is used we note M.d. Sette Porte, which has Antonine geometric dado panels and garden scenes on the side walls (figs. 11 and 16). As noted above, these bear some similarities to other Antonine art found in the immediate vicinity, especially in the Cortile del Dionysio. by Spurza, A New Study of the Palazzo Imperiale, 256–59. above n. 69. 177 Discussed above. 175 Discussed

176 See

484

L. Michael White

Likewise, M.d. Sette Sfere, despite its elaborate mithraic mosaic composition, used only typical Antonine frescoes (large white fields with bold borders framing small inset scenes) on the inner walls. Similarly, M.d. Menandro (figs. 6c and 17) has an extensive fresco program of the same Antonine style covering several rooms of the house/apartments into which the mithraeum was installed; a black and white mosaic pavement was also retained. The frescoes suffered some damage at the time of the mithraeum’s installation, due to the fact that an upper window of the west wall of the spelaeum was cut out to become a doorway between the mithraeum proper and the ancillary rooms. Even so, most of the existing decorative program was preserved untouched. Finally, the M.d. Serpenti seems to have been a Lararium, perhaps that of the vicus (or neighborhood), prior to its conversion into a mithraeum.178 The frescoes showing snakes and women on its front and side walls were retained from the earlier form of the building. This one case may suggest reappropriation of the snake symbolism to fit mithraic ideas. Thus, while the standardized mithraic art and iconography was fully represented in the bulk of the Ostian mithraea, there seems also to have been a high degree of adaptability for the rest of their decorative art. It suggests, therefore, that we should be wary of over-interpreting this generic art in explicitly mithraic or religious terms. It may speak more to a general aesthetic of the day, and perhaps the social horizons or aspirations of the membership. One issue I have not tried to treat in detail in this study is the use of light sources (either direct sunlight through special apertures or reflected) as a feature of mithraic architectural and artistic planning.179 Clearly some of the Ostian mithraea (notably M.d. Sette Sfere and M.d. Terme del Mithra) have such features: M.d. Sette Sfere had a high window on its Eastern wall; M.d. Terme del Mithra has both a light funnel in the ceiling (above the tauroctone statue) and a triangular reflector dish on the floor in front of it. On the other hand, these two sanctuaries are oriented in entirely opposite directions; M.d. Sette Sfere has the cult niche on the North end, while M.d. Terme del Mithra is on the South. M.d. Sette Porte, whose mosaic is supposedly from the same astronomical calculation as M.d. Sette Sfere, is oriented toward the East. In fact, the Ostian mithraea are oriented in all directions: five to the North or Northwest; three to the East; four to the South; and two to the West or Southwest. The last of these, M.d. Pareti Dipinti, is likely also the earliest. [This information is summarized in Column 1 of the Catalogue.] Because all (or nearly all) the mithraea are secondary adaptations, the pri178 Becatti, SdO II, 101–104; Squarciapino, Culti Orientali ad Ostia, 51–52; Vermaseren, CIMRM, nos. 294–296 (and probably 297). 179 See W. Lentz, “Some Peculiarities not hitherto fully understood of ‘Roman’ Mithraic Sanctuaries,” in Mithraic Studies, 358–77.

The Changing Face of Mithraism at Ostia

485

mary orientation of the cult hall would seem to be determined by that of the existing edifice in which it was installed, which in turn was set according to the street plan. In addition, interior spatial orientation generally had to take into account the axial principle of the interior spelaeum iconography as well as the primary lines of access, the established position of a main entrance, or the configuration of ancillary rooms. Such seems to be the case at M.d. Pareti Dipinti, M.d. Diana, M.d. Fructosus, and M.d. Felicissimus, all of which are fixed by the existing orientation of the room(s) being adapted and the position of the main doorway. In the case of M.d. Menandro and M.d. Porta Romana, both of which face South, the decision seems to have been constrained by the need to integrate the spelaeum proper into available ancillary spaces and the routes of access from the outside. On the other hand, in those few cases where the builders had a choice architecturally (as at M.d. Animale),180 there does seem to be a preference for a North or East orientation. As Lentz (1975) suggests, however, the lighting effects could be adapted by various means, especially reflective devices and artistic symbolism, so that the dominant orientation of the edifice was less an issue. To say it another way, because adaptation of existing spaces was so basic to the establishment of mithraea, normative orientation did not (and could not) extend uniformly to the level of architectural iconography. Instead, it was affected symbolically in the internal layout of the spelaeum and the deployment of the more standardized pieces of mithraic art, and specifically the tauroctone and torch-bearers, Cautes and Cautopates. As the studies of the artistic program of M.d. Sette Sfere have shown,181 the internal “sacred geography” is entirely symbolic of an assumed mythic and astrological “reality” but need have no physical relationship to the axial orientation of the edifice or of the hall itself. In some cases it might, when the spelaeum was oriented to the East (as in M.d. Sette Porte), but as we have seen, it was not an architectural requirement. To be more specific, the cult niche of Sette Sfere is physically at northern end of the hall, but symbolically it is the East so that the “internal compass” of the spelaeum is rotated 90° counter180 In M.d. Animale the access to the hall is more contrived than needed to orient toward the North. Consequently, this decision may say something about why they chose to integrate the open area to the N of the hall (D–B), as it allowed them to create some special effects in the roof over the aedicule. Unfortunately, nothing remains to give more specific evidence. M.d. Sette Porte might also suggest there was a choice, if we assume that the mithraists also had access to the other storerooms of the horrea, esp. Rm d (see fig. 12), as I have suggested above. But an installation in Rm d would put the cult niche facing to the W. By contrast, the principal means of access and other spatial constraints offer no such choice in the case of either M.d. Menandro and M.d. Terme del Mitra, both of which are oriented toward the South. 181 See especially Gordon, “The Sacred Geography of a Mithraeum,” 126–32 and Beck, “Sette Sfere, Sette Porte, and the Spring Equinozes of A.B. 172 and 173”; Religion of the Mithras Cult, 102–106.

486

L. Michael White

clockwise; at the same time, the planets, the constellations, and the seasons all fit into a prescribed rotation around the centerpiece of mithras slaying the bull at its fictive East end. This fact may also help to explain why there seems to be a preference for statuary and reliefs whose physical position can be adjusted depending on the space. The effort to deploy and display special lighting effects, especially on certain days (e.g., Dec. 25th) may also say something about the spatial planning associated with lines of sight into the spelaeum. If so, then these spatial and artistic features bear further testimony to the ability of the individual mithraea to exercise control over access and ancillary areas, at least at particular times.

6. Appendix Synopsis of Building Histories of Selected Ostian Mithraea182 Cat. No. 1: Mitreo delle Pareti Dipinti (III.1.6; figs. 11 & 12) The M.d. Pareti Dipinti was installed in a room adjacent to the tablinum in the rear portions of a house along the Via della Foce (III.1.6; see fig. 11A).183 The house itself was originally built in the late Republican period, but it had been substantially modified in the Trajanic-Hadrianic period (Opus mixtum). Two large shops (bottege) were added along the street front and other domestic rooms configured in the central portion of the house. In the rear of the house (fig. 12), a suite of three rooms lined the sharply angled south wall. The central room (2) was the tablinum or main living and dining area. In front of it a peristyle court was installed and paved with Opus spicatum. The south side of the court (4) had been given a formal layout similar to that of a traditional Roman atrium, including a cistern (c). Four pillars in Opus latericium lined the south face; the larger two in the middle flanked a marble threshold, which in turn fronted directly onto the tablinum. The mithraeum was installed in the westernmost room (3). It appears that its southern wall in Opus vittatum 1a,184 was 182  For those mithraea that I have not discussed in detail, I refer the reader to the profiles given on the Ostia Group web-site, noted earlier. Here I will give a brief synopsis referring only to the building history, based on recent archaeological reports, where available, and my own on-site inspections. The enumerations used refer to the Catalogue accompanying fig. 1. 183 For my earlier study of the building see White, Social Origins II, 370–77 (nos. 81–82). The present discussion and the plan (fig. 12) are new and based on further analysis of the building. This work has generally confirmed my earlier conclusions of the architectural phasing but contributed additional detail and nuance. Further work is needed, however, concerning the renovations of Phase II, and especially the addition of the clearly mithraic artistic program. 184 The terms Opus vittatum and Opus listatum are used interchangeably in the Ostian archaeological reports; however, vittatum is now generally preferred. It refers to a type of masonry facing using alternating lateral courses of brick and tufa block. Variations in the type of material and in the patterns of coursing determine the various types and can also

The Changing Face of Mithraism at Ostia

487

built just before the time that mithraeum was installed. It is also possible that a small vestibule (5a) was created at the time of the installtion by using two thin “curtain walls” to form an L-shaped enclosure around the first column of the peristyle.185 The entrance would have been to the right of the last pier. The first phase of mithraic use may be confidently dated to ca. 162, as indicated by the dedications of Caelius Ermeros (discussed above).186 While other names are known from the several inscriptions found in the later remodeling, it is tempting to think that the house belonged to Caelius Ermeros himself. The wall paintings of the hall in its earlier phase are also clearly Antonine in date and contain small generic scenes framed inside of large white ground panels typical of this period. It is also possible that the central portion of the house, to the north of the peristyle was renovated at this time. In its second phase, the hall was nearly doubled in size by partially knocking out the doorway and walls (between 5a and 3) and constructing new side walls in Opus vittatum 2 that extended to engulf the entire southwest corner of the peristyle, thus enclosing the new area (5b).187 A new vestibule was also constructed by enclosing the N portico (8) of the court. New podia of slightly different construction were installed in the new area (5a–b). The expanded hall was then treated with a series of mithraic frescoes that can be dated to the very end of the 2nd cent.188 In addition the altar platform was enlarged and revetted in marblel. A number of older mithraic inscriptions were intentionally reused in this revetting. One of these is a marble plaque cut down and walled into the new thronum of the mithraeum.189 It reads: help determine phases of construction. Opus vittatum does not appear at Ostia before the late 2nd cent. but became even more prominent in the 3rd cent. and later. Opus vittatum 1, as used for the discussion of this building, refers to a regular pattern of one row of bricks alternating with one row of tufa blocks. 185 The thin partition in-situ between the north wall of the tablinum suite and the third pier is also in Opus vittatum 1, but I have designated it 1b to indicate that it might be later than the construction of the first mithraeum (as I had previously thought). It is possible, however, and I now think likely, that a similar partition was constructed between the last two piers. It would have been removed at the time of the expansion of the mithraeum in Phase II, as the fourth pier clearly was. The position of the fourth pier and the eastern line of the courtyard are still visible in the floor, but the pavement, and everything above it, were removed. 186 See nn. 82 & 87. A portion of the house was further renovated with Opus vittatum walls (Type 1c) as shown on the plan. They incorporated the northern columns of the portico into a new suite of rooms (9) in the central portion of the house. In construction these walls are similar to that found in the east wall of room 3. It is possible, therefore, that they are contemporaneous with the Antonine rebuilding at or near the time that the mithraeum was initially installed. Alternatively, they might belong to the Phase II rebuilding of the mithraeum. At present, I am inclined to think that they belong to the Antonine phase. 187 These walls are much more substantial than the thin partition in 5a. They were constructed with 6 bedding courses of brick above which were a single course of tufa block alternating with three courses of brick. 188 Becatti, SdO II, 67–68. 189 On the use of thronum see also n. 60 above. For this inscription (Ostia Inv. 7952), see SdO II, 60; Vermaseren, CIMRM, no. 266. The stone is broken off at the the top of the last line, but the tops of several letters are clearly visible; it probably read [..] (ua) P̣(ecunia) F. ̣[C](it) or DON(um) DED(it), or one of the usual formulas that are typically found abbreviated in this manner at the end of dedications. Becatti (SdO II, 60) makes no mention of the last line, but he reports that the stone “must be missing half or two thirds” and

488 4

L. Michael White

Soli [Inv(icto) Mithrae] (ucius) Semproniu[s …..] thronum [et …….] [vv] [P …..].

This inscription was clearly reused from an earlier stage, but cut down and displayed on the altar platform in such a way that the words Soli […] thronum were prominently featured. This fact along with the two distinct layers of wall paintings adds further evidence to the phasing of the construction proposed here.190 It is possible that the monuments of Caelius Ermeros were moved to the Palazzo Imperiale mithraeum at the time of this renovation, though perhaps later.191 It is significant that among the portable objects left at Pareti Dipinit, all were eventually broken or badly damaged, and none of the significant statuary remains. We may guess that it went out of use sometime in the mid 3rd cent. he supplies a reading of Invicto or Invicto Mithrae (or an abbreviated form of the latter) for the rest of Line 1. On this I think he is surely correct, as the restoration given here now reflects. Vermaseren, CIMRM, no. 266 does not discuss or restore the fuller text. On closer examination, the stone does not seem to be broken at the top; instead it seems to have been cut off neatly on the other three sides in order to be fitted to the altar platform. Both the left edge, where the hasta of the T and the L are missing, and the letter size of the broken bottom line make this likely. In the case of the bottom line, were it not broken, the letters would nonetheless seem to be cut off. Finally, the right edge of the stone seems to be cut at an angle. On this basis, I have preferred to emend the transcription given above to reflect the fact that the S at the end of line 2 (in the name Sempronius) is not merely missing by abbreviation (as restored by Vermaseren), but has been cut off. As a result I agree that some substantial portion of the right part of this inscription has been cut away. This fact allows us to offer several more suggestions about the content of the text. The name of the dedicator was a typical trinomen of which the cognomen is entirely missing now. Becatti claimed to read an L at the beginning of Line 2 but I see no trace of it now in any of the photographs. The praenomina L(ucius), M(arcus), C(aius), and T(itus) are all documented at Ostia with the gentilicium Sempronius. The name Sempronius is also known as a cognomen at Ostia but far less commonly; here it should represent the gensnomen. That the right portion of the stone is missing is also reflected in the position of the letters on the right side of the badly damaged last line, while there seem to be no letters at the beginning of that line. This fact suggests further that Line 4 was very likely the last line of the original inscription. Given the size of the letters and the quality of the hand, it must have been a fairly large plaque. The position of thronum at the beginning of line 3 would therefore suggest that it was not the only object mentioned in the inscription; I have supplied the [et] to reflect this aspect. The stone thus appears to be reused here, and may well come from the earlier first phase of construction of this mithraeum. Furthermore, it was cut in such a way as to preserve only the core of the original dedication, that Sempronius donated the thronum which, in turn has been expanded in a later phase of renovation. See also White, Social Origins II, 370–378 (no. 81). A photo is shown in Becatti, SdO II, Tav. XIII.4 and also on the Ostia-Group website. 190 On the two main phases see also Becatti, SdO II, 68. 191 Spurza, A New Study of the Palazzo Imperiale, 168 suggests that the Ermeros monuments were installed in the first phase of M.d. Palazzo Imperiale (ca. 190–200). If true, this would tend to push the completion closer to 200, if not a bit later. On the other hand, if the statues of Cautes and Cautopates were installed later, it might suggest that they were only moved after the M.d. Pareti Dipinti had been abandoned.

The Changing Face of Mithraism at Ostia

489

Cat. No. 8: Mitreo delle Planta Pedis (Reg. III.17.2; fig. 15) The Planta Pedis (or “Footprint”) mithraeum was installed in a three aisled loggia or gallery sometime in the Severan period (ca. 204–217 C.E.); it was later remodeled around the time of the Emperor Valerian (ca. 253–259). The date of founding can be deduced from two in situ inscriptions (to be discussed below) taken in conjunction with an analysis of the masonry. Masonry and Construction Masonry analysis shows that the buildings along the Via del Serapide (Reg. III.16–17; fig. 13) were laid out in the Hadrianic period, all in a typical Opus mixtum B.192 The area contained the Terme della Trinarcia (III.16.7) to the east and the Serapeum (III.17.4) to the west. Flanking the Serapeum were the Caseggiato di Baccho e Arianna (III.17.5) on its north and the Domus del Serapeo (probably the collegial hall of the Serapeum, III.17.3) to its south. From brickstamps and a reference in the Fasti Ostiensi it can be determined that the Serapeum was dedicated on 24 January 127 C.E. (Hadrian’s birthday). Thus, the northern end of the Via del Serapide was generally completed in this period. At about the same time, on the southern end of the Via del Serapide was constructed, also in Opus mixtum B, a trapezoidal horrea (III.17.1) that had its main entrance from the Cardo degli Aurighi. The wide area just to the north of the horrea and on the east thus became an open “square” at the end of the Via di Serapide. Just to the north of the horrea and on the western side was another lot (III.17.2) bounded by walls in Opus mixtum B. At some later point, probably still in the Antonine period,193 the western lot (III.17.2) immediately to the north of the horrea was constructed as a three-aisled loggia or gallery to serve, apparently, as a northern entrance into horrea. Nine large load-bearing piers were constructed in Opus latericium with bases in Opus vittatum (see Fig. 20a). Into the southern-most aisle a wide doorway with marble threshold was introduced to give access to the horrea. The loggia generally opened onto the “square” directly to the east and the Via di Serapide. The horrea and loggia were likely a private holding, and we might speculate that it dealt in imported luxury goods. An inscription from the Serapeum refers to renovations during the Severan period; they included addition of a schola or exedra.194 It likely refers to the Opus latericium exedra with marble colonnade in the northeast corner of the temple complex, which was clearly added at a later time. Another inscription found in the Serapeum from about the same time names M. Umbilius Maximinus Praetextatus, patronus coloniae and son of M. Umbilius Maximinus, as its dedicator.195 It is be dated to March 1, 200 C.E. based on consular notations. The father, moreover, is known from other inscripalso SdO I, 137–38; 236. SdO II, 77–78 dates this renovation to ca. 150, but gives no compelling reasons for such an early date in the Antonine period. 194 AE 2004: 365: T. Statilius Optatio statuam columellis et aetomate ornavit. For the inscription see F. Zevi, “Ancora su T. Statilius Taurianus e il Serapeo di Ostia,” Epigraphica 66 (2004): 95–108, who argues that the construction required permission of the pontifex Volcani et aedem sacrarum, the highest cultic official at Ostia who oversaw the city’s temples and sacred precincts. 195 AE 1988: 214: M(arco) Umbilio M(arci) F(ilio) Arn(ensi)/ Maximino/ Praetextato C(larissimo) P(uero) Patrono C(oloniae) / Sacerdoti Geni Col(oniae) / P(ublius) Calpvrnius /Princeps Equo Publ(ico) / omnibus honoribus functus / Educator / vac / Dedicata K(alendis) Marti(i)s / Severo et Victorino Co(n)s(ulibus). 192 See

193 Becatti,

490

L. Michael White

tions as patronus of the corporation of the lenuncularii (the operators of the tender boats) in 192 C.E.196 Based on the role of the city in approving the construction in the Serapeum, and given the role of the younger Umbilius in the Serapis cult, I would associate these projects with a substantial renovation occasioned by the construction of the warehouse to the west. Both the Serapeum and the collegial hall next door show considerable renovation work in Opus vittatum that likely belong to this period. About the same time, the mithraeum was installed in the loggia building at III.17.2. It appears now that the loggia also had been partially rebuilt, as most of the piers on the northern side (all in the outer wall and the western two in the right aisle of the mithraeum), were rebuilt in Opus vittatum. The irregular aedicula of the altar platform was also built in Opus vittatum to enclose the sides of the buttress and to form the center aisle. An outer entry court, also in Opus vittatum, was erected outside the main door of the mithraeum. Unless these features are all attributed to the second phase of construction, it seems that the mithraeum was installed sometime in the Late Antonine or early Severan period.

Inscriptions and Date

A Severan date (ca. 204–212) is supported by one of the mithraic inscriptions found in situ. It names Florius Hermadion as priest and dedicator of the cult niche, and opens with a Pro Salute Augustorum formula.197 Because the salutation explicitly mentions two emperors (using the abbreviation AVGG), it must refer either to the co-regency of Septimius Severus and Caracalla (204–211) or to that of Caracalla and Septimius Geta (211–212).198 Another inscription further links the operation of the mithraeum to the family of Umbilius Maximinus known from the Severan period in the nearby Serapeum, as discussed above. A marble basin ca. 60 cm in diameter with inscribed rim was found in the mithraeum; it names a M. Umbilius Criton as its dedi-

196 CIL

14.177, 251. SdO II, 82; Vermaseren, CIMRM, no. 273: Pr(o) Sal(ute) Augg(ustorum duorum) / S(oli) I(nvicto) M(ithrae) / Florius Hermadio / sacerdos s(ua) p(ecunia) f(ecit). The inscription was on a slab of marble revetment from the cult niche and almost certainly comes from the initial construction; it was probably then repositioned when the sanctuary was renovated in the middle of the third century. 198 As noted by both Becatti and Vermaseren, the two emperors could also be Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus (161–169) or Marcus Aurelius and Commodus (176–180). Becatti, therefore, preferred to assign a 176–180 date for the installation of the mithraeum (SdO II, 84; see also the following note). But the masonry analysis outlined above is not accurately reflected in Becatti’s plan of the mithraeum (SdO II, 79). Construction of an enormous warehouse to the W in the early Severan period may have also had some impact on these buildings, all of which show some signs of renovation in the Severan period. Another inscription noted by Becatti (see next note) links the mithraic dedicator M. Umbilius Criton to a prominent local family in Ostia, that of M. Umbilius Maximus and his son M. Umbilius Maximus Praetextatus. However, the known dates at Ostia for both men are after 192 (see n. 196, for the date of the father); the son made a dedication to the Serapeum in 200. Taken together these facts make an Antonine date for the renovation of the loggia and the installation of the mithraeum much less likely, because there was no Antonine co-regency after the death of Marcus Aurelius in 180. 197 Becatti,

The Changing Face of Mithraism at Ostia

491

cator.199 This person is likely a freedman of either the elder or the younger M. Umbilius Maximinus, and a Severan date for this mithraic dedication is thus most likely. A further word is in order on the overall plan of the mithraeum, as it is quite large with a number of ancillary rooms to the north and in the southwest corner (fig. 13). Because the door to the hall was directly off the open “square” at the southern end of the Via del Serapide, an entry court was constructed at some point in Opus vittatum. Opus vittatum was also used to frame and then narrow the main doorway. A large dolium and an oven were installed in this outer enclosure. While the date is uncertain, I would associate it with the Severan period installation of the mithraeum (or perhaps as an afterthought), based on the similarity of the masonry to that used in the first phase. It must also be assumed that the doorway between the loggia and the horrea to the south was sealed at this time. Finally, the mithraeum was renovated at least once after the middle of the third century, by rebuilding the aedicula, reducing the size of the tauroctone relief, and paving the central aisle with a black and white mosaic.200 A coin of Valerian with a bust of Sol in radiate crown and the legend “Oriens Augg” on the obverse was found in the later altar. It dates to 252–54 C.E. and provides a solid terminus post quem for this renovation. When the mithraeum went out of operation is difficult to guess. In the 4th cent., the horrea to the south (III.17.1) was reconfigured with a new entry portico from the Cardo degli Aurighi and, on the interior, a small, private bath complex built in Opus vittatum.201 Likewise, the Domus del Serapide (III.17.3) just to the north was transformed into a private house in the late 3rd or 4th cent.

Captions to figures Fig. 1: Plan of the Excavated Areas of Ancient Ostia, showing the location of the known mithraea and related sanctuaries. (Plan based on Meiggs, 1973, adapted and annotated by LMW).

199 Becatti, SdO II, 83; Vermaseren, CIMRM, no. 275: [In]victo Mithrae d(onum) d(edit) M(arcus) Umbilius Criton cum Pyladen vil[ico]. Becatti, followed by Vermaseren, identified this Umbilius Criton as a freedman of M. Umbilius Maximinus the elder, and thus ca. 192 (see nn. 196 and 198). This earlier date fit better with his efforts to make the mithraeum an Antonine installation, as discussed above; it also allowed him to identify this Criton with the Athenian artist who carved the full round tauroctone statue, which does seem to be Antonine in date, found reused in the M.d. Terme del Mitra. Cf. Becatti, SdO II, 83–84; for his discussion of the artist Criton and an earlier Antonine date for the statue, see Becatti, SdO II, 33–35. It must be noticed also that the Criton inscription from the Baths of Mithras is in Greek. 200 The earlier pavement was a simple cocciopesto, but it contained the “footprint” impressed in a brick (pedalis) seated into the pavement. In the second phase it was replicated in the mosaic. Becatti (followed by Vermaseren) associates the “footprint” with symbols from the cult of Serapis (Becatti, SdO II, 81). On the resizing of the relief see SdO II, 82. 201 See G. Poccardi, “Les bains de la ville d’Ostie a l’epoque tardo-antique (fin IIIe – debut Vie siecle),” in Les cites de l’Italie tardo-antique (IVe – VIe sicle) (eds. M. Ghilardi, C. J. Goddard, and P. Porena; Rome: École Français de Rome, 2006), 167–86.

492

L. Michael White

Fig. 2: Reg. IV.2  – The Area of the Mitreo degli Animale. (Plan based on SdO I, composite with annotations by LMW). Fig. 3: Plan of Mitreo degli Animale (adapted from Becatti, composite restoration by LMW). Fig. 4: Views of Mitreo degli Animale. (Photos by LMW). a. West wall with sealed doorway. b. West wall with piers and upper walls. c. The thronum. Fig. 5: General view of Mitreo degli Animale. (from Becatti, Scavi di Ostia II, Tav. 17). Fig. 6: Reg. I.1–4 – The Area of the Mitreo del Cassegiato di Diana (A), Sacello di Silvano (B), and Mitreo di Lucretio Menandro (C) (from SdO I, composite with annotations by LMW). Fig. 7: Plan of Cassegiato di Diana, Phases II and IV/V. (Adapted from A. Marinucci, composite by LMW). Fig. 8: Views of the Mitreo d. Diana (Photos by LMW). a. The left podium (Rm 25), with the Opus sectile pavement of Phase II (Rm 27) below. b. Same, with Severan frescoes preserved above the podium. c. The right podium (Rm 25), with Severan frescoes preserved on S wall. Fig. 9: The Palazzo Imperiale Complex (Plan of J. Spurza). Fig. 10: The Palazzo Imperiale Mithraeum. (Plan restoration, composite by LMW). Fig. 11: Reg. III–IV – Areas of Mitrei dei Pareti Dipinti (A) and Sette Porte (B) (from SdO I, composite with annotations by LMW). Fig. 12: Plan of Mitreo dei Pareti Dipinti (adapted from Becatti, composite restoration by LMW). Fig. 13: Reg. II.8 – The Area of the Domus del Apuleio and Mitreo delle Sette Sfere. (from SdO I, composite with annotations by LMW). Fig. 14: Reg. V.6–9 – Area of Mitrei dei Serpenti (A) and Felicissimus (B) (from SdO I, composite with annotations by LMW). Fig. 15: Reg. I.10–17 – Area of Mitreo della Planta Pedis (A) and Sacello delle Tre Navate. (from SdO I, composite with annotations by LMW). Fig. 16: Views of the garden fresco on the S. wall of the Mitreo delle Sette Porte, a. Photo from Becatti, SdO II, Tav. XXII.2 (1939). b. Photo by LMW, present state. Fig. 17: Views of the Antonine frescoes of the Mitreo di Lucretius Menandro. (Photos by LMW) a. The right (W) bench with frescoes on the wall and secondary doorway to ancillary room and frescoes. b. View into the ancillary room to the west, with the decorative program continued.

The Artemision at Ephesos Paul, John and Mary Ulrike Muss*

1. History of the Site Early Ephesos was situated on a gulf where the ancient river Kayster, modern Küçük Menderes, and tributary streams flowed directly into the sea. One of these tributary streams, the Selinus, touched the Artemision, according to the ancient writers Strabo, Xenophon and Pliny. Excavations proved that the east corner of the Artemision area was covered by fluvial sand, and a dam was erected to prevent the fluvial sediments from destroying the site1. At the Artemision the change in sea level can be studied in relation to the rise of sanctuaries during the centuries. The earliest detectable sanctuary dating to the 8th century is the lowest. Its successors were constructed at progressively higher levels, so the 4th century temple lies five meters above the 8th century peripteros (figs. 1, 2). Drilling in the Artremision area has shown that the earliest coastline crossed the center of the sanctuary.2 The sanctuary was situated on a slope in the form of a spur jutting into the sea. The starting point for a cult at this place was perhaps a spring which existed until archaic times in the area of the altar.3 Later a lead pipe was constructed which brought water into this area (figs. 2, 3). If there existed a cult place in the Late Bronze Age as has been suggested by pottery and terracottas, it too was built on dry ground. All later sanctu* University of Vienna, Institute for Classical Archaeology. 1 U. Muss, “Early Cults at Ephesus: Their Relation to the Myceneans and the Ionian Migration,” in Helike III. Ancient Helike and Aigealeia. Proceedings of the Third International Conference Nikolaiika 2000 (eds. D. Katsonopoulou and S. Soter. I. Koukouvelos; Athens 2005), 133–151. 2 J. C. Kraft, I. Kayan, H. Brückner, “The Geological and Paleogeographical Environs of the Artemision,” in Der Kosmos der Artemis von Ephesos (ed. U. Muss; Wien: Phoibos Verlag, 2001), 123–132 Pl. 6. 3 Muss, “Early Cults at Ephesus.”

494

Ulrike Muss

aries, especially the big marble temples, stand on the sediment rather than on firm rock. Its foundations certainly presented a major challenge to the architects, a problem which is echoed in the literary sources.4 A main feature of the sanctuary is its orientation towards the west which corresponds to that of the temples in Sardis and Magnesia on the Meander. This orientation relates back to the earliest architectural structure, a small peripteros, and dominated and determined that of all later structures (fig. 2). In the 6th century C.E. a church was built within the sekos of the temple. Simultaneously the gulf of Ephesus was refilled with deposits, with the result that modern Selçuk is situated eight kilometers inland from the present coast. Finally the site of the Artemision was buried under sediment after the destruction and abandonment of the site.

2. Discovery and Excavations Cyriacus of Ancona, who visited Ephesos in 1446, was one of the first to be interested in the location of the Artemision. Walter Rivius, who translated Vitruvius’ Ten Books on Architecture into German in 1548, envisioned the columns of the temple to be massive caryatids. The illustrations of the Seven Wonders of the World, based on proposals of Martin van Heemskerck – illustrations which first appeared in the margins of the map of the world by Jan Blaew, first printed in 1606 – show the Artemision as a three-aisled basilica with a three-storeyed Baroque façade. The Austrian architect Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach based his reconstruction of 1721 on antique coins and ancient descriptions of the temple. These reconstructions, however, scarcely resemble an ancient structure. Huge remains of walls were what many 18th century travellers were expecting to find as the remains of this unique World Wonder. Frequently, the ruins of the Harbour Gymnasium and its substructures were mistakenly thought to belong to the Artemision.5 For more than 1000 years, the Temple of Artemis, the most celebrated shrine of classical antiquity, completely disappeared from view. The vision of it was, however, never lost. More than any other ancient monument, the Temple of Artemis came to stand in that “Other Eden,” the lost classi4 B. Wesenberg, “Beiträge zur Rekonstruktion griechischer Architektur nach literarischen Quellen,” Beiheft Athener Mitteilungen 9 (1983): 32–33. A. Rügler, “Die Columnae Caelatae des jüngeren Artemision von Ephesos,” Istanbuler Mitteilungen Beiheft 34 (1988): 185–191. 5 A. Bernhard-Walcher, “Das Heiligtum der Artemis von Ephesos – ein verschollenes Weltwunder,” in Das Artemision von Ephesos. Heiliger Platz einer Göttin (ed. W. Seipel; Vienna: Phoibos Verlag, 2008), 15–23.

The Artemision at Ephesos

495

cal paradise, the same paradise which, in its enthusiasm and ever-growing wealth, the rapidly industrializing North thought it could re-enter and retake for itself. The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus therefore was the first monument of the ancient East that Europeans and their governments set out to find, even before Heinrich Schliemann went to dig at Troy and Mycenae. The man who went looking for Artemis’ great temple was an English engineer working for the company that was building the first railway lines through south-western Turkey, The Smyrna and Aydin Railway Company6. In his book ‘Discoveries at Ephesus’, published in 1877, John Turtle Wood describes his search for one of the seven wonders of the world, which he found on the last day of 1869. A first reconstruction of the Ionic dipteros was presented by him, a reconstruction which already displayed an exact structure and overall size for the temple (fig. 4). Excavations in the Artemision were carried out by David George Hogarth in 1904/05 together with Arthur E. Henderson, under the auspices of the British Museum. These excavations produced sensational results, as it was discovered that there existed even older architectural installations in the temple’s court, even before the first large marble temple dating to the 6th c. B.C.E. In addition, hundreds of mainly archaic objects, made of gold, silver, bronze and ivory, as well as coins, which are among the earliest we know, were unearthed during these excavations7. The Austrian archaeologist Otto Benndorf and the discoverer of the Pergamon Altar, the German Carl Humann, had already searched for the altar associated with the temple in 1895, but it was not until 1965 that it was discovered by Anton Bammer. At this time, excavations in the Artemision were reactivated after a long intermission8. These continued until 1994. The focus of these excavations lies not only on the altar itself, but also on both temples and the smaller archaic structures which existed before the archaic temple. Attention was also paid to much later structures and evidences which survived in the temenos of Artemis.9

and E. Romer, The Seven Wonders of the World. A History of the Modern Imagination (London: Michael O’Mara Books, 1995), 129–164. 7 Excavations at Ephesus (eds. D. G. Hogarth et al; London: British Museum, 1908). 8 U. Muss, A. Bammer and M. Büyükkolancı, Der Altar des Artemisions von Ephesos. Forschungen in Ephesos XII/2 (Vienna: Akademie der Wissenschaften und Österreichisches Archäologisches Institut, 2001). 9 A. Bammer and U. Muss, Das Artemision von Ephesos. Das Heiligtum in archaischer und klassischer Zeit (Mainz: Zabern-Verlag, 1996). The finds from both excavations have first been presented together in an exhibition in the Archaeological Museum at Istanbul from May to September 2008. For the Exhibition Catalogue see Das Artemision von Ephesos. Heiliger Platz einer Göttin (ed. W. Seipel; Wien: Phoibos Verlag, 2008). 6 J.

496

Ulrike Muss

3. Temples and Altars The first architectural building at the site was a small peripteros temple, dating to the second half of the 8th century, measuring 13.5 × 6 × 5 m with 4 × 8 columns and an open cella in its interior (figs. 2, 5). This temple lies in the area which became the courtyard of the subsequent temple. Inside, resting on six columns, a rectangular base (with baldachino?) housed the cult figure, the xoanon, an underlifesize statue made of wood. The remains of the decoration of this early divine image have been found, including beads of various materials belonging to necklaces and amber objects of various shapes (figs. 6, 7). Foundations and walls of this little building were made of marly limestone, while the bases for the columns were made of green schist10. The so-called temple C, erected in the late 7th or early 6th century B.C.E., lies on the site of the peripteros and shows signs of antae on its west side. Its walls and foundations are also made of marl. Work on the building was presumably discontinued when work on the archaic dipteros began (fig. 2)11. In the late 7th century another building can be found on the west side of the Artemision. The structure was 34.40 m long, a dimension corresponding to one hundred Ionic feet, and this led to its designation as Hekatompedos (hundred footer)12. The building lies on the axis of the Croesus temple, exactly at a right angle to its western entrance. At the same time there existed several bases with cult depositions at the site. These, Temple C and the Hekatompedos, are part of a pluralistic religious development in the Artemision (fig. 2). Around 560 B.C.E. construction of the first large marble dipteros, the so-called Croesus temple, began. The building of the archaic dipteros was a milestone for Greek architecture. The large blocks of marble used here had never previously been transported, and the technological innovations used here were greatly admired. The foundations of the building consisted of large slate blocks coated with clay. Only the stylobate above was constructed of polygonally cut marble slabs. The great admiration which the Greeks showed for the technologi10 A.

Bammer, “A Peripteros of the Geometric Period in the Artemision of Ephesus,” Anatolian Studies 40 (1990): 137–160. U. Muss, “Amber from the Artemision at Ephesus in the Archaeological Museums in Istanbul und Selçuk  – Ephesus,” 25. Ara tırma Sonuçları Toplantısı 3 (2007): 13–26. A. Bammer, “Iron Age Architecture at Ephesus,” in Iron Ages 6. The Proceedings of the Sixth Anatolian Iron Ages Colloquium, Eski ehir 2004 (Ancient Near Eastern Studies Suppl. 20; eds. A. Cilingiro lu and A. Sagona; Leuven, 2007), 1–18. 11 A. Bammer, “Die Geschichte des Sekos im Artemision von Ephesos,” Österreichische Jahreshefte 62 (1993): 137–168. 12 A. Bammer and U. Muss, “Der Hekatompedos im Artemision von Ephesos,” Anatolia Antiqua 17 (2009): 151–174.

The Artemision at Ephesos

497

cal innovations first used in the building of this giant temple is reflected in the legend that the lintel of the great door was put in place by the goddess Artemis herself 13. The temple was just under 60 m wide but its length is not known. It probably had 104 columns (fig. 2). Of particular interest are the temple columns carved with figures – the famous columnae caelatae – and the roof cornice in marble, which was also decorated with figures. Nearly all the roof tiles were made of marble as well, so that each column had to support a weight of over 100 tons. Most of the fragments of architectural sculpture, the columnae caelatae and the frieze of the roof entablature were discovered during the British excavations. Many were reused in the pillars of the church built in the sekos of the temple, which was blown up by John Turtle Wood. Fragments of column drums with reliefs, as well as rectangular column bases, still survive and portray a procession of people and animals on their way to a sacrifice (fig. 8)14. Like the Temple of Apollo at Didyma, the Artemision was not a temple in the sense of a covered building, but rather the walls enclosed an open court area, the sekos. The peristasis was covered with a roof. The sekos surrounded the old peripteros whose cella was now used, in its eastern half, as the foundation for the naiskos in marble – a small temple-like building which housed the cult statue of the so-called Croesus temple.15 This was also the place where the famous cult statue of Artemis with multiple ‘breasts’ was later located (fig. 9). In the late 6th or early 5th century B.C.E. a large courtyard altar was erected on the temple axis over a U-shaped limestone foundation which enclosed the three bases mentioned above. This altar lies in the west of the area and encloses a large courtyard 31.90 × 16.67 m, which opens to the west (fig. 2). The lower of the two approximately 0.36 m high stone courses supported some sort of structure, probably an undecorated fence-like enclosure; the courtyard was covered with polygonal cut marble slabs16.

4. The Artemision and Hellenistic cult Besides that after the defeat of Athens at Aigospotamoi in 405 B.C.E., the Ephesians put up statues of Lysander and other Spartans such as Eotenikos Nat.Hist. 36.21.95. Muss, Die Bauplastik des archaischen Artemisions von Ephesos (Österreichisches Archäologisches Institut, Sonderschriften Band 25; Vienna: Österreichisches Archäologisches Institut, 1994) 43–54. 15 A. Ohnesorg, “Neue Forschungen zum archaischen Dipteros der Artemis von Ephesos,” Forschungen in Ephesos XII/4 (2007). 16 Der Altar des Artemisions von Ephesos. 13 Pliny 14 U.

498

Ulrike Muss

and Pharax in the sanctuary of Artemis17; during the time of the Macedonians, the Ephesians placed a statue of Philip in the Temple.18 Various ancient sources state that the Croesus temple, also called the older Artemision, was set on fire by a certain Herostratus who allegedly wished to immortalize his name through this act.19 The reports of this fire are verifiable because architecture and sculpture made of marble from the archaic temple reveal traces of it. Alexander the Great is said to have been born on the same night that the fire occurred. A contribution was offered by him to the temple of Artemis, but this royal votive in the form of money for the support of the building of the new temple was neglected.20 The city of Ephesos introduced a cult for Alexander after 33421. To the honours for Alexander belong also his two portraits, which were made by Apelles and kept in the Temple of Artemis.22 One showed Alexander on a horse, the other portrayed him as Zeus.23 4.1 The ‘World Wonder’ and its altar Cheirokrates, Paionios and Demetrios are known to have been the architects of the rebuilding of this marble temple. The ground plan can only be reconstructed with the help of the dimensions of the archaic temple lying approximately 2.76 m beneath it. All essential elements of the archaic structure were retained including the columns decorated with reliefs (fig. 10, 11)24. The high platform upon which the later temple stands was necessary because of flooding caused by a pronounced rise in sea level in the 4th century B.C.E. In contrast with the older Artemision the ground plan was modified. 17 Ch. Thomas, “At home in the City of Artemis,” in Ephesos. Metropolis Asiae (Harvard Theological Studies 41; ed. H. Koester, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard Theological Studies, 1995), 110. 18  Arrian, Anabasis 1.17.11. The statue was torn down by the oligarchy that ruled Ephesos in the 4th cent. B.C.E. See also U. Muss, “Zur Geschichte des Artemisions,” in Die Archäologie der ephesischen Artemis (ed. U. Muss; Vienna: Phoibos Verlag, 2008), 47–54. 19 St. Karwiese, Groß ist die Artemis von Ephesos (Vienna: Phoibos Verlag, 1995), 57 f. Rügler, “Die Columnae Caelatae des jüngeren Artemision von Ephesos.” 20 Arrian, Anabasis 1.17.10. 21 Chr. Habicht, Gottmenschentum und griechische Städte (2nd ed., Munich: Beck Verlag, 1970), 18 f. 22 Pliny, Nat.Hist. 35.92; Cicero, Verr. 4, 135; Aelian, Varia historia 2.3; Plutarch, Alexan­der 4,2; Mor. 335 A. 23 Karwiese, Groß ist die Artemis von Ephesos, 61. Aelian, Varia historia 2.3; Plutarch, Alexander 4; Pliny Nat.Hist. 35. 92. 24 A. Bammer, Die Architektur des Jüngeren Artemision von Ephesos (Wiesbaden: SteinerVerlag, 1972); A. Rügler, Die Columnae Caelatae des jüngeren Artemision von Ephesos (Istanbuler Mitteilungen Beiheft 34; Tübingen: Wasmuth Verlag, 1988).

The Artemision at Ephesos

499

The high and broad stepped base, as well as the third row of columns on the west front, narrowed the space between the altar and the temple. The sekos acquired a stepped ramp which led down to the level of the archaic temple. The rear, eastern end of the cella was fitted out with a room accessible from outside, the opisthodomos, which probably served as a treasure chamber. No more than 21 columns can be assumed for the long sides of the temple, while eight columns remain on the west front, or entrance side. Two rows of nine columns can be reconstructed on the rear façade (fig. 10). Ancient coins depict doors in the temple pediment. The height of the columns can be reconstructed to approximately 18.40 m. using literary sources and the remaining fragments.25 In the 4th century B.C.E. a new altar enclosure was also built. The three structures in the interior of the court, which have been interpreted as a base for the cult statue, an eschara (hearth for sacrificial burning) and a ramp (place for slaughtering the sacrificial animals) were apparently rebuilt on the old foundations (fig. 2). The second building phase of this enclosure is represented by the uppermost preserved limestone foundation. The construction in marble – probably prior to the rebuilding of the large temple – has preserved fragments of sculpture and architectural elements. A hypothetical reconstruction can be made of the altar base as well as of the columnar architecture above it, which was decorated with figures in the intercolumniations. Sculptured horses from the decoration of the building’s roof have also survived (fig. 12). In the Roman Imperial period, Artemis Ephesia was venerated throughout the entire Empire. In the mid-1st century C.E., the governor Paullus Fabius Persicus wrote that the sanctuary was the gem of the province: its fame was based on the great antiquity of the cult, the impressive scale of the temple, and the abundance of wealth which Augustus had restored to the goddess.26 In the 2nd century C.E., Pausanias reported, ‘All the cities, and also private individuals, honour Artemis Ephesia more than any other divinity. I assume the grounds for this to be, on the one hand, the fame of the Amazons, of whom the legend goes that they first erected the cult statue; an additional reason is the fact that this sanctuary was established in very earliest times. Furthermore, three additional factors strengthen the cult’s fame: first, the scale of the temple, which surpasses anything built by man, further, the flourishing prosperity of the city of Ephesos, and finally the obvious workings of the goddess of this city.’27 Nat.Hist. 36.21.95. Engelmann, “Inschriften und Heiligtum,” in Der Kosmos der Artemis von Ephesos (ed. U. Muss; Vienna: Phoibos-Verlag, 2001), 33–44. IK 11.1, 19a. 27 Pausanias 4.31.8. 25 Pliny, 26 H.

500

Ulrike Muss

Imperial coins reveal the temple with the well-known picture of the goddess (fig. 13). The temple is that structure which after the fire of 356 B.C.E., then a destroyed or at least heavily damaged building, was re-erected. At this time, the dimensions and proportions of the archaic building were maintained. Such was also the case for specific decorative schemes, for example the columnae caelatae, which were expressly modeled on those of the previous building. The 4th century Artemision is therefore not an original creation of its period, but rather it can be concluded that a conscious attempt was made to re-construct the destroyed cult building of a bygone era. When, in 200 B.C.E., the first canon of the Seven Wonders of the World was established by Philo of Byzantium, the Artemision was numbered amongst them28. The Artemision of Ephesos constituted for many centuries not only one of the most famous structures of antiquity, but also preserved its function as an ancient sanctuary at least until the transformation of the sekos into a church – a function that it retained even after the plundering by the Goths in 263 C.E. Although the exact scope and impact of this plundering are not precisely known, it certainly did not signal the end of the cult. Measures for the preservation of the historical substance of the building are archaeologically attested in the form of a repair to the cella door. J. T. Wood found re-used statue bases from the period of Marcus Aurelius, which displayed the incomplete profile of the door frame. An incompletely worked bust, which apparently should have been fabricated out of a damaged sculptured drum, a columna caelata, allows the assumption that at least a portion of the colonnade was damaged29. 4.2. New buildings and imperial cults in the temenos of Artemis Literary sources and inscriptions from Ephesos preserve information in numerous places concerning Artemis and her sanctuary. These references concern the famous asylum, the structure of the cult rituals, the bank, wellknown throughout the entire ancient world, and the wealth of the sanctuary

28 Bammer

and Muss, “Der Hekatompedos im Artemision von Ephesos,” 10–14. Muss, “Das Artemision von Ephesos in römischer Zeit,” in Festschrift für Ramazan Özgan (eds. M. ahin and I. H. Mert; Istanbul: Ege-Yayınları, 2005), 249–63; U. Muss, “Republik und Kaiser im Artemision von Ephesos,” in Neue Zeiten – Neue Sitten. Zur Rezeption und Integration römischen und italischen Kulturguts in Kleinasien (ed. M. Meyer; Wien: Phoibos-Verlag, 2007), 243–250; A. Bammer and U. Muss, “Continuity and Discontinuity of cults in the Artemision at Ephesus,” in Yolların Kesi ti ı Yer – The Lands of the Crossroads (eds. S. Aybek – A. Kazım Öz; Festschrift for R. Meriç; Istanbul: Ege-Yayınları 2010), 1 ff. 29 U.

The Artemision at Ephesos

501

in arable land and pasturage as well as in vineyards, salt mines, and fishing rights in the Cestrus Valley30. From epigraphic and literary sources, in addition to the temple and altar, we also know about buildings in the sanctuary which were erected in the Imperial period:31 a) An Augusteum: a cult area was dedicated to Augustus, as a new god, in the Artemision; the damaged surroundings of the new cult area were restored under Emperor Titus at the expense of the Temple Treasury.32 b) A Gymnasium: in the Imperial period there was at least one gymnasium inside the sanctuary: an ‘agoronomos’ is attested, who donated a certain amount of anointing oil to be distributed in the gymnasium of the sanctuary of Artemis.33 c) A Stoa, which ran from the sanctuary, is mentioned in the Trajanic period.34 d) A Pinakotheke which is mentioned by Pausanias.35 e) A Banqueting Hall mentioned by Philostraus, which Flavius Damianus funded and which was apparently furnished with every luxury.36 Visible, or excavated, in the Artemision or in its immediate vicinity are the following: 1) The so-called Tribune, a Roman building, of which a substructure constructed of vaults is preserved. The building has been interpreted as the starting point for processions to Ephesos and the place where the so called Parthian Monument originally was located.37 2) The Damianus Stoa: at the end of the 2nd century, the well-known Ephesian Sophist T. Flavius Damianus, who was also the donor of the abovementioned Banqueting Hall, caused the processional way connecting the Artemision with the Hellenistic-Roman city, an avenue steeped in tradition, to be roofed over with a covered colonnade. Traces of the Stoa are preserved at the north and east feet of the Panyirda .38 30  R. Meriç, “Das Hinterland von Ephesos. Archäologisch-topographische Forschungen im Kaystros-Tal,” Ergänzungshefte zu den Jahreheften des Österreichischen Archäologischen Institutes 12 (2009): esp. 29ff, 88 with fig. 91. See fig. 2 with indication of the Holy Land of Artemis in the Cestrus Valley. M. Horster, Landbesitz griechischer Heiligtümer in archaischer und klassischer Zeit (Berlin: de Gruyter-Verlag, 2004). 31 Engelmann, “Inschriften und Heiligtum”. 32 Inschriften griechischer Städte aus Kleinasien Vol. 12 (1979) IvE 412; Vol. 15 (1980) IvE 1522. 33 Inschriften griechischer Städte aus Kleinasien Vol. 13 (1980) IvE 938. 34 Inschriften griechischer Städte aus Kleinasien Vol. 15 (1980) IvE 1545. 35 Pausanias, 10.38.6–7. 36 Philostratus, Lives of the sophists II 23. 37 A. Bammer, “Zum Standort des Parthermonuments,” Anatolia/Anadolu 26 (2004): 11–24. 38 F. Hueber, Ephesos. Gebaute Geschichte (Mainz: Zabern-Verlag, 1997), 49, Plate 58.

502

Ulrike Muss

3) Three Roman or, better stated, late Hellenistic-early Imperial structures which are located in the northern part of the sanctuary close to the temple. Partially brought to light has been a larger, rectangular building with an altar or base lying to its north and a podium building, which made use of an older, stepped marble structure on its eastern side; this earlier structure probably dates to the late Hellenistic period. From this podium building, steps ran to a courtyard in the south, in which a rectangular altar lay (fig. 14). These buildings were created and stood at a time when the 4th century temple and its altar were still in use. That the rectangular structure and the podium temple were cultic in nature can be deduced from the fact that they were both dismantled – probably during the Christian era ‑almost down to their foundations (fig. 15).

5. Paganism and Early Christianity: Paul An early controversy between Paganism and Christianity in Ephesos is already attested in the mid-first century C.E.: the Acts of the Apostles39 reports a rebellion against Paul, who, during his third mission, spent two years in the metropolis of Asia Minor. The Apostle directed his energies against the trade in devotional objects, in the form of silver objects representing Artemis and her temple.40 Paul certainly arrived in Ephesos via the sea.41 At his time the harbour lay further to the east and was located much nearer to the theatre than it is today. The scene of the silversmiths’ riot during Paul’s second stay in Ephesos happened in the theater, one of the largest in the province of Asia, with a capacity of almost 20.000 spectators in the 2nd century C.E. At the time of the silversmiths’ riot the building probably was covered with scaffolding and perhaps workmen watched the unexpected event. The marketplace at the so called Lower or Tetragonos Agora was near the theatre where the silversmiths probably had their shops. Perhaps we can imagine the scenario with today’s ‘silversmiths’ at the Artemision site shouting to the tourists 39 Acts

19:23–20:1. story of the silversmiths reflects the milieu of Ephesos, but it is questionable that the story is historical. See H. Koester, “Ephesos in Early Christian Literature,” in Ephesos, Metropolis of Asia, 119–140, esp. 129 f. 41 From the 1st century onwards Ephesos was also visited more frequently by famous personalities: by the geographer Artemidoros, by the philosopher and statesman Cicero, by the geographer Strabo; by the politician and writer Pliny the Elder and by the sophist T. Claudius Flavianus Dionysios. At least Pliny the elder (23–79 C.E.) was a contemporary of Paul. 40 The

The Artemision at Ephesos

503

while selling small ‘copies’ of the temple, or more common, statuettes of Artemis Ephesia.42 In Paul’s time the temple of Artemis and its altar were already several hundred years old. In the temenos of Artemis a cult for the Emperor Augustus existed and at least some of the monuments listed above. Whether Paul ever visited the site of the Artemis Temple we do not know. A wood engraving made after a drawing by Gustave Doré in the 19th century shows Paul teaching and behind him a temple which can be imagined as the Artemision.43 The scene in the foreground shows a furious group of men, throwing books into a fire. Paul, standing above them on a stepped podium, with his right arm strechted out to the men, looks backwards to the temple (fig. 16). Paul spent two years and three months in Ephesos. Very little is known of early Christianity and Judaism before the fourth century.44 Paul preached in a synagogue, the place of which is not known,45 and Paul taught in the school (schol ) of Tyrannos46 which has to be imagined as a location in an existing public building in the city. Monumental gates, like those of Mazäus and Mithridates, existed at this time, as did the theatre, where Paul talked and taught, the monument of Memmius, and the Basilica on the so called State Agora, to name only a few. From the terrace houses we also know how rich Ephesians lived in the 1st century. But these are not the places Paul could be expected to frequent. His place has to be the harbor area, where the more mobile population like the fishermen would be located.

6. The Artemision and John The Apostle John was directly connected with the Temple of Artemis. The apocryphal Acts of John report his visit to the Artemision47: during a festival the saint reportedly, through prayer, destroyed the altar, numerous 42 Many silversmiths’ inscriptions have been found at Ephesos or are still in situ. Almost all of them date to the late first or to the second century C.E. Inschriften griechischer Städte aus Kleinaisen, (1979, 1980) IvE 547 (on two separate columns of the Arkadiane), 585 (on the lion foot of a bench in the church of St. John), 586 (built into the north side of the street of the Kuretes), 636 (Bath of Scholastikia), 2212, 2441. 43 F. Hueber, Ephesos. Gebaute Geschichte, 94, fig. 117. 44 R. Strelan, Paul, Artemis and the Jews in Ephesus (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1996). 45 Acts 19:8; A. Bammer, Ephesos, Stadt and Fluß und Meer (Graz: Akademische Druck und Verlagsanstalt, 1988), 154–155, with No. 20 as a possible place for the synagogue. 46 Acts 19:9. 47 H. Engelmann, “Ephesos und die Johannesakten,” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 103 (1994): 297–302.

504

Ulrike Muss

offerings, statues of the divinity, and elements of the architectural structure. Even if this event cannot be historically verified, it at least provides a clear message which was handed down in Christian circles. It stands for the victory of John over Artemis as a symbol for the victory of Christian belief and the defeat of paganism. An illustration of this destruction found its way into a French manuscript of the 13th century C.E. which today is in the Trinity College Library at Cambridge.48 6.1 The Cult of Artemis Ephesia in early Christian times The cult of Artemis Ephesia survived early Christian times. During the 2nd and 3rd centuries C.E., the Artemision remained the cultic centre of the city.49 It was heavily affected by the earthquake of 262 C.E, and the resulting plundering by the Goths (263 C.E.); however, repairs were carried out in order to ensure the continued practice of cultic rituals. All of these events did not lead to the end of cult practice. Finally, in the 4th century, when Christianity acquired the status of a religio licita in 313 and eventually was elevated to the position of state religion in 391, consequences were inevitable for the Artemision itself. To begin with, a series of Imperial edicts forbade the practice of pagan cult, ordered the closing of pagan temples,50 or recommended a new, altered usage. Frequently, however, the cult spaces were simply destroyed and completely demolished.51 At the same time, decrees existed which prohibited the destruction or allowed the preservation of the monument through the fixing of crucifixes. Immediate abandonment or Christian adaptation of all pagan sanctuaries are however not to be assumed; rather, it is much more likely that pagan and Christian cultic spaces existed next to each other for some time. Christian re-consecration of pagan buildings is attested at Ephesos at, amongst others, the Olympieion (Temple of Hadrian), the so-called Serapeion, the so-called

Trell, “The Temple of Artemis at Ephesos,” in The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World (eds. P. Clayton – M. Price; London: Routledge, 1988, reprint 1991), 97, fig. 48. 49 R. Oster, “The Ephesian Artemis as an Opponent to Early Christianity,” Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum 19 (1976): 29 ff. 50 F. R. Trombley, Hellenic Religion and Christianization C. 370–529, vol. 1 (2nd ed.; Boston-Leiden: Brill, 2001), 1–94. 51 F. W. Deichmann, “Frühchristliche Kirchen in antiken Heiligtümern,” Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Institutes 54 (1939): 105–136; R. Meier, “Alte Tempel – Neue Kulte. Zum Schutz obsoleter Sakralbauten in der Spätantike und zur Adaption alter Bauten an den christlichen Kult,” in Innovation in der Spätantike (ed. B. Brenk, Wiesbaden: Reicherts Verlag, 1996), 363 ff. 48 B. L.

The Artemision at Ephesos

505

tomb of St. Lucas – an Imperial-period circular fountain building – the east gymnasium, and at the Artemision.52 Johannes Chrysostomos, during his stay in Ephesos in 401 C.E., attempted to prohibit the further practice of pagan cult at the Artemision, in that he stripped the cult statue of Artemis down to the Xoanon, that is, robbed it of its jewelry and allowed it to be burned.53 Even if this event cannot be confirmed historically, the tradition suggests, at the very least, that at the beginning of the 5th century, the temple was finally closed and the cessation of cult practices took place. A socle inscription from this time also attests to the declining influence of Artemis. Here, a certain Demeas is glorified, who destroyed the existing Artemis statue, and replaced it with a cross.54 The Artemision served as quarry and provider of stones which were used as spolia for civic, Christian and Islamic buildings, for example in the Basilica of St. John, the Isa Bey Mosque and a Byzantine aqueduct. It is interesting that spolia from the Artemis Altar were found above all in the region of the Church of St. John – in the walls built since the 6th century against the attack of Arabs55 – and in Ephesos itself, laid down there as street paving stones in front of the theatre, while many stones from the temple itself were discovered in the Byzantine aqueduct which crosses the modern town of Selçuk. Apparently the altar was demolished first. Even parts of the temple, however, appeared in the Church of St. John, for example the great geison of the late classical temple, which has been reworked into a capital (fig. 17).

7. The church in the Artemision and Mary It was J. T. Wood who, during his excavations in 1870, discovered walled piers in the interior walls of the temple courtyard which he identified as the remains of a church. He published a plan in which these piers of the north 52 I. Donkow, “Temples in Late Antique Ephesus,” (forthcoming) in Archaeology of Late Antique Paganism (eds L. Lavan, D. Gwynn and N. Christie; Late Antique Archaeology 6.2; Leiden: Brill, 2011). 53 R. C. Kukula, “Literarische Zeugnisse über den Artemistempel von Ephesos und inschriftliche Zeugniss über das Artemision,” Forschungen in Ephesos I (1906): 237–282, esp. 269 Nr. 405, Prokopius, Oratio 20. 54 O. Dally, “Pflege und Umnutzung heidnischer Tempel in der Spätantike,” in Die spätantike Stadt und ihre Christianisierung (eds. G. Brands and H.-G. Severin; Wiesbaden: Reichert-Verlag 2003), 97 ff. On the Demeas inscription see A. Chaniotis, “The conversion of the Temple of Aphrodite at Aphrodisias in Context,” in From Temple to Church. Deconstruction and Renewal of Local Topography in Late Antiquity (eds. J. Hahn, St. Emmel and U. Gotter; Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2008), 243–244. 55 M. Büyükkolancı and U. Muss, “Die Fundsituation der Werkstücke,” in Forschungen in Ephesos XII/2 (2001): 28–29.

506

Ulrike Muss

and south side are illustrated. During the course of renewed excavations carried out by us in the 1980s in the so-called central base of the Artemision, the remains of these piers were rediscovered and re-excavated. The piers lay on the inner wall of the archaic sekos (courtyard of the temple), and there were eight piers per side. Seven of the piers per side are square. The piers have a length along the side of from 2.50 to 3.0 m., and a distance from each other of ca. 2.20 up to 3.80 m. The piers in the eastern corner are set up longitudinally with a plan measuring ca. 5 × 2.50 m. The situation on the west side cannot be completely clarified: either there were a pair of square piers and then an interval56, or there were a pair of wider piers as in the east (fig. 18)57. The piers were tangent to the archaic courtyard wall on its inner face, and their lower edges extend below the archaic level of the sekos: they thereby indicate that the archaic courtyard walls still stood when the piers were set up, on the exterior at least to the level of the raised stylobate of the temple. The religions kept contact through the architecture, and therefore we have to speak of a church in a temple, not of a church instead of a temple. Wood himself severely damaged the piers, because he found archaic sculptural remains of the columnae caelatae built into them as spolia.58 In 1991 we also discovered a large fragment of a dancing woman built into the southern pier.59 Of all the piers built into the courtyard walls, only this pier is evidently preserved to the height at which Wood came across it. The question arises, where did these ancient fragments come from, which at the time of their reuse were already a number of centuries old? They must already earlier have been reused as spolia, at the time of the building of the second, 4th century temple. Nothing was found of the wall construction of the building; three large blocks of tufa were found on the south side of the temple, blocks which evidently originated from vaults. In contrast to the piers,60 these blocks preserved no worked pieces. Wood spoke of a ‘church within the Cella of the Temple,’, but suspected ‘that the church was never finished on its intended site.’61 56 A. Bammer, “Neues zur Kirche im Artemision,” in Die Archäologie der ephesischen Artemis (ed. U. Muss; Vienna: Phoibos-Verlag, 2008), 285–288. 57 J. T. Wood, Discoveries at Ephesus (London: British Museum, 1877), 190 with fig. after p. 262. Bammer and Muss, Das Artemision von Ephesos. Das Heiligtum in archaischer und klassischer Zeit, 43, fig. 43. 58 I. Donkow, with a little help of gunpowder: J. T. Wood’s excavations of the early Christian church in the Artemision of Ephesos: Bysantinska Sällskapets Bulletin 21 (2003): 5–13. 59 Bammer and Muss, “Der Hekatompedos im Artemision von Ephesos,” 50, fig. 47. 60 A date for the piers is not easy to find. In the southernmost pier one can detect a small ionic geison and an attic base, probably belonging to the imperial period. See Ohnesorg, “Neue Forschungen zum archaischen Dipteros der Artemis von Ephesos,” 133–134. 61 Wood, Discoveries at Ephesus, 190, 217 and 258 f.

The Artemision at Ephesos

507

Until now it has not been possible to determine the exact date at which the church was built into the sekos of the Artemision. Only a few observations are possible concerning the original appearance and furnishings of the church. The roof of the church must have been supported on heavy piers. For comparison with these one has to look at the so called ‘Thermenbasilika’ at Hierapolis or the so called ‘tria Dontia’ in Samos which are 2 × 4 supporting pillars of a church.62 Evidence for a division of the interior space, ca. 15 m. wide, into a central nave and two side aisles has not been found. At the west, the pronaos of the temple could have been incorporated into the church and could have served as a narthex. The exact location and the form of the eastern termination of the church are not known. Since the temple in its eastern part is not yet excavated, further clarification is to be expected only after archaeological exploration at the eastern end of the temple podium has taken place. Nothing has been found in situ. According to Eugenio Russo, who studied the architectural elements which have been collected in the Artemision, all pieces date to the 6th century C.E. or were reworked during this time.63 Based on the preserved architectural sculpture, the capitals, and the liturgical furnishings the construction of the church can be assumed to have taken place in the 6th century. Among the pieces is a remarkable piece of an ambo which has been worked from a column drum of the 4th century temple, judging by its diameter.64 One can conclude that all of the late antique worked pieces document the presence of a church and that Wood was correct. This church not only covered over the originally open courtyard of the temple, also the pronaos must have been incorporated into the church as a narthex. For this to occur, the platform of the 4th century temple, with the already reused archaic pieces built into it, must have been deconstructed. These pieces were then incorporated into the piers of the Christian church. That this custom also pertained during the building of the new temple can be observed today at the place where the column has been re-erected: many archaic worked pieces were built into its foundation. The church was roofed either with a wooden timber-truss roof, or possibly also with domes, suggested by the presence of lumps of tufa. Whether or not the church was divided into aisles is not clear, as no foundations for 62 F. D’Andria, Die Thermenbasilika, in: Hierapolis in Phrygien; ein archäologischer Führer (Istanbul: Ege Yayınları, 2003), 62. R. Tölle-Kastenbein, Die antike Stadt Samos (Mainz: Zabern-Verlag, 1969), 69 fig. 36. K. Taskos, Samos, Historischer und Archäologischer Führer (Athen: Esperos Verlag, 2003), 53–57, fig. 51. 63 E. Russo, “Sculture paleocristiane et bizantine dell’Artemision di Efeso,” in Der Kosmos der Artemis von Ephesos (ed. U. Muss; 2001), 265–278. 64 Russo, “Sculture paleocristiane et bizantine dell ’Artemision di Efeso,” fig. 6.

508

Ulrike Muss

central columns are preserved. Similarly, the height of the floor level of the church is unknown (fig. 19). Around the church or even in the church, burials took place; these were covered with sarcophagus lids, one of which was inscribed.65 The church was frequently altered, as shown for example by a parapet re-used as spolia in a door threshold.66 Worked pieces from the Middle Byzantine period are also preserved in the Artemision.67 One can further assume from the evidence of a stalactite capital and a parapet which shows an erased cross that the church was later converted into a mosque like St. Johns Basilica. The church within the Artemision can be counted amongst the numerous Christian sacred buildings which were created through the rebuilding of an ancient pagan sanctuary. The western orientation of the temple with its main entrance in the west made the conversion easier, as the main portal could also be used for the church. Temples which have been changed into churches play an important role in the development of Christian cult places. The result is different in every case.68 The Christian adaptation of the Artemision as a world-famous center of a pagan cult is understandable; but by which saint could Artemis be followed? The third Ecumenical Council in 431 C.E. at Ephesos, and the resulting recognition of Mary as ‘Theotokos’ (bearer of God), became the basis for a considerable increase in the worship of Mary, as A. Pülz has recently pointed out.69 The dedication of the church inside the Artemision to the ‘Theotokos’ is therefore under consideration, as it was Mary who was predestined to replace the pagan female divinity, and to re-consecrate that very place which for centuries “had represented the most perfect expression of pagan religiosity.”70 It cannot yet be concluded, from the dedication of a church to Mary, that there was a pilgrimage to Ephesos in her honour. According to the written sources, after John who overshadowed all, it was the Seven Sleepers and Saint Timothy who constituted the goal of pilgrims71. In fact, there is no 65 Russo, “Sculture paleocristiane et bizantine dell ’Artemision di Efeso,” 274 figs. 24, 25. 66 Russo, “Sculture paleocristiane et bizantine dell ’Artemision di Efeso,” 276 figs. 26, 27. 67 Russo, “Sculture paleocristiane et bizantine dell ’Artemision di Efeso,” 277 figs. 28, 29.

68 From temple to church. Destruction and renewal of local cultic topography in late antiquity (eds. J. Hahn, S. Emmel and U. Gotter; 2008). A. Gutsfeld and St. Lehmann, “Pagane Heiligtümer im christlichen Umfeld. Zur Geschichte ‘panhellenischer’ Heiligtümer im spätantiken Griechenland,” Das Altertum 53 (2008): 190–202. 69 A. Pülz, “Von der Göttin zur Gottesmutter? Artemis und Maria,” in Die Archäologie der ephesischen Artemis (ed. U. Muss; Vienna: Phoibos-Verlag, 2008), 67–75. 70 B. Kötting, Peregrinatio religiosa. Wall-fahrten in der Antike und das Pilgerwesen in der alten Kirche (Münster: Zetemata 14, 1980), 33 ff. and 171 ff. 71 Pülz, “Von der Göttin zur Gottesmutter? Artemis und Maria,” 70.

The Artemision at Ephesos

509

secure evidence for a particular reverence for the mother of God. It seems to be the tomb of the Apostle and Evangelist John who inherited the legacy of the Ephesian city goddess. It is mentioned as the goal of numerous pilgrims, and it was to this tomb that Emperor Constantine VI, at the end of the 8th c. C.E. after his victory over the Arabs, made pilgrimage. As far as Mary is concerned, the Early Byzantine sources suggest no evidence for her stay in Ephesos; only after the Middle Byzantine period do the indications for this increase. For example, in his commentary on the Evangelists, the Bishop Jakob Bar Salibi (d. 1171) refers to a tradition of the Jacobite church, whereby Mary dies in Ephesos at the age of 51 and was buried by the Evangelist John and his disciples72. According to all appearances, the mediaeval pilgrimage to Ephesos must have constituted a ‘copy’ of the pilgrimage to St. John, based on the tradition that Mary came to Asia Minor with this favorite disciple. The visions of the Augustinian stigmatic, Katharina von Emmerich (d. 1824), on the life and death of the mother of God in Ephesos, provided the starting point for the modern pilgrimages in honor of Mary. Based on Katharina’s story written by Clemens Brentano, it was possible for Father Julien Gouyet in 1881, and also for the French Lazaristines of Smyrna independently 10 years later, to (re‑) discover a small Middle Byzantine church (13th cen.?). This church, named Panaya Kapulu (or Kapulu Panaya or Monastiri üç Kapı) is today called Meryemana and lies on the Alada south of Ephesos. The Lazaristines saw confirmation and support of the connection with Mary in the information given by M. Konstantinidis, the mayor of the village of irince73 which lies 8 km east of Selçuk, as evidence in 1892: according to this report, this ‘rediscovered’ building was that which for generations had been known by the local Greek Orthodox population as the pilgrimage site named Panaya Kapulu (The Holy of Holies by the Gate), visited every year on the 15th of August (The Ascension of Mary). Konstantinis also stated that in and around Ephesos, there existed more than 30 additional churches and chapels dedicated to Mary. To this group certainly belongs a rock cave lying on the route between Selçuk and irince, in which graffiti (still not closely studied) referring to the Theotokos are preserved. The site is known by the local population as Süt Ini or Sutlu Panaya (Gr. Galateri Panaghia). Inside the cave, milky water which dropped from the stalactites was drunk by women who, after giving birth, did not produce enough milk

72 Pülz,

“Von der Göttin zur Gottesmutter?. Artemis und Maria.” Muss, “Jenseits von Ephesos. Die Griechen von irince,” Jahreshefte des Österreichischen Archäologischen Institutes 64 (1995): Beiblatt 117 ff. 73 U.

510

Ulrike Muss

for breastfeeding. The so called cave of Paul (and Thekla) on the northern side of the Bülbül Da i was at least in the 1920s dedicated to Mary74. While the pagan worship of Artemis has no more than historical value in the present, the early Christian monuments as well as the house of Mary still animate the use of these places today and endow it with contemporary religious value.

Captions to figures Fig. 1: Schematic view of the peripteros and the temple of the 4th century B.C.E. (A. Bammer, ÖAI). Fig. 2: Sanctuaries in the Artemision (A. Bammer and collaborators, ÖAI. After W. Seipel, Das Artemision von Ephesos. Heiliger Platz einer Göttin, Wien 2008). Fig. 3: Lead pipe in the altar area (Foto A. Bammer). Fig. 4: Artemis Temple after Wood (J. T. Wood, Discoveries at Ephesus 1874). Fig. 5: View of the geometric peripteros (Archive ÖAI). Fig. 6: Beads made of different material (after Seipel op.cit. 2008, 196 Kat. no. 204). Fig. 7: Amber objects from the Artemision (after Seipel op.cit. 2008 Fig. 189 Kat. No. 187). Fig. 8: Western front of the archaic dipteros. Reconstruction by F. Krischen (after U. Muss, Die Archäologie der ephesischen Artemis, Wien 2008, 271 fig. 219). Fig. 9: The archaic temple with naiskos and courtyard altar (A. Bammer, after Muss op.cit 2008, 282, fig. 227). Fig. 10: The late classical dipteroi in the Artemision (A. Bammer). Fig. 11: Columna Caelata of the 4th century temple. British Museum No. 1206 (after Seipel op.cit. 2008, 94, fig. 2). Fig. 12: Reconstruction of 4th century altar (A. Bammer, Vienna Kunsthistorisches Museum). Fig. 13: Silver Cistophor (Claudius 41–54 C.E.) with temple and cult statue. Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum (after Seipel op.cit 2008, 97, fig. 6). Fig. 14: Aerial view of the Artemision with the Roman buildings in the north (after F. Hueber, Ephesos, Gebaute Geschichte, Mainz 1997, 37, fig. 44). Fig. 15: Reconstruction of the 4th century temple, its altar and the Roman buildings (A. Bammer, after Muss op.cit. 2008, 284, fig. 231).

74 R. Pillinger, “Das frühbyzanatinische Ephesos. Die sog. Paulusgrotte,” in Neue Forschungen zur Religionsgeschichte Kleinasiens (Asia Minor Studien 49, eds. G. Heedemann and E. Winter; Bonn: Habelt-Verlag, 2003), 158 ff.

The Artemision at Ephesos

511

Fig. 16: St. John destroying the Artemision. Wood engraving of Paul Doré (after Hueber op.cit. 1997, 94, fig. 117). Fig. 17: Geison of the 4th century Artemis Temple reworked into anta capital of St. Johns Basilica (Museum Selçuk‑ after Seipel op.cit. 2008, 97, fig. 5). Fig. 18: Artemision with plan of the church (after Forschungen in Ephesos I), Wien 1906, 206, fig. 156 reworked by M. Weissl (after Seipel op.cit. 2008 50, fig. 1). Fig. 19: Reconstruction of the church in the temple after A. Bammer. (after Muss op.cit. 2008, 288, fig. 232).

List of Contributors David L. Balch (1942), Professor of New Testament, Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary/ Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley; Ph.D. Yale University. Main areas of research: Roman domestic art and archaeology, early house churches, Paul, Luke-Acts, Greco-Roman philosophy and politics. Monika Bernett (1959), lecturer, University of Munich/ Historical Seminar, Dept. Classical History; Ph.D. and Habilitation: University of Munich. Main areas of research: Politics and political order of the Roman Republic, Cicero, Jewish and Judean history in the Second Temple period, material culture of Mediterranean societies in ancient periods. Irene Bragantini (1948), Full Professor, Roman Archaeology and Art History, Università degli Studi di Napoli – l’Orientale. Main areas of research: Roman art in domestic and funerary contexts. Rosaria Ciardiello (1970), University “Suor Orsola Benincasa,” Naples, Italy, Ph.D, Classical Archaeology – University of Naples “Federico II” – Research Fellowship and Adjunct Professor, University “Suor Orsola Benincasa,” Naples. Main areas of research: Greek and Roman Archaeology, Roman painting, iconography, Attic vase painting. John R. Clarke (1945), Annie Laurie Howard Regents Professor, History of Art, Department of Art and Art History, The University of Texas at Austin; Ph.D. Y ale University. Main areas of research: Ancient Roman art and architecture; Roman mosaics and wall painting; non-elite visual culture; 3D archaeological modeling; art criticism 1958–1985; art-historical methodology. Janet DeLaine (1953), Faculty of Classics, University of Oxford, University Lecturer in Roman Archaeology, Fellow of Wolfson College, Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, Ph.D. University of Adelaide. Main areas of research: Roman architecture (especially baths and housing) and urbanism, Roman construction, Roman Ostia

514

List of Contributors

Mario Grimaldi (1973), Università degli Studi “Suor Orsola Benicasa di Napoli” and Université Paris X Nanterre, Adjunct Professor. Main areas of research: Classical Greek and Roman archaeology Maria Paola Guidobaldi (1961). Direttore degli Scavi di Ercolano (Soprintendenza Speciale per i Beni Archeologici di Napoli e Pompei). Main areas of research: Civiltà dell’Italia Antica, Archeologia e topografia dell’Italia antica, Archeologia delle città vesuviane. Eleanor Winsor Leach (1937), Ruth N. Halls Professor of Classical Studies, Indiana University, Bloomington. Main areas of research: Roman mural painting, Pompeian houses and public buildings, Roman literary culture, Cicero, Pliny the Younger. Ulrike Muss (1953), Univ.‑Doz. Dr. phil. University of Vienna, Austria, Institute for Classical Archaeology. PhD Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms University Bonn, Germany. Main areas of research: Archaeology of ancient sanctuaries, material culture of religion, Archaic sculpture and architecture. Tina Najbjerg (1963), Independent Scholar; Ph.D Princeton University. Main areas of research: Roman topography, architecture and wall painting, the archaeology of Herculaneum and of Hellenistic and Roman Cyprus. Laura S. Nasrallah (1969), Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity, Harvard University The Divinity School. Main areas of research: Paul’s letters, early Christian apologetic, Roman archaeolgy, prophecy in early Christianity. Umberto Pappalardo (1949), Professor of Greek and Roman Archaeology/ Faculty of Conservation; Università Suor Orsola Benincasa, Naples. Main areas of research: Roman wall painting. Fabrizio Pesando (1958), Professor of Classical Archaeology at Università degli Studi di Napoli “L’Orientale”. Main areas of research: Ancient Civilization of Italy; Greek and Roman Topography; Housing in ancient world; History, Topography and Architecture of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Hilke Thür (1941), Universitätsdozent, University of Vienna; Ph.D. University Vienna; Diplomingenieur, Technical University of Munich. Main areas of research: Hellenistic and Roman Architecture and Domestic Architecture, Urban Development of Cities in Asia Minor, Grave and Memorial Monuments in Asia Minor, Ephesos, Architectural Decoration in Asia Minor

List of Contributors

515

Ivan Varriale (1974), Postgraduate Doctor of Classical Archaeology, currently on a grant from the Deutsches Archäologishes Institut. Main areas of research: Roman domestic art, Roman wall painting, and Roman villas. Annette Weissenrieder (1967), Associate professor of New Testament, San Francisco Theological Seminary / Graduate Theological Union; Ph. D. University of Heidelberg.  Main areas of research: Theology of Paul and the Synoptic Gospels, Greco-Roman medicine and philosophy, New Testament anthropology, pneumatology, theories of the history of religion, Roman domestic art, numismatic, and architecture. L. Michael White (1949), R. N. Smith Professor of Classics and Christian Origins, The University of Texas at Austin; Ph.D. Yale University. Main areas of research:   Christian origins in social context, Paul, archaeology and religion in Greco-Roman cities, Roman Ostia, Diaspora Synagogues, cultural milieu of the Second Sophistic, Hellenistic moralists.

Index of Ancient Sources First Testament Deuteronomy 23:2–5

86 n.114

Micah 2:5

86 n.114

Nehemiah 13:1

86 n.114

Malachi 3:5

406

Daniel 7:10

406

Second Testament Matthew 9:10 22:10–1 26:7, 20

64 n.18 64 n.18 64 n.18

Mark 2:6, 14 2:15 3:32 4:1 6:14–29 6:39 6:39–40 6:55 8:6 13:3 14:18 16:14

228 64 n.18 228 228 230 82 n.95, 215, 230 201, 230 n.158 230 n.157 82 n.95, 201, 215, 230 228, 233 64 n.18 64 n.18

Luke 5:29 14:3 22:27

64 n.18 64 n.18 64 n.18

John 6:3 6:3, 10

230, 233 201

6:10 6:11 12:2 13:23, 28

82 n.95, 215, 230 64 n.18 64 n.18 64 n.18

Acts 1:15 2:1 2:1–2 2:2 2:24 ff. 2:46 3:1 5:15 5:42 16:13–15 18:1–3 19:23–20:1 20:9

201, 230–1 231 201, 231 88 n.117, 233 65 79 79 230 n.157 65, 79 232 232 502 n.39 88 n.117

Romans 2:2 f. 6:1–2, 23 6:3–4 7:15, 19 12:7

102 233 133 n.94 126 225

518 14:1–15:13 14:22 f. 16 16:3–5a 16:23 1 Corinthians 1–4 1:2 1:4–4:21 1:7 f. 1:8 1:10–4:21 1:13–17 1:16 1:26 3 3:2 f. 3:5 3:5 ff. 3:5–7 3:5–17 3:8 3:9 3:10 3:11 3:11–15 3:12–15 3:13 3:16 3:16–17 3:16–18 3:17 4:5 4:9 4:11 4:12 4:13 4:17 5:1–8 5:5 6 6:1 6:1–6 6:2 6:4 6:7

Index of Ancient Sources

64 n.20 101 118 232 201, 232 120, 133 n.93 61, 96 n.151 65 n.23 407 110 409 133 232 201 405 407 409 400, 407 410 400, 408–9 409 410 409–10 409 135, 410 406–7 110, 409 377–8 410 403 n.90 400 135 93, 199 n.39, 132 n.92 407 119 n.39 407 96 n.151 224 n.122 110 403 n.90 99 99, 106 101 96 n.151, 99 102

6:20 6:39–40 7

120 230 119 n.39, 127, 132, 136, 138 n.109 7:14b 132 n.92 7:17 96 n.151, 100 7:17–24 99, 106, 120 7:22 120 7:23 120 7:26 119 n.41 7:29–31 136 7:32–35 136 n.107 8 64 8–10 65, 82 8:1–11:1 64 n.20, 65 8:10 64, 201 9:24–27 126 10:2 133 10:23–11:1 99–100, 106 10:32 96 n.151, 99 11 64–66, 103 11–14 66, 82, 86 n.111, 87, 96, 104 11:2 65 11:2–16 99, 103, 106 11:3–16 65, 100 11:16 66, 96 n.151, 99 11:16 f. 100 11:17 65 11:17, 20, 33, 34 66 11:17–34 63–65, 80 n.84, n.85, 83, 101, 103, 106, 118 11:18 96 n.151, 99, 101 11:19 99 11:20–21 118 n.37 11:21 205, 233 n.165 11:22 65, 83, 101, 119 11:27 99, 103 11:27–30 101 11:27–33 102 11:28 99, 102 11:28–30 101 11:29 101–3 11:29–32 102 11:29 ff. 102 11:30 102–3, 103 n.193, 132 n.92 11:31 102

519

Index of Ancient Sources

11:33 11:34 12 12:13 12:25 12:28 13 14 14:3 14:5, 12, 19, 23,   33–5 14:14, 15, 19 14:19, 23 14:20, 24–5 14:22 14:23, 26 14:24 14:25 14:26–8, 30–1,   33–5, 40 14:26 ff. 14:30

14:33 14,34 14:40 15 15:9 15:12–13, 16,   29–30a 15:12–19 15:20–28 15:26 15:28 15:29 15:30–32 15:32 15:35 15:36 15:52 16 16:1, 19 16:15–19 16:20–22

205 83 64 133 99 96 n.151 138 64–65, 83, 99–100, 203 99 96 n.151 99 201 14:20 99–100 99 79 66 100 100 97 n.162 63 60 n.6, 63–65, 79, 85, 88, 104, 201, 204, 214, 229–31, 233 98–9 79 66, 98 110 n.4, 134 96 n.151 134 134 134 134 n.99 134 n.99 122 n.50, 132, 134 134 135 135 135 135 120 96 n.151 232 65

2 Corinthians 1:3–7 1:4–11 2:1 ff. 4–5 4:8, 10 4:10 4:12 5:1 6:2 7 7:5 ff. 8 10 10–12 11:23–25 12 12:2

110 n.6 119 n.39 110 n.6 135 110 n.6 135 110 n.6 135 98 138 n.110 110 n.6 119 n.38 120 120 119 n.398 119 n.38 135

1 Thessalonians 4 4:11 4:13 4:14–7 4:16 4:16–17 5:2

138 n.110 119 n.39 110, 135 110 n.4 135 135 110, 110 n.4

2 Thessalonians 1:5–10

406

Galatians 3:1 3:27 3:28

225 133 n.94 133

Philippians 4:2–3

232

James 2:2–3

60 n.6

1 Peter 1:7 4:17

406 406

Revelation 12 12:1–5 12:3–4 12:5

413–7, 430–1 413 413 415, 431

520 12:7–9 12:10 12:10–11

Index of Ancient Sources

12:11 12:17

413 414, 431 415

431 414

Apocryphal Literature 2 Maccabees 14:24

101 n.185

Sirach 38:33

96 n.155

Pseudepigraphic Literature 4 Ezra 16:40–46

136 n.108

Greco-Roman Literature Aristophanes

Aelianus Varia historia 2.3

498 n.22–3

Aeschines Timarchos 1.34 1.112

98 n.167 90 n.129

Anthologia Palatine 9.151 110 Apollonius Rhodius Argonautica 1.453 ff. 1.453–455 2.305, 309 f.

77 n.76 77 n.76 77 n.76

90 n.129 90 n.131

Ecclesiazusae 171 f.

99 n.174

Equites 634–8 763–8

99 n.174 99 n.174

Ranae 885–94

99 n.174

Vespae 1 1210

88 n.120 98 n.169

Aristotle Ethica Nicomachea 1.10.13 98 n.169

Apuleius Metamorphosis 11.2 11.2.5 11.5 11.27

Acharnenses 29 ff. 169

427 n.72 427 428 n.72 468 n.119

Politeia 42 1254A–B

97 n.163 115 n.21

521

Index of Ancient Sources

Divinatio in caecilium 43 99 n.176

Arrian Anabasis 1.17.10 1.17.11

498 n.20 498 n.18

Athenaeus Deipnosophistae 2.49b 68 n.39 Augustus Res Gestae 1.3 24

424 420

Callimachos Hymnus IV.51–53 IV.55–69 IV.171–5 IV.200–5 IV.205–6 IV.239 IV.253–5

426 426 426 427 427 427 427

Cato De Agri Cultura X 78 n. 81 Catullus 63 Chrysippus 3.121

13 n.24 98 n.170

Cicero Academica posteriora (Lucullus) 2.3.9 221 De finibus 1.4

175 n.64

De oratore 1.37.155 33.118

175 n.64 371

De Republica 1.9.14

216

Epistulae ad Atticum 1.10.3 316 n.22 Epistulae ad familiare 4.5.4 114 n.17 Fragmenta 6.1

99 n.176

In Caltinam 1.32.2

90 n.131

In Verrem 2.3.62 4.135

77 n.78 498 n.22

Partitiones oratoriae 39.140 371 Pro Flacco 16

59

Tusculanae disputationes 2.4 216 3–4 113 n.16 3.24 114 n.20 3.45 113 n.14 3.53 113 3.58 109 n.2 3.59 132 n.91 3.81 114 Columella De re rustica 11.1.19

79 n.82

Demosthenes De corona 18.18.1

98 n.171

Peri synaxeos 171.17

98 n.168

Dinarchus Orat. Fragmenta 19 p.322 98 n.172 39, p.323 98 n.172

522 Dio Cassius 21.72.1 52.30.1 f. 52.30.9 53.22.3 56.46.1 59.29.5

Index of Ancient Sources

96 n.152 299 n.79 389 n.42 420 393 n.57 60 n.5

Dio Chrysostomus VII.24 104 n.196 XL.90 104 n.196 Diodorus Sicilius 1.24–5 14.85.1–2 93 n.143 40.3 97 n.156 Diogenes Laertius 1.76.6 54 Dionysius Halicarnassensis De Dinarcho 312.5 f. 314.6

98 n.172 98 n.172

Antiquitates Romanae 2.19.3–5 13 n.23 4.38.6 93 n.139 10.40.4 93 n.139 Epictetus 1.28.8–9 2.27.19–20

125 n.63 125 n.63

Euripides Bacchae 553

406 n.101

Helena 240

406 n.101

Ion 9

406 n.101

Medea 643 ff. 1090–1115 1378–83

126 n.65 131 124 n.60

Falernus Sil. 7.171–205

67 n.35

Frontius Strategmata 3.2.6

89 n.127

Galen De Placitis Hippocratis et Platonis 5.3.15 f. 383 n.22 De Usu Partium II.441 f. 383 n.22 XVII.1 383 n.22 Gregorius Commentaru in Hermgenis VII P.1272.13–16 98 n.172 Heliodorus Aethiopica 4.19.21

104 n.196

Herodotus Historia 2.38 2.41 3.27

416 n.13 416 416 n.13

Homer Ilias 2.408 4.259–60 6.205 9.200 9.259 10.313–16 10.314–22 10.352–54 10.366–67 11.623 11.778 16.16 24.553

78 n.79 94 n.149 406 n.101 77 n.76 406 n.101 224 224 224 224 77 n.76 77 n.76 406 n.101 77 n.76

523

Index of Ancient Sources

Hymn to Pythian Apollo 300–10 425 334–35 425 371–73 426 545 426 Odyssea 1.130–135 3.38 4.414 5.58 ff. 7.95–99 8.285 10.233, 314 f. 14.49 f. 15.465ff 16.46 ff. 16.47 17.90

77 n.76 67 n.35 406 n.101 77 n.76 89 n.122, 94 n.149 406 n.101 77 n.76 67 n.35, 77 n.76 94 n.149 77 n.76 67 n.35 77 n.76

Horatius Carmen Saeculare 1–4 419 33–6 419 Epodi 9

424 n.60

Odes 1.2 1.2.32 1.2.43–4 1.31 1.37 1.37.6–8

424 424 424 418 424 424 n.60

Hyginus Fabulae 7–8

146

Isidorus Etymologiae 20.11.9

77 n.75

Hymnae 1.16–26

427

Isocrates De pace 170

90 n.131

Trapeziticus 17.12

88 n.119

Josephus Antiquitates Judaicae 6.16 f. 101 n.185 7.47.104 13.357 294 n.51 14.149–55 97 n.159 14.378 295 n.57 15–17 296 n.65 15.17 f. 304 n.94 15.50–61 308 15.55 308 n.109 15.123 407 n.105 15.266 f. 296, 296 n.64 15.267 296 n.65, 296 n.66 15.268 293 n.43 15.268–325 296 n.65 15.268–341 295 n.63, 296 n.65 15.291–298 296 n.64 15.292 293 n.42–45 15.293 294 n.48 15.294 293 n.41 15.296 ff. 293 n.42 15.315 297 n.68 15.318 293 n.45 15.323 f. 296 n.64 15.323–325 294 n.52 15.324 284 n.6, 285 n.7 15.326 296 n.65 15.327 294 n.55, 296 n.64, 296 n.65 15.328 296 n.65 15.329 293 n.42, 294 n.48, 296 n.65 15.329–30 296 n.65 15.331–341 294 n.48, 296 n.65 15.363–4 293 n.47 15.363–5 296 n.65 15.365 296 n.64 15.366 296 n.64 15.368 296 n.64

524 15.373–79 15.380–403 15.380–425 15.382, 387 15.385 15.387 15.409–425 16.1–5 16.18 f. 16.83 16.136–140 16.136–149 16.136–172 16.141 16.142 ff. 16.143 16.143 f. 16.144 16.144 f. 16.146 16.147 16.148 16.150–9 16.158 16.159 16.179 16.189 ff. 16.194–9 16.200–19 16.227 f. 16.229–60 16.237–243 16.300–10 17.37 17.50 17.51 17.55 f. 17.58 17.65 17.65–68 17.87 17.90 17.151–60 17.160–97 17.161 17.199 17.306 17.340

Index of Ancient Sources

296 293 n.44 296, 296 n.65 289 289 n.20 289 n.21 293 n.44 296 n.64 294 n.55 304 n.93 297 295 n.63, 296 n.65 294 n.48 297 294 n.51, 294 n.53 294 n.50 296 n.64 293 n.46 294 n.54 294 n.55 295 n.57 295 n.58 296 n.65, 297 297 297 n.68 297 n.68 304 n.93 303 n.89 304 n.93 303 n.89 304 n.94 304 n.95 304 n.94 304 n.93 304 n.95 304 n.93 304 n.94 304 n.95 304 n.93 304 n.95 294 n.48 304 n.95 293 n.44 294 n.49 97 n.160, 104 n.196 285 n.7 297 n.68 301

18.27 18.28 18.36 ff. 18.106–8 18.108 19.326 f. 19.329 19.335 ff. 20.182–184 20.189 f. 20.191–5 20.195, 252 20.211 f. 20.212 20.219–23

301 301 300–1 300 301 301 297 n.68, 300 n.82 301 268 n.11 302 302 268 n.12 302 301 302

Bellum Judaicum 1.239 1.334 1.400–425 1.401–425 1.419 1.420 1.426–428 1.431 1.432 1.468–480 1.474 1.478 1.482 1.488–491 1.494 1.513–530 1.550 1.569 f. 1.572 1.576 f. 1.585 1.588 ff. 1.599 1.617 1.638 1.648–55 1.659 1.662 1.664 1.671 1.672

298 n.71 407 n.105 295 293, 293 n.41 284 n.6 285 n.7 295 n.59 295, 295 n.60 304 n.95 304 n.93 304 n.95 304 n.95 304 n.95 304 n.93, 304 n.94 304 n.95 304 n.94 97 n.161 304 n.93 304 n.93, 304 n.95 304 n.94 304 n.93 304 n.95 304 n.94 304 n.95 304 n.93 295 n.61 295 n.61 295 n.61 295 n.61 295 n.62 285 n.7

525

Index of Ancient Sources

2.85 2.168 2.218 2.481 4.255 5.161–81 7.124–36

297 n.68 301 301 303 n.85 96 n.155, 97 n.161 193 n.45 115 n.21

Vita 49.61

303 n.85

Justin Epit. 22.2.10

Lucretius De natura deorum premium 1.43 264 n.5 De rerum natura 2.600–28 13 n.23 Manetho 5.30 5.57

229 98 n.170

Martial 90 n.127

Juvenal

Epigrams 5.70

210

Ovid

Satires 6.511–21

13 n.23

Livius 1.48.3 23.45.1–4 24.39.3–4 28.7.17 28.8.2–6 31.25 35.25 38.30.1–6

90 n.131 60 n.3 89 n.127 96 n.152 96 n.152 96 n.152 96 n.152 96 n.152

Lucanus 10.122–6 10.144 f.

77 n.76 68 n.38

Lucianus Dialogi Croni 12

78 n.79

De saltatione 42

125 n.63

Dialogi deorum 24.1

90 n.131

Symposium 13–14 46

214, 229 214

Tyrannicida 5

116 n.29

Fasti 6.305 6.637–44

89 n.124 38

Heroides 4.17

224

Metamorphoses 9.589 15.864–5

406 n.101 419

Tristia 3.1.60–2

420 n.32

Pausanias 1.18.8 2.2.1 2.2.3 2.2.6 2.3.1 2.3.2 2.3.11 2.4.7 2.5 2.6–7 2.31.1 3.2 4.31.8 6.5.2 7.14.1–3 10.23.1 10.38.6–7

425 390 n.44 395 n.59 389 n.41 395 n.62 122 127 n.72 128, 128 n.78 407 n.104 122 n.51, 123 368 n.62 407 n.104 499 n.27 89 n.127 96 n.152 425 501 n.35

526

Index of Ancient Sources

Philo De decalogo 32

96 n.154, 97 n.164

De somniis 2.186

97 n.156

De specialibus legibus 1.325 96 n.154 3.131 97 n.156

Protagoras 319B

90 n.131

Respublica 3.399A–C 6.492B 758D

12 n.22 89 n.126 88 n.120

Symposium 175C 212C

78 n.79 78 n.79

De virtutibus 108

96 n.154

Plautus

In Flaccum 41

104 n.196

Persae 5.1.6

305 n.97

Stichus 486–93 618 f.

77 n.77 77 n.77

Legatio ad Gaium 153 97 n.159 Quid omnis probus liber sit 138 96 n.154 Quod Deus sit immutabilis 73 407 n.105 Philostratus, Junior Imagines 1.1 1.23

149, 154 149, 154

Philostratus, Sophista Vitae Sophistarum 2.23 501 n.36 Pindar Olympian Ode 13.74

127

Plato Apologia 35C

88 n.120

Leges 925B

98 n.168

Politicus 298C 305C

90 n.131 98 n.168

Plinius Caelius Sec. Epistlae 1.8.16 2.17 5.6 10.96.7

91 n.134 81 n.91 221, 272 n.27 65 n.25

Plinius Secundus Naturalis Historiae 3.30 406 n.99 4.112 406 n.99 6.30 406 n.99 6.74 406 n.99 6.150 406 n.99 7.212 90 n.131 12.13 272 n.26 13.91–102 53 n.38 18.6 395 n.61 25.130–133 174 n.58 33.31 53 33.56 406 n.103 33.144–6 68 n.37 34.18 271 n.24 34.114 181 n.97 35.22 90 n.131 35.26 125 n.63 35.61–66 153 35.92 498 n.22–3

527

Index of Ancient Sources

35.126 35.132 36.4.9–15 36.4.24–32 36.21.95 36.24, 25, 32

262 n.2 262 n.2 422 417 497 n.13, 499 n.25 422

Plutarch

Polybius 2.46.6 4.7.2 4.34.6 5.1.9 5.25.5 5.89.6 5.91.1, 5 15.23.2 20.8.1–5 21.3 22.10 23.10, 12–16 23.175 29.13 32.8.4–6 32.8.7

96 n.152 104 n.194 90 n.131 96 n.152 92 n.136, 96 n.152 405 n.94 96 n.152 89 n.127 298 n.73 96 n.152 96 n.152 298 n.73 96 n.152 298 n.73 298 n.70 298 n.72

Propertius 2.31 2.31.1–14 2.31.12–14 2.31.15–16 3.11.29–56 4.6.27

421 420, 427 n.70 419 420 424 n.60 425

Quintillianus 12.2.15–20

371

Alexander 4 4.2

498 n.23 498 n.22

Antonius 4.4

60

Aratus 23.1 40.2–4 42

94 n.145 92 n.136 96 n.152

Caesar 55.4

206 n.20, 230

Cleomenes 19 19.1

96 n.152 92 n.136–137

Marcellus 20.3

89 n.127

Moralia 201C 335A 612A 673B 710B–713F 712B 819E 825A

60 n.3 498 n.22 117 n.33 224 224 224 406 n.101 100 n.184

Pericles 32.2

99 n.177

Romulus 27

Dialogi 2.12.2

90 n.131

Timoleon 34.6

Epistulae morales 10.1, 6 121 n.47

90 n.127

Pollux Onomasticon 10.80

68 n.39

Seneca Ad Helviam 7.4–5 7.5

120 n.43 120

Ad Marciam de consolation 12.4 109 n.2 20.2 114 n.19

Medea 13–18 910 ff. 1012–13

90 n.131

126 126 n.67 127

528

Index of Ancient Sources

Tacitus

Silius Italicus 6.89 f. 7.171–205 7.176 11.272 ff.

77 n.76 67 n.35 77 n.76 77 n.76

Statius Silvae 1.6 1.6.67 3.1.69–86

206 n.20 214 215

Thebais 1.525–8 6

77 n.76 122 n.51

Strabo Geographica 3.3 8.6.20 8.6.23 14.1.20

88 n.118 112 n.10 166, 120 n.42 429

Suetonius

Annales 3.61 13.16

428 219

Thucydides 5.85

89 n.123

Valerius Flaccus 5.571 77 n.76 Valerius Maximus 2.1.2 77 n.74 2.2.5 89 n.127 Varro De lingua latina 7.10 90 n.131 De re rustica 1.13.3

272 n.27

Velleius Paterculus 2.75.3 393 n.57 2.130.5 394 n.59 Vergil

Claudius 25.4

231 n.160

De poetis Fr. 11

78 n.80

Divus Augustus 7.2 17.10 52

418 392 420

Domitianus 13.2

398 n.73right

Julius Caesar 67 88

60 n.3 392 n.52

Tiberius 18

60 n.4

Vespasianus 18

372

Aeneias 1.453–57 1.679–700 2.94 ff. 6.72 7.176 8.176 8.176 ff. 8.387–89 8.176–178 11.301

147 77 n.76 425 417 68 n.43 68 n.43 77 n.76 52 67 n.35 99 n.175

Vitruvius Pollio De architectura 1 1.pref.2 1.pref.3 1.2 1.2.4 1.5 2.9.13

401 n.82 299 n.75 299 n.77 387 n.37 386 n.32 381 n.20 405 n.92, 406 n.97

529

Index of Ancient Sources

2.19.4 3.1.2–3 3.1.4 3.4.1 3.4.2 4.1 4.1.7 4.1.9 4.5.4 5.1.4 5.2.1 5.3 5.5.2 5.5.8 6.3.10 6.5.1 f. 6.5.2 6.5.3 6.6.9 6.7.5 6.7.13–15 7.1.2

7.4.4 7.5.2 7.5.2–7 f. 7.5.3 f. 7.5.5 7.5.8 7.7–14 7.7.1 7.8.3 8.3.5

404 n.91 385 n.27 405 n.96 402 n.84 405 n.93, 95 402 n.85 383 n.24 384 n.25 403 n.89 45 91 n.134 193 n.24 274 n.39 49 172 n.51 306 n.99 274 n.39 237 n.37 276 n.45 305 n.97 272 n.27 405 n.96

262 n. 2 262 n.2 307 n.104 406 n.98 89 n.127, 93 n.139 308 n.105 308 n.105 406 n.99 406 n.100 406 n.99

Xenophon Cyropaedia 1.3.8

98 n.169

Hellenica 2 4.4.2–3

90 n.131 93 n.142

Memorabilia 2.1.7

98 n.168

Inscriptions Corpus Inscriptionum et Monumen­ torum Religionis Mithriacae 220 221 222 223 230–1 233 235 236 239–49 246–7 246–9 248 249 250 252 255

452 n.47 454 n.57 450 n.38, 454 n.57 452, 455 n.63 450 n.37 450 n.36, 455 n.60, 481 n.167 481 n.167 458 n.72 466 n.107 467 n.114 437 n.7 467 n.114 467 n.114 459 n.75, 463 n.95, 464 n.101 463 n.95 463 n.94–5

266 269 272–7 273 275 276 278 280 282 286 287–93 294–6 299 311 312–31 134 327 338 381 593 593–4

450 n.36, 455 n.60, 487–8 n.189 462 n.91, 93 480 n.163 490 n.197 491 n.199 458 n.73 447 n.26 451 n.39 450, 454 n.58 446 n.24 469 n.123 484 n.178 438 n.10 470 n.126 437 n.6 470 n.126 437 n.5 437 n.5 437 n.5 445 n.17, 470 n.128 445 n.17

530

Index of Ancient Sources

Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum 3059

106

Corpus Inscriptionum Graecorum Latinarum 174.4

45

Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum IV.1136 IV.1146, 7791 IX.3160 X.810 X.813 X.815 X.816 X.1401–3 X.1406 X.1414 X.1413 X.1415 X.1416 X.1417 X.1418 X.1419 X.1422 X.1425 X.1426 X.1427 X.1428 X.1429 X.1439 X.1440 X.1462 X.3697 XI.1147 XI.1182 XI.1189 XIV XIV.33 XIV.44 XIV.56 XIV.57 XIV.58–9 XIV.60–1 XIV.61 XIV.62

52 53 75 n.72 38 38 38 39 370 n.66 362 n.34 359 n.13 360 n.20 360 n.23 359 n.14 360 n.22 360 n.24 363 n.41 363 n.42 312 n.4 312 n.6 312 n.6 312 n.6 312 n.6 312 n.6 312 n.6 370 n.67 40 44 44 37 n.9 455 n.63, 462 n.91 446 n.24 477 n.148 462 461, 462 n.91 461 467 n.114 467 n.114 467 n.114

XIV.63 XIV.64 XIV.65 XIV.66 XIV.67 XIV.70 XIV.257 XIV.376 XIV.403 XIV.4280 XIV.4310 XIV.4311 XIV.4312 XIV.4313

XIV.4314 XIV.4569 XIV.4280 XIV.4311 XIV.4312 XIV.4313 XIV.4314 XIV.4447 XIV.4448 XIV.4530 XIV.4542 XIV.4549 XIV.4569 XV.853

467 n.114 444 n.17, 470 n.126 470 n.126 444 n.17, 470 n.126 446 n.24 446 n.24, 450, 450 n.38, 451 n.40, 452, 454 476 n.147 468 n.118, 469 n.122 481 n.167 454 452 n.47, 454, 456 n.63 454, 456 n.63, 457, 457 n.68 456 n.63, 457, 457 n.66 450 n.38, 451 n.40, 42, 452, 454, 456 n.63, 457 n.66, 481 n.167 450 n.36 450, 452 454 455 n.63 455, 455 n.62–3 455, 455 n.62–3 455 n.60 468 n.118 468 n.118 458 n.70 468 n.118 476 n.147 455 n.63, 462 n.89 468 n.118

Inscriptiones Graecae I.3.78 II.2.47 II.2.204 II.2.333 II.2.337 II.2.1283 II.17 II.945.5 IV 1, 84.23–24

99 n.177 99 n.177 99 n.177 99 n.177 99 n.177 99 n.177 106 90 n.131 89 n.127

531

Index of Ancient Sources

IV.823 IV.1485 IV.1497 XII.2.645B XII.3.324.10 XII.11

402 n.86 402 n.86 402 n.86 106 405 n.94 403 n.87

Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae 900 5560 6530

44 37 n.9 75 n.72

1988, 214 1992, 287 2004, 365

489 n.195 360 n.26 489 n.194

Le iscrizioni latine di Paestum 18 157 158 159 163 168

36 37 n.7 36 n.5 37 n.8 36 n.4 42

Inscriptiones von Olympia

Orientis Graecae Inscriptiones (Ditt.)

52.46

727 771

89 n.127

L’Année épgraphique 1920, 1 1936, 128 1941, 66 1948, 127 1971, 85 1979, 173 1979, 175 1979, 176

394 n.58 372 n.74, 373 n.75 456 n.64 456 n.64 40 360 n.21 360 n.25 363 n.43

97 n.159 97 n.159

Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum (Ditt.) 258 463

97 n.159 97 n.159

Sulpicii 83–86 85–97, 90–93

40 46

Papyrological Literature Corpus Papyrum Graecarum I.13.31–2 101 n.186

Papyri in Princeton Collection II.102 109 n.2

Fayum Papyri 97.9–15

Papyruskunde I 13.10–11

100 n.181

Michigan Papyrus V.323–5.14–6 100 n.180 Oxyrhynchus Papyri II.239.12 101 n.186 XLVII.3364.28 f. 100 n.182

101 n.186

Studis in Byzantine Sigillography XII.10967.25–28 100 n.182 XIV.11863.44 f. 100 n.182 XIV.12087, Fr. A. 100 n.182 12–13

Early Christian Literature Athanasius De decretis 79.6

102.6 181.6 90 n.131

90 n.131 90 n.131

532 Vita Antonii 26.896B

Index of Ancient Sources

98 n.170

Augustinus Confessiones 9.10.23

348 n.86

De civitate dei 15.26.1

376 n.2

Gregorius Nyssenus Oratio Catechetica 37 103 n.193

Ignatius de Antiochia Ep. Eph. 20.2

103 n.193

Johannes Chrysostomos Hom. in ep. ad 1 Cor. 28.1 103 n.193 Origenes Contra Celsum 5.15

407 n.106

Index of Modern Authors Adams, E.  233 n.166 Adenstedt, I.  244 n.49 Adna, J.  388 n.39 Adriani, A.  182 n.99 Agamben, G.  136 n.105 Alexander, C. E.  28 n.26, 109, 267 n.6 Alexandridis, A.  393 n.54, 398 n.74 Alexiou, M.  109 n.3 Alikin, V. A.  81 n.90, 202 n.7 Alföldy, G.  119 n.40 Allen, J.  120 n.43 Allison, P. M.  164 n.6, 164 n.8, 167 n.27–8, 168 n.30, 201 n.2–3, 202 n.4–5, 217 n.75 Allroggen-Bedel, A.  24 n.14, 361 n.28, 365 n.50–1, 370 n.66, 373 n.76 Althoff, G.  285 n.8 Amandry, M.  389 n.42, 394 n.59 Amedick, R.  69 n.46 Amitrano, M.  266 n.4, 267 n.4 Anderson, M. L.  267 n.5, 276 n.46 Andreae, B.  187 n.9, 222 n.104, 267 n.5 Angelelli, C.  267 n.8 Aoyagi, M.  VII n.5, 167 n.29, 186 n.7–8, 187 n.10, 211 n.42, 267 n.8 Arangio-Ruiz, V.  165 n.13 Archer, W. C.  204 n.15 Arnott, G.  225 n.124 Arzt-Grabner, P.  61, 61 n.11, 64 n.22 Aryamontri, D. C. Ascough, R.  110 n.5, 203 n.7 Attridge, H. W.  288 n.18 Aubry, S.  329 n.10 Aune, D. E.  413 n.2 Aurenhammer, M.  428 n.77 Auricchio, M. A.  202 n.6 Avery-Peck, A. J.  292 n.39 Aybek, A.  500 n.29

Bachmann, M.  256 n.116 Badoni F. P.  168 n.33, 179 n.83, 218 n.86 Bagnal, R.  116 n.29 Bailey, D. R. Shackleto.  122 n.51, 214–15 Bakirtzis, C.  110 n.5, 203 n.7 Bakker, J. T.  438–9 n.11 Balch, D. L.  VII–VIII, 63 n.17, 81–2, 82 n.92–3, 136 n.107, 201, 204 n.15, 207, 208 n.25, 208 n.28, 211 n.44, 212 n.50, 213 n.57–9, 219 n.88, 221 n.97, 221 n.101, 224 n.123, 225 n.127, 266 n.1, 377 n.1, 413, 414 n.2, 415 n.5, 416 n.8–11, 416 n.14, 418 n.25, 421, 421 n.39, 423 n.48, 423 n.51, 427 n.72 Baldassarre, I.  180 n.92, 275 n.42 Baldwin, B.  380 n.16 Bammer, A.  422 n.45, 495, 495 n.8–9, 496 n.10–12, 498 n.24, 500 n.28–9, 501 n.37, 503 n.45, 506 n.56–7, 506 n.59 Barclay, J.  118 n.36 Barnabei, F.  267 n.5 Barr, D. L.  416 n.14 Barrett, A. A.  389 n.40 Barrett, C. K.  99, 99 n.178 Bartchy, S. S.  120 n.46 Basore, J. W.  114 n.19 Bauer, F. A.  330 n.20, 345 n.76, 424 n.37 Bauer, H.  424 n.57 Beale, G.  378–9, 379 n.6–7 Beard, M.  13 n.25, 220 n.95, 386 n.34, 418 n.28 Becatti, G.  17, 17 n.32–3, 328 n.4, 329 n.12, 333 n.32–3, 336 n.47, 344, 344 n.66, 346 n.79, 347 n.81, 347 n.83–4, 437 n.5–6, 438 n.8, 438 n.10–11, 439, 444, 444 n.15, 445, 445 n.19, 446, 446

534

Index of Modern Authors

n.21, 447, 447 n.25–6, 448 n.28–9, 450, 450 n.35–8, 451, 451 n.39–40, 452, 452 n.44–6, 454 n.56–8, 455, 455 n.60–3, 456 n.63, 458 n.72–3, 459 n.75, 461, 461 n.84–5, 461 n.87, 462, 462 n.88–9, 462 n.91–3, 463 n.93, 463 n.95, 463 n.97, 466 n.106–7, 467 n.114, 468 n.121, 469 n.123, 470 n.126, 470 n.129, 471 n.132, 471 n.134, 476 n.146–7, 477 n.148, 478 n.151, 478 n.153, 479, 479 n.155, 479 n.157, 480 n.160, 480 n.163, 481 n.164, 481 n.167, 482 n.174, 484 n.178, 487 n.188–9, 488 n.189–90, 489 n.193, 490 n.197–8, 491 n.199–200 Beck, R.  437 n.6, 438 n.10, 439 n.12–13, 466, 466 n.10, 467, 467 n.111–13, 468 n.117, 469 n.123, 470 n.129, 471 n.134–5, 480, 480 n.158, 481, 481 n.165–6, 482 n.172, 485 n.181 Bek, L.  68, 68 n.45 Belli, R.  266 n.4 Ben Abed-Ben Kadar, A.  215 n.64 Bérard, C.  92, 92 n.138 Berger, K.  87 n.114, 96 n.153 Bergmann, B.  224 n.120 Berlin, A.  292 n.33–4, 292 n.36 Bernett, M.  VI–VIII, 283, 283 n.1, 284 n.4, 288 n.18, 290 n.25, 293 n.43, 297 n.69, 303 n.87 Bernhard-Walcher, A.  494 n.5 Bernstein, F.  212 n.52 Berry, J.  218 n.82, 222 n.104 Bertoletti, M.  421 n.42, 433 Beyen, H. G.  179 n.83 Bianchi, U.  436 n.4, 482 n.173 Bieber, M.  261 n.1 Bienkowski, P.  425 n.64 Birge, D.  122 n.51 Bisconti, F.  222 n.103 Blanck, H.  76, 76 n.73 Blömer, M.  289 n.18 Boardman, J.  229 n.155 Bocherens, C.  331, 331 n.25 Boersma, J. S.  330 n.19, 347 n.82 Boethius, A.  272 n.27 Boin, D. R.  454 n.56, 456 n.64, 457 n.64, 471 n.133

Bol, P. C.  21 n.2 Bollmann, B.  344, 344 n.71 Bonacasa, R. C.  274 n.40 Bonner, F.  372 n.73 Bookidis, N.  84 n.104–5, 85, 85 n.108, 128 n.78, 129 n.79–81, 130 n.83, 396 n.65 Borbein, A. H.  423 n.49 Borgongino, M.  275 n.41 Börker, C.  215 n.65 Bormann  290 Borriello, M. R.  268 n.10, 315 n.18 Boschung, D.  359 n.13–16, 360 n.24, 360 n.27, 361 n.30, 363 n.39, 363 n.41–3 Bouet, P.  380 n.15 Bourdieu, P.  VI, VI n.4, 62, 63 n.16 Boyarin, D.  379 n.9 Braconi, P.  45 n.30 Bragantini, I.  VII, 14 n.27, 21, 22 n.7, 23 n.9, 24 n.15, 26 n.21, 32, 42 n.22, 63 n.17, 71 n.54, 168 n.33, 170 n.38, 178 n.79, 179 n.83, 180 n.92, 181 n.93, 182 n.98, 187 n.9, 193 n.25, 201 n.3, 202 n.3, 207 n.22, 208, 208 n.25, 208 n.27–8, 208 n.30, 209 n.31, 209 n.33– 4, 213 n.59, 218 n.81, 218 n.83–4, 223 n.107, 223 n.110, 224 n.114, 224 n.116, 224 n.122, 225 n.130–1, 229 n.155, 276 n.47, 277 n.48, 428 n.75 Brandis, C. G.  97, 97 n.157–8 Brands, G.  505 n.54 Brandt, B.  242 n.35 Branham, Joan  109 n.1 Braun, W.  81 n.90, 202 n.7 Braunfels, S.  381 n.18 Bredekamp, H.  390 n.45 Brendel, O. J.  261 n.1, 428 n.75 Brenk, B.  344 n.67, 504 n.51 Brenk, F. E.  VII, 414 n.3, 415 n.6, 504 n.51 Breytenbach, C.  109 n.1 Brijder, H. A. G.  330 n.19 Bringmann, K.  289 n.19 Broillet, E.  347 n.85 Broneer, O.  91 n.135, 122 n.50 Brückner, H.  493 n.2 Bruno, V. J.  267 n.5

Index of Modern Authors

Bruun, C.  339 n.53, 341 n.59 Bryson, N.  143 n.4 Budetta, T.  311 n.2, 314 n.16, 320 n.34–5 Buell, Denise  109 n.1 Burnett, A.  88 n.120, 389 n.42 Bultmann, R.  86 n.114 Buonocore, M.  40 n.17 Buonopane, A.  35 n.1 Burckhardt, A.  99 n.174 Butler, J.  138 n.109 Büyükkolanci, M.  422 n.45, 495 n.8, 505 n.55 Cafiero, A.  266 n.4 Cairns, D. L.  395 n.60 Calandra, E.  177 n.72 Caldelli, M. L.  35 n.1 Callebat, L.  380 n.15 Calvani, M. M.  44 n.26 Calza, G.  327, 327 n.1–3, 334 n.38, 445, 445 n.20, 448 n.29, 452, 452 n.44, 468 n.118, 476 n.146 Camardo, D.  313, 314 n.14, 323 Cameron, A.  396 n.66 Camodeca, G.  39 n.16, 56 n.40, 312 n.3, 312 n.5 Campbell, L. A.  438 n.10 Cappeli, R.  144 n.7 Capuano, A.  276 n.46 Carandini, A.  144 n.7, 170 n.39, 266 n.1 Caroll-Spillecke, M.  257 n.120–2, 258 n.128–9 Carratelli, G. Pugliese  9 n.13, 165 n.13 Carson, R. A. G.  391 n.47 Cary, E.  299 n.79 Casale, A.  267 n.5 Cassetta, R.  188 n.14, 189 n.16–17 Cassetta-Constantino, R.  188 n.14, 189 n.17, 190 n.19 Cassirer, E.  61, 61 n.9–10, 62, 62 n.12–3, 62 n.15 Castrén, P.  36 n.3, 57, 57 n.41, 165 n.12, 191 n.21 Castriota, D.  5 n.5 Cavallo, G.  275 n.44 Cébeillac-Gervasoni, M.  36 n.3, 334 n.37

535

Cecamore, C.  422 n.46 CeCere, M. G. G.  328 n.7 Celani, A.  418 n.26, 420 n.37, 421 n.43, 423 n.52–3, 425, 425 n.61, 425 n.63 Cenerini, F.  35 n.1 Cerulli-Irelli, G.  187 n.9, 188 n.12–3, 212 n.53 Cervo. R.  338 n.51 Chaniotis, A.  505 n.54 Chapa, J.  109 n.2 Charlesworth, H.  136 n.108 Chiabà, M.  40, 40 n.18 Christie, N.  505 n.52 Christof, E.  242 n.28 Ciapponi, L. A.  380 n.15 Ciardiello, Rosaria  V, 168 n.32, 187 n.8, 187 n.10, 211 n.42, 265, 266 n.1–2, 266 n.4, 267 n.5, 268 n.10, 269 n.15, 270 n.17 Ciarallo, A.  315 n.18 Cicirelli, C.  267 n.7 Cilingiro lu, A.  496 n.10 Cima, M.  220 n.95, 258 n.129, 421 n.42, 428 n.73, 428 n.74, 433 Cirillo, A.  267 n.5 Claridge, A.  331 n.21, 435 n.1 Clarke, J. R.  VI, 3, 3 n.1, 4 n.3, 7 n.8, 15 n.29, 71 n.54, 71 n.57, 72 n.59, 73 n.63, 169 n.34, 179 n.85, 183 n.103, 207 n.23, 208, 208 n.25–7, 208 n.29, 213 n.59, 214 n.60, 229 n.154, 232 n.165, 233 n.165–6, 269 n.16, 275 n.42, 279 n.52 Clauss, J.  123 n.55 Clauss, M.  287 n.16, 392 n.52, 456 n.63, 470, 470 n.128–9, 471 n.134, 481 n.165–6 Clayton, P.  504 n.48 Coarelli, F.  40, 40 n.18, 45 n.30, 55 n.39, 177, 177 n.75, 183 n.101, 186 n.7, 189 n.17, 190 n.19, 218 n.82, 226 n.137–8, 331 n.23, 425 n.64, 436 n.4, 466, 466 n.108–10, 467–8, 468 n.118, 468 n.120 Coates, V. C. G.  355 n.2 Cohen, H.  394 n.59 Cohen, S.  291 n.30 Cogitore, I.  288 n.17

536

Index of Modern Authors

Collins, R. F.  80 n.84, 99, 99 n.178, Compostella, C.  73 n.65 Concannon, C.  109 n.1, 11 n.8, 130 n.82 Conzelmann, H.  132 n.93, 136 n.106 Coote, R. B.  212 n.50 Coralini, A.  269 n.16, 315 n.21, 322 n.43 Corbier, M.  35 n.1 Corlàita, D. S.  28 n.26, 169 n.34, 170 n.37, 172 n.50, 178 n.81, 180 n.88, 274 n.38, 274 n.40, 277 n.49–50 Cornell, T. J.  332 n.27 Corte, M. D.  164 n.7, 165 n.17, 225 n.131 Creighton, J.  300 n.81 Croisille, M.  210 n.35, 224 n.121, 225 n.131 Crook, Z. A.  81 n.90, 203 n.7 Croom, A. T.  67 n.33 Culpepper, R. A.  431 n.87 Cumont, F.  128 n.75, 438 n.8, 438 n.10–11, 439, 444, 444 n.17, 445, 445 n.17, 446, 446 n.21–4, 447, 461, 461 n.83–4, 462, 462 n.88, 464 n.101, 467 n.111, 471, 471 n.134–5 Curtis, R. I.  177 n.73, 211 n.44, 257 n.126, 268 n.10 Daim, F.  257 n.123 D’Alconzo, P.  168 n.33 Dally, O.  505 n.54 D’Ambra, E.  417 n.20 D’Ambrosio, A.  28 n.26, 164 n.6, 267 n.7, 268 n.10, 324 n.47 D’Andria, F.  507 n.62 D’Arms, H.  266 n.1 Davis, J.  16 n.31 Dawid, M.  255 n.115 Deanini, F.  303 n.88, 304 n.91–2 De Bonis, R.  42 n.22 De Caro, S.  3 n.2, 31 n.31, 32, 189 n.16–17, 219 n.90, 266 n.2, 268 n.10, 269 n.15–16, 270 n.18, 271 n.19–22, 271 n.25, 272 n.28, 272 n.30–1, 273 n.32–4 De Carolis, E.  222, 222 n.106, 223, 223 n.106, 228, 315 n.18

DeFelice, J.  74 n.66–7, 207, 207 n.21, 207 n.24, 208 n.25, 208 n.28, 209 n.31, 211 n.47, 212 n.51–3, 212 n.55, 219 n.90, 232 De Franceschini, M.  334 n.35 De Franciscis, A.  268 n.10 Deichmann, F. W.  504 n.51 De Jong, J. J.  380 n.15 De Kind, R.  356 n.5, 357 n.6 De Lacy, P. H.  117 n.22 DeLaine, J.  VI–VII, 205 n.17, 327, 332 n.27, 333 n.31, 334 n.36, 335 n.44, 339 n.53–4, 340 n.58, 346 n.80, 349 n.90 Delling, G.  86 n.114 Dell’Orto, L. F.  311 n.2 Delorme, J.  215 n.67 Del Profumiere, Bottega  14 n.27 Demandt, A.  293 n.40 DeMaris, Richard E.  121–2 n.50, 129 n.79, 133, 133 n.95, 133 n.98 De Petra, G.  11 n.15 De Ruyt, C.  330 n.18 Descoeudres, J. P.  327 n.3, 332 n.28, 335 n.42, 344 n.71, 347 n.85, 435 n.1 De Sena, E. C.  328 n.7 De Simone, A.  163 n.4, 173 n.52, 316 n.23 Desjardins, M.  466 n.110 Devore, G.  217 n.79, 232 n.163 De Vos, A.  12 n.17, 211 n.44, 211 n.47–8, 212 n.51–3, 213, 213 n.57–8, 223 n.109, 224 n.121, 224 n.123, 225 n.125, 311 n.2 De Vos, M.  12 n.17, 23 n.12–13, 24 n.15– 16, 28 n.23–6, 82 n.93, 212 n.55, 216 n.72, 217 n.78, 217 n.79–80, 223 n.109, 224 n.114–15, 225 n.124, 311 m.2 Di Pasquale, G.  82 n.94, 220 n.95 Di Vigenère, Blaise  142 n.2, 157 n.19 Dobbins, J. J.  47 n.34, 50 n.35, 74 n.67, 82 n.94, 207 n.21, 210 n.38, 212 n.52, 217 n.75, 218 n.85 Dobesch, G.  392 n.52 Docter, R. F.  436 n.3 Döhl, H.  272 n.29 Donahue, J. F.  75 n.71, 206 n.20, 207 n.24, 210 n.40, 214 n.63, 219 n.88, 226, 226 n.136, 230

Index of Modern Authors

Donati, A.  168 n.33, 274 n.38, 275 n.43 Donkow, I.  505 n.52, 506 n.58 Doria, L. B. P.  334 n.37 Dowden, Ken  415 n.7 Drauschke, J.  257 n.123 Drerup, H.  166 n.22, 169 n.35, 277 n.50 DuBois, P.  114 n.21, 121, 121 n.47 Dunbabin, K. M. D.  75 n.71, 82 n.93, 205 n.19, 206, 207 n.20, 208 n.28, 214 n.61, 223 n.113, 224 n.117–18, 250 n.84, 258 n.126, 472 n.136 Dünne, J.  62 n.13, 90 n.132 Dwyer, E. J.  272 n.29 Ebal, E.  83, 83 n.100–1 Ebert, F.  383 n.23 Eckhardt, B.  288 n.18 Ehrensperger, K.  410 n.108 Ehrhardt, W.  63 n.17, 183 n.102, 279, 279 n.52–3 Ehrl, F.  426 n.58 Eichler, F.  239 n.11 Einarson, B.  117 n.33 Elefante, M.  60 n.4, 269 n.16 Ellis, S. J. R.  217 n.79, 232 n.163 Ellul, J.  297 n.69 Elsner, J.  143 n.4–5, 148 n.14, 153 Emmel, S.  505 n.54, 508 n.68 Enenkel, K. A. E.  417 n.16 Eng, D. L.  138 n.109 Engelmann, H.  499 n.26, 501 n.31, 503 n.47 Engels, D.  110 n.7, 112 n.9–10, 121 n.49, 130 n.82 Esposito, D.  195 n.33 Etani, H.  189 n.17 Facella, M.  291 n.29, 300 n.81 Falcone, S.  141 n.1 Falzone, S.  327 n.1, 330 n.16, 333 n.32–3, 335 n.39, 347 n.85, 452 n.49, 453 n.52–3, 469 n.125 Fano, M.  143 n.6 Fantham, E.  397, 397 n.68 Farrar, L.  215 n.64, 221 n.96 Faust, S.  68 n.37 Fears, J. F.  267 n.61 Federico, E.  28 n.25, 266 n.4, 267 n.4

537

Fee, G.  80 n.84 Felber, H.  25 n.18 Feldman, L. H.  301 n.83 Fergola, A.  268 n.10 Fergola, L.  268 n.10, 269 n.15–16, 271 n.23 Ferrari, M.  61 n.9 Ferrua, A.  222 n.103 Fiorelli, G.  39, 39 n.13, 185, 185 n.2–3, 186, 186 n.5 Fiorentino, C.  266 n.4, 267 n.4 Fittschen, K.  267 n.5 Fitzmyer, J. A.  132 n.93 Fentress, E.  44 n.26, 45 n.30, 371 n.70 Feye, J. J.  330 n.19 Fischer-Hansen, T.  94 n.147 Fitch, J.  112 n.12 Formigli, E.  359 n.13–16 Fornari, E.  188 n.15 Forstenpointner, G.  251 n.90, 252 n.97 Foss, P. W.  74 n.67, 82 n.94, 207 .21, 210 n.38, 212 n.52, 217 n.75, 218 n.85 Fox, S. C.  116, 116 n.30, 130 Frayman, M.; 378 n.4 Franek, C.  237 n.1, 244 n.47 Frankemölle, H.  86 n.114 Frankfurter, D.  109 n.1, 392 n.52 Freeman, S. R.  396, 396 n.64 Frey, J.  VIII, 288 n.18 Freyberger, K. S.  294 n.56 Frier, B.  116 n.29, 342 n.62 Friesen, St. J.  81 n.89, 110 n.5, 116 n.28, 117 n.31, 118 n.36–7, 119 n.38, 119 n.40, 129 n.82, 132, 202 n.7, 203 n.7, 203 n.11, 390 n.43 Friesinger, H.  419 n.31 Friggeri, R.  4 n.2 Frija, G.  288 n.17 Fröhlich, T.  8 n.10, 9 n.13, 14 n.27, 22 n.8, 23 n.10, 70, 70 n.51–3, 71, 71 n.54–5, 72 n.60, 73, 73 n.61–2, 173 n.52, 180 n.89, 208 n.25, 208 n.28 Frova, A.  44 n.26, Gäckle, V.  64, 64 n.20 Gabba, E.  266 n.1, 275 n.44 Gabrici, E.  361 n.28–9 Gabriel, M. M.  365 n.48

538

Index of Modern Authors

Galik, A.  251 n.90, 252 n.97 Galinsky, K.  5 n.6 Ganschow, T.  201 n.2, 222 n.104, 274 n.40 Gaona, F.  62 n.12 García y García, L.  186 n.6, 221 n.97–8, 221 n.100–1, 222, 222 n.102, 222 n.104, 225 n.131–2 Gardner, P.  390 n.44, 394 n.59, 395 Garnsey, P.  119, 119 n.40 Gärtner, B.  378 n.4 Gasparini, V.  3 n.2 Gasparri, C.  335 n.40 Gassner, V.  242 n.35 Gauger, J. D.  303 n.88 Gazda, E.  15 n.28, 16 n.31 Gebhard, E.  122 n.50–1 Geertman, H.  380 n.15 Gehrke, H. J.  258 n.130 Geremia, R.  347 n.84 Gering, A.  327 n.1, 335 n.42, 336 n.46, 338 n.51, 342, 342 n.63, 343, 343 n.64–5, 345 n.75 Germann, G.  380 n.15 Gerth, B.  104 n.195 Gesche, H.  392 n.52 Ghedini, F.  73 n.65, 143, 143 n.6, 275 n.44 Ghilardi, M.  491 n.201 Giardina, A.  8 n.12, 345 n.74, 345 n.77 Giordano, C.  268 n.10, 268, n.13 Giove, T.  167 n.30 Girri, G.  341 n.59 Gismondi, I.  327 n.3, 445 n.20 Giuliano, A.  73 n.65 Glancy, J.  111 n.8, 119 n.39, 120 n.45, 121 n.48 Gnade, M.  330 n.19 Gneisz, D.  89 n.124–5, 91 n.133, 95 n.150 Gobbi, A.  344 n.67 Göbl, R.  399 n.76–7 Goddard, C. J.  491 n.201 Goette, R.  395 n.61 Goldbeck, F.  256 n.118, 286 n.9, 305 n.97, 306 n.99 Gordon, A. E.  112 n.11

Gordon, R. L.  439 n.12, 445 n.17, 456 n.63, 467, 467 n.111, 470, 470 n.128, 470 n.130, 471, 481, 481 n.165–6, 481 n.169, 482 n.172, 485 n.181 Gotter, U.  505 n.54, 508 n.68 Grabbe, L. L.  292 n.39, 297 n.69 Gradel, I.  39 n.15, 50 n.35 Grahame, M.  475 n.141 Graillot, H.  12 n.21 Grant, M.  390 n.46 Graver, M.  113 n.13, 113 n.16, 132 n.91, 138 n.110 Graziani, F.  157 n.19, 158 n.21–4 Greco, E.  42 n.20–1, 43 n.25 Grene, D.  132 n.90 Grimaldi, M.  V–VI, VI n.5, 185, 186 n.8, 187 n.8, 187 n.11, 190 n.20, 191 n.23, 193 n.27, 266 n.1, 267 n.5, 274 n.40 Gripentrog, S.  288 n.18 Gros, P.  29 n.27, 44 n.28, 380 n.15, 418 n.20 Gruen, E. S.  59 n.1 Guadagno, G.  359 n.12, 360 n.19–25, 362, 362 n.33, 362 n.36, 363 n.41–3, 370 n.66–7 Gualtieri, M.  41 n.19 Guarducci, M.  422 n.46 Guidobaldi, M. P.  VI–VII, 30 n.29, 44 n.27, 50 n.36, 183 n.102, 186 n.7, 188 n.14, 207 n.22, 217 n.79, 222 n.101, 269 n.16, 274 n.40, 279 n.52, 311, 314 n.14, 315 n.21, 320 n.33m, 323 n.45–6, 324 n.47, 344, 344 n.68, 345 n.77 Guiral, C.  166 n.21, 273 n.36 Gunneweg, J.  292 n.37 Günther, L. M.  288 n.18, 290 n.25 Günther, R. T.  266 n.2 Günzel, St.  90 n.132 Gutsfeld, A.  508 n.68 Guzzo, P. G.  28 n.26, 164 n.6, 168 n.30, 183 n.102, 186 n.7, 188 n.14–5, 217 n.79, 222 n.101, 225 n.126, 267 n.5, 267 n.7, 268 n.10, 269 n.16, 279 n.52, 314 n.14, 315 n.21, 324 n.47 Gwynn, D.  505 n.52

Index of Modern Authors

Habicht, C.  498 n.21 Hachlili, R.  292 n.35 Hackel, K.  100, 100 n.179 Hahn, J.  505 n.54, 508 n.68 Hahn, U.  393 n.54, 394 n.58 Halberstam, J.  117 n.32 Halfmann, H.  248 n.75 Hall, E.  125 n.62 Hansen, M. H.  93 n.139, 94 n.147 Harl, K.  389 n.40 Harland, P. A.  81 n.90, 83, 83 n.100–1, 203 n.7 Harmon, A. M.  116 n.29, 214 n.62 Harnack, Th.  65 n.24 Harrison, J. R.  225 n.133 Harrison, S. J.  467 n.115–17, 468 n.120 Hartal, M.  302 n.84 Hartenstein, J.  64 n.21 Hartwick, K. J.  220 n.95 Haselberg, L.  276 n.46 Haselberger, L.  381 n.19, 382 n.21 Hausmann, U.; 384 n.26, 402 n.83 Heck, L.  297 n.69 Heedemann, G.  510 n.74 Heinrici, G.  83 n.98 Heinzelmann, M.  327, 328 n. 7, 330 n.20, 341 n.59, 345 n.75, 436 n.3, 447 n.27, 457 n.64 Helbig, W.  366 n.60, 424, 424 n.56 Hellmann, M. C.  384 n.26 Hengel, M.  102, 102 n.189–90 Herbig, R.  15, 16 n.30 Heres, T. L.  330 n.19, 335 n.38, 445 n.20, 475 n.142, 475 n.144, 476 n.146 Hermansen, G.  333 n.31, 335, 335 n.43, 341 n.60, 476 n.146 Herrmann, P.  366 n.57 Hill, D. K.  272 n.29 Himmelmann, N.  401 n.81 Hinnels, J. R.  439 n.12 H cker, C.  384 n.26 Höckmann, U.  423 n.49 Hoepfner, W.  381 n.19 Hoffmann, A.  216 n.72, 253 n.101 Hofter, M.  421 n.42 Hogarth, D. G.  495, 495 n.7 Holleaux, M.  97 n.157

539

Hölscher, T.  393 n.56, 398 n.74, 425 n.63 Hölscher, F.  393 n.56 Hori, Y.  189 n.17 Horn, F. W.  379, 379 n.8 Horrell, D. G.  80, 80 n.87–8, 81, 201 n.1 Horsfall, N.  175 n.63 Howgego, C.  390 n.46 Hueber, F.  501 n.38, 503 n.43 Humphrey, J.  276 n.46, 370 n.66 Huss, B.  383 n.22 Iacopi, I.  178 n.80, 417 n.18 Imhoof-Gardner, F. W.  389, 390 n.44, 394 n.59, 395 plikçio lu, B.  248 n.74, 252 n.94 Israeli, S.  302 n.84 Jacobelli, L.  173 n.52 Jacobson, D. M.  290 n.25 Jansen, G.  245 n.52 Janson, A.  VI n.3 Jashemski, W.  82 n.94, 177 n.73, 201 n.3, 202 n.3, 207 n.22, 209 n.35, 210 n.38–40, 211, 211 n.41–7, 211 n.49, 212, 212 n.50–6, 213, 213 n.59, 216 n.72–3, 217, 217 n.78–80, 218, 218 n.81, 218 n.83–4, 218 n.86, 219, 219 n.87, 219 n.89–90, 221 n.97, 221 n.99–100, 222 n.104, 223 n.107, 226, 226 n.134–5, 226 n.139, 227, 227 n.140–5, 230, 232 n.165, 257 n.125, 272 n.29, 273 n.35 Jensen, R. M.  222 n.103 Jewett, R.  203 n.8, 205 n.17, 225 n.133 Jilek, S.  242 n.30 Jobst, W.  237 n.1, 240, 240 n.13–14, 241 n.26, 254 n.105–6, 255 n.107–8, 255 n.110 Johannowsky, W.  357 n.6 Johnson-DeBaufre, M.  109 n.1, 111 n.8, 117 n.32, 135 n.102 Johnston, S. Illes  123 n.55 Jones, A. H. M.  391 n.47 Jones, C. P.  214 n.61, 223 n.113, 224 n.117, 250 n.84 Jones, H. L.  112 n.10, 429

540

Index of Modern Authors

Jones, R.  186 n.7 Jones, W. H. S.  123 n.53 Jossa, G.  292 n.39 Jucker, H.  269 n.15, 389 n.40 Jucker, I.  269 n.15 Judge, E. A.  225 n.133 Kahn, A.  258 n.128 Kaizer, T.  291 n.29, 300 n.81 Kalms, U.  289 n.22 Kaminski, G.  21 n.2 Kampen, N. B.  224 n.120 Kane, J. P.  471 n.135 Kant, I.  61, 61 n.8, 62 Karwiese, S.  240 n.16, 498 n.19, 498 n.23 Käsemann, E.  102, 102 n.188 Kaser, M.  100, 100 n.179 Kastenmeier, P.  202 n.6 Katsonopoulou, D.  493 n.1 Kayan, I.  493 n.2 Kazanjian, D.  138 n.109 Kellum, B.  417, 417 n.20, 420 n.32, 423, 423 n.49, 423 n.51, 423 n.54–5, 424, 424 n.58–60 Kennedy, G.  149 n.15, 156 n.17 Kenney, E. J.  468 n.117 Kerenyi, K.  261 n.1, 262, 262 n.3 Kerschner, M.  243 n.37 Kieserling, A.  286 n.9 King, M.  117, 117 n.33 Kiriyama, H.  189 n.17 Kittredge, C. B.  115 n.22 Klauck, H.-J.  86, 87 n.113, 101 n.187, 102, 103 n.192 Kleberg, T.  71 n.54, 71 n.56, 340 n.56 Kleiner, D. E. E.  72 n.59 Klinghardt, M.  83, 83 n.98, 83 n.101, 84, 84 n.103, 85, 203 n.8, 205, 205 n.18 Kloppenborg, J. S.  481 n.166 Knauer, R. E.  267 n.6 Knibbe, D.  248 n.74, 252 n.94 Knight, C.  269 n.16 Kockel, V.  187 n.9, 327 n.3 Koester, H.  112 n.11, 122 n.50, 243 n.38, 377 n.1, 428 n.77, 498 n.17, 502 n.40

Kokkinos, N.  290 n.25 Kolb, F.  89 n.127, 92, 93 n.140–1, 94, 94 n.144, 94 n.146–7 Koller, K.  241 n.25, 247 n.63, 249 n.80–1 Koloski-Ostrow, A. O.  218 n.85 Kopcke, G.  268 n.10 Kötting, B.  508 n.70 Kovacs, D.  124 n.60 Kowalleck, I.  242 n.30 Kraft, J. C.  493 n.2 Krause, C.  266 n.4 Kreikenbom, D.  288 n.17 Kremer, J.  66, 66 n.27 Krizinger, F.  237 n.1, 238 n.6, 239 n.10, 240 n.16, 241 n.20, 419 n.31 Krois, J. M.  62 n.13 Kropp, A.  289 n.18 Krug, A.  423 n.49 Kühner, R.  104, 104 n.195 Kukula, R. C.  505 n.53 Künzl, E.  167 n.30, 168 n.32 Kyrieleis, H.  187 n.9, 267 n.5 Ladstätter, S.  141 n.1, 237 n.1, 238 n.6, 240 n.16, 241 n.21, 241 n.24, 242 n.31, 242 n.34–5, 243 n.38, 246 n.61–3, 247 n.65–6, 251 n.90, 252 n.97, 254 n.102, 255 n.113, 258 n.127 Laeuchli, S.  438 n.11 Lahusen, G.  359 n.13–16 Laird, M. L.  344, 344 n.69, 269 n.65, 370 n.68, 374 n.79 Lamoreaux, J. T.  VIII, 219 n.88 Lampe, P.  80, 80 n.84–5, 83, 203, 203 n.12, 204 n.12 Lanci, J. R.  380 n.14, 400 n.79 Lang, F.  102, 102 n.191 Lang-Auinger, C.  239 n.7, 242 n.32 Lanz, H.  377 n.1 La Rocca, E.  170 n.39, 258 n.129, 313 n.12, 398, 398 n.71, 421 n.42 Lattermann, H.  384 n.26, 403 n.88 Lattimore, R.  132 n.90 Laurence, R.  216 n.68, 337 n.48, 475 n.141 Lauter, H.; 401 n.81 Lavan, L.  505 n.52

Index of Modern Authors

Lazer, E.  167 n.28 Leach, E. W.  VI, 82 n.94, 141, 141 n.1, 144 n.9, 146 n.12, 157 n.18, 175, 175 n.60, 175 n.63, 179 n.84, 187 n.9, 216, 216 n.69, 221, 418 n.25, 420 n.32 Lefève, E.  418 n.20, 425 n.64 Lehmann-Hartleben, K.  10 n.14, 142 n.3, 188 n.15, 190 n.20 Lehmann, P. W.  267 n.5 Lehmann, S.  508 n.68 Lemaire, A.  42 n.22 Lentz, W.  484 n.179, 485 Lenzi, P.  344 n.70 Leone, A.  347 n.84 Le Roy, C.  427 n.71 Letzner, W.  240 n.15 Levison, J. R.  403 n.90 Lewis, N.  372 n.74 Liberatore, R.  269 n.16 Lichtenberger, A.  289 n.19, 290 n.24 Lietzmann, H.  65 n.24, 66 n.26 Lim, K. Y.  410 n.108 Lindner, H.  289 n.22 Ling, L.  26 n.20, 164 n.6, 164 n.10, 166 n.20, 166 n.23, 167 n.28, 169 n.34, 171 n.48, 172 n.49, 173 n.52–3, 174 n.55, 178, 178 n.77–8, 179 n.85, 180 n.92, 181 n.95, 182 n.100 Ling, R.  26 n.20, 163, 164, 164 n.6, 164 n.10, 165, 166 n.20, 166 n.23, 167 n.28, 168, 169 n.34, 171 n.48, 172 n.49, 173 n.52–3, 174 n.55, 175 n.63, 178, 178 n.77–8, 179 n.85, 180 n.92, 181, 181 n.95, 182, 182 n.100, 216 n.70–1, 220 n.91–4, 221 n.97, 225 n.128, 227 n.146, 365 n.52 Littlewood, A. R.  82 n.94, 210 n.38, 216 n.69 Llewellyn-Jones, L.  395 n.60 Lomas, K.  332 n.27 Longenecker, B. W.  201 n.1 Lorenzatti, S.  330 n.15, 331 n.22 Lotman, J.  62 n.14 MacDonald, M. Y.  69 n.46, 86 n.110, 219 n.88 Macdougall, E. B.  258 n.126 MacMahon, A.  340 n.58

541

MacMullen, R.  470 n.128 Maderna, C.  21 n.2 Magen, Y.  292 n.32 Mahon, A. M.  74 n.67, 208 n.25, 208 n.30, 209 n.31–2, 210 n.36–7, 212 n.55, 227 n.142 Maiuri, A.  163, 163 n.1–3, 164, 164 n.9, 165 n.17, 166 n.20, 166 n.23, 166 n.25, 167, 167 n.28, 167 n.30, 168 n.31, 171 n.47, 172 n.49, 173 n.53, 176 n.68, 178, 178 n.77–8, 179 n.85, 181, 181 n.94, 181 n.96, 182, 182 n.99, 183, 186, 186 n.6, 187, 188 n.12, 189 n.17, 195 n.32, 210 n.36, 261, 261 n.1, 311 n.2, 318–19, 322 n.40–1, 323 n.44 Maj, B. M. F.  33 n.32 Malherbe, A.  135 n.102 Malina, B. J.  379, 379 n.12 Manacorda, D.  45 n.30 Manasse, G. C.  68–9 n.45 Manderscheid, H.  253 n.101, 311 n.2 Mangartz, F.  240 n.17 Mannsperger, D.  389 n.40, 390 n.43, 423 n.49 Marino, A. S.  334 n.37 Marinucci, A.  332 n.28, 333 n.34, 347 n.81, 348 n.86, 452 n.48–9, 453 n.49, 545 n.55 Marquardt, J.  308 n.107 Martin, A.  328 n.7, 330 n.20, 349 n.91, 435 n.1, 436 n.2 Martin, D.  118 n.36, 288 n.18 Martin, H. G.  279 n.51 Martin, T. W.  388 n.38 Mason, S.  291 n.30 Mastroroberto, M.  164 n.6, 267 n.7 Matsuyama, S.  267 n.8 Mattingly, B. H.  390 n.46, 391 n.47 Mattusch, C. C.  219 n.90, 220 n.95, 221 n.98, 222 n.104–5, 223 n.110 Mau, A.  14 n.26, 71 n.54 Mavrojannis, T.  425 n.61 McKelvey, J.  378 n.4 McKinnon, M.  328 n.7 Meeks, W. A.  99 n.178 Meier, R.  504 n.51 Meiggs, R.  46 n.31, 328, 328 n.8, 329, 329 n.11, 331 n.26, 435 n.1, 436 n.2,

542

Index of Modern Authors

436 n.3, 438 n.11, 445, 445 n.19–20, 448 n.29, 454 n.56, 462 n.88, 473 n.137 Meggitt, J.  118 n.36, 119 n.40 Meriç, R.  501 n.30 Merkelbach, R.  253, 253 n.98, 438 n.10 Mert, I. H.  500 n.29 Meyboom, P. G. P.  26 n.19, 417 n.16, 417 n.18, 418 n.23, 418 n.27, 421 n.40, 422 n.45–6, 423 n.49, 428 n.75 Meyer, M.  254 n.103, 289 n.23, 300 n.81, 389 n.41, 430 n.82, 500 n.29 Michalczuk, J.  244 n.51, 257 n.124 Michel, D.  258 n.123 Michel, O.  407, 407 n.107 Mielsch, H.  266 n.1 Mikocki, T.  398 n.74 Miller, J. F.  420 n.32 Millett, M.  258 n.131 Milligan, G.  100 n.182 Millis, B.  129 n.82 Mingazzini, P.  266 n.3 Miranda, E.  28 n.25, 266 n.4 Möller, A.  258 n.130 Möller, N.  63 n.17 Mols, St. Th. A.  67 n.30, 223 n.106, 328 n.7, 435 n.1 Momigliano, A.  170 n.39, 425 n.64 Mommsen, Th. E.  59 n.1 Mondini, O. B.  9 n.13 Montepaone, C.  334 n.37 Moore, M. B.  268 n.10 Moormann, E. M.  168 n.33, 179 n.86–7, 275 n.43, 276 n.46, 279 n.51, 367 n.61, 436 n.3 Morano, V.  269 n.16 Moreno, P.  333 n.32, 428, 428 n.75–6 Morard, T.  330 n.16 Moreschini, L.  347 n.84 Moret, J. P.  187 n.8 Morgan II, C. H.  91 n.135 Morgan, M. H.  299 n.75, 299 n.77, 382 n.20, 384 n.24–5, 385 n.27, 387 n.37, 402 n.84, 403 n.89, 405 n.91 Mortensen, P.  294 n.56 Moule, D.  378 n.4 Moulton, J. H.  100 n.182 Mühlenbrock, J.  312 n.3

Müller-Wiener, W.  384 n.26 Muntasser, N.  327 n.1 Murphy-O’Conner, J.  79, 79 n.83, 80, 80 n.84, 111, 203, 203 n.8, 203 n.11, 204, 204 n.15 Muscettola, S. A.  21 n.3, 28 n.25, 312 n.3 Muss, U.  VI, 422 n.45, 427 n.71. 428 n.78, 430 n.82, 493, 493 n.1–3, 495 n.8–9, 496 n.10, 496 n.12, 497 n.14, 498 n.18, 499 n.26, 500 n.28–9, 505 n.55, 506 n.56–57, 506 n.59, 507 n.63, 508 n.69, 509 n.73 Mustilli, D.  273 n.37 Nachtergael, G.  425 n.64 Najbjerg, T.  VI–VII, 355, 355 n.2, 356 n.3–4, 357 n.7–8, 358 n.9–11, 359 n.12–16, 360 n.17–26, 361 n.27, 361 n.29–31, 362 n.32, 362 n.35, 362 n.37–8, 363 n.38–44, 364 n.45, 364 n.47, 365 n.48–53, 366 n.54–60, 367 n.60, 369 n.64–5, 370 n.66–7, 371 n.69, 371 n.71–2, 373, 77–8 Nappo, S.  173 n.52, 209 n.35, 223 n.111–12 Narciso, F.  218 n.86 Nasrallah, L. S.  110 n.5, 111 n.8, 135 n.101, 203 n.7 Nava, M.  4 n.2 Neutsch, B.  174 n.57 Netzer, E.  283, 283 n.2, 284, 284 n.5, 285 n.6–7, 290 n.24, 305 n.98 Neudecker, R.  425 n.63 Neusner, J.  292 n.39 Nevett, L. C.  231 n.159 Newton, M.  378 n.4 Neyrey, J. H.  379 n.13 Niang, A. C.  233 n.166, 431 n.87 Nielsen, H. S.  472 n.136 Nielsen, I.  258 n.129, 472 n.136 Nielsen, T. F.  294 n.56 Noack, F.  188 n.15, 190 n.20 Nock, A.  13 n.24 Nordmeyer, A.  244 n.48 North, J.  13 n.25, 418 n.28 Nussbaum, M.  125 n.63, 127 n.69, 127 n.71, 131 n.86

Index of Modern Authors

Oakes, P.  80 n.87, 82 n.93, 112 n.8, 204 n.16, 232 Ochs, D. J.  109 n.3 Ohlig, C.  240 n.18 Ohnesorg, A.  497 n.15, 506 n.60 Ohrt, E. W.  62 n.13 Økland, J.  83 n.96–7, 84 n.104, 86, 86 n.111, 106, 106 n.198, 111 n.8, 379, 379 n.13, 400 n.79, 401 n.80, 403 n.90 Oleson, P.  384 n.26 Olevano, F.  320 n.33, 323 n.45–6 Osiek, C.  69 n.46, 86 n.110, 219 n.88, 233 n.166 Oster, R.  504 n.49 Otto, B.  246 n.58 Outschar, U.  243 n.39 Öz, A. K.  500 n.29 Pache, C. O.  125 n.61, 127 n.72–3, 128 n.74 Packer, J. E.  335 n.42, 337 n.49, 340, 340 n.56, 452 n.44, 452 n.46–7, 453 n.51 Pagano, M.  185 n.4, 186 n.5, 191 n.21, 266 n.2, 268 n.10, 269 n.16, 311 n.2, 312 n.5, 312 n.7, 313 n.8–10, 313 n.13, 315 n.20–1, 316 n.23, 322 n.42, 357 n.6, 360 n.26, 373 n.76 Pagliara, P. N.  380 n.15 Painter, K.  164 n.6, 167 n.30, 168 n.32 Pani, M.  312 n.3 Pannuti, U.  24 n.14 Paolucci, F.  82 n.94, 220 n.95 Papenfuß, D.  293 n.40 Pappalardo, U.  V–VI, VI n.5, 167 n.29– 30, 168 n.32, 173 n.52, 185 n.2, 186 n.7–8, 187 n.8, 187 n.10, 211 n.42, 261, 261 n.1, 264 n.6, 266 n.1, 274 n.40, 276 n.46, 279 n.51, 311 n.2, 312 n.3, 312 n.6, 313 n.11, 313 n.13, 422 n.46 Papthomas, A.  100 n.180–1, 100 n.183 Paris, R.  4 n.2, 141 n.1 Parker, M. L.  183 n.1 Parrish, D.  243 n.37 Parslow, C. C.  30 n.29, 74 n.67, 185 n.4, 207 n.21–2 Paschetto, L.  438 n.8, 460 n.77, 460 n.80, 464 n.100–1

543

Paton, W. R.  298 n.70 Paul, G. MacKay  389 n.40 Pavolini, C.  18 n.34–5, 46 n.31, 327 n.1, 329, 329 n.13, 345, 345 n.74, 349, 349 n.88, 452 n.44, 453 n.49, 459 n.75 Pedicini, A. F.  167 n.30, 179 n.87 Pedley, J. G.  42 n.23 Peleg, J.  240 n.18 Pelegrin, C. G.  273 n.36 Pellegrino, A.  347 n.85, 453 n.49 Penner, T.  423 n.423 Pensabene, P.  38 n.11, 46 n.32, 47 n.33, 344 n.67 Perrier, B.  328 n.5, 329 n.10, 330 n.16, 331 n.24, 345 n.73 Pesando, F.  VI, 30 n.29, 35, 44 n.27, 50 n.36, 55 n.39, 188 n.15, 195 n.32, 207 n.22, 220 n.92, 233 n.166, 269 n.16, 312 n.1 Peters, W. J. T.  170 n.38 Petersen, S.  64 n.21 Petrini, G.  437, 438 n.8, 439, 460 n.82, 467 n.114 Petron t s, A.  382 n.21 Phillips, K. M.  173 n.54, 174 n.57, 176 n.65 Pilch, J. J.  379 n.12 Pillinger, R.  510 n.74 Pirson, F.  74 n.66, 74 n.69, 212 n.52, 337, 337 n.48 Pfeiffer, I. L.  417 n.16 Pfister, F.  266 n.3 Pfisterer, M.  242 n.31 Pfisterer-Haas, S.  25 n.18 Pfrommer, M.  267 n.5 Plattner, G.  241 n.27, 253 n.100 Plummer, A.  379, 379 n.10, 401 n.80 Poccardi, G.  469 n.124, 475 n.143, 491 n.201 Pochmarski, E.  176 n.67, 251 n.89 Poirier, J.  291 n.31, 292 n.36 Poole, F.  21 n.1 Poorthuis, M. J.  291 n.31 Porena, P.  491 n.201 Portefaix, L.  428 n.78, 429 n.79 Porter, S. E.  403 n.90 Pöttner, M.  65, 65 n.23, 379, 379 n.11 Prayon, F.  390 n.43

544

Index of Modern Authors

Presuhn, E.  71 n.54 Price, J.  74 n.67, 208 n.25, 340 n.58 Price, M.  504 n.48 Price, S.  13 n.25, 287, 287 n.16, 392 n.52, 398, 398 n.72, 418 n.28 Priester, S.  336 n.45, 341 n.61 Prisciandaro, R.  186 n.5 Prowse, T.  116 n.28 Puech, B.  398, 398 n.70 Pülz, A.  508, 508 n.69, 508 n.71, 509 n.72 Quatember, U.  242 n.29 Quilici, L.  338 n.51 Quilici-Gigli, S.  223 n.51 Raaflaub, K.  386 n.31 Ransom, C. L.  223 n.106 Rathmayr, E.  241 n.22–3, 241 n.28, 242 n.30, 242 n.36, 244 n.48, 245 n.53, 245 n.55–7, 246 n.58, 247 n.63, 247 n.70, 248, 248 n.71–3, 248 n.75, 248 n.77, 249 n.78, 250 n.83, 251, 251 n.88, 252 n.93–5, 255 n.109, 256 n.117, 256 n.119 Regev, E.  291 n.31 Rehm, R.  384 n.26 Reinhold, M.  372 n.74 Revard, V.  163 Ricci, C.  35 n.1 Ricciardi, A.  448 n.30 Richardson, J.  257 n.126 Richardson, L.  166 n.23, 174 n.56, 211 n.44, 221 n.98, 257 n.126, 338 n.50 Richardson, N.  425 n.65 Richter, D.  312 n.3 Richter, G. M.  67 n.30, 67 n.33, 102, 223, 223 n.106 Ricotti, E. S. P.  177 n.73, 211 n.50, 212 n.50, 258 n.126 Ridgway, B. Sismondo  272 n.29, 419 n.31, 425 n.64 Rieger, A. K.  480, 480 n.158 Riggsby, M.  178 n.82 Ripolles, P.  389 n.42 Ritter, St.  70 n.50 Rizakis, A. D.  115 n.24 Rizzi, G.  314 n.14

Rizzo, G. E.  422 n.46 Robert, R.  42 n.22 Robertson, A.  379, 379 n.10, 401 n.80 Robinson, B.  109 n.1, 124, 122 n.52, 123 n.54, 123 n.56, 124 n.57, 125, n.63 Robinson, E.  122 n.52 Rocca, S.  303 n.88 Roddy, N.  297 n.69 Roebuck, C.  84 n.105–6, 85 n.109 Roffia, E.  69 n.45 Rogers, G. M.  247 n.68, 429, 429 n.79–81 Roller, D. W.  290 n.24 Roller, M. B.  68 n.42, 207 n.23, 219, 219 n.88, 229 n.154 Romano, D. G.  396, 396 n.65 Romer, E.  495 n.6 Romer, J.  495 n.6 Romizzi, L.  175 n.61–2, 179 n.83 Rose, P.  327 n.1, 349 n.89 Rossignani, M. P.  168 n.33 Rost, L.  86 n.114 Rouveret, A.  275 n.42 Rozenberg, S.  306, 306 n.101–2, 307 n.103, 308 n.105 Ruggiero, M.  269 n.16, 364 n.46 Ruggiu, A. P. Z.  68 n.45, 82 n.92 Rügler, A.  494 n.4, 498 n.19, 498 n.24 Rüpke, J.  253 n.98 Russo, E.  507, 507 n.63–4, 508 n.65–7 Russo, M.  266 n.3, 433 Ryan, T. J.  99 n.178 Ryberg, I. S.  7 n.9 Saglio, E.  68 n.40 Sagona, A.  496 n.10 ahin, M.  500 n.29 Sakai, S.  189 n.17 Sakaguchi, A.  344 n.72 Salcuni, A.  269 n.15 Saldarini, A. J.  292 n.39 Saletti, C.  44 n.26 Salmon, J.  124–5 n.60 Sambon, A.  267 n.5 Sampaolo, V.  30 n.28, 178 n.79, 181 n.93, 202 n.3, 207 n.22–3, 209 n.35, 210 n.35, 211 n.42, 213 n.59, 217 n.79, 221 n.101, 223 n.111, 224 n.119, 224

Index of Modern Authors

n.121–3, 225 n.126, 225 n.128–9, 225 n.132, 229 n.155, 428 n.75 Sartorio, P.  6 n.7 Sauron, G.  261 n.1, 277 n.50 Savalli-Lestrade, I.  288 n.17 Savunen, L.  35 n.1, 38 n.12, 39 n.15, 51 n.37 Schäfer, A.  253, 253 n.98 Schätzschock, M.  242 n.33 Schefold, K.  71 n.54, 171 n.46, 174 n.57, 175 n.63, 179 n.85, 275 n.43–4 Scheibelreiter, V.  241 n.26, 251 n.90, 254 n.104–5, 255 n.107–8, 255 n.110, 255 n.112 Scheidel, W.  116 n.29 Scheper-Hughes, N.  117, 117 n.32 Scherrer, P.  240 n.15–6, 242 n.37, 250 n.85 Schiavone, A.  170 n.39, 266 n.1, 275 n.44, 425 n.64 Schlikker, F.-W.  386, 386 n.33, 387 n.36 Schmaltz, B.  173 n.54, 174 n.57 Schmitt, H. H.  284 n.3, 304 n.90 Schmidt, K. L.  86 n.112–14 Schmidt, M.  170 n.41 Schmitt, T.  306 n.99 Schmidt-Dounas, B.  289 n.19 Schneider, J.  66, 66 n.28 Schneider, P. I.  244 n.46 Schneider, R. M.  420 n.37, 425 n.62 Schnelle, U.  231 n.160 Schowalter, D. N.  81, 81 n.89, 86 n.110, 117 n.31, 203 n.11, 390 n.43 Schrage, W.  87 n.114, 100 n.179 Schrijvers, P. H.  428 n.75 Schroer, M.  VI n.1 Schulten, N.  390 n.43 Schüssler-Fiorenza, E.  115 n.22, 378 n.5 Schwandner, E. L.  381 n.19 Schwartz, D.  288 n.18 Schwarz, G.  251 n.89 Schweitzer, B.  386 n.35, 402, Schwingenstein, C.  94, 94 n.148 Scrinari, V. S. M.  448 n.30 Sciortino, I.  254 n.101 Scranton, R. L.  91 n.135, 384 n.26, 396 n.64

545

Seiler, F.  22 n.5–6, 188 n.15, 190 n.20, 223 n.107 Seipel, W.  494 n.5, 495 n.9 Settis, S.  27 n.22, 30 n.31, 31 n.31, 170 n.41 Seydl, L.  355 n.2 Segala, E.  254 n.101 Severin, H. G.  505 n.54 Sgobbo, I.  187 n.9 Shanor, J.  410 n.108 Sherwood, A. N.  384 n.26 Showalter, D. N.  202 n.7, 203 n.11 Siegert, F.  289 n.22 Simmel, G.  VI, VI n.2, 90 n.132 Simon, E.  13 n.24, 253 n.99, 258 n.128, 261 n.1, 417 n.15, 423, 423 n.52, 423 n.55, 424 n.58, 426 n.69 Slane, K. W.  112 n.11, 115 n.26 Slater, W. J.  75 n.70, 214 n.61, 250 n.84, 258 n.126 Smith, D. E.  64, 83, 83 n.99, 84 n.102, 203 n.8–10, 204, 204 n.12–4, 215 n.66, 472 n.136, 474 n.140 Smith, J. Z.  133, 133 n.97 Smith, W.  68 n.40 Snyder, G. F.  378 n.4 Sodo, A. M.  212 n.51 Söldner, M.  21 n.2, 25 n.18, 28 n.23 Solin, H.  187 n.9 Sommer, A.  244 n.48 Soprano, P.  82 n.94, 210 n.38, 211 n.44, 213 n.57–8, 217, 217 n.78, 217 n.80, 218 n.81, 218 n.83, 219 n.90 Soter, S.  493 n.1 Sourvinou-Inwood, C.  123 n.55, 126 n.68, 131 n.87 Spaeth, St.  397 n.67 Spahn, P.  386 n.31 Spawforth, A.  115 n.24, 116, 116 n.27 Speich, N.  385 n.29 Spinazzola, V.  11 n.15–16, 12 n.17–20, 23 n.11, 24 n.16–17 Spurza, J. M.  445 n.20, 460 n.76–9, 460 n.81, 463 n.96, 464, 464 n.99–100, 465, 465 n.102–5, 477, 477 n.149–50, 479 n.154–5, 483 n.175, 488 n.191 Squarciapino, M. F.  438 n.11, 447 n.26, 452 n.46, 459 n.74–5, 461 n.87, 462

546

Index of Modern Authors

n.91, 466 n.106–7, 469 n.123, 476 n.146, 480 n.163, 484 n.178 Staub-Gierow, M.  216 n.73 Steuernagel, D.  480, 480 n.158–9 Stefani, G.  163 n.4, 164 n.6, 165 n.18, 167 n.28, 167 n.30, 168 n.30, 168 n.32, 267 n.5, 275 n.41 Steinhart, M.  201 n.2, 222 n.104 Stendahl, K.  86 n.114 Stern, W. Olch  67 n.32 Stevens, N. C. L.  444 n.15 Stevens, S.  327 n.1, 339 n.52, 340, 340 n.57 Still, Todd D.  80 n.87, 201 n.1 Stillwell, A. Newhall  69, 69 n.47–9, 73 n.64 Stillwell, R. L.  396 n.64 Stöckl, S.  244 n.47, 250 n.82 Stoeger, H.  339 n.55, 444 n.15 Stöger, H.  327 n.1 Stollberg-Rilinger, B.  285 n.8, 286 n.10–12 Storey, G. R.  436 n.3 Stowers, S.  126, 126 n.64 Strazulla, M. J.  418 n.20 Strecker, Ch.  80, 80 n.86 Strelan, R.  503 n.44 Strocka, V. M.  237 n.1, 240, 240 n.12, 241 n.24, 246 n.62, 258 n.127, 293 n.40 Stroud, R. S.  85, 85 n.108, 128 n.78, 129 n.79–81, 130, 130 n.83, 130 n.85–6 Stucky, R. A.  269 n.15 Sutherland, C. H. V.  390 n.46, 391 n.47 Taeuber, H.  240 n.16, 242 n.35, 247 n.63, 247 n.67, 247 n.69–70 Talamo, E.  220 n.95, 421 n.42, 428 n.73–4, 433 Taskos, K.  507 n.62 Taubes, J.  136 n.105 Taussig, H.  203 n.10 Taylor, L. R.  392 n.52, 397 n.69 Tedone, G.  417 n.18 Teichmann, F.  403 n.89 Thébert, Y.  8 n.12 Theodorakoupolos, E.  147 n.13

Theodorescu, D.  42 n.20–1 Thiel, H.  468 n.117 Thimme, D. Hadjilazaro  67 n.32 Thiselton, A. C.  401 n.80 Thomas, C.  133 n.98, 498 n.17 Thomas, M. L.  269 n.16, 279 n.53 Thompson, H.  93 n.139 Thraede, K.  97 n.165 Thür, H.  VI, 67 n.29, 232 n.164, 237, 237 n.1, 240 n.16, 241 n.19, 241 n.22, 241 n.27, 242 n.36, 243 n.38, 243 n.41, 243 n.43, 244 n.46–7, 243 n.51, 245 n.52–4, 246 n.59–60, 247 n.63, 249 n.79, 249 n.81, 250 n.85–6, 251 n.87, 251 n.89, 251 n.91, 252 n.92, 252 n.95, 253 n.100, 255 n.114, 256 n.119, 257 n.124, 377 n.1 Tinh, T. T.  366 n.60 Tione, R.  345 n.77 Todd, F. A.  71 n.54 Toher, M.  298 n.74 Tölle-Kastenbein, R.  507 n.62 Tomei, D.  171 n.46 Tomlinson, R. A.  84 n.107, 381 n.19 Torelli, M.  35 n.2, 36 n.3–6, 37 n.7–8, 38 n.12, 39 n.15, 41 n.19, 42 n.23, 43 n.24, 45 n.28–9, 279 n.51 Torraca, G.  163 n.5 Traversari, G.  40, 40 n.18, 143 n.6 Treggiari, S.  115 n.25 Trell, B. L.  504 n.48 Treré, C. C.  189 n.17 Trombley, F. R.  504 n.50 Tsuk, T.  240 n.18 Tucker, J.  410 n.108 Tulloch, J. H.  69 n.46, 219 n.88 Tybout, R. A.  21 n.4, 32 n.33, 274 n.39 Tzaferis, V.  302 n.84, 303 n.86 Ueno, K.  189 n.17 Van Andringa, W.  39 n.14, 53, 53 n.38 Van der Laan, C. E.  435 n.1 Van der Meer, L. B.  444 n.15 Van Essen, C. C.  462 n.90, 463 n.95 Vander Stichele, C.  423 n.48 Van Henten, J. W.  416 n.14 Van Tress, H.  426 n.66

Index of Modern Authors

Varone, A.  164 n.6, 165 n.18–9, 173 n.52, 194 n.28, 195 n.30, 268 n.10, 268 n.14 Varriale, I.  V–VI, 163, 166 n.21, 166 n.22, 168 n.33, 169 n.36, 170 n.42, 179 n.84, 180 n.90–1, 189 n.10, 190 n.19, 191 n.22, 266 n.1–2, 237 n.36, 277 n.49 Vecchio, G.  266 n.2 Veitch, J.  230 n.158 Vermaseren, M. J.  436, 436 n.4, 437 n.5–7, 438 n.10–11, 439, 444 n.17, 445 n.17, 446 n.24, 447 n.26, 450 n.36–8, 451 n.39, 452 n.44, 452 n.46–7, 454 n.57–8, 455, 455 n.60, 455 n.63, 456 n.63, 258 n.72–3, 459 n.75, 462, 462 n.91, 462 n.93, 463, , 463 n.94–5, 464 n.101, 466 n.106–7, 467 n.114, 469 n.123, 470 n.126, 470 n.128, 471, 480 n.163, 482 n.167, 484 n.178, 487 n.189, 488 n.189, 490 n.197–8, 491 n.199–200 Versluys, M. J.  32 n.33 Vetters, H.  237 n.1, 238 n.6, 239, 239 n.8–9, 239 n.11, 240, 240 n.16, 246 n.58, 248 n.74, 251 n.89, 252 n.94, 255 Veyne, P.  261 n.1 Villedieu, F.  220 n.95 Viscogliosi, A.  421 n.42 Von Blanckenhagen, P. H.  28 n.26, 144 n.8, 145 n.10–11, 267 n.6 Von Bothmer, D.; 423 n.49 Von Freytag, B.  389 n.40 Von Hesberg, H.  254 n.101 Von Hill, P.  390 n.43 Von Kienlin, A.  250 n.85 Von Steuben, H.  289 n.19 Vössing, K.  82 n.93, 206 n.19, 308 n.108 Walbank, M. E. Hoskins  117, 117 n.31, 118 n.34, 135 n.100, 390 n.43, 393 n.53, 396 Waldner, K.  416 n.12 Walker, S.  396 n.66 Wallat, K.  47 n.34 Wallace-Hadrill, A.  59 n.1, 82, 82 n.92, 98 n.166, 119 n.40, 166 n.22, 166 n.24, 167 n.26, 171 n.45, 216 n.68, 217 n.75,

547

221 n.95, 244 n.50, 258 n.129, 289 n.23, 290, 290 n.26–8, 291, 300, 305 n.97, 309, 329 n.12, 329 n.14, 332, 335, 337 n.48, 370 n.66, 475 n.141 Walters, J. C.  81 n.89, 202 n.7, 203 n.11, 390 n.43 Wankel, H.  99 n.174, 238 n.4 Wardle, T. S.  378 n.4 Ward-Perkins, J. B.  216 n.71 Warner, R.  132 n.90 Weber, G.  286 n.14, 304 n.90, 308 n.108 Weber, M.  286 n.13 Weber, T.  288 n.18 Weissenrieder, A.  64, 111, 212, 377 Weissengruber, G.  251 n.90, 252 n.97 Weitzmann, K.  275 n.44 Wenschkewitz, H.  378, 378 n.4 Werlen, B.  105, 105 n.197 Wesenberg, B.  381 n.19, 401 n.81, 494 n.4 West, A. B.  391 n.48, 397 n.69 White, L. M.  VI–VII, 435, 439 n.14, 444 n.16, 451 n.40, 452 n.44, 455 n.60, 463 n.96, 466 n.106, 481 n.165–6, 486 n.183, 488 n.189 Wickert, L.  455 n.63, 468 n.118 Wildon, S. G.  481 n.166 Williams II, C.  112 n.10, 115 n.23, 115 n.26, 119, 120 n.42 Williams, C. K.  396, 396 n.65–6 Williams, P.  267 n.5 Williams, W. G.  114 n.17 Wills, Lawrence  109 n.1 Winter, B.  111 n.8, 119, 119 n.41 Winter, E.  510 n.74 Winterling, A.  304 n.90, 306 n.99, 308 n.108, 393, 393 n.55 Wiplinger, G.  240 n.18, 245 n.52, 257 n.123–4 Wire, A.Clark  111 n.8, 115 n.22, 133 n.96 Witetschek, S.  426 n.67–9, 430 n.82–6 Witschel, C.  288 n.17 Wittkower, R.  385 n.28 Wlosok, A.  392 n.52 Wolf, M.  263 n.4 Wood, J. T.  500, 505, 506 n.57, 506 n.61, 507

548

Index of Modern Authors

Woolf, G.  119, 119 n.40, 258 n.130, 258 n.132 Wrede, H.  69 n.46, Wulf-Rheidt, U.  244 n.46, 253 n.101 Wynia, S. L.  330 n.19 Yabro Collins, A.  413, 413 n.1–2, 414, 416–17, 430 Yalouris, Nicolas  416 n.12 Yellin, J.  292 n.34 Zangenberg, J.  288 n.18 Zanker, P.  5, 5 n.4, 23 n.11, 27 n.22, 31, 31 n.32, 74 n.68, 82 n.92, 167 n.29, 171 n.44, 176 n.69, 181 n.93, 190 n.20, 287, 287 n.15, 290 n.27, 300 n.80–1, 400, 400 n.78, 417, 417 n.17–19, 418, 418 n.21, 418 n.24, 418 n.26–9, 419

n.30, 420, 420 n.32, 420 n.34–6, 420 n.38, 421, 421 n.39, 421 n.41–2, 422 n.44, 422 n.47, 423, 423 n.49–51, 423 n.55, 425 Zekl, H. G.  61 Zevi, A. G.  327 n.1, 328 n.5, 329 n.10, 330 n.16, 339 n.53, 341 n.59, 370 n.66, 435 n.1, 447 n.27 Zevi, F.  26 n.19, 30 n.30, 37 n.10, 44 n.28, 167 n.30, 190 n.19, 191 n.21, 220 n.92, 266 n.1–2, 272 n.29, 329 n.10, 330 n.17, 331, 331 n.25–6, 347 n.84, 435 n.1, 447 n.27, 489 n.194 Zimmermann, M.  286 n.14 Zimmermann, N.  141 n.1, 241 n.24, 246 n.62, 247 n.66, 250 n.84, 252 n.97, 254 n.102–3, 258 n.127 Zöllner, F.  377 n.3, 380 n.17

Index of Architectural Structures and their Decorations 1. Cities and their buildings 1.1 Corinth

1.2 Ephesus

Asklepieion ​84, 215 bouleuterion ​92, 94–95, 105, 107 Building of the Tablets, Acrocorinth ​ 129–30 Burnt temple on road to Sicyon ​407 Deipnisterien des epidaurischen Gymnasiums  ​84 diolkos (paved roadway) ​112 Forum ​403 Fountain of Glauke ​123–24 Fountain of Peirene ​122, 124, 225 Heraeum, Perachora  ​124 mnema of Medea’s children ​123 naoi in Forum ​403 Odeion ​123 prytaneion ​95 Ruined walls ​113–14 Sanctuaries of Isis and Serapis, Acrocorinth ​128 Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore, with dining halls, Acrocorinth ​85, 111, 128–30, 137, 395 Sanctuary to Necessity and Force, Acrocorinth ​128 Temple (to Apollo?) ​122, 407 Temple E ​396–97 Temple of Octavia ​395–96 Temple of Olympian Zeus ​407 theatron (next to agora) ​94, 105, 122 Tomb with Sarcophagi ​117

Aqueducts ​257, 505 Artemesion ​493–510 Augusteum ​430, 501 Augustan Prytaneion ​429–30 Banqueting hall in Artemision ​501 Basilica of St. John ​505 Cave of Paul and Thekla ​510 Church in Artemision ​494, 497, 500, 506–08 Croesus temple /dipteros ​496–98 Damianus Stoa ​501 embolos ​243 gymnasium in Artemision ​501 Harbour Gymnasium ​494 Hekatompedos ​496 House 2, C. Vibius Salutaris ​238, 243–44, 247, 256 Houses 3 & 5 ​239, 241, 243–44, 246 House 6, C. Flavius Furius Aptus ​237, 243–44, 246, 249–53, 256 Isa Bey Mosque ​505 Monumental gates: Mazäus and Mithridates ​503 Panaya Kapulu (Holy of Holies by the Gate) ​509 Pinakotheke in Artemision ​501 public aqueducts, basins ​244 Serapeion ​504 Stoa in Artemision ​501 tavernae ​243 Temple of Artemis/Diana ​414, 427, 430 Temple C ​496

550

Index of Architectural Structures and their Decorations

Temple of Hadrian (Olympieion) ​504 Terrace House 1 ​141, 239 Terrace House 2 ​237–58 Tetragonos Agora ​503 Tomb of St. Lucas ​505 Tribune ​501

1.3 Herculaneum Apartment buildings  ​356 Basilica ​48, 312, 315 Collegio degli Augustali ​356–58, 364, 369 Forum ​357 Funary altar ​313 Great Porticus ​355–74 Hercules fighting Hydra, House ­Telephus Relief ​322 House of Alcove ​323 House of Gem ​311, 317, 321–23 House of Inn ​56 House of Marcus Pilius Primigenius Granianus ​311, 317–18, 321, 324 House of Mosaic Atrium ​216 House of Stags ​216, 220, 320, 323 House of Telephus Relief ​311–24 Insula Orientalis I ​313 palaestra ​357 Samnite House ​323 Suburban Baths ​312–14, 321, 323–24 Temple of Mother of the Gods ​362 Terrace, Marcus Nonius Balbus ​ 311–12, 314, 322 Villa dei Papiri ​221–22, 316, 331, 425

1.4 Judea, nearby cities, improvements outside the kingdom Aqueduct, Laodikeia ​294 Antonia, Jerusalem ​293 Augusteum ​293 Baths, fountains, Askalon ​294 Colonaded street, Antioch ​294 Expanding Kaisareia, Agrippa II ​ 301–02 Fortification, Sepphoris ​301 Founding of Kaisareia (Caesarea), Philippos ​301

Founding of Tiberius, Antipas ​301 gymnasium, Damascus ​294 gymnasium, Ptolemais ​294 gymnasium, Tripolis ​294 Hasmonean palace enlarged, Agrippa II, Jerusalem ​302 Herod’s palace, Jerusalem ​304 Herodium aqueducts ​294 Herodium mausoleum ​283 Herodium semi-circular theater ​283, 308 Jerusalem temple ​388 Palace of Agrippa II, Caesarea Paneas ​​ 302 Palace, aqueduct in Jericho, Archelaus ​ 301 Palace, port, temple Augustus, amphitheater, Caesarea ​294 Paving of Jerusalem, Agrippa II ​302 Second, third palaces, Jericho ​294, 304–07 Swimming pool, Jericho ​308 Temple, Jerusalem ​289, 296, 388 Temple of Apollo, Rhodes ​295 Temple of Augustus, Sebaste ​293 Theater, Hippodrome complex, Jericho ​ 284, 295 Theater, Sculptures, Berytus, Agrippa II ​ 301 Theater, Sidon ​294 Third city wall, Jerusalem, Agrippa I ​ 301 Tiberias founded, Archelaus ​301 Tower Phasael, Jerusalem ​293

1.5 Oplontis (Torre Annunziata) Villa of Poppaea ​220, 265–80

1.6 Ostia Apartments (nearly 400, pretentions to higher status) ​342, 350 Apartments (II.xvi.5 and III.xi.1) ​342 Apartment (III.i.12–13) ​339, 342 Apartments (III.ix.3–4) ​342 Apartments (III.xvi.2) ​342 atrium, atrium-peristyle houses (late Republican, early Imperial) ​328–29

Index of Architectural Structures and their Decorations

Basilica (Flavian-Trajanic) ​46 Basilica Cristiana (II.i.4) ​335, 344 Calchidicum and crypta of Terentia  ​ 37, 46 Campo della Magna Mater (IV.1.1–10) ​ 445–47 Capitolium ​332 Casa a Giardino (III.ix.3–4, 6, 8, 12–21) ​ 333, 336–38, 340, 345 Casa Basilicale (I.ix.1): House A, House B, House C ​329 Casa delle Ierodule ​339 Casa delle Muse ​346 Casa di Diana (I.iii.3–4) ​332, 341–42, 347–48 Caserma dei Vigili (II.5.1) ​458 Casette Tipo (III.xii-xiii) ​336–38, 343 Cassegiato degli Aurighi ​478 Caseggiato dei Molini (I.3.1) ​458–59, 480 Caseggiato di Baccho e Arianna (III.17.5) ​489 Caseggiato dei Triclini (I.12.1) ​472 Cassegiato (e Portico) dell’Ercole (IV.2.3) ​449, 456 Caupona del Pavone (IV.ii.6) ​335 city walls ​329, 436, 447 commercial architecture ​340 Cortile del Dionysio (IV.5.9) ​475, 483 Domus (Augustine and his mother) ​348 Domus (III.ii.1–2) ​330 Domus (IV.iv.7) ​344 domus (4,300 m.sq., east, beyond Terme del Nuotatore) ​330 Domus dei Bucrani/Domus a peristilio, Schola del Traiano (IV.v.15) ​328–31, 334 Domus dei Dioscuri ​338, 346 Domus dei Pesci (IV.iii.3) ​346–47 Domus dei Tigriniani (III.i.4) ​334, 344 Domus del Apuleio (II.8.5) ​466–68, 475 Domus del Ninfeo (II.vi.1)  ​345, 348 Domus del Protiro (V.ii.5) ​347 Domus del Sepapide (III.17.3) ​491 Domus della Fortuna Annonaria (V.ii.8) ​ 330, 334, 348 Domus delle Colonne (IV.iii.1) ​346–48

551

Domus delle Nicchia a Mosaico (IV. iv.3) ​328 Domus di Amore e Psiche ​345–46, 348 Domus di Apuleio (II.8.5) ​331 Domus di Giove Fulminatore (IV.iv.3) ​ 328–31 Domus Filminata (III.vii.3–5) ​444 Hall of Hercules (IV.10.2) ​457 horrea ​343 horrea (IV.5.12) ​475 horrea (IV.5.14) ​469 horrea epagathiana (I.viii.3) ​341 Houses (I.ix.1) ​329 Insula (I.viii.6–10) ​341 Insula (I.x.3) ​435 Insulae (III.xiv.9) ​342 Insula delle Ierodule (III.ix.6) ​347 Insula delle Muse (III.ix.22) ​332–34 Insula delle Pareti Gialle (III.ix.4, 10, 12, 13–20) ​338–39 Insula delle Volte Dipinte (III.v.1) ​339 Insula di Bacco Fanciullo (I.iv.3) ​335 Insula di Giove e Ganimede (I.iv.2) ​ 332–33, 341, 346, 349 Insula of the Paintings (I.4.2–4) ​332 Low-status residential accommodation ​ 341–43, 349–50 Medianum apartment (III.x.1) ​336 Medianum (I.iv.3, 4) ​332, 339 Medianum (II.iii.3–4) ​339 Medianum (V.iii.3, 4) ​339 M.d. Aldobrandini ​441, 450, 455, 471, 481, 483 M.d. Animale ​(IV.2.11) ​437, 439, 441, 445–51, 454–56, 459, 471, 479–80 M.d. Caseggiato di Diana (I.3.3–4) ​443, 452–59 M.d. Diana ​450–51, 455–58, 471, 474, 479–80, 483, 485 M.d. Fagan ​437, 441, 444, 469–70, 482 M.d. Felicissimus ​17–18, 443, 445, 479–80, 485 M.d. Fructosus (I.10.4) ​442, 476, 479–80, 483 M.d. Menandro ​479–80, 483, 485 M.d. Palazzo Imperiale (M. Visconti; I.7) ​437, 439, 445, 450, 459–78, 463–65, 470–71, 477, 479–80, 483, 488

552

Index of Architectural Structures and their Decorations

M.d. Pareti Dipinti (III.1.6) ​450, 462–63, 465–66, 469, 473–74, 479, 482–88 M. Petrini ​437 M.d. Planta Pedis (III.17.2) ​442, 448, 471, 479–80, 483, 489–91 M.d. Porta Romana ​479–80, 483, 485 M.d. Serpenti ​443, 473, 480, 484 M.d. Sette Porte (IV.5.13) ​18, 438, 441, 469, 473, 475, 479–80, 483–85 M.d. Sette Sfere (II.8.6) ​437–39, 441, 466–69, 474, 479, 482, 484–85 M.d. Terme del Mitra ​442, 450, 473, 479–80, 482, 484 Maison de Diane (I.III.3–4) ​332 Multi-occupancy, multi-storey insulae ​ 328, 332 Palazzo Imperiale ​437 Quattro Tempietti ​469 Residence (IV.ii.5) ​334 Round Temple (I.10.4) ​46–47, 456, 476 Sabazeo ​443–44 Sacello dei Tre Navate  ​443–44, 478, 480 Sanctuary of Attis ​446 Sanctuary of Silvanus ​458, 462, 471 Schola degli Augustali ​344 Schola of Dendrophoroi ​446, 450 Schola del Traiano (IV.v.15) ​344, 475 Southwest Court (IV.2.10–14) ​449 Suburban villa (9,500 m.sq., south along coast) ​331 Synagogue (IV.17.1–2) ​435, 464 taverna (I.1.2) ​455 tavernae (I.viii.6–10) ​341 tavernae (II.vi.3, 6; V.iii.3) ​336 tavernae (800+; one‑ or two-roomed) ​ 340–43, 350 Temple and Collegial Hall of Serapis Cult (III.17.4) ​480, 489–90 Temple of Cybele (Metroon) ​447 Terme Bizantine ​330 Terme del Antonino Pio (Terme Maritime) ​460, 463 Terme del Faro (IV.2.1) ​448, 456–57 Terme di Musiciolo (IV.15.1–2) ​464 Terme del Nuotatore ​330 Terme del Nettuno ​454

Terme della Porta Marina ​448 Terme Maritime (III.8.1–2) ​437 Villa suburbana (IV) ​349

1.7 Pompeii Aedes Genii Augusti (VII 9,2) of Mamia ​39 Altar of Luni marble (ceremony of consecration) ​49 Albergo (VII 11,11–14) ​217 Amphitheater (II 6) ​211, 220 atrium house (VI 15,9) ​337 Calchidicum, porticus, crypta of Euma­ chia and Numistrius Fronto ​38, 47 Casa (V 2,10) ​224 Casa (VI 5,2) ​224 Casa (VI 16,36.37) ​225 Casa (IX 5,11.13) ​207 Casa annessa alla Casa dell’Efebo (I 7,19) ​223 Casa con osteria a giardino (II 9,5.7) ​ 211, 227 Casa dei Capitelli figurati (VII 4,57) ​ 216 Casa dei Quadreti teatrali (I 6,11) ​225 Casa degli Scienziato o Gran Lupanare (VI 14,43) ​224 Casa dei Ceii (I 6,15) ​224 Casa dei Cinque scheltri (VI 10,2) ​224 Casa dei Vettii (VI 15,1) ​67, 203–04, 220, 224, 330 Casa dell’Argenteria (VI 7,20)  ​224 Casa del Bracciale d’Oro (VI 17[Ins. Or.],42)) ​28–31, 187, 195, 198, 211, 225 Casa del Citarista (I 4,5.225) ​224 Casa del Cryptoportico (I 6,2) ​207, 223, 225, 228 Casa dell’Efebo (I 7,11) ​211, 213, 214 Casa del Fauno (VI 12,2) ​54, 216, 220–21, 330 Casa del Forno di fero (VI 13,6) ​229 Casa del Frutteto (I 9,5) ​159 Casa del Labirinto (VI 11,8–10) ​330, 332, 334 Casa del Meleagro (VI 9,2.13) ​223 Casa del Poeta Tragico (VI 8,3.5) ​332

Index of Architectural Structures and their Decorations

Casa del Sacerdos Amandus (I 7,7) ​159 Casa del Triclinio (V 2,4) ​70 Casa della Grata metallica (I 2,28) ​217 Casa delle nozze d’argento (V 2,i) ​ 218–19, 323 Casa delle Vestali (VI 1,7) ​154 Casa di C. Iulius Polybius (IX 13,1–3) ​ 165, 192, 201–02, 204, 221, 228, 332 Casa di D. Octavius Quartio (II 2,2) ​ 24, 211, 220, 226–27, 232 Casa di Giuseppe II (VII 2,39) ​338 Casa di M. Lucretius Fronto (V 4,1)  ​ 223 Casa di Maius Castricius (VII 16[Ins. Oc.],17) ​189, 191–92, 195, 198–99 Casa di Marcus Fabius Rufus (VII 16[Ins. Occ.],22) ​VI–VII, 185–99 Casa di Meleagro (VI 9,2.13) ​213, 330 Casa di Pinarius Cerialis (III 4,4) ​ 224–25 Casa di Sirico (VII 1,25.47) ​229 Casa di Sutoria Primigenia (I 13,2) ​9 Casa di Trebio Valente (III 2,1) ​218–19, 226, 332 Casa di Tritolemo (VII 7,5) ​228 Casa di Umbricius Scaurus (VII 16,15) ​ 186–87, 198–99 Calchidicum, porticus, crypta of Eumachia (VII 9,1) ​38, 47–50 Caupona (I 2,24) ​217, 219, 226–27 Caupona (II 8,6) ​212 Caupona (VIII 7,7) ​217 Caupona con habitatatione (II 8,2.3) ​ 212 Caupona della Via di Mercurio (VI 10,1) ​71, 72–73, 208–09, 212 Caupona di Euxinus (I 11,10–11) ​212, 227, 232 Caupona di Salvius (VI 14,35.36) ​ 71–72, 207 Complesso a sei piani delle Terme del Sarno (VIII 2,17–21) ​225 Conceria (I 5,2) ​218–19 Doric Temple ​47 Eumachia building (VII 9,1) ​46, 48–50, 55 Gladiators’ Barracks (V 5,3) ​56

553

Great Palaestra (II 7) ​211 House (IX 7,21–22) ​22 House of Amazons (VI 2,14) ​22 House of Apollo (VI 7,23) ​50 House of Black Anchor (VI 10,7) ​50 House of C. Arrius Crescens (III 4,2) ​ 23 House of Centaur (VI 9,3–5.15) ​50 House of Dioscuri (VI 9,6.7) ​50, 174 House of Doctor (VIII 5,24) ​213 House of Ephebe (I 7,10–12) ​54 House of Faun (VI 12,2) ​54, 216, 220–21, 330 House of Golden Cupids (VI 16,7) ​ 21–22, 220, 316 House of Floral Cubicula (I 9,5) ​28 House of Fruit Orchard (I 9,5) ​29–30 House of Large Fountain (VI 8,20–22) ​ 50 House of M. Obellius Firmus ​164 House of Meleager (VI 9,2.3) ​50 House of Menander (I 10,4) ​26, 163–83, 225 House of Paquius Proculus (I 7,1) ​26 House of Pansa ​164 House of Quadrigas (VII 2,25) ​175 House of the Sculptor (VIII 7,23–24) ​ 26 Inn (I 8,15–16) ​207 Insula Arriana Polliana (V.i.6) ​337 Insula Occidentalis ​186 Large and Small Theaters (VIII 7) ​48, 226 Macellum (VII 9,7.8) ​55, 228 Moregine building ​40 Officina coactiliaria di Verecundus (IX 7,7) ​210 Officina di N. Fufidius Successus (I 8,15) ​207 Osteria (II 8,5) ​228 Palaestra (VIII 2,22–24) ​56 Praedia (Villa) of Julia Felix (II 4,3) ​ 29–31, 51–56, 72, 74–75, 207, 209, 212, 223, 228, 232 Sanctuary of Dionysus ​264 Sarno baths (VIII 2,17) ​56 Scavo del Principe di Montenegro (VII 16,10) ​229

554

Index of Architectural Structures and their Decorations

Suburban baths  ​56 Taverna vasaria (I 8,10) ​228 Temple of Apollo (VII 7,32) ​221 Temple of Fortuna Augusta (VII 6,1) ​ 57 Temple of Genius of Augustus (VII 9,2) of Mamia 47–48, 49–50, 57 Temple of Isis ​415 Terrace houses (VIII) ​188, 190, 198 Tomb of Eumachia ​51 Villa dei Misteri ​15, 261–64 Workshop (IX 8,2) ​221

1.8 Rome Agrippa’s monumental cenotaph, Campus Martius ​313 Altar of Statae Matris ​8–9 Amiternum, Santo Stafano ​73, 75, 90 Antike Stanza Ara Pacis ​5–6 Aristocrats’ gardens ​428 Augustus’ mausoleum ​284 Casa di Augusto  ​308, 330, 417–18 Casa di Livia ​330, 414, 416 Circus Maximus, Pulvinar ​284 Column of Trajan ​10 Compitum Vici Aesc(u)leti ​5–8 Compitum Vicus Statae Matris ​8 Domus Aurea ​53, 178 Forum of Iulius Caesar ​358 Forum of Augustus ​358 Insula at foot of Capitoline Hill, upper floor apartments ​336, 341 Many-storied rented apartment blocks ​ 327 Portico of Livia ​48, 358 Saepta Iulia ​48, 358 San Clemente mithraeum ​437 tavernae ​207 Temple of Apollo (Augustus) ​414, 417–18, 427 Temple of Apollo (C. Sosius) ​421, 427 Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus ​417 Temple of Concordia ​38

1.9 Other Cities Academy garden, Athens ​257 Amphitheatre, Petronia C.f. Galeonis, Asisium ​40 Arch of the Sergi, Pola  ​40 Basilica of Mineia, Paestum ​36, 40–42 Bau Z, Pergamon ​256 Canopus, Alexandria  ​54 Chalcidicum of Baebia Bassi(l)la, Veleia ​ 37, 43–44 Chalcidicum of Lucceia Cn. f. Maxima, Cuma ​40? Chalcidica in forum, Puteoli ​46 Cicero’s villa at Tusculum ​216 domus, Roman North Africa ​334, 346 Garden gymnasia, Athens ​257 Hadrian’s Villa, Tivoli ​334 Hellenistic houses, Delos ​322 Heraeum, Perachora ​124 Pergamon Altar ​495 Pompeion, Athens ​215 Porticoed Temple, Cuma ​48 Porticus Aug(usti) Sextiana, Puteoli ​40 Porticus of Varia Pansina, Nola ​40 prytaneion, Priene ​93 Sanctuary of Apollo and Artemis, Delphi ​425 Temple of Aphrodite, Epidaurus ​402 Temple of Apollo, Didyma ​497 Temple of Venus Iovia, Paestum ​36, 43 Temples (3) to Leto, Apollo, Artemis, Xanthos ​427 Termenbasilika, Hierapolis ​507 Tria Dontia, Samos ​507 Villa, Boscoreale ​266, 276 Villa, Boscotrecase ​144 Villa, Capri ​266 Villa di Arianna, Stabiae ​223 Villa of Livia, Prima Porta ​31 Villa, Pausilypon ​266 Villa, Somma Vesuviana ​266 Villa, Sorrento ​266 Villa, Terzigno ​266

Index of Architectural Structures and their Decorations

555

2. Decorations related to Architecture 2.1 Coins Agrippa Maior ​394 Agrippina ​394 Artemis, Ephesus ​500 Corinthian coins ​389 Demeter and Livia ​394 Julius Caesar and Augustus ​391 Livia and temple ​393 Livia as Tyche, Ceres or Aphrodite ​395 Livia with covered head, garland of grains, scepter ​395 Nero ​397

2.2 Frescoes Actaeon and Diana (I 9,5) ​146 Actaeon and Diana (I 10,4) ​146, 179–80 Alexander the Great as Zeus, by Apelles, Ephesus  ​498 Alexander the Great on horse, by Apelles, Ephesus ​498 Amazons, Herculaneum ​365 Amazons battle Greeks (I 10,4) ​178 Anubis, Isis, Osiris, Harpocrates (VI 16,7) ​22 Apollo and Artemis slaying children of Niobe (VII 15,2) ​431 Apollo’s epiphany (VI 2,16–17) ​224 Ariadne abandoned by Theseus (VI 9,2.13 and VI 15,1) ​148 Architectural paintings with aediculae (upper zone), Ephesus ​254 Argos presenting Argo to Minerva and Hercules, Herculaneum ​366 Athletes (I 10,4) ​181 Attis with nymphs (II 4,4) Banquet scenes (V 2,4) ​27, 70 Banquet scene with furniture ​222 Battle between drunk Centaurs and Lapith women (I 10,4) ​180 Bellerophon with Pegasus (VIII 2,17–21 and I 8,8) ​122, 124, 225, 365, 372 Caracalla, Ostia ​458 Cassandra’s prophecy before wooden horse (I 10,4)  ​170

Cherubs at gym (I 10,4) ​181 Chiron teaching Achilles to play lyre, Herculaneum ​365, 372 Clio, muse of history (I 6,2) ​225 Crocodiles, hippopotami, lotus flowers, pigmies (I 10,4; I 7,1; II 4,3) ​26, 29 Cupids and psyches as flower dealers (VII 9,7.8) ​209 Cupids on benches (VII 7,5) ​209 Death of Laocoön, Cassandra s prophecy, last night in Troy (I 10,4) ​170 Dionysus supported by satyr (I 10,4) ​ 176 Dionysus/Bacchus discovering Ariadne (VI 15,1) ​150, 152 Dionysus megalografia, Villa Mysteries ​ 15–17, 261–64 Dirce (I 10,4) ​173–75 Dirce (IX 13,1–3) ​146 Esquiline frieze: founding of Rome ​144 Esquiline panels of Homer, Odyssey ​ 144, 147 Euripides (I 10,4) ​179, 221 Expensive colors, Herod’s Winter Palace, Jericho ​307, 319 Familia at sacrifice (I 13,2)  ​9 Female centaur with square basin, Oplontis ​280 Four planetary gods (Sun, Jupiter, Mercury, Moon [IX 7,1])  ​11 Four women in the forum (II 4,3) Frieze with meander patterns, Pompeii ​ 262 Frons scaenae, Oplontis ​274 Funeral banquet, Terrace House 2 Galatomachia, Pergamon ​425 Garden fresco, House 4, Terrace House 2 ​258 Garden with herms, fountain-vases, birds (VI 17,42) ​29 Garden with hippopotami, lotus flowers, pigmies (II 4,3) ​29, 53 Garden with pharaohs, sphinxes, Apis bull (I 9,5) ​29 Garland friezes with cupids, Ephesus ​ 254

556

Index of Architectural Structures and their Decorations

Geometric frescoes on mosaic, M.d. Caseggiato di Diana ​453 Golden tripod, Oplontis ​420 Hector and Andromache’s parting ​171 Hercules killing Stymphalian birds, Herculaneum  ​366 Hercules strangling Nemean Lion, Herculaneum ​366 Hercules finding his son, Telephus, Herculaneum ​365, 367, 372 Hercules with Queen Omphale (VI 16[Ins.Or.],10) ​214, 226, 229, 231 Helen and Paris (VI 10,2) ​224 Hylas abducted by water nymphs, Herculaneum ​365 Icarus and Daedalus ​145 Illusion of small gardens painted on axial series of walls, Oplontis ​280 Imagines clipeatae, Oplontis Io/Isis, Pompeii ​415–16, 430 Io, Casa di Livia, Rome ​416, 430 Iphigenia in Tauria (I 4,4) ​224 Isis, Anubis, Serapis, Fortune, Genius sacrificing (II 4,3) Isis cult (inv. 8924 and 8919), Herculaneum ​3–4, 24 Isis, Serapis, Anubis, Fortuna in lararium (II 4,3) ​30, 43 Isis, Serapis, Harpocrates (VI 2,14) ​22 Isis/Fortuna (IX 7,21–22 and IX 3,15) ​ 428 Iuno, Herculaneum ​372 Ivory panels, Temple of Apollo, Rome ​ 419–20, 427, 431 Iupiter in the Clouds, Herculaneum ​ 364 landscapes, Herculaneum ​366 landscapes, Oplontis ​275 landscape pinakes (I 10,4) ​170 Leda, Herculaneum ​372 lesser labors of Hercules, Basilica Noniana, Herculaneum  ​312, 315 Leto, Apollo, Artemis, Rome ​415, 417, 419, 430 Life in the Pompeian forum (II 4,3) ​54, 209–10, 223 Maenad with theatrical mask scaring a cupid (I 10,4) ​178–79

Marsyas teaching Olympus to play flutes, Herculaneum ​365, 372 Medea before slaying children, Herculaneum ​366, 372 Menander (I 10,4) ​163, 179, 221 Menander’s comedy Samia (I 6,11) ​ 224–25 Minerva and Daedalus (VI 7,8.12) ​ 14–15 Monochromes of Sphinx and Hercules fighting Hydra, Herculaneum ​322 Munich krater of Medea ​126 Muses, philosophers, cupids, birds, fishes (central zone), Ephesus ​254 Musician ​224 Narcissus (II 2,2) ​153–54 Last night Troy (rape of Cassandra; Menelaus and Helen: I 10,4)  ​170 Nile landscapes, plants, animals, theater, Herodium ​284 Odysseus and Circe (V 2,14)  ​224 Pan playing syrinx, Maenad listening (I 10,4) ​178 Partridge (VII 16,22) ​187 Paul standing before Christ ​222 Parodies of Theseus and Minotaur, Jupiter’s illicit loves, Marsyas and Apollo (I 10,4) ​181–82 Perseus and Andromeda (I 10,4)  ​181 Perseus and Andromeda, Boscotrecase ​ 145 paradeisoi (I 10,4) Perseus at court of Cepheus, Perseus saving Andromeda (I 10,4) ​173–75 Phaedra and Hippolytus (V 2,10) ​224 Philosophers, columns, trees (IX 8,2) ​ 221 Pindar and Corinna (I 4,5.25) ​223–24 Poetic agon (VI 16,36.37) ​225 Polyhemus and Galatea, Boscotrecase ​ 145 Pompeian Venus (IX 7,1) ​11 Popular triclinium in open/on ground (VIII 5,24) ​213, 215 Portrait of child, Oplontis ​271 Portraits: woman, a youth, Oplontis ​ 273 Priest of Isis (II 2,2) ​24

Index of Architectural Structures and their Decorations

Procession honoring Cybele ​(IX 7,1) ​ 11–14 Pygmies at symposium (I 7,11) ​213, 229 Pygmies at symposium (VIII 5,24) ​213, 229 Nilotic scene (VIII 7,23–24) ​26 Rape of Europa (I 10,4) ​171 Salespersons on wooden benches (IX 7,7) ​210, 228 Sappho (VI 9,2.13) ​223 Second to third style, Winter Palace, Jericho ​305, 307 Semele, Ariadne, or Aphrodite, Villa of Mysteries ​263 Silvanus (Saturn? imperial cult), Ostia ​ 483 Socrates, Urania, Achilles, House 4, Terrace House 2 ​246 Sphinx, House Telephus Relief ​322 Sphinx with fountains, Oplontis ​280, 421 Still lives (II 4,3) ​53 Tavern scenes (VI 10,1) ​71–73, 208–09 Tavern scenes (VI 14,35.36) ​71–73, 208–09 Teachers, actors, students, scribes (IX 8,2) ​221 Theseus abandoning Ariadne (VI 9,2.13) ​347–48 Theseus and Minotaur, Jupiter’s illicit loves (Pasiphaë), dispute between Marsyas and Apollo (I 10,4) ​181 Theseus with slain Minotaur and Athenian children, Artemis, Herculaneum  ​ 365, 367–68, 372 tholoi ​418 Three nymphs, Ephesus ​245 Torch bearers ​(Cautes, Cautopates), Ostia ​482 Two Sales people sitting (IX 7,7) ​210 Two women shopping in the forum (II 4,3)  ​223, 228–29 Venus and Mars (I 7,19) ​223 Villa of Mysteries, megalographic frieze ​ 15 Woman conducting musicians (I 6,15) ​ 224

557

Woman embarking on Hades’ ship (I 6,2) ​225 Wooden benches (VII 9, 7.8) ​209

2.3 Furniture/ household items / structures Alba Augustalium (marble slabs), ­Herculaneum ​369–70 Altar, Artemesion, Ephesus ​497 Altar, M.d. Caseggiato di Diana ​454–55 Altar platform, M.d. Animale ​450, 455 Altar, M.d. Parenti Dipinti ​482 Altar, M.d. Sette Porte ​469 Amphora, tools, wagon (I 10,4) ​167 Amphora, wine/oil, Oplontis ​267 Astarita vase, Corinth ​92 Bath complex (II 4,3) ​55 Beds/couches (IX 13,1–3) ​201 Bench (IX 13,1–3) ​202 Biclinium (VI 17,42) ​29 Bronze brazier, Pompeii ​23 Bronze seal bracelet (I 10,4) ​164 Bronze tripod with ithyphallic satyrs (II 4,3) ​54 Bust of Dionysus (IX 7,1) ​12 Cameo, Dionysos, Aphrodite, Priapus ​ 264 Ceiling with hippocampi and geometric decorations, House 6, Terrace House 2 ​250 Cisterns (VII 16[Ins. Occ.],22) ​190, 197, 199 Corinthian wine cups ​406 Dionysiac glass cameo panels (VII 16[Ins. Occ.],22) ​187 Domestic baths, Houses 1, 6, 7, Ephesus ​251 Domestic bath (V 2,i) ​218 Domestic baths, Ephesus ​244, 251 Domestic toilets, Ephesus ​244 eschara (hearth for sacrificial burning), Ephesus  ​499 euripus (long water canal [II 2,2 and II 4,3]) ​30 Furniture, Ephesus ​244 Glazed-terracotta lamp: Isis, Harpocrates, Anubis (II 2,2) ​24

558

Index of Architectural Structures and their Decorations

Isiac lararium (II 4,3) ​30, 56 Kitchen pots on wooden shelving, Herculaneum ​319 klines, Corinth ​67–68, 73, 84–85 Latrine, Oplontis ​265 Limestone vessels, Miqwaot, Qumran pottery, ossuaries, Judea ​292 Marble chairs, Tuscany ​221 Marble furniture ​241 Marble oscilla, Dionysian scenes, House Telephus Relief ​322 Marmorsaal (31), House 6, Terrace House 2  ​244 Masonry altar (VI 2,14) ​22 Munich krater ​126 Neo-Attic crater, dance of armed warriors, Oplontis ​270 Pottery, Qumran ​292 Pottery, amphorae, lamps, thymiateria, Ephesus ​242 Ring seal (VII 16[Ins. Occ.],22) ​191 sacellum with imagines maiorum (I 10,4) ​180 Shrine of Isis (II 4,3) ​54 Silverware, 118 pieces (I 10,4) ​167 Silverware, Ephesus ​252 sistra, Pompeii ​23 Swimming pool, Oplontis ​270 Tables from Corinth ​68, 75 Terracotta panels: fight between Apollo and Hercules, Temple Apollo, Rome ​ 423 Toilets, Terrace House 2 ​244–45 Water basins (VII 16,22)  ​196–98 Water basin, Ephesus ​251–52, 257 Wooden bench (IX 13,1–3) ​202 Wooden coffer ceiling, Ephesus ​250

2.4 Mosaics Academy of Plato, Villa Siminius Stephanus ​222 Alexander (VI 12,2) ​54 Allegory of death (I 5,2) ​218 Black-and-white mosaic, M.d. Animale  ​ 449, 451 Black-and-white mosaic, M.d. Casseggiato di Diana  ​453

Black-and-white mosaic, M.d. Felicissimus ​17 Black-and-white mosaic, M.d. Palazzo Imperiale ​462 Black-and-white mosaic, M.d. Sette Porte ​469 Black-and-white or polychrome mosaics in geometric patterns, Ephesus ​ 254 Black-and-white tesserae, windmill sail motif, House Granianus ​318 Glass mosaic of Dionysos and Ariadne in divine vineyard, Terrace House 2 ​255 Heads of Medusa and Dionysus, Terrace House 2 ​254 Ladder Mosaic (symbolism of grades), Ostia ​482–83 Life on country estate of Lord Julius, Carthage ​215 Lion, Terrace House 2 ​254 Maritime scene, Ephesus ​255 Marine thiasos (II 4,3) ​55 Multi-colored carpet in basket-weave pattern (VII 16[Ins. Occ.],22) ​193 Multi-colored meander motif with perspective cubes (VII 16[Ins. Occ.],22) ​ 193 Nile mosaic, Palestrina/Praeneste ​428 Nilotic landscape with pygmies on boat (I 10,4 and I 7,1)  ​26, 180 Pharaonic garden (VI 17,42) ​29 Polychrome, geometric patterns, Terrace House 2 ​254 Poseidon and Amphitrite, Terrace House 2 ​255 Public banquet with benches, Carthage ​ 76 Small black crosses with white centers (VII 16[Ins. Occ.],22) ​192 Wall mosaic of blue glass tesserae (II 4,3) ​30 White mosaic, double black border, multicolored rosette emblem in center, Herculaneum  ​319

Index of Architectural Structures and their Decorations

2.5 Reliefs Amazonmachy, Tomb of Eumachia ​51 Ameriternum, Corinth ​73, 75–76 Ara pacis ​393, 396 Argos presenting ship to Minerva/Hercules, Herculaneum ​366 Augustus and successors as Divus Iulii, Corinth ​400 Baby Hercules strangling snakes sent by Iuno, Herculaneum ​366 Bellerophon in court of King Iobates, Herculaneum ​365 columnae caelatae (columns carved with figures), Ephesus ​497, 500, 506 Concord holding cornucopia, Pompeii ​ 49 Cult objects, attributes of house of Augustus on Palatine, south-east-north faces of altar (VII 9,2) ​50 Frieze: Hercules’ friend Hylas abducted by nymphs, Herculaneum ​365 Funeral banquet, Ephesus ​245 Gauls defeated by Greeks, Ephesus ​419 Gauls driven out of Delphi, Rome ​ 419–20, 431 Hercules’ labors (Erymanthean boar, Nemean Lion, Stymphalian birds), Herculaneum ​315 Kronos-Aion, Ostia ​437, 481 Marble portrait of Poppea (?), Oplontis ​ 269, 273 Marble oscilla of Dionysian scenes, Herculaneum ​322 Marble tondo of Telephus’ healing, Herculaneum ​315 Medea slaying children, Herculaneum ​ 366 Neo-Attic reliefs of Apollo, Artemis, Leto, Corinthian temple ​424 Niobe’s children slain by Apollo and Artemis, Rome ​419 Sorrento base: Apollo, Artemis, Leto, and Sibyl  ​423, 430 Tauroctone in pavonazetto marble, Ostia ​437 Temple ceremony of consecration, west face of altar (VII 9,2) ​49

559

Terracotta plate: Apollo vs. Hercules for Delphic tripod, Rome ​423 Telephus’ healing, Herculaneum ​311, 315 Thracian horse rider, Terrace House 2 ​245 Three nymphs, Terrace House 2 ​245

2.6 Statues / figurines /cameo Agrippina II, Herculaneum ​359–60 Alabaster statuette, Horus (VI 16,7) ​22 Amazon or Artemis or Atlanta, Oplontis ​271 Amazonmachia, Rome ​421 Aphrodite, Oplontis ​272 Aphrodite Anadyomene, Ephesus ​252 Aphrodite fastening her sandals, Oplontis ​270 Apollo sacrificing, Temple Apollo, Rome ​415, 420, 423 Artemis (Xoanon), Ephesus ​430, 496, 505 Artemis with many “breasts,” Ephesus ​ 497 Augustus (bronze), Herculaneum ​359, 364 Augustus (colossal), Herculaneum ​361, 368, 373 Augustus, capite velato, Rome ​420 Augustus, Prima Porta ​387, 419 Augustus (80; silver), Rome ​420 Barbarians, Rome ​425 Basilica Noniana, Herculaneum ​312, 315 Bronze Alexandrian grotesques ​27 Bronze portrait, Gaius Norbanus Sorex (VIII 7,28)  ​13 Bronze statuettes, Athena, Sarapis, Isis Panthea, Terrace House 2 ​245 Bronze statuettes of grotesques ​27 Bust of Aptus, Ephesus ​251 Bust of Dionysus (IX 7,1) ​11–12 Bust of Sarapis, Terrace House 2 ​245 Cameo of Priapus, Dionysos, Aphrodite ​264 candelabrum (Apollo, Artemis, Leto), Rome ​421

560

Index of Architectural Structures and their Decorations

Capitoline triad (VI 16,7) ​22 Chariot of sun, Rome ​420 Claudius, Herculaneum  ​359, 363, 373 Claudius (colossal), Herculaneum ​361, 368, 373 Concord with cornucopia, Via dell’Abbondanza ​49 Cuirassed statue, Nonius Balbus, Herculaneum ​311 Daughters of Danaus, Rome ​420 Dead giant, Amazon, Persian, dying Gaul, Athens ​419 Dionysus (child; adult), Oplontis ​273 Dionysos, House 6, Terrace House 2 ​ 251 Dionysus-Platon ​222 Dionysos statuette, Ephesus ​251 Divus Iulius ​392 Eumachia, patrona of fullones ​48 Farnese Hercules ​368 Flavian dynasty (Vespasian, Titus, Domitian, Flavia Domitilla, Domitia, Iulia), Herculaneum ​362–63 Gaul killing himself and his wife, Pergamon/Rome ​419 Glazed terracotta statuette, Bes and a pharaoh (II 2,2) ​24 Golden tripods, Temple Apollo, Rome ​ 420 Guilded quadriga, Herculaneum ​358, 361 Greek ephebe, Oplontis ​271 Harpocrates (II 4,3) Helios-Mithras with Persian cap, Ostia ​ 446, 450–51 Herakles (2), Oplontis ​270 Hercules (Farnese), Herculaneum ​334, 368 Hermes carrying infant Dionysus (Praxiteles), Herculaneum ​368 Herms: Aphrodite, child, and adult Dionysus, Oplontis Homer  ​222 Horses, Artemision, Ephesus ​499 Ibis biting snake (II 2,2) ​24 Imagines clipeatae, Oplontis ​274 Ivory frieze of Trajan’s life, Terrace House 2 ​246–47

Julio-Claudian family (8 statues), Herculaneum ​360–62 Julio-Claudian family (12 statues), Veleia ​44 Iupiter Optimus Maximus, Rome ​368 Lysander, Eotenikos, Pharax (all three of Sparta), Ephesus ​497–98 Leto, Apollo, Artemis, Temple of Apollo, Rome ​415, 420–22 Lion-headed Kronos-Aion, Ostia ​437 Livia (VII 9,1) ​49 Male centaur, female centaur, child strangling goose, Oplontis ​270 Man in toga, head covered, capsa of books, Paestum ​41 Marble quadrige, Apollo and Diana, Temple Apollo, Rome ​420 Marble sphinx (II 2,2)  ​24 Marcus Nonius Balbus, Herculaneum Messalina (Claudius’ third wife), Herculaneum ​359 Mineii and Cocceii families, Paestum ​ 41 Mithras head, with radiant crown, Ostia ​446 Mithras slaying bull, Ostia ​437, 470, 482 Monochrome marble, Hercules and Hydra, Herculaneum ​315 Myron’s four steers, Temple Apollo, Rome ​420–21 Neo-attic marble crater, serpent-footed giant, peacock, Oplontis ​280 Nero and Britannicus, Herculaneum ​ 361 Nike (2), Oplontis ​271 Nonius Balbus, Herculaneum ​311 Philip of Macedonia, Artemesion, Ephesus ​498 Pittacus of Mytilene (II 4,3) ​53 Portrait heads, Tiberius and Livia, Terrace House 2  ​246 Portrait, Marcus Aurelius, Terrace House 2 ​246 Romulus, Aeneas with Anchises and Ascanius (VII 9,1) ​48 Saffo ​222 Seneca (soldier), Herculaneum ​359

Index of Architectural Structures and their Decorations

Silver statuette of Fortuna (II 4,3) ​30 Silver statuettes of Trajan and Plotina, Ephesus ​247 Sleeping funerary geniuses, funerary altar, Herculaneum ​313 Terracotta figurines of men and women reclining, Corinth  ​69 Terracotta figurine of seated woman, Corinth ​69 Titus and Domitian with Domitia or Iulia, Herculaneum ​363 Sphinx (II 2,2) ​241

561

Tiberius, Herculaneum ​359 Titus, Herculaneum ​373 Venus Esquilina, Rome ​428 Vespasian, Herculaneum ​368 Vespasian, Misenum ​368 Victory chariot/quadriga, Herculaneum ​358

2.7 Stucco Dionysos’ thiasos, animals, Aphrodite, House 6, Terrace House 2 ​252

Contested Spaces Houses and Temples in Roman Antiquity and the New Testament Edited by David L. Balch and Annette Weissenrieder

Pictures in order of the

Table of Contents (Book) Authors

Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 285

Mohr Siebeck Copyright

2

Contested Spaces – Table of Contents

Table of Contents A. Interpretive Issues John R. Clarke

Representations of Worship at Rome, Pompeii, Heraculaneum, and Ostia in the Imperial Period. A Model of Production and Consumption

Irene Bragantini

The Cult of Isis and Ancient Egyptomania in Campania

Fabrizio Pesando

The Properties and Social Role of Pompeiian Feminae Nobiles in Italy During the Early Imperial Age

Annette Weissenrieder Contested Spaces in 1 Corinthians 11:17–33 and 14:30: Sitting or Reclining in Ancient Houses, in Associations and in the Space of ekklēsia Laura Salah Nasrallah

Grief in Corinth: The Roman City and Paul’s Corinthian Correspondence

Eleanor Winsor Leach

Rhetorical Inventio and the Expectations of Roman Continuous Narrative Painting

B. Contested Domestic Spaces I. Domus Ivan Varriale

Architecture and Decoration in the House of Menander in Pompeii

Mario Grimaldi

Charting the urban development of the Insula Occidentalis and the Casa di Marcus Fabius Rufus at Pompeii

David L. Balch

The Church Sitting in a Garden (1 Cor 14:30; Rom 16:23; Mark 6:39–40; 8:6; John 6:3, 10; Acts 1:15; 2:1–2)

Hilke Thür

Art and Architecture in Terrace House 2 in Ephesos. An example of domestic architecture in the Roman Imperial Period

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

3

Contested Spaces – Table of Contents

II. Villae Umberto Pappalardo

How the Romans saw the frieze in the Villa of the Mysteries at Pompeii

Rosaria Ciardiello

Beryllos, the Jews and the Villa of Poppaea in Oplontis (Torre Annunziata)

Monika Bernett

Space and Interaction: Narrative and Representation of Power under the Herodians

III. Insulae Maria Paola Guidobaldi The House of the Telephus Relief in Herculaneum: the building history of an aristocratic domus Janet DeLaine

Housing Roman Ostia

C. Contested Sacred Spaces: Temples, the Imperial Cult, and Mithraea Tina Najbjerg

Exploring the economic, political, and social significance of the great Porticus in Herculaneum

Annette Weissenrieder “Do you not know that you are God’s temple?” Towards a new perspective on Paul’s temple image in 1 Corinthians 3:16 David L. Balch

Cult Statues of Augustus’ Temple of Apollo on the Palatine in Rome, Artemis’/Diana’s Birthday in Ephesus, and Revelation 12:1–5a

L. Michael White

The Changing Face of Mithraism at Ostia. Archaeology, Art, and the Urban Landscape

Ulrike Muss

The Artemision at Ephesos: Paul, John and Mary

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

4

Contested Spaces – Authors

Authors Balch, D. L.

– Church Sitting 1–3, 4, 5–7, 8, 9–10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26 – Cult Statutes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10–13, 14, 15–18, 19–21, 22–24, 25, 26–27, 28

Bernett, M.

1, 2, 3, 4

Bragantini, I.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11

Ciardiello, R.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21

Clarke, J. R.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20

DeLaine, J.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20

Grimaldi, M.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19a, 19b, 20a, 20b, Tav. 1, Tav. 2

Guidobaldi, M. P.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

Leach, E. Winsor

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6–7, 8, 9, 10

Muss, U.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19

Najbjerg, T.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24

Nasrallah, L. S.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Pappalardo, U.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

Pesando, F.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20

Thür, H.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10a–b, 10c–d, 10e–f, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23

Varriale, I.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20

Weissenrieder, A. – Contested Spaces in 1 Cor 1, 2a, 2b, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7a, 8–9, 10a, 10b, 10c, 11a–b, 12 – “Do you not know …” 1, 2, 3, 4–6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 White, L. M.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 a–c, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 a–b, 17 a–b

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

John R. Clarke – Representations of Worship at Rome, Pompeii, …

5

Fig. 1: Ceremony of the Cult of Isis. Naples, National Archaeological Museum, inv. 8924. Photo Michael Larvey.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

John R. Clarke – Representations of Worship at Rome, Pompeii, …

6

Fig. 2: A model for the reception of visual art in ancient Rome.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

John R. Clarke – Representations of Worship at Rome, Pompeii, …

7

Fig. 3: Rome, Ara Pacis, 13–9 B.C.E., south side with procession of family of Augustus and allegorical figure of Tellus/Italia/Pax/Venus. Photo Michael Larvey.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

John R. Clarke – Representations of Worship at Rome, Pompeii, …

8

Fig. 4: Rome, Augustan Monuments in the Campus Martius.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

John R. Clarke – Representations of Worship at Rome, Pompeii, …

9

Fig. 5: Rome, Altar of the Vicus Aesculetus, C.E. 2. Photo Michael Larvey.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

John R. Clarke – Representations of Worship at Rome, Pompeii, …

10

Fig. 6: Pompeii, House of Sutoria Primigenia (I 13,2), plan.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

John R. Clarke – Representations of Worship at Rome, Pompeii, …

11

Fig. 7: Pompeii, House of Sutoria Primigenia (I 13,2), room 17, north and east wall. Photo Michael Larvey.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

John R. Clarke – Representations of Worship at Rome, Pompeii, …

12

Fig. 8: Pompeii, House of Sutoria Primigenia (I 13,2), room 17, east wall, detail. Photo Michael Larvey.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

13

John R. Clarke – Representations of Worship at Rome, Pompeii, …

Fig. 9: Pompeii, Shop of the Procession of Cybele (IX 7,1), view at the time of excavation. Photo courtesy Soprintendenza Archeologica di Pompei, Archivio Fotografico della Soprintendenza, 80883.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

14

John R. Clarke – Representations of Worship at Rome, Pompeii, …

Fig. 10: Pompeii, Shop of the Procession of Cybele (IX 7,1), detail of procession of Cybele. Photo courtesy Soprintendenza Archeologica di Pompei, Archivio Fotografico della Soprintendenza, 80888.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

John R. Clarke – Representations of Worship at Rome, Pompeii, …

15

Fig. 11: Pompeii, Shop of the Procession of Cybele (IX 7,1), detail of procession of Cybele, drawing with figures numbered.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

John R. Clarke – Representations of Worship at Rome, Pompeii, …

16

Fig. 12: Pompeii, VI 7,8–11, Carpenters’ procession, Naples inv. 8991. Photo Michael Larvey.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

John R. Clarke – Representations of Worship at Rome, Pompeii, …

17

Fig. 13: Pompeii, VI 7,8–11, plan.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

John R. Clarke – Representations of Worship at Rome, Pompeii, …

18

Fig. 14: Pompeii, Villa of the Mysteries, plan.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

John R. Clarke – Representations of Worship at Rome, Pompeii, …

19

Fig. 15: Pompeii, Villa of the Mysteries, Room of the Mysteries, view from western entrance. Photo Michael Larvey.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

John R. Clarke – Representations of Worship at Rome, Pompeii, …

20

Fig. 16: Diagram of gazes in the Mysteries Room. After Herbig, Neue Beobachtungen, foldout.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

John R. Clarke – Representations of Worship at Rome, Pompeii, …

21

Fig. 17: Pompeii, Villa of the Mysteries, Room of the Mysteries, southeast corner: unveiling of phallus, flagellation, dance. Photo Michael Larvey.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

John R. Clarke – Representations of Worship at Rome, Pompeii, …

22

Fig. 18: Pompeii, Villa of the Mysteries, Room of the Mysteries, west wall to north of western doorway, the domina. Photo Michael Larvey.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

John R. Clarke – Representations of Worship at Rome, Pompeii, …

23

Fig. 19: Ostia, Mithraeum of Felicissimus, plan with mosaics drawn in. After Becatti, I mitrei, fig. 22.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

John R. Clarke – Representations of Worship at Rome, Pompeii, …

24

Fig. 20: Ostia, Mithraeum of Felicissimus, view from entry. Photo Michael Larvey.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Irene Bragantini – The Cult of Isis and Ancient Egyptomania in Campania

25

Fig. 1: Pompeii, House of the Golden Cupids (VI 16,7), details of frescoe’s lararium with instruments of the cult of Isis (after PPM V).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Irene Bragantini – The Cult of Isis and Ancient Egyptomania in Campania

26

Fig. 2: Pompeii, House of the Golden Cupids (VI 16,7), detail of frescoed lararium with Egyptian deities (after PPM V).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Irene Bragantini – The Cult of Isis and Ancient Egyptomania in Campania

27

Fig. 3: Pompeii, House of the Amazons (VI 2,14), lararium (Francesco Morelli, after PPM IV).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Irene Bragantini – The Cult of Isis and Ancient Egyptomania in Campania

28

Fig. 4: Isiac ceremony from Herculaneum, 8919.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Irene Bragantini – The Cult of Isis and Ancient Egyptomania in Campania

29

Fig. 5: Pompeii, House of D. Octavius Quartio (II 2,2), detail of fresco with priest of Isis (after Egittomania).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Irene Bragantini – The Cult of Isis and Ancient Egyptomania in Campania

30

Fig. 6: Pompeii, House of the Menander (I 10,4), polychrome mosaic showing pigmies on a boat on the Nile (after Egittomania).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Irene Bragantini – The Cult of Isis and Ancient Egyptomania in Campania

31

Fig. 7: Pompeii, House of the Chaste Lovers (IX 2,16), picture of couples at a banquet.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Irene Bragantini – The Cult of Isis and Ancient Egyptomania in Campania

32

Fig. 8: Pompeii, House of the Golden Bracelet (VI 17,42), detail of painted garden with marble ornaments (after Egittomania).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Irene Bragantini – The Cult of Isis and Ancient Egyptomania in Campania

33

Fig. 9: Pompeii, House of the Fruit Orchard (I 9,5), detail of painted garden with Egyptian-style marble ornaments (after Egittomania).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Irene Bragantini – The Cult of Isis and Ancient Egyptomania in Campania

34

Fig. 10: Pompeii, Villa of Julia Felix (II 4,3), triclinium with fountain, general view (photo Author).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Irene Bragantini – The Cult of Isis and Ancient Egyptomania in Campania

35

Fig. 11: Naples, National Archaeological Museum, detail of Nilotic landscape (from Pompeii, Villa of Julia Felix [II 4,3]) (after Egittomania).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Fabrizio Pesando – The Properties and Social Role of Pompeiian Feminae …

36

Fig. 1: Paestum, Basilica of Mineia.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

37

Fabrizio Pesando – The Properties and Social Role of Pompeiian Feminae …

Fig. 2: Basilica of Mineia with the building visible today, whose central nave was refurbished in late Antiquity with the construction of a semi-circular tribunal.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Fabrizio Pesando – The Properties and Social Role of Pompeiian Feminae …

38

Fig. 3: Paestum, Temple of Venus Iovia.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Fabrizio Pesando – The Properties and Social Role of Pompeiian Feminae …

39

Fig. 4: the mysterious strongyla mentioned in one of the inscriptions were the five little round rooms built on the north and east sides of the Rectangular Hall, with at their centres column drums protected by a thick layer of opus signinum.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Fabrizio Pesando – The Properties and Social Role of Pompeiian Feminae …

40

Fig. 5: Veleia, calchidicum of Baebia Bassilla.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Fabrizio Pesando – The Properties and Social Role of Pompeiian Feminae …

41

Fig. 6: Ostia, crypta and calchidicum of Terentia.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Fabrizio Pesando – The Properties and Social Role of Pompeiian Feminae …

42

Fig. 7: Pompeii. Chalcidicum, crypta and porticus of Eumachia and Numistrius Fronto and Temple VII 9,2 (of the Genius of Augustus) of Mamia.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Fabrizio Pesando – The Properties and Social Role of Pompeiian Feminae …

43

Fig. 8: large central acanthus bush completely off-centre, the frame of which fits the entrance to Temple VII 9,2.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

44

Fabrizio Pesando – The Properties and Social Role of Pompeiian Feminae …

Fig. 9: Porticoed Temple at Cuma, believed to have been inspired by the Portico of Livia in Rome, built in 7 B.C.E.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Fabrizio Pesando – The Properties and Social Role of Pompeiian Feminae …

45

Fig. 10: Four large niches adorned the building’s porticoed façade, the chalcidicum mentioned in the inscription.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Fabrizio Pesando – The Properties and Social Role of Pompeiian Feminae …

46

Fig. 11: A headless female statue, which originally portrayed Livia.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

47

Fabrizio Pesando – The Properties and Social Role of Pompeiian Feminae …

Fig. 12: The crypta passageway led to a large niche where the apse of the sacellum had once been and in which the statue of Eumachia donated by the fullones was displayed.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Fabrizio Pesando – The Properties and Social Role of Pompeiian Feminae …

48

Fig. 13: Temple VII 9,2 (surface area 44 m2), probably the Temple of the Genius of Augustus (or of the Colony), which must date to the late Augustan period or the early years of Tiberius’ reign. On stylistic grounds we can ascribe the Luni marble altar in the centre of the courtyard to the same period.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Fabrizio Pesando – The Properties and Social Role of Pompeiian Feminae …

49

Fig. 14: House of the Large Fountain (VI 8,20–22), a residence dating to the mid-II century B.C.E. facing onto Via di Mercurio.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Fabrizio Pesando – The Properties and Social Role of Pompeiian Feminae …

50

Fig. 15: Tomb of Eumachia.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Fabrizio Pesando – The Properties and Social Role of Pompeiian Feminae …

51

Fig. 16: The Praedia of Julia Felix.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Fabrizio Pesando – The Properties and Social Role of Pompeiian Feminae …

52

Fig. 17: The summer triclinium (83), facing onto the west portico, with its fluted rectangular marble pilasters of the Corinthian order.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Fabrizio Pesando – The Properties and Social Role of Pompeiian Feminae …

53

Fig. 18: The summer triclinium (83).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Fabrizio Pesando – The Properties and Social Role of Pompeiian Feminae …

54

Fig. 19: View of the garden from the entrance of the summer triclinium (83).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Fabrizio Pesando – The Properties and Social Role of Pompeiian Feminae …

55

Fig. 20: Frieze depicting “scenes of life in the Forum” ran around all four walls, for a total length of 31 metres, with a detailed and evocative picture of the numerous activities taking place in the Forum against the background of monumental porticoes populated by equestrian statues. Of particular antiquarian interest is the depiction of a long scroll with writing fixed to the base of a series of equestrian statues.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Annette Weissenrieder – Contested Spaces in 1 Corinthians 11:17–33…

56

Fig. 1: Reconstruction of a klinē from Pompeii, Overbeck 1884.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Annette Weissenrieder – Contested Spaces in 1 Corinthians 11:17–33…

57

Fig. 2: Casa di C. Iulius Polybius (IX 13,1–3, triclinium) a) Reconstruction of a wooden bench. Photo: Weissenrieder.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Annette Weissenrieder – Contested Spaces in 1 Corinthians 11:17–33…

58

Fig. 2: Casa di C. Iulius Polybius (IX 13,1–3, triclinium) b) Reconstruction of a klinē in Pompeii; Photo: Weissenrieder

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Annette Weissenrieder – Contested Spaces in 1 Corinthians 11:17–33…

59

Fig. 3: Reclining female figure, Potter's Quater Corinth: Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst LVI, 1921, p. 170.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

60

Annette Weissenrieder – Contested Spaces in 1 Corinthians 11:17–33…

Fig. 4: Pompeii VI 14,36. Neapel, Museo Nazionale Inv. 111482, images of the tavern; overview; Photo: Michael Larvey.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Annette Weissenrieder – Contested Spaces in 1 Corinthians 11:17–33…

61

Fig. 5: Pompeii VI 10,1 Room b; Photo: Michael Larvey.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Annette Weissenrieder – Contested Spaces in 1 Corinthians 11:17–33…

62

Fig. 6: Amiterum, relief with seated and reclining banqueters; mid-first century C.E.; Pizzoli, church of Santo Stefano; DAI Rome 84 VW 935; Photo: Fittschen.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Annette Weissenrieder – Contested Spaces in 1 Corinthians 11:17–33…

63

Fig. 7: Carthage, seated banquet, late 4th century; DAIRome 63.356; Photo: Koppermann.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Annette Weissenrieder – Contested Spaces in 1 Corinthians 11:17–33…

64

Fig. 7: a) Carthage, banquet, detail.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Annette Weissenrieder – Contested Spaces in 1 Corinthians 11:17–33…

65

Fig. 8 and 9: Villa di Iulia Felice (II 4,3), triclinium with benches for sitting and with three masonary couches for reclining; Photos: D. Balch

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Annette Weissenrieder – Contested Spaces in 1 Corinthians 11:17–33…

66

Fig. 10: a) Asklepieion in Corinth; BW 1998 03927. © The American School of Classical Studies at Corinth.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Annette Weissenrieder – Contested Spaces in 1 Corinthians 11:17–33…

67

Fig. 10: b) BW 1960 056 18 Asklepieion, plan D. © The American School of Classical Studies at Corinth.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Annette Weissenrieder – Contested Spaces in 1 Corinthians 11:17–33…

68

Fig. 10: c) Reclining in the Asklepieion dining room, BW 2007 9955. © The American School of Classical Studies at Corinth.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Annette Weissenrieder – Contested Spaces in 1 Corinthians 11:17–33…

69

Fig. 11: Bouleutērion in Corinth, BW 1938 4627 © The American School of Classical Studies at Corinth; a–b) Bouleutērion in detail

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Annette Weissenrieder – Contested Spaces in 1 Corinthians 11:17–33…

70

Fig. 12: Plan of ancient Corinth – esp. the agora; BW 1993 036 04 © The American School of Classical Studies at Corinth.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

71

Laura Salah Nasrallah – Grief in Corinth

Fig. 1: Map of Corinth and its ports of Lechaion and Kenchreai, as well as the diolkos for dragging ships and goods across the isthmus. Courtesy of the Harvard New Testament Archaeology Project and with thanks to Brad Bannon.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

72

Laura Salah Nasrallah – Grief in Corinth

Fig. 2: Plan, Corinth City Center. Courtesy of the Harvard New Testament Archaeology Project. See Koester et al., Cities of Paul, Fortress Press.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

73

Laura Salah Nasrallah – Grief in Corinth

Fig. 3: Remains of the Fountain of Glauke, looking to the south. © The President and Fellows of Harvard University; courtesy of the Harvard New Testament Archaeology Project and Helmut Koester.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

74

Laura Salah Nasrallah – Grief in Corinth

Fig. 4: Roman sarcophagus of the mid-second century C.E. Pergamon Museum of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin – Preussischer Kulturbesitz. Antikensammlung, acquisition number Sk 843b. Author’s photograph.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

75

Laura Salah Nasrallah – Grief in Corinth

Fig. 5: View south to the Acrocorinth from the Asklepieion. Author’s photograph.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

76

Eleanor Winsor Leach – Rhetorical Inventio …

Fig. 1: Casa di Amandus Sacerdos (I 9,5; PPM II 46–113)

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

77

Eleanor Winsor Leach – Rhetorical Inventio …

Fig. 2: Casa del Sacerdos Amandus (I 7,7; PPM I 602–05)

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

78

Eleanor Winsor Leach – Rhetorical Inventio …

Fig. 3: Casa del Sacerdos Amandus (I 7,7; PPM I 599–600)

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

79

Eleanor Winsor Leach – Rhetorical Inventio …

Fig. 4: Casa del Sacerdos Amandus (I 7,7; PPM I 595–97)

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

80

Eleanor Winsor Leach – Rhetorical Inventio …

Fig. 5: Casa del Frutteto (I 9,5; PPM II 52–58)

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

81

Eleanor Winsor Leach – Rhetorical Inventio …

Figs. 6–7: Casa di Polibio (IX 13,1–3; PPM X 256–61)

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

82

Eleanor Winsor Leach – Rhetorical Inventio …

Fig. 8: Casa del Meleagro (VI 9,2.13; PPM IV 719)

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

83

Eleanor Winsor Leach – Rhetorical Inventio …

Fig. 9: Casa dei Vettii (VI 15,1; PPM V 540)

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

84

Eleanor Winsor Leach – Rhetorical Inventio …

Fig. 10: Casa di D. Octavius Quartio (II 2,2; PPM III 103–04)

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Ivan Varriale – Architecture and Decoration in the House of Menander …

85

Fig. 1: Plan of the House of Menander (I 10,4).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Ivan Varriale – Architecture and Decoration in the House of Menander …

86

Fig. 2: Axial view: fauces (a), atrium (b), tablinum (8), peristyle (c), exedrae (22–25).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Ivan Varriale – Architecture and Decoration in the House of Menander …

87

Fig. 3: View from tablinum (8) through atrium (b) with entrance to exedra (4), to fauces (a).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Ivan Varriale – Architecture and Decoration in the House of Menander …

88

Fig. 4: Paradeisoi painted on top of the peristyle corridor (9) and on low parapets in the peristyle (c).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Ivan Varriale – Architecture and Decoration in the House of Menander …

89

Fig. 5: Portion of frieze in upper zone of atrium (b): seaside villa/portico with fishermen.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Ivan Varriale – Architecture and Decoration in the House of Menander …

90

Fig. 6: Exedra (4) with three frescoes in main zone (details in Plate 7).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Ivan Varriale – Architecture and Decoration in the House of Menander …

91

Fig. 7: Three frescoes on walls in main zones of exedra (4): Laocoon’s death, Cassandra’s prophecy before the wooden horse, and the Last Night of Troy, including the rape of Cassandra and the meeting between Menelaus and Helen.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Ivan Varriale – Architecture and Decoration in the House of Menander …

92

Fig. 8: Lararium in the atrium (b).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Ivan Varriale – Architecture and Decoration in the House of Menander …

93

Fig. 9: View across peristyle (c) garden from northeast corner toward rooms 15, 18, 19.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

94

Ivan Varriale – Architecture and Decoration in the House of Menander …

Fig. 10: Three frescoes in room (15): Perseus at the court of Cepheus, king of Aethiopia; Perseus saving Andromeda from the sea monster; the punishment of Dirce.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Ivan Varriale – Architecture and Decoration in the House of Menander …

95

Fig. 11: Wall of triclinium (18), a paratactic scheme with black socle, above which is a main zone of yellow and red panels, separated by blue background architectural foreshortening.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Ivan Varriale – Architecture and Decoration in the House of Menander …

96

Fig. 12: Fresco in room (19): Pan enchants Maenad with syrinx sound.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Ivan Varriale – Architecture and Decoration in the House of Menander …

97

Fig. 13: Four exedrae (22–25) south of peristyle (c): visible are Actaeon and Diana myth, then portrait of poet Menander.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Ivan Varriale – Architecture and Decoration in the House of Menander …

98

Fig. 14: Exedra 22: Actaeon and Diana myth.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Ivan Varriale – Architecture and Decoration in the House of Menander …

99

Fig. 15: Exedra (23): portrait of poet Menander.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Ivan Varriale – Architecture and Decoration in the House of Menander …

100

Fig. 16: Exedra (24): Venus Pompeiana inside sacred wood.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Ivan Varriale – Architecture and Decoration in the House of Menander …

101

Fig. 17: Exedra (25): second style frescoes and sacellum with stone altar with representations of ancestors.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Ivan Varriale – Architecture and Decoration in the House of Menander …

102

Fig. 18: Wall of oecus (11) with monochromatic white continuous frieze painted on red background in upper zone: battle between drunk Centaurs and Lapith women.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Ivan Varriale – Architecture and Decoration in the House of Menander …

103

Fig. 19: Detail of frieze in oecus (11).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Ivan Varriale – Architecture and Decoration in the House of Menander …

104

Fig. 20: Painting in atriolum (46): small frieze with parody of mythological characters: north wall, Theseus and Minotaur (“philological restoration” in fourth style); east wall, Aphrodite’s revenge (second style).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

105

Mario Grimaldi – Charting the urban development …

Fig. 1: Panoramic view from the top of the Insula Occidentalis; by Google Earth © 2011 Google-Map data © 2011 Tele Atlas.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

106

Mario Grimaldi – Charting the urban development …

Fig. 2: Excavation area of the western front of the city, including excavation area of the Casa di Marco Fabio Rufo (on the left); photo by Maiuri Found, March 1962.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

107

Mario Grimaldi – Charting the urban development …

Fig. 3: Reconstruction vector of the current situation of the Casa di Marco Fabio Rufo with the hypothetical portico reconstructed; Graphics processing by M. Notomista.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

108

Mario Grimaldi – Charting the urban development …

Fig. 4: Map of the area between the Porta Ercolano and the Casa di Marco Fabio Rufo; by F. and P. La Vega 1787–1809 (Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli, Archivio Disegni, inv. 2615).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

109

Mario Grimaldi – Charting the urban development …

Fig. 5: Cameo glass panel, a Dionysiac scene from the Casa di Marco Fabio Rufo (Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli, inv. 153652).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

110

Mario Grimaldi – Charting the urban development …

Fig. 6: Sketch reconstructing the old town above the contour. Terraces to the north are intensified in order to allow habitation, as in Regio VIII (by Seiler 2001); also the current plan in the western Insula Occidentalis, including identification of the most representative homes. Graphics processing by A. Colucci.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

111

Mario Grimaldi – Charting the urban development …

Fig. 7: Overview of the western city walls of Pompeii, including the Casa di Marco Fabio Rufo.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

112

Mario Grimaldi – Charting the urban development …

Fig. 8: Plan of the first lower floor of the houses of Marco Fabio Rufo and Castricio with indications of the outer and inner city walls (I, II and III phases [Samnite]); by Cassetta 2008, p. 199, fig. 3.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

113

Mario Grimaldi – Charting the urban development …

Fig. 9: Area of archaeological excavation in the garden of the Casa di Marco Fabio Rufo, sage 3 (official excavations record), Republican tanks.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

114

Mario Grimaldi – Charting the urban development …

Fig. 10: Atrium 2, west wall, southern section, excavation below the pavement with decoration in second style related to an earlier phase.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

115

Mario Grimaldi – Charting the urban development …

Fig. 11: Portico (14): Floor in opus sectile, polychrome marble chips of rectangular canister.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

116

Mario Grimaldi – Charting the urban development …

Fig. 12: Ground floor plan of the house; areas with traces of decoration in the second style are highlighted.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

117

Mario Grimaldi – Charting the urban development …

Fig. 13: Oecus (62), east side, decoration in fourth style, post-earthquake. The “pictures” appear decentralized in comparison with the newspaper kiosks that framed them, and they occupy the median zone.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

118

Mario Grimaldi – Charting the urban development …

Fig. 14: Oecus (62): north side, decoration in forth style, post-earthquake. The “pictures” appear decentralized in comparison with the newspaper kiosks that framed them, and they occupy the median zone.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

119

Mario Grimaldi – Charting the urban development …

Fig. 15: Oecus (62): south side, decoration in fourth style post-earthquake. The “pictures” appear decentralized in comparison with the newspaper kiosks that framed them, and they occupy the median zone.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

120

Mario Grimaldi – Charting the urban development …

Fig.16: Oecus (62): detail of the central panel on east side; it is possible to recognize the cuts along the frames of the “pictures” and the later covering of these with new bands of color.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

121

Mario Grimaldi – Charting the urban development …

Fig.17: Oecus (62): detail of the central panel on north side; it is possible to recognize the cuts along the frames of the “pictures” and the later covering of these with new bands of color.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

122

Mario Grimaldi – Charting the urban development …

Fig.18: Oecus (62): detail of the central panel on south side; it is possible to recognize the cuts along the frames of the “pictures” and the later covering of these with new bands of color.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

123

Mario Grimaldi – Charting the urban development …

Fig.19a: Floor in the second style with meanders prospective; sage 3 sector B (US 3009; RP 147 [official excavation reports]), from the garden of the Casa di Marco Fabio Rufo.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

124

Mario Grimaldi – Charting the urban development …

Fig.19b: Preparation for the realization of the meanders prospective (RP 150).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

125

Mario Grimaldi – Charting the urban development …

Fig. 20a: Plan of the first lower floor of the house; areas with traces of decoration in the second style are highlighted. Graphics processing by M. Notomista.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

126

Mario Grimaldi – Charting the urban development …

Fig. 20b: Plan of the second lower floor of the house; areas with traces of decoration in the second style are highlighted. Graphics processing by M. Notomista.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

127

Mario Grimaldi – Charting the urban development …

Tav. 1: Reconstruction of the meanders prospective mosaic in the second style including plan and details; Graphics processing by V. Vozza.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

128

Mario Grimaldi – Charting the urban development …

Tav. 2: Reconstruction of the meanders prospective mosaic in the second style; Graphics processing by V. Vozza.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

129

David L. Balch – The Church Sitting in a Garden

Figs. 1–3: Casa di C. Iulius Polybius (IX 13,1– 3, triclinium EE), reconstructed furniture, dining couches against the decorated wall, with reconstructed small tables beside the couches.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

130

David L. Balch – The Church Sitting in a Garden

Fig. 4: Casa di C. Iulius Polybius (IX 13,1–3, peristyle CC), reconstructed cupboard against the wall painting.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

131

David L. Balch – The Church Sitting in a Garden

Figs. 5–7: Casa di C. Iulius Polybius (IX 13,1–3, peristyle CC), reconstructed benches enable sitting in the portico of the peristyle garden; see digital reconstruction of this type of Roman bench in De Carolis, Il mobile a Pompei ed Ercolano, 240.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

132

David L. Balch – The Church Sitting in a Garden

Fig. 8: Villa di Giulia Felice (II 4,3), door 7, thermopolium (1) on the street; on the right, a view into the rear triclinium (3), with masonry benches for sitting around masonry tables.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

133

David L. Balch – The Church Sitting in a Garden

Figs. 9–10: Villa di Giulia Felice (II 4,3), triclinium (3) with three masonry couches for reclining on three sides of a small masonry table, and also masonry benches for sitting upright around three sides of two more masonry tables.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

134

David L. Balch – The Church Sitting in a Garden

Fig. 11: Casa del Bracciale d’oro (VI.17[Ins.Occ.].42), view from (deteriorated) triclinium (31) toward the large external garden (c. 16 × 13 m. = 208 sq. m.), with a blue ornamental pool just below the ends of the triclinium couches.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

135

David L. Balch – The Church Sitting in a Garden

Fig. 12: Casa del’Efebo (I 7,11), garden triclinium (23, now protected by glass) with columns supporting a pergola, in a garden, with an edicola in the background.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

136

David L. Balch – The Church Sitting in a Garden

Fig. 13: Casa del’Efebo (I 7,11), marble bench in the same garden (23).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

137

David L. Balch – The Church Sitting in a Garden

Fig. 14: Casa del’Efebo (I 7,11), image painted on the inside of the garden triclinium couch, a pygmy symposium out of doors; the five pygmies recline / sit on mattresses on the ground and under a canopy.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

138

David L. Balch – The Church Sitting in a Garden

Fig. 15: Casa del Medico (VIII 5,24), peristyle (g), five pygmies recline / sit around a stibadium under a canopy hung between two trees, viewing explicit sex as entertainment (inv. 113196 MANN).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

139

David L. Balch – The Church Sitting in a Garden

Fig. 16: Scavo del Principe di Montenegro (VII 16[Ins.Or.].10), triclinium (6): Hercules, drunk, reclines on his elbow on the ground, in the presence of Queen Omphale, who is seated with two young women beside her, one of whom leans on a column, while cupids play with the wreath on Hercules’ head and with his club (inv. 9000 MANN; PitPom, 258–59, #107). Three Pompeian houses visually represent this scene (PPM V: 167; VI, 255, 266; VII, 841). Not only Alcidamus the Cynic inside a domus, but also customers in popular taverns would have perceived Hercules as a model, drinking while reclining on the floor or the ground.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

140

David L. Balch – The Church Sitting in a Garden

Fig. 17: Conceria (I 5,2) operated by freedmen. A mosaic emblema decorated the table in the garden (h): an allegory of death, a skull, below which is a butterfly, perhaps symbolizing the spirit, below which is the wheel of fortune. On either side of the skull, a scale holds symbols of wealth on the left (scepter and purple toga) and of poverty on the right (beggar’s crook and knapsack) in perfect balance. Death visually represented here may invite diners to enjoy life!

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

141

David L. Balch – The Church Sitting in a Garden

Fig. 18: Casa del Menandro (I 10,4), rectangular exedra (23), with Menander visually represented reading a scroll while sitting on a chair (in situ).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

142

David L. Balch – The Church Sitting in a Garden

Fig. 19: Casa di Meleagro (VI 9,2.13), atrium (2), a male (Agamemnon or Paris) seated on a professionally crafted chair, a slave dealing with his right shoe, and a female (Briseis or Helen) seated on a rock or masonry bench (inv. 9543 MANN; PitPom, 280, #119).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

143

David L. Balch – The Church Sitting in a Garden

Fig. 20: Casa dell’Amore Punito (VII 2,23), tablinum (f): Venus sits in an elegant chair, while Mars stands behind, touching her breast, outdoors with trees in the background (inv. 9249 MANN; PitPom, 256, #105).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

144

David L. Balch – The Church Sitting in a Garden

Fig. 21: Villa di Arianna, Stabiae, triclinium (7), under a coffered ceiling supported by a column, a woman sits on a padded stool with her legs crossed, the left foot on a footstool; her gesture, raising her right hand to her chin, indicates that she is thoughtful, like the Muse Polimnia. (inv. 9097 MANN; PitPom, 456, #245).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

145

David L. Balch – The Church Sitting in a Garden

Fig. 22: Praedia di Giulia Felice (II 4,3), atrium (24), a long, fourth style frieze in the central zone visually represents scenes of daily life in the forum, this one the sale of fabric. Two women, seated on a bench on the left, examine red material presented by a salesperson gesturing vigorously. Behind them is a servant observing. On the right another salesperson with a bolt of cloth is also engaged in a lively discussion with an older and a younger woman, all of whom are standing. Architectural elements are in the background. (inv. 9064 MANN; PitPom, 503, #284).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

146

David L. Balch – The Church Sitting in a Garden

Fig. 23: Casa di Gavius Rufus (VII 2,16–17), exedra (o): the scene, a contest between two divinities of light, is debated. The goddess standing on the right is clearly Venus. The central figure, bathed in light, standing emphatically on a podium before a throne with a torch in his left hand, is Apollo, not Dionysus, I think. Phaethon or Hesperos is seated on the left with a halo. (inv. 9449 MANN; PitPom, 334–35, #170; Balch, Roman Domestic Art, 157–65).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

147

David L. Balch – The Church Sitting in a Garden

Fig. 24: Casa di Pinarius Cerialis (III 4,4), Attis, standing in the center with a knife, who will castrate himself, and Cybele, a drama observed by nymphs, two of whom are standing while one sits (in situ).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

148

David L. Balch – The Church Sitting in a Garden

Fig. 25: Casa di D. Octavius Quartio (II 2,2), photo of the eastern half of the garden, and of the water channel down the center of a domus, which was converted into a caupona. The southern gate at the end of the water channel faced the plaza in front of the amphitheater.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

149

David L. Balch – The Church Sitting in a Garden

Fig. 26: Casa della Rissa nell’Anfiteatro (I 3,23), visual representation of a riot between Nucerians and Pompeians in the amphitheater (59 C.E.). Perhaps the sports fans had been to the nearby taverns before the event? (inv. 112222 MANN; PitPom, 512–13, #292; Balch, Roman Domestic Art, CD 122).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Hilke Thür – Art and Architecture in Terrace House 2 in Ephesos

150

Fig. 1: General view of Terrace House 2 (inside the roof); Photo: H. Thür.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Hilke Thür – Art and Architecture in Terrace House 2 in Ephesos

151

Fig. 2: Excavation Photo from the site of Terrace Houses in 1960; Photo Archive ÖAI © ÖAI.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Hilke Thür – Art and Architecture in Terrace House 2 in Ephesos

152

Fig. 3: View of Terrace House 2 with the new Roofing (2001); Photo: H. Thür.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Hilke Thür – Art and Architecture in Terrace House 2 in Ephesos

153

Fig. 4: City Plan of Ephesos © ÖAW.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Hilke Thür – Art and Architecture in Terrace House 2 in Ephesos

154

Fig. 5: Plan of Terrace House 2 © ÖAW.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Hilke Thür – Art and Architecture in Terrace House 2 in Ephesos

155

Fig. 6: Visualisation of the Peristyle Court in House 4; Ivan Iliev after H. Thür © ÖAW.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Hilke Thür – Art and Architecture in Terrace House 2 in Ephesos

156

Fig. 7: View of room (SR 24) in house 2; Photo: H. Thür.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Hilke Thür – Art and Architecture in Terrace House 2 in Ephesos

157

Fig. 8: Visualisation of niche in Room (5) in House 4; Ivan Iliev after H. Thür © ÖAW.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Hilke Thür – Art and Architecture in Terrace House 2 in Ephesos

158

Fig. 9: Tiberius and Livia with Bronze Snake in Selçuk Museum; Photo: Niki Gail © ÖAI.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Hilke Thür – Art and Architecture in Terrace House 2 in Ephesos

a)

159

b)

Fig. 10 a–b: Plans with building phases of House 4; I. Adenstedt after H. Thür © ÖAW.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Hilke Thür – Art and Architecture in Terrace House 2 in Ephesos

c)

160

d)

Fig. 10 c–d: Plans with building phases of House 4; I. Adenstedt after H. Thür © ÖAW.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Hilke Thür – Art and Architecture in Terrace House 2 in Ephesos

e)

161

f)

Fig. 10 e–f: Plans with building phases of House 4; I. Adenstedt after H. Thür © ÖAW.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Hilke Thür – Art and Architecture in Terrace House 2 in Ephesos

162

Fig. 11: Plan House 6; I. Adenstedt after H. Thür © ÖAW.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

163

Hilke Thür – Art and Architecture in Terrace House 2 in Ephesos

Fig. 12: Visualisation of the Floor in Marble Hall (31) in House 6; Ivan Iliev after H. Thür © ÖAW.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Hilke Thür – Art and Architecture in Terrace House 2 in Ephesos

164

Fig. 13: Reconstruction of Furnishing in Marble Hall (31) (Model of S. Stöckl); Photo: A. Sulzgruber.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Hilke Thür – Art and Architecture in Terrace House 2 in Ephesos

165

Fig. 14: Visualisation of the coffer ceiling in Marble Hall (31) in House 6; Ivan Iliev after H. Thür © ÖAW.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Hilke Thür – Art and Architecture in Terrace House 2 in Ephesos

166

Fig. 15: Visualisation of Marble Hall (31) with Windows; Ivan Iliev after H. Thür © ÖAW.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Hilke Thür – Art and Architecture in Terrace House 2 in Ephesos

167

Fig. 16: View of South Colonade in Peristyle Court (31a); Photo: H. Thür.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Hilke Thür – Art and Architecture in Terrace House 2 in Ephesos

168

Fig. 17: Isometric Reconstruction of the private Bath in House 6; I. Adenstedt © ÖAW.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Hilke Thür – Art and Architecture in Terrace House 2 in Ephesos

169

Fig. 18: The Inscription in Perityle Court 31a naming C. Flavius Furius Aptus; Photo: Niki Gail © ÖAI.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Hilke Thür – Art and Architecture in Terrace House 2 in Ephesos

170

Fig. 19: Plan of House 6, Building Phase III; I. Adenstedt after H. Thür © ÖAW.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Hilke Thür – Art and Architecture in Terrace House 2 in Ephesos

171

Fig. 20: Photo of Room (8a) with Venus and Mars; Photo: Niki Gail © ÖAI.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Hilke Thür – Art and Architecture in Terrace House 2 in Ephesos

172

Fig. 21: Painting in Room (36a) in House 6; Photo: H. Thür.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Hilke Thür – Art and Architecture in Terrace House 2 in Ephesos

173

Fig. 22: View of vaulted Room (GEW D) in House 2; Photo: Niki Gail © ÖAI.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Hilke Thür – Art and Architecture in Terrace House 2 in Ephesos

174

Fig. 23: Visualisation of Marble Hall (31) in House 6, View to South; Ivan Iliev after H. Thür © ÖAW.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Umberto Pappalardo – How the Romans saw the frieze …

175

Fig. 1: Pompeii, Villa of the Mysteries, the megalografia.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Umberto Pappalardo – How the Romans saw the frieze …

176

Fig. 2: Pompeii, Villa of the Mysteries, the megalografia. Synoptic drawing.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Umberto Pappalardo – How the Romans saw the frieze …

177

Fig. 3: Pompeii, Villa of the Mysteries, the megalografia. The matron of the family.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Umberto Pappalardo – How the Romans saw the frieze …

178

Fig. 4: Pompeii, Villa of the Mysteries, the megalografia. Silenus playing a lyre accompanied by two small satyrs playing a pan-pipe and Aura descending from heaven.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Umberto Pappalardo – How the Romans saw the frieze …

179

Fig. 5: Pompeii, Villa of the Mysteries, the megalografia. Papposilenus seeing the mask behind him reflected in the water in the cup.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Umberto Pappalardo – How the Romans saw the frieze …

180

Fig. 6: Pompeii, Villa of the Mysteries, the megalografia. Dionysos, drunken and lying on the breast of Aphrodite.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Umberto Pappalardo – How the Romans saw the frieze …

181

Fig. 7: Pompeii, Villa of the Mysteries, the megalografia. A priestess is about to unveil a large wooden phallus hidden in a country basket.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Umberto Pappalardo – How the Romans saw the frieze …

182

Fig. 8: Pompeii, the sanctuary of Dionysos outside Pompeii, maquette.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

183

Umberto Pappalardo – How the Romans saw the frieze …

Fig. 9: Pompeii, the sanctuary of Dionysos outside Pompeii, pediment. Dionysos and Aphrodite. Dionysos is characterized by “tyrsos”, “kantharos” and panther. Aphrodite is characterized by the goose and her son Eros, who is bringing her a mirror.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Rosaria Ciardiello – Beryllos, the Jews and the Villa of Poppaea in Oplontis

184

Fig. 1: Oplontis, Villa of Poppeae, view (Photo R. Ciardiello).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Rosaria Ciardiello – Beryllos, the Jews and the Villa of Poppaea in Oplontis

185

Fig. 2: Oplontis, Villa of Poppeae, plan.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Rosaria Ciardiello – Beryllos, the Jews and the Villa of Poppaea in Oplontis

186

Fig. 3: Oplontis, Villa of Poppeae, Portrait of so-called Poppeae.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Rosaria Ciardiello – Beryllos, the Jews and the Villa of Poppaea in Oplontis

187

Fig. 4: Oplontis, Villa of Poppeae, service corridor (52), near a portrait, there is a caricature with the Latin name “DRACO/NUS,” and a graffito in Greek letters, “”, that is, “remember Beryllus.”

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Rosaria Ciardiello – Beryllos, the Jews and the Villa of Poppaea in Oplontis

188

Fig. 5: Oplontis, Villa of Poppeae, view (Photo R. Ciardiello).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Rosaria Ciardiello – Beryllos, the Jews and the Villa of Poppaea in Oplontis

189

Fig. 6: Oplontis, Villa of Poppeae, fresco of roman villa with porticus triplex.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Rosaria Ciardiello – Beryllos, the Jews and the Villa of Poppaea in Oplontis

190

Fig. 7: Oplontis, Villa of Poppeae, atrium (5) in IInd style (from Mazzoleni‑Pappalardo 2004).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Rosaria Ciardiello – Beryllos, the Jews and the Villa of Poppaea in Oplontis

191

Fig. 8: Oplontis, Villa of Poppeae, fresco from atrium (5) in IInd style, detail with imagines clipeatae (from Mazzoleni-Pappalardo 2004).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Rosaria Ciardiello – Beryllos, the Jews and the Villa of Poppaea in Oplontis

192

Fig. 9: Oplontis, Villa of Poppeae, view of triclinium (14) (from Mazzoleni‑Pappalardo 2004).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Rosaria Ciardiello – Beryllos, the Jews and the Villa of Poppaea in Oplontis

193

Fig. 10: Oplontis, Villa of Poppea, fresco of triclinium (14) detail with imagines clipeatae (Photo I. Varriale).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Rosaria Ciardiello – Beryllos, the Jews and the Villa of Poppaea in Oplontis

194

Fig. 11: Oplontis, Villa of Poppeae, view of cubiculum (11) in IInd style (from Mazzoleni-Pappalardo 2004).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Rosaria Ciardiello – Beryllos, the Jews and the Villa of Poppaea in Oplontis

195

Fig. 12: Oplontis, Villa of Poppeae, drawing of lunette in cubiculum (11) in IInd style, (from Clarke 1996).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Rosaria Ciardiello – Beryllos, the Jews and the Villa of Poppaea in Oplontis

196

Fig. 13: Oplontis, Villa of Poppeae, view of oecus (23) in IInd style (from Mazzoleni-Pappalardo 2004).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

197

Rosaria Ciardiello – Beryllos, the Jews and the Villa of Poppaea in Oplontis

Fig. 14: Oplontis, Villa of Poppeae, Photo and drawing of glass with pomegranate from oecus (23) (M. Notomista).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Rosaria Ciardiello – Beryllos, the Jews and the Villa of Poppaea in Oplontis

198

Fig. 15: Villa of Fannius Synistor in Boscoreale, Photo and drawing of glass with pomegranate (M. Notomista).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Rosaria Ciardiello – Beryllos, the Jews and the Villa of Poppaea in Oplontis

199

Fig. 16: Oplontis, Villa of Poppeae, fresco in IInd style from oecus (15) (from Mazzoleni-Pappalardo 2004).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

200

Rosaria Ciardiello – Beryllos, the Jews and the Villa of Poppaea in Oplontis

Fig. 17: Oplontis, Villa of Poppeae, drawing of fresco in IInd style from oecus (15) with vanishing point (from Mazzoleni-Pappalardo 2004).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

201

Rosaria Ciardiello – Beryllos, the Jews and the Villa of Poppaea in Oplontis

Fig. 18: Oplontis, Villa of Poppeae, oecus (15), reconstruction produced by the technique of axonometric isometry, representing the painted walls as a glass, through which actual and virtual spaces come into contact (from Mazzoleni-Pappalardo 2004).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Rosaria Ciardiello – Beryllos, the Jews and the Villa of Poppaea in Oplontis

202

Fig. 19: Oplontis, Villa of Poppeae, fresco in IIIrd style from room (10bis) (Photo I. Varriale).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Rosaria Ciardiello – Beryllos, the Jews and the Villa of Poppaea in Oplontis

203

Fig. 20: Oplontis, Villa of Poppeae, calidarium (8), north wall (Photo I. Varriale).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Rosaria Ciardiello – Beryllos, the Jews and the Villa of Poppaea in Oplontis

204

Fig. 21: Oplontis, Villa of Poppeae, fresco in IVth style from viridaria (from Mazzoleni-Pappalardo 2004).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

205

Monika Bernett – Space and Interaction

Fig. 1: Plan of the theater on the northeast slope of the Herodium, west of the grave (the mausoleum of Herod?) discovered in 2007. Plan Ehud Netzer; Copyright: Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

206

Monika Bernett – Space and Interaction

Fig. 2: Aerial view (December 2009). Photo Ferrell Jenkins; Copyright: Ferrell Jenkins.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

207

Monika Bernett – Space and Interaction

Fig. 3: Herodium, plan of the palace-complexes (hill palace, buildings on the northeast slope, “Lower Herodium”). Plan Ehud Netzer; Copyright: Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

208

Monika Bernett – Space and Interaction

Fig. 4: Northern wing of the so-called Winter Palace (= Jericho III); Plan Ehud Netzer; Copyright: Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Maria Paola Guidobaldi – The House of the Telephus Relief …

209

Fig. 1: Plan of Herculaneum, including buildings that have not been excavated but were explored by tunnel and known from eighteenth-century plans. (Image: Ubaldo Pastore).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Maria Paola Guidobaldi – The House of the Telephus Relief …

210

Fig. 2: Plan of the Insula Orientalis I, with the House of the Telephus Relief, the House of the Gem and the House of Marcus Pilius Primigenius Granianus. White: the House of the Telephus Relief with its first lower level. Grey: the House of the Gem and its lower area, which later became the independent House of Marcus Pilius Primigenius Granianus (here the rooms are identified with letters). (Image: Ubaldo Pastore).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Maria Paola Guidobaldi – The House of the Telephus Relief …

211

Fig. 3: Axonometric view of the Terrace of Marcus Nonius Balbus and the Suburban Baths. (Image: Pappalardo 1997).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Maria Paola Guidobaldi – The House of the Telephus Relief …

212

Fig. 4: Plan of the Suburban Baths showing the link between corridor (N) of the bath complex and room (A) of the second lower level of the south wing of the House of the Telephus Relief. Light grey: rooms 22–26 of the first lower level of the south wing.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Maria Paola Guidobaldi – The House of the Telephus Relief …

213

Fig. 5: The Telephus relief (MANN, inventory no. 286787/ ex 76/128) and the tondo of Achilles consulting the oracle (Herculaneum archaeological store, inventory no. 2219/77515).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Maria Paola Guidobaldi – The House of the Telephus Relief …

214

Fig. 6: View of the façade of the western arm of the south wing of the House of the Telephus Relief, showing the first lower level (originally with a series of columns closed in at the bottom by a low parapet, later transformed into a windowed corridor) and the second lower level with arched openings below it on the level of the ancient shoreline.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Maria Paola Guidobaldi – The House of the Telephus Relief …

215

Fig. 7: Axonometric of the so-called south wing, showing the rooms on the same level as the peristyle area (16, 17, 18 and 19), the lost wooden balcony and the first lower level (window of room 24 and the arched opening on corridor 23). (Image: Maiuri 1958).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Maria Paola Guidobaldi – The House of the Telephus Relief …

216

Fig. 8: House of the Telephus Relief, room (24) of the first lower level of the so-called south wing. The western window of the room was blocked by the Suburban Baths. (Image: Domenico Camardo).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Maria Paola Guidobaldi – The House of the Telephus Relief …

217

Fig. 9: House of the Telephus Relief, blocked opening that connected the garden of the House of the Gem with the House of the Telephus Relief proper, and its modification into a window. (Image: Domenico Camardo).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Maria Paola Guidobaldi – The House of the Telephus Relief …

218

Fig. 10: The connecting stairway between the roof of the Suburban Baths and the rooms of the first lower level of the south wing of the House of the Telephus Relief.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

219

Janet DeLaine – Housing Roman Ostia

Fig. 1: Ostia, Insula di Giove e Ganimede, façade on the via di Diana. (Photo: author).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

220

Janet DeLaine – Housing Roman Ostia

Fig. 2: Ostia, schematic plan of Flavian period showing known domus. (Adapted from Scavi di Ostia I, fig. 30, and Martin et al., “Urbanistic project”, figs 8 and 10).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

221

Janet DeLaine – Housing Roman Ostia

Fig. 3: Ostia, Casette Repubblicane, plan of excavated remains. (Courtesy of the Soprintendenza Archeologica di Ostia).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

222

Janet DeLaine – Housing Roman Ostia

Fig. 4: Ostia, high status housing identified from geophysical survey. a) domus in Regio V; b) villa suburbana in Region IV. (Adapted from Martin et al., “Urbanistic project”, figs 8 and 10).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

223

Janet DeLaine – Housing Roman Ostia

Fig. 5: Ostia, high status domus-insula. a) Insula delle Muse; b) Insula di Giove e Ganimede; c) domus under the Casa di Diana. (a) adapted from Becatti, Mosaici, Tav. CCXXV; b) author; c) adapted from Marinucci, “Maison de Dianne”, fig. 7).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

224

Janet DeLaine – Housing Roman Ostia

Fig. 6: Ostia, Insula di Giove e Gaminede, wide entrance to vestibule from street behind Capitolium (Photo: author).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

225

Janet DeLaine – Housing Roman Ostia

Fig. 7: Ostia, domus under the Casa di Diana, marble and mosaic fountain. (Photo: author).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

226

Janet DeLaine – Housing Roman Ostia

Fig. 8: Ostia, Insula di Bacco Fanciullo, plan. (Author).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

227

Janet DeLaine – Housing Roman Ostia

Fig. 9: Ostia, Insula V.iii, schematic plan. (Author).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

228

Janet DeLaine – Housing Roman Ostia

Fig. 10: Ostia, Casette Tipo, schematic plan. (Author).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

229

Janet DeLaine – Housing Roman Ostia

Fig. 11: Ostia, Case a Giardino, plan. (Adapted from Cervi, “Evoluzione”, fig. 1).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

230

Janet DeLaine – Housing Roman Ostia

Fig. 12: Ostia, Insula delle Volte Dipinte: a) ground floor; b) first floor. (Adapted from Becatti, Mosaici, Tav. CCXXII and Packer, Insulae, fig. 21).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

231

Janet DeLaine – Housing Roman Ostia

Fig. 13: Ostia, tabernae on the via degli Aurighi, with the Case a Giardino behind. (Photo: author).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

232

Janet DeLaine – Housing Roman Ostia

Fig. 14: Ostia, Insula I.viii.6–10, small commercial/residential properties. (Adapted from Scavi di Ostia I, 1:500 plan).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

233

Janet DeLaine – Housing Roman Ostia

Fig. 15: Ostia, Casa di Diana: a) ground floor; b) first floor. (Adapted from Packer, Insulae, figs. 2, 3).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

234

Janet DeLaine – Housing Roman Ostia

Fig. 16: Ostia, small apartments (III.xvi.5; III.xvi.2; I.xiv.9; III.xi.1). (Author).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

235

Janet DeLaine – Housing Roman Ostia

Fig. 17: Ostia, late houses. a) Domus dei Pesci; b) Domus delle Colonne; c) Domus di Amore e Psiche. (Adapted from Becatti, Mosaici, Tav. CCXXVII, CCXXVI, CCXXI).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

236

Janet DeLaine – Housing Roman Ostia

Fig. 18: Ostia, Domus delle Colonne, view from main reception room A to fountain. (Photo: author).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

237

Janet DeLaine – Housing Roman Ostia

Fig. 19: Ostia, Domes del Ninfeo, fountain. (Photo: author).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

238

Janet DeLaine – Housing Roman Ostia

Fig. 20: Ostia, Insula di Giove e Ganimede, late wall at first floor level resting on ground floor fill. (From G. Calza, “Gli scavi recenti nell’abitato di Ostia,” Monumenti Antichi).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Tina Najbjerg – Exploring … significance of the great Porticus in Herculaneum 239

Fig. 1: View from south of the visible remains of the Porticus in the NE corner of the excavated area of Herculaneum. Courtesy of the German Archaeological Institute in Rome (Inst. Neg. 66.1459).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Tina Najbjerg – Exploring … significance of the great Porticus in Herculaneum 240

Fig. 2: Map showing the excavated areas of Herculaneum, superimposed on the modern town of Resina (Ercolano). The Porticus appears top center. Design and computer rendering by M. Pagano and U. Pastore.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Tina Najbjerg – Exploring … significance of the great Porticus in Herculaneum 241

Fig. 3: Reconstructed plan of the Porticus in Herculaneum. Design and computer rendering by Tina Najbjerg and Derek Jones.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Tina Najbjerg – Exploring … significance of the great Porticus in Herculaneum 242

Fig. 4: Reconstructed view of the Porticus from east. Design and computer rendering by Tina Najbjerg, Arthur Banks and David Koller.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Tina Najbjerg – Exploring … significance of the great Porticus in Herculaneum 243

Fig. 5: Tiberius. Bronze. Naples Archaeological Museum. MN 5615. H 2,30 m. From K. Kluge and K. Lehmann-Hartleben, Die antiken Großbronzen I (Berlin-Leipzig 1927) pl. 19.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Tina Najbjerg – Exploring … significance of the great Porticus in Herculaneum 244

Fig. 6: Claudius. Bronze. Naples Archaeological Museum. MN 5593. H 2,40 m. Soprintendenza Archeologica della Provincia di Napoli e Caserta – Napoli, Neg. no. 4035.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Tina Najbjerg – Exploring … significance of the great Porticus in Herculaneum 245

Fig. 7: Augustus. Bronze. Naples Archaeological Museum. MN 5595. H 2,50 m. From H. G. Niemeyer, Studien zur statuarischen Darstellung der römischen Kaiser. Monumenta Artis Romanae 7 (Berlin 1968) pl. 27.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Tina Najbjerg – Exploring … significance of the great Porticus in Herculaneum 246

Fig. 8: Reconstructed view along northern portico of the Porticus toward semi-circular niche in NE corner with bronze statue of Augustus (MN 5595). Design and computer rendering by Tina Najbjerg, Arthur Banks, and David Koller.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Tina Najbjerg – Exploring … significance of the great Porticus in Herculaneum 247

Fig. 9: Agrippina II. Bronze. Naples Archaeological Museum. MN 5612. H 2,06 m. Soprintendenza Archeologica della Provincia di Napoli e Caserta – Napoli, Neg. no. 1831.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Tina Najbjerg – Exploring … significance of the great Porticus in Herculaneum 248

Fig. 10: “Augustus.” Marble. Naples Archaeological Museum. MN 6040. H 2,15 m. Soprintendenza Archeologica della Provincia di Napoli e Caserta – Napoli, Neg. no. 5771.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Tina Najbjerg – Exploring … significance of the great Porticus in Herculaneum 249

Fig. 11: “Claudius.” Marble. Naples Archaeological Museum. MN 6056. H 2,22 m. Soprintendenza Archeologica della Provincia di Napoli e Caserta – Napoli, Neg. no. 5772.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Tina Najbjerg – Exploring … significance of the great Porticus in Herculaneum 250

Fig. 12: Titus. Marble. Naples Archaeological Museum. MN 6059. H 2,11 m.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Tina Najbjerg – Exploring … significance of the great Porticus in Herculaneum 251

Fig. 13: Iupiter in the clouds. Painted wall fragment. Naples Archaeological Museum. MN 9553. H 0,70 m.; W 1,42 m.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Tina Najbjerg – Exploring … significance of the great Porticus in Herculaneum 252

Fig. 14: Theseus. Painted wall fragment. Naples Archaeological Museum. MN 9049. H 1,94 m; W 1,55 m.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Tina Najbjerg – Exploring … significance of the great Porticus in Herculaneum 253

Fig. 15: Marsyas and Olympus. Painted wall fragment. Naples Archaeological Museum. MN 9151. H 1,26 m; W 1,12 m.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Tina Najbjerg – Exploring … significance of the great Porticus in Herculaneum 254

Fig. 16: Hercules and Telephus. Painted wall fragment. Naples Archaeological Museum. MN 9008. H 2,18 m; W 1,82 m.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Tina Najbjerg – Exploring … significance of the great Porticus in Herculaneum 255

Fig. 17: Chiron and Achilles. Painted wall fragment. Naples Archaeological Museum. MN 9109. H 1,25 m; W 1,27 m. From Le Collezioni del Museo Nazionale di Napoli I.1 (Rome 1986) p. 60.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Tina Najbjerg – Exploring … significance of the great Porticus in Herculaneum 256

Fig. 18: Reconstruction of semi-circular niche in southeastern corner of Porticus. Design and drawing by Tina Najbjerg.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Tina Najbjerg – Exploring … significance of the great Porticus in Herculaneum 257

Fig. 19: Hylas. Painted wall fragment. Naples Archaeological Museum. MN 8864. H 0,46 m; W 0,96 m. Soprintendenza Archeologica della Provincia di Napoli e Caserta – Napoli, Neg. no. 1291.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Tina Najbjerg – Exploring … significance of the great Porticus in Herculaneum 258

Fig. 20: Hercules and the Nemean lion. Painted wall fragment. Naples Archaeological Museum. MN 9011. H 0,47 m; W 0,83 m.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Tina Najbjerg – Exploring … significance of the great Porticus in Herculaneum 259

Fig. 21: Minerva and Hercules at the presentation of the ship Argo. Painted wall fragment. Naples Archaeological Museum. MN 9522. H 0,52 m; W 1,33 m. Soprintendenza Archeologica della Provincia di Napoli e Caserta – Napoli, Neg. no. 1327.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Tina Najbjerg – Exploring … significance of the great Porticus in Herculaneum 260

Fig. 22: Baby Hercules strangling the serpents. Painted wall fragment. Naples Archaeological Museum. MN 9012. H 1,23 m; W 1,29 m.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Tina Najbjerg – Exploring … significance of the great Porticus in Herculaneum 261

Fig. 23: Medea. Painted wall fragment. Naples Archaeological Museum. MN 8976. H 1,33 m; W 0,42 m. Soprintendenza Archeologica della Provincia di Napoli e Caserta – Napoli, Neg. no. 2405.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Tina Najbjerg – Exploring … significance of the great Porticus in Herculaneum 262

Fig. 24: Leda. Painted wall fragment. Paris, Louvre; P18. H 0,38 m; W 0,87 m.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

263

Annette Weissenrieder – “Do you not know that you are God’s temple?”

Fig. 1: Hrabanus Maurus, De laudibus sanctae crucis. Liber primus figure 1; around 900; Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek: Cod. 652: Christ image in the form of a figurative poem.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Annette Weissenrieder – “Do you not know that you are God’s temple?”

264

Fig. 2: Hildegard von Bingen, Liber divinorum operum, Second Vision, Biblioteca governativa, Cod. Lat. 1942 fol. 9 v.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Annette Weissenrieder – “Do you not know that you are God’s temple?”

265

Fig. 3: Turin, Biblioteca Reale, Codice Torinese Saluyyiano 148, fol. 114v–115v.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Annette Weissenrieder – “Do you not know that you are God’s temple?”

266

Figs. 4–6: Column Styles.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Annette Weissenrieder – “Do you not know that you are God’s temple?”

267

Fig. 7: Francesco di Giorgio Martini; Cod. Ash. 361 fol. 10v (Zöllner)

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Annette Weissenrieder – “Do you not know that you are God’s temple?”

268

Fig. 8: Obverse: Head of Augustus – Reverse Head of C. Iulius Caesar with a laurel wreath, Amandry Xb. D2R; 10–4 B.C.E.; Lanz 335.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Annette Weissenrieder – “Do you not know that you are God’s temple?”

269

Fig. 9: Obverse: Head of Augustus – Reverse Head of C. Iulius Caesar with a laurel wreath, Amandry VIII a D1 R 2,3; 27–26 B.C.E.; Lanz 331.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Annette Weissenrieder – “Do you not know that you are God’s temple?”

270

Fig. 10: Obverse Bust of Livia with a knot at the nape of her neck – Reverse temple façade with six columns, on the architrave GENT IULI; Amandry XVI 10 Df Rib2; Lanz 383.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Annette Weissenrieder – “Do you not know that you are God’s temple?”

271

Fig. 11: Obverse veiled bust of Livia Pietas with a diadem – Reverse temple façade with six columns, on the architrave BENT IULI; Amandry XV 120 Dh RILI; Lanz 385.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Annette Weissenrieder – “Do you not know that you are God’s temple?”

272

Fig. 12: Obverse Head of Drusus Minor – Reverse veiled Livia (?) with ears of corn in her right and a scepter in her left hand sitting on a throne; Amandry XV Db1 R IIg, Lanz 378.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

Annette Weissenrieder – “Do you not know that you are God’s temple?”

273

Fig. 13: Obverse Head of Nero with laurel wreath – Reverse temple façade with four columns on a two-step Podium; in the inner temple: Nero (?) with a Toga and a Phiale (?) in the right, standing en face; Amandry XXIII 13 Db2 RII a1, 2; Lanz 480.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

David L. Balch – Cult Statues of Augustus’ Temple of Apollo …

274

Fig. 1: Tempio di Iside (VIII 6,28; PPM VIII 732, 781–82), ekklesiasterion (13,2 ×  7,65 m.), beyond a wall with four arches; a photo from within the south portico surrounding the Temple of Isis in Pompeii.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

David L. Balch – Cult Statues of Augustus’ Temple of Apollo …

275

Fig. 2: Tempio di Iside (VIII 6,28; PPM VIII 825), ekklesiasterion, central fresco on the north wall: a cow, Io sitting on a rock, Hermes with caduceus, Argos Panoptes (“all seeing”). Inv. 9548 MANN.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

David L. Balch – Cult Statues of Augustus’ Temple of Apollo …

276

Fig. 3: Tempio di Iside (VIII 6,28; PPM VIII 837), ekklesiasterion, central fresco on the south wall: Io on the viewer’s left, borne by the river god, is received by Isis, who has a cobra wrapped around her left arm and a crocodile below her feet. Horos/Harpocrates, her son, sits on an urn in the lower right. Above Isis are a priest and a priestess of Isis before an altar. Inv. 9558 MANN.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

David L. Balch – Cult Statues of Augustus’ Temple of Apollo …

277

Fig. 4: Casa di Livia, Rome: fresco of Hermes, Io, Argos (restored), in situ.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

David L. Balch – Cult Statues of Augustus’ Temple of Apollo …

278

Fig. 5: House VI 17 (Ins. Occ.),41 (PPM VI 36), cubicolo (17), south wall: fresco of monumental portal of alabaster columns with Ionic capitals, an entrance to a sanctuary, with bunches of fish and birds visually represented on either side as ex voto. Before the temple, which has a Doric frieze, one sees a tholos, inside which there is a statue of Venus Anadyomene. Balch, Roman Domestic Art, 16–17; PitPom 202–03, #72. Inv. 8594 MANN.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

David L. Balch – Cult Statues of Augustus’ Temple of Apollo …

279

Fig. 6: Casa del Marinaio (VII 15,2; PPM VII 749), esedra (z), north wall: fresco dominated by tetrastyle temple, in which a deer stands, symbol of Artemis, who with her brother Apollo, massacres Niobi’s children, who had insulted their mother, Leto/Latona. PitPom 270, #115. Inv. 111479 MANN.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

280

David L. Balch – Cult Statues of Augustus’ Temple of Apollo …

Fig. 7: Statue of Niobe’s son, killed by Artemis and Apollo, from the Horti of Caesar in Trastevere, uncovered in Via Aurelio Saffi (1956), pentelic marble, Museo Montemartini, Rome, inv. 3027.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

David L. Balch – Cult Statues of Augustus’ Temple of Apollo …

281

Fig. 8: Statue of one of the fourteen children of Niobe, who insulted Leto, mother of the divine Apollo and Artemis, who ordered her children to kill Niobe’s children, who were all struck down with arrows. This statue is fifth century B.C.E., decorated the Horti Sallustiani (now Via Collina and Piazza Sallustico), where it was found (1906) with two other statues now in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotheck in Copenhagen. Palazzo Massimo, Rome, inv. 72274. A. La Regina, ed., Palazzo Massimo alle Terme, Museo Nazionale Romano (English Edition; Milan: Electa, 1998), 74–75, and R. Carpenter, “Familiar Statuary” (cited n. 75), 28–29, plate 12: “Stumbling Niobid.”

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

David L. Balch – Cult Statues of Augustus’ Temple of Apollo …

282

Fig. 9: Greeks defeating Gauls, Ephesos Museum, Vienna, Austria. The museum audio guide explains: “This model frieze is of great importance both for history and for art history. It is the only existing frieze from Ephesos dating from the second century B.C., and it is one of the earliest known depictions of an historical battle. It shows the battle between the Greeks and the Galatians. The Celtic Galatians had begun to invade Asia Minor during the early third century B.C. This frieze probably depicts a scene from the final war against the Galatians, in which Eumenes II, king of Pergamon, was able to win a decisive victory in 166 B.C. As Ephesus had also been threatened by the Galatians, she honored her victorious savior by erecting a monument with this frieze depicting a cavalry battle. On the right the frieze depicts an armored Greek whose horse is jumping over a fallen Galatian. In the background you can see a so-called signum. On its left a Galatian is trying to use his shield to protect himself. Below is a Galatian falling from his horse headfirst. This frieze demonstrates the superiority of the Greeks and alludes to their imminent victory.” For location at the eastern end of the Arkadiane in Ephesus and bibliography, see n. 31.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

David L. Balch – Cult Statues of Augustus’ Temple of Apollo …

Figs. 10–13, #10: four statues of Small Pergamene Votive Offering: #11 giant (inv. 6013 MANN), #12 Amazon (inv. 6012 MANN), # 13 Persian (inv. 6014 MANN), 10 wounded Gaul (inv. 6015 MANN). Roman copies of second century C.E., from Greek original of second century B.C.E. From MANN captions: “These less than life-sized statues form a group with other examples now in different collections (at the Vatican, Venice, 11 Paris, Aix-en-Province). Together they constitute a copy of a votive offering made by a Pergamene dynast, probably Attalus II, placed along the south wall of the Athenian Acropolis in 167–166 B.C. They represent four battles, two mythological (the Gigantomachy and the Amazonomachy) and two historical (the battles of Marathon and against the Galatians)…. The Athenian votives were composed of bronze statues. It is likely that they themselves were copies of a series located at Pergamon. This complex composition, consisting of at least 50 sculptures, was designed to celebrate, by evoking the greatest epic battles between gods and men, the Pergamene victories over the Galatians, who were a constant threat to the Attalid kingdom.” See La collezione Farnese (ed. C. Gasparri, photos L. Spina; Mondadori Electa, 2009), 120–23.

Back to Table of Contents

283

12

13

Back to Authors

Home

David L. Balch – Cult Statues of Augustus’ Temple of Apollo …

284

Fig. 14: Villa di Oplontis, triclinium (14), tripod, in situ. Balch, Roman Domestic Art 15, CD 71, 71a.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

David L. Balch – Cult Statues of Augustus’ Temple of Apollo …

15

285

17

Figs. 15–18: Temple of Apollo Sosianus, Rome, built after C. Sosianus triumphed over the Jews in 34 B.C.E. He was condemned to death after the battle of Actium, because he had sided with Mark Antony, but Octavian pardoned him, and this new architectural project can be interpreted as a tribute to Octavian and an attempt to be forgiven. The city of Rome commissioned excavations in the 1930s, and later the fragmented statues were identified as the pedimental group. #16 statue of an Amazon on Horseback, Museo Montemartini, inv. 3291; Parian marble, representing an Amazonmachy, a reconstruction now exhibited in the Museo Montemartini, Rome. #17 statue of an Amazon with attic Peplos, identified as Hippolyta. 16 18 Museo Montemartini, inv. 3457, Parian marble. #18 statue of Theseus, Museo Montemartini inv. 3529, Parian marble. Sculptures of Ancient Rome: The Collections of the Capitoline Museums at the Montemartini Power Plant (eds. M. Bertoletti, M. Cima, and E. Talamo; Milan: Electa, 1999), 28, plate II.52; 60, plate II.52e; 71–79, plates II.52h and i.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

David L. Balch – Cult Statues of Augustus’ Temple of Apollo …

19

20

286

21

Figs. 19–21: Sorrento Base, sketched by the Frenchman Lancelot Théodore Turpin de Crissé c. 1810, published by courtesy of Prof. Mario Russo, Director of Museo Correale, Sorrento, published earlier by Umberto Pappalardo in Archeologia Viva 126 (Nov/Dic 2007) 35. #20–21: my photos of the Sorrento Base.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

287

David L. Balch – Cult Statues of Augustus’ Temple of Apollo …

22

23

24

Figs. 22–24: Three-sided base of neo-Attic candelabrum, with Apollo, Artemis, and Leto represented individually on the three sides. #22 Leto, as ‘married’ woman, with right hand hoisting her veil, with left hand holding torch. #23 Apollo, playing lyre, similar in appearance to a harp, but strummed with plectrum, not plucked, and #24 Artemis, her quiver of arrows visible behind her, holding a torch with both hands, Beginning of the Augustan age, from via della Conciliazione (1848). Museo Montemartini, inv. 2771, Pentelic marble.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

David L. Balch – Cult Statues of Augustus’ Temple of Apollo …

288

Fig. 25: Statue of Esquiline Venus, portrayed as emerging from water and combing her hair. The cobra coiled around the vase relates this figure to Aphrodite-Isis, a goddess of Hellenistic origin. This eclectic work dating to early Roman Imperial age is influenced by the severe style. From an underground chamber in the Horti Lamiani (1874). Capitoline Museum, inv. 1141, Parian marble.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

David L. Balch – Cult Statues of Augustus’ Temple of Apollo …

26

289

27

Figs. 26–27: Nile mosaic, Praeneste Museum (a few kilometers east of Rome). This Hellenistic mosaic, one of the largest and most important currently known, presents a wide perspective map of Egypt. The Nile is pictured flooding the land in its course from Upper Egypt, near the border with Ethiopia (high above), to the Mediterranean coast (below). Execution date: end of second or end of first century B.C.E.. Originally located as the rear apse floor of large hall at the north side of the Praeneste Forum, a hall dedicated to the worship of an Egyptian deity, Isis, or perhaps Serapis. As early as the second century B.C.E., intensive trade between Praeneste and Egypt favored the process of identification of Fortuna Primigenia with Isis. Alexandrian artists worked in Italy from the second century B.C.E., e.g. Demetrius, called Topographer, the painter of landscapes, who moved to Rome in 165 B.C.E. The mosaic has undergone significant restoration work. Drawings made prior to its seventeenth century restoration, now preserved in Great Britain, have enabled researchers to know its original layout. #27 particular of temple to Osiris or Isis.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

David L. Balch – Cult Statues of Augustus’ Temple of Apollo …

290

Fig. 28: Fortuna’s cult had a double identity, fertility and prophecy, mirrored in her sanctuary in Praeneste. Syncretism between Fortuna Primigenia and Isis, another goddess with a maternal identity, probably occurred in Praeneste. This assimilation of Egyptian cults is seen in this colossal statue in gray marble originally placed in the Forum area. The head, probably made separately in white marble, is missing. The statue is a late Hellenistic original, dating to the end of the second century B.C.E., and probably represents Isis, often dressed in black. Praeneste Museum.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

L. Michael White – The Changing Face of Mithraism at Ostia

291

Fig. 1: Plan of the Excavated Areas of Ancient Ostia, showing the location of the known mithraea and related sanctuaries. (Plan based on Meiggs, 1973, adapted and annotated by LMW).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

L. Michael White – The Changing Face of Mithraism at Ostia

292

Fig. 2: Reg. IV.2 – The Area of the Mitreo degli Animale. (Plan based on SdO I, composite with annotations by LMW).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

L. Michael White – The Changing Face of Mithraism at Ostia

293

Fig. 3: Plan of Mitreo degli Animale (adapted from Becatti, composite restoration by LMW).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

L. Michael White – The Changing Face of Mithraism at Ostia

294

Fig. 4: Views of Mitreo degli Animale. (Photos by LMW). a. West wall with sealed doorway. b. West wall with piers and upper walls. c. The thronum.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

L. Michael White – The Changing Face of Mithraism at Ostia

295

Fig. 5: General view of Mitreo degli Animale. (from Becatti, Scavi di Ostia II, Tav. 17).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

L. Michael White – The Changing Face of Mithraism at Ostia

296

Fig. 6: Reg. I.1–4 – The Area of the Mitreo del Cassegiato di Diana (A), Sacello di Silvano (B), and Mitreo di Lucretio Menandro (C) (from SdO I, composite with annotations by LMW).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

L. Michael White – The Changing Face of Mithraism at Ostia

297

Fig. 7: Plan of Cassegiato di Diana, Phases II and IV/V. (Adapted from A. Marinucci, composite by LMW).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

L. Michael White – The Changing Face of Mithraism at Ostia

298

Fig. 8: Views of the Mitreo d. Diana (Photos by LMW). a. The left podium (Rm 25), with the Opus sectile pavement of Phase II (Rm 27) below. b. Same, with Severan frescoes preserved above the podium. c. The right podium (Rm 25), with Severan frescoes preserved on S wall.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

L. Michael White – The Changing Face of Mithraism at Ostia

299

Fig. 9: The Palazzo Imperiale Complex (Plan of J. Spurza).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

L. Michael White – The Changing Face of Mithraism at Ostia

300

Fig. 10: The Palazzo Imperiale Mithraeum. (Plan restoration, composite by LMW).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

L. Michael White – The Changing Face of Mithraism at Ostia

301

Fig. 11: Reg. III–IV – Areas of Mitrei dei Pareti Dipinti (A) and Sette Porte (B) (from SdO I, composite with annotations by LMW).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

L. Michael White – The Changing Face of Mithraism at Ostia

302

Fig. 12: Plan of Mitreo dei Pareti Dipinti (adapted from Becatti, composite restoration by LMW).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

L. Michael White – The Changing Face of Mithraism at Ostia

303

Fig. 13: Reg. II.8 – The Area of the Domus del Apuleio and Mitreo delle Sette Sfere. (from SdO I, composite with annotations by LMW).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

L. Michael White – The Changing Face of Mithraism at Ostia

304

Fig. 14: Reg. V.6–9 – Area of Mitrei dei Serpenti (A) and Felicissimus (B) (from SdO I, composite with annotations by LMW).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

L. Michael White – The Changing Face of Mithraism at Ostia

305

Fig. 15: Reg. I.10–17 – Area of Mitreo della Planta Pedis (A) and Sacello delle Tre Navate. (from SdO I, composite with annotations by LMW).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

L. Michael White – The Changing Face of Mithraism at Ostia

306

a.

b. Fig. 16: Views of the garden fresco on the S. wall of the Mitreo delle Sette Porte, a. Photo from Becatti, SdO II, Tav. XXII.2 (1939). b. Photo by LMW, present state.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

L. Michael White – The Changing Face of Mithraism at Ostia

a.

307

b.

Fig. 17: Views of the Antonine frescoes of the Mitreo di Lucretius Menandro. (Photos by LMW) a. The right (W) bench with frescoes on the wall and secondary doorway to ancillary room and frescoes. b. View into the ancillary room to the west, with the decorative program continued.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

308

Ulrike Muss – The Artemision at Ephesos

Fig. 1: Schematic view of the peripteros and the temple of the 4th century B.C.E. (A. Bammer, ÖAI).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

309

Ulrike Muss – The Artemision at Ephesos

Fig. 2: Sanctuaries in the Artemision (A. Bammer and collaborators, ÖAI. After W. Seipel, Das Artemision von Ephesos. Heiliger Platz einer Göttin, Wien 2008).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

310

Ulrike Muss – The Artemision at Ephesos

Fig. 3: Lead pipe in the altar area (Foto A. Bammer).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

311

Ulrike Muss – The Artemision at Ephesos

Fig. 4: Artemis Temple after Wood (J. T. Wood, Discoveries at Ephesus 1874).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

312

Ulrike Muss – The Artemision at Ephesos

Fig. 5: View of the geometric peripteros (Archive ÖAI).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

313

Ulrike Muss – The Artemision at Ephesos

Fig. 6: Beads made of different material (after Seipel op.cit. 2008, 196 Kat. no. 204).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

314

Ulrike Muss – The Artemision at Ephesos

Fig. 7: Amber objects from the Artemision (after Seipel op.cit. 2008 Fig. 189 Kat. No. 187).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

315

Ulrike Muss – The Artemision at Ephesos

Fig. 8: Western front of the archaic dipteros. Reconstruction by F. Krischen (after U. Muss, Die Archäologie der ephesischen Artemis, Wien 2008, 271 fig. 219).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

316

Ulrike Muss – The Artemision at Ephesos

Fig. 9: The archaic temple with naiskos and courtyard altar (A. Bammer, after Muss op.cit 2008, 282, fig. 227).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

317

Ulrike Muss – The Artemision at Ephesos

Fig. 10: The late classical dipteroi in the Artemision (A. Bammer).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

318

Ulrike Muss – The Artemision at Ephesos

Fig. 11: Columna Caelata of the 4th century temple. British Museum No. 1206 (after Seipel op.cit. 2008, 94, fig. 2).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

319

Ulrike Muss – The Artemision at Ephesos

Fig. 12: Reconstruction of 4th century altar (A. Bammer, Vienna Kunsthistorisches Museum).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

320

Ulrike Muss – The Artemision at Ephesos

Fig. 13: Silver Cistophor (Claudius 41–54 C.E.) with temple and cult statue. Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum (after Seipel op.cit 2008, 97, fig. 6).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

321

Ulrike Muss – The Artemision at Ephesos

Fig. 14: Aerial view of the Artemision with the Roman buildings in the north (after F. Hueber, Ephesos, Gebaute Geschichte, Mainz 1997, 37, fig. 44).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

322

Ulrike Muss – The Artemision at Ephesos

Fig. 15: Reconstruction of the 4th century temple, its altar and the Roman buildings (A. Bammer, after Muss op.cit. 2008, 284, fig. 231).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

323

Ulrike Muss – The Artemision at Ephesos

Fig. 16: St. John destroying the Artemision. Wood engraving of Paul Doré (after Hueber op.cit. 1997, 94, fig. 117).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

324

Ulrike Muss – The Artemision at Ephesos

Fig. 17: Geison of the 4th century Artemis Temple reworked into anta capital of St. Johns Basilica (Museum Selçuk‑ after Seipel op.cit. 2008, 97, fig. 5).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

325

Ulrike Muss – The Artemision at Ephesos

Fig. 18: Artemision with plan of the church (after Forschungen in Ephesos I), Wien 1906, 206, fig. 156 reworked by M. Weissl (after Seipel op.cit. 2008 50, fig. 1).

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

326

Ulrike Muss – The Artemision at Ephesos

Fig. 19: Reconstruction of the church in the temple after A. Bammer. (after Muss op.cit. 2008, 288, fig. 232)

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home

327

Copyright

Copyright © 2012 Mohr Siebeck Tübingen, Germany. This CD may not be duplicated, in whole or in part, in any form (beyond that permitted by copyright law) without the publisher’s written permission. This applies particularly to reproductions, translations, microfilms and storage and processing in electronic systems.

Back to Table of Contents

Back to Authors

Home