Ancient Rome as a Museum: Power, Identity, and the Culture of Collecting 9780199573233, 0199573239

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Introduction

Ancient Rome as a Museum: Power, Identity, and the Culture of Collecting Steven Rutledge

Print publication date: 2012 Print ISBN-13: 9780199573233 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: March 2015 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199573233.001.0001

Introduction Museums and Muses Steven H. Rutledge

DOI:10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199573233.003.0001

Abstract and Keywords This introductory chapter first sets out the book's purpose, which is to examine how Roman artefacts reflect Roman values. It then describes the subsequent chapters and the sources used in the study. This is followed by discussions of the praxis of objects and museum and collection studies. Keywords:   Rome, Roman values, artefacts, praxis, museums, collection studies

The Museum of American History on the National Mall in Washington DC is a study in incoherence. On view under the same roof, even side by side, are such diverse cultural artefacts as the desk at which Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, Dorothy’s ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz, Julia Child’s kitchen, and the original star-spangled banner that flew over the fort at Baltimore harbour during the War of 1812. There is, at base, little coordinating principle among such cultural artefacts, with one single exception. They serve to reflect collectively the identity of a people as distinctly American. They educate and acculturate museum visitors, serving as signifiers that underscore and even help to create values that are to be publicly cherished: liberty, power, national pride, celebrity culture, and aspirant consumerism. In contemporary society these collectively work together to create a single unique history and social identity that we could arguably view as specifically ‘American’, even though none of the aforementioned values constitutes, in and of itself, anything that could be defined as such. The qualities and histories that in the sum of their diverse parts create American identity (although we could just as Page 1 of 33

 

Introduction easily speak of ‘identities’) in this instance are based on specific cultural artefacts, each with its own history and its own story to tell. Step outside the museum and the picture is no more coherent. There is a series of museums, none of which has anything in particular to do with the other. These include a museum of the American Indian, across from another museum, the National Gallery of Art, that contains a collection of (primarily) paintings and sculptures from the Middle Ages to the contemporary period. Across the Mall from the contemporary wing there is a large botanical garden, while next to the Museum of the American Indian stands the Air and Space Museum. Walk across the Mall once more and you arrive at the Museum of Natural History, which in turn stands across from the Sackler Gallery, a collection of Eastern and African art. Architecturally the Mall is an organizational disaster. Modern glass buildings with giant mobiles suspended in enormous empty spaces stand next to neoClassical buildings adorned with copies of Renaissance sculpture. While each of these museums has an organizing principle in its own right (although some critics note the fragility of such systematic unity), collectively they represent what is (p.2) tantamount to an almost willful incoherence.1 What, after all, do paintings by Manet and Vermeer have to do with the Lunar Module (or one another for that matter)? How is the Hope Diamond related in any way to ritual masks of Native Americans from the Pacific Northwest? Wandering off the Mall one can visit the National Portrait Gallery, as well as the Holocaust Museum. Again, one must ponder the relevance of Lincoln’s death mask to the artefacts that commemorate a twentieth century atrocity. Are these not fragmentary products with unrelated histories, cultural contexts, and origins? The picture becomes less clear if one takes into consideration Washington’s numerous monuments. Many of these are themselves artificial creations that had or (in most cases) have absolutely no local historical value per se. No military battles were fought at the Lincoln Memorial, no great legislation was passed at the Washington Monument. Rather, over time they have accrued value for their symbolic significance. This is particularly true of the Lincoln, where a bronze plaque commemorates where Martin Luther King Jr. stood when he delivered his ‘I have a dream’ speech, and the Vietnam War Memorial, where thousands still come annually to mourn their dead and leave offerings. Such monuments represent, in their own right, spaces where ‘official’ historical memory and the commemorated past serve as a point of negotiation between the current structures of power within American society and those who would challenge its narrative.2 Of course, some places do have a significance stemming from the historic events that occurred there: Ford’s Theatre, the Watergate Hotel, Blair House, all of these in one way or another figure into the historical landscape that is Washington. Add to this the significant historical ‘clutter’ that has accrued over time such as the Washington National Cathedral (with its stained glass that Page 2 of 33

 

Introduction depicts subjects ranging from the landing in Normandy to the Lewis and Clark expedition), the myriad bronze statues of figures from Grant to Gandhi, or even the fresco depicting the apotheosis of George Washington that adorns the interior of the Capitol dome (in which he enters a heaven not of the Trinity but of the Olympian deities). Yet Gandhi, Vermeer, the Lunar Module, and Julia Child’s kitchen all cohere for several reasons. Of these perhaps the most important is place: all are situated in the heart of a city that itself rests at the centre of a vast empire that bestrides a (p.3) continent and, arguably, the world and beyond. They are a collective expression of historical experience, as well as political, cultural, and social values, and of economic power. They tell us who we are, and, equally important, who and how we should desire to be. In the same way that we fill our houses with random material and cultural objects that collectively speak much to our own personal identity and experiences, a similar situation holds true for the urban landscape of the United States’ capital. The diverse monuments, art works, and hodge-podge of cultural objects are symbols of that to which we are told we ought to aspire and of our values. In the case of such monuments as the Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln, they are, in a sense, victory monuments that represent the triumph of free people over tyranny and repression. Moreover in the Jefferson and Lincoln Memorial, the values are literally enshrined in temples based on neo-Classical design. Collectively they constitute some of the ‘raw material’ which, as S. Pearce has argued, either organizes itself or is willfully structured into ‘the kind of cultural construct which we call human [in this case, specifically, American] society’.3 In the case of the United States (to draw from a contemporary example), the very existence of such memorials—and, for that matter, the collections on the Mall—are not politically neutral. They constitute a statement of power or domination of one group or one idea over another, and not infrequently (as in the case of the Museum of the American Indian) can serve to remind a dominant group of an act of resistance on the part of a once (and regrettably in many respects still) subordinate people. Indeed, the cityscape constitutes a venue where competing claims by divergent groups have occasionally played themselves out. To cite but two examples: in 1995 a new annex of the Air and Space Museum opened up in McLean Virginia, a suburb of Washington DC, where the Enola Gay, from which the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, had been mounted for public display. On the day the new exhibition opened, several Japanese protesters stood nearby to object to the display and the text that accompanied it which they believed did not sufficiently address the moral ambiguities involved in America’s use of an atomic weapon.4 In addition, as of this writing, a public discussion is (p.4) currently taking place in Washington DC over where and how Martin Luther King Jr. is to be commemorated on the Mall. Such debates in and of themselves encapsulate who we collectively are as a people in the early twenty-first century, as we argue over such diverse topics Page 3 of 33

 

Introduction as the place of minorities and their history in American culture, or the history of our use of force against other nations. The debate has been taken up in academic circles as well, most naturally among those involved in the discipline of art history and the more specialized subject of collecting and museum display.5 The situation for Washington will remain a dynamic one for as long as it remains a major centre of power. Whom, how, and what to commemorate is bound to continue to remain controversial. Along with such controversy, there will be the thorny matter of how to fund memorials of this sort; yet the commitment of vast sums to build, house, collect, and maintain such commemorations is itself an important statement concerning the values placed on identity, power, and its maintenance in the form of visual symbols. That such commemoration and display are controversial brings up yet another issue, that of the viewer. Various commemoratives and displays are bound to signify different things to different individuals.6 The ‘meaning’ of the Enola Gay would be decidedly different for my father, who was a United States infantryman in the Philippines during World War II, than for one of the Japanese protesters noted above. That is to say, there is no such thing as a single, monolithic ‘American’ viewer of such objects, and that despite the attempt to control the various messages that objects invariably convey, the meaning of such objects is rarely static. (p.5) Let us now consider a city that, in antiquity, functioned as a similar repository of historical ‘clutter’, Rome. As a city Rome developed organically based on the physical topography of its location, situated as it was on a series of hills and ridges (see map 1.1). A central depression located between the Capitoline hill to its north, the Palatine hill to its south-west, and the Esquiline to its east became what would be the religious, political, and economic centre of the city, the Roman Forum (see map 1.2), and as such became preferred real estate for the display of cultural objects over time. By the period of the republic, in the third and second centuries BC, the Campus Martius, encompassed by the great bend in the Tiber to the north of the city proper, was becoming a popular venue for display, while the Capitoline, with its temple to Jupiter Optimus Maximus, had long since been among the most prestigious and sacred sites for advertising one’s achievements. As a map of Rome shows (map 1.3), by the imperial period the Campus Martius had morphed into a virtual entertainment district, with its numerous theatres, porticoes, temples, and baths, while the Palatine had become a massive complex housing the emperor, his family, and the imperial bureaucracy. By this time too, several emperors had added their own imperial fora (see map 7.1). As was the case

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Introduction (p.6)

Map 1.1 The seven hills and other major topographical features of Rome. The city evolved organically around these physical features over time. Drawing by Elizabeth Riorden.

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Introduction (p.7)

Map 1.2 Map of the Roman Forum in the mid-fourth century AD.

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Introduction with contemporary Washington, statues, monuments, and repositories of cultural artefacts abounded. Similarly, like any city that constitutes a major centre of power and wealth of a vast state, Rome as an imperial capital—like a museum—became a repository of the history and achievements of its people, all of which reflected some distinct ideologies. By nature and by chance this repository was bound to be eclectic and chaotic, even in cases where there was arguably ‘programmatic intent’, such as Map 1.3 Map of Rome around AD 100. Augustus’ Forum (see fig. 7.11). As such, part of the task of this study will be to put the numerous incoherent cultural ‘fragments’ into a cohesive order, a process that arguably reflects the very definition of ‘culture’.7

Such fragments—literary, archaeological, historical, and cultural—collectively collapsed together in Rome, as they will in this study, to construct a coherent (p. 8) view of Roman identity and power.8 Hooper-Greenhill has noted that the British in their museums of the nineteenth century were able to ‘create a reliable, solidly material, core of value and emulation at the centre of a vast, diverse, and dispersed empire’.9 Something similar could be said of the collective identity of the Romans as expressed through the diverse cultural material scattered throughout the city. It should be noted that such a reading involves a taxonomy that the Romans themselves did not consciously apply to objects in terms of visual culture (although there did exist systematic organization within texts, such as Pliny’s Natural History).10 Disparate objects of a visual or a physical nature, ranging from works by the Greek masters to Aeneas’ ship, unify to create a central Roman narrative which can be read as establishing a Roman identity (or identities) over time and, invariably, as reflecting and perpetuating Roman power and a collective sense of the Roman self. The present study thus stands in the context of other readings of the city by scholars such as Edwards, Favro, Jaeger, and Vasaly (and, in more general terms, Urry and Flaming) whereby Rome is a place to be read as a text.11 Indeed, the intersection between the term monumentum as both a physical memorial one would find in an urban context and as a text invites a similar ‘reading’ for the city. It is the creation and reception(s) of the city as text with which this study concerns itself.

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Introduction (p.9) Overview As we examine how the collection of such artefacts reflected Roman values, several immediate issues come to mind: how was the material acquired? What types of material were gathered, exhibited, or otherwise accrued commemorative value over time? What was the context in which cultural artefacts (such as statues and paintings) were exhibited? How were such artefacts and memorabilia maintained? How did the disparate monuments and cultural-historical memorabilia create what we might call an ‘inter-functionality’ by which objects resituated themselves from their original contexts to form coherent statements about Roman identity and power? Each of these questions raises issues pertaining to how Romans viewed themselves both collectively and individually. They also raise basic questions about class, status, and how these were expressed both in private and public contexts. Analysis of such questions offers numerous organizational possibilities for the author, and it is difficult to choose any specific ordering principle that will prove satisfactory to all readers. As MacDonald has noted, museum studies offer a wide range of cross-disciplinary perspectives.12 In their study on museum culture, Sherman and Rogoff recognize four organizing principles to their subject: the object, its context, its viewing public, and its reception.13 We remark their study and its structure here since our own investigation concerns itself with similar issues devoted in broad terms to related material from an ancient perspective. Hence we first turn as a preliminary to the study as a whole to two central issues, the Roman collector and the Roman viewer. Both of these are admittedly infinite subjects with equally vast possibilities in terms of approach and methodology. The question we address in chapter three will concern what the Romans thought about viewing. We start off there by examining what Romans themselves tell us concerning their expectations for display and the setting of cultural objects. In addition, we will examine their reactions to the physical topography of their city. The discussion also includes considerations of class, and how this could and did have an impact on how cultural artefacts and commemoratives were both presented and viewed. Finally, we turn to some of the powerful reactions such cultural artefacts and monuments could evoke. Viewing and the viewer in particular are subjects for potentially endless discussion, which involves us in an infinite array of possibilities that could conceivably lead us into territory ranging from archaeological reconstruction, to ekphrasis in Roman and Greek poetry, to reconstructing visual culture based on an examination of the artistic record and (p.10) literary texts, an area that has been recently explored in Elsner’s (2007) study, Roman Eyes. Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text. While it would be wrong to ignore such evidence and the possibilities it offers for interpretation, it is essential to clarify from the start that we are most concerned here with what the Romans tell us openly and explicitly about their own reactions to viewing material of historical or artistic significance. We will therefore be concerned with how Romans desired to view Page 8 of 33

 

Introduction and to what extent the Roman community as a whole could appreciate historically and culturally significant artefacts. In addition, the diversity of viewers in antiquity is one that merits close attention and has recently been the subject of a number of studies. Elsner, for example, has noted that numerous responses to ancient visual culture were possible and socially contingent, depending on among other factors, gender, class, and ethnicity; consequently no ‘model viewer’ exists, which implies that a variety of readings can coexist.14 That ‘the meanings of objects are contingent, fluid, and poly-semantic, but none the less constructed by the materiality of the object’, is something that museum theorists and classicists have both come to recognize, and bears emphasizing.15 The various readings we here offer, even the structuring of the material itself, constitutes only a narrow slice of the conceivably enormous hermeneutical range the material collected and discussed in this study presents. We will initially turn our attention, however, to a consideration of how cultural material made its way into Rome, with a passing glance at private collecting, and how such collecting was itself a reflection of Roman power and identity. For the Romans, the simple act of collecting was occasionally an act of political competitiveness, a reflection of the city’s visually competitive urban space where men of military or political talent asserted their claims to auctoritas and dignitas permanently through monuments and cultural artefacts. It should be further noted that throughout this study the term ‘art’ operates inevitably as a convenient term for cultural property, although it is arguably a term of privilege along with ‘masterpiece’ or ‘authentic’, and such terms sit opposite words such as ‘artefact’ or ‘copy’.16 As many contemporary museum theorists and art historians have recognized, because all these terms convey a judgement of value, I sometimes use terms such as ‘art’ and ‘cultural artefact/ object’ interchangeably for works one might uncritically accept as ‘art’, although (p.11) for other objects we use terms such as simply ‘cultural artefact’.17 Both the exchange of these terms and our noting it are important, since one suspects that elite Romans (one thinks for example of Pliny’s encyclopaedia) certainly did pass judgement on what constituted art as opposed to a mere ‘wonder’ despite the lack of a modern systematic method of classification.18 ‘Cultural artefact’, moreover, covers a wide range of material from both the human and natural realm that simply does not fall under the rubric of ‘art’. We will at times use these various terms interchangeably, since a work of art, such as Praxiteles’ Eros, would be widely recognized as such, although it is also a cultural artefact, just as is the German war mask that adorned the Temple of Augustus (see p. 265). It is doubtful, though, whether the latter would be considered ‘art’ per se. However the value imposed on each, whether through the fame of former owners, the artist who created the work, or the manner in Page 9 of 33

 

Introduction which it came to be possessed by the Romans, make both products of a wider culture and render them valued objects not merely by simple virtue of their existence, but through a series of larger cultural dynamics. Because such dynamics contribute to the objects’ value and are invariably shifting and negotiable, we rely on the various terms noted above. The next three chapters (four through six) will examine the disparate types of cultural artefacts in ancient Rome. Here we will focus on why certain objects and sites were preserved, how they preserved historical memory, and what that memory was potentially intended to communicate.19 There are a variety of ways to classify such a wide array of cultural artefacts. One could, for example, categorize them according to the type of artefact, or according to the period which specific artefacts and monuments commemorated. Here we have categorized the various commemoratives and artefacts in terms that, we hope, are most (p.12) illustrative of the way such material constructed a collective memory and a space where Roman identity was variously created, negotiated, and assessed. In the first of these chapters (chapter four) we examine how imperial domination by the ruling elite influenced the appearance of the city. The elite used cultural objects both to maintain and perpetuate their control over not merely Roman society, but other peoples as well. As Holliday has noted, such display was not just an additional luxury of conquest, but inherently bound up with it.20 In the next chapter, we look at how the Roman social and historical record was remembered through a variety of cultural material in a manner that reinforced Roman values and ideology beyond those directly associated with military conquest and imperial hegemony (such as the commemoration of women who were important to the Roman historical record). Finally, in chapter six we examine how the natural world was exhibited as a symbolic form of domination by the city; such display inadvertently served as an ambiguous reflection on the (sometimes monstrous) nature of empire. One of the more important aspects of the display of cultural artefacts is their use in the competition between powerful individuals or families; such use itself is telling about Roman power and how the city served as a field for political rivalry, where grandees tried to lay claim to political power or to legitimize it. Power and its legitimization will be the central though not exclusive consideration in chapter seven, where we examine the major imperial collections and their significance. What were the major imperial displays within the city, and what did they potentially signify? More importantly, how did such collections and displays come to reflect the values of individual emperors, and how did they function in their larger topographical settings? While numerous studies have looked at imperial collections, those under Augustus have received the lion’s share of attention. We here put Augustus’ collections in the context of other substantial collections and in their larger cultural and historical context. One omission in Page 10 of 33

 

Introduction these four chapters that might seem glaring is the absence of any focused discussion on the Roman response to Hellenism; that is because this discussion is embedded to a certain extent in the present study, and because Hellenism’s cultural influence has been the specific focal point of numerous other studies.21 Finally, we turn to the simple problem of maintenance. The question of oversight and finance for monuments and cultural objects in and of itself can (p.13) tell us something concerning how the Romans valued such material, and consequently about the Roman ideology of power, memory, and the Romans’ own identification between objects and themselves. Other considerations arise that tell us to what extent they valued the physical reminders of their romanitas, their ‘manner’, and by extension, ‘sense’ of being Roman. The actual buildings and their restoration, for example, was something that during the republic was partly up to the state but seemingly more so to individual families. Actual restoration of cultural artefacts and their maintenance is more problematic; we are sometimes unclear on the physical process of restoration, though we do know that restoration of some sort took place. In terms of access to and general maintenance of cultural property, as well as matters of security, we have a clearer picture. Again, that there were processes in place for finance, restoration, security, and upkeep itself indicates the Romans’ desire to preserve property of cultural or historical significance.

Sources A work such as this one is bound to rely, in no small part, on our literary record.22 That is due to the simple fact that virtually every cultural object has utterly vanished, while any of the venues for display, the temples and porticoes, survive as mere ruins. Hence a paradox: the study is about cultural artefacts and their display, but it cannot be said to be exclusively ‘art historical’. Rather it falls into the realm of museum theory and cultural history (something that should, perhaps, be already apparent), and naturally includes forays into the realm of display and collecting. With so much material vanished, we depend for the most part on literary accounts and occasionally the archaeological record to reconstruct ancient collections and displays. The images used to illustrate this study therefore, are intended to give what at best must be for the most part a conjectural and impressionistic sense of the appearance of ancient collections and objects within the city. In the course of this study we will draw heavily on Pliny the Elder and other literary sources, which will inevitably lead us to focus primarily though not exclusively on the Roman elite.23 The city itself was the creation of that elite, and they wrote about the city they had built. Such sources are not without their (p.14) problems: to what extent did an author actually view the objects? Was the author in fact accurate in describing and giving the history of a particular memorial or artefact? What are the possible ulterior motives that, for any number of reasons—rhetorical, political, or social—could lead an author (such as Page 11 of 33

 

Introduction Cicero in his speeches) to variously embellish, distort, or otherwise mislead one using him as a source? How familiar was Pliny the Elder with the objects he described and what were his sources for those he knew about only second hand? 24

Is Cicero’s depiction of Scipio as a diligent restorer of art to the Sicilians from its Carthaginian captivity reliable (see chapter 2 pp. 52–6)? These and similar questions will merit consideration in turn as they arise in our study. For the moment, suffice to state that since Pliny (for one) lived in and was familiar with the city of Rome, my own belief is that he will have had a good idea about what was in the Forum and other prominent locations; for places more ‘off the beaten path’ it is likely that he had access to some sort of imperial inventory.25 Cicero’s case is more difficult: his remarks about Scipio, for example, arise in a highly charged rhetorical context, the prosecution of Verres, making them suspect. However Cicero was intimate with Sicily, Verres was genuinely guilty, and the comparison Cicero makes between Scipio and Verres may have been for the most part accurate and certainly was plausible for Cicero’s Roman audience. We need to be aware of such difficulties, and will address them as they appear. At the same time, the complete veracity of our sources is less at issue for us; it is more important for our purposes to ascertain what was understood and believed about particular objects and what that tells us about the Roman sense of self. For example, whether Dionysius of Halicarnassus is correct to assume that the Temple of the Penates in the Velia held the actual Penates that Aeneas brought to Rome is, in a sense, irrelevant. For us in this case, neither is the truth of Aeneas’ existence nor the various versions concerning the origin of the Penates at issue—nor, for that matter, are the literary traditions and the value of those traditions for reconstructing Roman ‘prehistory’.26 Rather what is at issue is what Dionysius’ (p.15) belief about their origin tells us about Roman cultural identity.27 As Barkan has noted, Rome’s past was largely imagined; what matters is how the past and present relate to one another as ‘symbol and exegesis’.28 Another important matter to bear in mind is that while certain objects, particularly those of a sacred nature, tended to remain where they were and were not (for the most part) moved, the situation with cultural property in the city was fluid. This implies that the relationship between objects, one to the other, and to the city as a whole, periodically changed. We are not dealing with a phenomenon that was static, but one that was frequently in flux due to restoration, renovation, the personal tastes or programme of an emperor, or catastrophes such as fire. For example, when Pliny tells us that in his day Praxiteles was represented by images of Bonus Eventus and Bona Fortuna on the Capitoline, it is likely that they were not there prior to his period, but represent a restoration and replacement of statuary in that place after the fire of AD 69 when the Capitol burned to the ground.29

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Introduction The Praxis of Objects: Objects, Identity, and Power in Modern Theory The phrase I use to title this section, the ‘praxis’ of objects, may appear at first glance a paradox. Inasmuch as the term derives from the Greek verb prattein (‘to do’), implying action, in what sense can objects act and, by extension, have what we might call an active life? The question is an important one for our study. Since several key assumptions concerning objects function as a basis for this work, a brief survey of the current scholarly landscape concerning the social, cultural, and political theory of objects will serve to inform our own approach and assessment. One of this study’s central assumptions is that objects and identity rely, both for the individual and society, on a symbiotic relationship whereby the object becomes an extension of the self or the culture to which that self belongs. In (p.16) this way objects assist in the construction of identity both for the individual and for the society at large. More than that, however, objects are also put into the service of power. Often this takes the form of the display of an object signifying the appropriated power of a subjugated ‘other’, and reflecting the ideology of an elite or even of a society at large qua possessor. Frequently, and particularly in the case of the Romans, this appropriation is intended to perpetuate and maintain power. How such ideology is conveyed depends on how a given object is intended to communicate, and is further constructed by the values imposed on particular objects and the context of their display.30 It is important to note as a preliminary to this study that viewers will have been inclined to make a series of connections among various objects and their own culture at large. It is precisely those potential connections and associations that we will attempt to sort out and analyse. Cultural studies on collecting in particular have long recognized the link between objects and the creation of individual identity. In addition, the ability of objects to function as symbolic or metonymic signifiers constitutes a system by which objects communicate a language dependent on the type of relationship constructed between the object and its social context.31 Such relationships depend on the human imposition of values on objects in order to reaffirm their value.32 A variety of theoretical and sociological studies have examined how such relationships are constructed. Among them Pearce’s study (1995) is especially pertinent in this regard, though others, such as Appadurai, Baudrillard, Bennett, Clifford, and Geertz have also noted the power of objects to act as signifiers that communicate status, political power, and domination, or reaffirm one’s own identity.33 As Pearce observes, objects also serve collectively to create social (p.17) categories in order to organize and structure life, while objects and the structures in which they are set ‘depend upon our ability to recognize social norms … one way of describing what we might otherwise call “accepted values” or “proper behaviour” ’.34 Consequently, objects are closely tied up with the construction of personal identity, becoming who we are, and in turn shaping our own persona, whether individually or collectively.35 They have the power to construct who we are on Page 13 of 33

 

Introduction both an individual and a group or national level, and can assist, as a number of studies have shown, even in the creation of national identity.36 This is an area that has been thoroughly explored by theorists of collecting, many of whom have discussed the symbolic function of objects and their role in the creation of identity.37 Among cultural historians of the Roman period, Edwards has taken this issue on in the most explicit terms, noting the direct connection between (p.18) knowledge of Roman cultural identity and the Roman self particularly in terms of understanding the city visually and reading it as a text.38 In terms of collecting for our period and its connection with identity, along with Chevallier (1991), and now Bounia (2004), Elsner has noted the clear relationship between the acquisition of cultural artefacts and the construction of Roman identity (or, more properly, identities), while A. Wallace-Hadrill’s Rome’s Cultural Revolution (2008) similarly examines the consumption of luxury goods and Roman identity.39 Most recently, I. Östenberg’s fine study, Staging the World: Spoils, Captives, and Representation in the Roman Triumphal Procession (2009), has explored the construction of Roman identity in visual terms through the specific objects displayed in triumphs. Cultural theorists have further noted that objects are vital for the conservation of human memory, something closely linked to human identity. As has been observed by Fentress and Wickham (whose theoretical study on social memory considers the variety of means by which social memory is transmitted), ‘we are what we remember’, and we are also ‘how’ we remember.40 That is to say, The way we represent ourselves in our memories, the way we define our personal and collective identities through our memories, the way we order and structure our ideas in our memories, and the way we transmit these memories to others—is a study of the way we are.41 The question of how ancient societies remember, or for that matter forget, has been a subject of recent interest among classical scholars, with Edwards (1996), (p.19) Alcock (2001), and Flower (2006) in particular at the forefront of the discussion.42 Indeed, Edwards makes quite explicit this connection between the visual and its association with memory in her discussion concerning Aeneas’ visit to the Palatine when he sees the virum monimenta priorum (‘the monuments of the men of the past’).43 Yet perhaps one of the clearest connections made between memory and identity in Rome, as Edwards (1996) has noted, was that made by Flavio Biondo, secretary to Pope Eugenius IV. Biondo was interested in ‘reviving the ancient form of the city through a proper reading of ancient texts’, and observed that ‘Rome, through ignorance of its inhabitants, has lost its identity’.44 In a more recent work, Flower has pointed out an aspect of memory that will be of direct concern for our study: the desire and need on the part of nobiles and the ruling elite for notoriety through the preservation of memory in the form of public visual reminders, be they triumphs, statues, paintings, or other public memorials.45 This is not to deny the presence of what S. E. Alcock Page 14 of 33

 

Introduction referred to as a ‘spectrum of memories’ which potentially embraced more socially, culturally, and ethnically diverse groups in antiquity; rather it acknowledges the simple reality of who governed and controlled the display and conservation of cultural material in Rome.46 It is this intersection of objects, identity, and power that has in fact drawn the attention of numerous contemporary theorists. Thus in his essay, ‘Collecting Art and Culture’, J. Clifford notes that ‘collections embody hierarchies of value, exclusion, rule-governed territories of the self … this kind of gathering involves the accumulation of possessions, the idea that identity is a kind of wealth (of objects, knowledge, memories, experience)’.47 A similar line of thinking has been followed by others such as Pearce, who observes that ‘politically, the motive behind [the] collecting is that of display, which through its sheer impressiveness can convey legitimacy … The display of wealth is the basis for prestige which (p.20) underpins political power’.48 Pearce also asserts that objects constitute human goals and desires that invite us to act upon them.49 Seen in this way, objects have the potential to create a conversation with the viewer concerning the relations of power between the object, its previous owner, and the viewer, a relationship that, as Stocking notes, is implicitly a relation of power.50 In addition to symbolic forms of power that serve to create legitimacy or make statements concerning relations of power, theorists have noted that objects have the capacity to generate cultural capital and ‘sustain their own authority’.51 In sum, objects reflect relations of power through three essential modes. Since they are often appropriated, looted, or purchased, they are an indication of the possessor’s wealth or power. That power conveys an authority that serves to legitimate or perpetuate power through various means, some of which we shall explore in the following chapters.52 By virtue of the simple fact that the possessors and looters of cultural property, certainly in Rome but one suspects in most societies as well, tend to make up the dominant hierarchy, they also invariably express the values and tastes of that hierarchy, values that are frequently designed to act in the interests of the dominant elite, to perpetuate its power and legitimize its hegemony over the rest of society.53 It should be noted, however, that this was not the entire story. As R. Bradley has noted, ‘not all antiquities were associated with ancestors or with sources of political power. Many were linked instead with the supernatural, and often they were feared’.54 As we shall see, this was certainly the case with any number of cultural artefacts within the city. How objects communicate, and much of what they have to communicate, will of course depend on context, and it is the relationship between objects, their context, and their potential significance that will be central for much of the (p. 21) present work.55 To cite one example of how the context or relationship between objects could change their meaning radically, Gregory has noted in his study on the political significance of imagines that cultural objects for display Page 15 of 33

 

Introduction could form ‘pendants’, and thereby ‘give a new ideological meaning’ to that object or even set of objects.56 He cites as an example Augustus’ dedication of a statue of Antonius Musa, his physician, next to a statue of Aesculapius: ‘Doctor and god of healing formed a natural pendant, and Musa’s own profession was identified, and his prestige and reputation was undoubtedly raised through his image’s proximity to Aesculapius.’57 The significance of associations of this sort, which are often culturally determinant, can change rapidly based on context. This is perhaps most dramatically illustrated in a contemporary context (to return to our example of Washington DC) in the placement and display of presidential iconography. Hence the presence of the colossal Lincoln in a quasiPhidian pose (seated in majesty like an Olympian Zeus) in an Ionic temple (the Lincoln Memorial), or bronze statuary of presidents Lincoln and Washington set in separate niches of the National Cathedral’s main entrance, constitute contexts that raise them to a status normally reserved for saints or divinities. Here the pose, size, and setting signify to the viewer the message(s) such media are intended to convey. The contextual association alone is a statement of the values they embody, values our own society—of honesty, courage, sacrifice, virtue, and compassion—hopes collectively to maintain and whose moral basis (given the religious context of these examples) transcends the human and looks to the divine.

Museum and Collection Studies Finally, there is the word ‘museum’ itself. There have been numerous attempts to define the term, and many of these concern the purpose and the function of the museum, which has evolved over time.58 The ancient use of the term obviously derived from the Muses, and there were several locations and structures known (p.22) by the name of Museion. We have reference in antiquity to the Museion in Athens, which appears to have been a sanctuary of the Muses. Pausanias (1.25.8) tells us that it was on a small hill across from the Acropolis (where the modern hill of Philopappus today stands) where Mousaeus used to sing, where he died of oldage, and was buried; nor was this shrine unique. In general it appears that any shrine to the Muses went by the appellation Museion.59 The Library in Alexandria and the community of scholars, poets, and thinkers associated with it borrowed the name from the sanctuary in Athens.60 Although still a matter of uncertainty, Ptolemy Soter I (d. 283 BC) may have been the one to establish the institution, which ultimately included both the Library itself and the Museion, which MacLeod has compared to Plato’s Academy and which functioned as an officially supported scholarly community, as well as a cult centre dedicated to the Muses.61 Strabo gives an extended description of the institution (17.1.8), noting its beauty, size, and the fellowship shared by the scholars who lived there; indeed, the Library and Museion constituted, as Rome itself eventually did, a cosmopolitan world in miniature.62 It was first and foremost, of course, an exclusive institution devoted to learning and the preservation of the Greek literary and intellectual patrimony. Pearce notes that it Page 16 of 33

 

Introduction was by no means a ‘collecting’ institution, and that it is disassociated from the modern museum in this sense, although it bears noting, I believe, that both have in common the preservation of memory.63 Significantly, the complex in Alexandria was named after the Muses, and it is worth remembering that the Muses were the daughters of Mnemosyne, that is, of Memory herself. If one thinks of the Muses and their specific spheres of arts, letters, history, and science (in the broad sense of knowledge as understood in antiquity, as opposed to the modern one of experimentation and theory), all are readily encompassed in the Museion. The association of art, history, science, and (p.23) literature within a single institution, and their emanation from Mnemosyne found its way into Athenaeus’ description of Athens as the Museion of Hellas (5.187d). Athenaeus’ remark could, on the one hand, have in mind the enormous literary and philosophical talent that Athens both produced and attracted. He may also have had in mind its monuments that so impressed Cicero in the De Finibus (see p. 85). Yet there is no reason not to think that he potentially had both meanings in mind—that Athens was a general cultural repository of the ancient world, and one that also preserved the memory of great men. What was to be remembered, and how an individual or an event was to be remembered, however, offered a vast field for negotiation, visual conversation, and contention among the various segments of Roman society. Modern specialists in museum studies naturally have a very different concept of the ‘Museum’, and their approaches to understanding that institution (which will inform our own in part) have ranged in their methodology over time from positivist surveys to highly theoretical analyses that draw on contemporary cultural and sociological studies. Alsop’s work, The Rare Art Traditions, published in 1982, covered a great deal of basic territory, offering a lengthy narrative overview on the history of collecting from the Greek through the early modern period. Foucault’s works, particularly The Archaeology of Knowledge and The Order of Things, have had a significant influence over subsequent museum theorists, elucidating how museums ‘both sustain and construct cultural master narratives that achieve an internal unity by imposing one cultural tendency as the most prominent manifestation of any historical period’, and contextualizing objects in a way that gives them meaning.64 Foucault’s influence is consequently detectable in much of the subsequent scholarship that we find on museum and collection theory. We have already noted Pearce’s work above, a work that is concerned in particular with identity and the collector. Other approaches to ‘museology’ tend to be heavily anthropological, such as the series of essays in Stocking which examines how material objects of one culture are appropriated by another and the implications this has for relations of power, not only between two different cultures, but between diverse elements of the same culture as well.65 Bennett’s 1995 study (The Birth of the Museum) on the other hand is one that examines the museum’s potential for social control and investigates, among other things, the use of classification and ordering of Page 17 of 33

 

Introduction knowledge as a means to refashion social behaviour and to function as a field for competing narratives.66 (p.24) MacDonald, in Theorizing Museums, argues for a more nuanced view. She rejects looking at museums purely ‘as agencies of social control’ or merely as places where ‘the definition and distinction of taste is important’. Rather she argues that they are dynamic institutions that ‘inevitably bear the imprint of social relations beyond their walls and beyond the present’.67 We need to be cautious, she continues, about reading into display conscious manipulation on the part of the exhibitor and excessive passivity on the part of the viewer. MacDonald’s work, as is the case with numerous museum studies, focuses closely on actual contemporary museum praxis, as does the series of essays edited by Sherman and Rogoff (1994). Such studies are intended to address contemporary issues of national, ethnic, and gender identity in the context of displays and their audience(s) in modern museum culture. Most recently, and in a sense quite pertinent to our study, J. Cuno has published a monograph as well as a series of essays concerning the ethics of collecting antiquities, many from the very cultures we will examine here.68 The concerns and interests of contemporary museum specialists—competing narratives, the appropriation of material culture, the social and political dynamics of display and memory—all have a place in the present work which, as noted, straddles the realm of museum and collection studies, art, and cultural history. Among the vast array of studies on Roman art, display, collection, and its significance, none have looked at Rome exclusively and in more comprehensive terms as a museum city, and attempted to interpret it as such. Many studies on ancient Rome however have recognized the existence of the museum as an enticing subject for investigation in the course of exploring related areas, and it is among these that the current examination takes its place. Among the earliest of such studies was Jex-Blake’s commentary (and Seller’s subsequent revision) on Pliny’s chapters on art in ancient Rome which noted the ‘museographical’ nature of Pliny’s work and includes a museographic index, though it is little more than a catalogue and heavily positivistic in its approach.69 K. Lehmann’s (1945) article was a conjectural study based on Martial’s epigrams concerning the possible collection and its arrangement in the Temple of Divus Augustus. It is a subject to which we shall return in chapter seven, but for the moment suffice to note that it was by no means a comprehensive study, and one that offered only a limited (p.25) discussion concerning a single collection. Becatti’s (1950) study on art and taste in antiquity, with its tangential references to conservation and lengthy discussions of viewer reaction to art, arguably falls into the realm of museum theory and collecting (and concentrates heavily on what the literary sources tell us about viewer response), while his study on art in Tiberius’ Rome was quite narrowly focused.70 Von Holst attempted to put collecting in antiquity in its larger context, though the study was one that collected material that tended to be insufficiently documented.71 The study also contains no source Page 18 of 33

 

Introduction criticism and was written without the advantage of any more current critical or social theory. Other studies that touch on this area, such as those by Koch, Pape, and Celani, all tend to focus on a single period, with specific interest in Greek art as opposed to other cultural objects within the city.72 Casson’s (1974) survey of travel in antiquity included a chapter devoted to a brief and general overview of museums in the context of ancient tourism.73 Alsop’s (1982) study cited above also set ancient collection in its much larger context, though it tends to focus on the economics of ancient collecting.74 Rouveret’s (1987) brief study examined those collections mentioned in Pliny and also included a cursory examination of other collections in the city, and stands in the context of a number of other studies, including Beaujeu’s, whose article (1982) asks whether Romans had the concept of the museum through a consideration of the repositories of cultural property (the various temples, porticoes, and fora) and their upkeep. Gualandi’s study (also 1982), similarly focuses almost exclusively on those collections catalogued by Pliny, while Duret’s and Néraudau’s work also examined briefly Rome as a repository for cultural material, focusing in particular on Greek statuary.75 Previously, D. E. Strong’s article on Roman museums addressed, in a very general and brief discussion, the subject of acquisition, maintenance, and display in ancient Rome.76 Isager, in his work on Pliny, has a somewhat more extended discussion (p.26) on art collections in Rome and catalogues the individual venues, but again does not venture into the realm of ideology.77 Similarly, scholars such as Carey and Murphy, as a result of their focus on Pliny and his vast catalogue of art and cultural objects, have arguably been at the forefront of collection studies in their Roman cultural context.78 Much more recent is A. Bounia’s (2004) excellent monograph, The Nature of Classical Collection: Collectors and Collections, 100 BCE–100 CE. It is an extensive and highly theoretical study, valuable in particular for its philosophical and sociological insights, although its focus is not specifically the city of Rome. It is instead a tightly focused study on collecting as addressed in four authors, Pliny the Elder, Martial, Cicero, and Petronius. Bettina Bergmann’s fine but brief (1995) article has a short section that looks at the city as a museum, though she notes that much of the collecting was serendipitous.79 That cultural objects made their way to Rome incidentally and in connection with military conquest, and were in turn intended to advertise the achievements of those who imported such material, led Hölscher to argue against the view of the city as a museum.80 He argued that such material was almost exclusively a matter of transmitting values grounded in Rome’s military culture, an observation that will prove a significant (though by no means the exclusive) focus in our own study. We can now add Margaret Miles’ book, Art as Plunder (2008), which examines the nature of cultural property in antiquity, and includes a close reading of Cicero’s Verrines and the consideration of a select number of collections within the city. Even more recently, Östenberg’s (2009) study noted above (p. 18), has looked at the importation of cultural property and its display in a triumphal context. Yet no Page 19 of 33

 

Introduction study, to date, has made a more comprehensive attempt to assess the vast and diverse array of cultural property that accrued over Rome’s long history, from its foundation until its collapse. Here, however, it is important to append yet another caveat. Although I have situated the work in the context of museum studies, in a sense this is not a study that can be exclusively categorized as one that falls solely under the rubric of collection or museum theory, or, for that matter, of art history, Roman topography, or archaeology. Inevitably, though, elements of all of these areas will prove essential, indeed, inseparable, from our understanding of how certain material was displayed. (p.27) We will draw on all of the above works, although in terms of a theoretical model for the present inquiry we owe an important debt to E. Hooper-Greenhill, whose study Museums and the Shaping of Knowledge (1992) offers a starting point for our own. She notes that two schools of thought emerged about the role of museums in Britain during the late eighteenth and into the nineteenth century concerning specifically their pedagogical potential: the first was that the education the institution of the museum offered would have a civilizing effect, and render an increasingly restive population demanding greater political rights more docile. Quite a different line of thinking believed that the educative powers of the museum would help to enlighten politically and economically marginalized people, resulting in turn in a demand for greater freedoms and equality.81 Beyond their pedagogical function, there was their potential for helping to create a coherent national identity and a sense of shared experience that would link the past and present history of the vast British Empire.82 She cites as a specific example the National Portrait Gallery, Whose specific task in the mid-nineteenth century was to picture the nation, to legitimate its character, and to construct its past. It achieved this, in part, through the depiction of an ‘imagined community’, a community that drew its constituents from the past (those who were to be viewed), and from the present (those who were to be the viewers). The intersections of these imagined and corporeal bodies, juxtaposed through imagined connections between the past and the contemporary, created a new cultural nodal point, one that was constituted through perceptions of the identity of the nation which were deeply cut through with assumptions about class, gender and race.83 Moreover, the emergence of the modern institution also constituted the ‘tangible testimonials to the right to rule’.84 That is to say, it became an instrument of power, ‘the power to name … to create official versions, to represent the social world, and to represent the past’.85 In addition to the establishment and perpetuation of power within their own society, it is also the function of the modern museum ‘to place the peoples of the world in relationships of domination and (p.28) subservience’.86 The museum became a place where the incoherent was put in a strict order, giving a new complexity, context, and interpretation to Page 20 of 33

 

Introduction all manner of cultural and natural objects which maintained two frames of reference: their aesthetic reference on the one hand, and their place as signifiers of a specific mode of life on the other.87 The result of such objects was to maintain and foster a sense of identity that, if we apply the model to the Romans or to any other similar people for that matter, was inextricably related to what we might call their ‘power culture’. The aim (and result) of those displaying such objects was to educate, legitimate, and ultimately to dominate. However, the effort to construct that identity around a diverse array of objects can appear incoherent, contradictory, and patchwork. It is the task of the museum to suppress this disordered state of affairs through the process of collection and the creation of apparently relevant relationships among various artefacts. In this way cultural objects with no apparent connection—Wilt Chamberlin’s shoes and Nancy Reagan’s china, or Cleopatra’s pearl earrings and Apelles’ painting known as the Venus Anadyomenē (Birth of Venus), ‘become involved in the construction of identity and difference’.88 Hooper-Greenhill notes that ‘objects are made meaningful according to how they are placed within relations of significance, and that these relationships depend on who is determining what counts as significant’.89 Although here too, a caveat is necessary, since meaning—significance—is never mono-but polyvalent and shifting. The personal value a viewer attributes to an object or to the relationship of several objects is one thing, collective meaning is another, and both often are completely independent of the original ‘intent’ of the object qua object which has almost always been divorced from its original physical and cultural context. While Hooper-Greenhill applies theories of power and identity to contemporary museums, one could say very much the same—despite clear cultural and historical differences—of the ancient collection(s) found in Rome. Taken in sum, the city as a whole frequently creates, like a museum, what Hooper-Greenhill refers to as a ‘master narrative’, acting as ‘the constructor of a present day “reality”… through bringing into focus a memory of the past that (coincidentally) supports the present’.90 (p.29) In the case of Rome, that master narrative was one that enshrined a coherent national identity and was expressive of Roman power. Such a narrative educated viewers, simultaneously casting into relief the hierarchal nature of Roman power and the right to wield it: the collective result was (in part) the establishment of the right of those in power to maintain legitimate control over the vast majority of Romans who socially, politically, and economically wielded less influence. Among the powerful, material display served as a reminder of one’s res gestae (‘achievements’) and auctoritas (‘authority’) constituting an assertion of power among the elite. The further purpose of such display was to educate the empowered in the Roman school of aspiration, a subject we shall explore at several points in this study. Hence the relationship of the subjugated and the dominant can be read in various objects and monuments found throughout Rome. The ‘official version’ of Roman history and cultural Page 21 of 33

 

Introduction development that supports and asserts that power is built into the very face of the city, even as, occasionally, that version presents the possibility of resistance through alternative readings in the relationship of cultural artefacts one to another. Finally, it merits observing that while that ‘official’ narrative of Rome’s past laid claim to the gods Venus and Mars as the parents of the city (and metaphorically assisted in the acquisition of cultural property through both desire and conquest), Mnemosyne, Memory—the divine mother who ordered all Muses under her wings—was to become the preserver of the city’s history and identity. (p.30) Notes:

(1) On coherence or its absence in contemporary museums see D. Crimp, On the Museum’s Ruins (Cambridge Mass. 1993), 47–8; cf. 50–4, where he bases much of his discussion on M. Foucault, The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences (New York 1970). (2) Concerning which, see S. Sandage, ‘A Marble House Divided: The Lincoln Memorial, the Civil Rights Movement, and the Politics of Memory, 1939–1963’, The Journal of American History, 80 (1993), 135–67. (3) S. M. Pearce, On Collecting. An Investigation into Collecting in the European Tradition (London 1995), 13; cf. J. Deetz, In Small Things Forgotten (New York 1977), 7. (4) For discussion of the controversy see V. Zolberg, ‘Museums as Contested Sites of Remembrance: The Enola Gay Affair’, in S. MacDonald and G. Fyfe (eds.), Theorizing Museums. Representing Identity and Diversity in a Changing World (Cambridge 1996), 69–82; also see T. F. Gieryn, ‘Balancing Acts. Science, Enola Gay, and History Wars at the Smithsonian’, in S. MacDonald (ed.), The Politics of Display: Museums, Science, Culture (London 1998), 197–228. For a good general discussion of how fraught the contemporary commemoration of such traumatic events can be see S. E. Alcock, Archaeologies of the Greek Past: Landscape, Monuments, and Memories (Cambridge 2002), 19–21. (5) See e.g. J. C. Berlo and R. B. Phillips, ‘The Problematics of Collecting and Display, Part 1’, ArtB 77 (1995), 6, who discuss the question of the relationship of power between Native American claims to their own objects as instruments of power set against ‘the imperialist project of inscribing relationships of power’ in the context of official institutionalized display; also see M. MacMillan, Dangerous Games: The Uses and Abuses of History (London 2009), 125–7, for a similar debate concerning the War Museum in Ottawa and its display of the death and destruction the allied bombing visited on Germany in World War II. For a good general discussion over the contentiousness of historical memory and commemoration see R. M. Van Dyke and S. E. Alcock (eds.), Archaeologies of Memory (Oxford 2003), 2. Page 22 of 33

 

Introduction (6) See M. Bal and N. Bryson, ‘Semiotics and Art History’, ArtB 73 (1991), 207, for their theoretical discussion on the attempts to fix meaning; E. HooperGreenhill, Museums and the Shaping of Knowledge (London 1992), 118, who notes the infinity of meanings an object can have, observing that such meaning is historically situated and contingent on historical circumstances. Such a contingent meaning of objects has been discussed in several recent studies by classicists; see e.g. J. Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer. The Transformation of Art from the Pagan to the Christian World (Cambridge 1995), 4, 89; D. Fowler, ‘Even Better than the Real Thing: A Tale of Two Cities’, in J. Elsner (ed.), Art and Text in Roman Culture (Cambridge 1996), 61–2; V. Huet, ‘Stories One Might Tell of Roman Art: Reading Trajan’s Column and the Tiberius Cup’, in J. Elsner (ed.), Art and Text in Roman Culture (Cambridge 1996), 21; P. Stewart, Statues in Roman Society. Representation and Response (Oxford 2003), 14–15. (7) See J. Clifford, The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth Century Ethnography, Literature, and Art (Cambridge Mass. 1988), 234–5. (8) For the construction of social memory and identity in its Hellenic (as opposed to Roman) context see in general Alcock, Archaeologies (n. 4). (9) Hooper-Greenhill, Museums (n. 6), 40. (10) For the modern classification of objects in the context of museum display, with its layer of ‘scientific’ curiosity see e.g. B. Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, ‘Objects of Ethnography’, in I. Karp and S. D. Lavine (eds.), Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display (Washington DC 1991), 386–443; cf. S. MacDonald, ‘Introduction’, in S. MacDonald and G. Fyfe (eds.). Theorizing Museums: Representing Identity and Diversity in a Changing World (Cambridge 1996), 7, on the modern museum as a form of classification. For Pliny’s ‘classification’ of objects see S. Carey, Pliny’s Catalogue of Culture: Art and Empire in the Natural History (Oxford 2003), 26–30. (11) For the modern city (specifically, Istanbul) as a museum see D. Flaming, ‘Making City Histories’, in G. Kavanagh (ed.), Making Histories in Museums (London 1996), 135–6. For the theoretical underpinnings of the city qua text see J. Urry, ‘How Societies Remember the Past’, in S. MacDonald and G. Fyfe (eds.), Theorizing Museums: Representing Identity and Diversity in a Changing World (Cambridge 1996), 50–1. Also see Van Dyke and Alcock, Archaeologies of Memory (n. 5), 5, for the inscription of meaning on place; see too E. Thomas, Monumentality and the Roman Empire. Architecture in the Antonine Age (Oxford 2007), 115. For ancient Rome as a museum city see C. Edwards, ‘Incorporating the Alien: The Art of Conquest’, in C. Edwards and G. Woolf (eds.), Rome the Cosmopolis (Cambridge 2003), 51; cf. C. Edwards, Writing Rome. Textual Approaches to the City (Cambridge 1996), 30, who notes that ‘in the republic, at least, the city itself was Rome’s chief historical text. Topography functioned as a Page 23 of 33

 

Introduction substitute for literary narrative’. For ancient Rome as a text also see M. K. Jaeger, The Poetics of Place: The Augustan Writers and the Urban Landscape of Rome, PhD thesis, University of California (Berkeley 1990); D. Favro, ‘Reading the Augustan City’, in P. J. Holliday (ed.), Narrative and Event in Ancient Art (Cambridge 1993), 230–57 (for a specifically ‘Augustan’ narrative); A. Vasaly, Representation: Images of the World in Ciceronian Oratory (Berkeley 1993). (12) MacDonald, ‘Introduction’ (n. 10), 6. (13) D. J. Sherman and I. Rogoff (eds.), Museum Culture: Histories, Discourses, Spectacles (Minneapolis 1994), xiv. (14) See Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer (n. 6), 1–4, who notes that a variety of ‘different conceptual frameworks’ is what makes viewing meaningful. (15) Hooper-Greenhill, Museums (n. 6), 10. (16) For the value assigned to such terms see Pearce, On Collecting (n. 3), 297; on the value of the copy versus the ‘authentic’ in antiquity see C. Hallett, ‘Emulation versus Replication: Redefining Roman Copying’, JRA 18 (2005), 419– 35. (17) For such distinctions and their embedded prejudices in their modern museological context see C. Duncan, ‘The Art Museum as Ritual’, in J. C. Berlo and R. B. Phillips, ‘The Problematics of Collecting and Display, Part 1’, ArtB 77 (1995), 12: in modern museums until quite recently western collections were considered ‘art’, non-western ‘artefacts’. See J. Elsner, ‘From Pyramids to Pausanias and Piglet: Monuments, Travel, and Writing’, in R. Osborn and S. Goldhill (eds.), Art and Text in Ancient Greek Culture (Cambridge 1994), 224–5, for a discussion of the monument as constituting an artefact as ‘an idea about something which was once (and may still be) an existent artefact but has also acquired a complex ideological resonance’. (18) For the distinction made in contemporary terms see Sherman and Rogoff, Museum Culture (n. 13), xii: ‘art’ is associated with pleasure, ‘artefact’ with instruction. On this distinction in modern museums see L. Jordanova, ‘Objects of Knowledge: A Historical Perspective on Museums’, in P. Vergo (ed.), The New Museology (London 1989), 22–40; cf. J. Clifford, ‘Objects and Selves – an Afterword’, in G. Stocking (ed.), Objects and Others: Essays on Museums and Material Culture. History of Anthropology 3 (Milwaukee 1985), 242. (19) For a good discussion of the construction of social memory through objects and place in general, including a good theoretical discussion, see Alcock, Archaeologies (n.4); Van Dyke and Alcock, Archaeologies of Memory (n. 5), 1–3. (20) See P. J. Holliday, The Origins of Roman Historical Commemoration in the Visual Arts (Cambridge 2002), xxiii. Page 24 of 33

 

Introduction (21) See e.g. J. J. Pollitt, The Ancient View of Greek Art: Criticism, History, and Terminology (New Haven and London 1974); The Impact of Greek Art on Rome’, TAPA 108 (1978), 155–74; E. S. Gruen, Culture and Identity in Republican Rome (Ithaca 1992); K. Galinsky, Augustan Culture. An Interpretive Introduction (Princeton 1996), 332–63; A. Wallace-Hadrill, Rome’s Cultural Revolution (Cambridge 2008), 3–35, for a good general (and theoretical) discussion. (22) Although the authors of those works, as Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer (n. 6), 12 observes, are themselves interpreters and viewers of ancient art; cf. 21 for his discussion on the difficulties in reconstructing a visual experience through text. (23) Such a focus is admittedly quite orthodox as J. Elsner, Roman Eyes. Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text (Princeton 2007), xiv, notes, but he also rightly notes elsewhere, Art and the Roman Viewer (n. 6), 11 that we must privilege viewer response from the centres of power due to the nature of our sources. (24) On Pliny the Elder’s sources see V. Naas, ‘L’art grec dans L’Histoire naturelle de Pline L’Ancien’, Histoire de L’art, 35–6 (1996), esp. 16–19 for those concerning Greek art; cf. Carey, Pliny’s Catalogue of Culture (n. 10), 8–10, for a discussion of the scholarship on Pliny’s sources. For how Pliny wrote his work see A. Locher, ‘The Structure of Pliny the Elder’s Natural History’, in R. French and F. Greenaway (eds.), Science in the Early Roman Empire: Pliny the Elder, His Sources and Influence (London and Sydney 1986), 21–8, esp. 26–7. (25) See W. Coulson, The Reliability of Pliny’s Chapters on Greek and Roman Sculpture’, CW 69 (1976), 361–72, who argues that Pliny was quite familiar with the works of art he recorded and a careful researcher who drew on Greek sources; cf. G. Gualandi, ‘Plinio e il collezionismo d’arte’, in Plinio il Vecchio sotto il profilo storico e letterario. Atti del Convegno di Como 1979 (Como 1982), 259– 98, for Pliny on art collection. (26) For the discussion of which see T. J. Cornell, The Value of the Literary Tradition Concerning Archaic Rome’, in K. A. Raaflaub (ed.), Social Struggles in Archaic Rome: New Perspectives on the Conflict of the Orders (Berkeley 1986), 52–76; cf. Elsner, ‘From Pyramids to Pausanias and Piglet’ (n. 17), 226, who notes that it is not the ‘correct’ history by our standards that was or is important ‘but that it be convincing to the particular group of individuals … for whom it serves as an explanation of the world they inhabit’. (27) ‘Belief’ is the key word here, any error of such belief notwithstanding. See D. Preziosi, ‘Museology and Museography’, ArtB 77 (1995), 13, who notes that the museum is a ‘particular mode of fiction … an indispensable component of statehood and of national and ethnic identity’. Cf. J. Fentress and C. Wickham Social Memory (Oxford and Cambridge Mass. 1992), 24, who note that ‘our knowledge of both the past and present is built on ideas and recollections in the Page 25 of 33

 

Introduction present mind’. The museum (and the past) in a sense, is a fictional form of narrative. On the instability of memory concerning history and artefacts and on their ability to ‘codify’ social meaning see R. Bradley, ‘The Translation of Time’, in R. M. Van Dyke and S. E. Alcock (eds.), Archaeologies of Memory (Oxford 2003) 221–7. (28) See L. Barkan, Transuming Passion: Ganymede and the Erotics of Humanism (Stanford 1991), 17. (29) Pliny, HN 36.23. (30) For the visual as an utterance that communicates in its ancient context see T. Hölscher, The Language of Images in Roman Art (Cambridge 2004), 2, who remarks on the ‘syntactical’ nature of visual communication: ‘how a society may coin a means of visual communication, how this language then reacts upon the society as it uses and develops it, what the overall visual system is able to achieve as a result, which structures of meaning are implied in its syntax and repertoire of motifs. All of these are of real importance for social and cultural history’. (31) See Pearce, On Collecting (n. 3), 8: ‘The impact of structuralist and linguistic thought—particularly in relation to the analysis of human communication through words, myths, the organization of human relationships, and objects— offered ways of understanding the links between these things in the context of the crucial distinction between metonymy and metaphor’; cf. 15, 22. Also see T. Bennett, The Birth of the Museum: History, Theory, Politics (New York 1995), 146–7, for discussion of artefacts as rhetorical objects whose meaning is derived from the series of other signifiers that surround them. (32) See J. Berger, Ways of Seeing (London 1972), 86: the collected object reconfirms the possession of what it is desirable to possess. (33) See A. Appadurai, ‘Introduction: Commodities and the Politics of Value’, in A. Appadurai (ed.), The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective (Cambridge 1986), esp. 38, for the observation that luxury goods in particular serve a ‘rhetorical and social’ function and noting that ‘the necessity to which they respond is fundamentally political’; J. Baudrillard, The System of Objects (London 1996), 73–6 for how objects, esp. antique ones, represent the myth of the origins of the self; also see Bennett, Birth of the Museum (n. 31), 128–30, who remarks the power of the present to communicate with and reconstruct the past in its own image through the deployment of objects. Cf. Clifford, ‘Objects and Selves’ (n. 18), 244, who argues that objects, particularly of an external provenance taken out of their original context, are ‘given value in systems of meaning whose primary function is to confirm … knowledge and taste’; also see C. Geertz, ‘Deep Play: Notes on a Balinese Cockfight’, Daedalus, Winter (1972),

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Introduction 23: objects reduced to the level of ‘sheer appearances’ in fact articulate their meaning more powerfully. (34) Also see Pearce, On Collecting (n. 3), 18: ‘Objects play their own part in perpetuating ideological structures and creating individual natures’, citing H. Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago 1958), 137, who observed that ‘The things of the world have the function of stabilizing human life, and their objectivity lies in the fact that … men, their ever-changing nature notwithstanding, can retrieve their sameness, that is, their identity, by being related to the same chair and same table. In other words, against the subjectivity of men stands the objectivity of the man-made world’. Cf. Pearce, 18: ‘Objects are not inert or passive; they help us to give shape to our identities and purpose to our lives’. (35) For collective identity, see F. E. S. Kaplan (ed.), Museums and the Making of ‘Ourselves’ (London 1994), 2, who notes that in terms of previous societies, ‘collections and displays were intended to unite a populace, to reduce conflict, and to ensure political stability and continuity’. See Bennett, Birth of the Museum (n. 31), 148–9, for the museum as an institution that establishes national identity in the context of a long historical trajectory stretching both into a very obscure origin and ‘into a boundless future’. (36) The bibliography on this subject is ample. For a good discussion see Kaplan, Museums and the Making of ‘Ourselves’ (n. 35), 1–2, who considers how the modern museum arose with the formation of national identities and the emergence of the modern nation-state, and remarks how museums have ‘played important roles in creating national identity and promoting national agendas’. (37) See Pearce, On Collecting, (n. 3), 27: ‘Collections are sets of objects, and … like all other sets of objects, they are an act of the imagination, part corporate and part individual, a metaphor intended to create meanings which help to make individual identity and each individual’s view of the world’. Cf. ibid., 151; see esp. 303: ‘Knowledge is a product of our social and psychological selves, and hence, among other things, of all the efforts to construct individual identity through the accumulation of collections.’ Also see F. Baekeland, ‘Psychological Aspects of Art Collecting’, Psychiatry, 44 (1981), 45–59; Clifford, ‘Objects and Selves’ (n. 18), 237–8; J. Canizzo, ‘How Sweet It Is: Culture Politics in Barbados’, Muse, Winter (1987), 22–7; P. Findlen, Possessing Nature: Museums, Collecting, and Scientific Culture in Early Modern Italy (Berkeley 1994), 298–316; G. Kavanagh, ‘Making Histories, Making Memories’, in G. Kavanagh (ed.), Making Histories in Museums (London 1996), 6. (38) See Edwards, Writing Rome (n. 11), 17: To be at home in Rome was not to be born there (how many Romans could make that boast?). It was rather to be master of Roman knowledge. Without such knowledge, Romans might be Page 27 of 33

 

Introduction thought to imperil their own identity, while, by implication, Roman knowledge could confer romanitas on the foreigner’. (39) Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer (n. 6), 125–55, with particular emphasis on the formulation of religious identity and viewing in Pausanias; cf. J. Elsner and R. Cardinal (eds.), The Culture of Collecting (Cambridge Mass. 1994), 3; on the definition and question of elite Roman identity or identities as culturally defined, see J. Huskinson, ‘Elite Culture and the Identity of Empire’, in J. Huskinson (ed.), Experiencing Rome. Culture, Identity, and Power in the Roman Empire (London 2000), 95–123, esp. 96–7 citing Tacitus’ Agricola as an example of multiple identities consisting of elements that are distinctly Roman, Greek, elite, and provincial; cf. J. Huskinson, ‘Looking for Culture, Identity, and Power’, in J. Huskinson (ed.), Experiencing Rome. Culture, Identity, and Power in the Roman Empire (London 2000), 10, who observes that while gender and ethnicity are essentially fixed parts of human identity, one’s cultural identity is malleable; also see R. Miles, ‘Communicating Culture, Identity, and Power’, in J. Huskinson (ed.), Experiencing Rome. Culture, Identity, and Power in the Roman Empire (London 2000), 34, who argues (drawing on close study of the Philopappos monument) that identity is performative and notes the possibility of multiple identities for the individual in antiquity. See Wallace-Hadrill, Rome’s Cultural Revolution (n. 21), 3–17, both for discussion of the construction of Roman identity and a good theoretical summary of the question of the construction of identity; cf. 23–8 for the ‘dialogue’ particularly between Greek and Roman cultural identity. (40) Fentress and Wickham, Social Memory (n. 27), 7. (41) Ibid.; cf. Urry, ‘How Societies Remember the Past’ (n. 11), 55, for the convergence of memory and visual culture, who notes that one does not necessarily receive ‘artefactual history’ passively, since it involves reminiscence. (42) Concerning the ancient theory of memory however, see in particular F. Yates, The Art of Memory (London 1966), 1–49; cf. J. Farrell, The Phenomenology of Memory in Roman Culture’, CJ 92 (1997), 373–83, for his discussion of memory in ancient Rome; for a related discussion on memory see S. Price, ‘Memory in ancient Greece’, in A. H. Rasmussen and S. W. Rasmussen (eds.), Religion and Society. Rituals, Resources and Identity in the Ancient Graeco-Roman World. The BOMOS-Conferences 2002–2005 (Analecta Romana Instituti Danici, Supplementum 40) (Rome 2008), 165–76. (43) See Vergil, Aeneid 8.312, 355–8; for discussion see Edwards, Writing Rome (n. 11), 11: The use of ruins to evoke a superior past was to recur in many much later meditations on the site of the city’. (44) Ibid., 7–8.

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Introduction (45) See H. Flower, The Art of Forgetting. Disgrace and Oblivion in Roman Political Culture (Chapel Hill 2006), 51–5, esp. 53, for her astute observation that nobilis comes directly from ‘notable’ or well-known; see now WallaceHadrill, Rome’s Cultural Revolution (n. 21), 218–25, for a good discussion of the construction of the identity of a Roman nobilis. (46) Alcock, Archaeologies (n. 4), 24. (47) Clifford, Predicament of Culture (n. 7), 218, cf. 238; also see G. Stocking, Objects and Others: Essays on Museums and Material Culture, History of Anthropology 3 (Madison Wis. 1985), 5, for objects as a display of wealth. (48) Pearce, On Collecting (n. 3), 105; cf. Fentress and Wickham, Social Memory (n. 27), 88: ‘Events can be remembered more easily if they fit into forms of narrative that the social group already has at its disposal … But they tend to be remembered in the first place because of their power to legitimize the present, and tend to be interpreted in ways that very closely parallel (often competing) present conceptions of the world’. (49) Pearce, On Collecting (n. 3), 166. (50) Stocking, Objects and Others (n. 47), 5. (51) T. Murphy, Pliny the Elder’s Natural History: The Empire in the Encyclopedia (Oxford 2004), 14 citing in general Foucault (1970) where Murphy notes that ‘institutional knowledge’, which is what a collective heritage preserves in a sense, creates ‘certain tacit negotiations with their readers, asserting and sustaining their authority, implying or inscribing their proper use and audience’. Cf. Pearce, On Collecting (n. 3), 9–10; also see in general P. Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (Cambridge Mass. 1984). (52) For a good general discussion of the process whereby objects and place legitimate authority see Van Dyke and Alcock, Archaeologies of Memory (n. 5), 3. (53) See Pearce, On Collecting, 304: ‘Values are not “natural” and “revealed”; they are constructed in the interest of specific social groups in order to enhance their dominance but these groups also attempt to conceal this naked aggression by fig-leaves of supposed tenderness, intellectual excitement, and so forth’. Cf. Naas, ‘L’art grec’ (n. 24), 22 for the connection of power and collecting in ancient Rome. (54) Bradley, ‘The Translation of Time’ (n. 27), 225. (55) See Bal and Bryson, ‘Semiotics and Art History’ (n. 6), 175–80 for a good theoretical discussion on the semiotics of context, esp. 175 where they note that context itself can constitute a text and ‘consists of signs that require interpretation’. Cf. Barkan, Transuming Passion (n. 28), 10, who notes that Page 29 of 33

 

Introduction objects from a disjoined culture or tradition find meaning from their own ‘semantic universe’. (56) A. P. Gregory, ‘“Powerful Images”: Responses to Portraits and the Political Uses of Images in Rome’, JRA 7 (1994), 84–5; for a related discussion see Pearce, On Collecting (n. 3), 14. (57) Suet. Aug. 59; Gregory, ‘“Powerful Images”’ (n. 56), 85. The same could be said of larger architectural programmes that constituted the venues for cultural artefacts in general; see S. E. Alcock, ‘The Reconfiguration of Memory in the Eastern Roman Empire’, in S. E. Alcock, T. N. D’Altroy, K. D. Morrison, and C. M. Sinopoli, Empires: Perspectives from Archaeology and History (Cambridge 2001), 334–5; also see Alcock, Archaeologies (n. 4), 54. (58) See Pearce, On Collecting (n. 3), 96–8; for the modern use of the term as referring broadly to a collection of material objects see E. Schulz, ‘Notes on the History of Collecting and Museums’, JHC 2.2 (1990), 211–12. (59) See Varro, De Re Rustica 3.5.9; Pausanias 1.30.2; Diogenes Laertius 5.51; A. Bounia, The Nature of Classical Collecting: Collectors and Collections, 100 BCE– 100 CE (Ashgate 2004), 293 for discussion. (60) See R. Barnes, ‘Cloistered Bookworms in the Chicken-Coop of the Muses: The Ancient Library of Alexandria’, in R. MacLeod (ed.), The Library of Alexandria. Centre of Learning in the Ancient World (London and New York 2000), 61–78 for discussion. (61) See L. Canfora, The Vanished Library. A Wonder of the Ancient World (Berkeley 1987), for his study of the Library that was a part of the Museion; see esp. 100–6 for a discussion of the sources; cf. L. Casson, Libraries in the Ancient World (New Haven 2001), 31–47; for the official management of the Museion and its role as a cult centre see M. El-Abbadi, Life and Fate of the Ancient Library of Alexandria, 2nd edn. (Paris 1992), 86–7; see R. MacLeod, ‘Introduction: Alexandria in History and Myth’, in R. MacLeod (ed.), The Library of Alexandria. Centre of Learning in the Ancient World (London and New York 2000), 1–15 for an excellent discussion of the Library and the separate institution of the Museion; concerning the purpose and function of the Library see H. J. de Vleeschauwer, ‘Afterword: The Museion’, in H. C. Wright, The Oral Antecedents of Greek Librarianship (Provo 1977), 176–80. (62) See in general C. Jacob and F. Polignac (eds.), Alexandria, Third Century BC: The Knowledge of the World in a Single City (Alexandria 2000). (63) See Pearce, On Collecting (n. 3), 98. (64) See Sherman and Rogoff, Museum Culture (n. 13), xi–xii. Page 30 of 33

 

Introduction (65) See Stocking, Objects and Others (n. 47), 5; cf. e.g. A. E. Coombs, ‘Museums and the Formation of National and Cultural Identities’, Oxford Art Journal, 11 (1988), 57–68. (66) See Bennett, Birth of the Museum (n. 31), 1–10. (67) MacDonald, ‘Introduction’ (n. 10), 4–5. (68) J. Cuno, Who Owns Antiquity? Museums and the Battle over Our Ancient Heritage (Princeton 2008); J. Cuno, (ed.), Whose Culture? The Promise of Museums and the Debate over Antiquities (Princeton 2009). (69) For the ‘museological’ nature of Pliny’s work see K. Jex-Blake and E. Sellers, The Elder Pliny’s Chapters on the History of Art (repr. Chicago 1968 and 1977 with prefaces and select bibliographies by Raymond V. Schroder, SJ) (London and New York 1896), xci–xcii; for the ‘museographic’ index see 247–52, for Rome specifically see 249–52; cf. Bounia, Nature of Classical Collecting (n. 59), 182– 207. Jex-Blake and Sellers were preceded by E. Bonaffé’s survey, Les Collectioneurs de l’ancienne Rome. Notes d’un amateur (Paris 1867). (70) See G. Becatti, Arte e gusto negli scrittori latini (Florence 1950), 90–6; ‘Opere d’arte nella Roma di Tiberio’, AC 25–6 (1973–74), 18–53. (71) See N. Von Holst, Creators, Collectors, and Connoisseurs: The Anatomy of Artistic Taste from Antiquity to the Present Day (London 1967), 21–42. (72) See G. F. Koch, Die Kunstaustellung (Berlin 1967), 12–30; M. Pape, Griechische Kunstwerke aus Kriegsbeute und irhe offentliche Aufstellung in Rom (Hamburg 1975), 143–93; A. Celani, Opere d’arte greche nella Roma di Augusto (Naples 1998). (73) L. Casson, Travel in the Ancient World (Toronto 1974), 238–52. (74) See e.g. J. Alsop, The Rare Art Traditions: The History of Art Collecting and its Linked Phenomena Wherever These Have Appeared (New York 1982), 43 for his argument that collecting began with the advent of the Greek pottery market; cf. 99 for discussion of the market for Greek reproductions. (75) See L. Duret and J. P. Néraudau, Urbanisme et métamorphoses de la Rome antique (Paris 1983), 279–93 for Rome’s function as a ‘museum’; cf. 304–16 for the importation of Greek artistic treasures, esp. statuary. (76) D. E. Strong, ‘Roman Museums’, in D. E. Strong (ed.), Archaeological Theory and Practice: Essays Presented to Professor William Francis Grimes (London 1973), 247–64.

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Introduction (77) See e.g. J. Isager, Pliny on Art and Society: The Elder Pliny’s Chapters on the History of Art (London 1991), 159 for the Temple of Concord’s collection. (78) See esp. S. Carey, ‘The Problems of Totality: Collecting Greek Art, Wonders, and Luxury in Pliny the Elder’s Natural History’, JHC 12.1 (2000), 1–13; also see Murphy, Pliny (n. 51). (79) B. Bergmann, ‘Greek Masterpieces and Roman Recreative Fictions’, HSCP 97 (1995), 87–94. (80) T. Hölscher, ‘The Transformation of Victory into Power: From Event to Structure’, in S. Dillon and K. E. Welch (eds.), Representations of War in Ancient Rome (Cambridge 2006), 41–2. (81) Hooper-Greenhill, Museums (n. 6), 27. (82) Also see A. E. Coombs, Reinventing Africa: Museums, Material Culture, and Popular Imagination in Late Victorian and Edwardian England (New Haven 1994), 57, who notes that in Britain a 1902 initiative making museum visits for school children ‘an integral part of their curriculum’ was wedded to what was termed ‘social imperialism’, designed to promote a unified ideology whereby ‘all classes could be comfortably incorporated into a programme of expansionist economic policy in the colonies coupled with the promise of social reforms at home’. (83) Hooper-Greenhill, Museums (n. 6), 28; cf. 31 where she notes that the government desired that the portraits in the National Gallery be of admirable individuals whose deeds were worthy and would promote good conduct. (84) Ibid., 29; cf. 37: ‘By being publicly displayed in the company of leaders and heroes from the past, the immediate predecessors of the national administration were given recognition as appropriate rulers’. (85) Ibid., 19. (86) Ibid., 24. (87) Also see J. Buzard, The Beaten Track: European Tourism, Literature, and the Ways to Culture 1800–1918 (Oxford 1993), 7 for discussion of this dual frame of reference. (88) Hooper-Greenhill, Museums (n. 6), 49. (89) Ibid., 50. (90) Ibid., 25; cf. Bennett, Birth of the Museum (n. 31), 130, who notes ‘the past, as embodied in historic sites and museums, while existing in a frame which

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Introduction separates it from the present, is entirely the product of the present practices which organize and maintain that frame’.

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Collecting and Acquisition

Ancient Rome as a Museum: Power, Identity, and the Culture of Collecting Steven Rutledge

Print publication date: 2012 Print ISBN-13: 9780199573233 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: March 2015 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199573233.001.0001

Collecting and Acquisition Steven H. Rutledge

DOI:10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199573233.003.0002

Abstract and Keywords This chapter examines the progressive importation of cultural material into the city of Rome. It suggests that the means itself, often based on violence or economic muscle, connects such material directly to Roman power by virtue of the methods of acquisition. Evidence suggests that the public display of such material (particularly war spoils) was a distinct good, with a general disapproval of excess acquisition for private use. Part of this impression stems from Cicero's representation of acquisition in his Verrine orations, perhaps the best single literary source for this phenomenon. The chapter shows that the disposal of such material was one that was fraught with all manner of contingencies; acquisition of cultural property could be viewed in different ways at different times, depending on the circumstances. Keywords:   cultural materials, Rome, artefacts, personal identity, Roman power, Cicero

The tusks of the Calydonian boar; Apelles’ paintings of Alexander the Great; Lysippus’ colossal statue of Zeus: how did such material find its way into the city and private collections? And what might this ultimately tell us about Roman values and identity? Acquisition of cultural property—what is acquired and how —says as much perhaps about the owner of an object as it does about the object itself, since what is possessed and how it is acquired is a social act, a product of cultural values and ideology.1 The intersection of a society that was highly organized along military lines but also which, from the third and fourth century BC on, came to increasingly dominate the Hellenized cultures of southern Italy, and eventually the Greek East itself, set up conditions in which the governing elite aspired to possess culturally the society it was gradually dominating. This is Page 1 of 51

 

Collecting and Acquisition not to say that Roman concerns for collecting were purely based on considerations of domination. The masterpieces of the Greek world also held an irresistible aesthetic attraction to the light-fingered Roman governor or ambitious general.2 In addition, cultural property taken from Greece and elsewhere constituted a form of cultural capital for the elite.3 It represented in symbolic terms the military, economic, and religious domination of the ‘Other’, and became an integral part of Roman self-expression. Collection of Greek cultural property is particularly relevant in this regard, since it came to be identified not merely with taste, culture, and sophistication, but was also a clear mark of power and prestige. We will be pursuing this line of thought in subsequent chapters in one form or another. What we would like to explore here is the progressive importation into the city of cultural material. The means itself, often based on violence or economic muscle, in fact connects such material directly to Roman power by virtue (p.32) of the methods of acquisition. The overall impression our sources give is that the public display of such material (particularly war spoils) was a distinct good, with a general disapproval of excess acquisition for private use.4 Part of this impression stems from Cicero’s representation of acquisition in his Verrine orations, perhaps our best single literary source for this phenomenon. However as we shall see, the disposal of such material was one that was fraught with all manner of contingencies; acquisition of cultural property could be viewed in different ways at different times, depending on the circumstances. The material that did find its way into private collections however does offer us an opportunity to survey how personal identity could be expressed and even shaped through the collection of objects, and how ‘attitudes towards the “other” inform perceptions of the “self” ’.5

Cultural Artefacts, Prestige, and Competition The three primary means of acquisition of cultural property in antiquity were conquest, forcible appropriation, or purchase.6 Of these means the former two are the better documented, possibly because they were more glamorous or spectacular. A general who held imperium (‘supreme command’) appears to have had the right to dispose of the property of the vanquished as he saw fit, even if the property was religious or sacred in nature (which much of it undoubtedly was), although some questions remain.7 How much booty went to the (p.33) soldiery? How much to the gods? How was it to be apportioned?8 There was no such freedom, however, for a governor or official who was not conducting military operations, such as Verres who was simply governor of Sicily; in short, there were situational and legal contexts which determined how the disposal of cultural property belonging to others was viewed, although the extent to which any official laws on the books were enforced is open to question.

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Collecting and Acquisition One common thread that exists among those who variously collected or imported cultural property into Rome was the mania for all things Greek. As the premier culture of the Mediterranean in classical antiquity, aspiring to own or possess Greek cultural objects could signify one’s erudition, cultural sophistication, or political and military domination of a society believed more advanced in the areas of art, science, and literature. Despite the objections of such figures as Cato the Elder, it offered the ambitious Roman something to which to aspire.9 In addition, when Roman generals adorned the city with such material it had a number of functions: the display of art works created a collective hegemonic visual discourse throughout the city in which great works of art became a part of the story of Roman conquest and of Rome’s history and, consequently, national identity (considerations that we will explore in greater depth in chapter four). In a society where political prestige was paramount, visual culture played a key role in that competition. Greek cultural artefacts also became something of a political football in Roman circles, in which the presence of Greek art and its use turned contentious. It bears noting that from an early date (the occasionally negative view of foreign importation of art and luxury especially from the East notwithstanding), commanders were always eager to adorn their triumphs, themselves a sort of temporary exhibition, with the spoils of conquered peoples to commemorate their achievements.10 Indeed, such display during a triumph was the highlight of (p.34) a Roman’s career, and establishes a direct connection between the display of cultural material and Roman prestige and power. But Roman domination did not come, to the Romans’ way of thinking, without pietas, something visually expressed in the various dedications in which the power of foreign gods were literally taken and transferred to the city of Rome. One of the most famous and earliest examples we have of this is the importation of the cult image of Juno of Veii, transferred to Rome after the dictator M. Furius Camillus’ victory over Veii in 396 BC. The event serves as a locus classicus for Roman pietas, when famously the ritual of evocatio (a summoning forth of the deity) was used in moving the statue (and the goddess herself) to Rome.11 The Romans, having captured Veii, deconstructed the goddess’ temple and moved her (after having asked Juno’s permission) into the Temple of Juno on the Aventine. Camillus may have had a special affection for Juno, since he also dedicated three golden bowls to her on the Capitoline in the chapel of Jupiter after he defeated the Etruscans at Sutrium in 389 BC.12 The Capitoline was a favourite (and prominent) location for the advertisement of one’s pietas from an early date and was a cult site associated with imperial victory as well.13 The Romans believed it to be Jupiter’s abode even predating the mythical King Evander; by tradition King Tarquin the Proud chose it as the location for the central state cult, and we need to imagine its site and buildings (see fig. 2.1) becoming crowded over time with a profusion of cultural objects. Hence after Camillus, Livy (6.29.8–10) relates that T. Quinctius Cincinnatus, the commander in a campaign against Page 3 of 51

 

Collecting and Acquisition Praeneste (and the eight surrounding towns it controlled) in 379 BC, took a statue of Jupiter Imperator from Praeneste (p.35) and dedicated it on the Capitol between the shrines of Jupiter and Minerva and added the following inscription: luppiter atque divi omnes hoc dederunt ut T. Quinctius dictator oppida novem caperet (‘Jupiter and all the gods granted that Titus Quinctius as dictator captured nine towns’).14 While Livy may well be mistaken in his identification of the statue, which is quite possibly that mentioned by Cicero and dedicated by T. Quinctius Flamininus who triumphed over Philip V of Macedon in 194 BC, the essential point here is the place of dedication, not the dedicator per

Fig. 2.1 The Capitoline, with its temple to Jupiter Optimus Maximus, was the site of the central cult of the Roman state, and, as this model illustrates, gives a sense of an area cluttered with buildings that in antiquity would have been still more cluttered with tatuary, votives, commemoratives, and assorted cultural objects. A model of the Capitoline from the Museo della Civiltà Romana, Rome.

se.15 Whoever dedicated it, that a general would choose to take a Jupiter with the title Imperator, set it up on the Capitoline and commemorate his assistance in his campaign was to the Roman mind an unquestionable act of pietas—it accepted the power of the god as one that helped Rome. Moreover, the statue and its placement directly attributes divine support, thus favour, to the general’s success, something that was to have a long tradition in Roman culture reaching into the empire.16

(p.36) Over a century later M. Fulvius Flaccus similarly imported a new deity after his conquest of Falerii (264 BC); on that occasion it appears the god Vortumnus (or Vertumnus) made his first appearance in Rome, and spoils from the campaign (conducted against the Volsinii) were dedicated in front of the Temple of Mater Matuta.17 If we can trust our sources then, the trend was already in place prior to hostile Roman encounters with the Greeks to their south and east, by which time it was a well-established practice that generals dedicated prestige objects in public venues to immortalize their victories and doubtless add also to their auctoritas. Moreover, the importation of deities or their imagines (‘images’) added to or at least visually asserted Roman domination over her foes from an early date, arguably on a divine scale. Shortly before Fulvius’ victory in 264 BC the city supposedly started to be inundated with Greek cultural artefacts; the trend started, according to our sources, with M. Curius Dentatus’ triumph after the Pyrrhic War (275 BC). Page 4 of 51

 

Collecting and Acquisition Florus (1.13.27) reports that Tarentine luxuries, including gold, purple cloth, statues, and paintings, were seen then for the first time, although one suspects that this is something of a cliché, and that Greek imports and loot of this sort had long since been familiar items. Other sources assert that this trend started with M. Claudius Marcellus, who conquered Syracuse and numerous other Sicilian cities and celebrated an ovatio in 211 BC. He was denied a triumph but celebrated one on the Alban Mount outside the city, after which followed a hefty importation of Greek cultural artefacts.18 Reaction to Marcellus’ importation is somewhat mixed: Miles has noted a variety of factors in accounting for the positive treatment of Marcellus in some of our sources.19 Cicero’s positive portrayal (one of our best sources for Marcellus’ acquisition) stemmed from his desire to chalk up a legal victory in his case against Verres. In order to cast Verres in as negative a light as possible, he dubiously asserted by way of comparison that Marcellus left much material untouched, although more (p.37) importantly perhaps, a descendant of Marcellus was on the jury.20 In Vergil (Aeneid 6.855–59) Marcellus stands alongside Augustus’ nephew (and his descendant) and is duly praised. Polybius (9.10.1–12) appears to be more critical however (though we lack his complete account). While he ostensibly expresses concerns about the effects of the importation of luxury upon the Roman character, as Gruen notes his real concern may have been more pragmatic: the appropriation and display of looted objects could only excite resentment among the conquered and ultimately prove disadvantageous to Roman power.21 Livy notes that Marcellus’ mass importation of art opened the way for the subsequent looting of sacred buildings, and further states that Marcellus’ importation of loot, including paintings and statues, gave impetus to the Roman admiration of Greek art, although his account is rather vague and there may have been no detailed record of the spoils.22 Livy’s somewhat formulaic account (26.21.7–8) also states that a picture of Syracuse’s capture was carried during his ovatio, and that catapults, artillery, and other types of war engines were also displayed, but there was nothing unusual about any of this. From the spoils Marcellus dedicated a sphere, an invention of Archimedes, in the Temple of Honos et Virtus, while he kept a second sphere of apparently inferior make in his home.23 According to Livy, Marcellus’ enemies subsequently put up some Syracusans to deplore Marcellus’ despoliation, and asserted (contrary to Cicero’s later claim) that he left nothing in the city (Livy 26.29–30.11), but the senate protected Marcellus and the Syracusans ultimately begged him to take them under his protection and to be their city’s patron (Livy 26.32). Yet, as Gruen notes, Livy’s entire depiction of Marcellus’ disposal of booty and subsequent complaints against him are likely anachronistic, coloured by the political strife and civil wars of the late republic.24 Plutarch’s depiction of Marcellus’ conquest is equally problematic: he was duly impressed with Marcellus’ adaptation of (p.38) Greek culture and the Greek education he gave to his son.25 On the other hand, Plutarch notes an undercurrent of criticism against Marcellus for his despoliation of sacred objects and his introduction of Greek art and luxury, a Page 5 of 51

 

Collecting and Acquisition criticism that was perhaps driven by Marcellus’ desire to enhance the city’s (and his own) image, as well as to finance the completion of the Temple of Honos et Virtus, which he had vowed after the battle of Clastidium in 222 BC.26 Marcellus’ looting of Syracuse is a prime example that shows how contingent the handling of plunder could be when viewed from a variety of perspectives; Greek sensibilities came into play, as did Roman politics and cultural considerations, in particular Polybius’ concern about the moral impact of luxury, a concern that was by no means confined to Greek authors (see pp. 68–9). Plutarch’s life further indicates that Marcellus was subject to reproach for his excessive despoiling of the city, and was subsequently compared unfavourably to Fabius Maximus who later captured Tarentum (in 209 BC), which he left comparatively unscathed, although as Östenberg points out, Plutarch’s version is dubious, given what Livy and Strabo tell us of Fabius’ plundering of Tarentum’s acropolis.27 When Fabius’ turn came to dispose of the material left in Tarentum, Plutarch more favourably reports that he said, ‘Let us leave their angry gods to the Tarentines’.28 Regardless of the extent of Fabius’ plundering, while among divinities Fabius reportedly ‘only’ took a bronze colossus of Hercules by Lysippus which he set up on the Capitoline, he also placed a bronze equestrian statue of himself next to it.29 The statue may well have been similar to the gilded, largerthan-life statue of Hercules that now is a part of the Capitoline collection (fig. 2.2). For Scipio’s rival there could be no clearer statement: the association of his equestrian statue with Lysippus (the only sculptor allowed to portray Alexander), and with Hercules (the enduring hero who undertook the steep path to virtue), was a stark reminder that Fabius was the real hero of the war and the real conqueror of Hannibal: unus (p.39)

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Collecting and Acquisition (p.40) homo nobis cunctando restituit rem (‘one man, by delaying, restored our state to us’, Ennius, Annales 363, O. Skutsch, ed. (Oxford 1985)). It was a case where a Roman grandee used the artist, the subject, and the work’s various historical associations to make a statement regarding his own achievements.

A similar motive may have been at work when M. Terentius Lucullus (brother of the renowned L. Licinius Lucullus) dedicated a colossal Apollo on the Capitoline from Apollonia, a Greek city he took during his campaigns against the Mysians.30 In the politically competitive atmosphere of the late republic, and in the wake of a public campaign by Pompey to minimize his rival’s achievements, Lucullus may have wanted to remind people of his role in the tumultuous East of the 70s BC. In addition, Lucullus appears to have had a special relationship with the deity as a man of culture and studied luxury, and it will have suited him well.31

Fig. 2.2 A large Hellenistic statue in gilded bronze of Hercules holds the apples of the Hesperides and is possibly based on an original by Lysippus. There were a number of such large statues that Roman generals dedicated on the Capitoline. H: 2.41 m. c. second century BC. Museo del Palazzo dei Conservatori, Rome.

Roman commanders’ acquisition of Greek artistic patrimony continued apace throughout the middle republic: Livy states (32.16) that L. Quinctius Flamininus brought back a good deal of money, but, more importantly, paintings and statues by the old masters after he sacked Eretria in 198 BC. More famously, just under a decade later in 189 BC after the fall of Ambracia, once King Pyrrhus’ royal capital, M. Fulvius Nobilior hauled off a great quantity of statues and paintings to Rome (Livy 38.9), although he was later attacked for his excess devotion to Greek culture. Much of the material, along with a record of his campaign in an epic poem by Ennius, was deposited in the Temple of Hercules Musarum.32 We will discuss the significance of such material in greater detail below (see pp. 222–3). For the moment suffice it to note that Nobilior deployed select material from his triumph Page 7 of 51

 

Collecting and Acquisition as a public statement of power over a foreign enemy, as well as a means of enhancing his political prestige in Rome itself. Throughout the second century BC the importation of Greek objects reportedly increased. C. Lucretius Gallus acquired numerous pictures in his conquest of Greece (Boeotia) in 170 BC, though, foreshadowing Verres, supposedly not entirely by honourable or honest means; and, like Verres, he was prosecuted for allegedly illegal appropriation of cultural property and criticized for his private use of artistic treasures.33 Two decades after Nobilior the renowned conquest by M. Aemilius Paullus of Perseus, the last king of the Antigonid dynasty, saw the importation of some significant cultural artefacts, lavishly (p.41) paraded in his triumph.34 Grand acquisitions also attended Metellus Macedonicus’ and L. Mummius’ conquests in 146 BC. In that year, following his triumph, Q. Metellus Macedonicus surrounded the temples of Jupiter Stator and Juno Regina with a portico, a structure whose sole raison d’être was to show off a haul of twentyfive equestrian statues that Alexander the Great had commissioned from Lysippus commemorating his companions fallen at the battle of the Granicus in 334 BC, no doubt similar to a smaller copy, possibly based on the same group, of Alexander himself, discovered in

Fig. 2.3 This miniature bronze equestrian

Herculaneum (see fig. 2.3).35 The statue of Alexander the Great from narrative structure Metellus Herculaneum was possibly based on one created through the deployment of from the life-sized group Metellus these spoils may have been Macedonicus brought back as spoils from intended to compete with the Greece in 146 BC to adorn his portico. prestige Mummius had garnered H: .50 m. A Roman copy after a Greek with (p.42) his victory at Corinth, whereby Metellus could present original. Museo Archeologico Nazionale, himself, in a sense, as the Naples. conqueror of one of antiquity’s greatest military dynasties (as a successor kingdom to Alexander the Great).

Our sources indicate that Mummius’ conquest and sack of Corinth in 146 BC entailed one of the largest hauls of artistic treasures in Rome’s history.36 They also generally agree that Mummius was generous in his distribution of plunder and scrupulous in his accounting, threatening that if anyone lost a painting or Page 8 of 51

 

Collecting and Acquisition statue it would have to be replaced.37 Livy asserted that, unlike others, he appropriated little for his own personal enjoyment (Periochae 52), and instead gave an exhibition of the spoils after which he took care to distribute them throughout the city for its ornamentation rather than adorning his house; the statues alone reportedly numbered three thousands.38 The quantity may be exaggerated though likely was large by any measure; similarly, the claim of Mummius’ moderation is something of a moot point, since he appears to have exploited the material he took by using it as an instrument of patronage. He was thereby able to use cultural property not merely as an expression but literally as an instrument of political power. Mummius proceeded to use the spoils as a source of revenue to adorn the city. Thus, according to our sources, he sold off all the bronze vessels from the theatre in Corinth and used the proceeds to make a dedication to Luna.39 Indeed, Mummius’ conquest—as was the case with others who sold off spoils for cash—gave him a long reach, with communities in provinces as far away as Spain benefiting from his largess in light of the ample number of imports he could bestow as beneficia (‘favours’).40 Closer to home, the bronze Apollo that adorned the god’s precinct in Pompeii may offer a surviving example of the sort of material (p.43) Mummius distributed, with the words Luci Mummi written on the statue base (fig. 2.4).41 His generosity was reportedly taken advantage of when L. Licinius Lucullus asked Mummius to lend some statues to adorn his newly built Temple of Felicitas (‘Good Fortune’) until its dedication, when he promised their return. The statues included Praxiteles’ group known as the Muses of Thespiae (Thespiades) and a Venus, also by Praxiteles.42 Contrary to his promise however, Lucullus dedicated them to the goddess and did not return them but rather dared Mummius to remove the now sacred property.43 Yet their dedication in Lucullus’ temple actually enhanced Mummius’ renown according to our sources, and harmed Lucullus’ reputation. As Gruen has pointed out, it was a testament to Mummius’ religious scruple and possibly his genuine appreciation of Greek artistic talent that he did not press for the statues’ return after their consecration.44 It was an instance where cultural objects were used as instruments of political rivalry in Rome’s politically agonistic environment, which we shall explore later (pp. 150–6). The lesson our sources such as Livy and Strabo take away from Mummius’ importation and that of other Romans in general is that the public disbursement of cultural artefacts could enhance one’s repute and even political clout in terms of the prestige such material could bring to nobles and their households. The particular use to which it was put also became a means by which Roman identity—one’s liberalitas (‘generosity’), frugalitas (‘thrift’), munificentia (‘munificence’), moderatio (‘temperance’), and the like—could be variously constructed or negotiated, while the artefacts themselves became signifiers of Roman power and dominance over conquered peoples. It should be re-emphasized, however, that there was no unambiguously ‘good’ or ‘bad’ way to handle plunder, but rather it depended on a variety of factors, as Page 9 of 51

 

Collecting and Acquisition the example of Marcellus illustrates. Cato’s apparent concern, for example, about the importation of Greek art, as Gruen has argued, was not so much a matter of hostility to Hellenic culture, but concern for the way consecrated objects were misused to adorn houses and villas.45 Cato’s interest in (his view) the ‘proper’ disposal and use of booty is supported by fragments of orations such as uti praeda in publicum referatur (‘That booty be entered into the public accounts’) and de praeda militibus dividenda (‘On dividing spoils to the soldiery’), both of which attack those who appropriate plunder belonging to the public treasury for private use. It was a similar concern that drove him to testify against M. Acilius (p.44)

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Collecting and Acquisition (p.45) Glabrio in 190 BC, after some loot from Glabrio’s campaign went missing (Livy 37.57.13–14). Cato also aimed his fire at commanders for appropriating objects not captured in war; his speech ne spolia figeretur nisi de hoste capta (‘That spoils not be dedicated unless taken from an enemy captive'), may have similarly attacked commanders who despoiled objects without defeating the enemy.46 The rough and tumble of Roman political life made the use of plunder deeply fraught and contentious, rendering its disposal an occasionally convenient target.

The most renowned example of this is of course Cicero’s prosecution against Verres, in which he attacked Verres’ acquisition of spoils not by right of conquest but by open theft. Cicero also emphasized that Verres saved his loot for private use rather than for adorning the city or putting the material on

Fig. 2.4 A copy of a bronze statue of Apollo (the original now in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Naples) stands on the east side of his temple precinct in Pompeii and gives a sense of how some of Mummius’ loot might have been displayed in situ. Mummius’ haul allowed him to bestow such objects on towns throughout Italy and beyond. Temple of Apollo, Pompeii.

public display.47 By way of comparison, Cicero cites P. Servilius Isauricus as one among the judges in the case who in 74 BC had captured the city of Olympus in Lycia, a place full of works of art, winning spoils through strength, parading them in his triumphal procession, and then carefully entering them into the public accounts in the state treasury.48 Cicero produced Servilius’ accounts at trial and entered them as evidence into the court proceedings; he further notes the accounts’ detailed records, including the number of the statues, their size, form, and condition.49 Given the Roman love of order and measuring it is very likely that this was standard procedure during campaign, when accounts were recorded of the material taken and presented to the state, something that Livy’s (and Plutarch’s) detailed accounts of the displays in a number of triumphs would seem to indicate. In addition, Fabius Maximus’ famous remark about leaving the angry gods at Tarentum to the Tarentines was reportedly elicited by Page 11 of 51

 

Collecting and Acquisition the inquiry of a scriba (‘clerk’) who appears to have been taking inventory of such material (Livy 27.16.8). It is entirely possible that he or his sources may well have had access to records of this sort.50 The pontifices appear to have kept similar inventories, according to Livy, who tells us that they were in charge of determining to which category of art material taken from a city belonged.51 In the course of the principate moreover such cataloguing was to become an important activity overseen by well-placed magistrates (see p. 55). To return to Verres though, his case appears illustrative of the general principle that the disposal of plunder could be highly contentious and attitudes towards its disposal politically motivated. (p.46) Cicero certainly used the chance to prosecute Verres to enhance his reputation, and further political considerations, such as the composition of juries and the place of senators on them were in play as well, as were Cicero’s own political connections in Sicily.52 Verres also had powerful defenders, including Hortensius, and one wonders if the prosecution would have taken place at all were it not for a good dose of Ciceronian ambition. We have already noted Cicero’s representation of Marcellus’ importation of artistic treasures from his Sicilian campaign. He mentions in addition L. Cornelius Scipio Asiaticus who fought in Asia, T. Quinctius Flamininus who fought Philip V of Macedon, M. Aemilius Paullus who conquered Perseus, and L. Mummius who sacked Corinth, remarking that their spoils adorned the city, its temples, and every part of Italy, an assertion plausible enough and corroborated by other sources, while he maintains (less credibly) that their houses were devoid of statues and pictures. Verres’ adornment of the Forum on the other hand, with plunder dishonestly, even violently appropriated from allies, was simply a melancholy spectacle, evidence according to Cicero not of valour but of depravity.53 This was a far cry from the likes of Aemilius Paullus who, when he triumphed over Perseus in 167 BC, allegedly took nothing from the spoils except a silver cup, which he gave to his son-in-law Tubero, and books.54 Such scrupulous behaviour was extolled as exemplary and was a means by which to gauge a man’s moral fibre. When Pompey, for example, came into possession of some of Mithridates’ attire and armaments, a subordinate named Publius stole a sword belt purportedly worth four hundred talents and the king’s tiara, a work of apparently excellent craftsmanship. The two pieces were then handed over secretly by Mithridates’ foster-brother Gaius to Sulla’s son Faustus. Pompey later found the culprit out with the help of Pharnaces and the thefts were duly punished (Plut. Pomp. 42.3). In the literary and historical record, Pompey was noted for his (relative) respect for cultural property. Cicero, in the Pro Lege Manilia (40), praises his integrity during his extraordinary command to end piracy that was then rampant throughout the Mediterranean, noting that he refused even to look at the statues, paintings, and other temptations Greek cities presented to a Roman commander. Later Cicero argues in the same speech (66) that one of Pompey’s qualifications for command in Asia was his abstemiousness, a characteristic of Page 12 of 51

 

Collecting and Acquisition his noted elsewhere in the historical record.55 Thus when Stratonice, one of Mithridates’ concubines, surrendered to Pompey, he refused, according to (p. 47) Plutarch (Pomp. 36.6–7) to accept any of the adornments and goods of the fortresses she possessed, instead receiving only those objects that would adorn his triumph or Rome’s temples. Cicero’s lavish praise will have doubtless been coloured by his interest in alliance with Pompey. It bears noting however, that Pompey appears to have relied, as did Cicero, on Cicero’s friend T. Pomponius Atticus to procure pieces for his private collections rather than simply on plunder.56 His contemporary and predecessor in command, the sybaritic Lucullus, was equally selective while in the East. Upon capturing Sinope, a city adorned with numerous treasures, he respected its patrimony, taking according to Strabo (12.3.11) only a globe by Billarus and a statue of Autolycus (the city’s founder) by Sthennis. Cato the Younger was more thorough in his scouring of Greek cities. In 58 BC, upon Ptolemy’s suicide, he stripped Cyprus of its treasures and carted them off to Rome (the looting presumably included the famous shrines of Zeus and of Aphrodite).57 He reportedly sold all the statues he took except one of Zeno, founder of the Stoic school, a favourite philosopher of Cato’s.58 Despite such appropriation, it appears that Cato (as was similarly the case for Pompey) had a reputation as one who was scrupulous in his accounting for cultural property acquired in battle or during governance of a province. Hence, Plutarch tells us (Cat. Min. 38) that Cato was meticulous in the accounts he kept of despoiled artistic treasures and careful in their transport back to the city, and also notes his distress at the loss of accounting records after his campaign against Ptolemy in Cyprus. In the same passage Plutarch states that he apparently took it as a matter of personal integrity his ability to account for all plundered material; any losses at sea were accounted for and, if possible, recovered by the use of cork floats acting as markers for the valuable wrecks.59 Public officials were apparently required to keep records of this sort, since Cicero indicates that Verres (Verr. 2.4.36) could produce no accounts attesting whether or not statues from Sicily he had given as gifts to friends had been purchased or not. Such records will have been no doubt produced for the senate, will have gone into the public accounts, and been kept on the books. Similar public records existed as well for private purchases, which were generally kept by customs officials who assessed export duty (portorium) on luxury items.60 (p.48) One other means of acquisition that ought not to go without mention is that which could take place through treaty and negotiation. Gruen notes, for example, a ‘revealing clause’ in the pact between the Romans and the Aetolians against Philip V in 212 or 211 BC that gave the Romans ‘free disposal of all moveable booty’, that would include art objects.61 Such ‘legitimate’ acquisition, through war or negotiation, of cultural property and its subsequent public display were the ‘proper’ ways for a Roman of high standing to acquire and use such material. It was with this in mind that Juvenal (8.100–7) could caricature Page 13 of 51

 

Collecting and Acquisition Verres for plundering peaceful allies and for using their loot for private pleasure. Such an attitude at least in terms of the public use of property was one that was quite persistent in Rome, and one that could be exploited from the time of Verres (and likely before) to the time of Nero (and beyond). Privately one suspects that one got away with what one could and only when an individual was politically vulnerable did the private use of cultural property became an issue. Political patronage and the ties one had to the aggrieved parties will have doubtless been determining factors in whether one was prosecuted for ‘illegal’ appropriation or not, as was the case for Cicero, who had developed connections among the Sicilians, resulting (in part) in Verres’ prosecution. Moreover while privately connoisseurship was respected and collecting such treasures among the elite common, publicly it could prove a different matter. One ought not to be too enamoured of such objects, which should be consumed moderately for private use, with the lion’s share reserved for public enjoyment. There is no better example of this than Cicero’s prosecution of Verres, the corrupt governor of Sicily who, rather than gathering loot by right of conquest, simply appropriated it, thereby abusing his authority.62 The difficulty in assessing Verres’ actions, however, is one of distortion: we must look through the prism of Cicero’s rhetoric, though given Verres’ self-imposed exile due to his apparently indefensible position it is reasonable to assume that Cicero’s portrayal is generally a fair if not entirely accurate one. The breadth and scale of Verres’ depredations were astonishing, and started early in his career when he served on the staff of Cn. Cornelius Dolabella in the East. Hence when at Tenedos, contrary to the wishes of its citizens, he carried off a particularly fine piece of statuary on display in the comitium, while he also deprived Chios, Erythrae, and Halicarnassus of particularly fine works (Verr. 2.1.49), though Aspendus, which Cicero says contained much fine statuary, suffered particular insult (Verr. 2.1.53), with both public and (p.49) private shrines relieved of their art treasures. Worst of all, he appropriated ‘even that famous citharode of Aspendus’ (etiam illum Aspendium citharistam), an apparent cultural icon to which the proverb ‘all the music was inside him’ was attached. As Dolabella’s legate Verres even violated Apollo’s sanctuary and birthplace on Delos by looting it of its ancient statuary (Verr. 2.1.46). His tenure as governor in Sicily gives us an added window into the rough and tumble process by which the illegal acquisition of cultural property could take place. During his governorship he hired two brothers onto his staff from Cibyra, Tlepolemus and Hiero, one a modeller in wax, the other a painter; they were sent to scout out particularly fine pieces, Verres believing no doubt that as artists they would have connoisseurs’ eyes for loot.63 Armed with his agents, Verres undertook a devastating programme of pillaging the island of its cultural treasures. In Syracuse Verres took a statue of Paean and of Aristeus from the Temple of Liber, and a statue of Jupiter Imperator from its temple; the last of these was particularly egregious, if Cicero’s claim that it ranked among the top Page 14 of 51

 

Collecting and Acquisition three statues of Jupiter in the world is credible.64 He also removed from Syracuse for his own use a series of paintings in Minerva’s temple that depicted a cavalry engagement of King Agathocles.65 In addition to looting towns of artistic treasures wholesale, Verres had a practised nose for sniffing out fine pieces in private collections as well. Consequently, Verres simply appropriated some quality bosses from Phylarchus of Centauripa that had once belonged to King Hieron (Verr. 2.4.29). In this instance it was not necessarily the artistic workmanship that gave the pieces their value, but rather the history of the artefact. The incident constitutes an act of meta-collecting, in which a previous owner or collector, by reason of his or her repute, adds to or actually generates the work’s value.66 Yet another private collector to suffer at the hands of Verres was Pamphilus of Lilybaeum, who owned a jug made by Boëthius, a large and lovely work according to Cicero (Verr. 2.4.32). Indeed, Cicero asserts that in the end no statue, painting, or image remained in the province (Verr. 2.4.1–2). Moreover Verres’ predations were not purely a matter of robbery. There were times when at least a pretense was made of a legal purchase, though in Verres’ case this was laughable at best. Hence Cicero (p.50) produced in court the account books for purchase from a prominent and wealthy provincial named Heius (Verr. 2.4.12–14): Cicero introduced these accounts into evidence and ridiculed them, since Verres had bought pieces by Praxiteles, Polyclitus, and Myron for a very small sum through intimidation. Ultimately, Cicero makes this whole affair a matter of sacrilege on the grounds that Verres had plundered statues consecrated in Heius’ family chapel.67 It was the impious nature of Verres’ appropriations that Cicero found so easy to exploit, and he compared Verres’ actions to Mummius’ in Greece, contrasting somewhat dubiously Mummius’ respect for consecrated statues with Verres’ greed (Verr. 2.4.4). Verres, though, may have been more interested in objects that could convert into hard cash than material with any historical significance. Thus, nearly two hundred years later, Plutarch (Nic. 28.5) could recount seeing the shield of Nicias, the Athenian commander who had come to grief in Sicily in 413 BC, still hanging in one of Syracuse’s temples as a victory trophy. During the principate there was less opportunity for such pillaging (with some notable exceptions), and areas that were conquered, at least after the Augustan settlement, such as Britain or Dacia, will not have offered the trove of artistic or cultural treasures as did the East. Augustus himself reportedly brought the treasure of the Ptolemies back from Egypt in his Alexandrian triumph, including no doubt artefacts that were similar to the Farnese Cup, a refined objet d’art of the sort that we can imagine subsequently found its way onto the Roman art market (see fig. 2.5). Augustus, however, likely sold much of the treasure off, since Suetonius (Aug. 41.1; cf. 71.1) says that a great deal of cash passed into private hands after his triumph. He reportedly melted down the gold and kept only a myrrhine cup. According to Strabo (14.2.19), Augustus was equally Page 15 of 51

 

Collecting and Acquisition moderate when he appropriated a portrait of Antigonus by Apelles from the Coans whose famed temple to Aesculapius contained a number of famous votive offerings, including Apelles’ painting of Aphrodite Anadyomenē (‘Aphrodite Rising from the Sea’). In return, Augustus gave the Coans a remission of 100 talents. The East in particular appears always to have been a place of temptation. The future emperor Tiberius, for one, while in self-imposed exile on Rhodes, compelled the Parians to sell him a renowned statue of Vesta.68 Tiberius’ successor, Caligula, was—not surprisingly—substantially less moderate. His tastes tended towards the more grandiose, as apparent in his appropriation of Alexander the Great’s breastplate, which he had stolen from his tomb, if we can believe (p.51) Suetonius (Calig. 52).69 Caligula also undertook to relocate the statue of Olympian Zeus to Rome, but while it was being dismantled for transport it reportedly gave out a mighty laugh, causing the scaffolding to collapse and the workmen to flee in terror.70 In a somewhat different version, Josephus says that one of the chief engineers in charge of the project reported to Memmius Regulus, who was given the task of transporting the statue, that it would be ruined if moved. (p.52) Regulus was only saved from execution for his delay by Caligula’s death. More generally, Josephus says that Caligula relieved Greek temples of their paintings, sculptures, and dedications ‘since it was not right that beautiful objects remain elsewhere than in the most beautiful place’ (i.e., Rome) and that he adorned his palace, gardens, and residences in Italy with his plunder.71

Fig. 2.5 The Farnese Cup, a sardonyx cameo, is a Greek original from the third or second century BC, and very likely an example of the sort of thing that entered the art market after Augustus defeated Cleopatra in 30 BC and appropriated the treasures of the Ptolemies. H: .20 m. Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples.

This was no light matter. During the empire certain cities in the Greek East will have been points of pilgrimage and tourist destinations. Their cultural heritage may have been a partial factor in the vitality of local economies and, more importantly, a source of civic pride: Cicero (Verr. 2.4.4), for example, Page 16 of 51

 

Collecting and Acquisition states that the only reason to visit Thespiae was to see Praxiteles’ Eros. Oracles, athletic complexes, temples—their collections were not easily relinquished. Consequently, Sicyon, one of the most famous artistic centres in antiquity, found it quite painful when forced to sell off its public collection of paintings to Rome in 56 BC in order to pay off public debts.72 Similarly, when Pergamum was threatened with appropriation of its patrimony and one of Nero’s freedmen was sent to strip the city of its paintings and statues, it resisted mightily (and in this case, successfully).73 Yet cities in the Greek East suffered heavily during the reign of Nero, who relieved Greece and Asia of their artistic treasures in the wake of the great fire in Rome in AD 64, but whose activities also extended to malicious and intentional destruction, such as casting all the statuary of famous athletes and victors at the sites of the great games (such as Olympia) into latrines.74

The Restoration of Cultural Property The appropriation of cultural material in Roman provinces was not as wholesale or unqualified as one might suppose. Our sources for what we would call the modern concept of ‘cultural property’ and its restitution are admittedly jejune, and, of course, such a schema is in and of itself anachronistic. There was, to be sure, no concept of cultural property and legal claim to material in the modern sense.75 Nonetheless, there is indication that there was social and political capital (p.53) to be made if one restored works of artistic or historical significance, although a legally binding mechanism for return was absent. Cicero’s discussion of Scipio Aemilianus’ restoration of cultural property to the Sicilians from the Carthaginians in the Verrines, despite their highly polemical nature, likely reflects a genuine socio-cultural phenomenon and is supported in other sources.76 In the course of the Verrines Cicero noted that individual Greek city states were loathe to part willingly with their artistic treasures (2.4.133), and that to do so caused enormous distress (2.4.135). In general, it appears that once an official had pillaged a province, whether by war or theft, there was little recourse for the provincials, and this was also true in Verres’ case.77 The situation is best summed up by Juvenal’s bitter remarks concerning the prosecution of the corrupt governor of Africa, Marius Priscus, in AD 100 (1.48– 50): ‘What does infamy matter with one’s cash safe?/ Marius drinks in exile from the eighth hour of the day and enjoys his angry gods,/ but you, a province victorious in your case, weep’ (quid enim salvis infamia nummis?/ exul ab octava Marius bibit et fruitur dis/ iratis, at tu victrix provincia ploras).78 Nonetheless, the Romans did have a notion that cultural property, if possible, should be restored to its rightful owner—provided it suited their purposes. The activities of Scipio Aemilianus after the Third Punic War are perhaps our best example of one who undertook to return cultural artefacts to their proper place.79 Plutarch reports that when Scipio took Carthage he proclaimed that those contingents from Sicily who wanted could lay claim to the plunder the Carthaginians had previously taken and repatriate it. He also ordered a general Page 17 of 51

 

Collecting and Acquisition search of the plunder from Carthage for items captured in the past from the Sicilians for the purpose of restoration; treasures were subsequently returned to the people of (p.54) Thermae, Gela, and Agrigentum, the last of which received back Phalaris’ notorious brazen bull.80 According to Cicero (Verr. 2.2.86–7), some communities particularly benefited, the citizens of Himera among them. After the destruction of their community, Himera’s citizens had settled nearby at Thermae. Scipio returned to them as much property as he could find: this consisted of several bronze statues, including one considered exceptional; a woman who represented Himera itself (both the town and the nearby river); a statue of the poet Stesichorus (a native of Himera); and a statue ‘of great charm’ of a she goat. Scipio’s restoration of the Himerans’ treasures was commemorated through inscription, though that did not deter Verres from later appropriating them, much to the anguish of some who considered these pieces as memorials of ancient victories, of friendships and alliances, and of illustrious benefactors.81 Verres, in short, literally stole Himera’s history, a history Scipio had previously ‘restored’ and of which he had become very much a part. Scipio also showed his magnanimity towards Segesta as well. During the wars, the Carthaginians had taken a bronze image of Diana (of exceptional workmanship) which Scipio subsequently restored, again something noted in inscription.82 Cicero could cite further examples of Scipio’s munificent and magnanimous restorations, including a beautiful statue of Mercury at Tyndaris (Verr. 2.4.84), a bronze Apollo by Myron (with the artist’s signature on the statue’s thigh) restored to Agrigentum’s temple of Aesculapius (Verr. 2.4.93), and finally, near Engyion, Scipio reportedly rededicated breastplates and helmets of Corinthian chased bronze and large chased bronze water pots in a temple of the Magna Mater (Verr. 2.4.97). All of these artefacts Verres eventually took, and the shame of his actions was doubtless magnified in comparison with Scipio’s previously generous restorations, restorations that will have redounded much to his credit, something he doubtless appreciated.83 His generosity could also have been motivated by his desire to win clients among the Sicilians through a public show of beneficence. Cicero tells us, for example (Verr. 2.4.82), that the Segestans’ image of Diana was no longer a mere sacred object, but a memorial of Scipio’s moderatio. Elsewhere Cicero remarks that the hapless inhabitants naïvely trusted that artefacts standing as memorials to Scipio’s generosity would protect them from the rapacious Verres (2.4.84–5). Yet while, as (p.55) Cicero states, Scipio may have been concerned about public aesthetics, the beautification of Sicily’s cities, and the enjoyment of public ornament by future generations, such concerns conveniently supported political considerations as well.84 Fides (‘good faith’) in the form of political loyalty and support was the frequent remuneration of such beneficia. It also, of course, stood as a testament to one’s pietas.

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Collecting and Acquisition We have further indication that restoration of cultural property was a concern beyond just Scipio’s restoration. Mummius, for example, saw to it that after the conquest of Corinth the statues of Philopoemen were respected in deference to Greek opinion.85 In addition, Strabo tells us that the Heraeum near the Imbrasus River in Asia was a great shrine and repository for votive tablets. The temple was open to the sky and contained a number of fine works, including three colossal statues of Athena, Hercules, and Zeus, all by Myron and standing on one base. Marc Antony during his tenure in the East appropriated them, but Augustus returned the Athena and Hercules, though he transferred the Zeus to the Capitoline and erected a small chapel for it.86 Pausanias tells us that Antony’s grandson, Caligula, took Praxiteles’ Eros of Thespiae (the same one mentioned by Cicero in the Verrines), though Claudius subsequently repatriated it, only for Nero to take it again.87 Claudius apparently took care to restore to various cities those statues Caligula had looted (Cass. Dio 60.6.8). Tacitus also remarks that in the wake of Nero’s predations the emperor Galba created a commission which included Tacitus’ father-in-law Agricola, to account for temple treasures plundered by Nero.88 It has been conjectured that Vespasian’s censorship similarly included taking an inventory of art works that Nero had taken from various temples.89 Whether it was merely for treasures (p.56) taken from temples in Rome or extended to Greek cities Tacitus does not say, and whether any restoration actually took place is doubtful, since much of the material adorned Vespasian’s new forum.90 The above constitute the main instances of restoration attested in the literary record until the Byzantine period when some of the sacred treasures of the Jewish Temple captured by Titus were repatriated back to Jerusalem under Justinian.91

Private Collecting The sale and trade in cultural property, as opposed to its appropriation through conquest, was yet another means by which the Roman elite acquired cultural artefacts and was a part of Roman life that many centuries later was romantically depicted in the paintings of Alma-Tadema, who imagined a highly civilized Victorian milieu in which the collection of art took place in, among other of his works, A Roman Amateur (fig. 2.6). The present discussion will limit itself to what the literary sources tell us, although a separate comprehensive study of personal collecting based largely on physical evidence would doubtless yield rewarding results.92 Motives for such collecting were contingent on a number of circumstances, and varied not merely from individual to individual; it also depended on the use to which one intended to put collected objects. By the late republic collecting had become a fine art in and of itself. We know that Lucullus had a collection at his villa in Tusculum, as did Hortensius.93 Verres, if we can trust Cicero (and given the rhetorical context of his account (p.57)

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Collecting and Acquisition we should be somewhat wary), had a zeal (studium) for collecting which morphed into disease, madness (amentia), and fury (furor).94 Yet Verres’ interest may have been more than just a passing one, since it has recently been suggested that Verres himself may have been an art dealer.95

(p.58) Other less well-known men were equally avid collectors. C. Avianius Evander was a famous connoisseur of his day.96 The Damasippus in one of Horace’s satires (2.3.16) may be identical with the collector Damasippus of Cicero’s letters.97 Verres himself when he pillaged Sthenius of Thermae’s collection had apparently happened on a notable collector with a trained

Fig. 2.6 Lawrence Alma-Tadema’s A Roman Amateur (1870), set Roman collectors in a distinctly Victorian milieu and is just one of several examples of Tadema’s imaginative depictions of how Roman art lovers would sometimes make their purchases and consume works of art. Oil on wood panel, 29 × 39 1/2 inches. Photo by John R. Glembin and courtesy of the Milwaukee Art Museum and the Layton Art Collection. Gift of the following: Layton Art Gallery Trustees, plus Layton funds, between 1892–96: George Dickens, Frederick Layton, William Plankinton, B. K. Miller, Samuel Marshall, J. H. Van Dyke. L149.

eye.98 As a young man, Sthenius had travelled throughout Asia collecting fine statues and paintings, as well as goodquality silver and Corinthian bronze. Varro too collected fine art, and throughout his works he displays an interest in the subject in general. We know from Pliny (HN 36.41) that he possessed a very fine statue by Arcesilaus, the same artist who executed Venus Genetrix’s cult statue in Caesar’s forum (see p. 227). The work was a lioness with winged cupids sporting on her and all done from a single piece of stone. Edwards has noted that the collections amassed by republican notables such as Lucullus were intended to align themselves culturally with the Hellenistic kings they had conquered and proposes that this ‘un-Roman’ aspect of collecting may have led to Agrippa’s suggestion to Augustus concerning making private art collections public.99 Agrippa’s remark in addition appears to support Thompson’s contention, who noted that such collections constituted ‘museums’ Page 20 of 51

 

Collecting and Acquisition in their own right.100 The observation is still more apt when we consider that Vitruvius advises men of standing to furnish their homes with a room functioning as a pinacotheca (‘picture gallery’).101 Such rooms would bear a resemblance to those in houses at Herculaneum, Pompeii, and elsewhere, such as we find, for example, in the House of the Vettii’s cubiculum in Pompeii (see fig. 2.7). Moreover, as Leach has pointed out, collectors built separate (p.59) rooms or even buildings for prized art works, as did Hortensius, who built an aedes on his Tusculan estate for a painting of the Argonauts (Pliny, HN 35.130).102

Among Roman collectors in this period, Cicero stands out due largely to the survival of several letters (Att. 1.1, 3–11, but especially 6–9 dated to 67 BC) that shed light on his tastes and the priorities of one collecting for private purposes.103 The term private, however, needs some brief clarification, since the context of Cicero’s display(s) arguably skirted the realm of both the public and the private. (p.60) Stambaugh has

Fig. 2.7 These frescoed walls from the noted that the position of the House of the Vettii in Pompeii contain Roman house from street, to scenes depicting the infant Hercules and door, fauces (‘entrance way’), the death of Pentheus, and are an atrium (the main entrance hall), example of how Roman panel painting tablinum (functioning as a could be rendered in a wealthy Roman bedroom or study), and finally house to create the effect of a to garden or portico marked ‘a pinacotheca. House of the Vettii, Pompeii. progression from public to private space’ and that ‘the tendency to keep the door open gave a certain public access deep into the house’.104 The observation of such progression was already made by Vitruvius in his discussion of the ‘private’ and ‘public’ aspects of the Roman house (6.5.1).105 An indication of the ‘public’ nature of such ‘private’ space, as Leen notes, is that its very architecture is ‘public’ in style, imitating gymnasia, palaestra (‘exercise grounds’), libraries, or public gardens.106 The two spheres of public and private had their own demands, although the two could and did occasionally overlap.107

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Collecting and Acquisition Cicero’s letters are almost exclusively concerned with outfitting his villa at Tusculum with statuary, and he asks his contact in Athens, Atticus (Att. 1.6), to keep an eye out for material suitable for his villa’s lecture hall. Atticus responds (Att. 1.8) that he had seen some Hermae (herms, i.e. bust statuary of Hermes or other deities) of Pentelic marble with bronze heads. Cicero asks Atticus to send them and also informs Atticus of his purchase of some statues from Megara from L. Cincius for 20,400 sesterces.108 We later learn (Att. 1.9) that Cicero is eagerly awaiting the statues’ delivery (the ‘Megarian’ ones, as well as the Hermae), and asks Atticus to send along anything else he thinks suitable for his ‘Academy’ (i.e. his lecture hall) and to ‘trust his purse’.109 It was not until the next year in 66 BC that the statues arrived at Caieta upon which Cicero paid for the shipment (Att. 1.10). Such shipment was a hazardous business, as the Mahdia wreck (along with numerous others throughout the Mediterranean) indicates; the wreck, discovered off the coast (p.61) of Tunisia in 1907, also attests to a robust art market in Rome, since it was carrying a shipment of finely sculpted columns and various relief carvings from Athens and Attica of the very sort that Cicero or someone of his ilk would have used.110 Unfortunately, Cicero does not tell us what he paid for the herms and whatever else was shipped, but he thanks Atticus for procuring the statuary at a good price. In the meantime, Atticus found some choice pieces and informed Cicero, who was still looking to decorate his lecture hall and palaestrum in Tusculum. Cicero asks Atticus to send along ‘my statues and my Hercules herms and anything else you might find’; he also asks him to ‘please get me some basreliefs which I can install in the stucco of my small entrance hall and two puteals with figures’. In a letter dating from the same year (Att. 1.4), Cicero appears to have acquired a Hermathena for his Academy. He was apparently well pleased with it, noting the subject’s appropriateness for the location, and he asks for more such pieces.111 He also, conversely, specifically rejects other works whose subject he felt inappropriate to the function of the room, including some statues of Bacchants, presumably such as the intriguing fragment of one (after Scopas) now in Dresden (fig. 2.8).112 In the same letter he tells Atticus that he has yet to see the pieces he sent him earlier since they were at his house at Formiae, though he expresses his intention to take them to Tusculum, and to decorate his house at Caieta whenever he has a surplus. It would be incautious to attribute motives for collecting to others based on Cicero’s own ideas or preferences concerning particular objects; however, to a limited extent, we can reconstruct the significance of such collecting for Cicero. To Cicero’s way of thinking, collecting objects of a high cultural value (that were predominately Greek) provided a means to exhibit one’s humanitas (‘humanity’).113 Such objects served as social signifiers to indicate the function of a particular space within the house, and as Vitruvius noted should be appropriate to a given space.114 One would therefore expect a herm of Hercules Page 22 of 51

 

Collecting and Acquisition (who reflected athletic prowess) in the palaestrum, an example of which we find (p.62) (p.63)

Fig. 2.8 This fine fragment of a sculpted Maenad, a Roman copy after an original by Scopas (fourth century BC), was a subject Cicero deemed decidedly inappropriate for a place of contemplation and study, such as his Academy in his villa at Tusculum. H: .45 m. Skulturensammlung, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden.

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Collecting and Acquisition from the villa in Oplontis (fig. 2.9), or a Hermathena to finish off his Academy (Cic. Att. 1.9)—it was only fitting. Yet this ought not to be pressed too far. Even if it is convention, the very choice a collector makes constitutes an assertion of his or her own identity, and Cicero appears quite sincere when he states that he intends these objects to function as the visible signs of his humanitas, something integral to Cicero’s (or, arguably, any Roman’s) prestige and (p.64) influence.115 Indeed, in the De Officiis (1.138–9), Cicero noted that one of the central functions of the house was to express a man’s identity and his power:

There is a use to which the proper disposition of building must be accommodated, yet nevertheless attentiveness to suitability and dignity (commoditatis dignitatisque) must be employed … for dignity must be ornamented by the house, not sought entirely by the house, nor ought the master to be honoured

Fig. 2.9 This herm of Hercules, a Roman copy possibly based on a Greek original after Lysippus, was something Cicero and Romans in general viewed as suitable for a gymnasium or palaestra, athletics reflecting the toil of the hero’s labours. Museo Archeologico, Oplontis.

by the house but the house by the

116

master.

As though to underscore the nexus between identity and collecting, Cicero even propounded a theory of aesthetics based on utilitas (‘usefulness’) and decorum (‘decorousness’).117 The idea of the well-rounded statesman-orator, a category under which Cicero would surely include himself, was that he was to be both learned and in fine physical shape, a notion Cicero emphasizes in his rhetorical treatises.118 Imagines such as the Hercules and the Athena will have given this identity visible expression; it is an instance where Greek material culture helped to formulate a distinctly Roman idea expressed in such works as the De Oratore where a man is to be both cultured and politically active. Cicero appears to have constructed for himself a Greek world that supported both his public image as a statesman, and, one suspects, his own private self-image as a man of taste and learning.119 It bears noting, furthermore, that the simple act of knowing how to

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Collecting and Acquisition properly deploy or use such cultural commodities constituted in and of itself a form of intellectual identity.120 During the empire we know of a number of notable collectors or individuals who owned prestigious cultural artefacts. Pliny’s acquaintance, Domitius Tullus, (p. 65) had so many fine objets d’art that he was able to outfit a newly purchased villa and large garden with antique statues he had bought, stored away, and forgotten.121 Pliny the Younger s friend Vestricius Spurinna had a taste for Corinthian bronze dinnerware, something increasingly rare in Pliny s day, though Pliny notes that Spurinna himself was not particularly passionate about collecting.122 Yet for Pliny the use of Corinthian ware distinguished Spurinna as a man of taste, and such dinnerware doubtless added to family prestige and reinforced individual status. Although silver was often favoured, the demand for Corinthian ware was already sufficiently vigorous in Caesar s day for such material to disappear once it hit the market. Strabo (8.6.23) states that when Caesars colonists at Corinth accidentally found some bronzes and terracottas in an ancient cemetery there, the material went out on the art market and collectors instantly gobbled it up. Novius Vindex, a contemporary of Pliny’s, appears to have been a well-known collector as well, and was the proud owner of a statuette of ‘Hercules Seated at a Table’ (Hercules Epitrapezios), a work of Lysippus, and praised by both Statius and Martial, an imitation of which may survive in several copies, including one now in the Archaeological Museum in Naples (see fig. 2.10).123 Pliny himself was also fortunate enough to come into the possession of a fine Corinthian bronze with an antique look about it (3.6.3); he calls it a handsome and finished work which he intended to keep not for himself, but to dedicate in the Temple of Jupiter at Comum as a public beneficium.124 Stewart has noted of this letter that it allows (p.66)

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Collecting and Acquisition Pliny ‘to display the skills of a connoisseur while disclaiming them, and portrays himself as a public benefactor while still engaging in art collection and selfadvertisement’.125 It stands as an example where Pliny uses an object to reaffirm simultaneously his liberalitas, pietas, and his status as an elite benefactor.

(p.67) Pliny’s uncle was familiar with a number of private collections or collectors, not merely of art works, but of other precious cultural objects. He states, therefore, that he himself had seen documents of Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus owned by Pomponius Secundus, written nearly two hundred years before; these appear to Fig. 2.10 A Roman copy in bronze of have been remarkable, though Hercules Epitrapezios (‘Hercules seated he states that autograph copies at a table’) after a popular original by of letters by Augustus, Cicero, Lysippus, may give us a sense of the one and Vergil were common place owned by Martial’s friend Novius Vindex. (HN 13.83). While some of H: .75 m. Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Augustus’ correspondence will Naples. have constituted state documents, many of his letters, along with Cicero’s and Vergil’s, will have been in the hands of private collectors. The desire to possess books or letters of historical and cultural importance was nothing new, as Sulla’s seizure of the library of Apellicon the Teian attests (Plut. Sull. 26.1–2). The library contained most of the works of Theophrastus and Aristotle; Sulla transferred it to Rome and it later passed to Tyrannion the Grammarian and was subsequently ‘published’ by Andronicus the Rhodian.126 Manuscripts had already proved a valuable item in Aemilius Paullus’ day as noted, and Lucullus also acquired a fine collection during his campaigns in the East.127 Such material attested to the collector’s learning, as well as to his sense of history and devotion to high culture. Items previously owned by celebrated figures also caught collectors’ eyes: Pliny (without mentioning its current owner), notes that in his day there still existed a citrus wood table once owned by Cicero for which he paid (even a century before) 500,000 sesterces, while the nefarious Sejanus owned a statue of Page 26 of 51

 

Collecting and Acquisition Fortuna of great antiquity, a work that apparently was a source of great pride for the praefect.128 The price of Cicero’s table was outrageous, but it was that very price that sometimes gave an object, paradoxically, its value. Such was the case when Gegania paid 50,000 sesterces for a candelabrum of Corinthian bronze.129 A similar situation may have held for two pictures Agrippa purchased from the Cyzicans (an Ajax and an Aphrodite) for which he paid 1.2 million sesterces.130 Indeed, as is the case today, the price served to make an object worthy of possession (though Pliny criticized Agrippa for paying so high a price), and there are a number of other instances of exorbitant prices paid for such works.131 Naturally, collectors who could afford it also commissioned works (p.68) from well-known artists, such as Arcesilaus, one of Lucullus’ intimates, whose clay models (proplasmata) sold for more than the finished works of his fellow artists.132 Price, artist, history, previous owners, all could impart value to a particular object which, owing to its expense, its rarity, or its origins could be converted into a piece of cultural capital for its owner, with Greek cultural artefacts taking pride of place.133 Such objects in turn confirmed the power of the owner as a member of the elite and the values of his own class, reaffirming the importance of the movers and shakers who dominated the narrative of the historical past for Roman collectors. They simultaneously also reaffirmed the value of wealth and consumption by virtue of their power to collect. The desire to possess ‘old’ objects in particular looks back to the auctoritas that history or genius was thought to convey in antiquity; an object’s age itself could become a signifier of its importance and give an object an intrinsic value which translated into social clout for the owner. Pliny the Elder noted, however, that connoisseurs had to take care lest they be charged with excess pretension (HN 34.6), a sentiment echoed in Martial (9.59) when he derided the snobbery of a certain Mamurra, whom Martial represents as having impoverished himself by his extravagant tastes, even turning his nose up at a Polyclitus. Such connoisseurship was for Pliny closely tied to status, with the aspirant to high culture trying to distance himself from the man in the street although possessing no more real knowledge than the hoi polloi. Pliny’s criticism of pretension though had already been anticipated in satirical form in Petronius’ Satyricon, when the hapless nouveau riche pretender Trimalchio muddled the history of Corinthian bronze.134 Our sources generally indicate that there was a social dynamic concerning how one collected: as in the republic, private collecting ultimately used for public benefit was publicly applauded, and the collecting of fine objects to show off to one’s friends at dinner or during visits to one another’s villas was to be expected. When used however to exceed one’s social status or create, as it were, a false identity for oneself, then collecting turned to the detriment of the individual. Similarly, excess luxury was frequently, indeed, famously suspected in our sources and castigated; such representation is echoed, in part, by historical narratives such as those of Sallust or Tacitus who tend to employ primitive social Page 27 of 51

 

Collecting and Acquisition (p.69) analysis in looking to historical causality. When our historical sources scrutinize the challenges Rome faced in the late republic, they are inclined to look at the situation in moral terms, and thus view as socially debilitating for Roman political life and society at large the importation of luxury goods by M. Marcellus, Aemilius Paullus, L. Mummius, and L. Sulla after their victories in the East.135 Yet such consumption remained a vital part of life even for those most inclined to lament it, as the vast possessions of Sallust and the holdings of both Pliny the Elder and Younger throughout Italy attest.136 Indeed, as A. WallaceHadrill has noted, consumption, luxury, and its attendant regulation was a means by which social order (and, presumably, identity) was formed.137 Beyond the social dynamics of collecting, there were also the legal dynamics through which legislation attempted to regulate consumption. In particular, the numerous sumptuary laws from Cato the Elder to the emperor Tiberius and beyond will have regulated the flow of consumption, though how effectively is open to question. The Zeitgeist may have been as much at play in determining the nature and patterns of consumption as any legislation on the books. Tacitus for one noted the ebb and flow of the consumption of luxury goods throughout the principate and praised the frugalitas (‘thrift’) of his times in comparison to the luxus (‘luxury’) that flourished under the Julio-Claudians.138 The censor no doubt from time to time could act as a brake on conspicuous consumption, as Cicero indicates occurred in 50 BC, when App. Claudius Pulcher as censor was giving art collectors a hard time (Fam. 8.16.4). The concern to regulate luxury goods will have been a matter, in part, of the regulation of social equilibrium with a view to maintaining a balance of power throughout the elite, attempting to create a parity of consumption as it were, especially during the republic.139 In the principate this will have become less of an issue in some respects. The resources of the emperor allowed for the display of enormous public collections (see chapter seven). But the emperors themselves were avid private collectors of art works and historical artefacts just as were their republican forebears. Julius Caesar, for one, was known to have an eye for gems, carvings, and statues of the old (p.70) masters.140 He had desired his collection be given over for public enjoyment upon his death, but Antony appropriated it, much to Cicero’s indignation, for his own private pleasure.141 Augustus’ private collection was an eclectic array of artistic, historic, and natural objects that he kept in his house in Rome and his villa on Capri. He was the owner of Apelles’ Lineum (‘The Line’) a finely executed line that Apelles, according to Pliny the Elder, had left as a calling card for his contemporary and rival Protogenes (and part of its value doubtless derived from its history).142 His tastes included curiosities as well as masterworks of art. Thus, at his villa on Capri, he reportedly ‘collected the bones of large animals’, possibly the fossilized remains of extinct mammals and dinosaurs, as well as the arms of ancient heroes.143 It is worth noting that neither Julius Caesar nor Augustus appear simply to have appropriated art for their collections, but offered recompense (although Augustus did come in for Page 28 of 51

 

Collecting and Acquisition criticism for his excessive zeal for collecting Corinthian bronze, a proclivity he shared with Nero).144 The 100-talent reimbursement by Augustus to the Coans has already been noted, while Caesar also purchased from Timomachus of Byzantium two paintings, one of Ajax, the other of Medea, for eighty talents, though these were eventually put on public display. Tiberius’ collection similarly inclined towards the Hellenistic, but also towards the erotic. Hence, the famous anecdote about the painting in his bed chamber on Capri by Parrhasius depicting Atalanta performing fellatio on Meleager, a picture Tiberius so valued that he refused an offer of 10,000 gold pieces for it.145 (p.71) In addition, he possessed a collection of erotic manuscripts— presumably Greek—from Elephantis (Suet. Tib. 43.2). That Suetonius mentions this in his construction of Tiberius qua tyrant also furnishes us with a notion of what a ‘subversive’ collection might contain, offering a commentary on the ‘norms’ of what was considered ‘proper collecting.146 Such a view is reinforced, arguably, by Pliny the Elder’s diatribe against erotic subjects found on silver cups of the sort discovered in Pompeii and Boscoreale (see fig. 2.11).147 More tastefully (at least to Pliny’s mindset), Tiberius also owned some fine Hellenistic baroque statuary groups, including Odysseus and his companions blinding Polyphemus as well as Scylla attacking Odysseus and his companions; these elaborate and violent compositions adorned the emperor’s grotto-turned-diningroom at Sperlonga and were well-suited to Tiberius’ interests in mythology (see fig. 2.12–13).148 On the whole, everything points in Tiberius to a selective refinement of taste for the Hellenistic.149 Tiberius’ collection, in addition to erotica, included a painted portrait of an archigallus by Parrhasius for which Pliny says he paid the enormous sum of six million sesterces (HN 35.70), and Lysippus’ Apoxyomenos, temporarily taken from the Baths of Agrippa and replaced with a copy (see fig. 2.14). Popular outcry was such however, that Tiberius was forced to return it.150 Tiberius in fact offers us one of the best windows into the connection between personal identity and the (p.72)

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Collecting and Acquisition link with objets d’art: as scholars have noted, Tiberius was among the most avid of philhellene emperors. He was fluent in Greek, collected precious Greek manuscripts, had Greek amici, and spent more time in the Greek world than any other of the early emperors.151 Collecting Greek artefacts is very much in keeping with his interests in all things Greek, and created a court resembling more that of a Hellenistic tyrant than a civilis princeps (i.e., an emperor who at least pretended (p.73) to be merely a first among equals rather than the true lord and master that he really was).152

Fig. 2.11 The Warren Cup depicts a scene of homoeroticism. Such an explicitly erotic subject, here chased in fine silver, could offend the sensibilities of some Romans, as Pliny’s indignation indicates. Mid-first century AD. H: 11 cm. Diam.: 9.9 cm. The British Museum, London.

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Collecting and Acquisition The question of public accessibility to imperial collections is not an easy one, and will be considered in greater detail in chapter eight. Beyond a doubt the public would not have had access to the Parrhasius in Tiberius’ villa. Though it is likely the art works collected during Nero’s ransacking of Greece in ad 67, with a view to furnishing his Domus Aurea, would have been

Fig. 2.12 A sculpted marble group depicting Scylla’s attack on Odysseus and his men graced Tiberius’ grotto-turneddining room at Sperlonga and was particularly suited to the emperor’s tastes. It was part of a much larger composition detailing episodes from the adventures of Odysseus. First century BC-first quarter of the first century AD. Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Sperlonga.

accessible to the public at least to a limited degree.153 The case may have been similar on the Palatine, where (p.74) access seems to have been limited, though the imperial court was something of a liminal area, occupying a middle ground between the public and private spheres. Certainly someone such as Pliny the Elder, who moved in the highest circles, had access to a part of the Palatine during the imperial salutatio and other occasions as well. Consequently, it may be the result of first hand experience, rather than access to imperial inventories, that he can tell us (relatively speaking) a good deal about the status of the imperial collection in Titus’ day and gives a list of artists whose works in marble filled the palace (HN 36.38): Craterus, Polydeuces, Hermolaus, Pythodorus, Artemon, and Aphrodisius of Tralles were all represented. The crème de la crème, however, was the Laocoön (HN 36.37) ‘a work to (p.75)

Fig. 2.13 This detail from the Scylla group draws particular attention to the sculpture’s graphic violence, itself reflective of the harsh political climate of Tiberius’ court. Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Sperlonga.

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Collecting and Acquisition (p.76)

Fig. 2.14 Lysippus’ Apoxyomenos was sufficiently popular to survive in numerous copies. Tiberius’ removal of it from Agrippa’s baths for his own private enjoyment caused a public outcry and forced its return. A Roman copy after an original by Lysippus (fourth century bc). H: 2.05 m. Museo Pio Clemente, Musei Vaticani.

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Collecting and Acquisition be preferred to all those both in the art of painting and of sculpture’, opus omnibus et picturae et statuariae artis praeferendum, and the work of three artists, Hagesander, Polydorus, and Athenodorus of Rhodes, a famous copy of which now survives in the Vatican Museum (see fig. 2.15).154 Under the Flavians too, some of the material taken in the sack of Jerusalem (allegedly for the sake of safe-keeping) was kept on the Palatine, such as the elaborately wrought curtains from the (p.77) Temple (see p. 280 for discussion). Vespasian’s one vice was purportedly avarice, while his son Domitian was despised for the introverted and private nature of

Fig. 2.15 Famously recounted in Vergil’s

his regime.155 The combination of Aeneid, the well-known Laocoon, much the two possibly had the result of praised by Pliny, represents the death of increasing the value and quantity the Trojan priest and his sons. The of culturally precious material sculpture was one of the jewels in the kept in the more private, less crown of the imperial collection on the accessible setting of the Palatine Palatine. H: 1.84 m. A first century AD and proved so unpopular copy of a Hellenistic bronze from the politically that Trajan, who followed Domitian, could court second century BC. Cortile del Belvedere, popular support by his Museo Pio Clemente, Musei Vaticani. transference of the imperial collection of jewels (accrued probably under both the Julio-Claudians and Flavians) to public property, dedicating them along with other valuable artworks to Jupiter Capitolinus, a display of public munificence celebrated by Martial.156 It was one of the many ways in which cultural property came into play as a part of the narrative that was but one aspect of political competition in Roman antiquity. (p.78) Notes:

(1) See A. Appadurai, ‘Commodities and the Politics of Value’, in A. Appadurai (ed.), The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective (Cambridge 1986), 31 for collecting as an activity that ‘is eminently social, relational, and active’. (2) Something that was also true for earlier eastern potentates, see M. Miles, Art as Plunder. The Ancient Origins of Debate about Cultural Property (Cambridge 2008), 16–28. Page 33 of 51

 

Collecting and Acquisition (3) For artistic material as ‘symbolic capital’ see R. L. Gordon, ‘The Real and the Imaginary: Production and Religion in the Graeco-Roman World’, in R. L. Gordon (ed.), Image and Value in the Graeco-Roman World: Studies in Mithraism and Religious Art (Brookfield Vt. 1996), 22–3. (4) See e.g. D. E. Strong, ‘Roman Museums’, in D. E. Strong (ed.), Archaeological Theory and Practice: Essays Presented to Professor William Francis Grimes (London 1973), 248, who notes that materials were taken by right of conquest, and that Cato was indignant that private houses were filled with the images of gods. For two good discussions on attitudes governing the acquisition of Greek art see E. S. Gruen, Culture and Identity in Republican Rome (Ithaca 1992), 232– 71; T. Hölscher, ‘Hellenistische Kunst und römische Aristokratie’, in G. Hellenkemper Salies (ed.), Das Wrack. Der Antike Schiffsfund von Mahdia (Cologne 1994), 875–88. (5) See E. Hooper-Greenhill, Museums and the Shaping of Knowledge (London 1992), 9; cf. J. Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer. The Transformation of Art from the Pagan to the Christian World (Cambridge 1995), 21, who notes the ‘reflexivity’ of art in which the object also constructs the viewer and the viewer the object. (6) For a general narrative on the importation of artistic material into Rome and its nature see G. Becatti, Arte e gusto negli scrittori Latini (Florence 1950), 1–31. The studies that discuss this question are numerous. For importation through conquest see H. Galsterer, ‘Kunstraub und Kunsthandel im republikanischen Rom’, in G. Hellenkemper Salies (ed.), Das Wrack. Der Antike Schiffsfund von Mahdia (Cologne 1994), 857–66; S. Carey, The Problems of Totality: Collecting Greek Art, Wonders, and Luxury in Pliny the Elder’s Natural History’, JHC 12.1 (2000), 1–13; Miles, Art as Plunder (n. 2), 44–59. (7) On the sacred nature of much of what Romans looted see J. Rüpke, Religion of the Romans. Translated and edited by R. Gordon (Cambridge and Malden Mass. 2007), 57–8; I. Östenberg, Staging the World: Spoils, Captives, and Representation in the Roman Triumphal Procession (Oxford 2009), 82–6, who notes the term simulacrum which predominately applies to sacred cult statues is rarely applied to plundered images of the gods, with the term signum preferred instead. (8) All of this is a matter of continuing scholarly controversy; see I. Shatzman, ‘The Roman General’s Authority Over Booty’, Historia, 21 (1972), 177–205; A. Ziolkowski, ‘Urbs direpta or How the Romans Sacked Cities’, in J. Rich and G. Shipley (eds.), War and Society in the Roman World (London 1993), 69–91; J. B. Churchill, ‘Ex qua quod vellent facerent: Roman Magistrates’ Authority over Praeda and Manubiae’, TAPA 129 (1999), 85–116; Östenberg, Staging the World (n. 7), 61–8. Page 34 of 51

 

Collecting and Acquisition (9) For Cato’s complex attitude towards Hellenism see Gruen, Culture and Identity (n. 4), 52–83, 110–13; cf. J. J. Pollitt, ‘The Impact of Greek Art on Rome’, TAPA 108 (1978), 158–60. (10) For the negative perspective on imports see Sallust, Bellum Catilinae 11; Livy 34.3–4, 39.6.7–9; Velleius Paterculus 1.13.5; Plut. Marc. 21; cf. Pliny, Panegyricus 55; for discussion see A. Wallace-Hadrill, Rome’s Cultural Revolution (Cambridge 2008), 315–19; cf. 356–8 on how importation through triumphs influenced fashion. On the triumph’s origins see E. Gjerstad, ‘The origins of the Roman republic’, in Les origines de la République romaine, Fondation Hardt, Entretiens 13 (Geneva 1967), 3–43; H. S. Versnel, Triumphus: An Inquiry into the Origin, Development, and Meaning of the Roman Triumph (Leiden 1970); J. Scheid, ‘Le flamine de Jupiter, les Vestales, et le général triomphant’, in C. Malamud and J.-P. Vernant (eds.), Corps de dieux, Le temps de la réflexion 7 (Paris 1986), 213–30; E. Künzl, Der römische Triumph. Siegesfeiern im antiken Rom (Munich 1988); M. Beard, The Roman Triumph (Cambridge Mass. 2007), who challenges numerous assumptions concerning this institution; for visual representations of triumphs see Östenberg, Staging the World (n. 7); for the triumph as a commemorative ceremony constituting a form of ‘social remembering’, see P. Connerton, How Societies Remember (Cambridge 1989), 41–71. (11) For Juno of Veii’s evocatio see Livy 5.21.1–4, 5.22.3–8; Lactantius, Divinae institutiones 2.7.11; cf. 2.16.11; for her temple (which is not to be confused with the one in the Portico of Octavia) see LTUR 3.125–6. The bibliography on this episode and on evocatio in general is extensive; see e.g. Y. Basanoff, Evocatio: étude d’un rituel militaire romain (Paris 1947); G. Dumézil, Archaic Roman Religion, 2 vols. (Chicago 1970), 424–7; P. Bruun, ‘Evocatio deorum: some notes on the Romanization of Etruria’, in H. Biezais (ed.), The Myth of the State; based on papers read at the Symposium on the Myth of the State held at Åbo, 68 of September 1971, Scripti Institituti Donneriani Aboensis 6 (Stockholm 1972), 109–20; J. Le Gall, ‘Evocatio’, in Mélanges J. Huergon, L’Italie préromaine et la Rome républicaine. Mélanges offerts à Jaques Huergon, Collection de L’Ecole Française de Rome (Rome 1976), 519–24; J. Rüpke, Domi militiaeque: Die religiöse Konstruktion des Krieges in Rom (Stuttgart 1990), 162–4; A. Blomart, ‘Die evocatio und der Transfer « fremder » Götter von der Peripherie nach Rom’, in H. Cancik und J. Rüpke (eds.), in Römische Reichsreligion und Provinzialreligion (Tübingen 1997), 99–111; M. Beard, J. North, and S. Price, Religions of Rome, Volume 1: A History (Cambridge 1998), 34–5; G. Gustafsson, Evocatio deorum: Historical and Mythical Interpretations of Ritualized Conquests in the Expansion of Ancient Rome. Acta universitatis Upsaliensis, Historia Religionum, 16 (Uppsala 2000); for the sacking of Veii see Miles, Art as Plunder (n. 2), 45–52.

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Collecting and Acquisition (12) Livy 6.4.2; for discussion see S. P. Oakley, A Commentary on Livy Books VI–X (Oxford 1997), 422–3. (13) See J. R. Fears, ‘The Cult of Jupiter and Roman Imperial Ideology’, ANRW 2.17.1 (1981), 3–141. (14) For discussion see Oakley, Livy Books VI–X (n. 12), 622–3; Östenberg, Staging the World (n. 7), 79. (15) See Cic. Verr. 2.4.128–31; Östenberg, Staging the World (n.7), 83–4, esp. 84 n. 410; the constant reassembling and cleaning up of material made such errors not uncommon, see p. 303–4. (16) Including e.g. Augustus’ attribution of his victory at Actium to Apollo, see p. 237. (17) See Varro, De Lingua Latina 5.46; Festus 228L; the Fasti Triumphales for 264; for the Temple of Mater Matuta in general see LTUR 2.281–5; for the importation by Fulvius of 2000 statues from the Volsinii see Pliny, HN 34.34; for the introduction of Vortumnus see Propertius 4.2.1–4; for discussion see M. C. J. Putnam, ‘The Shrine of Vortumnus’, AJA 71 (1967), 177–9; see M. Torelli, ‘Il donario di M. Fulvio nell’area di S. Ombono’, Studi di topographia romana, 5 (1968), 71–5 for discussion of the statue bases related to Fulvius’campaign; also see Gruen, Culture and Identity (n. 4), 89, who believes the number of statues inflated; Galsterer, ‘Kunstraub und Kunsthandel’ (n. 6), 858; Hölscher, ‘Hellenistische Kunst’ (n. 4), 877; M. McDonnell,‘Roman Aesthetics and the Spoils of Syracuse’, in S. Dillon and K. E. Welch (eds.), Representations of War in Ancient Rome (Cambridge 2006), 72–5; Miles, Art as Plunder (n. 2), 211. For a similarly impressive importation see Livy 39.5.14 for the 785 bronze statues and 230 marble statues carried in M. Fulvius Nobilior’s triumph over Ambracia in 189 BC. (18) For a good discussion of the politically contentious nature of Marcellus’ triumph see M. R. Pelikan Pittenger, Contested Triumphs. Politics, Pageantry, and Performance in Livy’s Republican Rome (Berkeley 2008), 150–9. (19) Miles, Art as Plunder (n. 2), 63. (20) For Cicero’s representation of Marcellus in the Verrines see Gruen, Culture and Identity (n. 4), 96; Miles, Art as Plunder (n. 2), 63–5; for a general discussion of Cicero’s prosecution see F. H. Cowles, Gaius Verres: A Historical Study. Cornell Studies in Classical Philology, 20 (Ithaca 1917). (21) Gruen, Culture and Identity (n. 4), 97–8; also see in general Wallace-Hadrill, Rome’s Cultural Revolution (n. 10), 338.

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Collecting and Acquisition (22) Livy 25.40.1–3, probably following Polybius’ account which is fragmentary; see Gruen, Culture and Identity (n. 4), 94–101; McDonnell, ‘Spoils of Syracuse’ (n. 17), 68–90; Miles, Art as Plunder (n. 2), 64. (23) Cic. Rep. 1.21–2; for a description see Cic. Nat. D. 2.88; cf. Ov. Fast. 6.277– 80. For Marcellus’ adornment of the Temple of Honos et Virtus see Gruen, Culture and Identity (n. 4), 101; cf. 241–2 where Gruen notes that Marcellus reserved material taken from private homes for private distribution, and from public buildings for public use, citing Polybius 9.10.13; cf. Miles, Art as Plunder (n. 2), 64. For a history of the temple see M. Jaeger, Livy’s Written Rome (Ann Arbor 1997), 125 with n. 45; also see A. Ziolkowski, The Temples of MidRepublican Rome and their Historical and Topographical Context (Rome 1992), 58–60; in general see LTUR 3.31–3; for the cults to the various abstract virtues in Rome and their place in Roman religious culture see H. Mattingly, ‘The Roman virtues’, Harvard Theological Review, 30 (1937), 103–17; J. R. Fears ‘The Cult of the Virtues and Roman Imperial Ideology’, ANRW 2.17.2 (1981), 827–948. (24) Gruen, Culture and Identity (n. 4), 98. (25) See C. Pelling, ‘Plutarch: Roman Heroes and Greek Culture’, in M. Griffin and J. Barnes (eds.), Philosophia Togata. Essays on Philosophy and Roman Society (Oxford 1989), 199–208; S. C. R. Swain, ‘Hellenic Culture and the Roman Heroes of Plutarch’, in B. Scardigli (ed.), Essays on Plutarch’s Lives (Oxford 1995), 229–64. (26) For Marcellus’ critics see Plut. Marc. 21.2–5; for the temple’s construction see Livy 27.25.7, 29.11.13; Val. Max. 1.1.8; Plut. Marc. 28.1; see Gruen, Culture and Identity (n. 4), 95, 99–100 for discussion. (27) For Marcellus see Plut. Marc. 21; for Fabius’ more thorough despoiling of Tarentum see Strabo 6.3.1; Livy 27.16.7, who compares Fabius’ looting to Marcellus’ at Syracuse; on the sack of Tarentum see C. Brauer Jr., Taras. Its History and Coinage (New York 1986), 190–5; Östenberg, Staging the World (n. 7), 87. (28) Fab. 22.6; Marc. 21. (29) Strabo 6.3.1; Pliny, HN 34.40; Plut. Fab. 22.6. Pliny and Strabo indicate that Lysippus’ works were relatively abundant in Tarentum. For discussion of Fabius’ importation of this statue and his use of it to settle scores with rivals, see Gruen, Culture and Identity (n. 4), 101–2; cf. P. Gros, ‘Les statues de Syracuse et les ‘dieux’ de Tarente’, RÉL 57 (1979), 85–114; Galsterer, ‘Kunstraub und Kunsthandel’ (n. 6), 859; for its dedication on the Capitoline and subsequent move to Constantinople see S. Bassett, The Urban Image of Late Antique Constantinople (Cambridge 2004), 152–4; Miles, Art as Plunder (n. 2), 69.

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Collecting and Acquisition (30) Augustus possibly moved the statue to the Palatine; executed by Calamides the Elder between 480 and 460 BC, its height was thirty cubits; see Pliny, HN 34.39; cf. Strabo 7.6.1; App. Ill. 30. (31) See Plut. Luc. 41.5. (32) For Fulvius’ conquest of Ambracia and the importation of artwork see Polybius 21.30.9; Livy 38.43.5, 39.4; Pliny, HN 35.66; cf. Polybius 9.10; Macrobius, Saturnalia 1.12.16; for discussion see Gruen, Culture and Identity (n. 4), 107–10; Galsterer, ‘Kunstraub und Kunsthandel’ (n. 6), 859; D. Kinney, ‘Spolia, Damnatio, and Renovatio Memoriae’, MAAR 42 (1997), 120–1; Beard, The Roman Triumph (n. 10), 43, 254, 264; Miles, Art as Plunder (n. 2), 69–70; for a general history of the temple see LTUR 3.17–19. (33) Livy 43.4.7; cf. Cic. Verr. 2.1.55, 2.2.4, 2.4.120–1. (34) See Livy 45.40; Pliny, HN 34.64–5; Plut. Aem. 32–4; see Gruen, Culture and Identity (n. 4), 115–17; Beard, The Roman Triumph (n. 10), 116–17, 137–8, 150– 1; Miles, Art as Plunder (n. 2), 71–2. (35) Velleius Paterculus 1.11.3–5; cf. Plut. Alex. 16.7–8; see pp. 257–9 for the portico’s construction. (36) For discussion of Mummius’ conquest and its significance see Gruen, Culture and Identity (n. 4), 123–30; Galsterer, ‘Kunstraub und Kunsthandel’ (n. 6), 859– 60; N. Purcell, ‘On the Sacking of Carthage and Corinth’, in D. Innes, H. Hine, and C. Pelling (eds.), Ethics and Rhetoric. Classical Essays for Donald Russell on his Seventy-Fifth Birthday (Oxford 1995), 133–48; K. W. Arafat, Pausanias’ Greece. Ancient Artists and Roman Rulers (Cambridge 1996), 92–7; Miles, Art as Plunder (n. 2), 73–6. (37) Velleius Paterculus 1.13.4–5; Strabo 8.6.23 says the plunder included Aristides’ Dionysus, which he calls a kalliston ergon; cf. Pliny, HN 35.24 who dubiously relates that King Attalus II of Pergamum bought it for 600,000 denarii, a price that motivated Mummius to appropriate it and take it to Rome for exhibition in the Temple of Ceres; for discussion see Gruen, Culture and Identity (n. 4), 125. The painting perished in a fire in 31 BC. (38) For the number see Pliny, HN 34.36; cf. Cic. Orat. 232 who says Paullus and Mummius filled Rome and Italy with art; Livy, Periochae 52 who mentions marbles, bronzes, and paintings; also see Polybius 39.6; Cic. Off. 2.76; CIL I. 2.626–32. Mummius’ famous importation became virtually proverbial; see e.g. Cic.Mur. 31; Vergil, Aeneid 6.836–7; Horace, Epistulae 2.1.192–3; Petronius, Satyricon 50. On the large scale production of Greek bronzes of the sort Mummius imported to Rome see C. C. Mattusch, Classical Bronzes: The Art and Craft of Greek and Roman Statuary (Ithaca 1996), 1–34; cf. Purcell, ‘Sacking of Page 38 of 51

 

Collecting and Acquisition Carthage and Corinth’ (n. 36), 137 for Mummius’ victory as one over things; see 143 for Mummius’ abstemiousness. (39) Vitruvius 5.5.8. (40) CIL I.2.626–32. As was the case for L. Stertinius in 196 BC, Livy 33.27.3–4; see Gruen, Culture and Identity (n. 4), 104; in general see L. Yarrow, ‘Lucius Mummius and the Spoils of Corinth’, SCI 25 (2006), 57–70. (41) See Wallace-Hadrill, Rome’s Cultural Revolution (n. 10), 131–3 for discussion; since statues and bases could be frequently switched, we should not assume that the bronze statue in the illustration discovered in Pompeii actually came from Mummius’ spoils, although it is quite possible. (42) Cic. Verr. 2.4.4; Pliny, HN 34.69; on the Temple of Felicitas see LTUR 2.244– 5. (43) Strabo 8.6.23; on the ius divinum that rendered such material the property of the gods, see Gaius, Institutiones 2.1–9; see Rüpke, Religion (n. 7), 130 for discussion. (44) Gruen, Culture and Identity (n. 4), 125. (45) Ibid., 110–13. (46) For discussion see Gruen, Culture and Identity (n. 4), 112; cf. ORF fr. 97; a similar charge was lodged against M. Fulvius Nobilior by M. Aemilius Lepidus, consul in 187 BC, see Livy 38.43.2–5; 38.44.6. (47) Cic. Verr. 2.5.127. (48) Cic. Verr. 2.1.56–7. (49) For a discussion of such inventories see D. E. Strong, Roman Museums (London 1994), 251, citing (inter alia) IG 9.2.135 (inventories from Delos); cf. Miles, Art as Plunder (n. 2), 54 for Servilius’ accounts; see Östenberg, Staging the World (n. 7), 100–1 for a discussion of similar triumphal inventories. (50) See e.g. Livy 39.5.13–16. (51) Livy 38.44.5; see Gruen, Culture and Identity (n. 4), 108 for discussion. (52) See Miles, Art as Plunder (n. 2), 119–29 for discussion. (53) Cic. Verr. 2.1.58. (54) Plut. Mor. 198B–C notes the cup as supposedly the first silver object to enter the Aemilian house; cf. Val. Max. 4.4.9; Pliny, HN 33.142. For Aemilius’

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Collecting and Acquisition importation of Perseus’ library see Plut. Aem. 28.11; for discussion see L. Casson, Libraries in the Ancient World (New Haven 2001), 65–8. (55) With the notable exception of the violation of the Temple in Jerusalem; see Joseph. AJ 14.72. (56) See Cic. Att. 4.9.1; see A. Leen, ‘Cicero and the Rhetoric of Art’, AJP 112 (1991), 233 for discussion. (57) See Ammianus Marcellinus 14.8.14–15; also see Velleius Paterculus 2.45.5; Plut. Cat. Min. 39.1–3. (58) See Pliny, HN 34.92. (59) See L. Pietilä-Castrén, ‘New Men and the Greek War Booty in the 2nd century B.C.’, Arctos 16 (1982), 121–44 for detailed discussion of the transport of booty after pillaging. (60) See Cic. Verr. 2.2.176: L. Canuleius, a harbour agent, wrote to his company complaining that Verres had paid no export duty on a number of luxury items (including Delian ware and Corinthian vessels). (61) See Livy 26.24.11; SEG 13.32; see Gruen, Culture and Identity (n. 4), 94 for discussion. (62) See e.g. A. Rouveret, ‘Toute la mémoire du monde: La notion de collection dans la NH de Pline’, in J. Pigeaud and J. Oroz (eds.), Pline L’Ancien: témoin de son temps (Salamanca and Nantes 1987), 432–3 for discussion; for a catalogue of Verres’ thefts see A. Bounia, The Nature of Classical Collecting. Collectors and Collections, 100 BCE – 100 CE (Ashgate 2004), 278–9; see Miles, Art as Plunder (n. 2), 105–51, 158–64, for Verres’ career and family background and for the case’s legal background. (63) Cic. Verr. 2.4.30; cf. 2.4.47; see Strong, Roman Museums (n. 49), 256; Miles, Art as Plunder (n. 2), 175, 205–6 for discussion. (64) T. Quinctius Flamininus took one of the remaining three from Macedonia, but had the decency to dedicate it to Jupiter on the Capitoline, making it public property, Cic. Verr. 2.4.128–30; see p. 35 with n. 15. (65) Verr. 2.4.122; cf. 2.2.50 where Cicero accuses Verres of plundering Syracuse’s temples of every art work imaginable. (66) The tradition was a long one, whereby the previous owner of an object made the object famous—or at least worthy of a poem. See e.g. Anthologia Palatina 6.97 = The Garland of Philip, (Antiphilus) on a spear dedicated to Artemis by

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Collecting and Acquisition Alexander the Great and Anthologia Planudea 276 (Bianor) on a statue of Arion and the dolphin set up by Periander of Corinth. (67) For discussion see G. Zimmer, ‘Das Sacrarium des C. Heius. Kunstraub und Kunstgeschmack in der späten Republik’, Gymnasium, 96 (1989), 493–531; A. Vasaly, Representation: Images of the World in Ciceronian Oratory (Berkeley 1993), 111–14; Bounia, Nature of Classical Collecting (n. 62), 277; Miles, Art as Plunder (n. 2), 155, 206–8; cf. P. Stewart, Statues in Roman Society. Representation and Response (Oxford 2003), 142, who notes that Heius’ house was something of a public museum in its own right, citing Cic. Verr. 2.4.3–7. (68) See Cass. Dio 55.9.6; cf. p. 268. (69) Though Cass. Dio 59.17.3 is perhaps rightly sceptical of this claim. (70) Calig. 57.1; Cass. Dio 59.28.3 says that Caligula planned a new temple on the Palatine to house the statue, and to remodel it to make the work resemble himself; see Miles, Art as Plunder (n. 2), 95 for discussion, who notes a similar reaction by the Palladium at Vergil, Aeneid 2.171–5. (71) Joseph. AJ 19.7, 10; cf. Suet. Calig. 22.2; see Miles, Art as Plunder (n. 2), 252–5 for discussion. (72) Pliny, HN 35.127. (73) Tac. Ann. 16.23. (74) See Tac. Ann. 15.45; Suet. Ner. 24.1–2; for discussion see E. Champlin, Nero (Cambridge Mass. 2003), 180 with 318–19, n.10; cf. Suet. Ner. 38.3; Cass. Dio 63.11–12. Acratus and Carrinas Secundus acted as his agents; for a detailed discussion of Nero in Greece and his pillaging see Arafat, Pausanias’ Greece (n. 36), 143–50. (75) For a detailed discussion of the legislation and the history of legislation that surrounds claims to cultural patrimony see K. Fitz Gibbon, ‘Chronology of Cultural Property Legislation’, in K. Fitz Gibbon (ed.), Who Owns the Past?: Cultural Policy, Cultural Property, and the Law (Brunswick NJ 2005), 3–7; W. G. Pearlstein, ‘Cultural Property, Congress, the Courts, and Customs: The Decline and Fall of the Antiquities Market?’, in K. Fitz Gibbon (ed.), Who Owns the Past?: Cultural Policy, Cultural Property, and the Law (Brunswick NJ 2005), 9–31. The most famous modern claim of course remains the Elgin Marbles; see K. Fitz Gibbon, ‘The Elgin Marbles. A Summary’, in K. Fitz Gibbon (ed.), Who Owns the Past?: Cultural Policy, Cultural Property, and the Law (Brunswick NJ 2005), 109– 21. Also see J. Cuno, Who Owns Antiquity? Museums and the Battle Over Our Ancient Heritage (Princeton 2008); J. Cuno (ed.), Whose Culture? The Promise of Museums and the Debate Over Antiquities (Princeton 2009). Miles, Art as

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Collecting and Acquisition Plunder (n. 2) in general constitutes a good detailed study of the ancient concept of cultural property and its influence on the modern concept. (76) For Scipio’s restoration see Purcell, ‘Sacking of Carthage and Corinth’ (n. 36), 141–2; Miles, Art as Plunder (n. 2), 95–100. (77) Consequently during Cicero’s prosecution he stated that Verres’ victims sought no restitution of their property, probably because there was very little chance of it; see Verr. 2.5.127. (78) For the phrase fruitur dis iratis see J. Ferguson, Juvenal. The Satires (New York 1979), 115, which he explains as an oxymoron, since one does not normally profit from the anger of the gods, in this case, the gods Marius had despoiled. For Marius’ trial (Tacitus and Pliny the Younger were the prosecutors) see Pliny, Ep. 2.11. (79) See Livy, Periochae 51, according to which Scipio returned ‘the greater part of the spoils’ (spoliorum maior pars) to Sicily; cf. Cic. Verr. 2.1.11, 2.2.85–6, 2.4.73; Diodorus Siculus 32.25; Val. Max. 5.1.6; Plut. Mor. 200B; App. Pun. 133; Eutropius 4.12.2. (80) Cic. Verr. 2.4.73, 80; see Miles, Art as Plunder (n. 2), 97 for discussion. (81) Cic. Verr. 2.2.89–119; the local senate along with Sthenius, a man of some influence, vehemently opposed their removal and the consequences for Sthenius were dire. A marble base at Termini Imerese survives attesting to Scipio’s restoration, see IG 14.315; SIG3 677; ILS 8769; see Miles, Art as Plunder (n. 2), 97 for discussion. (82) See Cic. Verr. 2.4.72–5, 2.4.80: the town greatly revered it but Verres found it irresistible. See Vasaly, Representation (n. 67), 117–20 for discussion. (83) Miles, Art as Plunder (n. 2), 98–9 further posits that Scipio’s restoration consciously emulated Alexander the Great’s restoration of cultural property to Greek cities captured back from Persia. (84) See Verr. 2.4.98, 2.5.124. (85) See Polybius 39.3; Plut. Phil. 21.6; cf. Anthologia Planudea 16.26a (anonymous); for discussion see Gruen, Culture and Identity (n. 4), 126; Purcell, ‘Sacking of Carthage and Corinth’ (n. 36), 142. (86) Strabo 14.1.14; see T. S. Scheer, ‘Res Gestae Divi Augusti 24: die Restituierung göttlichen Eigentums in Kleinasien durch Augustus’, in C. Schubert and K. Brodersen (eds.), Rom und der griechische Osten: Festschrift für Hatto H. Schmitt zum 65. Geburtstag (Stuttgart 1995), 209–23 for discussion of Augustus’ appropriations in the East after his victory (from those who Page 42 of 51

 

Collecting and Acquisition supported Antony); for the competing discourse between Antony and Augustus concerning the appropriation of art objects, see Miles, Art as Plunder (n. 2), 102– 4. (87) Pausanias 9.27.2–4; cf. Strabo 9.2.25; see Kinney, ‘Spolia…’ (n. 32), 136; K. Gutzwiller, ‘Gender and Inscribed Epigram: Herennia Procula and the Thespian Eros’, TAPA 134 (2004), 383–418 for discussion of the statue. For the epigrams celebrating the statue see the Anthologia Planudea 167 (Antipater); 203 (Julianus); 204 (Praxiteles); 205 (Tullius Geminus); 206 (Leonidas of Alexandria (?)); the work was given in payment to Praxiteles’ mistress Phryne, the famous courtesan. The statue perished in the fire of AD 80; see Miles, Art as Plunder (n. 2), 254. (88) See Agr. 6.5; cf. Suet. Ner. 32.4; see J. M. Beaujeu, ‘A-t-il éxisté une direction des musées dans la Rome impériale?’, in Comptes Rendus de L’Academie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, Nov.–Dec. (1982), 682 for discussion. (89) See Strong, ‘Roman Museums’ (n. 4), 253–4 who bases this conjecture on the extensive preservation of statistics and data in Pliny’s catalogue. (90) Pliny, HN 34.84; see R. H. Darwall-Smith, Emperors and Architecture: A Study of Flavian Rome (Brussels 1996), 59; cf. this text pp. 274–5. (91) See p. 280 n. 139 for discussion. (92) For a very general discussion concerning private collecting in antiquity see J. Alsop, The Rare Art Traditions: The History of Art Collecting and its Linked Phenomena Wherever These Have Appeared (New York 1982), 190–211. More detailed studies include e.g. E. Bartman, ‘Sculpture Collecting and Display in the Private Realm’, in E. Gazda (ed.), Roman Art in the Private Sphere (Ann Arbor 1991), 71–88; P. G. Warden, ‘The Sculptural Program of the Villa of the Papyri’, JRA 4 (1991), 257–64; P. G. Warden and D. Romano, ‘The Course of Glory: Greek Art in a Roman Context at the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum’, Art History, 17 (1994), 228–54; and L. Stirling, The Learned Collector. Mythological Statuettes and Classical Taste in Late Antique Gaul (Ann Arbor 2005). (93) For Lucullus see Varro, De Re Rustica 1.2.10; Pliny, HN 34.36; Plut. Luc. 39.2; for Hortensius see Pliny, HN 35.130; he also owned a sphinx given to him as a gift by Verres which he particularly prized, Pliny, HN 34.48; for discussion see X. Lafon, ‘A propos des “villae” républicaines: quelques notes sur les programmes décoratifs et les commanditaires’, in X. Lafon (ed.), L’art décoratif á Rome á la fin de la République et au début du Principat (Rome 1981), 151–72; cf. Plut. Cic. 7; Quintilian, Institutio oratoria 6.3.98; for discussion see Beaujeu, ‘Une direction des musées’ (n. 88), 673 with n. 8; Miles, Art as Plunder (n. 2), 127–8. On the economics of the luxury in such villas see J. H. D’Arms, Commerce and Social Standing in Ancient Rome (Cambridge Mass. 1981), 72–96, esp. 80–5; Page 43 of 51

 

Collecting and Acquisition also see Wallace-Hadrill, Rome’s Cultural Revolution (n. 10), 190–208 on Roman villas, luxury, and Roman identity. (94) For Cicero’s stance see Stewart, Statues in Roman Society (n. 67), 225–6 with a summation of the scholarly approaches to Roman attitudes concerning Greek art. Stewart argues that Cicero’s own private interest in art and professed ignorance in his oration is attributable to a difference between a public versus private pose, but Miles, Art as Plunder (n. 2), 166–7 suggests that there was a shared respect for and knowledge of art works in Cicero’s audience and that Cicero’s professed ignorance is in fact simply sarcasm. (95) See A. Weis, ‘Gaius Verres and the Roman Art Market: Consumption and Connoisseurship in Verrine II.4’, in A. Haltenhoff, A. Heil, and F. H. Mutschler, O tempora, o mores! Römische Werte und römische Literatur in den letzen Jahrzehnten der Republik (Saur 2003), 359–65; Miles, Art as Plunder (n. 2), 200– 6 for discussion. (96) Cic. Fam. 7.23.2; also see RE 2.2 (1896), 2372, 6.1 (1907), 843 for Avianius; see J. H. D’Arms, ‘CIL X, 1792. A Municiple Notable of the Augustan Age’, HSCP 76 (1972), 207–16 for Avianius’ family; for discussion see Strong, ‘Roman Museums’ (n. 4), 256; Galsterer, ‘Kunstraub und Kunsthandel’ (n. 6), 861. On those with a fine eye for art see Cic. Fam. 7.23.1–2; 13.2; Statius, Silvae 4.6; Mart. 9.59; Pliny, Ep. 3.6; Arrian, Epicteti dissertationes 2.24.7; for discussion see Strong, ‘Roman Museums’ (n. 4), 257; Miles, Art as Plunder (n. 2), 175, 205– 6. (97) He is also mentioned along with Avianius in Fam. 7.23; for discussion see Strong, ‘Roman Museums’ (n. 4), 257; K. Galinsky, Augustan Culture. An Interpretive Introduction (Princeton 1996), 339. (98) Cic. Verr. 2.2.84–5; see Miles, Art as Plunder (n. 2), 207–8 for discussion. (99) See Plut. Luc. 39; cf. Pliny, HN 35.26; see C. Edwards, ‘Incorporating the Alien: The Art of Conquest’, in C. Edwards and G. Woolf (eds.), Rome the Cosmopolis (Cambridge 2003), 55 for discussion; cf. Pollitt, ‘Impact of Greek Art’ (n. 9), 164 who suggests that as a form of wealth it was also a danger to the emperor; for Lucullus’ rich tastes see S. Hales, The Roman House and Social Identity (Cambridge 2003), 20–3. (100) See M. L. Thompson, ‘The Monumental and Literary Evidence for Programmatic Painting in Antiquity’, Marsyas, 9 (1960–61), 70; cf. K. Schefold, Pompejanische Malerei. Sinn und Ideengeschichte (Basel 1952), 44–51. (101) Vitruvius 6.5.2; see C. Hallett, ‘Emulation versus Replication: Redefining Roman Copying’, JRA 18 (2005), 433 on Roman pinacothecae, esp. in the context of triclinia, citing Varro, De Re Rustica 1.59.2; also see R. Ling, Roman Painting Page 44 of 51

 

Collecting and Acquisition (Cambridge 1991), 135; B. Bergmann, ‘Greek Masterpieces and Roman Recreative Fictions’, HSCP 97 (1995), 102–7. (102) See Pollitt, ‘Impact of Greek Art’ (n. 9), 162; E. W. Leach, The Rhetoric of Space: Literary and Artistic Representations of Landscape in Republican and Augustan Rome (Princeton 1988), 374; Pliny says Hortensius paid 144,000 sesterces for the painting. (103) For Cicero as a collector and his attitude towards art see G. Showerman, ‘Cicero’s Appreciation of Greek Art’, AJP 25 (1904), 306–14; Leen, ‘Cicero and the Rhetoric of Art’ (n. 56), 243–4; Galsterer, ‘Kunstraub und Kunsthandel’ (n. 6), 861–2; Bounia, Nature of Classical Collecting (n. 62), 290–300; Miles, Art as Plunder (n. 2), 210–17. (104) See J. E. Stambaugh, The Ancient Roman City (Baltimore 1988), 164; for detailed discussion see A. Wallace-Hadrill, ‘The Social Structure of the Roman House’, PBSR 56 (1988), 59; Y. Thébert, ‘Private and Public Spaces: The Components of the domus’, in E. D’Ambra (ed.), Roman Art in Context. An Anthology (New York 1993), 213–37 on the public versus private components of the Roman house in Africa (cf. Thébert, ‘Private Life and Domestic Architecture in Roman Africa’, in P. Veyne (ed.), A History of Private Life from Pagan Rome to Byzantium (Cambridge Mass. 1987), 353–82); A. Wallace-Hadrill, Houses and Society in Pompeii and Herculaneum (Princeton 1994), 17–37; A. M. Riggsby, ‘“Public” and “Private” in Roman Culture: The Case of the cubiculum’, JRA 10 (1997), 36–56, whose focus is the cubiculum; S. Treggiari, ‘Home and Forum: Cicero between “Public” and “Private”’, TAPA 128 (1998), 1–23; ‘The Upper-class House as Symbol and Focus of Emotion in Cicero’, JRA 12 (1999), 33–56; S. Hales, ‘At Home with Cicero’, GaR 47 (2000), 44–55; The Roman House and Social Identity (Cambridge 2003); Wallace-Hadrill, Rome’s Cultural Revolution (n. 10), 190–208 where he discusses the overlap between public and private in Roman houses. (105) See Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer (n. 5), 59–62 for discussion. (106) Leen, ‘Cicero and the Rhetoric of Art’ (n. 56), 243. (107) See O. J. Brendel, Prolegomena to the Study of Roman Art (New Haven 1979), 153–6 on the divergent nature of public and private art; also see Leach, Rhetoric of Space (n. 102), 136. (108) Cic. Att. 1.8.2; see Pollitt, ‘Impact of Greek Art’ (n. 9), 162; cf. Galsterer, ‘Kunstraub und Kunsthandel’ (n. 6), 861. (109) For discussion of the statues and ‘Academy’ see V. J. Rosivach, ‘Cicero’s Statues’, New England Classical Journal, 41.4 (2004), 387–95.

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Collecting and Acquisition (110) See B. S. Ridgway, ‘The Wreck of Mahdia, Tunisia, and the Art Market in the Early First Century BC’, JRA 8 (1995), 340–7 for discussion; also see Galsterer, ‘Kunstraub und Kunsthandel’ (n. 6) and G. Zimmer, ‘Republikanisches Kunstverständnis: Cicero gegen Verres’, in G. Hellenkemper Salies (ed.), Das Wrack. Der Antike Schiffsfund von Mahdia (Cologne 1994), 867–74 for Cicero and his collecting in the context of the wreck; see Wallace-Hadrill, Rome’s Cultural Revolution (n. 10), 361–71 for the Mahdia wreck and the Roman trade in luxury goods. (111) See Leen, ‘Cicero and the Rhetoric of Art’ (n. 56), 240 for Cicero’s Academy in his house and in its larger context; see also Zimmer, ‘Republikanisches Kunstverständnis’ (n. 110), 871–2. (112) Fam. 7.23.2; see Leen, ‘Cicero and the Rhetoric of Art’ (n. 56), 239 for discussion. (113) For discussion see Strong, ‘Roman Museums’ (n. 4), 256; Leen, ‘Cicero and the Rhetoric of Art’ (n. 56); Hales, Roman House (n. 99), 18–20; cf. 58. (114) Vitruvius 7.5.5–6; on objects’ ‘suitability’ see Leen, ‘Cicero and the Rhetoric of Art’ (n. 56), 237, 239; for discussion of the architecture of Cicero’s villas in their Vitruvian context, and in the context of the construction of Roman identity, see Wallace-Hadrill, Rome’s Cultural Revolution (n. 10), 170–3, who also has a good discussion concerning the function of gymnasia in Cicero’s villas. (115) On Greek cultural material’s expression of power and status in a ‘private’ setting see Hölscher, ‘Hellenistische Kunst’ (n. 4), 881–4. (116) Cf. Vitruvius 6.5.1–3; for discussion see Leen, ‘Cicero and the Rhetoric of Art’ (n. 56), 237–8; for related discussion see T. P. Wiseman, ‘Conspicui Postes Tectaque Digna Deo: The Public Image of Aristocratic and Imperial Houses in the Late Republic and Early Empire’, in L’Urbs: espace urbain et histoire. Collection de L’Ecole Française de Rome 98 (Rome 1987), 393; Bounia, Nature of Classical Collecting (n. 62), 295–6. (117) See A. Desmouliez, Cicéron et son goût: Essai sur une definition d’une aesthetique romaine à la fin de la République (Brussels 1976), 266–316, esp. 304–6 for decorum as it applies to Cicero’s taste in art; also see Leen, ‘Cicero and the Rhetoric of Art’ (n. 56), 235; see Bounia, Nature of Classical Collecting (n. 62), 291–3 for the suitability of an object to the place; also see E. Perry, The Aesthetics of Emulation in the Visual Arts of Ancient Rome (Cambridge 2005), 31–49 for how décor was interpreted by those with knowledge and authority, who created a formulaic visual culture, but one that left scope for interpretation depending on context. (118) See e.g. De Or. 1.127–8; cf. 1.113–14, 1.5–18. Page 46 of 51

 

Collecting and Acquisition (119) For the construction of identity in antiquity see p. 18 n. 39. For private collections as a showcase for personal erudition see J. Elsner, Imperial Rome and Christian Triumph (Oxford 1998), 172. (120) See Appadurai, ‘Commodities’ (n. 1), 41, who argues that ‘Commodities represent very complex social forms and distributions of knowledge. In the first place, and crudely, such knowledge can be of two sorts: the knowledge (technical, social, aesthetic, and so forth) that goes into the production of the commodity; and the knowledge that goes into appropriately consuming the commodity’. Commodities—and objects—as he notes, have ‘life histories’ closely tied to the life history of the consumer; for objects and their individual histories that give them meaning also see R. M. Van Dyke and S. E. Alcock, (eds.), Archaeologies of Memory (Oxford 2003), 5. (121) Ep. 8.18; concerning Domitius see R. Syme, ‘The Dating of Pliny’s Latest Letters’, CQ 35 (1985), 177, 180–2. (122) Ep. 3.1. For Corinthian ware’s popularity see e.g. Cic. Att. 2.1.11; Fin. 2.23; Rosc. Am. 133; Tusc. 2.32; Verr. 2.2.46, 83; see B. Baldwin, ‘Trimalchio’s Corinthian Plate’, CP 68 (1973), 46–7 for discussion; concerning Corinthian bronzes in the larger context of Roman patterns of consumption see WallaceHadrill, Rome’s Cultural Revolution (n. 10), 372–6. For Vestricius Spurinna see R. Syme, Roman Papers Vol. VII (Oxford 1991), 541–50. (123) Mart. 9.43; Statius, Silvae 4.6; cf. Mart. 9.44, 12.69; see Alsop, Rare Art Traditions (n. 92), 206–7 for Vindex as a collector. Vindex also appears to have owned works by Myron, Apelles, Polyclitus, Praxiteles, and Phidias; for general discussion of the Lysippus statue see E. Bartman, ‘Lysippos’ Huge God in Small Shape’, Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, 73 (1986), 298–311; W. J. Schneider, ‘Phidiae Putavi Martial und der Hercules Epitrapezios des Novius Vindex’, Memnosyne, 54 (2001), 697–720; S. Lorenz, ‘Martial, Herkules und Domitian: Büsten, Statuetten und Statuen im Epigrammaton liber nonus’, Mnemosyne, 56 (2003), 566–84; C. McNelis, ‘Ut Sculptura Poesis: Statius, Martial, and the Hercules Epitrapezios of Novius Vindex’, AJP 129 (2008), 255– 76; Miles, Art as Plunder (n. 2), 265–70. (124) For the appeal of its antique look see Alsop, Rare Art Traditions (n. 92), 196. Pliny does not mention the artist; his assessment of its appearance indicated its age as ‘old and antique’ (vetus et antiquum), and possibly as authentic too. On authentic versus counterfeit pieces in antiquity see D. Emanuele, ‘Aes Corinthium: Fact, Fiction, and Fake’, Phoenix, 43 (1989), 350–4; also see Phaedrus, Prologue 5.4–9, who notes the market for fakes of Praxiteles, Myron, and Zeuxis. See too Hallett’s related discussion concerning copies in Roman antiquity (‘Emulation versus Reduplication’ (n. 101), 419–21), which argues that Romans could be just as happy with a fine replica as with an Page 47 of 51

 

Collecting and Acquisition original; cf. 43 for his discussion of the case of Dubius Avitus, who commissioned copies of cups to be made by Zenodorus originally by Calamis (Pliny, HN 34.47); also see M. Marvin, The Language of the Muses. The Dialogue between Greek and Roman Sculpture (Los Angeles 2008), 121–67. (125) Stewart, Statues in Roman Society (n. 67), 230. (126) Strabo 13.1.54; for discussion see H. Lindsay, ‘Strabo on Apellicon’s Library’, RhM 140 (1997), 290–8; Casson, Libraries in the Ancient World (n. 54), 68–9. (127) Plut. Luc. 42.1–4; see Casson, Libraries in the Ancient World (n. 54), 69; cf. 61–108 for Roman libraries in general; also see C. Edwards and G. Woolf ‘Cosmopolis: Rome as World City’, in C. Edwards and G. Woolf (eds.), Rome the Cosmopolis (Cambridge 2003), 14–15. (128) For Cicero’s table see Pliny, HN 13.92; for the statue of Fortuna see Cass. Dio 58.7.2. (129) Pliny, HN 34.11–12; see Emanuele, ‘Aes Corinthium’ (n. 124), 351; WallaceHadrill, Rome’s Cultural Revolution (n. 10), 371–9 for discussion. (130) Pliny, HN 35.26; see Galsterer, ‘Kunstraub und Kunsthandel’ (n. 6), 862 for discussion. (131) Listed in Pollitt, ‘Impact of Greek Art’ (n. 9), 162, who notes that ‘Crassus paid 100,000 sesterces for some cups by the Greek engraver Mentor (fifth or early fourth century BC); C. Gracchus is said to have bought some figures of Dolphins for 5,000 sesterces a pound, Pliny, HN 33.147’. He also notes that ‘Lucullus was ready to pay … as much as a million sesterces, for a statue of “Felicitas” by Arcesilaos’, noting that that was for a contemporary artist still living. For a brief catalogue of expensive collectibles in antiquity see Bounia, Nature of Classical Collecting (n. 62), 298; also see W. K. Pritchett, The Greek State at War, 5 (Berkeley 1991), 107 for a list of the price’s Pliny notes were paid for specific works. (132) Pliny, HN 35.155–6; for Arcesilaus also see p. 227. (133) See Elsner, Imperial Rome and Christian Triumph (n. 119), 110 for objects giving their owner distinction by virtue of the tradition in which they took part. (134) See Baldwin, ‘Trimalchio’s Corinthian Plate’ (n. 122), for his short but informative discussion of this episode; cf. Emanuele ‘Aes Corinthium’ (n. 124), 355.

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Collecting and Acquisition (135) On the importation of luxury as a moving target in our sources see WallaceHadrill, Rome’s Cultural Revolution (n. 10), 346–7; for the consumption of luxury objects and their relationship to Roman social identity, see in general WallaceHadrill, Rome’s Cultural Revolution (n. 10), esp. 441–54. (136) See Carey, ‘Problems of Totality (n. 6), 7–9 for Pliny the Elder’s attack on the collection and consumption of luxury goods and decadence in the early empire; for ‘consumerism and social anxiety’ in the Roman literary record, esp. Pliny the Elder, see Wallace-Hadrill, Rome’s Cultural Revolution (n. 10), 345–53. (137) Wallace-Hadrill, Rome’s Cultural Revolution (n. 10), 325. (138) See Tac. Ann. 3.55; cf. the speech of Asinius Gallus, Ann. 2.33; see R. Syme, Tacitus (Oxford 1958), 573, who notes that display was all the nobiles had left after the republic. (139) For a good discussion on consumption and luxury laws including the theoretical background see Wallace-Hadrill, Rome’s Cultural Revolution (n. 10), 329–38. (140) Suet. Iul. 47; Marc Antony had similar tastes, and reportedly proscribed a man to obtain a particularly precious jewel, Pliny, HN 37.82; see F. de Oliveira, Les Idées politique et morales de Pline L’Ancien (Coimbra 1992), 182 for discussion. (141) Cic. Phil. 2.109, 3.30, 13.11; see Galinsky, Augustan Culture (n. 97), 344 for discussion. (142) See Pliny, HN 35.81–3. The panel perished by a fire in Augustus’ house in AD 4. (143) Suet. Aug. 72.3; see A. Mayor, The First Fossil Hunters. Paleontology in Greek and Roman Times (Princeton 2000), 142–4 for Augustus’ paleontology collection. Cf. the anecdote in Phlegon of Tralles concerning an embassy to Tiberius with the tooth of an alleged hero over a foot long, FGrH 257 F36.14; see R. Garland, The Eye of the Beholder: Deformity and Disability in the GraecoRoman World (Ithaca 1995), 50 for discussion; also see J. F. Healy, ‘Pliny on Mineralogy and Metals’, in R. French and F. Greenaway (eds.), Science in the Early Roman Empire: Pliny the Elder, his Sources and Influence (Totowa NJ and London 1986), 112–14 on the ancient interpretation and theory of fossils. (144) Suet. Aug. 70.2: Augustus was ‘very desirous of expensive furniture and of Corinthian [sc. bronzes]’, pretiosae supellectilis Corinthiorumque praecupidus. See Baldwin, ‘Trimalchio’s Corinthian Plate’ (n. 122), 46, who notes that Augustus ‘was allegedly dubbed Corintharius for proscribing owners of vasa Corinthia which he coveted. Pliny, HN 34.6 claims Antony proscribed Verres for

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Collecting and Acquisition much the same reason’; cf. Miles, Art as Plunder (n. 2), 205–6. For Nero’s taste for Corinthian bronzes see Pliny, HN 34.48. (145) Suet. Tib. 44.2; for Tiberius’ taste in art see Pliny, HN 34.62, Cass. Dio 55.9.6; see B. Levick, Tiberius the Politician (London 1976), 231 for discussion; cf. A. Stewart, ‘To Entertain an Emperor: Sperlonga, Laokoön and Tiberius at the Dinner-Table’, JRS 67 (1977), 84–5. For Tiberius’ proclivity towards erotic art see J. R. Clarke, Looking at Lovemaking: Construction of Sexuality in Roman Art 100 B.C.–A.D. 250 (Berkeley 1998), 29. (146) Although it has also been noted by S. M. Pearce, On Collecting. An Investigation into Collecting in the European Tradition (London 1995), 408, that collecting and the erotic overlap. Hence Pearce notes that ‘the diction of collecting is full of explicitly sexual words like “fetish”, “voyeur”, “passion” and “love” ’. For Tiberius, ‘subversion’ is perhaps simply a commentary on the true nature of collecting, and a sort of psychological meta-collecting of the self. (147) Pliny, HN 33.3–4; see T. McGinn, The Economy of Prostitution in the Roman World: A Study and Social History of the Brothel (Ann Arbor 2004), 128–30 for discussion. For two good discussions of the Warren Cup’s subject see J. R. Clarke, ‘The Warren Cup and the Context for the Representations of Male-toMale Lovemaking in Augustan and Early Julio-Claudian Art’, ArtB 75 (1993), 275–94; J. Pollini, ‘The Warren Cup: Homoerotic Love and Symposial Rhetoric in Silver’, ArtB 81 (1999), 21–52. (148) For discussion of the sculptures see F. Coarelli, ‘Sperlonga e Tiberio’, DialArch 7 (1973), 97–122; B. Conticello and B. Andraea Die Skulpturen von Sperlonga, Antike Plastik Vol. XIV (Berlin 1974); Stewart, ‘To Entertain an Emperor’ (n. 145), 76–90; R. Brilliant, My Laocoön. Alternative Claims in the Interpretation of Artworks (Berkeley 2000), 10–12; B. Ridgway, ‘The Sperlonga Sculptures. The Current State of Research’, in N. T. de Grummond and B. S. Ridgeway (eds.), From Pergamum to Sperlonga. Culture and Context (Berkeley 2000), 78–91; M. Squire, ‘The Motto in the Grotto: Inscribing Illustration and Illustrating Inscription at Sperlonga’, in Z. Newby and R. Leader-Newby (eds.), Art and Inscription in the Ancient World (Cambridge 2007), 102–27. (149) In comparison we know little from the literary record about Caligula’s and Claudius’ tastes; for Nero, in addition to his pillaging of Greek treasures during his tour in 67 we hear also of a pair of drinking cups with scenes embossed from Homer (Suet. Ner. 47.1), and a favourite terracotta statue of an Amazon by Strongylion that he carried around in his retinue (Pliny, HN 34.82). (150) Pliny, HN 34.62; see Hölscher, ‘Hellenistische Kunst’ (n. 4), 878 for the larger context of this incident.

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Collecting and Acquisition (151) See Stewart, Statues in Roman Society (n. 67); G. Houston, ‘Tiberius on Capri’, GaR 32 (1985), 179–96; S. Rutledge, ‘Tiberius’ Philhellenism’, CW 101 (2008), 453–67. (152) Tiberius himself was ‘collected’ in the end: Suet. Tib. 6.3, says that childhood presents he received from Sex. Pompeius’ sister, Pompeia, including a cloak, a broach, and some gold plaques, were still exhibited in his day at Baiae. (153) For what Nero took from Greece see Pliny, HN 34.84; Pausanias 10.7.1, 10.19.2; Dio Chrysostomus, Orationes 31.148. See p. 273 for the question of public versus private access to Nero’s Domus Aurea, its collection, and its reuse by Vespasian. See Miles, Art as Plunder (n. 2), 255–9 for discussion of Nero’s pillaging of Greece; also see p. 52. (154) Pliny, HN 36.37–8. (155) See, respectively, Suet. Vesp. 16.1–3; Dom. 3.1. (156) Mart. 12.15: Quidquid Parrhasia nitebat aula/ donatum est oculis deisque nostris, ‘Whatever shone in Parrhasius’ hall/has been given to our eyes and to our gods’; Martial goes on to attack Domitian as a proud king (superbi regis) who reveled in luxury (luxus).

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Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding

Ancient Rome as a Museum: Power, Identity, and the Culture of Collecting Steven Rutledge

Print publication date: 2012 Print ISBN-13: 9780199573233 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: March 2015 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199573233.001.0001

Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding Steven H. Rutledge

DOI:10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199573233.003.0003

Abstract and Keywords Tales and anecdotes abounded in antiquity concerning the response of viewers to objects and to sites of historical and cultural significance. This chapter discusses what the ancients tell us themselves about their own expectations and responses to viewing; how visual culture was in part driven by the cultural values and hierarchies of the elite; and how that culture was simultaneously and of necessity a shared one among socially diverse groups. Keywords:   viewers, artefacts, visual culture, cultural values, elite, cultural property

Tales and anecdotes abounded in antiquity concerning the response of viewers to objects and to sites of historical and cultural significance. Well-heeled Romans pursuing their education in Athens were entranced by its historical monuments; Roman equestrians fell in love with statues; Roman mobs protested when favourite images were relocated from public to private venues; men of letters made lists of their preferred artists and styles; and historians noted the power of material objects to impart virtus. The scholarly output concerning viewer response to ancient artistic works is substantial to say the least. We have already noted in the introduction the infinite possibilities such response offers for treatment and the difficulties inherent in addressing one single ideal (Roman) viewer or interpretation, difficulties long since recognized both by general theorists of visual culture and classicists.1 What we propose to discuss in the present chapter is what the ancients tell us themselves about their own expectations and responses to viewing, how visual culture was in part driven by the cultural values and hierarchies of the elite, but how that culture was simultaneously and of necessity a shared one among socially diverse groups. A Page 1 of 49

 

Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding number of studies by well-known scholars have addressed similar subjects before, considering in the process what visual culture could tell us about the structures of power in Roman antiquity, and their approaches have varied widely.2 The present discussion, seeking to build on previous studies, will serve as a starting point for the remainder of the work, since it will prove instructive, if we are going to consider the nature of cultural (p.80) property and possible responses to it, to understand the nature of how its audience viewed, understood, and appreciated it. Viewing and attitudes towards viewing occasionally constituted an area of distinction and identity in Roman society, in which the educated observer was set against less knowledgeable counterparts. Yet material artefacts and their display also functioned as a means to a broader communication of ideology and identity for Roman society as a whole, although how and to what extent such objects and displays communicated to ‘ordinary’ Romans is problematic to say the least. As has recently been pointed out, our view of ancient cultural objects is often dominated by a category that relies on ‘the all-too-general use of the highcultural, production-centered aesthetic categories of interpretation, imitation, and aemulatio for Roman public sculpture’ which was ‘valid for only a narrow range of thinking artists and viewers’.3 However, the subordinate classes stood as an audience to the elite’s desires and expectations. Priests, orators, and generals noted for virtus set up the objects that spoke to the mass of the Roman people. That same elite consequently determined what was expected in terms of styles, settings, and the general decorum that encompassed the display and viewing of cultural artefacts. Educated Romans tended to be exclusionary in terms of how they understood the nature of viewing and arguably set in place what we might term a ‘hierarchy of the gaze’. Such stratification, in the opinion of Roman literati, depended clearly on the level of the viewer’s education and sophistication and tended to exclude those of humbler status. Yet despite this hierarchical perspective on viewing, there were also certain attitudes and responses to cultural material that were likely shared. Cultural objects on display in Rome were intended to communicate to a wide audience on a variety of levels. Our elite sources, while they occasionally represent the understanding of visual culture as a province of the privileged, also reveal it as a point of consensus and integration within the community and among viewers. The general ability of objects to communicate in one way or another with the viewer may have motivated Cicero’s remarks (De Or. 3.195) that all men have an intuitive sense that allows them to form a judgement concerning what is appropriate in the execution of pictures, statues, and other works. Supporting Cicero’s claim is the simple fact that the exhibitions of noteworthy statuary by aediles in the Forum, the assorted images generals displayed in triumphs, the painted porticoes adorned with statuary, all were designed to curry favour with not only the citizen body but the city as a collective whole. As was the case with architectural forms, cultural objects Page 2 of 49

 

Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding served to foster a sense of communal (p.81) solidarity, but in so doing required some shared notions concerning perceptions and attitudes towards them.4 We say this, however, aware of the vastly diverse ways that elites and non-elites (and for that matter, Romans and non-Romans) both could read such works, and to further note that the language of non-elite art could and did express a vastly different set of values at times than those with which we are here concerned.5 E. Thomas has recently noted that ‘The symbolic forms of Roman architecture, then, established and sustained relations of domination between elites and nonelites’; the same could be said of the property that served to ornament such venues.6 However, the dominant reading, as we shall later see, was also ‘ranged against the power of readers to generate new interpretations’.7 We will therefore also consider the potentially ambiguous readings cultural material presented to viewers in subsequent chapters. Our concern here is to show the division between viewers based on social demarcation that had to be reconciled with the need for cultural objects to speak to a broad audience. While the capacity for such objects to communicate in wider terms was largely established through the use, for example, of a relatively simplified set of iconographic or representational forms (such as funerary busts, loricate statuary (i.e., adorned with a breastplate), or symbols and objects associated with particular deities), the meaning of such objects and the ability of various audiences to ‘decode’ them was almost certainly far more fluid.8 Finally, while we are here interested in the question of possible responses and attitudes towards cultural property, of equal importance is the level of knowledge Romans had of their own visual history. A fragment of Ennius (Scipio 10–11) asks, Quantam statuam faciet populus Romanus/ quantam columnam quae res tuas gestas loquatur? ‘How great a statue will the Roman people make?/ How great a column (p.82) to speak of your achievements?’ The extent to which cultural objects literally ‘spoke’ to individuals in Rome is indicated by the extent to which they enter the language of metaphor and description in the literature as a point of reference in authors such as Petronius, Ovid, and others.9 The question for us is how Romans (and others) understood the language of the great variety of cultural artefacts in the city. Admittedly, this topic is enormous, particularly the question of response. Let me therefore emphasize that this discussion does not pretend to be exhaustive and focuses specifically on a limited range of responses and issues pertaining to viewer accessibility and expectation.

Elite Viewers: Historical Knowledge and art Criticism Our ancient literary sources collectively formulate what we might refer to as a spectrum of privileged understanding.10 At one end stood the elite who had come to appreciate and value artistic treasures and cultural artefacts. It is important to bear in mind, however, that while this group constituted virtually all the private consumers of prized cultural objects, the value placed on such Page 3 of 49

 

Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding treasures, the ability to appreciate them, and the knowledge of cultural heritage in general was not the sole domain of the privileged classes, as will become clear in this discussion. It does bear mentioning, though, that the distinction drawn between the interested or educated observer as opposed to the more casual onlooker is one our sources, specifically Cicero and Plutarch, do make. The dichotomy is best expressed in Plutarch (Mor. 575B), who referred to two types of viewers (specifically of painting): the more common individual will look at the general impression the painting gives and then walk off having just taken away a mere sketch or outline of the whole, whereas the more discerning viewer will observe with greater critical judgement, scrutinizing details and critiquing that which is poorly done. The ability to critically analyse, view, or understand was a means by which (p.83) distinctions could be made between elites and non-elites, thereby reaffirming elite identity and power.11 At the top of those who knew best how to appreciate art and were connoisseurs of it were the artists themselves. As Elsner has pointed out, this may be due in no small part to the ancient view that artists claimed a ‘special access to the truth’ of both the human mind and form.12 Pliny the Younger was certainly among those who privileged the artist among critics (Ep. 1.10.4), asserting that an artist is the best judge of a painting or sculpture, and whose letter also implies deference to professional (such as it was) opinion as opposed to those of the mere critic. Pliny’s uncle drove home the point in a well-known anecdote: Alexander the Great famously gave a pretentious disquisition on painting in Apelles’ studio, only to elicit the artist’s admonition that the boys grinding the colours were laughing at him.13 That the artist had the most critical eye was something Cicero similarly asserted (Fin. 2.115), and we have already noted Verres’ trust of artistic judgement in the course of his looting of Sicily.14 After the artists themselves came the famous collectors who had built a reputation of discriminating taste (see pp. 64–9). Critics no doubt abounded, as Plutarch’s Moralia (346A–B) shows when one viewer compares Parrhasius’ portrait of Theseus with Euphranor’s, with an implied preference for the latter. Euphranor himself was the author of a treatise entitled De Symmetria et Coloribus (‘On Symmetry and Colours’) and was just one of many artists who wrote on their craft, none of which are extant.15 However the existence of such treatises on art by artists themselves doubtless reinforced the artist’s auctoritas. In second place was the elite class, which, from at least the third century BC on, had come to value (and collect) Greek art in particular. During the period of the middle republic it appears that painting, at least briefly, had even become a part of a young man’s education. Holliday has noted that the cognomen Pictor may indicate a lack of embarrassment about painting and the arts in general during this period and that painting in the republic had become a part of the educational (p.84) curriculum but fell out of favour after Pacuvius.16 The initial impetus towards such interest may have been Valerius Messalla’s commission of a painting depicting the campaign against Tarentum in 265 BC that was Page 4 of 49

 

Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding displayed in the senate.17 While painting vanished from the curriculum for a time, it conceivably returned by the early empire, since we find that Hadrian, Nero, and the fictional children of Trimalchio’s guests in Petronius’ Satyricon all received hands-on education in it.18 If one did receive such education then we would expect one to claim greater authority in their ability to critique, although this claim to authority is offset by a cultural dynamic whereby in Roman society, at least in the political sphere, too much knowledge of art could prove an embarrassment.19 This appears merely a public pose, however, since self-styled art critics abounded among the Roman elite. We need only consider those discussions concerning the decline of art in Petronius (Satyricon 88), Vitruvius (7.5), and Pliny (HN 14.2–6) to appreciate that among Rome’s educated art criticism flourished. The situation is perhaps best illustrated in Philostratus the Elder’s Imagines, where, in imagining a visit to a gallery in Neapolis, he has the viewer (who acts as the teacher too), praise the collection and particularly the fine eye of the one who assembled it.20 In addition to the critiquing of artistic works, the ability to read topography and cultural objects was arguably yet another source of empowerment for the elite. It gave them access to an understanding of history, and, given the significance of history as a political tool and an instrument of governance, ensured the perpetuation of their power and privilege. As was the case with art works, the varying levels of knowledge depended not just on one’s education but values as well. Cicero gives us a fictional though plausible example of this in the opening of (p.85) the fifth book of his De Finibus, where the interlocutors express their wonder at and appreciation of the topography of ancient Athens (where the dialogue takes place), a topography that brings to mind particular aspects of the city’s history and culture corresponding to the values of the individual viewer.21 Hence, Quintus Cicero expresses his admiration for Sophocles as they pass by Colonus Hill (5.3), while Athens puts Atticus in mind of Epicurus. Atticus in turn notes the powerful stimulation of the imagination and the recollection of famous men that a renowned place such as Athens creates, and goes on to recall that he once visited Metapontum and refused to go to his lodging until he visited Pythagoras’ house (5.4). Athens’ orators and statesmen were what excited Lucius Cicero, the dialogue’s third interlocutor. For Lucius a visit to Phalerum to see where Demosthenes used to practice oratory and a pilgrimage to Pericles’ tomb were imperative, and he confessed to feeling overwhelmed by Athens’ historical monuments. As Gregory notes in his discussion of this passage, ‘Places, buildings, pictures, even the association of names, all these served to remind the elite Roman of the historical past and of his Graeco-Roman heritage’.22 This is not to say that the ability to appreciate Rome’s heritage was exclusively elite. As Vasaly’s study on Cicero has shown, Cicero could refer to at least the better known topographical features in Rome whose associations would be immediate to many Romans. Similarly, in Livy, Manlius could appeal to the Page 5 of 49

 

Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding Capitoline that he saved or Horatius’ father to his son’s spear in their respective trials, both as a means to evoke a particular set of Roman values (sacrifice and valour). Though both episodes are problematic, they nonetheless represent plausible reactions to Rome’s physical patrimony. Monuments and artefacts constituted a reflection of something shared by the community, to which Roman society could collectively relate.23 Indeed, as Sailor has shown, from the perspective of Tacitus at least, one of the key indicators of communal collapse in the civil war of 69 was the destruction of the Capitoline and the loss of any semiotic significance for the soldiers of the monuments and sacred buildings within the city.24 (p.86) It is worth noting that in these cases it is not the historical accuracy or the furthering of knowledge that is of interest, but rather the emotive or evocative power of monuments to support a particular system of values that is at stake. In this way, memorials, monuments, and the various objects associated with the great men of the past become integral to the perpetuation of memory, hence, power, in antiquity. Cicero in fact, in the De Inventione noted that memory ensured the recollection of virtus, which encompassed iustitia, fortitudo, and moderatio (‘justice’, ‘courage’, and ‘temperance’), through which Rome had proven itself worthy to rule. Since virtus is a martial value on which much of the auctoritas of the ruling elite was based, memory and power were in a sense directly linked. In addition, the use of visual markers as an analogy and tool for memory practice among the elite intelligentsia certainly reflects a genuine reality concerning mnemonic markers in Cicero’s day amongst the more general population, which relied on monuments and topography rather than written signifiers when navigating the city.25 Quintilian discusses memory in similar terms.26 Memory—and power—of necessity was literally inscribed on the city, hence the minds of its inhabitants. In general, Athens, Rome, and their monuments recalled for Cicero and others the memory of worthy men of the past and had a greater impact on the mind than even hearing or reading about their deeds, making the reality of the past more vivid, an observation reflecting that of other Roman writers.27 While Cicero is here speaking of Athens, he also notes that it applies to Rome as well through the character of Piso, who recalls that ‘so great a force of recollection is present in places that, not without cause, has the instruction of memory been drawn out from them’ (tanta vis admonitionis inest in locis; ut non sine causa ex iis memoriae ducta sit disciplina, Fin. 5.2), referring specifically to his gazing upon memorials of men such as Cato the Elder, Scipio, and Laelius.28 The remark makes explicit an assumption that arguably reflects the potential for topography to function similarly to Roman imagines at a funeral (see also p. 106): that is, to instruct Romans (p.87) in what is worthy of remembrance in the hope that they also will act accordingly if they desire commemoration. Elsewhere Cicero states quite explicitly that it was not so much the artworks, as the very places famous men lived, sat, argued, and were buried that delighted Page 6 of 49

 

Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding the mind with recollection.29 The notion of the imago as both a statement of Roman values and as something that reaffirms them is discussed in similar terms in Cicero’s Pro Archia (30): Many of the foremost men have eagerly left statues and images, not of their minds but of their bodies; ought we not to prefer far more to leave an effigy of our counsels and virtues shaped and refined by the highest talents? (consiliorum relinquere ac virtutum nostrarum effigiem nonne multo malle debemus summis ingeniis expressam et politam?) As Leen has noted, effigiem … expressam et politam is a phrase that one can use rhetorically to refer to the composition of a speech or to the creation of an actual image, indicating an understanding ‘that realities can be manufactured’.30 In the De Legibus and De Finibus that reality is one created, and in turn consumed by the dominant elite. It is, after all, Scipio and Demosthenes who impress Piso and L. Cicero, creating an exclusive echo chamber.31 Cicero’s remarks in the Pro Archia and elsewhere are supported by Tacitus, who, like Cicero, observes that historically significant sites, whether important for Greek or Roman identity, had a special attraction. While Cicero never states as much specifically, as noted above, he certainly implies that historical sites could be virtual pilgrimage destinations, having something of a quasi-religious attraction for the viewer. Tacitus indicates a similar phenomenon in his telling of Germanicus’ eastern tour (Ann. 2.53–4) when he reports that the sight of the monuments at Nicopolis, in western Greece, moved Germanicus with the ambiguous memory of the conflict between his great uncle, Augustus, and his grandfather, Marc Antony (‘there was a great image there of things sad and happy’, magnaque illic imago tristium laetorumque). He subsequently toured the rest of Greece and Asia, desiring to visit its famous cities and oracles, which included a stop at Ilium both out of historical sentiment and religious devotion. His own identity and family history, Rome’s Greek heritage, and Rome’s Trojan origins create a nexus of associations that Germanicus attempted to make real through his visits to the actual sites, and to experience that ‘pleasure of recollecting’ to which Cicero had alluded. (p.88) Needless to say, to travel and appreciate such places did (and still does) indicate a position of privilege within society. So too did the education that opened the path to a deeper appreciation and understanding of both their Greek and Roman heritage. Such education allowed not just for a deeper reading and understanding of the history of a given site or monument, it also permitted alternative, even allegorical readings of such sites that reached beyond the superficial. Plutarch, for one, speaks of the symbolic interpretation of some of the iconography associated with certain deities.32 Later on, Lucian makes a clear distinction between the educated and uneducated viewer in this regard.33 How accessible a ‘symbolic’ reading of a particular artefact was to its audience, how Page 7 of 49

 

Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding ‘readable’ its nexus of historical or mythological associations might have been, and how exclusive to those with specialized knowledge is hard to say. How many, for example, knew as Plutarch did that Phidias put a serpent next to the statue of Athena Parthenus to indicate that maidens need watching? Or that next to his Aphrodite at Elis Phidias sculpted a tortoise to indicate that silence becomes a woman? Such interpretations were sometimes a matter of controversy (such as why there was a statue of a bronze palm tree with frogs at the base in the Treasury of the Corinthians at Delphi), while others were a matter of more learned understanding, such as why a famous statue of Apollo at Delphi held a rooster in his hand.34 While we have cast our net only after Greek exempla, we nonetheless know that some images carried in the triumphal processions were allegorical in nature (see pp. 199–204). The image of Macedonia in the painting from the villa of P. Fannius Synistor at Boscoreale (fig. 3.1) gives us one possible alternative out of several for how such personifications were depicted.35 Allegorical reading of this sort is not to be confused with the general expectations of the iconography of particular figures that were popular and well-attested in the artistic (and literary) record.36 (p.89) A certain ‘standardized’ iconography likely helped viewers to identify Bacchus, Apollo, Hermes, Diana, and other figures as such. In addition, as J. Rüpke has noted, a certain level of religious knowledge will have been socially transmitted by various means (such as participation in family rituals), and will have had a role in an individual’s level of understanding.37

(p.90) Allegorical readings also raise the more general though very important question of larger cultural or historical connections that could be made by viewers. For example, we note that ekphrases in ancient writers were not infrequently intended to highlight or underscore central themes within the work in which they were embedded; the reader or listener would be expected to

Fig. 3.1 Roman provinces were often depicted allegorically as female personifications, usually with specific iconographic attributes identifying them as specific provinces. The province here depicted is generally thought to be that of

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Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding understand the artful allusions Macedonia from a fresco in the villa of such descriptive excursus held Publius Fannius Synistor at Boscoreale. c. for the theme and or structure 50 AD. Museo Archeologico Nazionale, of the work as a whole. We Naples. think, for example, of Vergil’s description of the Temple of Apollo at Cumae in book six that links to a number of general themes and events within the Aeneid (6.18–33): the exile of Daedalus that reflects Aeneas’ loss of country; Daedalus’ treacherous bull that looks back to the equally deceptive Trojan Horse; Pasiphae’s passion that mirrors Dido’s own; and the loss of Icarus, Daedalus’ son, on the journey to Italy recalling the death of Aeneas’ father Anchises under similar circumstances.38 Vergil would have expected his readers to appreciate such connections, and the case was the same with ‘visual texts’ within the city. Educated viewers at least would understand, as Holliday has argued, the thematic associations created by the various allusions—historical, mythical, or other—within collections in their urban contexts.39 Finally, we note that among elite viewers a somewhat distinct categorization of canonical artists came to be preferred, indeed, even proverbial in our sources. Phidias, Polyclitus, Lysippus, Praxiteles, and Myron round out our sculptors, while the painters included Apelles, Zeuxis, and Protogenes. Such ‘canonization’ helped to determine what was to be acceptable, what valued, and what not, for Roman viewers. Certain artists came not only to be preferred, but actually mirrored Quintilian’s succinct and famous judgements concerning Roman authors.40 Hence, as Hölscher notes, Phidias became known for his maiestas, pondus, and eximia pulchritudo (‘majesty’, ‘weight’, and ‘remarkable beauty’); Polyclitus for his décor supra verum (‘that went beyond the truth’); Lysippus for veritas and pulchritudo (‘realism’ and ‘beauty’).41 These preferences must be (p. 91) reconstructed piecemeal from a variety of sources, but doubtless works such as Quintilian’s Institutio oratoria or Pliny’s Historia Naturalis served to construct the system of values and judgements that gave birth to the ancient canon, and these, in turn, as Elsner notes, were influenced by Hellenistic sources.42 Pliny, for example, tells us that Pasiteles, a Greek from southern Italy who became a citizen after the Social War, was the leading sculptor in Rome in the first century BC and wrote a work called Nobilium Operum in Toto Orbe (‘On the World’s Notable Art Works’, HN 36.39). To judge from Pliny, there was a distinct hierarchy of values and forms set out in works of this sort, one that served to give authority, legitimacy, and authenticity to particular artists and styles. Greek classicism, in particular, became the standard, though a remarkable amalgam of styles coexisted side by side in his day.43 These were the objects endowed with value to the exclusion of other works from other peoples (at other periods), and over time Rome became what we might call an ‘interpretative community’ and learned to value such works to the point of fetish.44 Page 9 of 49

 

Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding The process of fetishizing particular objects is closely related to the process that has been referred to as ‘sacralization’. Certain works, by virtue of a privileged status either in their physical context or their place in the literary record are rendered ‘sacred’ in their own rights.45 By virtue of their privileged position, the objects, whether they previously enjoyed a religious context or not, are ‘respiritualized… as aesthetic objects’.46 They are no longer ‘living’ pieces, but ‘are wrenched out of their own true contexts and become dead to their living time and space in order (p.92) that they may be given an immortality within the collection’.47 As already noted, much material once brought to Rome was consecrated, therefore, literally sacrosanct; but rendering cultural material sacred was also accomplished simply by virtue of setting it apart, passing it from the profane world to one in which it was deemed extraordinary and special. This is a phenomenon that is more apparent for collections that adorned porticoes and galleries as opposed to statues that were ultimately set up in temples and became objects of direct religious veneration—objects with which, in other words, Romans had daily ‘ordinary’ contact and which continued to have an active life. In this sense, as Stewart has noted, such material occupied a liminal space between art and religious objects.48 The ‘sacred’ aspect of cultural material was reflected in the expected ‘norms’ of behaviour for those who frequented collections, something that had, in the right venue, the potential to constitute a virtual public ritual, and to create an experience in which everyday life and its social expectations were turned around (a phenomenon that still abides arguably to this day with certain expectations and unwritten codes governing the conduct of the museum visitor).49 As Elsner points out, the religious ‘ritual-centered attitude to images in antiquity… influenced both ways of seeing and thinking about art’ that was not confined merely to images of a religious nature or to a religious context.50 Indeed, as Favro has noted, the carefully ‘choreographed’ context in which objects were exhibited in general ‘can provide some consistency by establishing set physical relationships and a uniform ambience’.51 As a ritual, a certain level of ‘performance’ on the part of the viewer was demanded. It may be with this in mind that two sources indicate that viewing will best take place in silence. Pliny the Elder explicitly notes that despite the profusion of artworks in Rome, the noise of the city made the contemplation and admiration of such works difficult.52 Yet another indication—though only that—that an appropriate decorum must be maintained (p.93) is the passage in Petronius (Satyricon 90) in which Eumolpus finds himself the object of scorn by the patrons of an art gallery for his attempt to recite verse while others try to take in the gallery’s paintings.53 Doubtless, as Duncan compellingly asserts, the nature of display would in a sense create a ‘dramatic field’ that ‘invites performance’ from the viewer.54 The ritualistic, performative nature of such visits and the expectation of silence and contemplation is further indication of the sacred nature (we think of the ritual silence that attended some religious rites and the desire to avoid illPage 10 of 49

 

Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding omened utterances in antiquity) and values imposed on such objects and the power contained in them.

Viewer Expectation: Naturalism and Realism In addition to the privilege accorded to certain artists there was also a distinct preference for a certain style. The episode in Petronius (Satyricon 28–9) in which Encolpius is startled as he enters Trimalchio’s house is instructive in this regard: In the entrance way itself a door-keeper was standing dressed in green, girded up with a cherry-coloured belt, and shelling peas in a silver dish. Moreover above the threshold a golden cage was hanging, in which a spotted magpie greeted those entering. But while in the midst of marveling at everything I nearly fell backwards and broke my legs. For on the left as one entered, not far from the door-keeper’s chamber, a huge dog bound by a chain had been painted on the wall, and above it had been written in squared lettering: BEWARE OF THE DOG. And even my companions laughed at me. The painting implicitly frightened Encolpius because of its realism. That a work of art should strive towards a naturalism imitative of life was a standard expectation expressed in our authors in antiquity.55 In addition, our sources indicate certain expectations concerning line, colour, presentation, and display, though realism receives a preponderance of attention. While the collective literary voice that expressed a preference for realism in antiquity is predominantly elite, this is not without its problems. Part of the difficulty is the privilege given to realism (the quality of similitudo, ‘likeness’ or, in the case of copies, aemulatio, ‘imitation’) by our literary sources, something that we will explore shortly.56 Realism, or perceived realism, was the (p.94) ‘desired norm’ when Romans (or Greeks for that matter) viewed a work of art, and has not gone unnoticed by art historians.57 The term realism, it should be noted, is used here with the understanding that it is a very controversial and problematic concept in its application towards our understanding and assessment of cultural artefacts, particularly painting and sculpture, the style of which can be potentially driven as much by ideological dynamics as any concern for ‘realism . As such, it constitutes a value judgement, and how much of a concern it was to those beside the very small sample of opinion we find in our literary sources is very much open to question.58 Our own understanding of the ancient view of realism, however, is often at variance with what we would consider ‘realistic , and raises numerous problems of definition. Clearly, the heroic male nude after the Polyclitan canon (see fig. 3.2), or the female form modelled on Praxiteles’ Aphrodite of Cnidos (fig. 3.3) represent ‘naturalistic’ models albeit in an idealized form (or with an intensified naturalism).59 But what of the grotesque baby Hercules from Hadrian’s villa (fig. 3.4)? Or the Nilotic mosaic at Palestrina with its odd sense of scale (fig. 3.5)? Set Page 11 of 49

 

Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding against the numerous portrait busts of so many matres and patres familias in the veristic style (see fig. 3.7), can we call such works ‘realistic’? And who is to say which was more generally preferred?60 As we shall soon see, those who did not strive for realism came in for occasional criticism. Yet it should be noted that what we (and the Romans) would consider a wide variety of styles lived side by side, with some styles privileged above others in the literary account, even if the surviving material record tells a more complicated and nuanced story. We will address the literary (p.95) (p.96)

Fig. 3.2 Polyclitus’ Doryphorus (fifth century BC) established the classical canon for the ideal form of the heroic male nude expected by ancient viewers, though whether the perfected form should lay claim to the term realism is subject to dispute. H: 2.01 m. A Roman copy after a Greek original. Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples.

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Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding (p.97)

Fig. 3.3 The ‘Capitoline Venus’. Based on Praxiteles’ famous Venus of Cnidus (‘Cnidian Venus’), the work here reflects an intensified naturalism that creates an idealized notion of the female nude form and served as a prototype that was widely reproduced in Roman antiquity. H: 1.93 m. A Roman copy of a fourth century BC original. Palazzo Nuovo, Musei Capitolini, Rome.

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Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding (p.98)

Fig. 3.4 This rather grotesque statue of the infant Hercules in basanite is displayed as having already completed some of the labours usually attributed to a more mature Hercules and creates a jarring impression indeed; while in a sense realistic, the work arguably verges on parody. Third century AD. Palazzo Nuovo, Musei Capitolini, Rome.

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Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding record below, but it is important to note for the moment that a diverse set of subjects were presented in a wide array of styles and contexts, and offered the potential for a wide set of interpretations.

That realism was a highly privileged quality in our sources is vividly illustrated in two roughly contemporary though very different writers, Plutarch and Martial, both of whom attest to the expectation of naturalism and realism in visual media. Plutarch (Mor. 18A), in comparing imitation in poetry to that in painting, implies a general consensus that what one looks for in painting is virtuosity of imitation, that is, the realistic execution of a given subject:

Fig. 3.5 The scale and perspective of this Nilotic mosaic is more on the order of the fantastic than the realistic, though may offer a window into how geographic paintings and cartographic depictions were sometimes executed. Later second century BC, possibly after a Hellenistic (perhaps Alexandrian) painting. W: 6.56 m. H: 5.25 m. From the Temple of Fortuna at Praeneste. Museo Prenestino Barberiano, Palestrina.

When we see a lizard or an ape or the face of Thersites in a picture, we are pleased with it and admire it, not as a beautiful thing, but as a likeness. For by its essential nature the ugly cannot become beautiful; but the imitation, be it concerned with what is base or with what is good, if only it attained to the likeness, is commended.61 (p.99) Still more explicit is Plutarch’s demand for realism and naturalism expressed in his discussion of Apelles’ and Lysippus’ portraiture of Alexander the Great where he notes (Mor. 335A–B) that vividness and naturalism—however these were understood—were the two aspects of their works which elicited a visceral response from viewers. In fact, according to Plutarch someone went so far as to inscribe verses on Lysippus’ statue that the bronze was eager to speak. A number of passages in Pliny the Elder appear to further attest to a general expectation that the artist will strive for a realism that was generally approved of and demanded by his audience, such as his citation of Varro’s anecdote about a modeller in clay named Possis. He sculpted clay models of fruit and grapes so lifelike no one could tell the difference between his models and the real thing.62 The story is one of many in Pliny, including the famous tale of a disgruntled Protogenes who threw a sponge at a dog in one of his paintings, frustrated at not being able to achieve the proper effect of foam on the animal’s mouth; the Page 15 of 49

 

Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding sponge left a mark that, to Protogenes’ eyes, made the foam look quite realistic (HN 35.102–3). Moreover, it is a virtual common-place in Pliny that realism was closely associated with similitudo and (on some occasions) even the ability to deceive (as the dog had deceived and surprised Encolpius at Trimalchio’s house).63 Perhaps the most famous story in this regard is of the contest held between Parrhasius and Zeuxis. The latter executed a painting of grapes so realistic that some birds swooped in to try to eat them; Parrhasius, however, painted a curtain so life-like that even Zeuxis was deceived, asking his rival to reveal his new painting behind the curtain before realizing his error and admitting defeat (HN 35.65). A similar approval of realism is implied in several of Martial’s epigrams, where a given statue or painting appears to take on an almost living form: images variously breathe, live, or take on such realistic proportions as to inspire fear.64 Centuries before, Lucilius too, though perhaps more derisively (and allowing space for even more rhetorical embellishment than the urbane Martial), recalled the effects of realism on small children: ‘As young children believe that all bronze images/ are alive and human, thus do such men think that fictitious dreams/ are true, they believe a heart is within the brazen images’ (Ut pueri infantes credunt signa omnia aena/ vivere et esse homines, sic isti somnia ficta/ vera putant, credunt (p.100) signis cor inesse in aenis).65 Such vivid realism is something Horace possibly had in mind when he remarked (Epistulae 2.1.248–9) that the ‘character and mind of famous men’ (mores animique virorum clarorum) were indicated in the bronze sculpture just as they were through the words of the poet. Petronius too, though in a work of fiction and through the mouth of Encolpius (Satyricon 83), expressed his admiration for some works by Protogenes so real that ‘they contended with the veracity of nature itself’, and a masterpiece by Apelles called The Goddess on One Knee concerning which Encolpius remarks ‘the lines of the images were of so subtle a nature and precise that you might believe that the subjects’ very soul’s had been painted’. The same picture depicted an eagle carrying off Ganymede to heaven, and elsewhere a ‘dazzling white’ (candidus) Hylas disgusted by a lascivious Naiad. The painting also portrayed Apollo cursing his hands and decorating his unstrung lyre with a flower after the death of Hyacinthus. The picture’s erotic content elicited Encolpius to comment that love too, affects the gods. While all of these subjects are related to Encolpius’ own (neurotic) experiences, what is striking about the passage is that it seems that realism and eithopoieia—the ability to convey character and emotion through painting—are the qualities which draw Encolpius’ attention and which appear to move him the most as well (perhaps not a surprising response given his own inclination to be emotionally overwrought).66

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Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding The emotive effect of realism is remarked by Pliny as well, who noted that a lame figure (possibly Philoctetes) by the sculptor Pythagoras ‘could make the viewer himself sense that he was suffering with the wound’.67 The remark is reflective of an ugly rumour that circulated concerning Parrhasius’ depiction of Prometheus’ torments. Parrhasius stood accused of purchasing a captive from Olynthus and having him tortured to represent his subject more vividly.68 Such a desire for realism, in which the very character and soul of the subject is expressed in the work, is perhaps most strikingly and romantically embodied in the sexual attachments viewers made with images, a phenomenon raised to a virtually iconic (p.101) status in Ovid’s story of Pygmalion, though it is attested periodically throughout our sources. Quintilian too expressed the expectation of the ‘living’, realistic or naturalistic execution of sculpture, using the example of Myron’s Discobolus, and stating that the viewer would look to the curvature of a statue or figure and the variation of curve; such curvature and variation, according to Quintilian (Institutio oratoria 2.13.8–14), helped that work in particular to achieve its animation. At the same time, he also remarked that there were viewers who objected to this work because it was not upright as a discus-thrower ought to be. He answered such criticism by noting that it misunderstood the art of the sculptor, asserting that it was the novelty (novitas) and difficulty of the execution that most deserved praise. Such dissent, however, is worth noting: while there was a general preference for realism there was apparent disagreement about how to achieve it and such works were not without their critics. The discussion continued throughout antiquity. Lucian and Philostratus both appear to have regarded realism, if not the supreme value, at least one that was among the most cherished.69 Yet while there may have been a broad preference for realism or naturalism through precise imitation in sculpture, ascertaining any sort of privileged style for paintings is a bit more problematic. There appears to have been a less universal consensus, for example, concerning the use of colour. Thus Cicero noted that unpolished, unadorned, and dark (horrida inculta opaca) paintings delighted some, while others preferred a polished, cheerful, and bright style (nitida laeta collustrata, Orat. 36). Plutarch (Mor. 473F) implied a preference that vivid colours be placed in the foreground that are radiant and cheerful to conceal and suppress the more muted colours in a painting. Colour also served, it would appear, as a means to assess the date of a painting at least according to Cicero (Orat. 169), who noted a sparing use of colour in ancient paintings as opposed to contemporary ones.70 The controversy here however concerned colour and style. Can we extrapolate anything concerning realism from this? Perhaps looking back to Cicero’s earlier remark, the preference of some for the inculta as opposed to the collustrata may indicate an equal preference for a less abstract style, though we cannot be at all certain since we know relatively little concerning the development of Classical painting. However Vitruvius, for one, is quite explicit in his demand for ‘realism’ in terms Page 17 of 49

 

Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding of painting, and excoriates (p.102) contemporary artists with their taste for fantastic architecture and phantom constructions that would—quite literally— not hold up in reality (7.5.3–4; see fig. 3.6).71 As Elsner has pointed out, not everyone agreed.72 Before we leave our discussion on realism, it is worth noting that particularly for painting, but also for any artwork in general, placement was an added consideration, and more than one author remarks that it is essential that there be good light and that the viewing be accessible. To do otherwise might undermine the work’s quality or alter its effect (Cic. Brut. 261). Seneca the Younger was adamant that a picture have the proper light so that it might give optimal pleasure to the viewer (Epistulae 7.65.17; De Beneficiis 2.33.2), while Vitruvius was very specific about proper light for good viewing, and felt northern exposure preferable (6.4.2, 6.7.3).73 Strong has noted that Pliny, for one, observed that porticoes, scholae, and exedrae in particular, offered good lighting and perspective for exhibiting artworks.74 Well before Pliny, Horace (Ars Poetica 361–5) had noted that some pictures were better in certain light than others, some viewed better from afar, others close up. The question of distance and the viewer’s ability to view easily the more elevated art work on a monument is a matter that has preoccupied modern scholars: how did Romans view, for example, the more elevated portions of Trajan’s Column? It was also a problem recognized by the ancients. Pliny tells us that the caryatids on M. Agrippa’s Pantheon were of good workmanship and also praises the sculptures on the pediment of the structure, but goes on to note that they were less well-known because of the height of the pediment, which made them difficult to see (HN 36.38). Two of our sources indicate that the location and the subject of a particular artwork should suit one another as well, specifically in a religious context. Thus, Seneca the Elder finds it peculiar that paintings with certain untoward subjects, such as the adulteries of various deities, found their way into temples (Controversiae 10.5.14). Nor did he find the subject of Hercules slaying his children fit for a religious setting. Strong notes that in general an artwork’s subject would be related to the specific cult, although beginning in the late republic profane works with no such relation began to appear inside temples themselves.75 (p.103)

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Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding Communal Viewing According to some literary sources, the stereotypic mass response to cultural objects was very different from what we find among elite viewers as depicted in Cicero’s De Finibus. Polybius, for example, specifically noted the army’s disregard for artworks and votive offerings at the sack of Corinth (39.3), where as an eyewitness he claims that he saw men dicing on paintings that had been flung on the ground, including Aristides’ Dionysus as well as Hercules in Torment with

Fig. 3.6 This frescoed cubicle (so-called cubicle ‘E’) from the Villa della Farnesina shows the kind of delicate, ‘unrealistic’ architecture that Vitruvius excoriated as in reality non-functional. Museo Nazionale Romano, Palazzo Massimo alle Terme, Rome.

Deianeira’s Robe.76 Cicero is similarly dismissive of those who lack a general understanding of material culture, including both works of art and the monuments around them which rendered such material meaningless (Att. 6.1.17). This generally elitist take on the ability of most to appreciate fine artworks is reflected in the admittedly less reliable Juvenal, who speaks of the rough and ready soldier of old, who treated artworks harshly out of ignorance, breaking up fine silver cups to use as trappings for their armour and horses (11.100–7). (p.104) Of equal note is the ignorant barbarian with no appreciation of what he was viewing. Pliny tells the anecdote of the Teuton ambassador who was asked his opinion of a famous painting displayed in the Forum ‘of an old sheep herder with his staff’.77 The ambassador foolishly responded that he would not even want the original as a gift. Pliny speaks of the painting as though it were wellknown and perhaps elsewhere in his day (referring to it as ilia (‘that famous’) pastoris senis cum baculo). The important point here is that the central aspect of the ‘barbarian’s barbarity’ is his inability to appreciate an artwork as such. Equally scorned were those who were variously impressed or intimidated by imagines. Horace, for one, criticizes in his Satires the foolish individual ‘who is awestruck at inscriptions and portraiture’ (qui stupet in titulis et imaginibus, 1.6.17). He reflects here the opinion of Cato the Elder who noted that there were always going to be those who could see through the use of imagines or monuments as a means to advertise a mediocre personality (see p. 155).78 Pliny the Younger echoes both when he expresses disgust at a monument to Pallas, Page 19 of 49

 

Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding Claudius freedman and Agrippina the Younger’s consort, while the venerable Verginius Rufus’ tomb was already overgrown with thickets.79 The possibility that images could assert one’s authority and intimidate the viewer (even a relatively sophisticated one), finds support in Cicero’s Verrine orations, where Cicero asserts that Verres sought to forestall his accusers by the erection of equestrian statues in Rome, thinking that no one would call him to account when he saw that Sicily’s merchants and farmers had honoured him with statuary (Verr. 2.2.167–8). Perhaps the most famous instance of such stupefaction occurs in Ammianus Marcellinus, who relates the awestruck wonder of the emperor Constantius on his first visit to Rome in AD 357 (16.10.13–15). Monuments, inscriptions, cultural objects, all were employed in the service of power and in the construction of its legitimacy and authority, a point Horace understood implicitly when he subversively ridiculed those whose reactions were precisely the response Rome’s ruling elite desired. Ignorance, ‘barbarian’ incomprehension, or simple stupefied intimidation, were codes by which elite and non-elite viewers were occasionally distinguished. Such distinction notwithstanding, there were a series of areas which served as a space where the elite and non-elite appear to have shared particular values, or where differences were subsumed under a shared ethos of understanding. (p. 105) As Hölscher has noted, the vocabulary of visual representation ‘won widespread approval with the large and diverse groups of peoples throughout the Empire and has posited that ‘perhaps the visual language of Roman art had a more rudimentary set of functions for the general public as a whole’.80 That this almost certainly was the case is especially evident in three areas in our sources: the general respect accorded to images, the sense of common pleasure derived from viewing, and the ‘communal’ aspect of viewing.

Concordia Imaginum This was particularly the case with imagines, which were in general deemed worthy of respect and veneration by a broad swathe of Roman society. Horace’s and Cicero’s remarks concerning the deferential response to imagines cited above are plausible enough. Of course, part of the intent of imagines and tituli were to impress by their very nature, and it is easy as one’s eyes pass over the vast array of statuary in collections in the Vatican or Capitoline to forget how powerful such images were for the ancients.81 Images, particularly statuary, but naturally religious monuments as well, were not just objects used by the political elite to legitimate their authority, but were themselves objects of veneration by elites and non-elites alike, a subject explored extensively by H. Flower in both of her studies.82 Sentiment of a kindred nature may be detected in the reservations relatively sophisticated (even arguably sceptical) individuals such as Dio Chrysostomus and Pliny the Elder expressed concerning imagines; both disapproved of disfiguring the heads of statuary through substitution.83 It should be remarked that respect was not always the rule of the day. Suetonius states that Augustus ordered Neptune’s image omitted from a procession of the gods Page 20 of 49

 

Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding as punishment for a storm he caused (Aug. 16.2), while under Tiberius, after Germanicus’ untimely death, people reacted en masse by vandalizing temples, altars, even their own Lares in a show of extreme mourning (Calig. 5).84 (p.106) Perhaps the most famous instances of the universal respect accorded to imagines, aside from images found in what would appear a clear and obvious religious context, (such as a statue of Jupiter in his temple on the Capitoline), are the imagines displayed in a funerary context, possibly represented in our artistic record by the togate statue of a venerable Roman appearing to hold the imagines of his ancestors (fig. 3.7).85 In such a context, Polybius, Sallust, and Tacitus all refer either to their potential for exhorting men to virtus or as vehicles for perpetuating memory.86 Pliny the Elder himself, as Carey notes, is illustrative of the power of the imago to evoke memory with a view to the perpetuation of mos maiorum, something we will explore in greater detail in the following chapter.87 For now, it bears noting that Pliny remarked in his discussion of libraries the setting up of imagines ‘of those immortal spirits who speak to us in these places’ (HN 35.9–11).88 To preserve the image of the man, according to Pliny, was to confer immortality. The public context in which such imagines were often displayed was an opportunity for the aristocracy to instruct a public audience in a set of virtues which its audience could in turn share and strive to emulate.89 The role of the audience was participatory: the participation of the viewer in the value system expressed by the commemoration of a particular set of those values ensured the status of those in power but also included the participation of the group in their support. It was one of the central rituals, given its public nature and its presumably mixed audience, that served as a central negotiating point in which elite and non-elite could subsume their differences by partaking in the recollection of a (p.107)

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Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding shared ethos—that of virtus and the perpetuation of its memory and reenactment—that benefited Roman society at large.90

Viewing was therefore a matter of context and values. Naturally, images of the gods were subject to veneration. Yet respect was also extended to images of city officials and nobles as well, and separating religious from political sentiment concerning images is frequently impossible given the intrinsic interplay between (p.108) the two in Roman society. This is true even before the advent of the principate and the dedication of Caesar’s statue in the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus. Scipio Africanus imago was kept, after all, in the same temple; it is an instance where the context of the image functioned on virtually equal terms with the image itself, and signified the respect and veneration that Hannibal’s conqueror and the saviour of the Roman state was accorded.91 In the late republic at any rate, if we can believe Cicero, even a morally dubious character such as Verres rated a public statue, and it was assumed that it would be respected. It is with this in mind that Cicero deems remarkable the Syracusans overthrowing of Verres’ statues and noted that ‘even statues set up in public bestowed a type of sacred honour among men and a sort

Fig. 3.7 The so-called Barberini togatus represents a wellrespected Roman of high status in the veristic style carrying the images of his ancestors, possibly in preparation for a funerary ritual. The images were intended, in part, to exhort the living to emulate the virtues of their maiores (‘ancestors’). H: 1.65 m. First century BC or AD. Museo del Palazzo dei Conservatori, Rome.

of divine consecration’.92 While this is said of a Roman magistrate and not a divinity, it is worth noting that Cicero may not be exaggerating in this case, since Page 22 of 49

 

Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding Verres was accorded a quasi-divine status in that province, where a festival known as the Verralia was celebrated in his honour. More sincere veneration of individual personalities is a phenomenon that preexisted Verres in the form of setting up the imagines of one’s ancestors in a sacred context (whether at a lararium or in a funerary context), but which also extended to other renowned personalities under the empire. Pliny the Younger therefore mentions a number of people who paid homage to the images of Vergil, Brutus, and Cassius.93 The last two in particular were venerated, albeit in a private context, by Romans of good birth.94 That imagines in general received special treatment is something we also find in Plutarch, who mentions the reverence and pietas due to statuary, noting that some not only believe it to be an image of the deity, but the deity itself (Mor. 379D).95 The observation reflects Seneca the Elder’s remark (Controversiae 8.2) that the mind could only comprehend the majesty of Zeus (illa maiestas) once it (p.109) had seen Phidias’ work.96 The sentiment was a cliché by late antiquity, and Plotinus could remark that the statue was conceived ‘as it would appear to mortals, if the god were to make himself known before our eyes’.97 As regards imagines of a religious nature, for some viewers the god was actually considered present in the image; as L. S. Nasrallah has noted in her recent study, ‘Pausanias refers to some statues not as “an Artemis” or “the statue of Artemis,” for example, but as “Artemis” herself’.98 Hermes the Egyptian (also known as Trismegistus), cited by Augustine, discussed the special divine power or presence attributed to statuary in a treatise on statues in which he noted that imagines were virtually animate, and enumerated, among other properties, their ability to perform miracles.99 A real-life instance of such belief may find some support in Cicero (Verr. 2.4.94), who noted that Verres took by force a beautiful statue of Hercules which was an object of special reverence by the people of Akragas, as the chin, worn down from people touching it in offering prayers of thanks, showed (as is similarly the case today with Arnulfo di Cambio’s statue of Saint Peter, whose foot is worn down by pilgrims visiting Saint Peter’s Basilica). In addition, the larger social undercurrent of Roman society expected that imagines would be accorded respect, if not veneration, something that is borne out by various laws governing behaviour towards images.100 We need only recall the right of asylum granted not only to temples, but to images as well. Hence, Tacitus relates a situation under Tiberius in which individuals were laying hold of statues of Caesar and then verbally abusing their fellow Romans—usually those of higher status than themselves—as a way to rail against them with impunity.101 In general, the respect and reverence for imagines as something sacred was necessarily universal. Moral law, based on a religious foundation, was considered (p.110) central to Roman society. Such a foundation, built on the pax deorum, was a key component not simply of religious life, but of the state and of the Romans’ ability to function as a civil society, at least according to Page 23 of 49

 

Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding Polybius (6.56) and Cicero (Leg. 2.15, 26–8).102 The display of such images and shared Roman attitudes towards them served to validate elite authority and notions of the Roman self that likely extended beyond the elite, since it helped in re-enacting an earlier action through exhortation to pietas, virtus, and the like. The religious or quasi-religious attitude towards imagines and the sense of obligation, of pietas, that they instilled in the aristocracy was mirrored by the religious veneration we hear of among the non-elites and created a sense of communal solidarity re-enacted not just through specific rituals, but in shared attitudes.

Viewing With Pleasure Equally universal was the notion that viewing was a source of delight, and our sources frequently remark the pleasure that artworks imparted. Cicero for one asserted that Phidias, Polyclitus, and Zeuxis had directed their skills ad voluptatem (‘towards pleasure’).103 Cicero makes a similar point in the Verrines when he notes that imagines not only perpetuate memory, but also please the viewer (Verr. 2.4.123), a plausible enough assertion despite its prosecutorial context. Later, Valerius Maximus, when discussing the effects of images on the viewer, also remarked that in general pleasure was the desired end (8.11 praef.). The paradoxical pleasure afforded by painting was something Plutarch noted, when he remarked that imitation can produce a beautiful picture of an ugly subject: he cites specifically Timomachus of Byzantium’s picture of Medea about to slay her children (see fig. 3.8), Theon’s of Orestes slaying his mother, Parrhasius’ of Odysseus’ feigned madness, and Chaerephanes’ of ‘lewd intercourse’ (akolastous homilias) between women and men.104 He again noted it when he observed the (p.111)

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Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding contradiction between the viewer who feels pain at seeing the sick or the dying, but that a painting of Philoctetes (possibly in reference to one by Aristophon from the sixth century BC) or a statue of Jocasta (specifically one executed by Silanion in the fourth century BC) elicited delight and wonder.105

(p.112) Plutarch’s discussion calls to mind Vergil’s depiction of Aeneas’ reaction to the Temple of Juno in Carthage in the Aeneid (1.446–95).106 Although an ekphrasis in a fictional work, it is a plausible enough emotional response to something meant to be read visually.107 The images elicit tears from Aeneas, yet at the Fig. 3.8 Timomachus of Byzantium may same time give him the have been the model for this fresco in reassurance that he is by no which Medea premeditates the murder of means in the midst of savages her children. Plutarch noted that the (1.451–2). Indeed, as Vergil’s painting’s horrific subject afforded the presentation famously shows, viewer a paradoxical pleasure. The pleasure and pain coexist side original may have stood in the Temple of by side (‘Even here glory has its Venus Genetrix in Caesar’s forum. A own rewards,/ there are tears Roman copy after a Greek original. From for human things and the affairs the Casa dei Dioscuri, Pompeii. Museo of mortals touch the heart’, Archeologico Nazionale, Naples. Sunt hic etiam sua praemia laudi,/ sunt lacrimae rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt, 1.461–2). Taken together, both Plutarch and Vergil bring up an aspect of viewing that looks back to Aristotle (Poetica 1449b) who noted that the subject of tragedy brought pleasure through a purge of the emotions and bad humours, as well as through the sensations of recollected experiences the viewer may have survived or the pleasure of watching one toil in the midst of troubles in which the viewer takes no part.108 While we may question how many viewers had the skills to ‘decode’ ancient works of art (or other cultural objects for that matter), it is doubtful that the sensation of pleasure was the exclusive province of a particular class, but rather a universal response elicited from interested viewers. There are indications in our sources that individuals from all walks of life were enamoured, if we may use Page 25 of 49

 

Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding the term, of particular works of art. We note, for example, that a passage in the Justinianic Digest (21.1.65) admonished that it was a fault of some slaves to continually want to sit and carefully look at paintings, and warns the buyer of slaves to be wary of those who like to stop while on their errands and spend (p. 113) excessive amounts of time gazing at artworks.109 The admonition makes no sense unless we understand that there were some from the servile class who were acknowledged to derive pleasure from viewing artistic works. In addition, as noted previously (p. 71), Tiberius provoked public outrage at his removal of Lysippus’ Apoxyomenos from the Baths of Agrippa, and there were vociferous protests in the theatre, including chants of ‘Bring back the Apoxyomenos!’.110 Why the mass outcry were it not that it had a devoted public following? The pleasure derived from works of art reaches its pinnacle in tales about erotic attachment. One of the loci classici for such tales (in addition to the numerous ones that surround Praxiteles’ Cnidian Aphrodite) is that of Pygmalion related by Ovid.111 Similar tales find their way into supposedly more ‘historically based’ accounts, including, to mention just some of the more prominent ones, Livy, Valerius Maximus, Pliny the Elder, and Athenaeus, who all recount similar stories. Athenaeus relates (13.605f–606a) that Cleisophus of Selymbria fell in love with a statue (a work of Ctesicles) in the temple at Samos (presumably in the Heraion), an incident related in Adaeus of Mytilene’s work On Sculptors .112 Valerius Maximus in a similar anecdote concerning Praxiteles’ Aphrodite of Cnidos (a work he describes as quasi spirantem, ‘almost breathing’) also notes the erotic attachment one viewer developed for the work (8.11.ext.4).113 In a similar episode, Pliny the Elder remarks that by the Temple of Felicitas was a group of Thespiades, one of which, if we can believe Varro, captured the fancy of a Roman knight, one Junius Pisciculus, who fell in love with it (HN 36.39). Emperors, (p.114) such as Tiberius, may not have been immune from similar attractions.114 The ultimate effect is to put on display an object of intense desire, at the same time frustrating and negating that desire as a result of the (usually) sacred nature of the work.115 Such anecdotes, as noted above, are mirrored in Petronius fictional account of Encolpius’ reaction to paintings in a gallery in southern Italy (Satyricon 81–83), which, as Elsner discusses, is erotically charged.116 This is especially the case given the subjects of the paintings, which included Apelles’ The Goddess on One Knee, a Jupiter and Ganymede, and a Hylas and the Naiad, as well as a depiction of the myth of Apollo and Hyacinthus, showing Apollo cursing his hands and adorning his unstrung lyre with a flower in mourning for the dead Hyacinthus. The pictures– sexually charged contents caused Encolpius to contemplate how love affects the gods, something he relates back to his own experiences.117 As Elsner has remarked in his extended discussion of Encolpius’ (and Eumolpius’) visit to the gallery, ‘What Encolpius actually sees in the gallery is what his immediate personal circumstances have conditioned him to see’.118 Page 26 of 49

 

Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding Similarly in Lucian’s Amores (13–17), there is the recounting of two visitors to Praxiteles’ Aphrodite of Cnidos—Charicles, who is heterosexual, and Callicratidas, who prefers men.119 Charicles embraces and kisses the marble, while Callicratidas praises her posterior. Noticing a stain on her thigh, the aedituus recounts to the (p.115) two visitors the story of a young boy who had broken into the temple at night and made love to the statue. Having fulfilled his ultimate passion and desire, he committed suicide; the story left Callicratidas speculating precisely how he made love to the statue. Such erotic responses and reactions, fantastic though they may appear, are recognized as a relatively common sublimated reaction on the part of viewers by psychologists.120 It would be unwise to dismiss out of hand such anecdotes, along with Petronius’ novel, as wholly implausible scenarios.

Towards a Community of Viewers: Guides and Inscriptions, Ignorance and Understanding While intuition and appreciation of artworks may have been something that could be shared among varying social classes (including slaves), understanding and knowledge of a given artefact and the ability to decode works of art, even within the elite, could not be assumed. Although there was a great deal of visual vocabulary that observers from various strata of society no doubt could readily access immediately (such as a trophy of arms adorning a house), written text was another essential way in which material objects communicated their ‘messages ; this is especially true for the myriad lesser known historical or religious figures, not to mention hordes of officials honoured with public imagines. While scholars are right to point out the importance of visual culture in a society where literacy was far from the norm and to note that monuments and artworks played an important role in communicating about Roman politics, history, and culture, we need to be cautious concerning just how accessible and how well understood such monuments were, even to a fairly literate audience.121 None of this is to deny that the subject could not be read or understood by an audience on multiple levels. As Onians has observed, words and images in Roman antiquity were used in conjunction to communicate with the viewer.122 Rather it is a cautionary note that visual literacy ought not to be assumed, and that fuller understanding required, at times, assistance. (p.116) Although admittedly a work of fiction, Petronius’ Satyricon once again opens for us a plausible window into how problematic it could be even for a fairly literate individual to access and understand visual narrative. Upon his entrance into Trimalchio’s house, Encolpius needs to inquire about the subjects of the paintings in the atrium, which turn out to be scenes from the Iliad and the Odyssey (Satyricon 29). That seems an inexcusable lapse on Encolpius’ part, and may be intended to show up his ignorance (particularly given the episode’s satirical context), until we consider that even modern scholars occasionally need assistance ascertaining the subjects of visual narratives in ancient Roman sculpture and painting. It must be noted, however, that the medium itself will Page 27 of 49

 

Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding have conveyed a message that the owner of the house was a man of wealth and status. It was perfectly understandable on the other hand, that Encolpius would need to be given an account of a painting that depicted a combat of local gladiators. More approachable (provided one was literate) were the scenes from Trimalchio’s own life, in part because each scene was accompanied with an inscription. Their arrangement, in chronological order along a portico, will have helped in reading them.123 Such written narrative, however, while it could assist the viewer with the comprehension of the monuments and exhibitions scattered throughout the city, was no guarantee of understanding. The relationship between object and text in antiquity is one much discussed by scholars in literary terms, and as we noted, poems (such as those we find in abundance in the various Greek anthologies) and inscriptions existed for specific objects, though to what extent objects in general were ‘labeled’ is problematic.124 In relative terms, however, there exists a substantial body of epigrammatic and epigraphic evidence for cultural objects.125 Naturally principes and grandees would want to advertise their achievements and did so through a variety of media, including statue bases and other forms of written dedications, such as the one Hadrian composed to celebrate two votive cups made from the horn of wild bulls set in gold, spoils from his campaigns against the Getae that he gave as votives to Casian Zeus in his temple at Antioch (p.117) (Anthologia Palatina 6.332). This intersection of the visual and textual as an expression of power appears most starkly in the Roman triumph. Triumphatores would use plaques with written texts in large lettering to supplement the tabulae (pictorial representations of landscapes and battle scenes).126 It was also with this in mind, no doubt, that Augustus in the socalled ‘Hall of Fame’ in his forum containing the statuary of famous Romans (the summi viri) used written narrative to commemorate their achievements—and no doubt to shape the interpretation and narrative concerning each.127 In addition, Pliny the Elder tells us that after Augustus set up Apelles’ Aphrodite Anadyomenē in the Temple of Divus Julius he added to it a series of Greek verses that praised the work (HN 35.91).128 While visual language and literacy will have taken precedence, text clearly played a role, as the extant corpus of inscriptions on such bases indicates.129 As has been noted by Bowman and Woolf, such inscriptions and texts in and of themselves constituted a vital expression of power.130 Yet how such texts were integrated with the object was a far more complex process, one that, as Bergmann has noted, will have required both visual assessment and the ability to understand what the text was trying to communicate concerning the object.131 The very presence of text, however, itself an indicator of power and privilege, in addition to the space an object occupied and the visual language to which it laid claim, served as an authorizing signifier for the creation of legitimacy for the displayer who attempted further to control meaning through context.132 The (p. 118) presence of text purely as an indication of power ought not to be confused, Page 28 of 49

 

Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding however, with a wide range of literacies, the nature of which is a vexed and controversial matter for ancient Rome. In general though, one suspects that when publicly inscribed texts were inaccessible to the viewer, as noted above, there were always those willing to help (and perhaps show off and impress in the process).133 This is not to imply that images needed text to be meaningful, though surely on a certain level their ‘controlled meaning , originating from an authorial source and expressed frequently through inscriptions, if it was to be retrieved by as many viewers as possible, will have required assistance. Ignorance or bafflement was not always a matter of illiteracy however. There was always the potential that someone simply did not know the cultural heritage of a given site. One can meet plenty of well-educated Romans today (or residents of any other city for that matter) whose knowledge of the city does not extend to the historical or archaeological knowledge of the professional academic (but who do have their own narratives and stories about the city that are expressive of their own values and culture). As is the case now, in antiquity there were guides whose job it was to inform the visitor or the viewer about the historical, mythical, and cultural background of a site, yet as is the case today, the accuracy of their information could be dubious. Although we have no record of these at Rome, we do elsewhere, and it is easy enough to imagine their presence in the city. Though one must be careful with precise analogies, the situation in other sites may give us some idea of who these were and what they did. We know from Cicero, for example, that in Syracuse there were mystagogi (‘guides’) who showed visitors around. After Verres’ vicious plundering of the city, they showed tourists what artworks had been where prior to Verres’ theft (Verr. 2.4.131).134 Plutarch attests to the existence of guides at Delphi and actually relates an argument with a tourist (named Basilocles) and Philinus, who acted as a guide (Mor. 394E). The guides were known as periēgētai (Mor. 395A; cf. 400D) and gave detailed tours, including the interpretation of inscriptions and the discussion of nuances of various artworks. In the passage in Plutarch, the periēgētēs gets involved in a detailed discussion concerning the colour of bronzes at Delphi, and then spins a yarn about a golden statue King Croesus had dedicated of the woman who baked his bread (Mor. 401E), although in this instance the periēgētēs is exposed as uneducated. There were also guides who gave tours of the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, who told viewers to shield their eyes lest they (p.119) be blinded when looking at Menestratus’ Hercules and Hecate.135 As the Plutarch passage indicates however, just how well educated such guides were, and just how accurate their information was, is questionable. Such guides are perhaps best attested in Pausanias, although he avoids the use of the word periēgētai in favour of exēgētai.136 If guides were lacking, there was always the chance that a less informed but appreciative onlooker could meet one of greater expertise through chance encounter, such as we see in Petronius (Satyricon 88–9), which, while a fictional Page 29 of 49

 

Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding account, is a credible enough everyday experience, when Encolpius needs to ask Eumolpus concerning the age of the pictures and the subjects of those that are less well-known.137 Similar motifs in which bystanders assist a bewildered viewer in understanding and interpreting such paintings are to be found in Lucian (Hercules 4; Amores 8 and 15), Callistratus (Descriptions 6.4), Philostratus’ Imagines (1 proem 4), and the Tabula of Cebes (1.3). A similar and equally plausible fiction is related in Ovid (Ars Am. 1.213–28), where he creates a scenario in which a female viewer, ignorant of what the various images depict during a triumphal procession, relies on the knowledge (sometimes of dubious accuracy) of a sexual predator and chance bystander to relate the names and events portrayed:138 And when some woman will inquire about the names of the kings, About what places, what mountains, what waters are carried in the procession, Answer everything, and not just the things someone asks. And the things you don’t know pretend you know well. This one is the Euphrates, a reed bound to its forehead. The one who has the blue lock of hair hanging down is the Tigris. Make these Armenians; this one is Persian, descended from Danaë. That one is a city in the valleys of the Achaemenids. That one and that one generals; and be sure to mention what their names are; Give the true ones if you can, if not, make up something suitable.

(p.120) Holliday conjectures that at triumphal celebrations at least ‘some triumphatores may have hired special attendants (apparitores) or claquers to read the passing inscriptions to the crowds’.139 It is worth noting that at times even the most educated Roman confronted serious gaps as regards the cultural memory of their own city, gaps no guide could fill. We consequently find conflicting traditions or lack of knowledge concerning local artefacts and monuments.140 For example the Lapis Niger, while thought by many to be Romulus tomb, was by an alternative tradition thought to be that of Faustulus, killed during the civil strife between Romulus and Remus supporters, or even the tomb of Hostius Hostilius, killed during the Sabine war.141 Similarly, Plutarch, discussing a statue of a woman near the Forum notes confusion over its identity (Mor. 250F): is it of Cloelia or Valeria? Ovid could also cite varying traditions concerning a statue of Anna Perenna (Fast. 3.601–74), but the diverse traditions surrounding its identification and significance were numerous according to the poet.142 Holliday also notes that there was confusion too on such monuments as the tombs of the Horatii, the Tigillum Sororium, the statue of Horatius Cocles, the column of Minucius, and the Busta Gallica.143 Finally, Wiseman has discussed a variant tradition

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Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding concerning a monument near the Circus under white paving stones called ‘The Pyre of the Nine Tribunes’. Did it commemorate nine patrician ex-consuls, killed as tribuni militum in battle against the Volsci; or nine tribunes of the plebs burnt alive by their colleague P. Mucius for complicity in Sp. Cassius’ attempted coup d’état; or nine bold tribunes ‘delivered to the flames’ by the populace at the secret instigation of the patricians?144 If Roman visual culture was about identity, power, and its reinforcement, then access to its language was vital. Inscriptions, individuals with local knowledge, or simply more literate passers-by, all likely served to assist the general viewer in (p.121) reading visual culture’s less accessible ‘passages’. Iconography would be expected to be clear and pointed in order to speak as explicitly as possible to the viewer: hence, the caduceus for Mercury, the crow for Corvus. Access, however, even to what may appear the most obvious subject, should not always be assumed, even for a literate viewer. The understanding of visual media in Rome will have required a communal effort, not always, but certainly on some occasions, in which certain viewers will have likely acted as an intermediary between the viewer and the object. He or she will have become a part-time facilitator in the preservation of memory and the creation of traditions around particular objects.

Conclusion: Collective Knowledge and Shared Viewing The city functioned as a sphere of collective knowledge about Rome’s history, ideologies, religious beliefs, cultural and political dynamics. What we have tried to offer here is a general over-view of what the Romans themselves tell us about their own expectations and responses concerning viewing material reflective of what we might term Rome’s civic universe. In addition, we have suggested some possibilities as to how the Romans made a more legible script within their urban environment, how they deployed cultural property, and how they viewed its presentation. That presentation rested with the powerful, those who commissioned the monuments, composed the inscriptions, collected cultural property, and decided in what context such material was to be presented. There was always the potential for tension between the elite syntax and the mass readership (who could read into the transmission of such messages their own interpretations), but there were points of communal sharing as well. Such sharing could even take place between a Roman and non-Roman audience, given the Greek visual syntax, so well-known throughout the Mediterranean (and beyond), in which Roman culture was increasingly grounded.145 Unlike the grain dole that assuaged the appetite only temporarily, visual culture stood as a permanent symbol of reciprocity, a place where the visual object/speaker and the viewer/audience could frequently subsume difference under a shared communal value, one that either emphasized conditions common between two diverse groups (such as voluptas) or assured mutual support (through, for example, Page 31 of 49

 

Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding virtus or pietas) for the good of the community. At the same time it almost goes without saying that, inasmuch as there are as many potential views as there are viewers, the possibility for subversive interpretations and resistant readings was ever present. It is with the specific use of the material that reflected these and similar ideologies that the remainder of this study will concern itself (p.122) . Notes:

(1) For response and meaning as something contingent see pp. 3–4. (2) To cite but a sampling, see R. B. Bandinelli, ‘Arte Plebea’, DialArch 1 (1967), 7–19; A. Vasaly, Representation: Images of the World in Ciceronian Oratory (Berkeley 1993); J. Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer. The Transformation of Art from the Pagan to the Christian World (Cambridge 1995); J. Elsner, (ed.), Art and Text in Roman Culture (Cambridge 1996); Elsner, ‘Image and Ritual: Reflections on the Graeco-Roman Appreciation of Art’, CQ 46 (1996), 515–31; H. I. Flower, Ancestor Masks and Aristocratic Power in Roman Culture (Oxford 1996); P. J. Holliday, ‘Roman Triumphal Painting: Its Function, Development, and Reception’, ArtB 79 (1997), 130–47; P. Zanker, ‘In Search of the Roman Viewer’, in D. Buitron-Oliver (ed.), The Interpretation of Architectural Sculpture in Greece and Rome, Studies in the History of Art Vol. 49 (Washington DC 1997), 179–92; 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 2003); T. Hölscher, The Language of Images in Roman Art (Cambridge 2004); J. Elsner, Roman Eyes. Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text (Princeton 2007). (3) See Hölscher, Language of lmages (n. 2), 9 n. 14; also see p. 7: ‘We can no longer approach works of art exclusively from the standpoint of production, as the expressions of artists or patrons, but we must also examine them as forms of communication—that is, as a factor in the collective life of a society’. (4) For discussion of this ‘broad communication’ see S. E. Alcock, Archaeologies of the Greek Past: Landscape, Monuments, and Memories (Cambridge 2002), 177: ‘Elite patrons may have been principally responsible for the creation or maintenance of monuments, but—inscribed as they were in accessible and populous spaces—commemorative choices were plainly a matter for viewing and debate across a broad community’; on a similar accessibility of meaning of architectural forms (e.g. the triangular pediment of temple construction) in antiquity see E. Thomas, Monumentality and the Roman Empire. Architecture in the Antonine Age (Oxford 2007), 150–1; cf. 53–69. (5) See Clarke, Art … Ordinary Romans (n. 2), passim. (6) Thomas, Monumentality (n. 4), 150.

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Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding (7) See A. K. Bowman and G. Woolf, (eds.), Literacy and Power in the Ancient World (Cambridge 1994), 7, who also note that the restriction of writing and texts to an empowered elite was able ‘to impose an “authorized” reading’. (8) For simplification of imagery as a means of communication see J. Fentress and C. Wickham, Social Memory (Oxford and Cambridge Mass. 1992), 47–8: ‘Images can be transmitted socially only if they are conventionalized and simplified: conventionalized, because the image has to be meaningful for an entire group; simplified, because in order to be generally meaningful and capable of transmission, the complexity of the image has to be reduced as far as possible’. (9) See e.g. Petronius, Satyricon 126 where he compares a girl’s smile with Praxiteles’ Diana. For the reverse metaphor of a read (or spoken) text as a monument see e.g. Cic. Fam. 5.12.1; Horace, Carmina 3.30.1; Livy, Praefatio 10; Tac. Agr. 2.1. For discussion see T. P. Wiseman, ‘Monuments and the Roman Annalists’, in I. S. Moxon, J. D. Smart, and A. J. Woodman (eds.), Past Perspectives: Studies in Greek and Roman Historical Writing (Cambridge 1986), 87–100, esp. 88; see M. K. Jaeger, Livy’s Written Rome (Ann Arbor 1997), 15–29 and A. Feldherr, Spectacle and Society in Livy’s History (Berkeley 1998), 1–50 for this phenomenon in Livy; also see Thomas, Monumentality (n. 4), 5–6, 168–70 for the connection between monuments and memory and the Roman conception of the word monumentum. (10) See Clarke, Art … Ordinary Romans (n. 2), 7–9 for a theoretical discussion of elite versus non-elite viewers; also see R. M. Van Dyke and S. E. Alcock, (eds.), Archaeologies of Memory (Oxford 2003), 8 for discussion concerning the ‘restrictive’ meaning of objects among social groups; see Thomas, Monumentality (n. 4), 229–30 for discussion of elite versus non-elite responses to architecture, specifically in Lucian, De Domo. (11) See Clarke, Art … Ordinary Romans (n. 2), 4–7 for a good discussion of this distinction; also see N. Slater, ‘“Against Interpretation”: Petronius and Art Criticism’, Ramus, 16 (1987), 166 for the various traditions of art criticism in antiquity; cf. J. J. Pollitt, The Ancient View of Greek Art: Criticism, History, and Terminology (New Haven and London 1974), 11. (12) See J. Elsner, Imperial Rome and Christian Triumph (Oxford 1998), 244 citing inter alios Philostratus Maior, Imagines 1 proem 1; Philostratus Minor, Imagines proem 3; for an excellent general discussion of connoisseurship with emphasis on Pausanias and Lucian see Elsner, Roman Eyes (n. 2), 49–66. (13) There are two versions of this story, one in Pliny, HN 35.85–6, one in Plut. Mor. 472A, who makes it not Alexander but Megabyzus. (14) See p. 49 n. 63 for discussion. Page 33 of 49

 

Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding (15) Pliny, HN 35.128; for the theory of colour in Greek and Roman art see J. Gage, Colour and Culture: Practice and Meaning from Antiquity to Abstraction (London 1993), 14; see W. D. Coulson, ‘The Nature of Pliny’s Remarks on Euphranor’, CJ 67 (1972), 323–6 for Euphranor’s place in the history of ancient artists. (16) See Pliny, HN 35.77; Plut. Aem. 6.8–9; for its loss of favour see Pliny, HN 35.20; for discussion see P. J. Holliday, The Origins of Roman Historical Commemoration in the Visual Arts (Cambridge 2002), 20; E.S. Gruen, Culture and Identity in Republican Rome (Ithaca 1992), 132. (17) Pliny, HN 35.22; see Holiday, Origins (n. 16), 82. (18) Petronius, Satyricon 46; Suet. Ner. 52; S.H.A. Hadr. 16.10; cf. 14.8. Also see Aur. Vict. Caes. 14.6; cf. S.H.A. Ant. Pius 4.9 for Aurelius’ interest; for painting as an instructional tool see N. Bryson, ‘Philostratus and the Imaginary Museum’, in S. Goldhill and R. Osborn (eds.), Art and Text in Ancient Greek Culture (Cambridge 1994), 255. (19) See A. Leen, ‘Cicero and the Rhetoric of Art’, AJP 112 (1991), 231, who notes that Cicero contradicts his professed public ignorance of art through his evident knowledge of individual artefacts in the Verrines and who notes that G. Showerman (‘Cicero’s Appreciation of Greek Art’, AJP 25 (1904), 306–14) takes at face value Cicero’s professed ignorance; see also p. 57 n. 94. (20) For a good brief discussion of the history and reception of Philostratus’ Imagines, esp. concerning the authenticity of the collection, see Bryson, ‘Philostratus’ (n. 18), 257; Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer (n. 2), 21–48. For the possibility of the collection’s thematic arrangement see K. Lehmann, ‘The Imagines of the Elder Philostratus’, ArtB 23 (1941), 16–44; cf. Bryson, ‘Philostratus’ (n. 18), 262–3. For general discussion see e.g. M. Conan, ‘The Imagines of Philostratus’, Word and Image, 3 (1987), 162–71; O. Schönberger, ‘Die “Bilder” des Philostratus’, in G. Boehm and H. Pfotenhauer (eds.), Beschreibungskunst-Kunstbeschreibung: Ekphrasis von der antiker bis zur Gegenwart (Munich 1995), 157–73; J. Elsner, ‘Making Myth Visual: The Horae of Philostratus and the Dance of the Text’, MDAI(R) 207 (2000), 253–76. (21) For the De Finibus in the context of place description see Vasaly, Representation (n. 2), 28–32; C. Edwards, Writing Rome. Textual Approaches to the City (Cambridge 1996), 28–30. For Cicero’s discussion in its greater context of Roman attitudes towards Greece in general see S. E. Alcock, Archaeologies of the Greek Past: Landscape, Monuments, and Memories (Cambridge 2002), 66–8. (22) A. P. Gregory, ‘“Powerful Images”: Responses to Portraits and the Political Uses of Images in Rome’, JRA 7 (1994), 86; cf. Wiseman, ‘Monuments’ (n. 9), 87– 100; Edwards, Writing Rome (n. 21), 20–3; Thomas, Monumentality (n. 4), 5, 169; Page 34 of 49

 

Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding also see Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer (n. 2), 125–55 on identity and place in Pausanias; A. J. B. Wace ‘The Greeks and Romans as Archaeologists’, Bulletin de la Société Royale d’Archéologie d’Alexandrie, 38 (1949), 21–35 points out that this interest in cultural significance and even preservation did not lead to excavation and applied archaeology; also see D. E. Strong, Roman Museums (London 1994), 6. (23) See Vasaly, Representation (n. 2), 15–17 for discussion; see e.g. 36–8, 99– 100, on Cicero’s appeal to the statue of Jupiter Stator in his temple during his orations against Catiline. (24) D. Sailor, Writing and Empire in Tacitus (Cambridge 2009), 183–249. (25) Something that constitutes the subject of several surveys. See F. Yates, The Art of Memory (London 1966), 2–12 on Cicero’s mnemonic techniques in the De Or. and in the Rhetorica ad Herennium; also see D. Favro,‘Reading the Augustan City’, in P. J. Holliday (ed.), Narrative and Event in Ancient Art (Cambridge 1993), 232–4, with discussion of Rhetorica ad Herennium 3.16–24; cf. D. Favro, The Urban Image of Augustan Rome (Cambridge 1996), 5–11; Alcock, Archaeologies (n. 21), 21–3. (26) See Quintilian, Institutio oratoria 11.2.17–22; for discussion see Yates, Art of Memory (n. 25), 2–3; J. Onians, ‘Quintilian and the Idea of Roman Art’, in M. Henig (ed.), Architecture and Architectural Sculpture in the Roman Empire (Oxford 1990), 4–8, and Classical Art and the Cultures of Greece and Rome (New Haven 1999), 178, 193–9; also see Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer (n. 2), 77– 80 for his discussion of memory and the house in Quintilian. (27) Holliday, Origins (n. 16), 130–1 observes that Cic. De Or. 2.357, Horace, Ars Poetica 180–2, and Val. Max. 5.4.ext.1 all remark on visual media’s potential for assisting memory. (28) Cf. Fin. 5.6; see Edwards, Writing Rome (n. 21), 17–18 for discussion; see Van Dyke and Alcock, Archaeologies of Memory (n. 10), 5–6 for discussion of memory and the experience of place. (29) Leg. 2.4; see Edwards, Writing Rome (n. 21), 18 for discussion; cf. Vasaly, Representation (n. 2), 33, who notes that ‘Cicero’s emotional attachment to places that spoke to him of his own history and identity reflects the deeper connections of Romans to places in Rome of communal symbolic significance’. (30) See Leen, ‘Cicero and the Rhetoric of Art’ (n. 19), 232 for discussion. (31) For a fine theoretical discussion of how memory is constructed and shared within a given social order see P. Connerton, How Societies Remember (Cambridge 1989), 3.

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Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding (32) Mor. 381D–F; for discussion of allegory in ancient visual culture see M. L. Thompson, ‘The Monumental and Literary Evidence for Programmatic Painting in Antiquity’, Marsyas, 9 (1960–1), 36–7; Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer (n. 2), 10, who notes that various modes of interpretation—allegorical, literal, symbolic, and deconstructionist—existed side by side. For a basic study of Plutarch’s response to images see C. Clerc, ‘Plutarche et la culte des images’, Revue de l’histoire des religions, 70 (1914), 107–24. (33) Lucian, De Domo 6 and 21; for discussion see Elsner, Imperial Rome (n. 12), 181. (34) For the tortoise see Plut. Mor. 142D; for the frogs 399F; for the rooster 400C. Various explanations were proposed for the latter two: the palm’s frogs possibly indicated spring’s arrival, while Apollo’s rooster conceivably symbolized the dawn and Apollo’s role as the sun god. (35) See Holliday, Origins (n. 16), 112; Holliday, ‘Roman Triumphal Painting’ (n. 2), 136–7; see I. Östenberg, Staging the World: Spoils, Captives, and Representation in the Roman Triumphal Procession (Oxford 2009), 199–212 for an excellent discussion of the pitfalls of assuming allegorical as opposed to literal interpretation in the artistic record, based on a discussion of the depiction of cities. (36) See e.g. Ovid who implies that Diana was depicted a particular way by painters: ‘Such are the legs of Diana portrayed, girded up/when she pursues powerful beasts, herself more powerful’, Am. 3.2.30–1; see Elsner, Roman Eyes (n. 2), 248–9 for a brief but interesting discussion on the diverse modes of representation of various deities and the significance of such variation. (37) See J. Rüpke, Religion of the Romans. Translated and edited by R. Gordon (Cambridge and Malden Mass. 2007), 12. (38) For a detailed discussion concerning links between the theme of a work and ekphrasis see J. A. Heffernan, Museum of Words: The Poetics of Ekphrasis from Homer to Ashbery (Chicago 1993), 10–46 with particular focus on the connections between Achilles’ shield and the Iliad as a whole, and its intertextual relationship with Vergil’s Aeneid; see esp. 22–36; also see R. Thomas, ‘Vergil’s Ekphrastic Centrepieces’, HSCP 87 (1983), 175–84 for a related discussion. (39) See Holliday, Origins (n. 16), 205. (40) Although ancient preferences were sometimes imprecise; see Quintilian, Institutio oratoria 12.10.9; cf. 12.10.3 where he remarks some preferred only older artists such as Polygnotus and Algaophon; cf. 12.10.3–9 for his general assessment of ancient artists. For discussion see J. Alsop, The Rare Art Page 36 of 49

 

Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding Traditions: The History of Art Collecting and its Linked Phenomena Wherever These Have Appeared (New York 1982), 201–2; cf. V. Andó, Luciano critico d’arte (Palermo 1975), 80–7 esp. 82 n. 319 for a detailed list. (41) On the ancient theoretical view of art, especially relating to specific artists and styles see Hölscher, Languages of Images (n. 2), 92–8; Elsner, Roman Eyes (n. 2), 51–8. Cf. S. Settis, ‘Did the Ancients Have an Antiquity? The Idea of Renaissance in the History of Classical Art’, in A. Brown (ed.), Language and Images of Renaissance Italy (Oxford 1995), 44–6 on the development and nature of ‘art histor/ in antiquity. On the meaning of maiestas, pondus, verum, and pulchritudo see Hölscher, Language of Images (n. 2), 95–8; cf. Elsner, Imperial Rome (n. 12), 244. For style as a conveyor of meaning see A. Kuttner, ‘Some New Grounds for Narrative: Marcus Antonius’ Base (the Ara Domitii Ahenobarbi) and Republican Biographies’, in P. J. Holliday (ed.), Narrative and Event in Ancient Art (Cambridge 1993), 213. (42) See Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer (n. 2), 15–16. (43) See Hölscher, Language of Images (n. 2), 10–21, esp. 14–15, who discusses the temporal collapsing in Roman visual culture of the diverse styles, Classical and Hellenistic, and how they coexist simultaneously. For the ‘Classical’ as a basis for ‘the standard’ of artistic criticism see ibid., 119. Such categorization by nature made the work rare or ‘Classical’; see Alsop, Rare Art Traditions (n. 40), 73–4, 201, who notes that the ‘cut-off’ period for the Romans was the fourth century, and that, despite the canonization of the Classical, Apelles and Lysippus represented the peak; also see Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer (n. 2), 15–16 for a related discussion. (44) See D. J. Sherman and I. Rogoff, (eds.),Museum Culture: Histories, Discourses, Spectacles (Minneapolis 1994), xiii for a theoretical discussion of the ‘historically specific’ construction of ‘interpretative communities’; cf. Alsop, Rare Art Traditions (n. 40), 129–32, who notes that response to an artefact is often contingent on the artist and that response is historic as much as aesthetic. (45) On the ‘sacred’ nature of objects see S. M. Pearce, On Collecting. An Investigation into Collecting in the European Tradition (London 1995), 24; cf. R. Belk, M. Wallendorf, J. Sherry, M. Holbrook, and S. Roberts, ‘Collectors and Collecting’, Advances in Consumer Research, 15 (1988), 548–52. (46) G. W. Stocking, (ed.), Objects and Others: Essays on Museums and Material Culture, History of Anthropology, 3 (Madison Wis. 1985), 6. (47) Pearce, On Collecting (n. 45), 24. (48) See P. Stewart, Statues in Roman Society. Representation and Response (Oxford 2003), 230–1, who notes this in regard to a bronze statue Pliny Page 37 of 49

 

Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding dedicated at Comum, Ep. 3.6; Elsner, Roman Eyes (n. 2), xv notes in general the capacity of objects to demarcate space as sacred. (49) See in general C. Duncan, ‘Art Museums and the Ritual of Citizenship’, in I. Karp and S. D. Lavine (eds.), Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display (Washington DC 1991), 90–2, and ‘The Art Museum as Ritual’, in J. C. Berlo and R. B. Phillips (eds.), ‘The Problematics of Collecting and Display, Part 1’, ArtB 77 (1995), 6–24, esp. 11 for the ritualistic nature of the contemporary museum visit. (50) J. Elsner, ‘Image and Ritual’ (n. 2), 531; for a more detailed discussion see J. Elsner, ‘Between Mimesis and Divine Power: Visuality in the Graeco-Roman World’, in R. S. Nelson (ed.), Visuality Before and Beyond the Renaissance (Cambridge 2000), 60–3; for the visual experience of the viewer in a sacred context see Elsner, Roman Eyes (n. 2), 13–26. (51) Favro, Urban Image (n. 25), 228. (52) HN 36.27. See S. Carey, ‘The Problems of Totality: Collecting Greek Art, Wonders, and Luxury in Pliny the Elder’s Natural History’, JHC 12.1 (2000), 4 for discussion of the Pliny passage. (53) Only an indication because we cannot be certain whether the object of scorn is his bad verse, the noise he makes, or both. (54) Duncan, ‘Art Museums’ (n. 49), 12. (55) See Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer (n. 2), 16–17; cf. Elsner, Roman Eyes (n. 2), 1–11; for realism in Petronius see F. M. Jones, ‘Realism in Petronius’, in H. Hoffman (ed.), Groningen Colloquia on the Novel, 4 (1991), 105–20. (56) For an excellent discussion of aemulatio see C. Hallett, ‘Emulation versus Replication: Redefining Roman Copying’, JRA 18 (2005), 419–35 with his review of E. K. Gazda, (ed.), The Ancient Art of Emulation. Studies in Artistic Originality from the Present to Classical Antiquity (Ann Arbor 2002), and E. Perry, The Aesthetics of Emulation in the Visual Arts of Ancient Rome (Cambridge 2005); cf. H. Bardon, ‘Le concept de similitude à Rome’, ANRW 1.2 (1972), 857–68; also see P. Stewart, The Social History of Roman Art (Cambridge 2008), 146–7 which focuses on this concept in the context of the variations we find in the execution of the Doryphorus. See L. S. Nasrallah, Christian Response to Roman Art and Architecture (Cambridge 2010), 120–2 for discussion of the wider range of meaning the Greek term mimēsis could have in this regard. (57) See Elsner’s outstanding discussion of realism and naturalism in Ovid’s myth of Pygmalion (Roman Eyes (n. 2), 113–31); cf. Hölscher, Language and Images (n. 2), 91 for a brief discussion of Roman ‘realism’. For the value placed on realism see R. L. Gordon, ‘The Real and the Imaginary; Production and Page 38 of 49

 

Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding Religion in the Graeco-Roman World’, in R. L. Gordon (ed.), Image and Value in the Graeco-Roman World: Studies in Mithraism and Religious Art (Brookfield Vt. 1996), 9–10, who notes the Greek term zoön, ‘a living thing’, for a statue as well as andrias, ‘male , and eikon, which by Homer’s time meant ‘be like ; also see G. M. A. Richter, ‘The Origin of Verism in Roman Portraits’, JRS 45 (1955), 39–46; D. Jackson, ‘Verism and the Ancestral Portrait’, GaR 34 (1987), 32–47; and Gruen, Culture and Identity (n. 16), 155–82 for the Romans preference for verism. (58) See Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer (n. 2) 17–18 for discussion; Elsner’s intent in the first section of his study (15–124) is in fact to reconsider Pliny’s view of naturalism through a direct examination of the artistic record. (59) Stewart, Statues in Roman Society (n. 48), 97–8 notes rightly that naturalism applied frequently to the portrait, ‘but not more broadly with the portrait statue since the body type is often idealized and heroic. (60) See Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer (n. 2), 1–13 for the problems of ‘naturalism’ versus abstraction and viewer response to both. (61) Translation from the Loeb edition by F. G. Babbitt; cf. Plut. Mor. 346F–347A. The passage looks back to the beginning of Aristotle, Poetica 1448b1. (62) Pliny, HN 35.155–6. For discussion of realism in Pliny see J. Isager, Pliny on Art and Society: The Elder Pliny’s Chapters on the History of Art (London 1991), 136–40, who notes Pliny’s demand for similitudo; see esp. 137; S. Carey, Pliny’s Catalogue of Culture: Art and Empire in the Natural History (Oxford 2003), 105– 11. On the question of art occupying a liminal space between art and life see W. Steiner, The Colors of Rhetoric: Problems in the Relation between Modern Literature and Painting (Chicago 1982), 5–10. (63) See e.g. HN 35.23; cf. HN 35.88; see Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer (n. 2), 17–18; on realism’s relationship to deception in antiquity see Elsner, Roman Eyes (n. 2), 124–8, 191–2, 196–9; also see Slater, ‘“Against Interpretation”’ (n. 11), 167. (64) See e.g. Mart. 6.13, 7.84. (65) Cited in Lactantius, Divinae institutiones 1.22.13. For the significance of the verb credunt here as reflecting realism and Lucilius’ debt to Hellenistic ekphrases see A. Laird, ‘Ut figura poesis: Writing Art and the Art of Writing Augustan Poetry’, in J. Elsner (ed.), Art and Text in Roman Culture (Cambridge 1996), 80. (66) For Petronius, however, as J. Elsner has observed, (‘Seductions of Art: Encolpius and Eumolpus in a Neronian Picture Gallery’, PCPS 39 (1993), 42–3), and Elsner, Roman Eyes (n. 2), 177–99, the desire for realism, while reflecting

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Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding both traditional and current tastes, was something that, by the nature of its deception, was itself a reflection of decadence. (67) HN 34.59; see Gordon, ‘The Real and the Imaginary’ (n. 57), 10, who notes that ‘citations of this kind could be almost indefinitely multiplied’, citing other passages where ancient authors remark the realism or living quality of statuary. Cf. e.g. Propertius 2.31.8; Pliny, HN 34.79, 36.13. (68) Seneca the Elder, Controversiae 10.5; see H. Morales, ‘The Torturer’s Apprentice: Parrhasius and the Limits of Art’, in J. Elsner (ed.), Art and Text in Roman Culture (Cambridge 1996), 182–209 for discussion. (69) For Lucian and realism see Andó, Luciano critico d’arte (n. 40), 75–80, cf. 61–75; for realism in Philostratus see Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer (n. 2), 21–39, esp. 28–39. (70) Cf. Cic. De Or. 3.98 where he also remarks the inherent attraction of the unpolished and obsolete (horrido obsoletoque) style despite the colourful nature of contemporary works; on Cicero’s general notions concerning painting and sculpture and the language he uses to describe the arts in general see M.-L. Teyssier, ‘Cicéron et les arts plastiques, peinture et sculpture’, in R. Chevallier (ed.), Présence de Cicéron (Paris 1984), 67–76. (71) For the larger historical and cultural context of Vitruvius criticism see Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer (n. 2), 49–58, 63–4; Onians, Classical Art (n. 26), 219–24. (72) Beyond those who clearly appreciated and commissioned such ‘abstract or ‘fantastic’ works, Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer (n. 2), 63 cites the orator Papirius Fabianus, for whom all art was illusion. (73) See D. E. Strong, ‘Roman Museums’, in D. E. Strong (ed.), Archaeological Theory and Practice: Essays Presented to Professor William Francis Grimes (London 1973), 258; Alsop, Rare Art Traditions (n. 40), 206; Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer (n. 2), 81–3 for discussion. (74) Strong, ‘Roman Museums’ (n. 73), 258. (75) Ibid., 248 notes that the Portico of Metellus appears to have been the first building in Rome designed specifically to show a ‘profane’ work of art (Lysippus’ Alexander group); that may or may not be true in a strict legal sense, but, if we take our lead from Cicero and others, there was no such thing as a purely profane image, see p. 108. (76) See p. 42 for discussion and references.

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Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding (77) Pliny, HN 35.25; he also tells us that paintings were commonly displayed in the Forum, though he indicates that by his day the practice had ended. (78) The sentiment also finds a place in Diogenes Laertius 6.72 who remarks that Diogenes the Cynic attacked popular honours awarded to men of noble birth; see Thomas, Monumentality (n. 4), 71 for discussion. (79) Pliny, Ep. 7.29, 8.6 with particular scorn saved for the honours bestowed by senatorial decree, which included fifteen million sesterces and the praetor’s insignia; for Verginius’ life and career see R. Syme, Roman Papers Vol. VII (Oxford 1991), 512–20. (80) Hölscher, Language of Images (n. 2), 8. (81) See C. Edwards, ‘Incorporating the Alien: The Art of Conquest’, in C. Edwards and G. Woolf (eds.), Rome the Cosmopolis (Cambridge 2003), 46, who notes the potency of the statue’s significance. (82) H. I. Flower, Ancestor Masks (n. 2), and H. I. Flower, The Art of Forgetting. Disgrace and Oblivion in Roman Political Culture (Chapel Hill 2006). (83) See Pliny, HN 35.4; Dio Chrysostomus, Orationes 31 esp. 31.155, 43, 47–53, 71, 99, 105–6, 112, 155; see D. Kinney, ‘Spolia, Damnatio, and Renovatio Memoriae’, MAAR 42 (1997), 135 for discussion; cf. Isager, Pliny on Art and Society (n. 62), 115–16; it was not illegal, however, as Kinney notes, to replace such heads except possibly in cases of the princeps (noting Tac. Ann. 1.74), though the case Tacitus relates in this instance was dismissed. (84) See H. S. Versnel, ‘Religious Mentality in Ancient Prayer’, in H. S. Versnel (ed.), Faith, Hope, and Worship (Leiden 1981), 38–9 for discussion. (85) On the sanctity of cult images, with specific focus on Cicero as a source, see M. Miles, Art as Plunder. The Ancient Origins of Debate about Cultural Property (Cambridge 2008), 171–3; for imagines in a funerary context see F. Dupont, ‘Les morts et la mémoire: Le masque funèbre’, in F. Hinard (ed.), La mort, les morts et l’au-delà dans le monde romain (Caen 1987), 167–72; Flower, Ancestor Masks (n. 2); cf. J. Bodel, ‘Death on Display: Looking at Roman Funerals’, in B. Bergmann and C. Kondoleon (eds.), The Art of Ancient Spectacle (New Haven 1999), 259–81 for a related discussion. (86) See e.g. Polybius 6.53; Sallust, Bellum Iugurthinum 4; Tac. Agr. 46; also see Pliny, HN 35.6–8 for the imagines and their place in the Roman house and the discussion by Carey, Pliny’s Catalogue of Culture (n. 62), 139–41 for their function as conservators of memory. For their role in stimulating the young to acts of virtus see Flower, Ancestor Masks (n. 2), 13–14; for their role at public

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Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding funerals see 91–127; also see Gruen, Culture and Identity (n. 16), 152–6; A. Wallace-Hadrill, Rome’s Cultural Revolution (Cambridge 2008), 219. (87) See Carey, Pliny’s Catalogue of Culture (n. 62), 151–6 for discussion; also see Onians, Classical Art (n. 26), 168–70. (88) He attributes the introduction of this practice in Rome to Asinius Pollio. Previously such portraits, according to Pliny (in the same passage), could also be found in written works such as Atticus’ volume on portraits, while later a part of Varro’s output included the portraits of seven hundred illustrious individuals in his work Hebdomades vel de imaginibus, on the lives of famous Greeks and Romans (cf. Aulus Gellius 3.10.1). (89) Such as the funerals of the great which could be heavily attended; see Tac. Ann. 1.8 for the crowds at Augustus funeral and the concern for ‘crowd control , with the memory of Caesar’s funeral looming. The case was similar for grandees in the republic, as in the case of Clodius’ riotous funeral in January of 52; see Asconius, Commentary on Cicero Pro Milone 32–3; Cass. Dio 40.48–9. (90) In this sense it represented the sort of intersection that V. Zolberg, ‘“An Elite Experience for Everyone”: Art Museums, the Public, and Cultural Literacy’ in D. J. Sherman and I. Rogoff (eds.), Museum Culture. Histories, Discourses, Spectacles (Minneapolis 1994), 49–65 examines, whereby elite culture intersects with a non-elite public. (91) See Val. Max. 8.15.2; this despite Scipio’s eschewing of such honours; see Gruen, Culture and Identity (n. 16), 121–2 for discussion. (92) Verr. 2.2.158; Syracuse was not alone: Tauromenium, Tyndaris, and Leontini also tore down Verres statues (Verr. 2.2.160); for discussion see Miles, Art as Plunder (n. 85), 184–5. (93) Out of his collection of diverse imagines, the poet Silius Italicus gave Vergil’s particular attention (Pliny, Ep. 3.7.8); cf. Seneca the Younger, Epistulae 7.64.9– 10, who noted the incitamenta animi that imagines could arouse; see Stewart, Statues in Roman Society (n. 48), 256 for discussion. (94) See Pliny, Ep. 1.17 for Titinius Capito’s admiration of Brutus and Cassius; Tac. Ann. 16.7 for C. Cassius Longinus’ fatal admiration of them; Ann. 3.76 for their notable absence at the funeral in AD 22 of Junia Tertulla, Cassius’ widow; for discussion see Gregory, ‘“Powerful Images”’ (n. 22), 92. (95) For discussion see D. Freedberg, The Power of Images: Studies in the History and Theory of Response (Chicago 1989), 82–98, who notes that in numerous cultures the act of consecration renders the image divine and ‘makes the image work’; also see Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer (n. 2), 88–97 on viewing and the sacred. For the tensions between the animate and inanimate Page 42 of 49

 

Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding nature of divine iconography see Gordon, ‘The Real and the Imaginary (n. 57), 8– 10; for a good discussion of the ‘living’ and miraculous nature of statuary, especially cult statuary, see Rüpke, Religion of the Romans (n. 37), 73–4. (96) For Phidias’ Zeus see Pausanias 5.11.9; Plut. Aem. 28.5; Dio Chrysostomus, Orationes 12.52–3; for discussion see Isager, Pliny on Art and Society (n. 62), 152; Gruen, Culture and Identity (n. 16), 246; Nasrallah, Christian Response (n. 56), 230–2. (97) Plotinus, Enneades 5.8.1 (On Intelligible Beauty); cf. e.g. Aelius Aristides, Sacred Discourses 3.47; Artemidorus of Daldis, Oneirocritica 2.39; see Elsner, Imperial Rome (n. 12), 205 for discussion. (98) Nasrallah, Christian Response (n. 56), 121; also see Gordon, ‘The Real and the Imaginary’ (n. 57) for a good discussion on the ‘divine’nature of images; see Elsner, Roman Eyes (n. 2), 11, 22–6; see esp. 228–35 for discussion specifically on the power of the statue of Artemis of Ephesus. (99) Augustine, De civitate Dei 8.23; cf. p. 174 on the statue of Caecilia or Tanaquil from which metal shavings were taken. (100) See D. Feeney, Literature and Religion at Rome: Cultures, Contexts, and Beliefs (Cambridge 1998), 76–114. (101) Ann. 3.36; the statues were, however, of Caesars, hence divine in nature, as opposed to statues simply of orators or magistrates; conversely, up until now accusers were still unsuccessful in any prosecution against those who had, in any way, profaned a statue of the Divine Augustus; see Tac. Ann. 1.73; F. R. D. Goodyear, The Annals of Tacitus. Volume II (Annals 1.55–81 and Annales 2) (Cambridge 1981), 153–7 for discussion. For a good succinct example and discussion of the divine nature of the imperial image see Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer (n. 2), 170; for statuary and asylum see Elsner, Roman Eyes (n. 2), 11–12. (102) On the visible presence of the gods and their role in social and legal life, see Elsner’s excellent discussion about Artemis of Ephesus in Achilles Tatius’ Leucippe and Clitophon (Roman Eyes (n. 2), 234–5). (103) Fin. 2.115; on the Romans’ abiding admiration for Phidias and Polyclitus in particular see Mart. 9.24; cf. 10.89 on Polyclitus’ Juno which the poet says would elicit Phidias’ envy and would have won Paris’ judgement on Ida. (104) Mor. 18A–B. It was with this in mind that Plutarch asserts that the subject per se does not commend the painting, but the virtuosity in imitating the action depicted; for discussion of Timomachus’ Medea see Isager, Pliny on Art and Society (n. 62), 120; the various copies in Campania show her seated or standing, and the question arises concerning which (if any) faithfully represents Page 43 of 49

 

Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding Timomachus’ painting; see B. Bergmann, ‘Greek Masterpieces and Roman Recreative Fictions’, HSCP 97 (1995), 94–6 for discussion. (105) Mor. 674A; see Holliday, Origins (n. 16), xix; cf. 18 for a good discussion of this passage. (106) For discussion see R. Williams, ‘The Pictures on Dido’s Temple’, CQ 10 (1960), 145–51; Laird, ‘Ut figura poesis’ (n. 65), 87–91, who notes that Vergil’s depiction draws on Homer (Odyssey 8.83–8) but changes a verbal (the poet Demodocus’ story of the trials and tribulations of the Danaans and Trojans) for a visual medium; cf. 99–100 for the special prominence that ekphrasis gives to the viewer and their role in the response to art. On response to visual culture in the Aeneid also see Elsner, Roman Eyes (n. 2), 78–87. For ekphrasis as a negotiator between the spoken and the visual see E. W. Leach, The Rhetoric of Space: Literary and Artistic Representations of Landscape in Republican and Augustan Rome (Princeton 1988), 10–17; see 309–21 for a specific discussion of this Aeneid passage and its larger context in Roman visual culture; also see A. Kuttner, ‘Culture and History at Pompey’s Museum’, TAPA 129 (1999), 343–73, esp. 350–9 for ekphrasis in Catullus and Propertius, with particular emphasis on the visual response to Roman topography, specifically Pompey’s portico. (107) The bibliography on ekphrasis in general and what it tells us of viewer response is vast. See e.g. G. Downey, ‘Ekphrasis’, RAC 4 (1959), 921–44; E. Pernice and W. H. Gross, ‘Die griechischen und römischen literarischen Zeugnisse’, in U. Hausmann (ed.), Handbuch der Archäologie: Allgemeine Grundlagen der Archäologie (Munich 1969), 433–47 for a good assemblage of the ancient testimonia on ekphrasis. See Laird, ‘Ut figura poesis’ (n. 65), 75–102 for the relationship between art and text in ekphrasis, esp. 84–5; perhaps the best discussion on the nature of such visual texts is now to be found in Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer (n. 2), 23–39, in which he argues, significantly, that ekphrasis ‘offers access to reality, and gives us a window into how artistic works were viewed and functions itself as an interpretation of visualization. Also see in general Elsner, Imperial Rome (n. 12), 245–6, and,Roman Eyes (n. 2), 68–77, for discussion on ekphrasis and the Roman viewer. (108) Also see e.g. Lucretius 2.1–6; Vergil, Aeneid 1.202–6; cf. Homer, Odyssey 12.212. (109) My thanks to Arthur Pomeroy for this reference. (110) Pliny, HN 34.62; see Stewart, Statues in Roman Society (n. 48), 142 for discussion in the context of artwork as public property; on the Apoxyomenos see N. Cambi, ‘The Athlete Cleaning a Strigil’, in M. Michelucci (ed.), Apoxyomenos. The Athlete of Croatia (Milan 2006), 20–33.

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Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding (111) For a detailed discussion see J. Elsner and A. Sharrock ‘Ovid’s Mimesis and the Myth of the Real: Ovid’s Pygmalion as Viewer’, Ramus, 20 (1991), 149–82; Elsner, Roman Eyes (n. 2), 113–31; for a general discussion that encompasses a history of arousal by images (including a brief analysis of the episode of Pygmalion) see Freedberg, Power of Images (n. 95), 317–44; for a good general discussion of the Cnidian Venus and viewer response see Nasrallah, Christian Response (n. 56), 250–68. For general discussion concerning naturalism and the erotic see J. Elsner, ‘Naturalism and the Erotics of the Gaze: Intimations of Narcissus’, in N. B. Kampen (ed.), Sexuality in Ancient Art (Cambridge 1996), 247–61; ‘Between Mimesis and Divine Power: Visuality in the Graeco-Roman World’, in R. S. Nelson (ed.), Visuality Before and Beyond the Renaissance (Cambridge 2000), 45, 48–52; Roman Eyes (n. 2), 1–11. (112) The incident is also mentioned in a comedy by Alexis called A Picture, and an unknown work by the comedian Philemon; see CAF 2.312, 2.521. For Adaeus see Athenaeus 5.210b. (113) Cf. Pliny, HN 36.20; see too Lucian, Amores 13–17; for an excellent extended discussion see N. Salomon, ‘Making a World of Difference: Gender, Asymmetry and the Greek Nude’, in A. O. Koloski-Ostrow and C. L. Lyons (eds.), Naked Truths: Women, Sexuality, and Gender in Classical Art and Archaeology (London 1997), 197–219. (114) See pp. 70–1 for discussion of Tiberius’ erotic taste in art. For imperial erotic proclivities see C. Vout, Power and Eroticism in Imperial Rome (Cambridge 2007), passim, but esp. 52–112 concerning the erotic allure of Antinoös, Hadrian’s lover. (115) For a similar effect on the consumer in the modern museum see S. Greenblatt, ‘Resonance and Wonder’, in I. Karp and S. D. Lavine (eds.), Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display (Washington DC 1991), 49. (116) Elsner, Roman Eyes (n. 2), 188–96. For the larger relationship to the Satyricon of Encolpius as viewer see Slater, ‘“Against Interpretation”’ (n. 11), passim. (117) The episode also constitutes an instance of meta-viewing, in which the gallery patrons themselves are viewed in much the same way as a painting. Hence Encolpius reads his fellow visitor to the gallery, Eumolpus, just as he would a picture (‘the face was of someone troubled and who appeared to promise something great’, exercitati vultus et qui videtur nescio quid magnum promittere).

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Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding (118) See Elsner, ‘Seductions of Art’ (n. 66), 30–4, who notes that Petronius’ depiction of Encolpius’ experience is not only subversive of the assumptions we find in Pliny, but ‘reverses, satirises and parodies the whole structure of erotic attachment which comes from romance [such as Daphnis and Chloe, or Leucippe and Clitophon] by its constant theme of homoerotic rather than heterosexual love’. On Encolpius’ psychological state as a precondition for how he views the paintings see Elsner, Roman Eyes (n. 2), 184–93. For the psychological aspects of the projection of viewer onto viewed see F. Baekeland, ‘Psychological Aspects of Art Collecting’, Psychiatry, 44 (1981), 52; cf. Slater, ‘“Against Interpretation”’ (n. 11), 169, who, concerning Encolpius in the pinacotheca, remarks that ‘The experience of the mirabilis seems to be one of identification, a feeling of involvement in the scenes represented . (119) For a discussion of the Lucian passage see Elsner and Sharrock, ‘Ovid’s Mimesis’ (n. 111), 156–8; Elsner, Roman Eyes (n. 2), 117–20; for Lucian’s discussion of artworks in general see S. Maffei, Luciano di Samosata: Descrizioni di Opere d’Arte (Turin 1994); for a discussion on the erotically charged sculpture itself and the reactions it famously evoked see A. Stewart, Art, Desire, and the Body in Ancient Greece (Cambridge 1997), 97–106. (120) And on the part of private collectors especially; see Baekeland, ‘Aspects of Art’ (n. 118), 51, who observes that ‘many collectors like to fondle or stroke the objects they own or to look at them over and over from every angle, both up close and at a distance’. Also see J. Clifford, ‘Objects and Selves—an Afterward’, in G. Stocking (ed.), Objects and Others: Essays on Museums and Material Culture, History of Anthropology, 3 (Madison Wis. 1985), 239, who notes that ‘a “proper” relation with objects (rule-governed possession) presupposes a “savage” or deviant relation (idolatry or erotic fixation)’. (121) Favro, Urban Image (n. 25), 231 notes that images acted as a text all could access, learning about Roman politics ‘not only from speeches and graffiti, but also from artwork, buildings, and places’. For the language of architecture and its ability to communicate with a wide audience see above, n. 4. (122) Onians, Classical Art (n. 26), 179–87. (123) For discussion see J. Bodel, ‘Trimalchio’s Underworld’, in J. Tatum (ed.), The Search for the Ancient Novel (Baltimore 1993), 237–59. Straight chronological narrative in Roman visual media is not to be assumed however; see V. Huet, ‘Stories One Might Tell of Roman Art: Reading Trajan’s Column and the Tiberius Cup’, in J. Elsner (ed.), Art and Text in Roman Culture (Cambridge 1996), 9–31, esp. 16 for discussion of the lack of ‘narrative flow’ in Trajan’s Column. (124) For a good discussion on the relationship between image and text see Z. Newby and R. Leader-Newby (eds.), Art and Inscription in the Ancient World (Cambridge 2007), 1–16, esp. 12–14. Page 46 of 49

 

Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding (125) Christodorus of Thebes, for example, wrote an entire book devoted to an epigrammatic description of the statuary in the Zeuxippus, the gymnasium at Byzantium; see S. Bassett, The Urban Image of Late Antique Constantinople (Cambridge 2004), 160–85 for a compendium of the epigrammatic descriptions of the bath’s artworks and discussion of its remains; cf. the series of Cyzicene epigrams that ‘labeled’ in verse a series of sculpted reliefs, not to mention the extensive array of Greek epigrams already noted. (126) See Holliday, Origins (n. 16), 217. (127) As with other inscriptions, some were used as sources by Roman historians, such as Valerius Maximus, who mined Augustus’ inscription for an anecdote about King Tullius (3.4.3); cf. Pliny for his use of an inscription under Scipio Aemilianus’ statue in Augustus’ forum (HN 22.13). For ancient historians’ use of inscriptions see J. Bodel, ‘Epigraphy and the Ancient Historians’, in J. Bodel (ed.), Epigraphic Evidence. Ancient History from Inscriptions (London 2001), 1–56, esp. 41–5. Wiseman, ‘Monuments’ (n. 9), 90 notes the lack of reliability of such inscriptions (particularly of the honorific sort) citing Cic. Att. 6.1.17 (who noted specifically the misleading nature of the inscriptions of Q. Metellus Scipio on his maiores’ statues) and Livy 4.16.3–4, 8.40.4. (128) Cf. e.g. Pliny, HN 35.115: at the Temple of Juno at Ardea the painter inscribed verses on his paintings. (129) For the modern triumph of text over object in contemporary museum displays see B. Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, ‘Objects of Ethnography’, in I. Karp and S. D. Lavine (eds.), Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display (Washington DC 1991), 394. (130) For the legitimization of power through public texts and inscription see A. K. Bowman and G. Woolf (eds.), Literacy and Power in the Ancient World (Cambridge 1994) 6–8; see R. Miles, ‘Communicating Culture, Identity and Power’, in J. Huskinson (ed.), Experiencing Rome. Culture, Identity, and Power in the Roman Empire (London 2000), 35 for a related discussion concerning the conferring of legitimacy and power through titles. (131) See B. Bergmann, ‘A Painted Garland: Weaving Words and Images in the House of the Epigrams in Pompeii’, in Z. Newby and R. Leader-Newby (eds.), Art and Inscription in the Ancient World (Cambridge 2007), 60–101. (132) See Bowman and Woolf, Literacy and Power (n. 130), 8: ‘Monumental texts may exercise power through their location in space and the way they look. A particular layout might be associated with a particular political system’. (133) For a general discussion of the problems in ancient literacy and our understanding of graphocentric literacy see Bowman and Woolf, Literacy and Page 47 of 49

 

Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding Power (n. 130), 1–16; they argue for a wider literacy than previously assumed, although they omit discussion of visual literacy per se. (134) See Strong, ‘Roman Museums ’ (n. 73), 260 for discussion. (135) Pliny, HN 36.32; see Strong, ‘Roman Museums’ (n. 73), 260 for discussion, where he also notes that ‘a good story usually increased the value’ of an artefact, citing Juvenal 6.156–7; Statius, Silvae 4.6.59–88 (on a statue of Hercules belonging first to Alexander, then to Hannibal, and finally to Sulla). (136) For periēgētai in Pausanias see C. P. Jones, ‘Pausanias and His Guides’, in S. E. Alcock, J. F. Cherry, and J. Elsner (eds.), Pausanias. Travel and Memory in Ancient Greece (Oxford 2001), 33–9. (137) See Elsner, ‘Seductions of Art’ (n. 66), 35 for discussion of the passage; for its subversive nature see esp. 36–7; also see Elsner, Roman Eyes (n. 2), 188–96 for an excellent treatment of the place of Eumolpus in the context of Roman viewing. (138) Holliday, ‘Roman Triumphal Painting’ (n. 2), 146 notes (addressing specifically tituli during triumphal processions) that, given the limitations of written communication in the context of public communication in antiquity, the literate elite would have assisted in reading such inscriptions. (139) Holliday, ‘Roman Triumphal Painting’ (n. 2), 146; also see Stewart, Social History of Roman Art (n. 56), 123–5, who grapples with the problem of the level of political understanding for the ‘ordinary viewer. (140) See Holliday, Origins (n. 2), 203 for discussion; for a good theoretical discussion about ancient gaps in historical memory, the new interpretations that arose as a result, and their larger social significance, see R. Bradley, ‘The Translation of Time’, in R. M. Van Dyke and S. E. Alcock (eds.), Archaeologies of Memory (Oxford 2003), 221–27. (141) See Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 1.87.2, 3.1.2; Festus 184L; Pseudo-Acro’s scholia to Horace’s Epodes 16.13 citing Varro. (142) For the cult of Anna Perenna see T. P. Wiseman, ‘The Cult Site of Anna Perenna: Documentation, Visualization, Imagination’, in L. Haselberger and J. Humphrey (eds.), Imagining Ancient Rome: Documentation–Visualization– Imagination, JRA Supplement 61 (Portsmouth RI 2006), 51–61. (143) See Holliday, Origins (n. 2), 203. (144) See Wiseman, ‘Monuments’ (n. 9), 88–9 for discussion who notes ‘We cannot simply assume that accurate knowledge of the true nature of such monuments survived till the beginning of the Roman historiographical tradition’. Page 48 of 49

 

Viewing, Appreciating, Understanding For the ancient citations see Val. Max. 6.3.2; Festus 180L; Cass. Dio 5.22.1 = Zonoras 7. 17. (145) See Holliday, Origins (n. 2), 203, who notes that by the end of the republic the Roman elite cast its achievements in Hellenistic style ‘increasing the power of the imagery for an international audience’.

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Displaying Domination

Ancient Rome as a Museum: Power, Identity, and the Culture of Collecting Steven Rutledge

Print publication date: 2012 Print ISBN-13: 9780199573233 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: March 2015 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199573233.001.0001

Displaying Domination Spoils, War Commemoratives, and Competition Steven H. Rutledge

DOI:10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199573233.003.0004

Abstract and Keywords This chapter examines how imperial domination by the ruling elite influenced the appearance of the city. The elite used cultural objects both to maintain and perpetuate their control over not merely Roman society, but other peoples as well. Such display was not just an additional luxury of conquest, but inherently bound up with it. Keywords:   ancient Rome, cultural objects, artefacts, conquest, Roman society, imperial domination

Hasdrubal’s shield, Mithridates’ gem studded war chariot, and the statue of Victory presented by the Syracusans in 216 BC, were but a few of the cultural objects within the city that celebrated an aggressive militarism and the attendant domination of others that became a hallmark of Roman cultural identity. Such material objects were used to form and diffuse a collective memory and ideology within the Roman elite and beyond; they were also a means by which social reality was created and reinforced, transmitting Roman values and interests. The face of the city reflected in particular the military and diplomatic power of the state and the elite, and was also a place where their politically competitive ethos was expressed in visual terms. All of this has been a subject of general theoretical interest for some time.1 Holliday’s study on visual culture, for example, has explored how certain elite activities, such as sacrifice, presiding at games and festivals, or other civic occasions, were all commemorated by the Roman nobility and deemed worthy of such remembrance as an ‘additional means by which the Roman elite attempted to construct social Page 1 of 37

 

Displaying Domination reality, Foucault’s “politics of truth”. In effect, the cultural practice of history constituted Roman social reality’.2 (p.124) Romans collected and preserved a variety of objects and set up diverse commemorations that were not mere reflections of their power or cultural dynamics, but rather a means by which that power through material objects and places also came to reinforce and construct a reality and became a part of the very culture itself. Amongst Rome’s small ruling clique there was fierce rivalry in an effort to win as much political clout as possible, often through success in warfare. Consequently, what was frequently deemed worthy of remembrance was the violent appropriation of power by the aristocracy based on armed conquest. The result was a material culture in which objects for display abounded that were directly connected with warfare: these included shields, war standards, chariots, as well as paintings, statuary, and other visual media, commemorating military campaigns. When not celebrating overtly violent domination, the hegemony that Rome grew to enjoy both as an indirect and direct result of conquest, was recalled through a variety of historical memorabilia scattered throughout the city recalling political patronage and a variety of beneficia. None of these objects was politically neutral. As concerns the elite, the political structure in which they lived, as Holliday notes, was ‘a compelling impetus for the development of the arts of self-promotion’.3 The result was at times the contentious use of visual media, as the city became a vast political pamphlet in which cultural artefacts became a part of the argument over claims to political power and prestige.

Spoils The power and authority of the senatorial class, and later the imperial house, depended in no small part on success in warfare. In an honour society such as Rome where one’s political survival also depended in part on one’s prowess in battle, it was all important to publicly exhibit reminders of that success. To possess the materiel of the enemy was to possess his power, and to augment (p. 125) one’s own.4 It meant stripping the enemy naked of any physical or divine protection, and in turn to dress, to adorn, to secure one’s self and the city. Such display was a means of transforming violence experienced on the field of battle into the realm of the aesthetic, a transformation explored in a brief study by Hölscher.5 Display of artefacts commemorating battle allowed Romans to gaze, to appropriate by making an object previously owned by another their own, to render aesthetic by transforming cultural objects not meant specifically for display into works of art, or into a part of the city’s visual narrative. Such exhibition also reaffirmed and approved Roman identity by virtue of the underlying values such display implied. At the same time, the sacred context in which captured material was sometimes displayed reaffirmed Roman values of pietas and confirmed the superiority of Rome’s deities and religiosity, values that, even if the elite did not themselves always hold without question (as vividly

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Displaying Domination illustrated in Cicero’s De Divinatione), it nonetheless believed vital for public consumption. Spoils taken directly from enemy dead have pride of place in Rome’s earliest historical record. This begins from the outset with the first king, Romulus, and the spolia opima, initially dedicated in the Temple of Jupiter Feretrius—Rome’s first temple, dedicated to Jupiter ‘who smites’ (or ‘carries out on a funeral pyre’).6 The tradition of the spolia is well-known but a brief review is instructive: according to tradition Romulus dedicated the spoils he took from King Acron of Caenina after he slew him in battle. Only men who had slain an enemy king in hand-to-hand combat were allowed to dedicate the spolia opima, and this happened only two more times in Roman history after Romulus, when A. Cornelius Cossus killed Lars Tolumnius, king of Veii in 428 BC, and when M. Claudius Marcellus killed Viridomarus, king of the Insubres (in Gaul) in 222 BC. The last of these, Marcellus (according to Plut. Marc. 6–8) reportedly dedicated the armour (of gold and silver) by cutting a giant oak, fashioning it in the shape of a tropaeum, hanging the armour on it, and carrying it in triumph.7 While the tradition of the (p.126) spolia and their origins could be traced back to Romulus, they may have in fact dated much later than the archaic period, as has recently been suggested.8 For our purpose, it is the tradition and its place in the larger context of Roman values that is of primary importance, as is the prevalence of the display of such spolia in the surviving visual record, as we see on a fragmentary relief from the Temple of Apollo Sosianus depicting Romans triumphing over Gauls (see fig. 4.1; cf. fig. 7.10).

Fig. 4.1 A relief from the Temple of Apollo Sosianus of Romans triumphing over Gauls, who sit bound underneath a trophy of Gallic arms set up as emblems of victory, a trophy type similar to that used by M. Marcellus for display of the spolia opima. H: .85 m. First century BC. Centrale Montemartini, Rome.

Such display of personal valour in battle would have provided a public testament to one’s virtus. An equally famous marker of such valour was the so-called Pila Horatia, where the sole remaining brother of the renowned Horatii, who had defeated the Curiatii (in settling the score between Alba Longa and Rome), had set up the spoils from the stripped bodies of the enemy dead (Livy 1.26.10).9 (p.127) The practice of such public display as a testament to one’s personal success in battle may have been widespread and extended beyond the elite, since a passage in Livy (23.23.6) appears to indicate that ‘average’ soldiers possibly adorned the exterior of their Page 3 of 37

 

Displaying Domination houses in a similar manner. Pliny (HN 35.6–7) tells us that the houses of the great had spoils fastened to them as a part of their décor—especially on the outside—and that it was not permitted, even for a new buyer, to take them down; as a result ‘houses celebrated eternal triumphs’ (triumphabantque … aeternae domus).10 The houses of Q. Lutatius Catulus and Pompey the Great were famous in this regard. From an early date such arms included the shields of the defeated, or those commissioned by a triumphator with portraits, and became a common means to display one’s military success and valour. Livy for one relates that, after a battle with the Samnites in 309 BC in which the dictator L. Papirius Cursor triumphed, Papirius used the shields of the vanquished, considered remarkable for their gold inlay, to decorate the Forum (Livy does not state whether this was a permanent or temporary display, though likely the latter).11 Such spoils could be remarkable both for their appearance and by virtue of the enemy from whom it was taken. Thus L. Marcius, who defeated Hasdrubal in 212 BC in Spain, reportedly displayed in his triumph a silver shield weighing 137 pounds with a portrait of the defeated Carthaginian general on it (Livy 25.39.12–17), possibly resembling the sort of image we find on the clipeus situated on a base between two trophies (see fig. 4.2); the shield likely belonged to the general himself.12 It is almost certainly the same shield that hung in the Capitoline until the fire of 83 BC (and known as the Marcian shield).13 Examples of how these might have been exhibited are attested in the cubiculum of the villa at Boscoreale, where a captured shield is depicted as hung on the exterior of a residence (see fig. 4.3).14 The arms would have been available, therefore, for any passers-by to view (and such artefacts will have possibly displayed inscriptions as to their origin as well). (p.128)

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Displaying Domination (p.129)

Fig. 4.2 An imago clipeata would consist of a round shield with a painted figure on it, or, if sculpted, one in high relief; this particular imago appears to show Minerva set between two trophies. Second or first century BC. Piazza della Consolazione, Rome.

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Displaying Domination The nature of material acquired could change with the enemy. As the city began to conquer to the north and the Gauls became a significant challenge, their golden torques came to be a prized possession for Roman generals (see fig. 7.23).15 Polybius (2.31.5– 6) says that the consul L. Aemilius sent the Gallic standards and torques that he captured to adorn the Capitoline in 225 BC (after his entry into Rome in triumph). Similarly, Florus (1.20.4) says that Flaminius dedicated a bronze tropaeum to Jupiter paid for after he melted down the golden torques of the Gauls (the Insubres) Fig. 4.3 A frescoed cubiculum from the he defeated while on campaign in villa at Boscoreale depicts the exterior of northern Italy in 222 BC. In 196 a house decorated with a clipeus. Romans BC M. Claudius Marcellus also would display trophies captured from triumphed over the Gauls in their enemies as spoils and adorn the northern Italy and subsequently exterior of their houses with them as deposited a very heavy gold signs of their prowess in battle. c. 50 BC. torque taken from a Gaul in the The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New Temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline (Livy 33.36.13). The Capitoline York. will have been a particularly appropriate venue for the deposition of such spoils in (p.130) this instance, since by tradition it was the only section of the city to hold out against the Gauls when they captured Rome in c.390 BC. More than simply ordinary loot, the possession of the torque represented the figurative ‘stranglehold’ that Rome held over the conquered whose own symbol of power was now safely confined in the very citadel they once besieged.16

Among the most famous of enemy spoils were the six brazen beaks of the enemy ships that C. Maenius captured at the battle of Antium in 338 BC and set up on the rostrum in the Forum.17 As the Gauls were later safely ensconced on the Capitoline, here too we see enemy power transferred to yet another centre of the state, a vital staging area for Roman political life. Later, in the First Punic War, a columna rostrata was set up by M. Aemilius Paullus (consul in 255 BC), though this time on the Capitoline (and completely destroyed in 172 BC in a storm according to Livy 42.20.1).18 The tradition of putting enemy rostra on display abided into the empire. Appian (B Civ. 5.130) tells us that the senate voted Octavian, Caesar’s heir, the honour of a column with a golden statue of him wearing the garb he wore upon entering the city after the Philippi campaign —the column was to be adorned with the beaks of ships he had captured at Actium and it was to be erected in the Forum, along with several other such Page 6 of 37

 

Displaying Domination monuments (see fig. 4.4).19 It may have been these or different columns according to Servius (who says they were set up in honour of Augustus and Agrippa) that were adorned with rostra from Augustus’ Egyptian campaign that Domitian subsequently moved from the Forum or Palatine to the Capitoline (In Georgica 3.29). This was different from the Augustan rostrum, also decorated with rostra from Actium, next to which stood an archaic statue of Hercules in a tunic—Augustus’ placement of the rostrum next to the statue will have had the conveniently added effect of simultaneously reminding Romans of Augustus’ toils in achieving such conquests and of his defeat of Marc Antony (Pliny, HN 34.93).20 As was the case with the Gallic torques, that the rostra were in the political heart of the city was (p.131) no accident; it was an indication that not only could Rome and its nobility figuratively ‘govern the ship of state’, they could dominate others’ ships as well, not just steering, but possessing and displaying them. It was a form of physical and political emasculation that had a long tradition in Rome.21

Taking it further, we could argue that it also represented the conquest of a significant part of the physical world, the sea, symbolized by the display of naval weaponry in the heart of the city. The analogy may not be quite so far-fetched. Romans and Greeks both displayed enemy ships as war spoils. Plutarch tells us that Aemilius Paullus (Aem. 30.2–3) after his victory in Greece in 167 BC sailed Perseus’ royal galley with its sixteen banks of oars to Rome, adorned with captured arms and scarlet and purple

Fig. 4.4 The coin shows Augustus atop a rostrate column with the legend IMP CAESAR, ‘Caesar Imperator’. Enemy rostra (the beaks of captured enemy ships) were exhibited publicly, starting in the fourth century BC, and gave their name to the speaker’s platform (the rostrum) in the Comitium. Reverse of a silver denarius, 29–27 BC. The American Numismatic Society, NewYork.

cloth.22 Paullus may have been following a Hellenistic tradition, since it was apparently not unheard of for victors to dedicate war ships in sanctuaries, as did Antigonus Gonatas after he defeated Ptolemy II Philadelphus at Cos in 261 BC, after which he dedicated a

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Displaying Domination ship to Apollo.23 It has (p.132) been conjectured that Perseus’ ship was kept in the navalia, presumably a large series of sheds near the Tiber.24 We should note that the Roman preservation of ships of historical significance is attested in other contexts. According to Procopius, one of the oldest cultural objects in the city’s memory was Aeneas’ boat, which commemorated his arrival to the city, and was still reportedly in an excellent state of preserve in the sixth century AD.25 Procopius himself confesses ignorance: was it the boat Aeneas actually sailed in from Troy or the one he used to sail up the Tiber when he sought Evander as an ally? He further notes (De Bello Gothico 8.22.5–16) that the Romans had built a boathouse in the middle of the city near the Tiber to preserve it, and remarks the vessel’s impressive workmanship, which showed no signs of decay. The boat arguably symbolized the Romans’ weathering of adversity, and their native fortitudo et constantia, something further reflected in how long-lived the boat was as an artefact. It is an instance where the literal endurance of an object served to mirror the endurance and antiquity of the Roman people. Captured enemy standards are also a relatively well-attested item for display, a tradition in place from at least the middle republic on (see previously p. 129).26 Cassius Dio (55.10.3–4) and Suetonius (Aug. 29.2) both tell us that Augustus intended that any who held triumphal honours dedicate their sceptre and crown (and other triumphal tokens, presumably in the form of spolia) in the Temple of Mars Ultor in his new forum. Standards captured from the enemy were also dedicated there, something he himself did when he set up the Roman standards lost at Carrhae in 53 BC (which he had retrieved in 20 BC), although prior to the completion of his new forum in 2 BC they were displayed in the Temple of Mars Ultor on the Capitoline, a dedication celebrated on his coinage (see fig. 4.5).27 Standards were also deposited which had been recovered from the Dalmatians in the Second Dalmatian War (which started in 34 BC, App. Ill. 28) in the Portico of Octavia. Suetonius in the same passage cited above reports that, up until the time of Vespasian, the Temple of Mars Ultor was the repository of all triumphal tokens taken by victorious generals in accordance with Augustus’ injunction. (p. 133)

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Displaying Domination That this became the central repository for cultural artefacts pertaining to success in battle underscored the central premise of the right and righteousness of the princeps in waging war. Such objects became the symbolic product of a bellum iustum by virtue of their location within the Temple of Mars Ultor, (whose epithet implied a war of revenge, hence an initial wrong that must be righted). Moreover the individual objects within the Fig. 4.5 Lost by Crassus at the Battle of temple were the property of the Carrhae in 53 BC, the reverse of this imperial family, emphasizing the aureus issued by Augustus depicts the various grades of subordination Roman standards recovered from the and status that obtained under the Parthians and set up in a round hexastyle principate (flowing downward temple of Mars Ultor on the Capitoline. from the emperor to the general to They were subsequently deposited in the the senator who deliberated new Temple of Mars Ultor in Augustus’ concerning war, from the time of Augustus on, in the temple itself). forum. The British Museum, London. Objects of this sort will have continually reminded the senate of the princeps’ success in war, and of his own power. Perhaps it was no coincidence that the senate met there with relative frequency, to be reminded continually of their subordinate status by objects like the statue of Victoria, set up by Augustus and clothed ‘with the spoils of Egypt’, as part of his (p.134) final act of personal vengeance against Antony and a reminder of his subsequent permanent domination.28 It is worth noting in this regard that the temple’s very epithet, Ultor, promises the continuity of such conflict, ensnaring the Romans in an unbreakable chain of vengeance and the promise of future strife.

One final classification of artefact that merits mention is the war chariot.29 There were a number of these captured from enemy kings that were deemed worthy of display in their own right (for an example of which see fig. 5.5). Mithridates’ gem-studded chariot which Pompey rode in his triumph was among the treasures he eventually deposited in the Capitoline from his conquest (along with the cloak of Alexander the Great found among the conquered Mithridates’ possessions).30 Much later it is reported that Aurelian (S.H.A. Aurel. 33.3) during his triumph over Zenobia in AD 274 (and other peoples as well), dedicated a chariot, purportedly drawn by four stags and once belonging to the king of the Goths, to Jupiter Optimus Maximus.31 In addition to enemy chariots, our sources mention that chariots driven by actual triumphatores were esteemed as cultural curiosities in their own right. Cassius Dio (43.14.6) says that the senate decreed that Caesar’s chariot be placed on the Capitol facing Jupiter’s statue (in addition to erecting Caesar’s statue in bronze with a likeness of the inhabited world at his Page 9 of 37

 

Displaying Domination feet).32 Years later when Nero returned from Greece and entered the city in triumph he drove the same chariot Augustus had used in his own triple triumph (Suet. Ner. 25.1). While uncertain as to the chariot’s location, the Capitoline or the Temple of Mars Ultor are likely candidates for its residence. And, considering the wording of our sources, it is entirely likely that it was a part of the triumphator’s right to dedicate his chariot to Jupiter. That literal vehicle of triumph was perhaps the most powerful symbol of domination, and deposition on the Capitoline would be quite fitting. The values instilled into and imposed upon such objects, their aspirational nature, as it were, is attested by Nero’s desire to drive Augustus’ own chariot, and by the symbolic power of placing Caesar’s (p. 135) chariot facing Jupiter. Finally, taken on purely symbolic grounds, the acquisition and display of such regal chariots as that of Mithridates or the king of the Goths creates a twofold triumph in a sense, of triumphator over triumphator. In the period of the principate, display of enemy spoils was not merely limited to the foreign or the exotic. The domination of domestic foes, thwarted from within, was equally celebrated when the occasional assassination or conspiracy gone awry motivated emperors to set up vows for their salvation. Cassius Dio (59.22.7) and Suetonius (Calig. 24.3) report that Caligula dedicated three daggers in the Temple of Mars Ultor when the conspiracy of Cn. Lentulus Gaetulicus (aided by Aemilius Lepidus) was foiled in AD 39. Thirty years later during the civil wars of 69, Vitellius celebrated his defeat of his rival Otho in a similar fashion by sending the dagger with which Otho had committed suicide to the Temple of Mars, though not in Rome but at Colonia Agrippinensis (Suet. Vit. 10.3). Four years before, in the wake of Piso’s conspiracy, Nero dedicated a dagger taken from one of the conspirators, Flavius Scaevinus, placing it in the Capitoline and dedicating it to Jupiter the Avenger.33 In addition, Nero rewarded M. Cocceius Nerva, the future emperor, and Ofonius Tigellinus, his villainous Praetorian Praefect, with the honour of statues in the palace and triumphal effigies in the Forum for their part in crushing the conspiracy.34 The three instances in which the daggers were set on public view looked back to the republic, in which control of enemy spoils equalled a symbolic possession of their power, but was also now uniquely a province of the principes, who since the time of Augustus publicly celebrated the ferocious vengeance exacted from their opponents both foreign and domestic.

Commemoratives Such display of spoils needs to be distinguished from commemorative statues, monuments, and a diverse array of objects and material that did not consist of spoils of the vanquished, but rather of memorials set up specifically to recall deeds of valour or benefactions bestowed on the city and its people. Commemoration of this sort stretched back to Rome’s deep past, since we hear that somewhere along the triumphal route stood a statue of Hercules so archaic that the mythical king Evander was thought to have dedicated it (Pliny, HN Page 10 of 37

 

Displaying Domination 34.33). Dressed on the (p.136) occasion of a triumph in triumphal garb, it recalled for Romans the first triumph ever celebrated in the city, that of Hercules over Cacus, and by association attributed for the day to the triumphator the qualities of Hercules (in addition to his association with Jupiter).35 In addition, it embodied the collective Roman response of force against the ‘Other’. Livy relates, however, that the earliest specific piece of statuary honouring personal valour was that of Horatius Cocles, who famously made his stand on the bridge against the Etruscan army of Lars Porsenna, and that it was erected in the Comitium.36 Again, the Comitium will have been an apt venue for Horatius’ commemoration as a saviour of the community for which he had been willing to sacrifice himself, since Roman citizens regularly congregated for political association in this central location. There is no need, however to render a full-scale catalogue of the myriad statuary found in Rome, a project long since completed, and recently revisited in Stewart’s admirable study.37 Such statuary was designed to reflect or inscribe on the face of the city the deeds of excellence performed by the elite, to perpetuate the memory of their achievements, collapse the past into the present, and bear physical witness to key aspects of the mos maiorum.38 Some were justly well known or even curiosities in their own right, such as the statue of Valerius Corvus in the Forum of Augustus, on which the raven that had distracted Valerius’ adversary and allowed him to dispatch his foe was famously perched (Aulus Gellius 9.11). The statue, as was the case for so many, will have been accompanied by brief res gestae, something that was not uncommon.39 Nor was it just valour in war that was deemed worthy of commemoration. (p.137) Success in one’s office could earn one the honour of a statue as well. T. Seius’ aedileship (345 BC) was particularly memorable for the practical accomplishment of supplying the public grain at a discounted price; his statue was therefore erected on both the Palatine and Capitoline (Pliny, HN 18.16). The honour was not without precedent. L. Minucius Augurinus (who managed to convict Spurius Maelius), when tribune of the plebs an eleventh time (456 BC), reduced the price of grain for a period of twenty days, and the people in return voted him a statue that stood on the Porta Trigemina (Pliny, HN 18.15). Both cases are remarkable as instances of commemoration of the aristocracy as benefactors of those who stood outside the Roman power structure, or on its margins. Such commemoratives served as reminders of the protective power of the elite, reaffirming their own sense of worth, both for themselves and their dependents. Statuary such as Corvus’ will have been ubiquitous in Rome, whether in front of the Temple of Castor and Pollux, with its commemorative equestrian statue of Q. Marcius Tremulus (for his victory over the Hernici in 306 BC, Livy 9.43.22), or the statue on the Capitoline of M. Aemilius Lepidus, dedicated after he had saved the life of a fellow citizen in battle (which represented him in a boy’s gown Page 11 of 37

 

Displaying Domination with a bulla (a protective pendant worn around the neck to protect young boys)) and which had been set up by senatorial decree (Val. Max. 3.1.1).40 To cite but one further example, the author of the lives of the two Gallieni (S.H.A. Gall. Duo 19.4) states that a statue of Gallienus’ grandfather had remained, to his day, at the base of the Palatine at the front of the Via Sacra (between the temples of Antoninus and Faustina and Vesta near the Arch of Fabius) with an inscription Gallieno iuniori (‘to Gallienus the Younger’). Such commemorations supposedly served, in this case, as a historical source for the biographer of the two Gallieni.41 More importantly however, it will have served as a means for Gallienus in his capacity as a usurper to legitimize his authority by attesting to a pedigree through ancestral imagines (as well as written text). A similar situation may have obtained for two of the short-lived emperors of AD 69. Suetonius reports that Galba, upon becoming emperor, set up a tablet in the forecourt of the palace with his family genealogy which traced its roots back to Jupiter on his father’s side and Pasiphae on his mother’s, while Vitellius’ statue on the rostrum also may have traced out an illustrious family lineage.42 (p.138) Cultural material of this sort shared an intent similar to the imagines paraded at Roman funerals, which had the power to exhort to virtus (see pp. 106–7), and were intended to perpetuate the ideology of power and aristocratic control. Thus Pliny (Ep. 2.7), to cite but one example, praises a triumphal statue of Vestricius Spurinna (and his son Cottius who died while he was abroad), and says that such a reward will spur young men (presumably of the right class) to deeds of valour.43 This is not to imply that the audience for such visual representations was exclusively elite, far from it. Given the ubiquity of such imagines it would be wrong to limit the audience that visually ‘read’ them, just as it would be wrong to assert that a particular image carried a single exclusive meaning. Such images arguably reflected the collective muscle of Roman manpower and its deployment through force, something not lost on its Roman audience regardless of class distinctions. In addition to statuary, soon after the establishment of the republic, according to Pliny (HN 35.12) individuals in Rome started to set up portrait shields in temples (not to be confused with shields taken as spoils from conquered foes discussed above), or shields containing abbreviated res gestae. The first to do this according to tradition was Appius Claudius, consul with P. Servilius in 495 BC, who dedicated a number of shields in the Temple of Bellona in an elevated spot so that the titulos honorum could be read.44 Pliny implies that these were no longer extant in his day. He further tells us that M. Aemilius Lepidus, Q. Lutatius Catulus’ colleague in the consulship, similarly set up such shields in 78 BC in the Basilica Aemilia as well as his home, with imagines depicted on them (HN 35 . 13).45 Doubtless there were numerous others between the time of Appius and Aemilius as well. Augustus similarly installed a clipeum with a series of virtues listed on it, a marble copy of which is still extant (Augustus, Res Gestae 34; see fig. 4.6).46 Such shields may have held a symbolic value, reminding the viewer of Page 12 of 37

 

Displaying Domination the ‘shielding protection’ of the clipeus’ dedicator and the strength of the victor in stripping away the enemy’s defense, rendering him vulnerable. Beginning in the third century BC (and, very likely, before), painting came increasingly into vogue as a means to advertise one’s achievements. Among the (p.139) subjects suitable for commemorative painting, battles, the capture of cities, triumphs, and portraits of generals in triumphal regalia were the order of the day.47 One of the earliest such paintings was one by Fabius Pictor in the Temple of Salus dedicated by C. Junius Bubulcus (which he vowed in 311 BC during the (p.140) Samnite Wars); Dionysius of Halicarnassus remarked that the painting was still bright and gaudy nearly three centuries later.48 The painting may have depicted Bubulcus’ military achievements, but whether a battle or victory procession is unclear.49 It may have been somewhat similar in appearance and execution to a painting we Fig. 4.6 Inscribed shields, such as this still have from the same period marble copy of a gold votive buckler from a tomb on the Esquiline, offered by the senate to Augustus in 27 showing, in addition to battle BC were objects that were among those scenes, Q. Fabius in negotiation used from the time of the republic to with his Samnite opponent (fig. advertise the achievements of Roman 4.7). Similarly, Varro (De Lingua aristocrats. Diam.: .65 m. Musée de Latina 7.57) remarks a painting of l’Arles, Arles. light armed cavalry (ferentarii equites hi dicti) in the ‘old’ Temple of Aesculapius. We are unable to date the latter, but both are related in terms of their context for display in the sense that arms, war, and triumph ultimately ensured the health and survival of the state, hence their apt placement in temples of Salus and Aesculapius.50 Subsequent to Fabius’ work, a painting with a similar subject was placed in the Temple of Consus on the Aventine showing T. Papirius Cursor (who may have commissioned both the temple and its painting) celebrating his triumph over the Samnites and Tarentum in 272 BC.51 Some years later in 264 BC, Fulvius Flaccus celebrated a triumph over the Volsinii and had the Temple of Vortumnus built on the Aventine; for part of its décor he commissioned a portrait of himself dressed in triumphal regalia with the toga picta.52 Such an exhibit will have been a testament not only to Flaccus’ virtus, but to his pietas in introducing a new deity into the Roman pantheon. In the next year, 263 BC, on the Page 13 of 37

 

Displaying Domination western exterior of the Curia Hostilia a painting was commissioned depicting the victory of M’. Valerius Messalla over King Hieron and the Carthaginians (Pliny, HN 35.22). It was later part of the Basilica Porcia.53 Much later the emperor Maximinus displayed paintings in a similar venue outside the senate house that depicted his campaigns against Germania.54

At the height of the Second Punic War Ti. Sempronius Gracchus chose a rather atypical subject after his defeat of Hanno near Beneventum in 214 BC. After his victory, the townspeople welcomed him and laid out meals in the open courts of (p.141) (p.142) their homes with all the soldiers invited to partake of the feast in common. Instead, however, Gracchus had them hold the celebrations out on the street, with the slave volunteers that made up his army feasting and wearing caps of liberty or white woolen filets to celebrate their freedom (Livy 24.16.16–19).55 Gracchus reckoned that the event should have a permanent record and ordered a picture painted depicting the feast day, a picture appropriately set up in the Temple of Jupiter Libertas that his father had dedicated on the Aventine.56 The ultimate victor of the war with Hannibal, Scipio Africanus, proudly paraded tabulae in his triumphal procession depicting scenes from the war in Africa, though where these were ultimately displayed is unknown.57 Unfortunately, it is generally the case that the ultimate specific display context for such paintings remains uncertain.58 A word of caution is needed too about whether such paintings were always necessarily part of a triumphal procession; they could simply have been commissioned as commemoratives in their own right and were not necessarily a part of the triumphal celebration itself.59

Fig. 4.7 Roman aristocrats started in earnest to use painting as a means to advertise their achievements in the third century BC. This wall painting depicts a scene from the Samnite Wars (of battle and surrender) from a tomb on the Esquiline in Rome and may give us a sense of how such early paintings appeared. Third century BC. H: 87.5 cm. Museo del Palazzo dei Conservatori, Rome.

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Displaying Domination For those about whose display we are informed, there is something to be said about the location of these paintings. The Aventine, for example, had close associations with the plebeian class, which had seceded there en masse during its agitation against the nobility in the so-called struggle of the orders. Its various temples pertained to personal health and welfare, or liberation, and included those dedicated to Liber (Bacchus), Libertas, and Ceres.60 Moreover as noted, L. Mummius dedicated a number of paintings there after the sack of Corinth, including Aristides’ Dionysus in the Temple of Ceres. Both deities were closely associated with the plebs.61 (p.143) The Capitol, where the triumphing general’s victory procession ended culminating in sacrifice, was an aptly chosen site for dedicating pictorial commemoratives.62 We hear, for example, that L. Scipio Asiaticus put a picture in the Capitol of his victory over Antiochus III in Asia in 190 BC (which reportedly annoyed his brother Africanus since his son was taken prisoner in the battle).63 Not much later, Aemilius Paullus, a patron of Pacuvius, commissioned paintings in the Temple of Hercules in the Forum Boarium that likely will have commemorated an event associated with Aemilius Paullus’ military successes (Pliny, HN 35.135). In addition, Aemilius also brought the famous painter Metrodorus of Athens with him to commemorate his victories.64 In the late republic, according to Appian (Mith. 117), at Pompey’s triumph over Mithridates, images were carried in the procession of Mithridates fighting, then defeated, then put to flight: Even the besieging of Mithridates, and the night when he fled, and the silence were represented. Finally it was shown how he died, and the daughters who perished with him were depicted also, and there were figures of the sons and daughters who died before him, and images of the barbarian gods decked out in the fashion of their countries.65 Scholars have long assumed that these were paintings, and this may well be the case, but it has recently been suggested that such images could have actually been models, or scenes against which actors re-enacted the events.66 The images, if they were in the nature of scene paintings or statuary, likely found their way to the Capitoline with some of Mithridates’ other treasures, or were possibly used to adorn the portico of Pompey’s theatre. Equally appropriate to the setting on the Capitoline was Munatius Plancus’ dedication of two paintings (seized while he was on campaign) in the Temple of Minerva next to the shrine of Iuventas. Their subjects were the rape of Persephone and Victory seizing a quadriga on high (Victoria quadrigam in sublime rapiens).67 Here we have an instance where the paintings portrayed apt subjects for Plancus’ station, especially the latter of the two, since the subject of Victory taking the triumphal four horse chariot up to heaven could clearly be associated with his status as imperator (a salutation Pliny notes he earned on Page 15 of 37

 

Displaying Domination campaign). The former is perhaps a more disturbing image of conquest in which Persephone is (p.144) violently seized by Pluto, a suitable metaphor for Rome’s violent seizure of conquered peoples. Lest we think such a connection fanciful, we need only to consider that Romans tended to view conquered provinces as feminine entities to be subdued and put on display (see pp. 199– 203). In addition, the location of the works, in the Temple of Minerva, a deity whose field was both war and culture, would have been an equally suitable setting.

Fondness for battle scenes, triumphs, the display of captives, and the like, will not surprise, if one considers the surviving artistic and monumental record in the form of relief sculpture (as on the Arch of Titus (see fig. 4.8 –9) or Trajan’s Column), statuary (such as the Dacian captives that adorned Trajan’s forum (see fig. 4.10)), and

Fig. 4.8 The emperor Titus is portrayed in an imperial quadriga in triumphal procession over Judaea in AD 70 on his arch in the Forum. A winged Victory hovers behind him. The relief reflects in visual terms the sort of subject we know was popular among Rome’s ruling elite from both the existing material and literary evidence, including scenes of battles and triumphs, both painted and sculpted. H: 2 m. W: 3.85 m. The Arch of Titus in the Roman Forum, Rome.

sarcophagi.68 In some cases, it is perhaps not too much to (p.145) state that the commemoration of the event was as important as the event itself. In a sense, the act of commissioning works of art for the sake of commemoration and its public display constitutes in and of itself an extension of the ideology of triumphalism. Unlike the simple appropriation of enemy spoils, the creation of such commemoratives is a community intensive activity, which requires, merely for the acquisition of the colours for paint, the marble for sculpting, or other material, extensive

Fig. 4.9 The spoils of the Temple in Jerusalem plundered and razed by Titus are set on display before the people during his triumph. The scene, a part of the same narrative as figure 4.8, gives us

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Displaying Domination connections of trade and importation of talent. Moreover, it is a privileged act, which seeks to transmit a set of encoded ideologies about virtus, power, and the perpetuation of privilege. At the same time, painting and sculpture rendered the vanquished enemy or the victor something aesthetic, hence, something that was desirable, thereby ‘organiz[ing] a domain of perception’ to reaffirm the values of a fiercely aggressive society and shape its national memory.69 The creation of desire and aspiration implied the continuity of Roman power, domination, and aggressive expansion—the selfperpetuation, in short, of the desired artistic object destined to be set up to commemorate a triumph and instill longing for further conquest. (p.146)

Fig. 4.10 A bound Dacian captive from the gallery of Trajan’s forum. The statue will have loomed larger than life on Trajan’s monument, a commemorative structure built from the spoils of the vanquished Dacians in which images of Dacians such as this one were literally bound and imprisoned, forced to gaze forever on a memorial to their defeat. Museo del Palazzo dei Conservatori, Rome.

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Displaying Domination (p.147) Amicitia and Memory

a glimpse at one of the better known cultural artefacts ever imported into the city, the Temple’s candelabrum and table stand. The Arch of Titus in the Roman Forum, Rome.

In addition to commemoratives that celebrated conquest and domination, there was a set of subtler commemoratives which implied an ostensibly more benign hegemony. From the earliest period of Roman history, numerous artefacts and relics recalled the nexus of friendships, alliances, and treaties between Rome and other states. Consequently, Rome’s power and the growth of that power could be read through a series of material objects that indicated variously submission, desire for integration into or protection under Roman power, or that were genuine tokens of friendship. Such objects composed a text on which the history of Roman expansion and influence was writ large, constituting a proud record of Roman prestige and of the desire of others to seek peace with and the protection of Rome. First and foremost among these objects were the diverse treaties of peace or friendship found throughout the city. Such recorded material was not inconsequential to the Romans, and it is worth noting that Vespasian, after the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus’ destruction by fire in AD 69, meticulously carried out a recovery project involving the restitution of nearly three thousand tablets valued for both their historic and aesthetic characteristics (Suet. Vesp. 8.5): He undertook that three thousand bronze tablets that had perished by fire at the same time be restored and that copies be sought out from everywhere possible, the fairest and most ancient instrument of empire on which were contained almost from the beginning of the city decrees of the senate and plebs concerning an alliance, treaty, or privilege conceded to anyone. The passage indicates that both the beauty of the material and the contents were notable in their own right; bronze was the preferred, though not the only medium for preserving public historical records of this sort, and the number of treaties and pacts set in bronze and other material was so substantial (as the Suetonius passage indicates) that there is no need for anything more than a few general words about them here. The earliest such artefact is attested in the monarchy, when Tarquin made peace with Gabii. The terms of the treaty were on display in the Temple of Semo Sancus on a shield of wood covered with the hide of a sacrificial bull with the peace terms inscribed on it.70 From the time of the republic, one of the earliest such relics was a column of bronze which stood behind the rostrum in the Forum inscribed with a treaty made with all the Latins and struck by Spurius Cassius and (p.148) Postumus Cominius in 493 BC.71 In 340 BC the equestrians of Page 18 of 37

 

Displaying Domination Campania were granted Roman citizenship and a bronze tablet was affixed (appropriately) to the Temple of Castor and Pollux in memory of the event (Livy 8.11.16); they were given citizenship reportedly because they refused to assist the Latins against the Romans. Later on, in Polybius’ day, Romans could read the treaty between Rome and Carthage, an agreement made in the time of Pyrrhus’ invasion (279 BC). It was preserved on bronze tablets next to the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus in the quaestors’ treasury (Polybius 3.26.1). And in Caesar’s time, Josephus says there was a decree on the Capitoline that renewed a treaty of friendship between the Romans and Jews (commemorating Hyrcanus’ assistance to Caesar in Egypt); the decree noted a gift of a gold shield worth 50,000 gold pieces (AJ 14.146–7). The Romans themselves kept a catalogue of such treaties on rolls made of linen known as the lentei libri kept in the Temple of Juno Moneta (Livy 4.7.11–12). These contained not only the various treaties struck by Roman officials but a list of Roman magistrates on record as well. Apart from the obvious recording of treaties, among the more common tokens of friendship and esteem were crowns and statues. In the course of Rome’s history, the collection of gold crowns offered by various states or individuals, as Östenberg has recently illustrated, was formidable.72 One of the earliest records of such a dedication (to cite but one example) is that of the Latins and Hernici who paid homage to Rome (for ‘good government’ and the ‘restoration of harmony’) by presenting a gold crown to Jupiter on the Capitol. Livy (3.57.7) says the crown was small due to the resources of both states at the time (449 BC). Such crowns constituted symbolic recognition of the superiority of Roman strength and a desire for protection under Rome’s aegis. The dedication of the Hernici was consequently just the first (as far as we know) of numerous gold crowns various states dedicated in the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus.73 The crown and its location are both significant. First, the crown itself was not merely (p.149) the symbol of royal power (Rome acting as the world’s regent), but also of victory. Deposited in Jupiter’s temple, whose cult on the Capitoline was where every victory culminated in triumph, such objects stood as a testament to Roman power and to bringing outsiders within the sphere of that power (and protection) on both a human and divine level. Crowns of this sort may have been second only to the statues that recalled friendship between Rome and other allied states, such as the statue of Victory a delegation brought from Syracuse in 216 BC.74 The senate put the 220 pound gold statue, considered a good omen at the time, in the Temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline (Livy 22.37). Equestrian statues were a particular honour: to cite but one example, Cassius Dio (70.2.3) says that when King Pharasmanes of Iberia visited Rome, the emperor Antoninus Pius set up an equestrian statue to him in the Temple of Bellona. The sincerity of certain dedications were no doubt subject to some scrutiny, as will have been the case with the gold statues of Verres that

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Displaying Domination the Sicilians had set up to him in Rome in token of friendship, a joint offering of the Sicilian people, according to the inscription.75 More exotic gifts are recorded from the East. These include a golden vine worth 500 talents that Aristobulus, the ruler of the Jews, gave to Pompey while in Damascus in 64–63 BC which he deposited in the Temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline, along with a crown the Egyptians gave to him at the same time worth 4000 gold pieces (Joseph. AJ 14.34–6). In the empire, tokens of amicitia from far afield appear to have been amassed. Thus, Aurelian (S.H.A. Aurel. 29.1–3) was said to have deposited a short woolen garment, a gift of the King of Persia that had come from India and of such purple hue that all others paled in comparison. Such gifts were not immune from the avaricious grasp of Roman officials with their voracious appetite for finery. Cicero reports that two sons of King Antiochus of Syria had brought a beautiful lamp stand to the city adorned with gems and intended for dedication in the Temple of Jupiter. However, the reconstruction of the temple after the fire of 83 BC was not yet complete, and they decided to take the lamp stand back to Syria with them with the promise to return (p.150) in order to dedicate it at the proper time. According to Cicero, the corrupt Verres got wind of their intent and appropriated it.76 Cultural property of this stamp, taken in its totality, bore witness to the numerous alliances and friendships the Roman state formed with outside powers and hence to its influence and might. The appropriation of material not taken by force but given in friendship made Roman power a visual reality within the city, and re-contextualized, say, a simple crown into a comprehensible expression of Roman imperium. States offered crowns, gold, and purple cloth as tokens of obsequium to the Roman state and its people. Such gifts and dedications stood as a visual testament to the desire of others to become a part of the Roman sphere or as an acknowledgement of its might, and thereby reaffirmed Roman identity and legitimized Roman power.

Political Competition and Aesthetics The display of objects symbolic of such power and success as those discussed above were by no means neutral, but in fact the focal point occasionally of fierce competition around which political conflict, passions, and rivalries played themselves out, something in a sense already discussed in chapter two. Public space became, literally, an extension of the field of battle in which there was ferocious competition for gloria. Who and what was to be remembered, and how, became a part of a larger political argument, since monuments and images could and did evoke powerful and often negative reactions, as has been explored in Gregory’s fine study of the political rancour that could arise over the public display of imagines.77 This was not unique to the Romans. The phenomenon whereby cultural material such as statuary and other images elicited sharp reactions is also well-attested in Greece where we hear, for example, that the Athenians took a hammer to Cassander’s image and reduced it to a heap of Page 20 of 37

 

Displaying Domination rubble (Plut. Mor. 559D). Similarly, Plutarch tells us that when Aratus took Sicyon he destroyed a number of portraits of ‘the tyrants’, and was barely prevented from destroying a portrait of Aristratus (a contemporary of Phillip II, Arat. 13). It was the work of Melanthus (who executed it reportedly with Apelles’ assistance) and depicted Aristratus standing next to a chariot of (p.151) victory. It was saved by the intervention of Neacles (a friend of Aratus), who tearfully pleaded with him to spare it.78 For the Romans the phenomenon of cultural objects turning politically contentious dates back to at least the third century BC (though it almost certainly took place before), since it may have been a sense of slighted glory at the hands of the Scipiones that led Fabius Maximus to dedicate a colossal Hercules by Lysippus (possibly similar to that in fig. 2.2) from Tarentum on the Capitoline in 209 BC next to an equestrian statue of himself in bronze (see p. 38). Similarly, there is the possibility that M’. Acilius Glabrio’s dedication of a gilded equestrian statue in the Temple of Pietas in 181 BC, honouring his father in fulfillment of a vow when King Antiochus was defeated at Thermopylae in 191 BC, may have been intended to vindicate a charge of peculation brought up by Cato the Elder some years past.79 The political competition over such monuments turned more blatant and more violent during the late republic. The case of King Bocchus is instructive in this regard. Bocchus dedicated some statues to Victory on the Capitoline (a base of which still survives in the Capitoline Museum, see fig. 4.11), and a golden statue group which depicted his handing over Jugurtha to Sulla, a monument replicated on Sulla’s signet ring, and on coinage from the period (see fig. 4.12) which allows us to conjecture the group’s appearance. Marius, stung by the visual reminder of a victory which he believed rightly his, later tried to remove the work by force but failed.80 Ultimately it was allowed to stand and Sulla’s memory left its mark on the city (and he was further honoured with a gilded equestrian statue, App. B Civ. 1.97). Clearly, Marius and Sulla elicited strong sentiments in their followers—we need think only of the commission made for Marius (Plut. Mar. 40.1) by a man named Belaeus who had helped Marius flee the Sullans at Miturnae; it was a (p.152)

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Displaying Domination (p.153) picture of Marius’ embarkation, later dedicated in a temple at the site. Such commemoration could result in a dubious response. A statue may be intended as an honour, yet Plutarch says that the statue of Marius set up by the residents of Ravenna bore witness to his harsh and bitter character (Mar. 2). Both Marius and his colleague and rival, Q. Lutatius Catulus, decorated buildings with arms and spoils (in particular shields) taken during their campaign against the Cimbri, each desiring to claim credit for the victory over a dangerous foe. Catulus decorated a portico on the Palatine with the spoils, while Marius adorned some of the new shops in the Forum (possibly the tabernae argentariae) with shields taken from the Cimbri which had

Fig. 4.11 The so-called ‘monument of Bocchus’, may have been one of several that the king had set up to commemorate Sulla’s victory over Jugurtha in 105 BC. The base itself, on which winged victories hold a shield, may have been topped with a statue of Victory. Centrale Montemartini, Rome.

portraits of Gauls on them.81 It stands as an example in which competition over memory left its mark openly on the city.

Equally bitter was the feud between Cicero and Clodius. Cicero was able to exploit Clodius’ actions during his exile, when he not only pulled down Cicero’s house, but erected a Temple of Libertas on the site. Cicero tells us that Libertas’ cult statue came from Tanagra, and was that of a courtesan appropriated from a tomb.82 A nobleman—we do not know who—had taken and used the statue to adorn his entertainments when he was aedile, wanting to put on a memorable show. Cicero accused Clodius of desecration on three counts: the image had

Fig. 4.12 This scene on a coin in which Bocchus (kneeling as the suppliant with the olive branch) delivers up Jugurtha (bound up and dejected) to Sulla, who is seated, is very likely representative of a series of contentious monuments commemorating the end of the war against Jugurtha in which Sulla tried to

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Displaying Domination decorated a tomb, it snatch credit away from Marius. Reverse represented a meretrix, and it of a silver denarius of Sullan issue. The was set up sacrilegiously. In American Numismatic Society, New York. short, Clodius had committed an abomination, and literally made libertas a whore. Most famously of all, in the period leading up to Caesar’s assassination, the statues of Brutus’ ancestor, M. Junius Brutus the Liberator, became something of a political rallying point for anti-Caesarian sentiments, with graffiti and garlands placed on his statuary.83 Indeed, Brutus was said to have been inspired to act against Caesar due to the image of his ancestor that stood next to those of Rome’s ancient kings, his sword in hand (Plut. Brut. 1.1).84 The violent reaction imagines could elicit, and the political undertones that permeated such violence continued into the principate. We hear, for example, that Agrippina the Elder’s imagines and those of her son Nero were paraded (p. 154) around the streets in AD 29 at the height of Sejanus’ persecution of both mother and son.85 A similar demonstration took place with the imagines of Nero’s wife, Octavia, in AD 62 during her persecution by Nero.86 When Aemila Lepida was on trial under Tiberius, a similar spectacle took place when the woman, besieged by accusers, entered Pompey’s theatre and gestured to the monumenta et imagines of her ancestors around her, reminding the people of her illustrious lineage and arousing the mob’s sympathy.87 These are merely a few of the numerous other examples one could cite, and examined in Gregory’s study of the use of imagines as symbols around which fierce political passions could occasionally become inflamed.88 If images could be used as political rallying points, the Romans were also fully aware that other images, especially pictorial representations, could be used for similar political ends, such as canvassing for office, arguing court cases, attacking a political or legal opponent, or the passing of various laws and legislation—frequently with mixed results. We have already noted the case of L. Scipio who offended his brother Africanus by displaying a painting of his victory over Antiochus III because Africanus’ son had been taken prisoner during the war. Almost half a century later L. Hostilius Mancinus, the first of the commanders in the Third Punic War to force an entrance into Carthage, displayed in the Forum a city plan of Carthage with representations of the attacks on it, all the while standing by the image and describing to the people the assault on the city and the details of the siege in order to court popularity for the consular elections (an office he won, for which he reportedly incurred the enmity of Scipio Aemilianus).89 In the late republic we know that Cato the Younger (Plut. Cat. Min. 43) spoke against the extension of the command of the first triumvirate and the reallotment of provinces; afterwards the mob was incited to violence, and pelted Pompey’s statues. Nearly a decade later, Appian (B Civ. 2.101) relates the Page 23 of 37

 

Displaying Domination audience’s negative response during Caesar’s triumph in 46 BC, when images were displayed during the procession of the civil war: The people… groaned over their domestic ills, especially when they saw the picture of L. Scipio, the general-in-chief, wounded in the breast by his own hand, casting himself into the sea, and Petreius committing selfdestruction at the banquet, and Cato torn apart (p.155) by himself like a wild beast, [while] they applauded at the deaths of Achillas and Pothinus, and laughed at the flight of Pharnaces.90 One wonders whether Caesar intended such a sympathetic response for his Roman adversaries, or if it was something unexpected.91 An equally emotional display is reported when Verres exhibited his loot from Asia and Achaia (Cic. Verr. 2.1.59–60). There happened to be in Rome at the time delegations from the cities of both provinces whose members, upon seeing the various images taken away from their sanctuaries, burst into tears, with some exclaiming that the ruin of Rome’s friends and allies was at hand, since such things were displayed in the Forum itself, where once those who had wronged allies were prosecuted.92 The powerful impact of visual representations when pleading at court did not escape the notice of Roman jurists. The exploitation of visual images in legal settings actually had a long history in Rome. Cicero, for example, relates the case of Aulus Gabinius against Lucullus in 67 BC: Gabinius brought a picture of Lucullus’ Tusculan villa to attack his luxurious way of life with a view to exciting the mob to indignation (Cic. Sest. 93). Nearly a century and a half later, Quintilian tells us that lawyers were still bringing paintings into court to illustrate the crimes of defendants in order to sway the jurors’ emotions.93 The disgust that the imagines of certain men could elicit abided into the empire. Pliny the Younger, as noted (p. 104) derided the monument to Claudius’ freedman Pallas, in part because he attributed Pallas’ achievements not to merit but to fortune (something he found particularly frustrating), and derided the inscription as ridiculous, indicative only of waste and the rascality of Pallas. Much later, Ammianus Marcellinus (14.6.8) voices his disapproval of certain men receiving the honour of a statue, citing an anecdote of Cato the Elder who, when asked why he did not have one, responded that he preferred to have people wonder why one who so deservedly merited a statue did not have one, than that they grumble that one without merit did.94 Intense, even harsh reactions were expected towards imagines. With this in mind it is remarked as noteworthy that Octavian was magnanimous in his response to a statue of Brutus that stood in Mediolanum in which he took no offence (though he initially rebuked the city for harbouring an adversary, before finally allowing the statue to stay because they (p.156) had shown fides to a friend even in adversity).95 In the extreme the reaction could famously effect the destruction of such imagines, and both

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Displaying Domination popular unrest and so-called damnatio memoriae could result in either the spontaneous or calculated erasure of a man’s presence and memory.96 The relationship between visual culture and political competition was not always violent however. Triumphal processions and the displays of spoils beforehand in venues such as the Circus Flaminius arguably constituted among the most tangible forms of political competition, and translated into enormous prestige and political clout for the triumphator.97 However the relationship could take more subtle forms as well, such as the display put on by a young man as aedile, just starting off on his cursus honorum. Caesar famously gave a display during his aedileship of the gladiatorial armour and other equipment used in his games; it will have been on a grand scale, since if we can believe Suetonius (Iul. 10.1), the display was spread throughout the Comitium, the Forum, its basilicas, and the Capitoline. Cicero’s friend C. Claudius borrowed Praxiteles’ Eros from Sicily during his aedileship; as patron of the Messanians, C. Claudius was careful to restore the statue afterwards, though it was subsequently carted off by Verres according to Cicero (Verr. 2.4.6).98 In an ironic twist, Verres’ depredations rendered him a resource as a lender to young, aspiring aediles (Cic. Verr. 2.4.126). Not everyone was so careful to return such statuary as was Claudius. Domitius Calvinus borrowed statues from Augustus for a temporary show at the Regia that he had restored, then cheekily refused to return them (Cass. Dio 48.42). Two other contemporaries of Cicero, Murena and Varro, during their aedileship had some fine frescoes on brick walls in Sparta cut away, sent to Rome, and displayed in the Comitium because they were of exceptional quality (Pliny, HN 35.173); again there is no indication of return.

(p.157) History and Remembrance The relics that celebrated valour, triumph, hegemony, and beneficence towards the community not only preserved historical memory, they were a reflection of the collective values of that community.99 While many of these objects constituted the physical commemorative of a particular deed on the battlefield or a relic reflective of an individual’s political power or liberality, such objects eventually were appropriated by the city itself as a part of Rome’s history. The painting depicting T. Papirius Cursor’s triumph over the Samnites in the Temple of Consus, or the shield inscribed with Tarquin’s peace treaty with Gabii in the Temple of Semo Sancus, were important fragments of Rome’s history in their own right, but they were also testaments to Roman greatness. That so diverse an array of cultural property receives attention in our sources indicates the elevation of individual objects to a position in which they play the role of a more general cultural referent. Many of those objects cited in this chapter underscored the claim to dominate and control, as was the case with the weapons of defeated enemies, or the ancient treaties or tokens of submission from peoples and states both near and far. Collectively, such material reaffirmed Roman claims to power and authority, and in the process promised the continuity of elite values and domination. The nature of commemoration, in Page 25 of 37

 

Displaying Domination Rome’s politically agonistic environment, was at times contentious. That is perhaps not surprising. What was to be remembered and how was—and is— rarely neutral. At the opening of both the Annales and the Historiae Tacitus criticizes historians concerning how the history of the early emperors was written, that is, how they were remembered. It is perhaps not surprising that a similarly antagonistic conversation took place occasionally concerning the cultural material that composed historical narratives in visual terms. It should be noted, however, that the deeper underlying claims on which elite honour was based and which were central to Roman identity—virtus in battle, dignitas, auctoritas, and the like—were never questioned, merely who had the right to lay claim to the most of any combination of these, and who would be remembered for them. (p.158) Notes:

(1) In the area of classical antiquity, on how art, ritual, and symbol (sometimes in the form of objects) interact to support the empowered, see N. Hannestad, Roman Art and Imperial Policy (Aarhus 1986), 9–14; P. Zanker, The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus. Translated by Alan Shapiro (Ann Arbor 1988); P. J. Holliday, The Origins of Roman Historical Commemoration in the Visual Arts (Cambridge 2002); T. Hölscher, The Language of Images in Roman Art (Cambridge 2004), 47–57. For how objects carry symbolic value and their role in public competition amongst the elite see R. L. Gordon, ‘The Real and the Imaginary: Production and Religion in the Graeco-Roman World’, in R. L. Gordon (ed.), Image and Value in the Graeco-Roman World: Studies in Mithraism and Religious Art (Brookfield Vt. 1996), 23. (2) Holliday, Origins (n. 1), 194; cf. P. Connerton, How Societies Remember (Cambridge 1989), 4, who asserts that knowledge of the past and recollected knowledge tend to be conveyed by ritual performance, something in a sense true for the Romans, who relied on mos maiorum. On the ‘construction’ of the Roman nobilitas (and a definition of the term) through its ethos and mode of life see F. Goldmann, ‘Nobilitas als Status und Gruppe – Überlegungen zum Nobilitätsbegriff der römischen Republik’, in J. Spielvogel (ed.), Res publica reperta. Zur Verfassung und Gesellschaft der römischen Republik und des frühen Prinzipats (Festschrift Jochen Blecken) (Stuttgart 2002), 45–66, esp. 57; see 62–6 for the connection between imagines and the creation of the nobility as a distinct group nobilitas; also see A. Afzelius, ‘Zur Definition der römischen Nobilität in der Zeit Ciceros’, ClMed 2 (1938), 40–94; ‘Zur Definition der römischen Nobilität vor der Zeit Ciceros’, ClMed 7 (1945), 150–200. For more theoretical discussions on the construction of reality by elites, see e.g. the series of essays in H. A. Millon and L. Nochlin (eds.), Art and Architecture in the Service of Politics (Cambridge Mass. 1978); D. Castriota, (ed.), Artistic Strategy and the Rhetoric of Power: Political Uses of Art from Antiquity to the Present (Carbondale 1986); R. I. Rotberg and T. K. Rabb, (eds.), Art and History. Images Page 26 of 37

 

Displaying Domination and Their Meaning (Cambridge 1988). For a discussion on the social background to the display of commemoratives that depict ritual see R. M. Van Dyke and S. E. Alcock, (eds.), Archaeologies of Memory (Oxford 2003), 4; also see A. Feldherr, Spectacle and Society in Livy’s History (Berkeley 1998), 1–50; cf. S. MacCormack, Art and Ceremony in Late Antiquity (Berkeley 1981); J. Elsner, Roman Eyes. Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text (Princeton 2007), 29–48. (3) Holliday, Origins (n. 1), xix. (4) F. Baekeland, ‘Psychological Aspects of Art Collecting’, Psychiatry, 44 (1981), 49–50 notes that the relationship between owner and trophy object can be one in which the possessed object also functions as a talisman which ‘connects me magically with the previous possessor’; for a good general discussion of the display of enemy weaponry see I. Östenberg, Staging the World: Spoils, Captives, and Representation in the Roman Triumphal Procession (Oxford 2009), 22–30, 41–7. (5) T. Hölscher, ‘The Transformation of Victory into Power: From Event to Structure’, in S. Dillon and K. E. Welch (eds.), Representations of War in Ancient Rome (Cambridge 2006), 27–48. (6) See LTUR 3.135–6 for the temple. (7) See Plut. Marc. 8; also see Propertius 4.10; Livy 4.32.4,11; Val. Max. 3.2.5; Silius Italicus 1.133, 3.587, 12.280; Florus 1.20.5; Cass. Dio 54.8.3; Aur. Vict. De Vir. Ill. 25.1–2; CIL 10.809. For an excellent discussion concerning who had the right to dedicate the spolia see J. Rich, ‘Augustus and the spolia opima’, Chiron, 26 (1996), 85–127; for a general study of the Roman war trophy and victory monuments see G. Ch. Picard, Les Trophées romains (Paris 1957); Östenberg, Staging the World (n. 4), 19–30, esp. 19–20; see Hölscher, ‘Transformation’ (n. 5), 31–3 for the development of the battlefield tropaeum beginning in the late second century BC. (8) See H. I. Flower, ‘The Tradition of the spolia opima: M. Claudius Marcellus and Augustus’, ClAnt 19 (2000), 34–64, who suggests it was something that occurred at key points in the historical period and that Marcellus was instrumental in the origin of what became an ‘urban legend’; for a related discussion see M. Beard, The Roman Triumph (Cambridge Mass. 2007), 293. (9) For the Pila Horatia see LTUR 4.89–90. (10) Pliny also states that they had paintings of the maiores on the outside of houses. See J. Isager, Pliny on Art and Society: The Elder Pliny’s Chapters on the History of Art (London 1991), 116 for discussion; for related discussion see S. Carey, Pliny’s Catalogue of Culture: Art and Empire in the Natural History (Oxford 2003), 149; K. E. Welch, ‘Domi militiaeque: Roman Domestic Aesthetics Page 27 of 37

 

Displaying Domination and War Booty in the Republic’, in S. Dillon and K. E. Welch (eds.), Representations of War in Ancient Rome (Cambridge 2006), 91–161. (11) Livy 9.40.16. The latter because Livy states that it became the custom of the aediles to decorate the Forum in such a way when carriages with images of the gods were pulled through it. (12) See M. Jaeger, Livy’s Written Rome (Ann Arbor 1997), 122–7. (13) Pliny, HN 35.14. Certain Greek communities had a similar custom; the Athenians hung Spartan shields captured at Sphacteria in 425 BC on the Stoa Poikile in their agora; see Pausanias 1.15.4; J. Camp, The Athenian Agora. Excavations in the Heart of Classical Athens (London 1986), 71–2 for discussion. (14) For a discussion of imagines clipeatae see R. Winkes, ‘Pliny’s Chapter on Roman Funeral Customs in the Light of clipeatae imagines’, AJA 83 (1979), 481– 4. (15) On the subject of Gallic spoils, esp. gold torques, see Östenberg, Staging the World (n. 4), 108–11. (16) It was also reportedly the only thing worn by the Celts in battle, and therefore represented a symbolic stripping of the enemy, thereby rendering him vulnerable. (17) Livy 8.14.12; Florus 1.5.10; see F. Coarelli, Il Foro Romano I: periodo arcaico (Rome 1983), 39–42, 47 for discussion. (18) There were other such monuments within the city, including one set up in the Forum by M. Antonius, who triumphed over the Cilician pirates in 100 BC with L. Valerius Flaccus, Cic. De Or. 3.10; see Zanker, Power of Images (n. 1), 41–2; W. M. Murray and P. M. Petsas, ‘Octavian’s Campsite Memorial for the Actian War’, TAPS 79 (1989), 118–19; A. Kuttner, ‘Some New Grounds for Narrative: Marcus Antonius’ Base (the Ara Domitii Ahenobarbi) and Republican Biographies’, in P. J. Holliday (ed.), Narrative and Event in Ancient Art (Cambridge 1993), 206; for discussion of rostra exhibited throughout the city see Östenberg, Staging the World (n. 4), 54–7. (19) See Zanker, Power of Images (n. 1), 80–1. (20) For the various rostra in the Forum see Pliny, HN 16.8. For toil and Augustan ideology see p. 242 with n. 64; for Hercules, Augustus, and Antony see pp. 242– 3. (21) The proverbial and metaphorical governing of ‘the ship of state’ became a virtual cliché in Roman antiquity; see e.g. Horace, Carmina 1.14.

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Displaying Domination (22) Cf. Livy 45.35.3; for a detailed description of the flag ship of a Greek monarch and its luxury see Athenaeus 5.207c (a description of Hieron II’s ship). It was Cn. Octavius who won the naval victory over Perseus, Festus 188L. See P. Gros, ‘Les premières générations d’architectes héllenistiques à Rome’, in Mélanges J. Huergon, L’ltalie préromaine et la Rome républimine. Melanges offers à Jaques Huergon, Collection de l’Ecole Française de Rome (Rome 1976), 388 with n. 3 for discussion; for a good general discussion of visual display in naval triumphs (and for Cn. Octavius) see Östenberg, Staging the World (n. 4), 47–50, esp. 50. (23) Athenaeus 5.209e; see J. C. Edmundson, ‘The Cultural Politics of Public Spectacle in Rome and the Greek East, 167–166 B.C.E.’, in B. Bergmann and C. Kondoleon (eds.), The Art of Ancient Spectacle (Studies in the History of Art, 56) (New Haven and London 1999), 77–95; he also deposited a statue of Athena by Phidias in the Temple of Fortuna Huiusce Diei, see F. Coarelli, Il Campo Marzio. Dalle Origini alla Fine della Republica (Rome 1997), 275, cf. 275–92 for discussion of the temple; also see M. Miles, Art as Plunder. The Ancient Origins of Debate about Cultural Property (Cambridge 2008), 72. (24) See Livy 42.12, 45.35.3; see Coarelli, Il Campo Marzio (n. 23), 345–60; LTUR 3.339–40. (25) For a brief discussion of Rome’s Trojan heritage see C. Edwards, Writing Rome. Textual Approaches to the City (Cambridge 1996), 63–6, who focuses on Aeneas’ tour of the city; also see pp. 160–5. (26) For display of enemy standards see Östenberg, Staging the World (n. 4), 38– 41. (27) Cass. Dio 54.8.3 mentions a temple of Mars Ultor on the Capitoline in which the standards of captured enemies were also set; see Zanker, Power of Images (n. 1), 108–9; D. Favro, The Urban Image of Augustan Rome (Cambridge 1996), 88–9; LTUR 3.230–1. See S.H.A. Aurel. 28.5 for a literary description of such standards (cf. p. 285). (28) Cass. Dio 51.22.1–3 says the statue was from Tarentum and that ‘the spoils of Egypt’ were also used to decorate the Temple of Julius Caesar and of Jupiter Capitolinus as well; he also remarks that despite Cleopatra’s defeat her splendour was still visibly evident throughout the city (as in her magnificent pearls that adorned the ears of Venus in the Pantheon, Pliny, HN 9.119–21); at 51.17.6 he further notes that the Romans were enriched after her defeat since they acquired a great deal of material she herself had looted from sacred sites. (29) For discussion of the display of enemy chariots see Östenberg, Staging the World (n. 4), 30–8; cf. 95–6.

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Displaying Domination (30) See Strabo 12.3.31; App. Mith. 117. (31) For discussion see G. Zecchini, ‘I cervi, le amazzoni e il trionfo “gotico” di Aureliano’, in G. Bonamente, F. Heim, and J.-P. Callu (eds.), Historiae Augustae Colloquium Argentoratense, Historiae Augustae Colloquia NS 6 (Bari 1996), 349–58; also see p. 285. (32) Cf. Cass. Dio 43.21.2; see M. Gelzer, Caesar. Politician and Statesman (Cambridge Mass. 1968), 278–9 for discussion; also see C. Nicolet, Space, Geography and Politics in the Early Roman Empire (Ann Arbor 1991), 39; below p. 198. (33) Tac. Ann. 15.74, who also states that Nero subsequently built a temple to Salus, and a memorial in the temple from which Flavius Scaevinus had taken the dagger—either from the Temple of Salus or from the Temple of Fortuna, both in Ferentinum, Tac. Ann. 15.53. (34) Tac. Ann. 15.72; cf. Ann. 14.12: in the wake of Agrippina the Younger’s murder in AD 59 the senate celebrated Nero’s ‘deliverance’ from his mother’s ‘plot’ by voting a gold statue of Minerva to stand next to that of the princeps in the senate. (35) For the nature and appearance of the triumphal garb worn by Roman generals and emperors see Beard, The Roman Triumph (n. 8), 225–33. (36) Livy 2.10.12. Aulus Gellius 4.5.1–5 also notes the statue, though he says it was moved after being struck by lightning to a more elevated area on the lower slope of the Capitoline in the northwest part of the Forum. (37) See G. Lahusen, Untersuchungen zur Ehrenstatue in Rom: literarische und epigraphische Zeugnisse (Rome 1983); also see J. J. Pollitt, The Art of Rome. BC 753–AD 337: Sources and Documents (Edgewood NJ 1966), 20–2, 27–9, 53–8; Holliday, Origins (n. 1), 226 n. 89, who lists commemorative statues from the republic; for a discussion of the vast population of statuary in Rome see P. Stewart, Statues in Roman Society. Representation and Response (Oxford 2003), 1–7, 123–36. For a more theoretical discussion see C. Edwards, ‘Incorporating the Alien: The Art of Conquest’, in C. Edwards and G. Woolf (eds.), Rome the Cosmopolis (Cambridge 2003), 44–70, esp. 47–9 for honorific statues. See E. D’Ambra, Art and Identity in the Roman World (London 1998), 19 on the tradition of honourary statues Romans granted starting from the fourth century BC. (38) See Stewart, Statues in Roman Society (n. 37), 8 for statuary’s commemorative as opposed to aesthetic role; cf. Carey, Pliny’s Catalogue of Culture (n. 10), 139, who notes Pliny’s observation that an imago is intended to perpetuate the memory of its subject and lauds its ability to do so, citing HN Page 30 of 37

 

Displaying Domination 35.6. See L. S. Nasrallah, Christian Response to Roman Art and Architecture (Cambridge 2010), 5 for statuary as a confirmation of elite power. (39) Cf. pp. 116–18. Augustus famously had his own res gestae inscribed before his mausoleum; before his time Decimus Brutus, a patron of the poet Accius and notable general of his day, had laudatory verses of the poet adorning the entrance of one, though possibly several temples in Rome; see Cic. Arch. 27; Val. Max. 8.14.2. (40) It is easy to underestimate the power of equestrian as opposed to other statuary. S. Stewart, On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection (Baltimore 1984), 90 has noted that the effect of equestrian statuary is to further emphasize the difference in status (those who can, versus those who cannot afford to ride), and the subjugation of man over nature. (41) Cf. p. 117, n. 127. (42) For Galba see Suet. Galb. 2; cf. Vit. 1.2, 3.1. Such attempts at visual display, intended to assert legitimacy and authority, will have been all the more urgent in the civil strife of AD 69. (43) He also adds that he is happy to have a statue of Cottius at which to look, stating that it would be a pleasure to contemplate the statue of a young man of the highest quality. Pliny adds that such statues recall fame and distinction, as well as form and face. (44) See H. I. Flower, Ancestor Masks and Aristocratic Power in Roman Culture (Oxford 1996), 75 for discussion in their larger context as imagines; for the Temple of Bellona see LTUR 1.190–3. (45) Though Pliny does imply that these may have had images of those who actually used the shields, and we cannot be absolutely certain that these do not rightly constitute enemy spoils as opposed to commemorative objects. See Isager, Pliny on Art and Society (n. 10), 117 for discussion. (46) See Zanker, Power of Images (n. 1), 95–7 for discussion; for the religious significance of the virtues celebrated on the shield in their larger Augustan context see J. R. Fears, ‘The Cult of the Virtues and Roman Imperial Ideology’, ANRW 2.17.2 (1981), 884–8. (47) For the development of the genre of Roman triumphal painting see e.g. G. Zinserling, ‘Studien zu den Historiendarstellungen des römischen Republik’, Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der Friedrich-Schiller Universität Jena, 9 (1960), 403–48; G. A. Mansuelli, ‘Γραϕαὶ καὶ σχήματα τω̑v γϵγοvóτωv (App. Punic. 66)’, RdA 3 (1979), 45–58; P. J. Holliday, ‘Roman Triumphal Painting: Its Function,

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Displaying Domination Development, and Reception’, ArtB 79 (1997), 130–47; Östenberg, Staging the World (n. 4), 189–99, 251–6. (48) See Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 16.3.6; cf. Cic. Tusc. 1.4; Val. Max. 8.14.6, who notes that Fabius had signed his name to the painting. For discussion see Isager, Pliny on Art and Society (n. 10), 118; E. S. Gruen, Culture and Identity in Republican Rome (Ithaca 1992), 92. On the Temple of Salus see LTUR 4.229–30. (49) See Holliday, Origins (n. 1), 19, 30–1 for discussion of some of the earliest historical painting citing Festus 228L. (50) Similarly, the corrupt C. Lucretius Gallus dedicated pictures taken during his conquest of Greece (Boeotia) in 170 BC in a temple of Aesculapius in Antium (Livy 43.4.7). (51) See Gruen, Culture and Identity (n. 48), 90 for discussion. (52) For Vortumnus see p. 36; for the picture see Festus 228L; for discussion see Gruen, Culture and Identity (n. 48), 87, 90; Holliday, ‘Roman Triumphal Painting’ (n. 47), 136; for the temple see LTUR 5.213–14; see above p. 36 n. 17. (53) Holliday, Origins (n. 1), 198 argues that Messalla’s painting may have resembled the Alexander mosaic in its composition; cf. Holliday, ‘Roman Triumphal Painting’ (n. 47), 135; Östenberg, Staging the World (n. 4), 192–3; for the Curia Hostilia in general see LTUR 1.331–2. (54) S.H.A. Max. 12.10–11; see Östenberg, Staging the World (n. 4), 195. (55) See Festus 108L; see Gruen, Culture and Identity (n. 48), 94 for discussion. (56) For the ideological associations between the painting’s subject and the Temple of Jupiter Libertas see Holliday, Origins (n. 1), 32, who notes the work’s innovative subject; for the temple see LTUR 3.144. (57) App. Pun. 66; see Holliday, Origins (n. 1), 136–7 for discussion. (58) See Östenberg, Staging the World (n. 4), 192–9. (59) See Östenberg, Staging the World (n. 4), 194; see 248–9, where the display of paintings in a processional context is noted as problematic, given the flat twodimensional presentation along a parade route. (60) For the importance of the site to outsiders in our sources see e.g. Livy 1.33, 2.28.1, 3.50–4, 3.67; App. B Civ. 1.26; Plut. C. Gracch. 15.1; Aur. Vict. De Vir.Ill. 21.3; Augustine, De civitate Dei 3.17; later in the empire, as is indicated by Trajan’s residence there, it became a neighbourhood of the elite; see LTUR 1.147–50. For discussion of the Aventine and its plebeian associations see M. Torelli, Typology and Structure of Roman Historical Reliefs (Ann Arbor 1992), 99 Page 32 of 37

 

Displaying Domination noting esp. Liber, Libera, and Ceres; T. J. Cornell, The Beginnings of Rome: Italy and Rome from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars (c. 1000–264 B.C.) (London 1995), 261–3; T. P. Wiseman, Remus. A Roman Myth (Cambridge 1995), 114; B. Spaeth, The Roman Goddess Ceres (Austin 1996), 92. (61) For a general discussion of Ceres’ cult see H. Le Bonniec, ‘Le culte de Cérès à Rome des origines à la fin de la république’. Études et Commentaries 72 (Paris 1958); also see Spaeth, The Roman Goddess Ceres (n. 60), 81–102; M. Beard, J. North, and S. Price, Religions of Rome, Volume 1: A History (Cambridge 1998), 64–6; for the temple’s location see LTUR 1.260. (62) See Atilius Fortunatianus’ De Saturnio in Keil, Gramm. Lat. 6, p. 293–4; see Östenberg, Staging the World (n. 4), 197 for discussion. (63) See Pliny, HN 35.22; see Gruen, Culture and Identity (n. 48), 105–6; Östenberg, Staging the World (n. 4), 193 for discussion. (64) See Holliday, Origins (n. 1), 32, who notes that Hellenism was then having its heyday in Rome; cf. Holliday, ‘Roman Triumphal Painting’ (n. 47), 142 for discussion of Metrodorus and of Aemilius’ patronage of artists and literati to celebrate his triumph. (65) Translation from the Loeb edition by Horace White. (66) See Östenberg, Staging the World (n. 4), 253. (67) Pliny, HN 35.108; Plancus served under Caesar in the Gallic and Civil Wars; he later served under Marc Antony in the East but eventually went over to Octavian’s side; see Broughton, MRR 3.146. (68) For display of captives in triumphs see Östenberg, Staging the World (n. 4), 275–9. (69) See E. Hooper-Greenhill, Museums and the Shaping of Knowledge (London 1992), 40 for discussion. (70) Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 4.58.4; Festus 276L. (71) See Cic. Balb. 53; Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 6.95; Livy 2.33.9; see Cornell, Beginnings of Rome (n. 60), 299–300 for discussion. On the ubiquity of such bronze inscriptions, see Joseph. AJ 14.188, 14.266 (esp. on the Capitoline); Suet. Vesp. 8.5. (72) Östenberg, Staging the World (n. 4), 119–27. (73) To cite but a few of the numerous gold crowns—all of varying number and weight—see Livy 7.38.1–2 (from the Cathaginians’ celebrating the Roman success against the Falisci in 342 BC); Livy 32.27.1 (presented in 198 BC by Page 33 of 37

 

Displaying Domination King Attalus I of Pergamum); Livy 36.35 (from King Philip V of Macedon after the defeat of Antiochus in 191 BC); Livy 43.6.5–6 (from the city of Alabanda in Asia in 170 BC and, in the same year, from the Lampsacans—both had sided with Rome against Macedon and were hopeful of receipt into Roman amicitia); Livy 44.14.3 (from Pamphylian envoys in celebration of a renewal of amicitia; cf. the Rhodians who did the same when trying to regain Rome’s friendship after they had cast their lot with King Perseus of Macedon (Livy 45.25.7)). The tradition of bestowing crowns as gifts abided into late antiquity. Hence S.H.A. Prob. 15.4 says that Probus requested that the senate deposit golden crowns that various communities in Gaul had bestowed upon him in the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus. (74) On the cult of Victory and its prominence in the republic see S. Weinstock, ‘Victoria’, RE 2, Reihe 8 (1955), 2501–42; T. Hölscher, Victoria Romana. Archäologische Untersuchungen zur Geschichte und Wesensart der römischen Siegesgöttin (Mainz 1967); J. R. Fears, ‘The Theology of Victory at Rome: Approaches and Problems’, ANRW 2.17.1 (1981), 736–826; Beard, North, and Price, Religions of Rome (n. 61), 69. (75) Cic. Verr. 2.2.114. The Romans were also not averse to perpetuating the memory of the opposite sort of behaviour in which the basic fides that governed Roman relations with others had been breached and inimicitia rather than amicitia commemorated. Hence four statues of envoys, C. Fulcinius, Cloelius Tullus, Spurius Antius, and L. Roscius, murdered while on embassy to Fidenae in 437 BC, stood on the rostrum in the Forum; see Livy 4.17.1–6. (76) Cic. Verr. 2.4.60–71; see A. Vasaly, Representation: Images of the World in Ciceronian Oratory (Berkeley 1993), 114–17 for discussion. (77) See A. P. Gregory, ‘“Powerful Images”: Responses to Portraits and the Political Uses of Images in Rome’, JRA 7 (1994), 90 for the sociological model he follows for his discussion; see C. D. Elder and R. W. Cobb, The Political Use of Symbols (New York and London 1983), 37 for a related discussion. (78) For similar visceral reactions to artwork in the Greek tradition see e.g. Plut. Mor. 336C–D when Crates the Cynic exclaimed upon seeing a golden statue of the famed courtesan Phryne at Delphi that it was an akrasias tropaion, ‘a trophy of intemperance’. (79) Livy 40.34.4–5; Val. Max. 2.5.1, who adds that it was the first gilded statue of a living person in Italy. Pietas, as was the case with other abstractions, such as Felicitas, Concordia, Honos et Virtus and others, were honoured with temples in particular during the middle republican period, see Fears, ‘Cult of the Virtues’ (n. 46), esp. 864–9; Beard, North, and Price, Religions of Rome (n. 61), 62, 69, 90; also see J. Rüpke, Religion of the Romans. Translated and edited by R. Gordon (Cambridge and Malden Mass. 2007), 55, 78, who notes that such Page 34 of 37

 

Displaying Domination abstractions ‘reflected in their very names the ideals of an élite that both went to war and performed religious functions’; for pietas as both a personal and collective value see J. Champeaux, ‘“Pietas”: piété personelle et piété collective à Rome’, Bulletin de l’Association G. Budé, 48 (1989), 263–79. (80) See Plut. Mar. 32.2; Sull. 6.1–2; see H. I. Flower, The Art of Forgetting. Disgrace and Oblivion in Roman Political Culture (Chapel Hill 2006), 90 for discussion, who argues rightly that the monument will have been dismantled after Marius’ and Cinna’s seizure of power in 86 BC; cf. Gregory, ‘“Powerful Images”’ (n. 77), 93 for the conflict between Sulla and Marius over imagines. Later, during Caesar’s aedileship in 65 BC (against the opposition of the nobles), he dedicated a statue of Marius and of Victories with trophies and inscriptions commemorating Marius’ defeat of the Cimbri; see Velleius Paterculus 2.43.4; see Gregory, ‘“Powerful Images”’ (n. 77), 90 for discussion. For Sulla’s propaganda efforts see E. S. Ramage, ‘Sulla’s Propaganda’, Klio, 73 (1991), 93–121. (81) For Catulus see Val. Max. 6.3.1c; cf. Cic. Cael. 78; Dom. 102, 103, 114; Verr. 2.4.126; Varro, De Re Rustica 3.5.12; LTUR 4.119; for Marius see Cic. De Or. 2.266; cf. Pliny, HN 35.25; Quintilian, Institutio oratoria 6.3.38. Plut. Mar. 23.5 also notes that Q. Lutatius Catulus displayed a bronze bull that was sacred to the Cimbri as a trophy in his house. (82) For the whole episode see Cic. Dom. 111–12; see B. Berg, ‘Cicero’s Palatine Home and Clodius’ Shrine of Liberty: Alternative Emblems of the Republic in Cicero’s De Domo sua’, in Studies in Latin Literature and Roman History, 8 (1997), 122–43 for a good discussion of the significance of the incident for Cicero; for its religious and political context see Beard, North, and Price, Religions of Rome (n. 61), 114–15; A. Lisdorf, ‘The Conflict over Cicero’s House: An Analysis of the Ritual Element in Cicero’s De Domo Sua’, Numen, 52 (2005), 445–64; for the cult of Libertas see Fears, ‘Cult of the Virtues’ (n. 46), 869–75. (83) Plut. Brut. 9.8; cf. Cass. Dio 43.45.3–4, who also notes that Caesar’s statue had also been added to the group that constituted the seven kings and Brutus. Also see p. 291 for discussion. (84) See also Cic. Phil. 2.26; Cass. Dio 43.45.4, 44.12.1; see Gregory, ‘“Powerful Images”’ (n. 77), 91 for discussion. (85) Tac. Ann. 5.4; see Gregory, ‘“Powerful Images”’ (n. 77), 90 for discussion. (86) Tac. Ann. 14.61; see Gregory, ‘“Powerful Images”’ (n. 77), 96 for discussion. (87) Tac. Ann. 3.23; see A. Rouveret, ‘Tacite et les monuments’, ANRW 2.33.4 (1991), 3091 for discussion.

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Displaying Domination (88) Including e.g. the parading of Galba’s imagines in the wake of Vitellius’ victory and Otho’s suicide at the Ceralia in April 69, Tac. Hist. 2.55; see Gregory, ‘“Powerful Images”’ (n. 77), 90 for discussion; cf. Galba’s use of the imagines of Nero’s victims when addressing the troops and mounting his revolt in Spain, Suet. Galb. 10.1; see Gregory, ‘“Powerful Images”’ (n. 77), 89 for discussion. (89) Pliny, HN 35.23; for discussion see Isager, Pliny on Art and Society (n. 10), 119; Holliday, ‘Roman Triumphal Painting’ (n. 47), 145; Östenberg, Staging the World (n. 4), 193. (90) Translation from the Loeb edition by Horace White. (91) See Gregory, ‘“Powerful Images”’ (n. 77), 94 for discussion of the mob’s reaction to the images in Caesar’s triumph; cf. Holliday, Origins (n. 1), 145–6; Edwards, Writing Rome (n. 25), 62; also see Hölscher, ‘Transformation’ (n. 5), 38–9 for audience reaction to the paintings in both of Pompey’s triumphs as well. (92) See Miles, Art as Plunder (n. 23), 82–94 for a discussion of the Sicilian reaction to their plundered property; cf. Jaeger, Livy’s Written Rome (n. 12), 127– 30 for a good discussion of cultural objects’ (specifically the spoils Marcellus took from Syracuse) ability to stimulate variously invidia, miseratio, or misericordia, citing Livy 26.32.4–5. (93) Institutio oratoria 6.1.32; see Holliday, Origins (n. 1), 18; for a related discussion see Holliday, ‘Roman Triumphal Painting’ (n. 47), 145. (94) Cf. Plut. Mor. 198F; Cat. Mai. 19.4. (95) See Plut. Comparison of Brutus and Dion, 5. Also see Cass. Dio 53.32.4 for Augustus’ indulgence towards L. Sestius despite his keeping images of Brutus; see Gregory, ‘“Powerful Images”’ (n. 77), 92 for discussion. (96) See e.g. Tac. Hist. 1.36; Suet. Tib. 13.1; Plut. Galb. 26.4; Cass. Dio 63.25; see Gregory, ‘“Powerful Images”’ (n. 77), 95–7 with n. 64–6 for discussion; for good general treatments of the subject see E. Varner, Mutilation and Transformation: Damnatio Memoriae and Roman Imperial Portraiture (Leiden 2004); Flower, The Art of Forgetting (n. 80). (97) As would the various temples in the area of the Circus Flaminius; see e.g. Pliny, HN 36.26; the area included numerous shrines, such as those to Mars (see LTUR 3.226–9) and Neptune (see LTUR 3.341–2) in Circo; for the Circus Flaminius’ relationship to the triumph see Livy 39.5; Plut. Luc. 37.2; for discussion see E. La Rocca, ‘Sul Circo Flaminio’, ArchLaz 12 (1995), 108–10. (98) See D. E. Strong, ‘Roman Museums’, in D. E. Strong (ed.), Archaeological Theory and Practice: Essays Presented to Professor William Francis Grimes (London 1973), 259 for discussion. The practice of temporary display was not Page 36 of 37

 

Displaying Domination limited exclusively to the aediles. In Cicero’s time, M. Aemilius Scaurus had constructed a temporary theatre whose scenae frons was three stories high and consisted of 360 columns of Hymettean marble; between the columns reportedly there were 3,000 bronze statues in addition to scene paintings and Attalic fabric threaded with gold (Pliny, HN 36.114). (99) See S. M. Pearce, On Collecting. An Investigation into Collecting in the European Tradition (London 1995), 319, who remarks, citing a private collection of Dickens memorabilia made public, ‘What we see here is the translation of personal souvenirs into community relics, of family heirlooms into heritage as the heirloom of us all, partly as a result of—and partly to underpin—the notion of “greatness”’.

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Constructing Social Identity

Ancient Rome as a Museum: Power, Identity, and the Culture of Collecting Steven Rutledge

Print publication date: 2012 Print ISBN-13: 9780199573233 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: March 2015 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199573233.001.0001

Constructing Social Identity Pietas, Women, and the Roman House Steven H. Rutledge

DOI:10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199573233.003.0005

Abstract and Keywords This chapter examines how the Roman social and historical record was remembered through a variety of cultural material in a manner that reinforced Roman values and ideology beyond those directly associated with military conquest and imperial hegemony. It focuses on three significant categories that encompassed and preserved historical memory: artefacts that dated to early in Rome's history that were reflective of Roman pietas; commemoratives that celebrated a variety of roles for women in Roman society and their place in it; and the Roman house, specifically, houses of men who had had a powerful influence in shaping Rome's history. Keywords:   artefacts, cultural materials, Roman values, commemoratives, Roman society, houses

With few exceptions, ancient historians filled their scrolls with accounts of wars, battles, and triumphs, and it is not surprising that a large proportion of memorabilia was directly concerned with military and imperial success. There were however, events, personalities, and sites that were integral to Rome’s history and identity that were not directly associated with warfare yet demanded commemoration. Such commemoratives variously reinforced and expressed particular sets of values in their ideal sense for public consumption. Three significant categories that encompassed and preserved historical memory stand out in particular and were concerned with what we might arguably consider more ‘domestic’ forms of historical commemoration: artefacts that dated to early in Rome’s history that were reflective of Roman pietas; commemoratives that Page 1 of 36

 

Constructing Social Identity celebrated a variety of roles for women in Roman society and their place in it; and finally, the Roman house, specifically, houses of men who had had a powerful influence in shaping Rome’s history. To classify such memorabilia under the rubric of ‘domestic’ is not to argue that any of these categories were wholly disassociated from matters military. All three commemorative forms were at various times and in various ways connected with Rome’s fiercely competitive elite and its triumphalist ideology. Pompey the Great’s house, for example, was important in part by virtue of his accomplishments as a successful general, although numerous houses of the great preserved the memory of kings, historians, and emperors without direct associations with Roman conquest. Memorabilia of this sort were vital for the visual record they presented of Rome’s history and for the expression of what Romans believed were important qualities for defining oneself as Roman. Cultural relics from Rome’s early history, for example, stood as a testimony to some of the Roman’s most (nominally) cherished virtues, most importantly pietas which Romans themselves felt had a significant role in the military success so important for the power and identity of Rome’s ruling families. In turn, elite families expressed their power not merely through war memorabilia as discussed in the previous chapter, but through their houses, and used them to advertise their benefactions and military triumphs, as (p.160) well as express their prestige and dignitas.1 Some of those houses, in turn, became places of historical value in their own right, integral to Rome’s collective memory and to its cultural patrimony. While the role of women within the elite was often marginal (at least in the public realm), they nonetheless played an important role in the life and history of the state so that it was impossible not to give them recognition. Frequently however, were they to have any form of acknowledgement, they were forced either to appropriate more ostensibly ‘masculine’ virtues, or to give a physical, symbolic indication of submission to or support of Roman power and to represent ideal Roman notions concerning the role of women.2 Collectively such objects and sites will have presented a variety of socio-historical narratives which instructed Romans about their past and about the values that collectively created and transmitted a uniquely Roman identity.

Early Roman History, Pietas, and Roman Identity We have already noted above the sacred nature of cultural material in Rome. Such material was looted or appropriated and subsequently consecrated in any number of venues and stood as a testament to Roman pietas as well as power. In this sense, Rome had its own sacred topography, and it has been noted that ‘Roman myths were in essence myths of place’ that related to specific sites.3 Rome, therefore, contained its own collection of sacred memorabilia and sites that variously preserved items of deep antiquity or sacred significance.4 Among the most ancient of these relics were the Penates that Aeneas brought to Rome from Troy. Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Ant. Rom. 1.68–9) tells us that these were housed in the Temple of the Penates near the Forum. Although the temple’s Page 2 of 36

 

Constructing Social Identity images were thought to represent the Penates, it was an apparently mistaken identification, since they were seated young men holding spears (an iconography (p.161) more closely associated with the Dioscuri) and were of ancient workmanship.5 The mistake is of little importance: what matters is of course what ancient viewers thought, and the belief was that Aeneas had introduced this particular set of deities. In their capacity as Roman gods, the Penates along with the Lares protected the Roman familia or household. Their temple was located in the Velia, hence near another cult that was central to the Roman familia, that of Vesta.6 They have a direct connection to Aeneas: in book one of the Aeneid, when Aeneas meets a disguised Venus after being driven to the shores of north Africa by a storm, he introduces himself stating, sum pius Aeneas, raptos qui ex hoste penates/ classe veho mecum (‘I am pious Aeneas who carries with me in my boat the Penates seized from the enemy’, Aeneid 1.378–9). The interjection of the Penates here is indicative of their importance in the Roman pantheon, and their importance was emphasized by their very prominent place in the visual record with Aeneas’ sacrifice to the Penates on Augustus’ Ara Pacis (fig. 5.1).7 Cicero adds further indication of their importance, noting that the Penates were a key element in maintaining the res publica (Rep. 5.7). They served to legitimize marriage, the key institution, to his way of thinking, for a well-ordered state (a view arguably supported by the subsequent strict laws on marriage imposed by Augustus).8 The familia, its honour and power, were driving elements in Roman political competition (and arguably, expansion, as well). The Penates, as guardians of that institution, constituted a key element central to Roman identity and power. The Romans consequently understood the Penates as an essential component of the Roman self, just as Aeneas himself, as one scholar has recently noted, comes to formulate his own identity around them.9 (p.162) Among such Trojan relics perhaps the most significant and vital was the Palladium, a statue of Pallas Athena believed to have been of divine origin.10 Considering the importance of the object, however, there was a good deal of confusion concerning the statue. Strabo (13.1.41) gives an alternative local version of the story surrounding the statue that was there in Ilium in his own day stating it was standing, whereas Homer said it was a seated statue (citing Homer; see e.g. Iliad 6.92, 273).11 Florus (1.2.3) says that Numa gave the

Fig. 5.1 The Sacrifice of Aeneas (his head covered) to the Penates (pictured in the small temple in the upper left hand

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Constructing Social Identity Palladium to the Romans, while Ovid, in passing, claimed its origins were from Troy (Fast. 6.424). Dionysius of Halicarnassus concurs (Ant. Rom. 1.68–9, 2.66.5), stating that the Palladium was contained in the Temple of Vesta and acted as a talisman, (p. 163) keeping Rome safe.12 He asserts that it was brought by Aeneas from Troy and assures his readers that Odysseus and Diomedes had stolen a mere copy, a tale immortalized in a statue group (part of a series of scenes from the life of Odysseus) at Tiberius’ villa at Sperlonga (fig. 5.2).13 Dionysius further remarks that the Vestal Virgins kept other unspecified relics that the uninitiated were prohibited from viewing (Ant. Rom. 2.66.6). Later on Servius and Silius Italicus both state that the Palladium’s theft precipitated Troy’s fall, though Silius reports a version in which Diomedes gave the original Palladium to Aeneas at Lanuvium.14 What is suspicious concerning the claims of Strabo, Dionysius, and Ovid is that all are writing under Augustus, a time when the first princeps was working vigorously to create associations between Rome, his own dynasty (and its claim to power and legitimacy), and Troy. The competing claims, attributing the Palladium’s origins to Numa, may have taken a backseat under Augustus who will have had an interest in emphasizing its Trojan origins since he traced his own ancestry to Aeneas, Anchises, and Venus. Moreover his great uncle, Julius Caesar, had already seen fit to display Aeneas with the Palladium on his coinage (see fig. 5.3).

Much later, Procopius gave a version of the Palladium’s saga that resembles Silius’, with Diomedes handing over the original to Aeneas at the behest of an oracle (De Bello Gothico

corner) was commemorated on the Ara Pacis (dedicated by Augustus in 12 BC), and underscores the perennial importance of these deities, not merely for the survival of individual Roman households, but for the legitimacy of the Roman state. H: 1.55 m. Museum of the Ara Pacis, Rome.

5.15.9–14).15 The artefact became a centre of dispute later in the empire. The Byzantines in the fourth century AD asserted that the emperor Constantine had dug up the genuine statue while constructing his forum in Constantinople, and the Palladium and its authenticity briefly became a focal point of contention between the two cities for ruling auctoritas.16 The Palladium was a cornerstone of Roman power and success. It was meticulously protected even during fire, and the survival and strength of the city was believed to depend on it.17 That it was a symbolic football tossed (in legend) between the Trojans and the Greeks, and later a genuine object of contention between the Greek East and Latin West is no coincidence or surprise. It was believed to protect Roman greatness, hence the various claims upon this important talisman.18 The Penates (p.164)

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Constructing Social Identity (p.165)

Fig. 5.2 The representation of the theft of the Palladium here is from the fragmentary remains at Tiberius’ villa at Sperlonga, and just one of a series of mythic scenes depicting the exploits of Odysseus. Conflicting traditions surrounded its theft from Troy, although it was the universal consensus that the survival of the Roman state was bound to the safety of this vital talisman. Late first century BC to the first quarter of the second century AD. Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Sperlonga.

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Constructing Social Identity and the Palladium were therefore especially vital for the preservation (and continuity) of Roman success, and, along with Aeneas’ ship (see p. 132), brought the Trojan past into the Roman present and made that deep past a lived experience.19 They were the oldest of the numerous tangible, empirical testaments in the city to a historical trajectory that was propelled by an active participation of divine powers.

The majority of such material, however, dated back to the time of the kings, and of these, the imprint of Rome’s founder, Romulus, had the greatest prominence. In very real terms, Romulus’ biography could be read on the city’s face. The site itself where Faustulus discovered Romulus and Remus as infants, the ficus Ruminalis, was always one of the city’s most significant—and sacred— sites. It was under this tree (situated near the Lupercal) that the twins were discovered being suckled by the she-wolf

Fig. 5.3 A silver denarius shows Aeneas carrying Anchises and the Palladium from Troy. The Trojan hero, even before the advent of Caesar who as a member of the Julian clan traced his lineage back to Anchises and Venus, had become a significant part of Roman identity. Reverse of a denarius issued in 69 BC. Muenzkabinett Museen zu Berlin.

Lupa.20 Over time various officials adorned the (p.166) site: at some point a statue of Lupa was placed there, while in 296 BC the curule aediles, Cn. and Q. Ogulnius, added statues of the infants under its teats.21 Equally revered was Romulus’ humble residence on the Palatine, the so-called casa Romuli, the first in a long series of houses resided in by Roman grandees deemed of sufficient historical significance to merit preservation. Yet there was some controversy amongst Romans concerning the site of Romulus’ residence, since an alternative tradition located it on the Capitoline, where a second casa Romuli was maintained in the area Capitolina.22 Indeed, Vitruvius noted its archaic appearance since it had a thatched roof as did, according to Vitruvius, other temples on the arx (2.1.5; for reconstruction of the hut see fig. 5.4). The alternative tradition is not necessarily a matter of confusion but of ideology. In our sources Romulus is noted both for his military prowess and for his pietas, Page 6 of 36

 

Constructing Social Identity and the modest house also served to underscore the ancient Roman value of frugalitas (‘thrift’). To situate his house, therefore, on the Palatine, where Rome’s political power players always had their residences, and on the Capitoline, the centre of the state cult and Rome’s religious core, attests to both the virtus and pietas of Rome’s founder (as does the conservation of the spolia opima, concerning which see pp. 125–6) and establishes from its inception that these were qualities desirable in Rome’s leading men.23 Moreover, like a Greek heroön dedicated to the founder of some colony, the casa Romuli was carefully tended, and although it burned down several times throughout Rome’s history, was always rebuilt.24 In the same way, the ficus Ruminalis was always watched for any signs of change and the wilting of the tree was always considered illomened.25 However the analogy of Romulus’ house as heroön is certainly more apt for his tomb, which was believed to be located (perhaps not coincidentally) at yet another political centre, the (p.167) Comitium in the Forum, a site that was considered (and in fact was) sacred. The site gains all the more significance when we consider that burial was prohibited within the pomerium, Rome’s sacred boundary, and only a very few were ever allowed such an honour. There was, then, a biographical sketch of the birth, life, and death of the founder that left its mark on the city. These sites were not only carefully preserved and considered sacrosanct, but in the case of the first two, also functioned as indicators of the state’s well-being.

In a similar manner, the memory of Romulus’ brother, Remus, also abided in the city at a site called the Remuria (or, alternatively, Remoria), on the Aventine where Remus was buried, and where he favoured

Fig. 5.4 A thatched roof and primitive post beams marked the construction of an archaic Roman hut that will have likely resembled that on the Palatine (and Capitoline) thought to have belonged to Romulus and maintained as both a sacred and historical site. Antiquarium del Palatino, Rome.

(according to Dionysius) the establishment of the city.26 According to Dionysius (and Livy), Remus not only took the auspices from the Aventine but was also buried there after Romulus (p.168) murdered him. Ovid tells us that the spot was marked by the aedes Bonae Deae Subsaxaneae (Fast. 5.149–54). Another tradition placed him in the same hut as Romulus on the Capitoline (Propertius 4.1.1–10). It may be sheer coincidence that another of Romulus’ adversaries, Titus Tatius, also had his tomb on the Aventine.27 However, the Aventine was Page 7 of 36

 

Constructing Social Identity always a place dedicated to outsiders, to those who stood beyond the Roman power structure, and it would not be surprising if such ‘Otherness’ were reflected in the material culture and topography of the site. The conflict between Romulus and Remus was the event which founded the city; that foundation was based on augury, something that was to become a vital component of the Roman state (as most vividly reflected in Octavius’ adoption of the name Augustus).28 In terms of cultural artefacts, in addition to the actual sites of his birth, life, and burial spot, the dead Romulus left little behind except his lituus, which he used (in marking off templa in the heavens) to take the auspices when he founded the city, and which was kept in the Curia Saliorum Palatinorum in a sacrarium.29 The same sources record that the lituus miraculously survived a fire during the city’s sacking by the Gauls, and Cicero could give a description of the staff (a crook with a slight curve at the top that resembled a trumpet and derived its name from just such an instrument). The preservation of such an object will have attested to Romulus’ pietas, and to his observance of the proper augural procedures in the establishment of the city, procedures that subsequently had to be strictly followed before any significant political or military action took place. Such holy relics served at times to underscore the Romans’ belligerent, triumphalist ideology. Every year Romans saw the hasta Martis that was kept in the Regia.30 Similarly ‘the bloody spear’ (to doru to haimatōdēs) which the fetiales used in their ceremonial declarations of war was kept in the Temple of Bellona (Cass. Dio 72.33.3). Other sacred objects were of an equally bellicose nature, such as Minerva’s chariot that was used in races (presumably during ludi of various sorts, although it broke apart one year according to Dio (47.40.4) when returning to the Capitoline). Jupiter’s chariot on the Capitoline (presumably the one kept for triumphal processions) lasted until 32 BC when it too broke apart in an unspecified circus, an omen of the looming conflict between Antony and Octavian (Cass. Dio 50.8.2). It may well have been the same gilded and (possibly) turreted chariot—or one of similar design—that Florus asserts the Etruscans had (p.169)

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Constructing Social Identity introduced and driven in their own triumphal processions, similar perhaps to the Monteleone Chariot (1.5.6; see fig. 5.5).31 These were just some of the many chariots on permanent public display or used for exhibition throughout the city, such as the one at the Capitoline’s entrance in which stood a victory with the reins in its hands (Tac. Hist. 1.86). To sacred spears and chariots we can add Numa’s dedication of the shields in Mars’ sacrarium in the Regia, deemed sacred since they 32

had fallen from heaven. Talismans, relics, and various sites deemed (p.170) sacred preserved the religious heritage of the city, and, in some cases, were thought to preserve the city’s very existence. Thus the bones of one of the legendary founders of the city, Quirinus, were entombed and kept in a sarcophagus in his

Fig. 5.5 The Monteleone Chariot is of the sort that was on display in numerous venues throughout Rome, including the one on the Capitoline in which a statue of Victory stood holding the reins, and those brought out for special occasions. Etruscan, second quarter of the sixth century BC. H: 1.30 m.; L: 2.09 m. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

eponymous temple.33 From Rome’s very beginnings, such relics constituted an ideologically important part of the city; indeed, we may literally say they were embedded in it.

Yet another cultural object preserved from this period was Naevius’ whetstone and razor, objects closely identified with the importance of Roman religious ritual. Naevius had used the razor to cut a whetstone in order to prove to a sceptical King Tarquin the power of augury. Tradition attests that these objects were buried in a puteal in the Comitium.34 A statue of Attus Naevius with his head covered stood on the spot where the miracle occurred—on the steps of the Curia on the left, near the burial site of the sacred objects ‘so that it might be a monument of this miracle for posterity’ (ut esset ad posteros miraculi eius monumentum, Livy 1.36.5).35 The statue itself still stood in Procopius’ day (in the sixth century ad) as one of the oldest in the city, along with three ancient statues of the Tria Fata (the three fates), and those of the seven kings which stood in the area Capitolina.36 The pietas of Rome’s ancient kings was given additional proof by various venerated objects or statues of remarkable antiquity. Hence, Romulus’ successor, Numa, reportedly dedicated a statue of Pythagoras in the Comitium, which Livy interpreted as indicating a relationship between Pythagorean mysticism and Numa’s proverbial pietas (Livy 1.18.1–2).37 Subsequently, two other artefacts dating to Numa’s reign came to light in the second century BC, Page 9 of 36

 

Constructing Social Identity consisting of (p.171) two sarcophagi, one containing Numa’s writings on religion and philosophy, the other empty but supposedly Numa’s own.38 Rome’s penultimate sovereign, Servius Tullius, was noted for having his image in wood and covered with gold leaf in the Temple of Fortuna.39 As was the case with Romulus’ lituus, its special properties included its antiquity and its survival of a fire, something that inevitably elevated an object from the merely curious to the miraculous. Moreover the statue’s face was always covered with a robe, initially, according to legend, so that he would not be compelled to look upon his murderous daughter, Tanaquil (also known as Tullia), if she entered the temple.40 Tullius’ toga praetexta also stood in the same temple and draped the cult image itself; these apparently survived until the reign of Tiberius, by which time they had apparently deteriorated and perished.41 Such longevity no doubt added to the miraculous nature of the object. Equally ancient if not older was the cult statue in the Temple of Saturn, where the god’s ivory statue was filled with oil (presumably for preservation), and its feet bound with woolen fillets which were untied during the Saturnalia.42 However, of all the cultural objects that survived from the regal period of religious importance, the cult statue of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, commissioned by Tarquinius Superbus, Rome’s last king, was paramount. It was reportedly the work of an artist named Vulca, who made the terracotta statue which was painted with cinnabar.43 In terms of ‘power objects’ the cult statue of Rome’s central deity, which embodied, quite literally, triumph and conquest, was not merely a relic of the ancient past. It was, rather, an object of aspiration and desire, something (p.172) which an ambitious aristocrat, at least in Rome’s early history, desired to emulate as a triumphator, and, consequently, an object that both reflected and perpetuated Rome’s more violent tendencies.44 As noted in the introduction, the sacred objects and monuments preserved from Rome’s past constructed for the Romans visible and tangible reminders of their pietas. The success and survival of the state both in domestic and military affairs depended heavily on the proper performance and regulation of religious rituals and institutions that were invariably in the hands of a few powerful families. Consequently, the founder in particular must receive the proper show of respect in order for the city to thrive, and various cultural objects or sites (the casa Romuli and the ficus Ruminalis) function as indicators of the state’s wellbeing.45 Equally if not more important are the various objects that preserved the memory of the vital religious institution of augury, always a key to the success of the ruling elite in warfare and in political life in general, a success that also helped to ensure their political domination at home through the assertion of their dignitas and auctoritas. For the most part, the topographical location of the various sites and objects throughout the city that recalled these characteristics was equally significant: the competing claims for the house of Romulus on the Capitoline or Palatine and its religious importance, the location of Naevius’ whetstone or Romulus’ tomb in the Comitium, the ever-present reminder of Page 10 of 36

 

Constructing Social Identity Numa’s pietas through Pythagoras’ statue in the same location, serve as commemorations of pietas that was both an ancient and—quite literally given the location of some of the objects—a central quality for the Roman state. The establishment of the state cult and the ancient statue of Jupiter Capitolinus are equally vital in this regard, since, in a very real sense, it necessitated, even demanded Roman domination, as Rome’s cult for the triumphing imperator. It was one of the visual bases for Roman conquest. A diverse array of cultural material survived from the monarchy and Trojan antiquity, and was remarkably interwoven into the cityscape, serving as sites or objects that were not merely curiosities, not even mere repositories of memory, but as living entities that linked the Roman past to Rome’s imperial present—and future.46

(p.173) Commemorating Women As was the case in general throughout the city and throughout its history, cultural artefacts reflected or were re-contextualized to reflect an idealized Roman self. For women that idealization was constructed to reinforce their traditional roles in Roman society, or to integrate them into an ideological space that would be acceptable to Roman men. Such idealized virtues and their place in Roman society have recently been explored in Milnor’s fine study on gender and domesticity in the Augustan period. She cites as an example of idealized feminine virtues the extant laudatio of a woman named Muria, praised for her ‘modesty, purity, chastity, obedience, wool-working, diligence, and loyalty’.47 The feminine, when it was commemorated, was celebrated in such a way as to reinforce its role in serving elite power, either by support of that power through perceived feminine virtues, or through a display of elite male domination over the feminine itself. However Romans also betray a certain level of anxiety over the commemoration of women, as is arguably indicated in Cato’s attempt to forbid statues of women in the provinces.48 Similar anxiety is betrayed through the Roman tendency to make statues of women in general smaller than those of men.49 The sheer paucity of public commemoration of women in the republic especially, is itself a testimony to the role of Roman women—or lack thereof—in public life; indeed, only four public statues are attested for women during the republic, but this changed during the principate.50 In larger terms such lack of commemoration stands as a part of a narrative tradition that devalues the role of women by virtue of the male hegemonic discourse that determines such ideology and drives the nature of display, a situation that still persists in the context of contemporary museum exhibitions.51 (p.174) The reinforcement of a ‘safe’ and traditional feminine paradigm for the Romans is found in one of the earliest artefacts preserved in the city, the distaff and spindle of Gaia Caecilia (also known as Tanaquil), the virtuous wife of Tarquinius Priscus, preserved in the Temple of Semo Sancus (a deity that was also an outsider since it was of Sabine origin).52 Caecilia received commemoration in the same temple with a bronze statue; pilgrims reportedly removed filings from her girdle as a talisman against illness.53 Pliny, quoting Page 11 of 36

 

Constructing Social Identity Varro, says that the wool on the distaff and spindle (which he asserts was Tanaquil’s) was preserved at least in Varro’s day, as well as a royal robe woven by her and worn by King Servius Tullius.54 Three things in particular reported in our sources are striking about the statue. First, the importance attributed to it and the reason it finds itself in Pliny’s work (and in the temple) is not that the artefact stands on its own merit as a fine art object per se; instead its importance derives from its subject, Gaia Caecilia. She is not an independent entity, but rather stands in her husband’s shadow, and it is due to Tarquinius’ fame that Caecilia establishes her own reputation. Second, it is not by virtue of any independent, creative accomplishment in its own right that earns her a memorial; instead it is the simple fact of obedience, of loyalty to her husband that is celebrated here. Third, the role of Caecilia as healer is reflective of a woman’s role as sorceress, witch, or administrator of poison that we find throughout Roman culture and the literary record, something clearly indicated by her ability to heal through the very stuff of which her statue is made. That Caecilia held a distaff will have had the further ideological function of reinforcing the role of the ideal Roman woman, serving as a reminder of the proper activity for a Roman matron who stayed at home and made home-spun cloth. Augustus as a sign of ancient familial virtue reportedly wore such homespun cloth (Suet. Aug. 73), and Livy famously reports that when Collatinus and the sons of Tarquin discovered Lucretia she was spinning wool by lamp-light (Livy 1.57). Much later, when Domitian started to construct his forum (a project completed under Nerva), one of the key ideological themes was the virtuous construct of the ideal Roman woman, reinforced by the myth of Minerva and Arachne, a myth (p.175) that centred on weaving, and deemed sufficiently important for depiction in the sculptural relief narrative adorning the forum (see fig. 5.6).55

A similar encouragement to (ideal) womanly virtue was embodied in the image in the Temple of the Magna Mater with its statue of Claudia Quinta (Tac. Ann. 4.64), the woman of ill-repute who vindicated her reputation when she helped to bring the cult object of the Magna Mater to Rome after the ship on which it was (p.176) carried became stuck on a sand bar in the Tiber, a story

Fig. 5.6 A portion of the colonnade from the Forum Transitorium that housed the temple of Minerva. Started by Domitian and finished by Nerva, the frieze on the colonnade depicts part of a larger

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Constructing Social Identity depicted in a surviving relief on an altar in the Capitoline collections in Rome (fig. 5.7). Claudia’s image (which stood in the vestibule) was worthy of note, since it had twice been spared in fires, giving further

narrative of the myth of Arachne, and was designed, in part, to reinforce societal expectations concerning the proper activities for Roman women. The Forum Transitorium, Rome.

proof of Claudia’s virtue.56 The temple (and statue) was located on the Palatine, an elite neighbourhood, on the Via Victoria. Neither site was coincidental. The cult had been imported to ensure Roman success, a success dependant on favourable outcomes in war and on the steady governance of the aristocracy. Claudia’s statue was a testament to the elite’s power and pietas, and of an ideal womanly virtue serving as an example to all, a virtue in this case literally tempered in fire. Later on a seated statue of Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi, was set up in the Portico of Metellus.57 Cornelia, from an ancient noble family, the mother of two sons to whom she famously referred as ‘her jewels’ (Val. Max. 4.4 pr.), will have very likely been depicted in such a way as to recall her devotion and service to her family and her children whom she taught to serve the state.58 Her fecundity and her dedication to her children’s upbringing were well-known, and made her a good candidate for public commemoration. Caecilia, Cornelia, and Claudia Quinta—we can only conjecture how such statues might have looked in appearance; perhaps, at least as concerns Caecilia and Claudia, they were similar in form to those found in Herculaneum (see fig. 5.8), recently discussed by Trimble in her study of statue types of women in early imperial Italy. Such statue types, Trimble notes, were designed to bring to mind ‘exposure and revelation…by the depiction of modesty and concealment’.59 Trimble further remarks the tension such a depiction creates between desire and restraint, between the idealized feminine trait of modesty that also holds out the promise of fecundity, qualities that the statue, particularly the fine one now in Dresden, goes a long way towards representing. We can well imagine that the ideology driving such depictions, if (p.177)

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Constructing Social Identity (p.178)

Fig. 5.7 Claudia Quinta’s story in which she redeems her reputation is depicted on this altar relief that illustrates her miraculous assistance in introducing the Magna Mater to Rome. Claudia’s statue stood in the Magna Mater’s temple on the Palatine, where her assistance to the state was duly honoured and recognized. Centrale Montemartini, Rome.

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Constructing Social Identity (p.179) not the precise and ultimate execution of these commemorations, will have no doubt influenced their presentation.

Claudia, Caecilia, and Cornelia were not alone. Pliny tells us that three ancient statues of the Sibyl stood near the rostrum in the Forum (Pliny, HN 34.22–3), dating back to the time of Tarquinius Priscus, and second only in age to those of the kings on the Capitolium.60 The story was that the Sibyl originally approached either Tarquinius Priscus or Superbus and asked an exorbitant amount of money for her nine books of prophecies. Refused the price, she burned three; rebuffed a second time, she burned another three, until the king finally relented and purchased

Fig. 5.8 This statue of a large Herculaneum-type woman tries to have it both ways. She modestly conceals even as her tight garb reveals her fecund figure, creating a tension between the demands of chastity and fertile sexuality. c. 50 AD. White marble. H: 2.03 m. Skulturensammlung, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden.

the remaining books.61 The commemoration is remarkable for two reasons; first and foremost due to its centrality and prominence in the Forum. Second, however, the Sibyl was a non-Roman outsider, something Dionysius in his version of the story pointedly remarks; the name is in fact Greek, sibylla, meaning prophetess. Moreover, as was the case with Caecilia and Claudia, the statues bore witness to the powerful magic or special proximity to the divine women were thought occasionally to possess.62 The three statues (likely reflecting the number of books ultimately preserved) appear to attest to the power and place in Roman life of the Sibyl who proved, in the end, vital to Roman interests through the bestowal of her prophecies, which were consulted and interpreted by the prestigious board of the quindecemviri sacris faciundis. A diverse set of other artefacts further attested to the role of women in preserving the Roman state. Perhaps the most peculiar and striking of these was the tomb of Tarpeia on the Capitoline at which libations were offered annually. Page 15 of 36

 

Constructing Social Identity Tarpeia was infamous for the citadel’s betrayal to Titus Tatius, king of the Sabines, and his men in return for what they wore on their left arms, hoping to extract their gold rings. Instead she was crushed under the weight of their shields, which they also bore on their left arms. Her tomb however recalled a more noble intent than the popular legend told in Livy: her request was not out of greed, but aimed at disarming the enemy and leaving them vulnerable.63 (p.180) Less ambiguous was the tradition surrounding Cloelia’s encounter with the Etruscans, by whom she had been captured when they attacked the city under the leadership of Lars Porsena. Cloelia, thinking of the integrity of her family, led an escape of captive Roman women from the Etruscan camp and made her way back by swimming the Tiber. She was honoured with the remarkable distinction of an equestrian statue at the summit of the Via Sacra (Livy 2.13.11).64 Livy is right to note the unusual nature of the honour. Equestrian statues were reserved for men by virtue of their role as warriors in Roman society, and as such the statue represents the assumption of a masculine trait by Cloelia—indeed, it is by virtue of that masculine trait and her action in the course of war that she was deemed worthy of commemoration from the start. Both Tarpeia’s and Cloelia’s memorials recollect and celebrate their fortitude, courage, devotion, or resourcefulness in the state’s service. In Cloelia’s case, moreover, as Stewart has pointed out, the location, ‘at the busiest point, celeberrimo loco, on the Sacra Via in Rome’ was ‘an image that should put the young men in their litters to shame’.65 If we accept Stewart’s view then we can imagine that the desire to outstrip the likes of a Cloelia will have been all the more imperative for the statue’s male viewers. More than that, however, such memorials (in which women ‘cross-dress’ and assume masculine traits), as Kampen has noted, will have destabilized gender categories and provoked thinking for the Romans about ‘the permeability of boundaries’ that rendered identity ‘fluid’.66 They held out the possibility that women could ‘hold their own’ in the traditionally male domain of war and set their own lives at risk. Cloelia and others of her ilk, as Stewart notes, doubtless created a sense of male anxiety amongst the less battle-hardened men. Less felicitous was the Tigillum Sororium that commemorated the murder of a sister by the sole surviving brother of the Horatii, who had slain the Curiatii of Alba Longa in set combat.67 The sister had dared to weep for one of the Curiatii, her lover, in her brother’s moment of triumph for which he murdered her. He expiated his crime by passing under the yoke, a beam that spanned a branch of the Via Sacra.68 The ‘yoke’, along with the tomb of his sister and two altars, one on (p.181) one side to Juno Sororia, another on the other to Janus Curiatius, stood nearby. The monument in this case represents an area of negotiation between the demands of family and the state, of personal honour set against personal desire and loss, and of the demands of the dead and the grief due to them set against celebration and victory. While it ostensibly reminds one of Horatius’ transgression and punishment, it simultaneously recalls his triumph as Page 16 of 36

 

Constructing Social Identity well, reinforced (coincidentally) by the location of the site on the Via Sacra, where triumphal processions marched. At the same time, it offers an alternative narrative to the moment of triumph, since the precondition for military triumph is tragedy, something the Tigillum Sororium vividly reflects. It thus offers the possibility of an alternative reading of the dominant paradigm, since it gives a tragic, as opposed to a purely triumphalist interpretation of armed conflict. As noted above, however, better attested were artefacts recalling the role of Roman women in the preservation of the state from both war and plague. The Temple of Venus Calva (‘the bald’) represents yet another example of a commemorative that celebrated masculine power and identity at the expense of the feminine. Concerning the temple’s cult statue, two alternative traditions survive. The aedes famously housed a marble statue with bronze hair, according to one version of the story, to honour the Roman women who gave up their hair during the siege of the Capitoline by the Gauls to make bowstrings and catapult cords.69 An alternative version of the story, however, maintained that Ancus Marcius’ wife set up the statue as a thanks offering to Venus for salvation from an epidemic in which Roman women lost their hair (which was subsequently restored). The first version is the more remarkable and interesting one, since in that tale’s version (to which the majority of our sources adhere), the women were forced to relinquish a central trait of feminine identity, long hair. In a sense, by so doing the women took on a male identity and their sacrifice enabled them literally to arm their men and to become a weapon in the defense of the state. In addition, while we ought not to press the point too far, it nonetheless bears noting that baldness was also symbolic of liberation and allows the possibility of a ‘resistant reading’ of this particular object. Freedmen shaved their heads and became enfranchised as citizens.70 It is possible, in this sense, to understand baldness as a sort of liberation and as one of the symbolic (though not actual) fields of the (p.182) possibilities of empowerment for Roman women. Even if we do not wish to press this point too far, their assistance to the state holds out the underlying possibility of empowerment, since to partake of military service meant the potential for a political voice. The first version concerning Ancus’ wife naturally implies a very different reading, since the ‘celebration’ of the women’s cure for baldness offers the reassurance that this central sexual trait for Roman women had been restored and that Roman women will remain in their proper sphere. They will not be liberated from male hegemony but subordinated to it and in their proper place— hence, the bronze hair noted in our sources, possibly because it was on a marble statue and will have stood out. A resistant and destabilizing reading of the statue, or a reassuring one, both were possible depending on the version of the tale one chose to accept.

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Constructing Social Identity The version of the statue of Venus Calva that attributes it to Ancus Marcius’ wife, however, stands in the context of what must have been numerous dedications set up by women throughout the city in the wake of ominous signs and portents. To cite but one example, Livy (21.62.8) says that after portentous omens in 217 bc a statue of Juno was dedicated by the matronae of Rome on the Aventine (of bronze), presumably in the Temple of Juno on the Aventine. The temple itself was subsequently struck by lightning in 207 bc while twenty-seven virgines were practicing a hymn that was to be sung in order to expiate two portentous births (that of a hermaphrodite and a newborn who looked like a four year old child). The priests took this as a sign for married women to collect contributions from their dowries to make and dedicate a golden bowl to Juno. When the actual procession of the twenty-seven maidens was finally held, two cypress statues were also carried in the ceremony and deposited in her temple (Livy 27.37).71 While the dedications and depositions of material in this case honoured uxorious virtue and service to the state, these were not the only qualities celebrated in women: idealized beauty entered into the picture—sometimes literally and with paradoxical results. Hence Flora, Pompey the Great’s favourite courtesan, famous for leaving bite marks on his neck, graced the walls of the Temple of Castor and Pollux. Caecilius Metellus, commissioned to restore the temple, reportedly had Flora’s portrait painted on account of her remarkable beauty.72 More famously, Caesar had a golden statue of his paramour Cleopatra set up in the Temple of Venus Genetrix (see pp. 228–9; fig. 5.9). Caesar reportedly put it next to that of Venus where it stood until Appian’s time (B Civ. 2.102). (p.183)

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Constructing Social Identity (p.184) Both are classic cases of male objectification of women, with Caesar’s perhaps the most egregious. Not only was Cleopatra a desirable object to be conquered, but also one, in light of the material in which the statue was cast, literally to be desired (perhaps avidly so). Like Flora, she occupies a place of idealized feminine Roman beauty. Indeed, since precious metals were generally reserved for the gods themselves, it is perhaps not too much to assert that not only was Cleopatra an object to be desired, but that she was desire herself, a quasi-parallel rival to Venus. Set in the goddess’ temple, she will have stood in her gilded splendour as a challenge to the goddess Venus Genetrix, since Cleopatra herself was the ‘Genetrix’ of Caesarion, the product of Caesar’s own desire for Cleopatra who rendered Augustus sufficiently nervous to effect his execution.

Fig. 5.9 Cleopatra’s portrait, here after her gold statue in the Temple of Venus Genetrix, simultaneously celebrated her role as Caesar’s bewitching and alluring mistress, while also recalling her subsequent defeat at the hands of Augustus. Musei Vaticani.

As a result, Cleopatra, through her political connections and place in Rome’s narrative, ended up enshrined in the Roman pantheon of heroes and heroines, even though she herself was a strange and dangerous foreign potentate, much in the same way that Hannibal, another of Rome’s nemeses, was commemorated in numerous statues throughout the city, provoking Pliny’s ire (HN 34.32; see fig. 5.10). As Edwards points out however, both Hannibal and Cleopatra were simply too important a part of Roman identity not to commemorate.73 As for her location, in the Temple of Venus Genetrix, her ability as ‘the Other’ to impose fear was, as noted, arguably transformed into desire. In this sense she serves also to reflect her ambiguity in Horace’s famous ode, where she undergoes a metamorphosis from the fatale monstrum leading the ‘contaminated herd’ into a defiant Roman male of masculine virtus who, as Cato before her, ends her life like a good stoic Roman. She consequently occupied, for the Romans, a safe space, subjected to the gaze and enshrined in the same temple as the city’s maternal deity. At the same time, the possibility of her integration into the masculine sphere of Rome’s ideological urban text Page 19 of 36

 

Constructing Social Identity results in a destabilized reading, since she holds out the potential for resistance to that ideology even as she is integrated into its visual record, undermining Roman virtus and frugalitas by enticing the viewer to a desire for eastern luxury which Romans deemed so subversive.74 Although such artefacts were intended to publicly assert the predominant male ideology over the feminine, what lurks beneath are varying degrees of tensions and contradictions. While women in a commemorative context frequently are coopted into the male sphere, they also offer the potential for resistance to it. Certainly, monuments such as those commemorating Caecilia’s distaff or Claudia Quinta are designed to reaffirm ideas on the part of Roman men concerning the (p.185) role of women. The general assumption that underlies an otherwise incoherent set of artefacts is that feminine power— of a Claudia Quinta, of a Tarpeia, of a Cloelia—must be pressed into the service of the state or otherwise support the dominant ideology of elite society. Yet the possibility of an alternative narrative for women is present in the more fluid readings of commemoratives that we occasionally find embodied in Cleopatra’s or Venus Calva’s images.

The Domus As Historical Patrimony: The Elite Roman Powerhouse (p.186) The domus was a significant focal point of the Roman elite, in part because the Fig. 5.10 While portraits of Rome’s nature of Roman politics was so enemies, such as this bust of Hannibal, intensely personal and based so may have roused the ire of patriotic frequently on family honour. Romans such as Pliny, their place in the The perpetuation of Roman history of the Roman state was simply too power at any time, republic or important to ignore and demanded empire, not infrequently commemoration. Museo Archeologico concerned the continuity of Nazionale, Naples. power in a specific household, a familia or gens, be it the Cornelii or the Claudii in the republic, or the individual households of the emperors during the principate. The Page 20 of 36

 

Constructing Social Identity existence of the house as a famous landmark or entity in its own right indicates at the core something concerning the esteem in which the powerful were held, and in which they held themselves. The house was similarly a place for display and presentation. It was a means to assert one’s power, one’s political programme, and one’s connection with the people in terms of benefits; houses of the powerful were consequently viewed as important in their own right.75 We have already noted the decorating of the house with arms and other spoils, as well as the sort of private collections that the elite would use for their adornment. In addition, a house might show off an illustrious lineage in its atrium in the form of ancestral imagines, or contain biographical depictions of the dominus of the familia, as was the case with Trimalchio in Petronius’ Satyricon (fiction, to be sure, but a real enough scenario). However the house also functioned as a repository for other cultural artefacts and served to remind other Romans of the beneficia bestowed on the city and its people by the great families whose doors were open to the public. Yet it is important to note that the house represents a somewhat more liminal ambience for display than, for example, a temple, since it fluctuates between a public and private space.76 Questions of access and display and the tension between the two are not always easy to ascertain, and access could vary from individual to individual. Nonetheless, Roman houses—of Romans both living and dead—had a powerful pull on the (p.187) Roman imagination, and some were duly famous in light of their owners or the cultural material on display in them. There are several houses of the powerful or beneficent noted as places of interest early on in the city’s history. The earliest of these, as noted above, was the hut of Romulus. There is indication that, in addition to Romulus’ humble abode, the house of Tarquinius Superbus on the Oppian may have been a site of curiosity to which the public had access; the location of the remaining royal houses also abided in Roman memory.77 One of the earliest champions of the free state, Publicola, had a house decreed to him at public cost on the Palatine, an apparently unique structure since its front doors swung not inward, but outward, according to Plutarch, in order that he might always partake of public honour.78 It is equally plausible that the doors opened outward towards the public which he so championed, rather than looking inwards towards the personal prestige so craved by Roman aristocrats. Similarly, Cincinnatus’ memory was preserved by a four acre grassland known as the Prata Quintia, the site of his estate where he was working when summoned by the senate (Pliny, HN 18.20). The roles that Romulus, Publicola, and Cincinnatus variously filled are arguably mirrored in the action of the great men of the late republic, whose memories and deeds were also perpetuated, in part, through their homes. We hear, for example, that Q. Lutatius Catulus, victor along with Marius over the Cimbri, had a house that could well have been considered a proper public site; Cicero noted Page 21 of 36

 

Constructing Social Identity the spoils that were on display on it, as did a number of other sources.79 Most famous from this period, however, was the house of Pompey the Great, which appears to have long held a special place in Roman sentiment if we can believe Plutarch, who remarks the general distress at Marc Antony’s treatment of the house—and the company he kept there in comparison to Pompey.80 (p.188) Later the emperor Tiberius occupied it (Suet. Tib. 15.1), though it survived even into the third century, when it was still known as the domus rostrata because it was adorned with the beaks of the pirates’ ships Pompey captured during his campaign against them in 67 BC. Although a source whose accuracy is often dubious, the Historia Augusta relates that the house was later owned by the Gordiani (Gord. Tres 2.3, 3.6–8) until it was taken over by the imperial treasury in the time of Philip the Arab. The same source also relates that Gordian had an admirable picture of a wild beast hunt executed to adorn the house which he had presumably given during his aedileship (when he reportedly gave one spectacle a month paid for out of his own pocket). The language of the author of the lives of the three Gordians implies that there was public access to the painting and house, since he states that ‘even now’ (etiam nunc) the picture showed two hundred stags with antlers in the shape of the palm of a hand, along with stags from Britain, thirty wild horses, one hundred wild sheep, ten elk, one hundred Cyprian bulls, three hundred red Moorish ostriches, thirty wild asses, one hundred and fifty wild boars, two hundred chamois, and two hundred fallow deer, all killed on the sixth day of the games. Such detailed commemoration of games was not atypical in antiquity, for Numerian displayed on the Palatine a painting of a similar nature.81 While the source is problematic, it nonetheless becomes somewhat more plausible when set in the larger context of pictorial commemoration of such benefactions that stretched back to the republic, when, according to Pliny, C. Terentius Lucanus started the practice of having paintings made of gladiatorial shows and having them exhibited in public.82 Similarly, among republican aristocrats the house of Pompey’s rough contemporary, the historian Sallust, survived quite late into antiquity and was preserved as a site, though it was partially destroyed during the Gothic sack in AD 410.83 That Procopius deemed it worthy (p.189) of note is a testament to the power such houses had over the Roman imagination, even quite late. Beginning with the empire, the homes and birthplaces of the emperors sometimes turned into historical sites or shrines in their own right. Suetonius reports that the first princeps was born in the Ox Heads (Aug. 5), a place in the district of the Palatine, and that a shrine set up after his death marked the spot; the house at Nola where Augustus died was made into a shrine as well (Cass. Dio 56.46.3–4). The house at the Ox Heads was later owned by Gaius Laetorius, a patrician, and the part of the building in which Augustus was born was subsequently consecrated by senatorial decree.84 Later, the small and dingy slum house where the emperor Titus was born was also a site open to the public Page 22 of 36

 

Constructing Social Identity (Suet. Tit. 1). It was the same case for his brother and successor Domitian, who converted his birthplace, a house on Pomegranate Street, into a temple of the Flavians (Suet. Dom. 1.1). The house where Trajan lived on the Aventine prior to his adoption by Nerva may have been a proper site too, since it finds a place in the catalogue of the fourteen regiones, but that is all we hear of it.85 It is recalled as the place where he lived on the Aventine (a good neighbourhood where members of the aristocracy resided) before Nerva adopted him. Again, while we always need to be dubious of its historical accuracy, the Historia Augusta presents a reasonably plausible scenario in which the houses of later emperors became tourist attractions in their own right, at least when set in the larger historical and social context noted above. Hence Pescennius Niger’s house was reportedly still visited when his vita was written a century after his death (S.H.A. Pesc. Nig. 12.4–8), known by the name the Pescenniana and located in Campo Iovis (whose site is unknown). The house was said to contain a room with his statue sculpted out of Theban marble, given to him by the Thebans of Egypt, which was further inscribed with an epigram. The praefects and magistri officiorum proposed that the attendant verses be erased after his death, but the emperor Septimius Severus forbade it, stating that he wanted them to stand as a testament to the valour of the man he had conquered, and also attesting to his own virtus. We also hear that Tetricus the Younger, one of the thirty pretenders (S.H.A. Tyr. Trig. 25.4) had a house that was well-known on the Caelian Hill between two groves and looking towards a temple of Isis. Of the house the author states it was still pulcherrima, and had a well-known mosaic depicting the emperor Aurelian bestowing the praetexta and senatorial rank on the elder and younger Tetricus, in turn receiving from them a sceptre, a garland crown, and an (p.190) embroidered robe. The two Tetrici invited Aurelian himself to a banquet when they dedicated the work. The house of the late Roman emperor Balbinus (S.H.A. Max. 16.1) was also on view in the Carinae (near where Pompey’s house also stood), still then great and powerful, and owned by the emperor’s descendants (magna et potens et ab eius familia huc usque possessa). Nor was Pompey’s family the only one whose memory was still recalled through the physical existence of their domus in late antiquity. The house of the Quintilii was still renowned, as we hear from the biographer of the emperor Tacitus (S.H.A. Tac. 16.2–4) who further notes that Tacitus’ portrait was on display in the house and depicted him in five different dispositions in a single panel: in a toga, a military cloak, armour, a Greek chlamys, and in the vestments of a hunter. One writer of epigram reportedly derided the picture stating: ‘Non agnosco senem armatum, non chlamydatum…sed agnosco togatum’, ‘I don’t recognize the old man in arms, nor the one in the chlamys … but I recognize the one in the toga’. The powerful emotional place of the house in aristocratic life is further indicated not only by the survival of such houses, but also by the tradition in the literary record of the destruction of the houses of those who had attempted to harm the Page 23 of 36

 

Constructing Social Identity Roman state.86 The tradition started from very early on with the alleged attempted coup by the consul of 486 BC, Spurius Cassius. According to tradition, Cassius started a programme of land distribution (Livy 2.41.10–11) and was subsequently accused of aiming for a return of the monarchy.87 In the version Livy reports, he was executed and his estate confiscated; Livy says that a statue was made out of the proceeds and dedicated to Ceres (in her temple on the Aventine according to Pliny who also states that it was the oldest statue of Ceres in Rome) and inscribed as ‘a gift of the Cassian family’.88 His house was pulled down, and according to Livy it was the open space in front of the Temple of (p. 191) Tellus. Livy’s story has been considered one that Flower has rightly argued away as anachronistic in terms of the ‘erasure of memory’, something that belongs to a later period. In an equally dubious episode, the Romans reportedly took similar action in the case of Spurius Maelius, who aimed at revolution in 440 BC. Livy (4.16.1) reports that when Maelius’ plot failed he was captured and executed, his house demolished, and the space kept permanently vacant and called the Aequimaelium.89 As Flower notes, the Roman explanation may have simply functioned as an explanation ‘out of whole cloth to explain the topography of the Aequimaelium’.90 A similar vacant spot was kept on the Palatine, where Vitruvius Vaccus, a resident of Fundani, had a house. His abode was flattened after his involvement in hostilities against Rome.91 All three of these cases are historically problematic. However it is easy to appreciate why the traditions and histories accruing around these places emerged as they did, particularly the sites of Cassius’ and Maelius’ houses. By Livy’s day, Rome had the experience of the conflict between ‘populist’ politicians and the senatorial aristocracy under its belt. The narrative concerning Cassius’ actions and the attendant results doubtless underscored the distaste of much of the elite for the so-called populares and their methods. As such, they stood as negative commemorations, as a sort of damnatio memoriae, functioning (paradoxically) as reminders to those who would champion causes against the interests of the privileged of the dire consequences that might ensue. Cicero, for one, experienced a similar damnatio first hand (though for very different reasons), and lived to tell the tale.92 Well before the emergence of Rome as a Mediterranean power, there was an established tradition of respect for the houses of the great and the famous. It was a celebrated act of clemency when Alexander sacked Thebes and expressly moved to protect the poet Pindar’s abode.93 Such houses may have existed in Rome, yet almost exclusively it was the house of a member of the elite—a king, a dictator, a beloved general, an emperor, the occasional historian—whose house preserved the memory of ‘the great man’. Virtues of war, patronage, and political power were embodied in the spoils and the cultural material (such as paintings depicting (p.192) games, or the bestowal of office, or genealogical lists) that adorned them.94 Consequently, they served to reinforce the underlying assumption of other types of commemoratives within the city which reaffirmed Page 24 of 36

 

Constructing Social Identity the virtues of war and political monopoly by the elite. Houses, in a sense, became a place both of inclusion and exclusion simultaneously, celebrating the collective achievement of the state while at the same time reinforcing the dominant power that wielded exclusive control over the res publica.

Recollecting Romanitas Cultural objects that commemorated Rome’s pietas, by virtue of their antiquity, were fundamental not merely to Roman identity and its affirmation, but, as the case of the Palladium shows, even to the survival of the state. From earliest times such objects recalled Roman origins and educated Romans about their ancient patrimony and their divine mission, reflecting a key aspect of Roman identity and a central basis for Rome’s power. While women often stood outside the Roman power structure (at least publicly), their role in Rome’s story was too powerful to ignore completely; yet their history, when told, instructed citizens about the acceptable or ideal roles women were to play in Roman society, while simultaneously holding out alternative possible ‘resistant’ narratives, or integrating them into the sphere of male power, destabilizing the normative boundaries of Roman society. Yet such narratives were necessary or possible only because of the supreme dominance of the male elite that found expression not just through military and religious monuments, but through the very houses in which they dwelled. Those houses, moreover, became yet another means by which historical memory was preserved within the city, even until quite late. A remarkable array of material communicated a particular set of values, and in turn constructed the collective historical persona of Rome’s people. Taken in sum, the disparate cultural fragments—of Romulus’ lituus, of Pompey’s house in the Carinae, of Tanaquil’s distaff and spindle in the Temple of Semo Sancus— composed the history of the Roman experience and reflected the Roman sense of self. Notes:

(1) See p. 64. (2) The role of women and the representation of their lives in their totality were naturally not up for consideration in Roman antiquity. For the place of womens’ histories in modern museum theory (and museums in general) see e.g. E. Carnegie, ‘Trying to Be an Honest Woman: Making Women’s Histories’, in G. Kavanagh (ed.), Making Histories in Museums (London 1996), 54–65; for the subject of cultural and ethnic diversity in the same context see N. Merriman and N. Poovaya-Smith, ‘Making Culturally Diverse Histories’, in G. Kavanagh (ed.), Making Histories in Museums (London 1996), 176–87. (3) M. Beard, J. North, and S. Price, Religions of Rome, Volume 1: A History (Cambridge 1998), 171–81; also see J. Rüpke, Religion of the Romans. Translated and edited by R. Gordon (Cambridge and Malden Mass. 2007), 176–81.

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Constructing Social Identity (4) For Rome as a ‘sacred landscape’ see H. Cancik, ‘Rome as Sacred Landscape and the End of Republican Religion in Rome’, Visible Religion: Annual for Religious Iconography, 4 (1985), 250–65, esp. 253, where he remarks on Rome’s ‘visible religion’ in the form of Roman monuments, cultural objects, and the vestments and accoutrements for public rituals. (5) For this temple see Varro, De Lingua Latina 5.54; Livy 45.16.5; Augustus, Res Gestae 19; Servius, In Aeneidem 3.12; LTUR 4.75–8; on the early introduction of the Dioscuri and their Greek origins see Beard, North, and Price, Religions of Rome (n. 3), 12; for the identification of the Penates with the Dioscuri see K. Galinsky, Aeneas, Sicily, and Rome (Princeton 1969), 154–7. (6) On the connections between the two cults see G, Radke, ‘Die dei Penates und Vesta in Rom’, ANRW 2.17.1 (1981), 343–73; Vesta was a deity who was notably significant for Augustus, who had a shrine to her on the Palatine and from whom he claimed descent, see Beard, North, and Price, Religions of Rome (n. 3), 189– 91; for his claim to descent see A. Fraschetti, Roma e il principe (Rome and Bari 1990), 331–60; D. Feeney, The Gods in Epic: Poets and Critics of the Classical Tradition (Oxford 1991), 205–24. (7) For discussion of Aeneas’ sacrifice on the Ara Pacis see P. J. Holliday, ‘Time, History, and Ritual on the Ara Pacis Augustae’, ArtB 72 (1990), 549–51; J. Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer. The Transformation of Art from the Pagan to the Christian World (Cambridge 1995), 194–9; for the connections made by Julius Caesar with his Trojan ancestry and the mythical Trojan past see A. Erskine, Troy between Greece and Rome: Local Tradition and Imperial Rome (Oxford 2001), 17–23, 35–6. (8) The bibliography on Augustus’s marriage laws is extensive; see e.g. L. F. Raditsa, ‘Augustus’ Legislation Concerning Marriage, Procreation, Love Affairs and Adultery’, ANRW 2.13 (1980), 283–90, 310–19 with an extended bibliography; S. M. Treggiari, Roman Marriage (Oxford 1991), 60–80; S. Dixon, The Roman Family (Baltimore 1992), 79–81, 119–21. (9) See M. Bettini, ‘Ghosts of Exile: Doubles and Nostalgia in Virgil’s Parva Troia (Aeneid 3.294ff.)’, ClAnt 16.1 (1997), 8–33; for a good discussion of the cult itself see A. Dubourdieu, Les origines et le développement du culte des Pénates à Rome. Collection de l’Ecole Française de Rome, 118 (Rome 1989). (10) Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 1.69; Ov. Fast. 6.419–22; on the Palladium in general see LTUR 5.128–9; other Trojan relics included Aeneas’ boat, see p. 132. (11) See Erskine, Troy between Greece and Rome (n. 7), 141–2 on the conflicting tradition in Strabo.

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Constructing Social Identity (12) Also see Cic. Phil. 11.24; it was kept in the inner sanctum of Vesta’s temple; Livy 26.27.14; see Silius Italicus 13.79–81 for its protection against the Gauls in 390 BC. See Beard, North, and Price, Religions of Rome (n. 3), 3, 53–4 for discussion. (13) For discussion of the sculptures see p. 71 with n. 148. (14) See Silius Italicus 13.36–78; Servius, In Aeneidem 2.166. (15) According to Procopius (who gives a detailed description of its appearance), the Romans maintained a stone copy of it in one of Rome’s temples to Fortuna; it stood near a bronze statue of Athena. (16) See S. Bassett, The Urban Image of Late Antique Constantinople (Cambridge 2004), 205–6 for discussion. (17) For its survival in the fire of 241 BC and its rescue by L. Caecilius Metellus, the pontifex maximus, see Cic. Scaur. 48; Ov. Fast. 6.436–54. (18) It—or a copy—may have been on the Palatine by the fourth century, as CIL 10.6441 suggests; for statuary as talisman see C. A. Faraone, Talismans and Trojan Horses. Guardian Statues in Greek Myth and Ritual (Oxford 1992), passim. (19) For discussion see Erskine, Troy between Greece and Rome (n. 7), 15–43; see 245–53 for the patronage of Ilium under the Caesars. (20) Varro, De Lingua Latina 5.54; Pliny, HN 15.77; Plut. Rom. 4.1; Festus 332–3L; Servius, In Aeneidem 8.90; cf. Livy 1.4.5; Ov. Fast. 2.411; also see LTUR 2.249. (21) Livy 10.23.12; Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 1.79.8. (22) See Vergil, Aeneid 8.654; Seneca the Elder, Controversiae 2.1.5. For a detailed discussion see A. Balland, ‘La Casa Romuli au Palatin et au Capitole’, RÉL 62 (1984), 57–80, who argues that the conflicting tradition is the product of Augustan ideology: the house on the Palatine was associated with Romulus qua founder of the city while the Capitoline residence was the domus regia. For the confusion also see C. Edwards, Writing Rome. Textual Approaches to the City (Cambridge 1996), 32–42 with a detailed discussion of the hut in the literary tradition; cf. P. Pensabene, ‘L’area sud-ouest del Palatino’, in M. Cristofani (ed.), La grande Roma dei Tarquini (Rome 1990), 86–90; see too E. Thomas, Monumentality and the Roman Empire. Architecture in the Antonine Age (Oxford 2007), 22, who argues that Augustus’ intention in emphasizing the hut was to contrast the monumental nature of his building programmes; also see in general LTUR 1.241–2 for Romulus’ hut on the Palatine and Capitoline.

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Constructing Social Identity (23) For the wide array of associations the hut carried, see Edwards’ discussion Writing Rome (n. 22) cited above; she also notes that it will have had larger ideological implications for Roman notions concerning frugalitas, with Seneca the Elder, Controversiae 1.6.4 noting the dwelling’s humble nature; cf. Livy 5.53.8; Ov. Fast. 3.183–8; Seneca the Younger, Consolatio ad Helviam 9.3. (24) See e.g. Cass. Dio 48.43.4 for its destruction in 38 BC; it burned again in 12 BC, according to legend, after crows dropped meat freshly plucked from a sacrificial fire, see Cass. Dio 54.29.8. (25) See e.g. Tac. Ann. 13.58 in which the tree portended Nero’s murder of his mother Agrippina. (26) Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 1.87.3; cf. 1.85.6; Plut. Rom. 9.4, 11.1; Aur. Vict. OGR 23.2; LTUR 1.241–2. (27) Varro, De Lingua Latina 5.152; Plut. Rom. 23.3; Festus 496L. (28) A name linked to the very word augur, as well as augescere; see I. Gradel, Emperor Worship and Roman Religion (Oxford 2002), 112–15. (29) See Cic. Div. 1.30–1; Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 14.2.2; Val. Max. 1.8.11; Plut. Rom. 22.1–2; Cam. 32.5; LTUR 1.335–6. (30) Aulus Gellius 4.6.1–2; Cass. Dio 44.17.2; Servius, In Aeneidem 7.603; cf. Obsequens 6, 44, 44a, 47, 50. (31) For the nature and appearance of the triumphal chariot see M. Beard, The Roman Triumph (Cambridge Mass. 2007), 222–5. (32) See Livy 1.20.4, who speaks of the ancilia; also see Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 2.70–1; Plut. Numa 13; for discussion of the priests who carried the shields and the shields themselves see T. Schäfer, ‘Zur Ikonographie der Salier’, JdI 95 (1980), 342–73. (33) See Pseudo-Acro’s scholia on Horace, Epodes 16.13; for Quirinus as a Roman deity see A. Brelich, ‘Quirinus. Una divinità romana alla luce della comparazione storica’, Studi e materiali di storia delle religioni, 31 (1960), 63– 119; see LTUR 4.185–7 for the Temple of Quirinus. (34) Cic. Div. 1.33; Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 3.71.5; Livy 1.36.5; cf. Pliny, HN 15.77; for discussion see M. Scarsi, ‘Neque Atti Navii nomen memoria floreret tam diu’, BStudLat 35.2 (2005), 401–39, who argues that the commemoration’s purpose is to construct a second foundation myth based, like Romulus’ first foundation, on augury.

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Constructing Social Identity (35) For the puteal, statue, and implements see F. Coarelli, Il Foro Romano I: periodo arcaico (Rome 1983), 28–31; for discussion of the episode of Naevius and the whetstone and its larger religious and cultural significance see R. M. Ogilvie, A Commentary on Livy Books I –V (Oxford 1965), 151; G. Piccaluga, ‘Attus Naevius’, Studi e materiali di storia delle religioni, 40 (1969), 151–208; M. Beard, ‘Acca Larentia gains a son: myth and priesthood at Rome’, in M. M. MacKenzie and C. Rouech (eds.), Images of Authority (Cambridge 1989), 41–61; Beard, North, and Price, Religions of Rome (n. 3), 23–4. (36) Procopius calls them the Moirai, three ancient statues of Sibyls which stood by the rostra, De Bello Gothico 5.25.19–20. They were believed to be set up by Tarquinius Priscus; see Pliny, HN 34.22; also see p. 179. (37) It was one of several statues adorning the Comitium in the republic, including those of Marsyas and Alcibiades; see Coarelli, Il Foro Romano (n. 35), 87–119; for the relationship between Pythagoras and Numa see M. Storchi, Numa e Pitagora: sapientia constituendae civitatis (Naples 1999); for a good discussion of the Marsyas statue and its significance see Thomas, Monumentality (n. 22), 147–8. (38) Livy 40.29.2–14; Val. Max. 1.1.12; Plut. Numa 22.2. (39) Plutarch notes Servius’ special affinity for Fortuna and states that he dedicated numerous temples to her throughout the city; see Mor. 281D–E; cf. Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 4.27.7; the temple was near the Temple of Mater Matuta in the Forum Boarium; for Servius’ various temples to Fortuna, see F. Coarelli, Il Foro Boario. Dalle Origini alla Fine della Repubblica (Rome 1988), 253–77, 301– 28; for the proximity of the Temple of Fortuna to Mater Matuta see F. Castagnoli, ‘Il culto della Mater Matuta e della Fortuna nel Foro Boario’, StRom 27 (1979), 145–52; Coarelli, Il Foro Boario, 205–328; for a detailed study of the cult of Fortuna see J. Champeaux, Fortuna. Recherches sur le culte de la Fortune à Rome et dans le monde romain des origines à la mort de César, 2 vols. Collection de l’Ecole Française de Rome, 64 (Rome 1982–7); see A. Passerini, ‘Il concetto antico di Fortuna’, Philologus, 90 (1935), 90–7 for a related discussion. (40) Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 4.40.7; Livy 24.47.15; Ov. Fast. 6.613–25, 569–72; Val. Max. 1.8.11. (41) See Varro apud Nonium 278 L; Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 4.27.7; cf. 4.40.7; Ov. Fast. 6.613–26; Val. Max. 1.8.11; Cass. Dio 58.7.2; cf. Pliny, HN 8.197, 36.163. They were home-spun made by Tanaquil, though possibly by Caecilia; for the toga praetexta as integral to Roman identity, see A. Wallace-Hadrill, Rome’s Cultural Revolution (Cambridge 2008), 43; for the temple in general see LTUR 2.278.

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Constructing Social Identity (42) For oil as a preservative see p. 298; for the woolen fillets see Macrobius, Saturnalia 1.8.5. (43) The four horse chariot on the pediment, also made of clay, was possibly Vulca’s work too. For the statue see Pliny quoting Varro, HN 35.157. He says that Pasiteles had already perfected clay modelling in Italy, but that Vulca was also a master in this medium. See T. N. Gantz, ‘Terracotta Figured Friezes from the Workshop of Vulca’, OpRom 10 (1974–5), 1–22; A. Andrén, ‘In Quest of Vulca’, RPAA 49 (1976–77), 63–83; G. Colonna, ‘Tarquinio Prisco e il tempio di Giove Capitolino’, PP 36 (1981), 41–59 for discussion of Vulca and his workshop. (44) And we emphasize early history here, in light of Beard’s recent study on triumphatores; she doubts whether triumphing generals in the late republic tried to emulate Jupiter with red paint; see Beard, The Roman Triumph (n. 31), 225–33. She also questions the nature of the dress, arguing that the general’s clothing was likely not taken directly from Jupiter’s statue. (45) For a general study of the attention received by the various founders of Rome, including Aeneas, Romulus, and Quirinus, see B. Liou-Gille, Cultes ‘héroique’ romains. Les fondateurs (Paris 1980). (46) For an interesting discussion concerning the interplay between past and present with monuments and objects see J. Elsner, ‘From Pyramids to Pausanias and Piglet: Monuments, Travel, and Writing’, in R. Osborne and S. Goldhill (eds.), Art and Text in Ancient Greek Culture (Cambridge 1994), 229. (47) See K. Milnor, Gender, Domesticity, and the Age of Augustus: Inventing Private Life (Oxford 2005), 31–2 for discussion; for Muria see CIL 6.10230. (48) Pliny, HN 34.31; see P. Stewart, Statues in Roman Society. Representation and Response (Oxford 2003), 130 for discussion. (49) See N. B. Kampen, ‘Social Status and Gender in Roman Art: The Case of the Saleswoman’, in E. D’Ambra (ed.), Roman Art in Context. An Anthology (New York 1993), 115–32. (50) See J. Trimble, ‘Replicating the Body Politic: The Herculaneum Women Statue Types in Early Imperial Italy’, JRA 13 (2000), 41–69; also see M. B. Flory, ‘Livia, and the History of Public Honorific Statues for Women in Rome’, TAPA 123 (1993), 287–308; both discuss the public commemoration of members of the imperial family and the break this represents with the republican past. (51) See J. Fentress and C. Wickham, Social Memory (Oxford and Cambridge Mass. 1992), 137–43, esp. 138; G. Porter, ‘Seeing through Solidity: A Feminist Perspective on Museums’, in S. MacDonald and G. Fyfe (eds.), Theorizing Museums. Representing Identity and Diversity in a Changing World (Cambridge 1996), 103–26, who argues that the representation of women’s roles in museums Page 30 of 36

 

Constructing Social Identity is generally not as fully developed or active as those of men, and that women remain voiceless; also see C. Duncan, Civilizing Rituals: Inside Public Art Museums (New York 1995), 102–33 with specific focus on the MoMA. (52) For Semo Sancus’ Sabine origins see Varro, De Lingua Latina 5.66; Ov. Fast. 6.213–18; also see p. 147 with n. 70. The god’s sphere was the protection of oaths; for the temple, its history, and location, see LTUR 4.263–4. (53) Also see Plut. Mor. 271E; Paulus ex Festo 85L; see G. Lahusen, Untersuchungen zur Ehrenstatue in Rom: literarische und epigraphische Zeugnisse (Rome 1983), 33 for discussion of Caecilia’s statue. Cf. Pliny, HN 7.20: King Pyrrhus’ toe, which miraculously survived cremation reportedly could cure inflammation of the spleen; it was put in a temple, though Pliny does not say which; also see Plut. Pyrrh. 3.4; for discussion see R. Garland, The Eye of the Beholder: Deformity and Disability in the Graeco-Roman World (Ithaca 1995), 103. Similarly Pyrrhus’ thumb was still kept, HN 28.34; where and whether it had the same miraculous heeling powers Pliny does not say. (54) HN 8.194; the robe was in the Temple of Fortuna Seiani, concerning which see LTUR 2.278. (55) See E. D’Ambra, Private Lives, Imperial Virtues: The Frieze of the Forum Transitorium in Rome (Princeton 1993) for an extensive study of the forum and its relationship to this subject. For the feminine virtue of wool-working see Milnor, Gender, Domesticity (n. 47), 29, 31, 215–16. Milnor’s study collects a great deal of material on the ideological function of the representation of women’s roles, esp. in a domestic context; see e.g. 99–102 for her discussion of the depiction of the story of Pero and Mycon in the House of Lucretius Fronto in Pompeii. (56) For the fires in 111 BC and AD 3 see Val. Max. 1.8.12; for Claudia see Livy 29.14.5–14; Ov. Fast. 4.225–344; Pliny, HN 7.120; Herodian 1.11; for Claudia and the introduction of the Magna Mater see F. Bömer, ‘Kybele in Rom’, MDAI(R) 71 (1964), 130–51; M. J. Vermaseren, Cybele and Attis; the Myth and the Cult (London 1977) 41, 57; T. P. Wiseman, Clio’s Cosmetics: Three Studies in GrecoRoman Literature (Leicester 1979), 94–9; J. Gérard, ‘Légende et politique autour de la mère des dieux’, RÉL 58 (1980), 153–75; for the statue see Lahusen, Untersuchungen zur Ehrenstatue (n. 53), 34. (57) See Lahusen, Untersuchungen zur Ehrenstatue, (n. 53) 96; Pliny, HN 34.31. (58) See Plut. Ti. Gracch. 1; C. Gracch. 4.2–4, who notes that the people so honoured her that they awarded her the bronze statue; for Cornelia’s devotion to her family, children, and their education see Tac. Dial. 28.5–6. On her

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Constructing Social Identity disapproval of her sons’ activities see Plutarch, C. Gracch. 13.2. On Cornelia in general see now S. Dixon, Cornelia, Mother of the Gracchi (London 2007). (59) Trimble, ‘Replicating the Body Politic’ (n. 50), 65–6; the tension between revelation and concealment abided into late antiquity; for a related discussion see J. Elsner, Roman Eyes. Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text (Princeton 2007), 218–19 on the Projecta casket. (60) Also called the Tria Fata, Procopius, De Bello Gothico 5.25.19; see LTUR 5.856; cf. above p. 170. (61) See Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 4.62; Pliny, HN 13.88; Aulus Gellius 1.19; Lactantius, Divinae institutiones 1.6; for discussion of the episode see J. Gagé, Apollon romain. Essai sur le culte d’Apollon et le développement du ‘ritus Graecus’ à Rome des origines à Auguste. Bibliothèque des Ecoles françaises d’Athènes et de Rome, 152 (Paris 1955), 24–38, 196–204, 432–61, 542–55, 677– 82; K. Latte, Römische Religionsgeschichte, Handbuch der Altertumswissenschaft vol. 4 (Munich 1960), 160–1; G. Radke, ‘Quindecimviri’, RE 24 (1963), 114–48; H. W. Parke, Sibyls and Sibylline Prophecy in Classical Antiquity (London 1988), 190–215; Beard, North, and Price, Religions of Rome (n. 3), 62–3. (62) As such, they sometimes attained quite a level of influence, as with the prophetess Martha, a Syrian woman in whom Marius put great stock, Plut.Mar. 17.1–3; see also the parallel in ancient Germanic society observed by Tacitus with Veleda, Hist. 4.61, 4.65, 5.22, 5.24. (63) Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 2.38; also see Livy 1.11.6–9; Ov. Met. 14.775–7; Fast. 1.260–2; Val. Max. 9.6.1; Plut. Rom. 17.2–5; Aur. Vict. De Vir. Ill. 2.5–6; Servius, In Aeneidem 8.348; cf. Propertius 4.4; Silius Italicus 13.839–43. B. W. Boyd,‘Tarpeia’s Tomb. A Note on Propertius 4.4’, AJP 105 (1984), 85–6 suggests that Propertius’ aetiological explanation connected her name to the place negatively. (64) Also see Pliny, HN 34.28–9; for discussion see Coarelli, Il Foro Romano (n. 35), 36; Lahusen, Untersuchungen zur Ehrenstatue (n. 53), 109; for a good recent discussion of Cloelia as a figure embodying (in part) the values of the community see M. Roller, ‘Exemplarity in Roman Culture: The Cases of Horatius Cocles and Cloelia’, CP 99 (2004), 1–56. (65) Stewart, Statues in Roman Society (n. 48), 139. (66) See N. B. Kampen, ‘Omphale and the Instability of Gender’, in N. B. Kampen (ed.), Sexuality in Ancient Art (Cambridge 1996), 243–4. (67) See Coarelli, Il Foro Romano (n. 35), 111–18 for the location of the Tigillum. Page 32 of 36

 

Constructing Social Identity (68) On the common legend associated with the Tigillum and the expiation of Horatius see Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 3.22.7; Livy 1.26.13; Festus 380L; Aur. Vict. De Vir. Ill. 4.9. Livy 1.26.14 also describes her tomb (of squared stone) located where she was murdered; see LTUR 5.74–5; J. Richardson, A New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome (Baltimore and London 1992), 400. (69) Lactantius, Divinae institutiones 1.20.27; S.H.A. Max. 33.2; Servius, In Aeneidem 1.720; for the temple see LTUR 5.113–14. (70) See the scholiast to Lucian, De Mercede conductis 1–2, Hermotimus 86, who states ‘Slaves who obtain their freedom shave their heads since they appear to have escaped servitude’s storm, as do people saved from a shipwreck’ (Nonius p. 848, Lindsay); see J. Winkler, Auctor & Actor. A Narratological Reading of Apuleius’ Golden Ass (Berkeley 1985), 224–7 for discussion. See Elsner, Roman Eyes (n. 59), 254–9, 283–7 for a good discussion on reading cultural resistance in Roman visual media; cf. Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer (n. 7), 8 for resistant, subversive, and deconstructionist readings of Roman art objects. (71) See Beard, North, and Price, Religions of Rome (n. 3), 82 for discussion. (72) Plut. Pomp. 2.2–4. (73) See C. Edwards, ‘Incorporating the Alien: The Art of Conquest’, in C. Edwards and G. Woolf (eds.), Rome the Cosmopolis (Cambridge 2003), 63. (74) Concerning the subversive potential of eastern luxury see p. 33 n. 10. (75) See S. Hales, The Roman House and Social Identity (Cambridge 2003), 41– 50 for a good general discussion; cf. P. J. E. Davies, ‘“What Worse than Nero, What Better than his Baths?”: “Damnatio Memoriae” and Roman Architecture’, in E. Varner (ed.), From Caligula to Constantine (Atlanta 2000), 37, who has also noted the importance of Roman aristocratic homes, citing the case of Scipio Africanus in Val. Max. 2.10.2; cf. the house of Livius Drusus, Velleius Paterculus 2.14.3; similarly, for Cicero’s house as a memorial see S. Hales, ‘At Home with Cicero’, GaR 47 (2000), 44–55; also see S. Treggiari, ‘Home and Forum: Cicero between “Public” and “Private”’, TAPA 128 (1998), 1–23 and ‘The Upper-Class House as Symbol and Focus of Emotion in Cicero’, JRA 12 (1999), 33–56 for the house as a symbol of honour and success; see too A. Bounia, The Nature of Classical Collecting. Collectors and Collections, 100 BCE–100 CE (Ashgate 2004), 157–60; for the location of Cicero’s house (and his rival Clodius’) see S. M. Cerutti, ‘The Location of the Houses of Cicero and Clodius and the Porticus Catuli on the Palatine Hill in Rome’, AJP 118 (1997), 417–26. (76) See p. 60 n. 104.

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Constructing Social Identity (77) For Tarquinius see Solinus 1.26; cf. Pliny, HN 34.29; see Coarelli, Il Foro Romano (n. 35), 35–7; T. P. Wiseman, Unwritten Rome (Exeter 2008), 271–92 for discussion; see Solinus 1.21–6 (who may have relied on Varro) for the remaining kings; see Coarelli, Il Foro Romano (n. 35), 56 for discussion. According to tradition, the Sabine king Tatius had his house in arce on the Capitoline where the Temple of Juno Moneta later stood; Numa had one initially on the Quirinal, then later (appropriately enough) near the Temple of Vesta in Regia; Tullus Hostilius had a house in Velia where later stood the Temple of the Penates; Ancus Marcius’ was located in summa sacra via where the Temple of the Lares stood; Tarquinius Priscus’ was ad Mugoniam portam supra summam novam viam; Servius Tullius’ on the Esquiline supra clivum Urbium; and finally Tarquinius Superbus had his on the Esquiline supra clivum Pullium ad Fagutalem lacum. (78) Publ. 20.2; for the decree see Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 5.39.4. (79) See above p. 153 n. 81. (80) Also see Velleius Paterculus 2.77.1; Suet. Gram. 15.1; Florus 2.18.4; Cass. Dio 48.38; S.H.A. Gord. Tres 3.6; Aur. Vict. De Vir. Ill. 84.3. Plut. Ant. 21.2–3 esp. notes the distress caused by Antony’s purchase and occupation of the house, remarking specifically the men of dubious character he entertained there; also see Cic. Phil. 2.67–8. (81) S.H.A. Carus 19.1–2 says that during the reign of Carus, Carinus, and Numerian games were given ‘distinguished by novel events’ (such as bears acting in a farce, a rope walker, one hundred horn blowers, and mechanical scaffolding) depicted in paintings near the Palatine. Gordian’s own house appears to have been a site for a time as well (S.H.A. Gord. Tres 32.1), and the author of his vita notes its beauty but says nothing more. (82) HN 35.52: to honour his grandfather he presented thirty pairs of gladiators in the Forum and exhibited a picture of the matches in nemore Dianae. The tradition continued into the empire. Pliny notes that a freedman of Nero’s presented gladiatorial games at Antium and had individual portraits of the gladiators and their trainers displayed in public porticoes. Beyond the literary record, both paintings and mosaics commemorating gladiatorial combats and venationes are common enough subjects. (83) Procopius, De Bello Gothico 3.2.24. Sallust’s house was near the Salarian Gate and was set ablaze, but was only half burnt; the rest was preserved and survived even into the sixth century. The Anthologia Planudea (Crinagoras) 40 says that it was found near the Tres Fortunae where there were three temples, those of Fortuna Primigenia, Fortuna Publica Populi Romani, and Fortuna

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Constructing Social Identity Publica Citerior. For the location of the house see K. J. Hartswick, The Gardens of Sallust: A Changing Landscape (Austin 2004), 8–10; also see LTUR 3.79–81. (84) Cf. Suet. Aug. 6: at Augustus’ childhood home in Velitrae his nursery was still kept as a shrine which no one could enter lest they be seized by a sudden terror. For Augustus’ birthplace and boyhood house see Davies, ‘“What Worse than Nero?”’ (n. 75), 37. (85) See LTUR 4.164–5. (86) For a general discussion of how buildings, houses, and other edifices built for or by the condemned were treated, see Davies, ‘“What Worse than Nero?”’ (n. 75), 31–42; see esp. 38 for discussion of Maelius, Cassius, and Manlius; also see in general K. Mustakallio, Death and Disgrace. Capital Penalties with Post Mortem Sanctions in Early Roman Historiography (Helsinki 1994). (87) See, inter alios, Cic. Rep. 2.60; Diodorus Siculus 11.37.7; Dion. Hal. Ant.Rom. 8.68–80; Livy 2.41; Val. Max. 5.8.2, 6.3.2; Florus 1.17.25; Cass. Dio 5.19. For an excellent discussion of the problems of damnatio memoriae in this case see H. I. Flower, The Art of Forgetting. Disgrace and Oblivion in Roman Political Culture (Chapel Hill 2006), 48–9; cf. E. Gabba, ‘Studi su Dionigi d’Alicarnasso: La proposta di legge agraria di Spurio Cassio’, Athenaeum, 42 (1964), 29–41; Ogilvie, Livy Books I–V (n. 35), 337–45; E. Gabba, ‘Dionigi d’Alicarnasso sul processo di Spurio Cassio’, in Atti del primo Congresso internazionale della Società italiana di Storia del diritto (Florence 1966), 143–53; A. Lintott, ‘The Tradition of Violence in the Annals of Early Rome’, Historia, 19 (1970), 18–22; T. P. Wiseman, ‘Topography and Rhetoric: The Trial of Manlius’, Historia, 28 (1979), 32–50; T. J. Cornell, ‘Rome and Latium to 390 B.C.’, in The Cambridge Ancient History2 7.2: The Rise of Rome to 220 B.C. (Cambridge 1989), 264–81; The Beginnings of Rome: Italy and Rome from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars (c. 1000–264 B.C.) (London 1995), 253–5, 263, 271. (88) HN 34.15. There may have been more than one statue of Ceres offered up, since Dionysius, relating the same story (Ant. Rom. 8.79.3), uses the plural. (89) See also Val. Max. 6.3.1c; cf. Cic. Dom. 101; Varro, De Lingua Latina 5.157; Diodorus Siculus 12.37.1; Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 12.4.6; Livy 4.15.8–16.1; Quintilian, Institutio oratoria 3.7.20; Aur. Vict. De Vir. Ill. 17; for discussion see Ogilvie, Livy Books I–V (n. 35), 550–7; M. Jaeger, Livy’s Written Rome (Ann Arbor 1997), 42. (90) Flower, The Art of Forgetting (n. 87), 48. (91) Livy 8.20.8. From the proceeds of the material bronze discs were set up in the Temple of Semo Sancus, concerning which see p. 174 n. 52. Why Vitruvius Page 35 of 36

 

Constructing Social Identity had a house in Rome, though himself from Fundani, is unclear; see S. P. Oakley, A Commentary on Livy Books VI –X, Vol. 2 (Oxford 1998), 602–6 for discussion of the incident; on the two versions of his punishment see S. P. Oakley, A Commentary on Livy Books VI–X, Vol.2 (Oxford 1997), 82; for his house see LTUR 2.215. (92) See p. 153 n. 82. (93) Plut. Alex. 11.12; Arrian, Anabasis 1.9.10. (94) See S. Carey, Pliny’s Catalogue of Culture: Art and Empire in the Natural History (Oxford 2003), 149, who also notes the imagines in the atrium, records of res gestae in the tablinum, and booty on the doors that collectively made the domus itself a commemorative monument.

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The Monster and the Map

Ancient Rome as a Museum: Power, Identity, and the Culture of Collecting Steven Rutledge

Print publication date: 2012 Print ISBN-13: 9780199573233 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: March 2015 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199573233.001.0001

The Monster and the Map Steven H. Rutledge

DOI:10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199573233.003.0006

Abstract and Keywords This chapter examines how the natural world was exhibited as a symbolic form of domination by the city. Such display inadvertently served as an ambiguous reflection on the (sometimes monstrous) nature of empire. Keywords:   natural world, domination, Roman empire, city

‘The world and the city of Rome occupy the same space.’ Ovid, Fasti 2.684 The peripheral boundaries of Rome’s empire were ever places of chaos, disorder, and danger, of the fantastic or of the marvelous.1 There was no lack of authors to record such marvels in antiquity. Augustine in The City of God refers to books of curiosities, primarily of the aberrant human sort (16.8). Pliny indicates that Cicero wrote a book on marvels (Cicero in admirandis, Pliny, HN 31.12), and Varro, Cicero’s contemporary, may have undertaken a similar work and influenced Pliny’s encyclopaedia.2 Licinius Mucianus, the governor of Syria who had assisted Vespasian’s elevation to power and was Pliny’s contemporary wrote a history of Vespasian’s eastern campaign during the Jewish War, part of which included a digression on exotica (Pliny, HN 19.12; cf. 16.214–15). We get a taste of how such exotica might be integrated into a literary or historical work in Tacitus’ treatment of the appearance of a phoenix under Tiberius (Ann. 6.28), or Caesar’s discussion of the fauna of German forests (Bellum Gallicum 6.25–8). Mucianus apparently also wrote a book devoted solely to mirabilia.3 The next generation produced some equally prominent writers in the genre, including Page 1 of 30

 

The Monster and the Map Licinius Sura, (p.194) one of the most prominent members of Trajan’s court (Pliny, Ep. 4.30, 7.27), and Plutarch, who wrote a work titled De Curiositate, (which was not about curiosities per se, but about the nature of curiosity and that which attracts it, including the grotesque).4 L. Ampelius, who can only be placed between the time of Trajan and Diocletian, left a Liber Memorialis, which includes the only clear description of the Great Altar of Pergamum extant.5 The genre was popular and abided into late antiquity and beyond.6 Arguably much of Pliny belongs to the same genre, in particular book seven, with its catalogue of things wondrous and strange in virtue of their size, age, or other unusual qualities. Such wonders are only known to us through texts written by those who tended to view the world as a place of potential danger that needed to be subdued, controlled, and observed. The taming of this chaotic, strange world was achieved visually through mapping the world as well as putting its strangeness, its ‘Otherness’ on display. As the Romans appropriated the world’s territory and its resources, so too did they appropriate its aberrations, abnormalities, and perceived dangers, all of which had the power to create a dynamic tension by which Roman rule was simultaneously reaffirmed and called into question.7 The collection of maps and the world they embraced showed the Romans the land they dominated and reflected the identity such conquest had served to create—a collective identity on its face of invincibility and domination.8 To be made safe, the world ultimately had to be made aesthetic, something symbolized through cartographical depictions and all their permutations. The ability to know the world, to visualize and measure it as something contained in the securely ordered and sacred space of the city, within Rome’s imperium, and in turn within the inviolable pomerium, made the world Roman, knowable, and controllable. So too with natural aberrations. The eviscerated and dismembered bodies of fantastic creatures and their bones functioned as a symbolic indicator of what (p.195) Rome could do and had done to its enemies and rivals: skinned and disfigured, the Romans remade them into something Roman.9 Lifeless, set on display, the monstrous is emasculated, laid symbolically prostrate and reflective of a world helpless before Roman power, while at the same time constituting a mirror of Rome itself. The world’s creatures and natural wonders were increasingly set on display while Rome gradually transformed into something of unnatural size and monstrous, something desiring and attracting the gaze as a thing of wonder, something that was the product of monstrosity and the literal dissection of enemies in battle, and of land appropriated from the vanquished. In turn, the more Rome conquered the more Rome was itself dissected into a collection of provinces, regions, districts, and administrative arenas.10 Such wonders thereby reflect Roman identity and the harsh reality of Roman conquest, yet simultaneously carry the capacity of resistant readings; as such artefacts variously invite loathing, envy, or wonder, so too does the city.11 Physical deformity (including gargantuan size), for example, was an indicator of Page 2 of 30

 

The Monster and the Map a larger depravity or deviancy, a notion with a longstanding tradition in antiquity.12 Though what was bigger than Rome, an entity so vast to Livy ‘that it now toiled of its own magnitude’ (ut iam magnitudine laboret sua, praefatio 4)? That which tames the monster in turn becomes monstrous, ever transgressing its own limits.13 Indeed, as scholars have noted, Pliny’s own catalogue is a monstrosity, by virtue of its size and the vast array of objects and facts it contains.14 The collective effect of Pliny’s work constructs what T. Murphy called a ‘triumphal geography’ that surveys the entire (p.196) orbis terrarum and gives an ‘authorized version of knowledge’ that promises ‘completeness, reliability, and authority’.15 And yet that knowledge can never be complete—it is always being added to or revised as Rome expands and conquers in its ever dynamic role as an entity determined to encompass more of the oikoumenē (‘the inhabitable world’) and to redefine its limits.16 The dynamic nature of expanding knowledge is perhaps best illustrated by Tacitus’ Agricola, where he notes the several revisions in Roman knowledge of Britain since Rome’s first contact with the island.17 It is perhaps noteworthy that some, though not all, of Pliny’s enumerated curiosities come from the outer boundaries of the Empire, depending at what point in history they were brought into the city. The tall Arabian, the gorilla skins, exotic balsam trees from Judaea, all assert implicitly the potential for or reality of Roman conquest. The introduction of such exotica into triumphs or displays in ancient Rome was a manifestation of the city’s mastery over the natural world, and all its monstrous permutations.18

The World Under The Gaze: Measuring and Mapping The world, both natural and unnatural, was one that Romans mapped, ordered, and dominated, and the former, mapping, implied the latter.19 The city, itself a world in miniature, was bound by the pomerium.20 The extension of that sacred (p.197) urban boundary was only permitted after the extension of Roman conquest; the further compass of the world, therefore, meant that the city itself physically engulfed more territory, all the more to house the various objects from its imperial dominions. The start of the city’s boundary was marked by a great ox, ever a popular symbol of power and prowess in antiquity, imported from Aegina and made of bronze; the setting was doubly appropriate, because it was set up in the Forum Boarium, or Cattle Market.21 We are not certain, though it may have been brought to Rome after the conquest of Macedonia, in which case it takes on still more significance. For what could be more apt as a marker for the starting point where Rome’s boundaries were expanded than a piece of loot taken from a power that had once conquered the world? Rome, as Polybius (1.2) understood, picked up the story where the great Hellenistic princes of the East, inheritors of Alexander’s empire, left off. To possess this particular artefact and then to display it in this context is a very powerful statement concerning one’s own power in the world. As Carey has noted, possession of an artefact was

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The Monster and the Map indicative of possession of the place as well.22 Rome took the world’s measure by its conquests, and Rome itself was in turn measured by the world it possessed. It is not too far to state that the notion of the map, and with it domination, was embedded in Rome’s topography and historical memory in the most absolute sense. Consequently, even the very names of some of the streets, the most basic topographical phenomenon in Rome after its hills, walls, and famous cloacae, reflected the diversity of Rome’s dominion. Thus Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Ant. Rom. 5.36.4) notes that the Vicus Tuscus was so called because members of the Etruscan community settled and resided there after the battle of Cumae in 474 BC; the street was marked by a statue of Vortumnus, a divinity that was an Etruscan import, according to Roman tradition (see p. 36 with n. 17). The Vicus Cyprius was so called because the Sabines settled there after admission into the city as citizens and named it ‘for the good omen’. Similarly, the Vicus Africus was named for the hostages from Africa who were kept under guard there during one of the Punic Wars (Varro, De Lingua Latina 5.159). There were doubtless more streets that reflected Rome’s domain; the most obvious one in this regard (p.198) was the Clivus Victorius ascending the Palatine.23 The world was thereby mapped out, confined within its walls, and literally downtrodden. The topography mirrors, in a sense, the statues of Caesar and Augustus which depicted the globe under their feet (see fig. 6.1).24

As Rome expanded to include the world, the world, in turn, had to be brought into the city, measured and dominated by Rome’s gaze. Yet it was not merely enemy land that was mapped, measured, and confined within the city’s bounds. Natural wonders and their aberrations were equally things to be subdued, dominated, confined, and exhibited. The connection between the aberrant and the exhibited was something deeply etched not merely in the Roman psyche, but in their very

Fig. 6.1 Octavian stands with the world literally under heel. The statue type was after a similar one of his grand-uncle, Julius Caesar. Reverse of a silver denarius, 31–29 BC with the legend CAESAR DIVI F. (‘son of the divine Julius’). The American Numismatic Society, New York.

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The Monster and the Map language; hence the connection between monstrum and monstrare (‘to show’).25 To know that which was strange or fearful was no longer to fear it. (p.199) As the process of mapping implied knowing and subduing, similarly, to map the world’s wonders was to render them no longer distant or fearful but familiar and by so doing to make the power over them complete. Natural wonders or monstrosities had the potential to function not only as a symbolic domination over the world’s people, but over the natural world itself. Mapping of Rome’s conquest took a number of forms, ranging from cartographical paintings, to large piazzas whose pavements were engraved with maps of the world or the cosmos, to fantasy mosaics such as that at Praeneste (see fig. 3.5).26 One of the first to display such a map was C. Sempronius, who dedicated either a map or an allegorical depiction of Italy in 252 BC in the Temple of Tellus on the Esquiline, (commissioned by Gaius’ father, Publius in 268 (Varro, De Re Rustica 1.2.1)).27 It is uncertain whether Italia was in the form of a map or an allegorical representation such as we find with the provinces on the Temple of Divus Hadrianus (see fig. 6.2 and 6.3); in this sense the Empire represented itself as a collection of easily subdued, effete subjects whose innately feminine qualities made them inherently inferior to their Roman conquerors.28 Such subjugation is perhaps best captured in the dejected personification thought to be of a conquered province we see in a relief now in Naples (fig. 6.4). The subject of Italia will have been appropriate for Sempronius’ painting, given that at this period Rome had recently completed and was in the process of consolidating its conquest of Italy; equally symbolic is its dedication in the Temple of Tellus, confining Italy within the Roman ‘Tellus’ or earth. Years later, Livy (41.28.8–10) reports that in 174 BC a tablet was set up to Jupiter in the Temple of Mater Matuta with an inscription concerning Ti. Sempronius Gracchus’ conquest of Sardinia; Livy says that it (p.200)

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The Monster and the Map (p.201)

Figs. 6.2 and 6.3 These reliefs from the Temple of Divus Hadrianus, AD 145, represent Roman provinces in feminine form, a standard attribute for conquered territories. H: (with base) 2.08 m. H. of figures: 1.51 m. Museo del Palazzo dei Conservatori, Rome.

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The Monster and the Map had the shape of the island on it with representations of battles and his triumph.29 The connection made in this painting (as Livy describes it) inextricably linked geography and violence, mapping and conquest, connections perhaps most explicitly expressed in the surviving artistic record in the sculpture programme (p.202) of the Sebasteion (the temple of the imperial cult) in Aphrodisias, with, for example, its violent depiction of Claudius’ conquest of the province of Britannia (fig. 6.5).30 Such linkage was made not only in visual arts, but throughout our literary sources as well. It stands as the visual representation of the narrative connections found between mapping and conquest in such authors as Strabo and Pliny, and, (p.203)

Fig. 6.3 See caption for fig. 6.2.

Fig. 6.4 Two caryatids on a base with a conquered and dejected province in feminine form in between. The representation here may well reflect depictions of allegorized provinces and cities subdued and displayed in Roman triumphs on tabulae and in sculpted

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The Monster and the Map to a similar extent, in the war commentarii of Caesar and

models. H: .87 m. Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples.

Tacitus’ Agricola.31 In Pliny the intent is perhaps even more explicit, since the world is brought together under a series of various anecdotes, facts, and data that stand within an encyclopaedia, and (p.204) within a Roman world. The world is collected literally in his book in the form of geography, ethnographic data, as well as facts about the material world, its resources, its art, and its peoples.32

Visual depictions of this nature will have reached their pinnacle under the principate by which point cartographical painting had become a virtual genre, with Strabo himself referring to a category of painting he termed geōgraphikon pinaka (2.5.13). Strabo emphasized the importance of geography for those in public affairs, a subject particularly imperative during Augustus’ programme of imperial expansion and

Fig. 6.5 Claudius’ subduing of the province of Britannia is portrayed in a particularly violent fashion in this relief from an imperial cult temple in the province of Asia. H: 1.65 m. The Sebasteion, Aphrodisias.

consolidation (1.1.16–18).33 There is perhaps no better example of this than Agrippa’s map which Pliny (HN 3.16–17) tells us was in the Portico of Vipsania (see fig. 6.6). The map depicted ‘the world’ (orbem terrarum) and had been designed by Agrippa and completed by Augustus.34 The nature of the display is difficult to guess, but there was certainly a list of cities, and possibly even a narrative that accompanied them: we know for example that it listed Pompey’s conquest of 876 oppida in one campaign alone (in Spain (Pliny, HN 3.18)), and the distances between various points were listed in detail.35 Such narratives were not unusual. Pompey for one had dedicated a list of the cities he had conquered on his eastern campaign in the Temple of Minerva (p.205)

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The Monster and the Map (Pliny, HN 7.97; Diodorus Siculus 40.4.1) while Augustus in his forum had a list of conquered provinces set up (Velleius Paterculus 2.39.2).36 The scale of Agrippa’s map was quite large, and embraced the entire portico according to Pliny (HN 3.17). Such a setting will have been appropriate. The portico also Fig. 6.6 K. Sallman’s reconstruction of contained a grove of laurels (Mart. Agrippa’s map of the world from the 1.108.1–4), an apt addition, since Portico of Vipsania, based on Pliny the the tree was symbolic of victory Elder’s description. and conquest. The connection between mapping and militarism could not be clearer; as has been noted, the very production of such maps stemmed from the need for military intelligence.37 Neither was this the only map on display. As Nicolet points out, there was a large map of Campania (no doubt just one of many regions exhibited) in the Atrium Libertatis, while Vitruvius notes the existence of maps that also may have been monumental in nature.38

The description of a map in the forum at Autun (Panegyrici Latini 5.20–1) gives us perhaps our best glimpse into how such a map might look.39 The orator (p. 206) Eumenes in a speech given in AD 298 tells us that the position of the countries is depicted, ‘with their names, their extent, and the distances which separate them’. Most importantly, Eumenes relates that the map on public display serves as a way to instruct the young in imperial ideology and values: ‘Let our city’s youth look under these porticoes and each day consider all the lands and seas, all the cities restored by their virtue, the peoples subdued through their valour, the nations frozen with fear’. The assumption is that the visual impact will instill the lesson more clearly of the ‘great deeds of our brave leading men’. It is unlikely that this lesson will have changed much since Sempronius first introduced his map of Italia in the Temple of Tellus some five centuries before. In keeping with his programme of imperial expansion Augustus also dedicated a portico ad Nationes, so named because of its gallery of statues that represented ‘all nations’, a suitable fit for the empire he helped to create—and collect.40 Similar images were carried in Augustus’ funeral (Cassius Dio 56.34.2), though in what material is uncertain.41 The precedent for both may well have been Pompey’s statuary programme for his theatre which was adorned with displays of conquered nations.42 Other similar allegorical representations of conquered nations or provinces appeared elsewhere in a variety of contexts, as on the Temple of Divus Hadrianus noted above, whose metopes represented the various provinces of the Empire (all women with various indications and symbols of their province). As Edwards has noted, Cicero also refers to the simulacra oppidorum Page 9 of 30

 

The Monster and the Map carried in a general’s triumph (Pis. 60), and Ovid clearly implies the allegorical depiction of certain figures in the description of a triumphal procession in his Ars Amatoria (1.223–4, see p. 119), while Silius Italicus in the Punica (17.635–42) refers to (p.207) Scipio’s triumphal procession and remarks on an image of Carthage lifting her hands to heaven and images of Spanish cities.43 As Östenberg admonishes however, whether such depictions were paintings, models, or statues is subject for contention, and we need to exercise caution.44 When we are told that Marcellus paraded in his ovatio cum simulacro captarum Syracusarum (Livy 26.21.7 ), or that M. Fulvius Nobilior displayed in his house an image of Ambracia (Livy 38.43.9), we cannot assume exactly how and in what medium they were portrayed.45 Regardless, the function of such programmes and displays was not far different from those of similar modern exhibitions. Hooper-Greenhill notes that displaying objects creates a hierarchy of value and power even in our own contemporary milieu: A major function of museums during the modernist period was the mapping of the world through the collection of artefacts…many of which were to be drawn together in museums in such a way as to map out the world. The extremities, the margins, the peripheries and the limits of the known world were pictured and imagined.46 The same could be said of the eclectic array of objects brought into the city in antiquity, but the ‘imagining of the limits and peripheries’ is perhaps most vividly embodied in the allegorical depictions of the provinces. As if to emphasize Rome’s imperial domination, a statue of Hercules Melqart, taken from Rome’s supreme foe, Carthage, stood in front of the entrance to Augustus’ Portico ad Nationes (Servius, In Aeneidem 8.721). If the sculpture programme was in keeping with Roman practice that we see elsewhere (as on Hadrian’s temple), presumably the individual nations will have been allegorized as women with attributes particular to the individual provinces or peoples.47 If such were the case, the Hercules at the portico’s entrance will have served symbolically to keep in line, with his superior strength, Rome’s subjects; he will have kept conquered peoples literally ‘in their place’, confined within the bounds of this empire in miniature that celebrated Augustus’ vast conquests. He will have further emphasized the labour—a theme that frequently arises in Augustan literature and visual art—that it took to confine and keep the nations within the boundaries of the portico and the Empire.48 According to Pliny, the statue of Hercules was also one before which the Carthaginians used to offer human sacrifice (HN 36.39). An artefact with such a history and in such a context holds out a number of potential interpretations: the barbarism of the enemy as opposed to the civilizing force of (p.208) Rome is one; the statue could also signify the Roman people’s ‘labours’ in achieving their empire; potentially it could even signify a recognition of the barbarism (as a Carthaginian, hence foreign object) and violence of imperial conquest, a conquest now completed with Augustus. Hercules Melqart, therefore, becomes simultaneously Page 10 of 30

 

The Monster and the Map representative of barbarism, resistance, and the forces of ‘civilization’, creating a complex web of associations.

Collecting The World: Monsters, Monstrosities, and Wonders Animals and Minerals

The forces of order and empire over chaos and barbarism received further affirmation through the collection of natural wonders and curiosities that gradually made their way into the city. Carey sees in the Roman collection of wonders ‘a strong link between…knowledge and Roman conquest’ as well as between distance and wonder.49 It bears noting that it was not so much a scientific knowledge in the modern sense with which Pliny and others were concerned, but with knowledge of the unusual that comes with familiarity.50 Curiosities of nature were ubiquitous in Rome and took a variety of forms, some of which would be vaguely familiar to us. Aviaries and collections of live animals were among the modes of display (along with venues where wild animals would be slaughtered en masse). Pliny says that the custom of setting up aviaries with cages was first started by M. Laenius Strabo, a man of the equestrian order from Brindisium (HN 10.141). The practice continued well into the empire, if we can believe Alexander Severus’ biographer, who says that Severus constructed aviaries on the Palatine for his own enjoyment with hens, ducks, pheasants and other birds, but that he took care that such a menagerie would not burden the public grain supply (S.H.A. Alex. Sev. 41.6–7).51 Tacitus mentions a similar phenomenon when he tells us that in AD 64, during Tigellinus’ notorious ‘water festival’, Nero’s praefect had collected birds and animals from remote countries (Ann. 15.37). Similarly, Suetonius states that whenever a rare animal (p.209) was brought to the city Augustus displayed it publicly (citing a rhino he exhibited in the Saepta Julia, a tiger in an unspecified theatre, and a serpent nearly 90 feet long in the Comitium, Aug. 43.4). The importation of such wonders, living and dead, had precedence during the republic. Pliny, for example, tells us that Hanno displayed the skins of gorillas in the Temple of Juno in Carthage until Rome captured the city; the skins will have been presumably rededicated in a Roman temple or a similar venue (HN 6.200).52 Aside from the exhibition of rare animals or their remains, there was a decided interest in what we might term the monstrous: natural wonders extraordinary for their size or the story behind them. The first instance we hear of this sort of phenomenon was when a large creature was set on display during the First Punic War, when a number of sources tell us that the Romans encountered an enormous serpent in North Africa at the river Bagradas. According to Valerius Maximus (1.8 ext. 19), the creature (reportedly 120-feet in length) was killed with great difficulty by Atilius Regulus’ men. Its skin was impossible to penetrate, it crushed many men in the coils of its tail, and finally was killed with a barrage of spears and catapults; its body putrefied and its stench forced the Romans to move their camp. The skin was ultimately removed and sent to Rome as a trophy.53 Pliny (HN 8.37) says that the 120-foot skin, along with its jawbone, Page 11 of 30

 

The Monster and the Map was still on display in an unspecified temple in Rome in his day. Though his account is unclear, Pliny also implies that the remains of an enormous polypus mollusk (octopus, squid, or cuttlefish?) were kept as a curiosity in Rome (HN 9.93). The creature was captured in Baetica when M. Lucullus was governor there and found to weigh 700 pounds; a member of Lucullus’ staff, Trebius Niger, wrote an account of the episode and noted the fierceness of the animal and the difficulty in capturing it. In addition, there were collections of stones of remarkable size (or workmanship) scattered throughout the city. Pliny the Elder tells us that Livia dedicated a 150 pound rock crystal on the Capitoline, the largest one known until that time (HN 37.27), while Augustus dedicated four elephants in obsidian in the Temple of Concordia pro miraculo (HN 36.196, see chapter seven p. 267). Subsequently, Nero temporarily set up in the Temple of Fortuna Seiani an onyx of remarkable size; it was noted for its translucent quality and reportedly had a shine sufficient to light the temple’s interior (HN 36.163). Pliny similarly notes (HN 37.18–19) a series of myrrhine cups Pompey dedicated to Jupiter on the Capitoline, cups of such quality that Nero exhibited a single broken one in conditorio. (p.210) Contemporaneous with Pompey, P. Lentulus Spinther (cos. 57 BC) reportedly exhibited onyx wine jars holding nine gallons of Chian wine imported from Egypt or Syria (HN 36.59). In this instance, the sheer size of such precious material, and no doubt too their quality, rendered them noteworthy. All of the objects Pliny mentions constitute examples whereby pieces of precious stones that is, literally of the earth, are possessed and put on display.54 The Romans doubtless felt an attraction towards such curiosities, in particular of the monstrous animal variety, and frequently connected them with the mythological past. Roughly two generations after Lucullus’ over-sized mollusk, in 58 BC, M. Aemilius Scaurus brought from Jaffa in Judaea the skeleton of the monster to which Andromeda was said to have been offered and used it, along with other unspecified curiosities, to court popular favour during his aedileship (HN 9.11). Pliny says the creature’s skeleton was forty feet long, the height of its ribs taller than that of an Indian elephant, and its spine eighteen inches thick.55 Similarly, in AD 200 we are told by Cassius Dio (76.16.5) that an enormous sea monster had come ashore ‘at the Augustan harbour’ and was captured; Septimius Severus had a model made of the creature and exhibited it in the hunting theatre, into which fifty bears were herded in order to show its vast size. The remains of large elephant tusks (possibly of ancient proboscides) adorned the exterior of several temples in Rome according to Pliny (HN 8.31), though the most spectacular pair may have been those thought to be of the Calydonian boar. Pausanias reports that Augustus took the boar’s tusks as spoils from the Arcadians in punishment for their support of Marc Antony. By Pausanias’ day they were kept in the emperors’ gardens (possibly those of Caesar across the Tiber, 8.46.1). Pausanias says that the ‘keepers of the wonders’ asserted that one of the boar’s tusks was broken, but that the other, kept in the sanctuary of Page 12 of 30

 

The Monster and the Map Dionysus in the gardens, was three feet long.56 Perhaps in keeping with his antiquarian interests, the emperor Claudius exhibited two mythical creatures during his reign, a phoenix displayed in the Comitium and a hippocentaur (preserved in honey).57 Such displays will have made even (p.211) the supranatural a real and tangible reality; in addition, they will have had the effect of validating and appropriating Greek (and, in the case of the phoenix, Egyptian) ‘mythological’ creatures into the Roman sphere—proof not just of Roman control of territory, but also of a larger cosmic field that transcended human history and time, reflective of Rome’s own destiny which transcended both. In at least two instances, human or animal remains acted as talismans to ensure the prosperity of the city—one an actual talisman, the other the product of a sacrificial talisman.58 In the time of Augustus, the bones of Orestes were brought from Diana’s shrine at Aricia to Rome and buried in front of the Temple of Saturn in the Forum.59 Allegedly, his remains ensured Rome’s greatness, though we have no idea how the grave was marked. The Temple of Diana on the Aventine, in addition to its curious cult statue, also contained the horns of an enormous heifer, something unusual in and of itself, since stag horns generally adorned Diana’s shrines.60 The story is told that a heifer of great size and appearance was born to the herds of a man named Antro Curiatius, and that a soothsayer predicted that, were it sacrificed to Diana on the Aventine, Rome would become the world’s mightiest city. The horns, which may have been gone by Livy’s day (1.45.4), commemorated the event. Why Orestes would act as a talisman is perhaps not hard to surmise at least in general terms: he stands in the tradition of other Greek imports, including Hercules and Evander, who had a role in the legendary history of the city from an early date. But both the story of Orestes’ bones and the heifer stand in the context of integration and conquest very early in the city’s history of things Greek or over neighbouring peoples. In a sense, though seemingly unconnected, both stand as a Roman claim to domination over those with whom the community was in contact from its inception. Humans

(p.212) Human wonders were also on prominent display in ancient Rome, although arguably what made them wonders was their transcendence from the realm of the human due to their size, physical deformity, or other similar reasons.61 In Roman terms, such individuals were considered monstra or mirabilia in their own right (according to Pliny’s categorization), terms that in more antiquated discourse might at one time have been translated as ‘freakish’. It was this status as mirabilia that gave them their place in Pliny’s catalogue, subjecting them not only to the gaze of the viewer, but to the reader as well, reinforcing their status as non-Romans. The Latin terms used to describe such phenomena and their translations are problematic, and can imply specific value judgements in their own right. As Stewart has noted, the English term ‘freak’ constitutes a negative and devalued response to anything that stands outside of Page 13 of 30

 

The Monster and the Map several operative cultural norms: the so-called ‘natural’ world, any accepted cultural milieu, or, potentially, beyond one’s territory.62 Moreover, as a number of scholars have remarked, human ‘freaks’ specifically were (and still are) displayed to reaffirm the spectator’s ‘normalized’ status and to mark out that which is ‘aberrant’.63 While the Latin term mirabilia may not carry precisely the same negative connotations (though monstrum certainly does), it still implies in the context of the present discussion that which is trans-normative, that stands outside generally approved Roman cultural norms, and carries the same negative implications as the term ‘freakish’. Such supra normative spectacles could include people of unusual size or simply of note-worthy fame who constituted wonders or attractions in their own right. Pompey the Great had such human curiosities memorialized in the statuary programme in his theatre.64 One of these included a woman from Tralles named Eutychis who had given birth to thirty children and subsequently had her funeral pyre carried by the twenty who survived. Alcippe was also commemorated in Pompey’s theatre, a woman who had reportedly given birth to an elephant.65 On record, too, are a number of human specimens of unusual size, (p.213) both living and dead: hence we hear that under Claudius a man named Gabbara was brought to Rome from Arabia who was reportedly nine feet nine inches tall.66 Similarly, under Augustus two people named Pusio and Secundilla, each over ten feet tall, had their bodies preserved in tombs in the Horti Sallustiani to be gazed at ‘as a marvel’ (miraculi gratia).67 On the opposite end were two Roman equestrians, Manius Maximus and M. Tullius each three feet tall, still on display after their deaths.68 Nor were the living free from such curiosity. Augustine reports that just before the Goths attacked and destroyed Rome a woman of very tall stature was in the city and frequently mobbed by crowds wherever she went (De civitate Dei 15.23). Similarly, those of great age (Pliny, HN 7.158) or of celebrated reputation could attract travellers to the city, such as the pilgrim from Gades who travelled to Rome just to get a glimpse of Livy.69 A similar scene was enacted in that age when a group of piratical chieftains ventured to Liternum to get a view of Augustus, ‘as it were expecting some divine benefit’ (quasi caeleste aliquod beneficium expetentes, Val. Max. 2.10.2). Finally, we note that the emperors themselves kept those with abnormalities as a form of entertainment for their pleasure, such as Nero’s courtier Vatinius, ‘among the foulest spectacles of his court…with his twisted body and his scurrilous witticisms’ (inter foedissima eius aulae ostenta…corpore detorto, facetiis scurrilibus).70 It was, in the end, a perverse reminder of what was Roman, what was un-Roman, and ultimately, what was to be considered human, what a monstrosity—and as such worthy to be put on display (monstrari).

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The Monster and the Map Plants

In addition to the human and animal, lesser or even inanimate objects, such as plants, trees, and precious spices were also the subjects of interest and wonder (p.214) within the city.71 Such display will have been reflective of something well-established by the Roman elite and picked up in the literary sources, and that is the domination of resources by Rome’s imperial machine.72 The natural world and man’s relationship with it is not neutral for the Romans; rather the natural world is for the Romans to survey and exploit. As one scholar of Pliny’s Natural History (from which we get much of our information) has observed, Pliny’s erudition has no air of inquiry about it, but is instead redolent of a survey with a view to use.73 Here again moreover, as was the case with the animal and human, size, age, or the exotic nature of an object as well as other attributes, could render something a curiosity. Pliny states that the largest tree ever seen in Rome was a 120 foot long larchwood with a uniform thickness of two feet. Tiberius exhibited it in the naumachia, where it lasted until AD 59 when Nero built a vast amphitheatre of wood (HN 16.201). Tiberius’ larchwood broke the previous record held by a tree Agrippa deposited in the porticoes of the Diribitorium ‘left over from the timber used for the voting office’; it was one hundred feet long with an eighteen inch thickness.74 Pliny also tells us (HN 12.111) of a more exotic tree that Vespasian displayed in his triumph in AD 70 when he and Titus exhibited balsam trees on the Capitoline for the first time from Judaea and further states that ever since Pompey the Great, (presumably exotic) trees had figured into Roman triumphal processions.75 In addition, Vespasian was the first to dedicate both in the Capitoline and in the Temple of Peace crowns of cinnamon surrounded with embossed gold. Pliny further states (HN 12.94) that a cinnamon root of great weight was dedicated in the Temple of Divus Augustus on the Palatine (built by his wife Livia); it was placed in a golden bowl (aureae paterae) and he says that drops distilled from it annually and hardened into grains, and that this continued until the temple was destroyed by fire. Unusual plant specimens were not the sole province of emperors; well before the advent of Augustus, Pompey had also assembled a novel array of flora in the form of living specimens in the city.76 (p.215) Beyond size and provenance, age also served to make flora unique, and there were a number of such trees in the city that became the object of veneration or wonder as a result of their age. There were, for example, three very old lotus trees in Rome (Pliny, HN 16.235–6), one in the precinct of Juno Lucina dating to 375 BC (which apparently predated the foundation of the temple, according to Pliny), a lotus tree in an uncertain location called the hair tree, since it was where Vestal Virgins brought offerings of their hair, and one in the area of the Vulcanal which, according to Pliny’s source (Masurius) was the same age as the city.77 Pliny also notes that a cypress of equal age stood nearby and fell near the end of Nero’s reign and was left lying where it was. Still older, in fact, purportedly predating the city, was a Holm oak on Vatican Hill to which Page 15 of 30

 

The Monster and the Map was attached a bronze tablet with Etruscan characters (HN 16.237). Similarly, objects made of wood of great age were considered equally remarkable; this was especially the case for cult statues, such as one of Veiovis made from cypress wood which in Pliny’s day could be dated back nearly three hundred years to 193 BC.78 Whether for their great age, their exotic origins, or their enormous size, the trans-normative nature of these objects rendered them things of wonder and were reflective of the same trans-normative qualities of the entity that possessed and exhibited them.

The Colossus in Pieces The world Rome conquered was one where boundaries were easily permeated, broken or confused, in part due to the rigid Roman habit of drawing so many of them, whether in the form of the civic boundary of the pomerium, the literal boundary of the Empire, in the textual treatises of Roman land surveyors, or through the construction of the normative boundary concerning what was acceptably ‘human’ or ‘Roman’. It is little wonder that by Strabo’s time cartographical depictions had become relatively popular. The monster, the thing that permeated the normal boundaries of Roman experiential space, whether in the literal form of a 120 foot serpent, of the abnormally sized tree, or of an exotic crown of cinnamon, because it was also something (as already noted) to be (p.216) variously loathed, feared, or marvelled at, also became (depending on its nature) perversely desirable, transforming into a Frankenstein’s bride, which invites the original monster to reflect on its own essence. Rome over time grew into a giant that paradoxically created, even as it simultaneously destroyed.79 And again, like Frankenstein and his bride, it was only in the end an incomplete patchwork monster, stitched together by a collection of objects that ‘creates the illusion of adequate representation of a world by first cutting objects out of specific contexts (whether cultural, historical, or inter-subjective) and making them “stand for” the abstract whole’.80 Hence, while the external monster is assumed within Rome’s power thereby offering reassurance of domination, it simultaneously mirrors back Rome’s monstrous self and all of its vast appetites and enormous patchwork dominion, its body fed beyond a natural size.81 The grotesque colossal patchwork is epitomized by Procopius’ bizarre tale of an equally bizarre artefact (Historia arcana 8.12–21). In his physical description of Justinian, Procopius compares him to a strange statue of Domitian that he describes with the following anecdote: Domitian was so hated that after his death he was hacked into pieces. His wife subsequently came before the senate and requested that she might take his body, bury it, and have a bronze statue set up to him wherever she wished. The senate so respected her that it granted her request. Desiring a monument to the inhumanity of her husband’s murderers, the former empress gathered his flesh, and putting the pieces accurately together and fitting them one to the other, she sewed up the whole body; then, displaying to the sculptors, she bade them represent in a bronze statue the fate which had befallen her Page 16 of 30

 

The Monster and the Map husband. So the artists straightway made the statue. The woman then took it and set it up on the street leading up to the Capitol, on the right as one ascends thither from the Forum, and it shows both the features and the fate of Domitian, even to the present day.82 (p.217) By Justinian’s (and Procopius’) time such a monument will have mirrored Roman identity and power indeed. The state had long since become a series of membra disiecta, its body long since hacked by civil strife and invading tribes, dismembered into so many diocese and petty barbarian kingdoms.83 However, well before Justinian, and before Domitian for that matter, the Empire’s monstrosity was at times reflected in the visual representation of its leadership, starting with colossal statues of Augustus (though not necessarily in his lifetime).84 While there had indeed been colossal statuary in Rome prior to this period, it predominately was of deities, and many were Greek imports.85 The trend arguably reached its climax under Nero with his colossus that eventually gave the Flavian amphitheatre—a meta-monstrosity in its own right—its name, and with his massive portrait on a 120 foot high piece of linen, a feat never before attempted.86 But Nero, as Tacitus remarked (Ann. 15.42), was not one to feel constrained by nature’s limitations. (p.218) In a sense such works, and even their venues, were emblematic of a carnival quality the Romans could not escape, symbolically reflecting the excess luxury, consumption, and the grotesque that was a part not only of the reign of Nero, but also of the Empire in general.87 The dynamic is encapsulated in a colossal statue of Tiberius dedicated in AD 30 in Caesar’s forum, a statue that was a mirror of the grotesque monster into which Tiberius

Fig. 6.7 The fragments of the head and hand of Constantine were emblematic not just of colossal statuary throughout the city by late antiquity, but of the monstrosity, in every sense, of the Empire in general. H: 2.6 m. From a 9 m. statue from the Basilica Nova. Museo del Palazzo dei Conservatori, Rome.

himself had turned by that date.88 The relatively common occurrence of the survival of colossal statuary attests that this was not an isolated phenomenon (see fig. 6.7). Stewart has noted in his study of gigantism and its cultural significance that the gigantic can function as a metaphor, a projection of the giant’s body onto the world, where it, in turn, becomes a container of

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The Monster and the Map all things, something surely at work in Tiberius’ case, but (p.219) also for Roman gigantism in general.89 Indeed, even the sources that attempt to catalogue and contain the giant that Rome had become turn into unwieldy monstrosities as a result of their consumption of a superabundance of over-sized data. As noted above, numerous scholars have remarked the size, the unwieldiness, the seeming incoherence, the sheer monstrosity of Pliny the Elder’s Natural History.90 Strabo has recently been similarly set in the context of the very colossi about which he writes, and he himself refers to his work as a kolossourgia.91 Yet as Edwards observes, Rome and the world it sought to consume could never be contained, measured, or sated, since as Pliny notes, it was restrained by neither temporal nor spatial constraints.92

Hence, by its very nature, the monster violates and transcends itself, as Rome grasps beyond the boundaries not only of the world but of time. For Rome even the vague, nebulous legends of the past—aged trees under which Romulus suckled, the Greek hero Orestes, Scaurus’ monster from Jaffa—stand in its grasp; that which is outside of human experience Rome reduces to a part of its imperial endeavour, thereby reflecting Rome’s own divine, timeless nature. Of course, the timelessness of Rome’s imperium sine fine (Vergil, Aeneid 1.279) proved as mythological as the origin of some of the relics it so avidly consumed. (p.220) Notes:

(1) As has been illustrated by Romm’s 1992 study, and as is encapsulated in the title of such fictional works as Antonius Diogenes’ Wonders Beyond Thule; see J. S. Romm, The Edges of the Earth in Ancient Thought (Princeton 1992), 202–14 for discussion. (2) Pliny, HN 7.75; cf. 7.85; see E. Pernice and W. H. Gross, ‘Die griechischen und römischen literarischen Zeugnisse’, in U. Hausmann (ed.), Handbuch der Archäologie: Allgemeine Grundlagen der Archäologie (Munich 1969), 483 for discussion; for Pliny the Elder’s sources see 481–92. For a good discussion of mirabilia in Pliny see J. Isager, Pliny on Art and Society: The Elder Pliny’s Chapters on the History of Art (London 1991), 186–203; see 46 for their role as memorabilia; cf. J. F. Healy, Pliny the Elder on Science and Technology (Oxford 1999), 63–70; S. Carey, Pliny’s Catalogue of Culture: Art and Empire in the Natural History (Oxford 2003), 79–91. On writers of mirabilia in Pliny’s day see T. Murphy, ‘Pliny’s Naturalis Historia: The Prodigal Text’, in A. J. Boyle and W. J. Dominik (eds.), Flavian Rome: Culture, Image, Text (Leiden 2003), 305. For Pliny’s predecessors see Carey (above, 18) citing Cato the Elder’s Praecepta ad filium, Varro’s Antiquitates and Disciplina, and Celsus’ Artes. For Cato’s work see E. S. Gruen, Culture and Identity in Republican Rome (Ithaca 1992), 77–8. (3) See T. Murphy, Pliny the Elder’s Natural History: The Empire in the Encyclopedia (Oxford 2004), 57, 60–1 for discussion of Mucianus’ work; also see Pernice and Gross, ‘Zeugnisse’ (n. 2), 484. On Mucianus as a source for Pliny see B. Baldwin, ‘Pliny the Elder and Mucianus’, Emerita, 63.2 (1995), 291–301.

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The Monster and the Map (4) Its title was Peri Polupragmosunēs, On Busybody-ness (see Mor. 517F, 521B– D); in it Plutarch criticizes those who gawk at the sensational or grotesque instead of fine artworks. Also see Mor. 520C for Plutarch’s bazaar of human monstrosities; see M. Beagon, Roman Nature: The Thought of Pliny the Elder (Oxford 1992), 10–11 for discussion. (5) See Pernice and Gross, ‘Zeugnisse’ (n. 2), 461; for general discussion of Ampelius’ work see M. P. Arnaud-Lindet, ‘Le Liber Memorialis de L. Ampélius’, ANRW 2.34.3 (1997), 2301–12. (6) See N. Purcell, ‘The City of Rome’, in R. Jenkyns (ed.), The Legacy of Rome: A New Appraisal (Oxford 1992), 427–9. (7) See S. Carey, ‘The Problems of Totality: Collecting Greek Art, Wonders and Luxury in Pliny the Elder’s Natural History’, JHC 12.1 (2000), 5 for discussion of the bond between conquest and the importation of mirabilia, ‘Now, instead of the Roman Army going to the ends of the earth, the ends of the earth come to Rome’. (8) Something frequently addressed in C. Nicolet, Space, Geography and Politics in the Early Roman Empire (Ann Arbor 1991); see esp. 7–8 for the movement towards ‘global’ mapping; cf. 35–41 for Rome’s embracing of the oikoumenē (‘the inhabitable world’). (9) On this ‘dialectic of the monster’ see J. A. Heffernan, ‘Looking at the Monster: “Frankenstein” and Film’, Critical Inquiry, 24.1 (1997), 136–7. For ‘the monster’ in Roman society see C. A. Barton, The Sorrows of the Ancient Romans: The Gladiator and the Monster (Princeton 1993), 85–106; see esp. 85–90 for what constituted the curiosus in ancient Rome. (10) For a good discussion of ‘world acquisition’ in the context of collecting see K. Melchionne, ‘Collecting as an Art’, Philosophy and Literature, 23.1 (1999), 150. (11) For the city and the ‘wonder’ it evokes see C. Edwards, Writing Rome. Textual Approaches to the City (Cambridge 1996), 97–102. (12) Starting with Homer’s Thersites; for discussion see Barton, Sorrows (n. 9), 164–6. (13) See A. L. Motto and J. R. Clark, ‘The Monster in Seneca’s Hercules Furens 926–939’, CP 89 (1994), 269–70 for the literary background of the monster as transgressor; see Barton, Sorrows (n. 9), 174 for a related discussion. (14) See A. Locher, ‘The Structure of Pliny the Elder’s Natural History’, in R. French and F. Greenaway (eds.), Science in the Early Roman Empire: Pliny the Elder, His Sources and Influence (Totowa NJ and London 1986), 20 for Pliny’s Page 19 of 30

 

The Monster and the Map work as ‘a literary monstrosity’; cf. M. Vegetti, ‘Lo spettacolo della natura. Circo, teatro e potere in Plinio’, Aut Aut, 184–5 (1981), 120–2, who notes that the text literally is a monster, remarking in particular the cruel and savage—the monstrous—nature of certain aspects of Pliny’s catalogue; see too M. Vegetti, ‘Zoologia e antropologia in Plinio’, in Plinio il Vecchio sotto il profilo storico e letterario. Atti del Convegno di Como 1979 (Como 1982), 130, who called it ‘un incubo popolato di fugure e spettacoli meravigliosi e terribili’; also see A. Wallace-Hadrill, ‘Pliny the Elder and Man’s Unnatural History’, GaR 37.1 (1990), 81, who notes the unnatural and transgressive nature of Pliny’s work; E. Thomas, Monumentality and the Roman Empire. Architecture in the Antonine Age (Oxford 2007), 214 remarks in general the monumental nature of the catalogue in antiquity, beginning with Homer’s catalogue of ships in the Iliad’s second book. (15) See Murphy, Pliny (n. 3), 14. For Murphy’s excellent discussion of Pliny’s geography see 129–64; also see 1–2 where he notes his work was ‘patterned after that vast empire that has made the universe available for knowing’; also see 5 for Pliny as a triumphalist text. For the encyclopaedia as encompassing the world, see A. Dihle, ‘Plinius und die geographischen Wissenschaft in der Römischen Kaiserzeit’, in Tecnologia, economia e società nel mondo romano (Como 1980), 121–37; A. Rouveret, ‘Artistes, collectionneurs et antiquaries: l’histoire de l’art dans l’encyclopédie plinienne’, in E. Pommier (ed.), L’Histoire de l’histoire de l’art de l’antiquité au XVIIIe siècle (Paris 1995), 51; Carey, Pliny’s Catalogue of Culture (n. 2), 33–40 for the connection between the geographic and taxonomic range the work covers, and empire. For the larger Greek and Roman background to Pliny’s geography see R. French, Ancient Natural History (London 1994), 114–41. (16) On the oikoumenē and its extent see Nicolet, Politics (n. 8), 39–40, 104. (17) For discussion see S. Rutledge, ‘Tacitus in Tartan: Textual Colonization in Tacitus’ Agricola’, Helios, 27 (2000), 77–9; K. Clarke, ‘An Island Nation: ReReading Tacitus’ Agricola’, JRS 91 (2001), 94–112. (18) See French, Ancient Natural History (n. 15), 216 for discussion; for the natural world tamed in a triumphal context and set under the Roman gaze see I. Östenberg, Staging the World: Spoils, Captives, and Representation in the Roman Triumphal Procession (Oxford 2009), 274–5. (19) E. Hooper-Greenhill, Museums and the Shaping of Knowledge (London 1992), 17 notes that mapping renders something real and implies ‘discovery, order and ownership’; cf. Nicolet, Politics (n. 8), 7–9, who notes the inextricable links between geography, mapping, and empire.

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The Monster and the Map (20) On Rome’s ‘absorption of the world’ as synonymous with the mundus itself see C. Edwards and G. Woolf, ‘Cosmopolis: Rome as World City’, in C. Edwards and G. Woolf (eds.), Rome the Cosmopolis (Cambridge 2003), 2–3; cf. Carey, Pliny’s Catalogue of Culture (n. 2), 99–101. See Carey, ‘Problems of Totality’ (n. 7), 10 for Pliny as a microcosm of Rome. The city itself was mapped in turn in the form of the Marble Plan set up in the Forum of Peace under Septimius Severus; see R. H. Darwall-Smith, Emperors and Architecture: A Study of Flavian Rome (Brussels 1996), 55–8; J. Trimble, ‘Visibility and Viewing on the Severan Marble Plan’, in S. Swain, S. Harrison, and J. Elsner (eds.), Severan Culture (Cambridge 2007), 368–84; also see A. Wallace-Hadrill, Rome’s Cultural Revolution (Cambridge 2008), 301–12, who notes that this was but one in a series of such city plans displayed in Rome. (21) Ov. Fast. 6.477–8; Pliny, HN 34.10; Tac. .Ann. 12.24. (22) See Carey, Pliny’s Catalogue of Culture (n. 2), 82; cf. 79–80 for discussion of how Pliny’s syntax in discussing Roman possession and display of art emphasizes Roman ownership. (23) Streets could preserve historical memory in general. The Vicus Sceleratus (actually a section of the Clivus Orbius) leading up to the Esquiline, was perhaps the most (in)famous of these, since it commemorated Tanaquil’s abuse of her father’s (King Tullius’) body after his assassination when she ran over it with a chariot. See Varro, De Lingua Latina 5.159; Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 4.39.3; Livy 1.48.6–7; Ov. Fast. 6.609–10; Val. Max. 9.11.1. The city gates seemed also to function as repositories of memory, see Varro, De Lingua Latina 5.163–5. (24) For a discussion of the numismatic evidence for these statues see P. Zanker, The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus. Translated by Alan Shapiro (Ann Arbor 1988), 40–1; also see Cass. Dio 43.14.6. (25) See S. Stewart, On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection (Baltimore 1984), 108, who also notes its ostensible if not actual connection with moneo, a verb of warning, presumably against imminent threat. (26) For Roman cartographical depictions see Nicolet, Politics (n. 8), 98–111; cf. C. Nicolet, ‘Rome dans la carte: Cartes de Rome’, in F. Hinard and M. Royo (eds.), Rome. L’espace urbain et ses représentations (Paris 1991), 9–16; for topographical and cartographical paintings in the republic see P. J. Holliday, The Origins of Roman Historical Commemoration in the Visual Arts (Cambridge 2002), 105–8, who observes that the Palestrina mosaic may take as its model a painting of this genre, though also notes that there are objections; cf. P. J. Holliday, ‘Roman Triumphal Painting: Its Function, Development, and Reception’, ArtB 79 (1997), 138–9; for a detailed study of the mosaic see P. G. P.

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The Monster and the Map Meyboom, The Nile Mosaic of Palestrina: Early Evidence of Egyptian Religion in Italy (Leiden 1995). (27) Nicolet, Politics (n. 8), 111 notes that this sort of painting had its origin in the triumphal pinakes with topographical depictions; for the Temple of Tellus in general see LTUR 5.24–5. (28) For the ‘Freudian’ element to such collecting, in which the provinces could, conceivably, be understood as women substituting for erotic conquests see J. Forrester, ‘ “Mille e tre”: Freud and Collecting’, in J. Elsner and R. Cardinal (eds.), The Culture of Collecting (Cambridge Mass. 1994), 232–3; for the provinces on Hadrian’s temple see C. Parisi Presicce, ‘Le rappresentazioni allegoriche di populi e province nell’arte romana imperiale’, in M. Sapelli (ed.), Provinciae fideles: Il fregio del tempio di Adriano in Campo Marzio (Rome 1999), 83–105; I. M. Ferris, Enemies of Rome. Barbarians through Roman Eyes (Stroud 2000), 83–5, who argues that they represent a consolidation of conquest after Trajan’s expansion; for a good discussion of the temple’s construction and its larger architectural context see Thomas, Monumentality (n. 14), 32–4. (29) See Holliday, ‘Roman Triumphal Painting’ (n. 26), 137–8; Östenberg, Staging the World (n. 18), 193–6 for discussion; see p. 36 n. 17 for the Temple of Mater Matuta. (30) See R. R. R. Smith, ‘The Imperial Reliefs from the Sebasteion at Aphrodisias’, JRS 77 (1987), 115–17 for the identification of Britannia; for a good discussion of the images of the provinces see R. R. R. Smith, ‘Simulacra gentium: The ethne from the Sebasteion at Aphrodisias’, JRS 78 (1988), 50–77; for an excellent discussion of this particular relief see Ferris, Enemies of Rome (n. 28), 55–60; other good recent discussions of the Sebasteion’s sculptural programme include S. E. Alcock, Archaeologies of the Greek Past: Landscape, Monuments, and Memories (Cambridge 2002), 89–93; L. S. Nasrallah, Christian Response to Roman Art and Architecture (Cambridge 2010), 76–84. Östenberg, Staging the World (n. 18), 220–1 has suggested a religious significance for the reliefs with the personifications representing the subdued gods of conquered peoples; also see 222–30 in general for the depiction of conquered provinces and peoples. (31) As in, for example, Caesar’s detailed geography of Gaul that precedes his conquest; see Caesar, Bellum Gallicum 1.1; for Britain see Tac. Agr. 10; for discussion see Rutledge, ‘Tacitus in Tartan’ (n. 17); Clarke, ‘An Island Nation’ (n. 17); for the connection between geography and warfare see S. Mattern, Rome and the Enemy. Imperial Strategy in the Principate (Berkeley 1999), 41–66; for the relationship between imperial texts and geography see Nicolet, Politics (n. 8), 101 where he notes the possible link between Agrippa’s commentarii and his map.

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The Monster and the Map (32) See Murphy, Pliny (n. 3), 14 for a discussion of Pliny’s encyclopaedia as a form of legitimate institutional knowledge in this regard; see 20, 22–4, where Murphy observes that Rome takes centre stage. Also see Carey, Pliny’s Catalogue of Culture (n. 2), 17–40 on Pliny as an encyclopaedia of the world, esp. 21, for Pliny’s work as representing its own universe or ‘totality’, ‘so that along with the contents of the world, totality itself becomes a subject which must be catalogued in its entirety’; also see Carey, ‘Problems of Totality’ (n. 7), 5, who notes that Pliny’s text ‘transforms the world into an inventory of Roman possessions’; cf. E. Schulz, ‘Notes on the History of Collecting and Museums’, JHC 2.2 (1990), 205–6; see for a general discussion P. Grimal, ‘Encyclopédies antiques’, CHM 9 (1965), 459–82; A. Roncoroni, ‘Plinio enciclopedista’, in A. Roncoroni (ed.), Plinio e la natura (Como 1982), 9–13. (33) See Nicolet, Politics (n. 8), 9, who also notes the use of maps mentioned in Velleius Paterculus during the campaign against Maroboduus in AD 6. (34) Also see Cass. Dio 55.8.3–4. See Holliday, ‘Roman Triumphal Painting’ (n. 26), 137, who believes the map would have been painted. For the connection between Agrippa’s map and Strabo’s geography, see Nicolet, Politics (n. 8), 8; also see 7–9, 95–122 for a detailed discussion; for its place in the Augustan city see R. Moynihan, ‘Geographic Mythology and Roman Imperial Ideology’, in R. Winkes (ed.), The Age of Augustus (Interdisciplinary Conference held at Brown University April 30–May 2, 1982) (Louvain-la-Neuve 1982), 149–62; D. Favro, The Urban Image of Augustan Rome (Cambridge 1996), 116; see Carey, Pliny’s Catalogue of Culture (n. 2), 64–7 for the influence of Agrippa’s map in Pliny’s encyclopaedia. For its affirmation of domination see D. Favro, ‘Reading the Augustan City’, in P. J. Holliday (ed.), Narrative and Event in Ancient Art (Cambridge 1993), 245. For a bibliography of conjectures concerning this map see K. Brodersen, ‘Terra Cognita. Studien zur römischen Raumerfassung’, Spudasmata, 59 (1995), 269–70; also see 275–86 where he suggests not a map proper but an inscription listing distances. For the portico in general see LTUR 4.151–3. (35) For further reference to Agrippa’s map (in his discussion of geography) see 4.78, 81, 83, 91, 102, 105, 5.9–10, 65, 102, 6.37, 39, 57, 136–7, 164, 196, 207, 209, all of which usually include distances from one point to the next or the total miles of a given region—e.g. the length of a coastline or the total circumference of an island or peninsula or continent (cf. Caesar, Bellum Gallicum 1.1). In 6.40 Pliny refers to maps of regions sent home from the front, referring specifically to those during the campaign in Armenia under Nero. (36) See Carey, Pliny’s Catalogue of Culture (n. 2), 47–61 for the discussion of the use of catalogues on Roman monuments, such as the Res Gestae or Augustus’ victory trophy over the Alpine tribes at La Turbie; for the list in Augustus’ forum

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The Monster and the Map see K. Galinsky, Augustan Culture. An Interpretive Introduction (Princeton 1996), 203; for the Temple of Minerva in general see LTUR 3.353–4. (37) See French, Ancient Natural History (n. 15), 209. (38) Vitruvius 8.2.6; see Nicolet, Politics (n. 8), 99–100 also citing Granius Licinianus 10.2; for the Atrium Libertatis see LTUR 1.133–5. (39) For this passage in its larger context of Roman geography see Nicolet, Politics (n. 8), 111. (40) See Servius, In Aeneidem 8.721; cf. Septimius Severus who ordered bronze images of all subject nations arrayed in their national garb to be carried at Pertinax’s funeral, Cass. Dio 75.4.5; see Östenberg, Staging the World (n. 18), 217 for discussion. For ‘collecting countries’ see J. Elsner and R. Cardinal (eds.), The Culture of Collecting (Cambridge Mass. 1994), 2: ‘Empire is a collection of countries and of populations; a country is a collection of regions and peoples; each given people is a collection of individuals, divided into governed and governors—that is, collectables and collectors’. For a discussion of the representation of provinces in Rome also see M. Jatta, Le rappresmtazione figurate delle provincie romane (Rome 1908); L. Houghtalin, ‘The Represenation of the Roman Provinces’, diss. Bryn Mawr College (1993); H. Cancik, ‘Die “Repraesentation” von “Provinz” (nationes, gentes) in Rom’, in H. Cancik and J. Rüpke (eds.), Römische Reichsreligion und Provinzialreligion (Tübingen 1997), 129–43; Ferris, Enemies of Rome (n. 28), 59 on the Augustan portico’s similarity with Aphrodisias’ Sebasteion. (41) See Galinsky, Augustan Culture (n. 36), 207 for discussion; cf. P. Liveriani, ‘“Nationes” e “civitates”, nella propaganda imperiale’, RhM 102 (1995), 219–49; Östenberg, Staging the World (n. 18), 217–18, who suggests that wood and other lighter materials are likely candidates for images that had to be carried; Nasrallah, Christian Response (n. 30), 76–7. (42) Coponius sculpted the statues, Pliny, HN 36.41. For discussion see Carey, Pliny’s Catalogue of Culture (n. 2), 62–3; Nicolet, Politics (n. 8), 32 notes that the statuary constituted a virtual res gestae; Östenberg, Staging the World (n. 18), 219 cautions against assuming the statuary programme was based on anything similar in his triumph in 61 BC. (43) For discussion see C. Edwards, ‘Incorporating the Alien: The Art of Conquest’, in C. Edwards and G. Woolf (eds.), Rome the Cosmopolis (Cambridge 2003), 65; Östenberg, Staging the World (n. 18), 200. (44) See Östenberg, Staging the World (n. 18), 199–212 for discussion. (45) Ibid., 208–12; see 212–14 for the depiction of cities in general. Page 24 of 30

 

The Monster and the Map (46) Hooper-Greenhill, Museums (n. 19), 18. (47) See Edwards ‘Incorporating the Alien’ (n. 43), 65–6 on Augustus’ programme and its context. (48) See p. 242 n. 64 for discussion. (49) See Carey, ‘Problems of Totality’ (n. 7), 5; Pliny’s Catalogue of Culture (n. 2), 84–5 where Carey notes that many of the mirabilia in Pliny’s catalogue come from places most distant from ‘the centre’. (50) As Murphy, Pliny (n. 3), 160–4 notes, the ‘science’ involved little more than who was the ‘first’, for example, to display exotica. For the distinction between the types of knowledge spectacles of this sort impart as opposed to the museum (with its more rational basis) see T. Bennett, The Birth of the Museum: History, Theory, Politics (New York 1995), 3–5. (51) For aviaries in antiquity, see L. R. Johnson, Aviaries and Aviculture in Ancient Rome, PhD thesis, University of Maryland, College Park (1968). (52) For discussion concerning the larger context of Pliny’s narrative on zoology see Vegetti, ‘Zoologia e antropologia’ (n. 14); L. Bodson, ‘La zoologie romaine d’après la NH de Pline’, in J. Pigeaud and J. Oroz (eds.), Pline L’Ancien: témoin de son temps (Salamanca and Nantes 1987), 107–16. (53) Cf. Florus 1.18.20; Cass. Dio 11.13 (Zonaras). (54) Compare Augustus’ forum, concerning which Galinsky, Augustan Culture (n. 36), 203 has observed that the variety of marbles imported from throughout the Empire represents a use of material that in and of itself constitutes a statement of imperial world dominion. (55) Cf. Pliny, HN 5.128; see J. Boardman, ‘“Very Like a Whale”—Classical Sea Monsters’, in A. Farkas (ed.), Monsters and Demons in the Ancient and Medieval World (Mainz 1987), 77 for discussion. (56) Procopius, De Bello Gothico 5.15.8 alternatively states that the boar’s tusks were in Beneventum in his day and worth seeing; they reportedly measured three spans around and formed a crescent. (57) Pliny, HN 10.5, 7.35; everyone knew, however, that the Claudian phoenix was a fraud; also see Cass. Dio 58.27.1; Pliny further notes a phoenix’s appearance under Tiberius (his source was Cornelius Valerianus), as does Tacitus, although Pliny dates the appearance to AD 36, Tacitus to AD 34 (Ann. 6.28); for Tacitus’ dating of the episode see E. Keitel, ‘The Non-Appearance of the Phoenix at

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The Monster and the Map Tacitus Annals 6.28’, AJP 120 (1999), 429–42. For reports of natural wonders to emperors see Murphy, Pliny (n. 3), 198–9. (58) Cf. the Palladium discussed above, pp. 162–5; also see e.g. Roma Quadrata, a chapel (sacellum) on the Palatine in front of the Temple of Apollo, which served as a repository for the objects considered of good augury for the state when it was founded; the sacellum was still extant in AD 204 (CIL 6.32327); see Ov. Tr. 3.1.31–4; Joseph. AJ 29.3.2; Festus 258L; LTUR 4.207–9; see A. Grandazzi, ‘La Roma quadrata: mythe ou réalité’, MÉFRA 105 (1993), 493–545 for discussion. (59) Servius, In Aeneidem 2.116, 7.188; Hyginus, Fabulae 261; see C. M. C. Green, Roman Religion and the Cult of Diana at Aricia (Cambridge 2007), 41–7 for discussion. (60) See Livy 1.45.4–5; Val. Max. 7.3.1; Plut. Mor. 264C–D; Aur. Vict. De Vir. Ill. 7; the temple also sported the oldest sundial in Rome; see Censorinus, De Die Natali 23.6; for the temple see A. Alföldi, Early Rome and the Latins (Ann Arbor 1960), 106–7; A. Momigliano, ‘An interim report on the origins of Rome’, JRS 53 (1963), 95–121; C. Ampolo, ‘L’Artemide di Marsiglia e la Diana dell’Aventino’, PP 25 (1970), 200–10; M. Gras, ‘Le temple de Diane sur l’Aventin’, RÉA 89 (1987), 47–61; see Green, Roman Religion (n. 59), 87–111 for a discussion of the relationship between Diana of the Aventine and her cult site in Aricia; see in general LTUR 2.11–13. (61) For a general study of this subject see R. Garland, The Eye of the Beholder: Deformity and Disability in the Graeco-Roman World (Ithaca 1995). (62) See Stewart, On Longing (n. 25), 109–10; cf. S. M. Pearce, On Collecting. An Investigation into Collecting in the European Tradition (London 1995), 317, who notes that the ‘freak’ stands outside so-called ‘normal’ cultural parameters. (63) See Stewart, On Longing (n. 25), 109; for a related discussion see N. Humphrey, ‘The Illusion of Beauty’, in N. Humphrey (ed.), Consciousness Regained (Oxford 1984), 121–37; Pearce, On Collecting (n. 62), 317. (64) Pliny, HN 7.34; see Carey, Pliny’s Catalogue of Culture (n. 2), 98 for discussion. (65) Pliny, HN 7.34; on Alcippe see Garland, Eye of the Beholder (n. 61), 54 citing Phlegon of Tralles (who may or may not be referring to Pompey’s theatre) and also citing ‘four pairs of conjoined twins, a boy with the head of a dog, and a stillborn infant allegedly born to a male homosexual’ (FGrH 257 F36.20, 23, 25). (66) Pliny, HN 7.74–5; see Barton, Sorrows (n. 9), 86 for Gabbara in his context among other curiosities, including the dwarf Cinopas and a diminutive liberta belonging to Augustus’ daughter, Julia.

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The Monster and the Map (67) Pliny, HN 7.75; see Garland, Eye of the Beholder (n. 61), 54 for discussion; cf. Carey, ‘Problems of Totality’ (n. 7), 5; see K. J. Hartswick, The Gardens of Sallust: A Changing Landscape (Austin 2004), 19 and her study in general for the Horti Sallustiani and its collection. (68) Pliny, HN 7.75; see Garland, Eye of the Beholder (n. 61), 54 for discussion; also see Carey, ‘Problems of Totality’ (n. 7), 5. (69) Pliny, Ep. 2.3.8; the living themselves could further act as commemoratives of Rome’s past, as was the case, arguably, with the descendants of the orator Hortensius, whose impoverished family was given financial support from the imperial purse so that so illustrious a family might not go extinct, see Tac. Ann. 2.37. (70) Tac.Ann. 15.34; for Vatinius also see Mart. 10.3.4, 14.96.1; Juvenal 5.46–8; the ‘defect’ was said to be a long nose (Mart. 10.96). For other such characters see Horace, Sermones 1.5.52 (for Sarmentus), and Juvenal 5.4 (for Gabba at the court of Augustus); Tac.Ann. 12.49 and Juvenal 4.13–31 (for Paelignus and Crispinus at the court of Claudius); Claudius’ own infirmities were the butt of jokes at Caligula’s court (Suet. Calig. 23.2; Suet. Tib. 61). For emperors keeping company with ‘the monstrous’ see Garland, Eye of the Beholder (n. 61), 45–58. (71) See R. Chévallier, ‘Le bois, l’arbre et la forêt chez Pline’, in J. Pigeaud and J. Oroz (eds.), Pline L’Ancien: témoin de son Temps (Salamanca and Nantes 1987), 147–72 for a general discussion of plant life in this context, esp. forests and trees; see 164–7 for trees of a particularly marvellous sort; for trees in triumphal displays see Östenberg, Staging the World (n. 18), 184–8. (72) See e.g. the speech of Calgacus in Tac. Agr. 30–2 where he clearly views the domination and appropriation of resources, both natural and human, as an inherent aspect of Roman imperialism; see Rutledge, Tacitus in Tartan’ (n. 17), 76–81 for discussion. (73) See French, Ancient Natural History (n. 15), 207. (74) Pliny, HN 16.200; for Agrippa’s tree see Pliny, HN 36.201; Cass. Dio 55.8.4; for discussion see Thomas,Monumentality (n. 14), 215. (75) Pliny, HN 12.111; see Östenberg, Staging the World (n. 18), 186–8. (76) Pliny, HN 12.20, 111, 25.5–8; see A. Kuttner, ‘Culture and History at Pompey’s Museum’, TAPA 129 (1999), 345–50 for discussion. (77) There were a number of important sites also associated with both the fig and laurel in Rome. The ficus Navia was a sacred tree in the Forum with a bronze statue of Lupa nursing Romulus and Remus nearby and not to be confused with the ficus Ruminalis, Pliny, HN 15.77; there was also a self-sown fig in the Forum Page 27 of 30

 

The Monster and the Map associated with the olive and vine, HN 15.78; on the Palatine was a laurel that according to tradition grew spontaneously the day of Augustus’ birth with the leaves of which he crowned himself during triumphs, Servius, In Aeneidem 6.230. In addition, there was a massive vine from a single stem that shaded the Portico of Livia and produced twelve amphorae of wine annually, HN 14.11 (citing Cornelius Valerianus). (78) Pliny, HN 16.216; cf. p. 67 for Cicero’s long-lived citrus wood table. (79) See Stewart, On Longing (n. 25), 86 for the giant as a paradoxical consuming force. (80) See J. Clifford, ‘Objects and Selves—an Afterward’, in G. Stocking (ed.), Objects and Others: Essays on Museums and Material Culture, History of Anthropology, 3 (Madison Wis. 1985), 239, who discusses how objects stand as metonyms for other cultures. Also see Edwards, Writing Rome (n. 11), 100 for the world as physically represented in Rome not just by maps, but by the ‘fragments of Rome’s empire’ that were ubiquitous. Cf. B. Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, ‘Objects of Ethnography’, in I. Karp and S. D. Lavine (eds.), Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display (Washington DC 1991), 390: the specimen, as a fragment (of empire) becomes a document in which identity can be transfigured and reread. (81) For this corporeal aspect of the city see E. J. Gowers, ‘The Anatomy of Rome from Capitol to Cloaca’, JRS 85 (1995), 23–32; cf. Edwards, Writing Rome (n. 11), 82–5 for Rome as a body with the Capitoline as its head. For reassurance of domination see Stewart, On Longing (n. 25), 110, who notes ‘On display, the freak represents the naming of the frontier and the assurance that the wilderness, the outside, is now territory’; cf. 73 for the giant as ‘a mixed category; a violator of boundary and rule; an overabundance of the natural and hence an affront to cultural systems’. (82) Translation by H. B. Dewing from the Loeb edition. (83) But equally fitting, as J. Onians, Classical Art and the Cultures of Greece and Rome (New Haven 1999), 235 notes, for the last of the Flavians who oversaw the completion of the vast amphitheatre whose sole function was as a place to entertain viewers by hacking the bodies of men and beasts. On the figurative dismembering and fragmenting of the city in late antiquity and into the Middle Ages see Edwards, Writing Rome (n. 11), 25–6, 89–95. (84) For the colossus of Augustus see Mart. 8.44.6–8 who indicates that it was near the Temple of Mars (aedemque Martis et colosson Augusti curris). (85) See e.g. Livy 9.44.16 for a giant Hercules erected on the Capitoline after the victory over the Samnites in 305 BC; Pliny, HN 34.43 for a giant Tuscan style Page 28 of 30

 

The Monster and the Map statue of Apollo in the library of the Temple of Divus Augustus; Pliny, HN 34.43, who relates that in 293 BC after Spurius Carvilius conquered the Samnites he had a statue of Jupiter (on the Capitoline in Pliny’s day still) made from the breastplates, greaves, and helmets of the enemy; from the left over metal filings Spurius had a statue of himself made that stood before the image; see Gruen, Culture and Identity (n. 2), 88. For a brief history of colossal statuary in Rome and the architectural venues that housed them see now Thomas, Monumentality (n. 14), 4, 208; cf. 150 where Thomas notes that size was also a reflection of political power. P. Stewart, Statues in Roman Society. Representation and Response (Oxford 2003), 152 notes that later Alexander Severus brought ‘artists from everywhere to erect many colossi in Rome and “suitably adorning” the Temple of Isis and Serapis with statues’ (see S.H.A. Alex. Sev. 26.4, 25.9, 26.8). (86) See Pliny, HN 35.51–2. When finished it was in the Gardens of Maius (in Maianis hortis), though later struck by lightning and burned. See L. R. Richardson, A New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome (Baltimore and London 1992), 199, who believes that the fact that the portrait and the colossus were both 120 feet indicates a relationship between the two. For discussion concerning Nero’s colossus, see P. Howell, ‘The Colossus of Nero’, Athenaeum, 46 (1968), 292–9; C. Lega, ‘Il Colosso di Nerone’, BullCom 93.2 (1989–90), 339– 78; Carey, Pliny’s Catalogue of Culture (n. 2), 156–76; for its context in Pliny’s political thought see F. de Oliveira, Les Idées politiques et morales de Pline l’Ancien (Coimbra 1992), 181; also see R. R. R. Smith, ‘Nero and the Sun-God: Divine Accessories and Political Symbols in Roman Imperial Images’,JRA 13 (2000), 532–42 (with his review of M. Bergmann, Die Strahlen der Herrscher: Theomorphes Herrschbild und Politische Symbolik in Hellenismus und der Römischen Kaiserzeit (Mainz 1998)), esp. 536–7 for discussion of Pliny’s treatment of the statue. Pliny may well have known the architect of the colossus, Zenodorus; J. Reynolds, ‘The Elder Pliny and His Times’, in R. French and F. Greenaway (eds.), Science in the Early Roman Empire: Pliny the Elder, His Sources and Influence (London 1986), 6–7. (87) For the giant as a symbolic figure for luxury, overabundance, and consumption see Stewart, On Longing (n. 25), 80–2. (88) The work was a thanks offering from fourteen Asian cities for earthquake relief. See CIL 10.1624 = ILS 156, a copy of the colossus’ base in Rome from Puteoli; also see Tac. Ann. 2.47, 4.13; Pliny, HN 2.200. (89) Stewart, On Longing (n. 25), 70; for general discussion see 70–103. (90) See n. 14 above. The vast size of Pliny’s work is echoed by his collection of statistical data; see Nicolet, Politics (n. 8), 9–16; Purcell, ‘City of Rome’ (n. 6), 423–5; Edwards, Writing Rome (n. 11), 99–100; Carey Pliny’s Catalogue of Culture (n. 2), 45–7. For the lack of coherence and the enormity of Pliny’s work Page 29 of 30

 

The Monster and the Map see Murphy, Pliny (n. 3), 34; for Pliny’s own emphasis on its extraordinary length see the praefatio to book 18 and M. Beagon, ‘Burning the Brambles: Rhetoric and Ideology in Pliny, Natural History 18 (1–24)’, in D. Innes, H. Hine, and C. Pelling (eds.), Ethics and Rhetoric. Classical Essays for Donald Russell on his Seventy-Fifth Birthday (Oxford 1995), 118. A similar thought is found in Livy’s praefatio when he refers to his undertaking as an immensi operis. (91) See S. Pothecary, ‘Kolossourgia. “A colossal statue of a work”’, in D. Dueck, H. Lindsay, and S. Pothecary (eds.), Strabo’s Cultural Geography. The Making of a Kolossourgia (Cambridge 2005), 5–26, esp. 5 citing Strabo 1.1.23; see Onians, Classical Art (n. 83), 249–56 for a related discussion. (92) See Edwards, Writing Rome (n. 11), 100: ‘Pliny describes the world itself as aeternum, “everlasting”, and immensum, “immeasureable”, qualities he goes on to attribute to Rome’. Part of this breaking of temporal limits is inherent in the very nature of the cultural objects gathered in Rome; see Pearce, On Collecting (n. 62), 170, who notes that ‘The material nature of objects means that they, and they alone, have the capacity to carry the past physically into the present’. For the ability of objects, particularly the antique, to suppress time and master the temporal forces of birth and death see J. Baudrillard, The System of Objects (London 1996), 76.

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Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps

Ancient Rome as a Museum: Power, Identity, and the Culture of Collecting Steven Rutledge

Print publication date: 2012 Print ISBN-13: 9780199573233 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: March 2015 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199573233.001.0001

Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps Steven H. Rutledge

DOI:10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199573233.003.0007

Abstract and Keywords This chapter examines major imperial collections and their significance. What were the major imperial displays within the city, and what did they potentially signify? More importantly, how did such collections and displays come to reflect the values of individual emperors, and how did they function in their larger topographical settings? While numerous studies have looked at imperial collections, those under Augustus have received the lion's share of attention. The chapter puts Augustus' collections in the context of other substantial collections and in their larger cultural and historical context. Keywords:   imperial collections, Roman Empire, artefacts, Augustus, Rome

The concept of great men collecting and displaying culturally valuable material in Rome was virtually an organic concept embedded in Roman institutions and cultural practices. The ceremony of the triumph is perhaps most illustrative of this ‘organic’ quality, with its importation and display of cultural artefacts from conquered peoples, as well as material such as statues and other such images manufactured specifically to celebrate the occasion that were subsequently exhibited in different locations throughout the city.1 Lists were drawn up, sometimes very elaborate ones, that catalogued the material in the triumphs of, to cite the most spectacular examples, M. Fulvius Nobilior (after Ambracia), Aemilius Paullus (after Pydna), Pompey the Great (upon his return from Asia), Julius Caesar (over Gaul, Egypt, and the kings Juba and Pharnaces), and Vespasian (after his defeat of the rebellion in Judaea).2 On some occasions prior Page 1 of 65

 

Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps to triumphs there were temporary displays of the spoils in the Circus Flaminius in the southern Campus Martius.3 The material was then put on permanent exhibition in a variety of venues, and scholars have noted that individual porticoes and temples would have constituted museums in their own right.4 Most collections accrued haphazardly over time, with little in the way of any organizing principles. (p.222) There were on occasion, however, coherent collections during the republic that were intended to reflect the values and accomplishments of the triumphator through a nexus of connections among its objects, such as that in the portico to Pompey’s theatre.5 Such collections and venues emerged naturally from the self-advertising nature of the Roman aristocracy.6 Let us consider as an introductory case study the relatively modest example of M. Fulvius Nobilior, whose collection was a precursor to the more elaborate ones found during the late republic and principate. After his campaign against Ambracia (which ended in 187 BC), Fulvius deposited nine statues of the Muses (by an unknown artist) in the Temple of Hercules Musarum.7 He dedicated the remaining spoils in the same temple, although a well-known image of Ambracia capta, carried in the triumph, was displayed at Fulvius’ house.8 Fulvius’ elaborate display stands as an example whereby the value of the individual objects construct in their totality a web of significance by virtue of their individual components, thereby creating a new set of values as a whole. Fulvius also transferred a small shrine of the Camenae (the native Italic version of the Muses), originally placed (according to tradition) by Numa in the Temple of Honos et Virtus, to the Temple of Hercules Musarum (see map 7.3), which was also the location of Rome’s collegium poetarum, putting, as Gruen notes, ‘the fruits of war in the service of the advancement of culture’.9 It was in this small shrine that he (p.223) deposited his fasti, while his res gestae, famously immortalized by Ennius, were also dedicated in the temple.10 Taken in its sum the collection stands as an instance where the Muses as guardians of culture and memory work to render the ultimate expression of power, the institutionalized violence of warfare celebrated in song, as something aesthetic, even desirable. And as something desirable, culture in a sense here becomes enmeshed in a web of violence, desire, and appropriation. War, triumph, epic (even Herculean) struggle, the loot of a conquered people, its celebration in epic poetry, and the literal enshrining of such values weave together a narrative that expressed the aspirations and values of a fiercely aggressive elite. As the city entered the imperial period, the tendency towards coherent, programmatic collections becomes more apparent. Collections became less a product of the aggregate historical and cultural dynamics of the city-state, certainly less a product of political competition among the elite, and more a reflection of the individual ruling family and its interests. The reflection of Roman identity and history through the display of cultural property was narrowed down from a series of ruling families to a single household. Certain Page 2 of 65

 

Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps dynamics naturally remained in place, including the concern to legitimate authority and to construct a visual narrative that would serve the elite’s interests and ideologies through the strategic deployment of cultural property; only such deployment now intensified as the venues became more grandiose and the visual programmes arguably more focused, expressing the values of a single dynasty or princeps. The shift can perhaps be best illustrated by a brief consideration of Asinius Pollio’s collection in the Atrium Libertatis, created under Augustus. Certainly Pollio’s collection was by all accounts splendid and conferred a great deal of prestige on him.11 The building was prominently situated and functioned not only as an art collection, but Rome’s first library as well.12 Pliny gives a list of the large collection of sculpture (in marble) housed in the building (HN 36.33–5), which included a group of centaurs with nymphs on their backs by Arcesilaus (cf. HN 35.155); a group of Thespiades by Cleomenes; figures of Oceanus and Zeus (p.224) by Heniochis; the nymphs of Appia by Stephanus; hermoerotes (Eros figures as Hermes) by Tauriscus of Tralles; a Zeus Hospitalis by Papylus, a pupil of Praxiteles; and Zethus and Amphion with Dirce and the bull carved out of one block, the joint work of Apollonius and Tauriscus and brought from Rhodes (see fig. 7.1). Also in Asinius’ collection was a Dionysus by Eutychides. Praxiteles’ was represented by several works as well, including Maenads, caryatids, an Apollo, a Neptune, and Sileni, while his son, Cephisodotus, was represented by a Venus. The collection also included figures by Scopas taken from a sculpture group that originally had included Vesta. Pliny (HN 35.9–10) also alludes to a series of bronze portraits in the library associated with the collection. Yet it does not have the same significance as the imperial collections we find, or for that matter, as the previous ones from the republic, since it appears the collection was created based on purely aesthetic considerations. The time of the republican grandee who competed for power, as Asinius knew well, had vanished. He had no stake to play in a political environment that was no longer as competitive as it once had been, nor did he have any agenda to promote. If anything, Asinius’ collection will have been absorbed into Augustus’ attraction towards Hellenic culture and his use of it in the context of visual display within the city. That does not preclude the possibility of other readings, it is merely to note that the power to use the city as a means towards visual self-promotion was now to be in the control of the princeps, to serve his purposes as a place to legitimize his power and consolidate his authority.13 While the collection consisted of numerous ‘prestige objects’, and constituted a display of Pollio’s beneficence (and was recognized as such), it also needs to be understood in the context of Augustus’ encouragement of other similar projects, such as the Temple of Apollo Sosianus or the Theatre of Balbus, an encouragement that in and of itself is tell-tale of the emperor’s potentia.14 Page 3 of 65

 

Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps (p.225) (p.226) As noted elsewhere in our study (see p. 16 with n. 30), individual cultural objects are tantamount to utterances, their collective narrative legible as text, and this leaves open the question of reader response. What we will consider here is an array of possible readings, some that attempt to reconstruct ‘authorial intent’, but others that offer variant interpretations based on the nexus of associations objects in a given collection, or even series of collections, could create. Such readings, it should be noted, were frequently dynamic: a new turn in current events or a simple change in an object’s context could alter radically the hermeneutic potential within a set of cultural artefacts. While this was already true in the republican period, it is more readily traceable during the principate, in part because our portraits of imperial lives are more detailed, as is the historical narrative of the period.

Fig. 7.1 The Farnese Bull, depicting the punishment of Dirce, was executed by Apollonius and Tauriscus of Tralles, two Hellenistic sculptors, and originally made up a part of Asinius Pollio’s collection in the Atrium Libertatis. Possibly a Severan copy from the Baths of Caracalla, Rome. H: 3.7 m. Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples.

It may also be significant that we hear little of large collections (Pompey’s excepted) until the advent of the principate. It is perhaps no coincidence, therefore, that Pliny the Elder dates the recognition of the importance of public art exhibits to the foundation of the Augustan principate, although Pliny’s assessment may well be skewed simply by the numerous programmatic displays assembled under Augustus and successive emperors. Pliny further notes that M. Agrippa advanced the public importance of art and cites a speech Agrippa gave on the question of making art state property rather than having it hidden away in private estates.15 However Pliny also asserts that it was Caesar especially who imparted public authority (auctoritas) to painting by dedicating pictures of Medea (see fig. 3.8) and Ajax in front of the Temple of Venus Genetrix in his forum (HN 35.26). We therefore take our cue

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Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps from Pliny by starting our discussion with Caesar, who represents a historical transition from republican war-lord to imperial princeps.

Reading Caesar: Love and War, Gods and Empire Caesar stands first in the line of emperors whose public collection receives (relatively) extensive notice in our sources. The collection, such as it was, was gathered in conjunction with the construction of his forum which included a modest group of fine artefacts in its Temple of Venus Genetrix, something that was to become a trend as emperors dedicated their fora and adorned them with works of art (see map 7.1 with the model, fig. 7.2).16 Augustus (who finished it) (p.227) and Tiberius made subsequent additions to Caesar’s forum. Caesar vowed the temple on the eve of the battle of Pharsalus to Venus Victrix but subsequently changed her appellation.17 He commissioned the temple’s cult statue from the Greek sculptor, Arcesilaus (Pliny, HN 35.156), but there were numerous other artefacts that adorned the

Map 7.1 Plan of Imperial Fora in the mid-

temple.18 The collection wove a second century AD. narrative of empire, a central nodal point of which was the intersection of Caesar’s lineage, his own personality, and his place in Rome’s pantheon of conquerors.

(p.228) One of the best known of the cultural artefacts to adorn the temple, in addition to Arcesilaus’ statue, was a corselet of pearls from Britain; similarly, pearl earrings said to be Cleopatra’s were set in her gold statue inside the temple.19 The two artefacts were closely connected. The pearls, symbols of wealth, love, and of the sea (ergo appropriate to Venus who was born from it) arguably connect the extent of Caesar’s conquest, both in geographic terms (from the pearls of Britain to those of Egypt) and sexual terms (epitomized again by Cleopatra).20 We note that sexual

Fig. 7.2 A reproduction of the Imperial Fora as it appeared in the middle of the second century AD. From the lower right following to the left is Trajan’s forum, the Forum of Augustus (itself appended to the Forum of Julius Caesar in the middle

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Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps power is a force that was connected with earthly domination (p.229) throughout the literary record in authors such as Vergil and Catullus, where geographic conquest and domination is literally measured by and associated with sexual conquest.21 The symbolic value of such an association may have been reinforced by a collection of gems Caesar also dedicated in his temple (Pliny, HN 37.11), since jewellery was often associated with the realm of the feminine (in this context, with Venus and Cleopatra again). Caesar’s choice of precious gems for dedication also supports his reputation in the literary record as a fastidious man who was excessively fond of clothes, liked to dress in finery, and was something of a dandy.22 The close association of the feminine aspects of the programme, taken in conjunction with his own personality and this particular dedication, further constitutes an apt reflection of Caesar’s occasionally ambiguous sexuality (underscored by his affair with Nicomedes, the King of Bithynia, Suet. Iul. 49). In addition, both the statue (of Cleopatra) and the cuirass (of pearls) serve as an intersection between love and war, reminiscent of the conquest of Egypt and his invasion of Britain, but also of Caesar’s romantic adventurism. The objects measure and express the extent of imperial and erotic conquest, and arguably beyond, since Cleopatra’s statue was cast in gold, a material saved almost exclusively, up until this period, for divinities (see fig. 5.9).23

Caesar’s conquest, then, is not of the illustration), the Forum merely on a physical (both Transitorium (started by Domitian though sexual and military) scale, but sometimes called the Forum of Nerva), rather is raised to a far higher and Vespasian’s Forum of Peace. Museo plane, one that is on a quasi-if della Civiltà Romana, Rome. not actually divine level, adding another dimension to his relationship with Venus Genetrix, who, after all, was not always merely the goddess of love. She was also associated, as we find in Lucretius (1.1–27 who calls her Aeneadum genetrix, ‘creator of Aeneas’ clan’, in the very first line), with a power over the earth that is near complete.24 Her domination both in Lucretius’ poem and in Caesar’s temple to her reflects Caesar’s own dominion as well, since her epithet ‘Genetrix’ connects Caesar to Venus both ancestrally, and in her capacity as earth’s regent. Her imperiousness is mirrored in Caesar’s bronze statue on the Capitoline which had the globe at its feet (possibly similar to that shown in fig. 6.1) with the (p.230) inscription added that he was a demigod.25 His vast dominion that encompasses the world arguably corresponds to his ancient lineage, indeed, his ancient birthright, which stretched all the way back to Venus, a lineage that encompassed the bounds of both divine and human history. Caesar’s forum made two important qualities we associate with the man—lover and conqueror—indivisible. The connection was made explicit and complete when Augustus later constructed his own forum, with its temple of Mars, in conjunction with Caesar’s: it served as a symbolic ‘wedding’ between Rome’s mother and father, between the elements of love and strife, between regeneration and warfare, and obliquely referred to the role of both as Rome’s new ‘founders’.26 The two seemingly opposite elements are in fact inseparable Page 6 of 65

 

Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps here because of the occasion on which Venus’ temple was vowed, on the eve of Pompey’s defeat at Pharsalus (hence a martial context). That, too, may well explain why we have here not a temple to Victrix but Genetrix, astutely avoiding use of Pompey’s Venus at the same time reflective and reminiscent of the vanquished, since the temple was a product of Caesar’s further conquest. The association with Venus Genetrix was further reinforced by Caesar’s equestrian statue that stood in front of the temple. It was apparently remarkable because Caesar’s horse had unusual hooves on its front legs giving them the appearance of human feet. It was originally an equestrian statue of Alexander mounted on Bucephalus and was subsequently altered, with Caesar’s head replacing Alexander’s, with the horse’s hooves also modified to reflect the unusual feature.27 The statue was associated not just with Alexander but also executed by his favourite sculptor, Lysippus, and will have emphasized Caesar’s role as conqueror and connected him with antiquity’s greatest general.28 Equally telling for our purposes is the statue’s location: his forum was set up in the same manner (p.231) as any number of sacred precincts throughout the Greek East, with a temple set in the back of a large sacred enclosure. It is perhaps to state the obvious that his forum, set parallel to the new Curia but at the same time dwarfing it, was intended as a political statement nullifying the old order represented by the republican senate. To set his statue in the middle of such a precinct, prominently in front of a temple, and then to advertise divine lineage, underscored with the epithet Genetrix, was without precedent in the city and emphasized Caesar’s claim to supreme auctoritas and potentia. In addition, Caesar adorned the front of his temple with two famous paintings by Timomachus, his Ajax and Medea (see fig. 3.8).29 According to our sources, Caesar chose the paintings himself, though it is uncertain when they were added to the forum. As was the case for any Roman of his class, they naturally will have reflected his taste for Greek art, however, they could not have helped but to offer possible readings that will have served as commentary on more current events. Consider the Ajax, which depicted his madness (which ended in suicide). The Romans were familiar with the tale and, more than likely, the Sophoclean model on which it will have been based.30 After 46 BC, it will have been impossible for contemporary viewers to look at the work without the death of Cato coming to mind, Caesar’s great enemy, who chose suicide rather than surrendering to his nemesis.31 Yet how the audience will have understood that event is not easy to ascertain, though a variety of possibilities presented themselves to the viewer. A ‘proCaesarian’ reading could understand the picture as depicting, metaphorically, the blind madness on the part of his enemies—a madness that, like Sophocles’ hero, served only to bring disgrace upon Caesar’s opponents. A more ambiguous reading would perhaps be more sympathetic towards Cato, who held his honour at too high a price to live among men he considered morally duplicitous.32 A Page 7 of 65

 

Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps resistant and subversive reading, or a reading that reaffirmed Caesar’s actions? 33

Either is possible, though the potential for variant readings are especially enticing in this instance, given the destabilized political environment Rome was (p.232) experiencing at this period, when relations in power between strongmen and the senate were both tense and fluid. The subject of Medea obviously offered the viewer more than one interpretation beyond the simple plot of the story.34 The painting represented Medea contemplating the murder of her children, and the work was unfinished (and for that reason admired all the more).35 The very subject could not have helped but to evoke associations with the statue of Cleopatra within: Cleopatra overwhelmed and charmed both Caesar and Marc Antony; indeed, by repute she was the quintessential bewitching, exotic easterner, like her mythological counterpart from Colchis. Taken as a collective triad Venus, Cleopatra, and Medea formed a group in the archetypal realm of the feminine: Venus as love goddess/mother, Cleopatra as queen/consort, and Medea as beguiling witch. They encompassed and reigned in the realm of heaven, of earth, and mediated in between, reflecting the extent of Caesar’s own reach, ultimately, as conqueror, high priest, king, and demigod.36 One can imagine that Caesar would have been delighted to have left behind such a memory. His detractors, though, will have doubtless read all of this somewhat differently: in Venus one saw too Caesar’s effeminacy, and in Cleopatra and Medea his weak surrender to amorous appetites and ‘feminine wiles’. The Medea presents the ambiguous and disturbing reading, too, of mother and murderess, a reflection of Caesar as Pater Patriae, but also as the murderer of the republican patria of which he was parent.37 The reading of other ‘Caesarian’ artefacts we find is no more stable, since they offer the potential for resistant readings even as they attempt to establish an official discourse. In the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, for example, Caesar’s sella curulis (‘seat of consular honour’) and crown (possibly that famously refused at the Lupercalia) were on display for all to see (fig. 7.4).38 Ostensibly these objects projected Caesar’s power and his forbearance, although such symbols are potentially ambiguous and allow for various interpretations: do these tokens of royal power advertise Caesar’s refusal to become king? Do they advertise his potential to have seized supreme power? Or perhaps it advertised a power he in fact already (p.233)

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Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps had, allowing him therefore to dispose of its outward signifiers as he saw fit? Or was the viewer brought to mind of all three simultaneously? Caesar himself may have wanted the viewer to be left in doubt.

What served ultimately to clarify Caesar’s grandiose place in commemorative terms were honours such as the senatorial decree granting Caesar the right to locate his tomb inside the pomerium. Before Caesar, Romulus and an apocryphal handful of others (such as Orestes, see p. 211) were known to have a tomb within the city’s sacred boundary. The decree was inscribed in gold letters, supposedly on a silver tablet, and placed at the feet of the statue of Jupiter

Fig. 7.3 A laurel wreath rests on a sella curulis, a setting and context that was similar for the crown that Caesar famously refused at the Lupercalia then dedicated on the Capitoline. The legend inscribed on the chair reads CAESAR DIC PER (‘Caesar, dictator in perpetuity’). Reverse of a silver denarius. The British Museum, London.

Capitolinus.39 Both the location of the inscription and the precious material used were clear indicators of Caesar’s special status, if not actual divinity. The decree ultimately came to fruition in the form of the Temple of Divus Julius, dedicated where he was cremated, and built by his heir and successor Octavian.40 That Caesar was granted this post-mortem honour will have served to associate him as well with Rome’s founder, Romulus, who was granted similar honours.41 (p.234) Although Romulus is associated more closely with Augustus, it was nonetheless an apt if dubious honour for Caesar, who wore the ancient dress of the kings and was rumoured to have regal aspirations.42 Caesar’s association with Venus was subsequently picked up and ‘echoed’ as it were by Augustus, when he adorned the Temple of Divus Julius with Apelles’ famous painting, the Venus Anadyomenē.43 The choice of the painting will have been appropriate for two important reasons. First, the subject was suited to the familial descent of the Julian clan from Venus. It both looks back to Caesar’s divine parentage and Augustus’ own and as such helps to legitimize Augustus’ rule and authority, further solidifying the visual claim made in Caesar’s forum.44 That it was Venus Anadyomenē means that it depicted the birth of Venus, a theme that looks to beginnings and origins, that is, to Venus Genetrix (in her Page 9 of 65

 

Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps capacity as ‘mother’), while the motif of birth also ties Augustus to both Caesar and Venus qua Genetrix as he ushers in the birth of a new age and further advertises his ties to his adoptive father.45 In addition, Apelles, as was the case with Lysippus, was associated with Alexander; he was reportedly the only painter allowed to execute Alexander’s portrait, and was certainly the biggest ‘name’ in the world of ancient painting. Conveniently, Apelles was one of Augustus’ favourite artists. While that certainly motivated his choice, the fact remains that Caesar’s ancestry, and by implication Caesar himself, was to be commemorated by the same artist, and by tradition the only artist aside from Lysippus permitted to portray Alexander. It is perhaps no accident in this regard that Alexander’s favourite sculptor originally executed the equestrian statue in Caesar’s forum. The overall effect of these associations is to destabilize if not collapse the boundaries between Greek and Roman, between past and present, and in so doing to colonize all with a Caesarian identity and message of power. (p.235) As we shall see below, the importance of the association with Alexander and conquest in general was not lost on Caesar’s successor. Augustus was to pick up the Caesarian threads that wove the intricate web of connections between empire, the divine, and history, and to make them his own. It was perhaps with this in mind that Augustus adorned the rostrum on the front of the Temple of Divus Julius with the bronze beaks of ships taken from the battle at Actium (Cass. Dio 51.19.2). Far different from his predecessor’s dubious embracing of the Egyptian enchantress, the rams are a statement of refutation of the queen’s charms; her weapons of domination are literally turned against her, and set in their proper sphere as masculine trophies with little possibility for ambiguous reading. Augustus has conquered the queen, but also conquered the sea from which Venus emerged, as though to further establish both his earthly and divine imperium.

Augustus, Violence, and Culture Augustus himself inherited a long tradition of using the city as a field for political competition, as is evident in his response to his political opponent, Marc Antony. Augustus set up a statue to Zeus on the Capitoline by Myron, one of three colossal statues that Antony had taken from the Heraion near the Imbrasus River (the other two were statues of Athena and Hercules, also by Myron).46 He then erected a small chapel for the Zeus, but had the other two statues restored to their original shrine, a sign, comparatively speaking, of his moderatio and pietas set against his excessive and grasping foe. However, by virtue of his position and long life, he ultimately went much farther in leaving his mark on the city than anyone had before (see map 7.2; he was involved in the construction or refurbishment of no less than a dozen of the features listed on the map). For him it was a place to write his own story and weave a tapestry consisting of the narrative of Rome’s ‘grand’ past, its history and religion, in Page 10 of 65

 

Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps conjunction with the fabric of Greek culture, creating a unique form of Augustan classicism and identity. The mark Augustus left on the city has proven an irresistible subject for numerous scholars, most notably Zanker, Galinsky, Favro, and Jaeger.47 There (p.236) can be no doubt that Augustus’ presence was ubiquitous throughout the city in the form of monuments and cultural objects, from the Campus Martius to the Palatine, from the Capitoline to the new Temple of Mars Ultor. To cite but one example, no senator could sit in the new Curia under Augustus without viewing the numerous paintings he dedicated in that chamber, paintings that will have augmented the auctoritas of the new princeps as prestige objects in their own (p. 237) right.48 We focus here on the three most significant collections, those on the Palatine, in Augustus’ forum, and in the

Map 7.2 Map of Rome under Augustus.

49

Portico of Octavia.

All three collections naturally reflected the complex personality of Rome’s first princeps, and have received extensive treatment by a variety of scholars in their larger context within the ‘Augustan programme’. We give here a somewhat different reading of the Augustan city: it has long been observed that Augustan order is based on a visual rhetoric that holds out simultaneously the promise of a new stability and the spread of romanitas even as its own imperial growth and contact with external forces threaten its demise. Similarly, the collections also underscore Augustus’ legitimacy and authority, even as they hold out a potentially resistant reading. Our concern here is a reading of the interplay specifically of the objects both among one another, and within their given contexts as collections, in order to understand Augustus’ motives in the display of such objects, and their (potential) meaning for the viewer. In addition, we here examine where Augustus fits overall in his larger historical context as an emperor who exhibits culturally significant material on a grand scale. The Palatine Collection

The Palatine was perhaps the most intensely personal of all the collections and monuments Augustus built, partly due to its location near his house, partly due to his relationship with Apollo. He believed that Apollo had assisted him in his Page 11 of 65

 

Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps victory at Actium and, in a notorious costumed feast held during a famine in Rome in which participants dressed as deities, he had come attired as his favourite god.50 It comes as no surprise then, that his cult was a central element to Augustus’ building programme on the Palatine.51 First, a review of what we (p.238) know concerning the building, its adornment, and collection: Augustus vowed the temple during his campaign against Sextus Pompeius in 36 BC at the battle of Naulochus (Velleius Paterculus 2.81.3), and it was dedicated in 28 BC. The portico associated with the temple and Palatine library (see fig. 7.4), sometimes known as the Portico of the Danaids, had individual statues of the Danaidae—the daughters of Danaos who had slain the sons of Aegyptus on their wedding night and were eternally punished—set in between the portico’s columns (possibly similar to the herms we see in fig. 7.5).52 The temple itself contained a treasure trove of Greek sculpture. There was an Artemis by Timotheus, whose head had been restored by Evander.53 The cult statue of Apollo was by Scopas (Pliny, HN 36.25) while the obligatory statue of Latona, complementing the Artemis and Apollo, was by Cephisodotus (Pliny, HN 36.24). The three will have formed a triad and are represented in the form they took in the temple on the so-called Sorrento Base (see fig. 7.6).54 At some point early on, Augustus’ nephew, Marcellus, dedicated a collection of gems (dactyliotheca) in the temple.55 Also included in the collection was a lamp stand said to have belonged to Alexander the Great (Pliny, HN 34.14). The exterior roof carried a chariot group (of the sun) and statues, all by Bupalos and Athenis, which will have dated to the archaic period.56 The temple’s altar was adorned with four bulls by Myron, (one at each corner, Propertius 2.31.5–8). There was, in addition, an arch on the Palatine that Augustus may have set up in honour of his father, Octavius, which conceivably served as an entrance way leading into the area of Apollo’s temple, on which he set a shrine (aedicula) (p.239) adorned with a work by the sculptor Lysias, a team of four horses, Apollo, and Artemis, all carved out of a single marble block.57

The composition and significance of the complex has received extensive treatment by numerous scholars. It has long since been observed that Artemis and Apollo are prominent together in this particular collection to emphasize an ideology of vengeance.58 The theme was repeated in the Portico of the Danaids, (who, as noted, paid

Fig. 7.4 Plan of the House of Augustus and the Temple of Apollo Palatinus. On the right is the Temple of Apollo; on the center bottom is the House of Augustus while the center top is the House of Livia,

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Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps with their lives for their treachery against the sons of Aegyptus, itself significant given Augustus’ campaign

his wife; on the left is the Temple of the Magna Mater.

against Cleopatra), and on the subjects carved on the doors.59 The doors also depicted the Gauls being (p.240) struck down at Delphi in revenge for their attempted sack of Apollo’s sacred site and the story of Niobe’s children slain by Artemis and Apollo for their mother’s boasting that she was more fortunate than Leto in her children.60 Both stories contained the lesson of divine retribution, a theme that was to be directly (p. 241)

Fig. 7.5 These herms depicting the Danaids from the precinct of Apollo Palatinus are likely similar to the originals set between the columns of the precinct’s portico which gave the portico its name. Their story was also told on the temple’s doors, underscoring the theme of vengeance. H: 1.20 m. (without bases). Antiquarium del Palatino, Rome.

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Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps mirrored in the Temple of Mars Ultor. But, vengeance is only one part of the story.

The complex and its objects, taken collectively, further realize the prophecy of promised Trojan vengeance against Greece. Greek cultural artefacts have been displaced and given a new, distinctly Roman context and significance here. While the various images still stand as objects of cult veneration in their own right, they now also are overseers of historical circumstances that have seen Roman history to its teleological conclusion with Augustus who will usher in a novus ordo saeculorum. This is embodied in the subjects of the Fig. 7.6 The Sorrento Base depicting the Danaids and the Gauls Palatine triad of Diana/Artemis (centre), represented in the portico and Apollo (left), and Latona (right), with the on the doors. The Danaids in Sibyl at Latona’s feet; the Diana was the their capacity as the work of Timotheus, while the cult statue murderesses of the sons of of Apollo was by Scopas and the Latona Aegyptus, as Galinsky notes, by Cephisodotus. H: 1.17 m. Museo will have brought up close Correale, Sorrento. associations with Cleopatra and her attempt to wrest away the eastern empire, while the Gauls are now at last tamed by the hand of Caesar. Neither are any longer a threat, the danger has been safely contained, shaped, reworked, and given a controlled narrative. At the same time, their liminal nature as things (p.242) that stand on the margins of civilization, that are a part of that civilization’s outer boundaries and the periphery is reinforced by the location of these subjects on the temple doors which literally stand on the limen or threshold and, for the Danaids, in their intercolumniation within the portico (which forms part of the boundary of the precinct).61 The forces of chaos and barbarism stand outside or on the edge of a divinely governed human culture even as they are brought within its embrace. The terracotta plaques that also adorned the precinct will have driven home the point. One of them in particular, which shows Apollo competing with Hercules over a tripod (fig. 7.7), is especially telling. Antony not only associated himself with Bacchus, but with Hercules as well.62 The conflict between Antony and Page 14 of 65

 

Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps Octavian was to take on divine dimensions. Here too for Augustus, it was a matter of barbarism versus the forces of civilization, since he famously remarked that Antony had ‘gone native’, lamenting according to Cassius Dio (50.25.3) that he no longer dressed as a Roman but wore the vestments of barbarians and was in thrall to a prostitute. Augustus portrays himself as the embodiment of civilization, while his rival Antony stands as its opponent, and the works here fit in the context of the visually competitive environment that we also see during the republic. As noted, set above all were two chariot groups. On the temple itself there was that of the sun, which was not merely a symbol of Apollo, but also, as Galinsky notes, of the Hellenistic kings, while the Latins in fact traced their descent back to Sol.63 On the propylea, the group of Apollo and Artemis impended over this Augustan world. Both groups stood as a reaffirmation of the divine and cosmic order, and their protection against barbarism. At the same time, however, such reaffirmation rests on the need for something to be contained, of a latent menace.64 The result is a destabilized reading that perpetuates the need for a powerful centralized control, a form of rhetoric—here expressed in visual terms —that reasserts the need for strength even as it creates a sense of instability, (p.243) constituting a rhetorical trope that has long since been recognized as a relatively common one in western societies by cultural theorists.65 A given narrative, whether textual or visual, can be presented to reassure even as it holds out the possibility of danger and threats. It reflects the larger reality, in this sense, of the (p. 244) Augustan policy of expansion and consolidation, whereby the frontier was a place of constant menace, because its boundaries were either being expanded or consolidated throughout his tenure, while concurrently the extended presence of romanitas was securely established throughout much of the Mediterranean world and beyond. Such rhetoric finds expression in the place of the Danaids and Gauls on the edges and outer boundaries of the precinct. On the Palatine this

Fig. 7.7 A painted terracotta relief from the Temple of Apollo on the Palatine depicts Apollo and Hercules battling over the Delphic tripod, reflecting Augustus’ civilizing battle (qua Apollo) against Marc

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Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps intentional destabilization and simultaneous reassurance visually expressed a key component of Augustan policy.

Such a reading finds support in Antony’s brute violence and force. H: .62 a similar programme in the m. Antiquarium del Palatino, Rome. Temple of Apollo Medicus, later Apollo Sosianus, located next to the Portico of Octavia (see map 7.3). Originally built in 433/2 BC and often thought to have been restored by C. Sosius between 34 and 32 BC, it was in fact restored by Augustus.66 Pliny the Elder tells us that the temple contained a number of important artworks, citing in particular a group of Niobids some said were by Scopas, others by Praxiteles (HN 36.28).67 In addition, the temple contained a marble statue of Apollo by Philiscus of Rhodes, with a Leto, Artemis, and the nine Muses, a nude Apollo, and an Apollo with cithara in marble by Timarchides (Pliny, HN 36.34–5). There was, as well, an Apollo in cedar-wood from Seleucia (brought presumably by Sosius, Pliny, HN 13.53). We have little idea how the material was arranged, but taken as a whole, the group was reflective of Augustus’ interest both in Greek culture and in the special emphasis he placed on Apollo, similar to what we find on the Palatine. Moreover, it is worth noting that the pediment’s sculpture on this temple, much of which is still extant, was Greek original. In this instance, given the structure’s restoration date of 32 BC, it seems very likely that Augustus’ emphasis on Apollo was intended to offset Antony’s close identification with Bacchus, a scenario all the more likely when we consider the relative absence of Bacchus in Augustan collections, and for that matter artistic programmes in general. Favro has pointed out too that Sosius was initially Antony’s ally and that the temple had been intended to set forth a competing claim of victory, hence prestige. Sosius had earned a triumph for his war against the Jews (celebrated in September of 34 BC after he installed Herod in power in 37), and was renovating the building next to the Portico of Octavia. The agonistic motivation behind Sosius’ renovations could not be clearer, though in the end (p.245)

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Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps the building was integrated into the Augustan programme.68 As was the case with the Palatine collection (and that of the Portico of Octavia), we are confronted again with the stark juxtaposition of violence and civilization. Apollo is here displayed (as he was on the Palatine) as the citharode, reflective of his role as a bringer of order and culture, but he is also represented as Apollo the slayer of Niobe’s children, as one capable of violent punishment, something starkly illustrated by a statue of a Niobid from the Horti Sallustiani that may have at one (p.246) time adorned the temple (fig. 7.8).69 The two roles are encapsulated in the small painting of a seated Apollo with his lyre, Map 7.3 Map of the Campus Martius in set against a blue backdrop, from the third century AD. his precinct on the Palatine (fig. 7.9): here as is often the case in sculpture too, there is no muscular god, but a slightly flabby, sensuous deity, a lover of peace and culture; yet peaking up behind the god is the cap on his quiver of arrows, bearers of retribution and death. The two roles create a dynamic tension between Apollo the creator, the artist, the force for order and civilization, versus Apollo the destroyer, bringer of plague and sexual predator, killer of Niobe’s children, and conquering deity of Actium. It is further worth noting here also that, as was the case with Apollo Palatinus, battle scenes with the Gauls were set on the temple’s external periphery, constituting a frieze course on which Romans make war against their ancient foe (fig. 7.10), while on the temple’s interior were scenes of triumph (see fig. 4.1); only after the Gauls had been subdued was it deemed safe to bring them into the interior and, metaphorically, within both Apollo’s sphere of culture and the confines of Roman power. The temple thereby raises, as do similar compositions in the collections on the Palatine, the possibility of a destabilized reading without closure, where order coexists uneasily with the potential for a recrudescence of force. Hence, the possibility for violence creates the need for order, but order requires in turn violence or the potential for violence, perpetuating the need for Augustus’ domination.70

The Temple of Apollo Sosianus then, while ostensibly constructed with Augustus blessings, creates a dynamic tension between the constructive and destructive forces embodied by Augustus. It supports the regime—its civilizing force—even as it holds out the possibility of destruction. Such tension has been noted by Galinsky (see above n. 64), as well as a number of art historians who remark the potential for chaos and disorder even in the context of peace, abundance, and civilizing forces (embodied on, say, the Ara Pacis) throughout visual culture in Page 17 of 65

 

Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps the Augustan age. The temple’s collection thereby creates an alternate history, in which a resistant reading is possible: Apollo may be the healer—Medicus—as was (in a sense) Augustus; but he also brings destruction and death, something Niobe’s tale grimly illustrates. It must be emphasized, however, that that destruction itself was potentially creative, a precursor to a new order and the spread of culture within it. This is something we see very much at work in the Temple of Apollo on the Palatine, and elsewhere in Augustan collections, in which cultural objects reflect the new cosmic and historical reality. In the Temple of Apollo on the Palatine (and in the (p.247)

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Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps (p.248)

Fig. 7.8 A Niobid from the Horti Sallustiani, originally in the Temple of Apollo Sosianus, shows one of the children of Niobe grasping in her death throes for one of Apollo’s deadly arrows lodged in her back, starkly illustrating the divinity’s violent nature. A Greek original 440–30 bc. H: 1.48 m. Museo Nazionale Romano, Palazzo Massimo alle Terme, Rome.

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Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps famous library associated with it), that reality was realized in the grand pastiche of artistic styles that spanned a period ranging from the archaic (one thinks of the terracotta plaques, themselves an admixture of the archaic and the classical) to the contemporary. We note that the preference for the first of these (the archaic) was in keeping with the tendency of Augustus’ day, and reflective of Augustus’ own much advertised pietas, in part because this antique style was believed to express a greater sense of reverence for the gods (in this regard, see fig. 7.19 below).71 It was (p.249)

Fig. 7.9 A fragment of a fresco from the Temple of Apollo Palatinus shows a placid, slightly flabby Apollo sporting his lyre, which is qualified by the appearance of his quiver behind his back, indicating his potential for violence under a peaceful facade. Fragment of a fresco from the Temple of Apollo Palatinus. H: . 56 m. W: .69 m. Antiquarium del Palatino, Rome.

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Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps with their assistance, Apollo’s above all, that Augustus tamed and conquered the world. His achievements mark the ushering in of a new era, one in which he encompasses a vast cultural universe that reflects Rome’s own encompassing of the oikoumenē as most vividly expressed, perhaps, in Agrippa’s map (fig. 6.6). That universe is further represented (and ordered) in cosmic terms by Apollo whose sign was the sun, and Artemis whose sign was the moon; and their spheres could be further divided into Apollo as the representative of culture, of the male, of the sexually charged youth, set against Artemis who symbolized chastity, the feminine,

Fig. 7.10 Gauls and Romans in battle. The fragment of a frieze from the exterior of the Temple of Apollo Sosianus picks up on that of the interior (see fig. 4.1) which shows Romans successfully triumphing over their defeated foe. H: .85 m. Centrale Montemartini, Rome.

and the wild.72 The diverse span of their respective universal spheres further reflects the cosmic order itself, an order to which, as Kellum notes in her (p.250) discussion of the Temple of Concordia’s collection, the ancients were quite sensitive (see p. 267).73

That cosmos as it is represented, however, is a distinctly Augustan creation, and embraces a historical and cultural universe reflective of Augustus’ own power and programme. As he stretched the boundaries of empire, he also facilitated the spread of romanitas and Hellenism whose unique blend was to span the world. The forces of rationality and civilization, of order and culture, create a novel invention ultimately embodied in Augustus’ patron deity Apollo qua citharode, something on which Augustus put special emphasis in the visual record (see e.g. fig. 7.9), whose identity as both a Greek and Roman deity, and giver of culture Augustus shared.74 He stands, in his capacity as Augustus’ divine patron, as a reassuring presence that divine power and human effort can ultimately tame and subdue the forces of chaos and nature, a reassurance underscored by other objects in the collection: hence the sun drives the horses, Myron’s four powerful bulls wait ready at the altar, an ultimate destination of sacrifice in service to men and gods, while Artemis’ presence arguably represents a powerful force over nature. The assurance that the divine ultimately acts justly and on behalf of order is expressed by the visual representations covering the themes of retribution within the temple precinct, harsh though these may be. Such power reinforced the earthly force of the princeps, represented by the display of Alexander’s lamp stand, itself originally a votive to Apollo of Cyme, now in its new home, a symbolic flame that could both

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Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps burn and enlighten, and would ensure the continued spread of romanitas and of Hellenism.75 The Forum of Augustus

Augustus’ forum, as is the case with Apollo’s temple on the Palatine, has received extensive scholarly analysis, much of which concerns itself with its structure and appearance, which was, as a number of scholars have noted, organically connected with its content.76 Only a brief visual orientation and contextualization (p.251) of its structure are necessary here before turning to the nature of the collection itself. The elongated forum, with a hemi-cycle on each side and its temple in the back was lined with galleries on two levels (see fig. 7.11 with fig. 7.12). The lower galleries contained niches in its portico adorned with bronze statuary of Rome’s great historical figures, the so-called summi viri, while on the right hand side of the temple, in one of the hemi-cycles, stood the notables of the gens Julia, (including Aeneas, Anchises, and Iulus) and the kings of Alba Longa. To the left was Romulus with the spolia opima, possibly with the rest of the kings of Rome.77 The upper storey, consisting of open galleries, were supported by caryatids and alternated with shields carrying the heads of divinities (such as the still surviving Zeus Ammon, see fig. 7.13). Set at the back was the Temple of Mars Ultor (‘the avenger’) vowed on the eve of the battle of Philippi in 42 BC, where the two leading conspirators against Caesar, M. Brutus and C. Cassius, perished. Three cult statues stood in the temple: Mars flanked by Venus and Caesar, known from a relief in Algiers (fig. 7.14).78 The construction material used to build both the temple and forum was as rich and ambitious as the programme of sculpture or the collection itself, and equally significant. Galinsky, for example, has noted that the material, such as the various types of marble used from the East, Italy, and North Africa, reflected the extent of Rome’s domination not just over other peoples but their natural resources too, that is, literally over the world.79 The collection within the temple and its forum appears to have been carefully assembled, weaving together a tale of war and empire, and promising the perpetuity of both. Let us first consider the material objects collected and exhibited in the forum and temple complex. Augustus dedicated the Roman standards, lost by Crassus at Carrhae in 53 BC and now retrieved back from the Parthians, in the Temple of Mars Ultor itself (see above p. 133 and fig. 4.5).80 Julius Caesar’s sword was also placed in the temple (Suet. Vit. 8.1), as were (p. 252)

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Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps goblets of iron (Pliny, HN 34.141), drinking vessels of the sort we might deem appropriate to the god of war. Pausanias tells us that ‘as you entered into the forum’ there was a statue of Athena Aleana (from Tegea), taken by Augustus along with the tusks of the Calydonian boar as spoils from the Arcadians in punishment for their support of Antony (8.46.1–2, 4–5). He further tells us that the statue was the work of Endoios and made completely of ivory, no doubt complementing the ivory statue of Apollo which was also Fig. 7.11 The plan of the Forum of located elsewhere in the forum. As Augustus after P. Zanker. for other artworks, Pliny tells us that Augustus set up two renowned pictures by Apelles, one an allegorical depiction of war with its hands bound behind its back and Alexander riding before it in triumph, the other of Castor and Pollux with Victory and Alexander the Great.81 The first of these may have been the one referred to by Servius who noted that ‘for those (p.253) entering the forum on the left’ there was a picture of Furor impius inside; however, it may well have been a separate work, possibly inspired by Vergil’s Aeneid (as much of the forum may have been), and it appears that the picture was no longer extant in Servius’ day. Servius (In Aeneidem 1.294) describes Furor as sedens super arma devinctus eo habitu quo poeta dixit, ‘sitting atop weapons, Fig. 7.12 A model reconstruction of the bound in the manner the poet Forum of Augustus. Caesar established describes’. Both of Apelles’ works the pattern, after the Greek fashion, of were later restored by Claudius who replaced the face of setting the temple itself at the back of an Alexander with that of Augustus.82 elongated portico, something mimicked in Other ‘Alexander memorabilia’ four out of the five imperial fora. Museo located here included two statues della Civiltà Romana, Rome. that acted as poles in holding up Alexander’s tent canopy (with the other two set up in front of the Regia, Pliny, HN 34.48). Finally, the senate voted Augustus (Augustus, (p.254)

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Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps Res Gestae 35) a quadriga which was put either in the forum or temple. A colossal statue of Augustus himself stood in an annex.83

To walk through the Forum of Augustus was to walk through Rome’s imperial destiny, from its divine inception by Mars and Venus, through its great men with their collective achievements, including the Fig. 7.13 Caryatids constituted a striking conquest of Rome’s great architectural element on the Erectheum cultural masters, the Greeks, to in Athens, and were used to adorn the the fresh victories of furthest upper gallery of Augustus’ forum. The Parthia. Particularly remarkable face of Zeus Ammon, alternating with was the way in which the forum that of Hercules, was set in between, reframed and reshaped the evoking connections with Alexander the Greek elements into a Roman Great. The Forum of Augustus, Rome. context. The caryatids in the forum’s upper galleries (see fig. 7.13), for example, constitute a clear reference to the Erechtheum on the Athenian Acropolis, a building that celebrated Athens’ great founder and that city’s divine origins, connecting it with Augustus’ forum that commemorated those who (p.255)

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Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps founded Rome, and Rome’s ‘second founder’, Augustus.84 In a similar way, the very structure of Augustus’ forum, as was the case with Caesar’s, looks back to the great temple precincts (and rulers) of the Hellenistic East, each of whom had been brought under the Roman thumb through either diplomacy or force.

The connection between war and culture was inherent in the complex’s collection, and underscored by the prominent Fig. 7.14 A relief based on the triad in place given to such cultural the Temple of Mars Ultor shows Venus objects as Apelles’ paintings (in Genetrix on Mars’ right, while Julius the most prominent part of the Caesar’stands to his left. The National forum, according to Pliny) of Museum of Antiquities, Algiers. war, triumph, and victory. It was also expressed by the way in which objects, (p.256) such as the two ivory statues mentioned above, one of Athena and the other of Apollo, were exhibited in conjunction with one another. The significance of these two deities would not be lost on the viewer. Apollo, as noted, was a guardian of culture, but so too was Athena. More than that however, Athena was herself the patron of that great producer of high culture, Athens, and a warrior goddess. Looming over the whole scene was Mars, as Ovid duly notes (Fast. 5.551–70).85 The various associations between Augustus, Alexander, and Caesar, between war and empire, between the Hellenistic past and the Roman present (and future), as previous scholars have remarked, are here both substantial and immediately apparent, sharing some elements noted earlier with Apollo’s Palatine temple.86 The literal artefacts of triumph and vindication associated with the Temple of Mars, such as Caesar’s sword or the votive chariot are therefore complemented by a diverse array of artistic masterpieces, such as Apelles’ Alexander, with whom, as noted, Augustus associated himself on the Palatine. While the connection with Augustus to Caesar and Alexander as conquerors has been the subject of frequent discussion, it has less often been observed that Alexander’s war was arguably also a war of revenge against the Persians, now replaced by the Romans with the Parthians. The motif of vengeance was similarly evoked by Athena’s statue, whose place in the forum was a direct result of Augustus’ vindication against Antony.87 The assemblage of Greek cultural objects therefore intertwines Roman with Greek history, with Augustus and the summi viri becoming enmeshed in Greek historic and cultural achievements.

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Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps Yet the ethos of the collection remains uniquely Roman. The forum constituted the ultimate procession of the imagines, and as such constituted a grand funerary monument set permanently in front of a public audience, whose orations set in stone and bronze delivered an eternal eulogy to the viewer. The summi viri arguably acted as imagines exhorting the viewer to deeds of virtus in war, whose divine patron Mars stood imposingly over the scene. In the Temple of Mars, the Roman senate deliberated on matters pertaining to war, and from its precinct generals and armies set out.88 Also at the temple, Roman boys were literally made men, since it was where a young man assumed his toga virilis and (p.257) was enrolled as a citizen; as a vir his role was to go out and display his vir-tus on the field of battle. As more than one scholar has noted, the forum was the visual realization of the Aeneid’s famed underworld procession in book six, itself exhortatory in nature.89 The cumulative impact of the collection was to perpetuate power, imperium sine fine and to keep Furor impius literally under the watchful gaze of the Roman senate that met here to discuss war. Pausanias tells us that ‘the statue of Athena meets those entering’. It was an apt reminder that not only looked back to the Greek past, but to the Roman present in which a powerful princeps drawing on the collective sagacity of the senate reflected the wisdom and military prowess the warrior goddess embodied. If Athens was indeed the ‘school of Hellas’, Rome was now the ‘school of empire’. The lesson was not lost on Augustus’ successors. Claudius’ ‘improvements’ on Apelles’ works, in which the face of Alexander was replaced with that of Augustus, may have been associated with Claudius’ own place in Roman history as conqueror of the exotic and distant Britain.90 He thereby set himself in the context of a succession of conquerors, from Alexander to Augustus, with his own accomplishments now giving him a place in a long line of victorious commanders. While a shocking assault on what was considered a great masterpiece, it will have been fitting. The conquest of Britain was, in a sense, the realization of Augustus’ own vision (though a violation of his injunction against further conquest), and celebrated by Claudius with a triumphal arch, as well as a tableau of the British king’s surrender located somewhere in the Campus Martius (Suet. Claud. 21.6). Years later when Tacitus wrote of his father-in-law’s, Agricola’s, conquest of Britain, he noted the use of culture in subduing the natives (Agr. 21.2) — a culture that was both Roman and Hellenic (with its porticoes, baths, and banquets). The Britons’ conqueror, Agricola, was himself the idealized product of Roman virtus, Greek learning, and provincial good sense (Agr. 4.2–3). He represented, in the end, a living embodiment of Augustus’ vision of romanitas, a vision vividly communicated through the nexus of associations that the objects on display in his forum created. The Portico of Octavia

One of the most important and extensive collections of which we have a detailed description was located in the Portico of Octavia, originally the Portico of (p. 258) Page 26 of 65

 

Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps Metellus. The portico was next to the Theatre of Marcellus and near the Circus Flaminius, an area with numerous victory monuments of republican era generals (see fig. 7.15 with map 7.3).91 The new portico was possibly rebuilt along the same lines as Metellus’. It served as a memorial to Octavia’s son Marcellus who started the work and enclosed two temples, those of Juno Regina and Jupiter Stator, and included a library, curia, and scholae.92 Already there in Augustus’ day facing the (p. 259) two temples was a group of bronze equestrian statues executed by Lysippus representing twenty-five of Alexander’s companions who fell at the battle of the Granicus and brought back as spoils by Q. Caecilius Metellus Macedonicus in 146 BC (see p. 41 with fig. 2.3). Augustus subsequently added the standards Gabinius recaptured from the

Fig. 7.15 The Theatre of Marcellus is located in the lower left central portion of this model which shows the Campus Martius (as well as the Capitoline in the lower right hand section of the image, and much of the northern portion of the city). To the immediate left behind the Theatre of Marcellus, enclosing the temples of Jupiter Stator and Juno Regina, is the Portico of Octavia. Directly behind the theatre, peaking above it, are the temples of Apollo Sosianus and of Bellona. Museo della Civiltà Romana, Rome.

Illyrians.93 We know that the scholae in the portico contained paintings by Antiphilus, including a small one of Hesione and a large one of Alexander and Philip with Athena (Pliny, HN 35.114). Pliny also says that in his day there were several paintings by Artemon, including a Danaë with robbers marvelling at her, a portrait of Queen Stratonice (probably the wife of Seleucus I Nicator, King of Nearer Asia 312–281 BC), and a Heracles and Deianira; there was also Artemon’s Hercules ascending to heaven with consent of the gods after his death on Mt. Oeta, and the story of Laomedon, Hercules, and Poseidon (Pliny, HN 35.139). The complex is noted by Velleius as an example of publica magnificentia (2.1.2).

In addition to the aforementioned objects, Pliny tells us that Dionysius’ (the son of Timarchides) statue of Juno stood in Jupiter’s temple within the portico; in the same place stood an Aphrodite by Philiscus and still more statues (of unknown subjects) by Praxiteles (HN 36.35). Also in the Temple of Jupiter was a Pan and Olympus group by Heliodorus ‘second in renown among such groups in the world’, and an Aphrodite by Polycharmus, complemented by Doidalses’ Venus at the bath (Pliny, HN 36.35; see fig. 7.16). Dionysius and Polycles (another son of Timarchides) also made the statue of Zeus in the Temple of Juno Regina. Pliny says (HN 36.42–3) the two cult statues themselves were apparently confused by the workmen due to the ‘effeminate appearance’ of Jupiter’s temple, which they Page 27 of 65

 

Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps assumed to be Juno’s, and vice versa. The highlight of the collection will have been the Aphrodite by Phidias that stood outside the portico, a statue, according to Pliny eximiae pulchritudinis (‘of remarkable beauty’, HN 36.14). There was also an Aesculapius and Diana by Cephisodotus, the son of Praxiteles (HN 36.24). Pliny tells us the collection also included a statue of Cupid holding a thunderbolt, attributed to both Scopas and Praxiteles, but whose model, it was agreed, was Alcibiades (Pliny, HN 36.28)94 In addition, (p.260) (p.261) a seated statue of Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi, remarkable for the absence of straps on its shoes, adorned the portico (HN 34.31; cf. p. 176). There were, it should be noted, a number of sculptures whose artists were unknown, mentioned as housed in the scholae (HN 36.29): these included an array of satyrs, as well as a Liber Pater and a Libera.

The portico itself and the major components of its collection will have been assembled not long after the completion of the Forum of Caesar and of the Temple of Divus Julius, and well before that of Augustus’ forum. As in the two previous collections, a specifically Augustan narrative is created here, with an emphasis on Classicism, culture, and the recontextualizing of Greek masters in order to create a narrative of divine associations for Augustus and his family. It

Fig. 7.16 The Crouching Venus by Doidalses was one of many ‘prestige’ pieces adorning the Portico of Octavia. A Roman copy of the Hadrianic period after the Hellenistic original. H: .92 m., 1.07 m. with base. Museo Nazionale Romano, Palazzo Massimo alle Terme, Rome.

was this complex interweaving of relationships no doubt that motivated placing the Phidian Aphrodite in the front of the portico. Nor was it just any Aphrodite, but one by the greatest of fifth century sculptors, (a work complemented on the interior much later by one of the greatest names of the fourth century, Praxiteles’ and his Eros). The Phidian Aphrodite too, by virtue of its privileged position in front of the portico, will have been one of the most Page 28 of 65

 

Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps prominent pieces of sculpture in the collection. It will have formed a link, as had the caryatids in Augustus’ forum, between the Roman present and the classical Greek past, between Augustus’ divine lineage and his role as the imperial patron and protector of Greek culture. The Phidian statue will have also given audiences a preview of what was inside the complex. It was no ordinary assemblage, but a who’s who of celebrated artists of antiquity whose names in and of themselves would have lent prestige to the collection. If Augustus’ lineage in the world of gods was given primacy of place, his position in the world of men and of history was a close second. Once inside the portico the viewer was confronted with what must have been the striking sight of the Granicus group noted above, a group that once again associated Augustus with Alexander. The group was reinforced by the presence of Antiphilus’ portrait of Philip, Alexander, and Athena. Just in case the message was lost, the theme of conquest and victory was underscored by the deposition of Gabinius’ standards.95 Augustus’ own imperial success now looked back to and bound itself with the historical precedent of Alexander as well as to the divine patronage of Aphrodite and Athena (who again here, stood as a guardian of culture). Such imagery prefigured vividly the nexus that was to come later on in his forum between culture and violence, though here there will have been a relationship between the objects that raised the possibility of an ambiguous reading: Lysippus’ and Antiphilus’ creations are cultural achievements in their (p.262) own right, but particularly in the case of Lysippus’ Granicus group, that creation is predicated on force and destruction, commemorating as it did the death of Alexander’s companions in the heat of battle. Culture and conquest, violence and the creative impulse, join here in a Danse Macabre, a ghoulish dialectic of selfgeneration in which the precondition for culture is violence, with much of that culture consisting of the representation of that very violence in visual forms. Indeed, the Granicus group as a text would have presented the viewer with further ambiguities. Poised in the front of the portico, the group arguably stood guard as protectors of Juno Regina and Jupiter Stator, as well as the precinct as a whole. That precinct encompassed a lengthy chronological spectrum of art (and artists), of subjects (in particular Hellenistic ones), of divine powers, in conjunction with aesthetic beauty. In this sense, violence stands as a protector, even spreader, of culture, a reasonable enough association given Alexander’s (and for that matter, Augustus’) accomplishments. In regard to the temples they fronted, we recall that Jupiter Stator was himself the ‘Stayer of Flight’, the deity that made one of Rome’s earliest initial conquests (against the Sabines) possible and was resonant with the Romans even in Augustus’ day (and arguably beyond) in this regard.96 By tradition he had assisted Romulus in one of Rome’s earliest battles, and in his capacity as Stator was one of the deities instrumental to Roman success; events on the Granicus, in which Alexander’s companions had

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Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps saved the day, were thereby tied with an event in Roman history and the two, in a sense, became one. Conversely, Juno was the deity most hostile to the Romans’ ancestors, the Trojans, and most protective of the Greeks (as we see most famously in the Aeneid). She arguably fulfills this role here as well, standing as a divine protectress over important Greek cultural treasures. Her revenge promised by Jupiter, her neighbour and consort, that the Greeks, despite Aeneas’ success, would once again prevail, has here, however, been both broken and fulfilled. The horsemen indeed are indicative of the supreme success of Hellenism, having spread Greek culture first to India and the East, and now to Hesperia and the West. The Granicus group in this sense threatens to subdue the very temples they guard. At the same time they are now safely tamed, set in their new Roman abode, just one among many of the Greek cultural treasures taken after Greece’s final humiliation in 146 BC, a mocking reminder to Juno of her ultimate submission to Jupiter’s divine will. (p.263)

Augustus Collected Taken as a whole, the three Augustan collections were reflective of the princeps’ personality. The temple dedicated to the godhead of Divus Augustus, stood as a summation of his life, and as a visual reflection of the other collections in general.97 Lehmann long ago conjectured concerning the arrangement of the collection based on a series of epigrams by Martial (14.170– 82), and we here follow Lehmann’s hypothesis concerning the order of the display (see fig. 7.17).98 Praxiteles’ Corinthian bronze sculpture, the Apollo Sauroctonos (‘lizard slayer’,

Fig. 7.17 Plan of the Temple of Divus Augustus after Lehmann. 170. A gold statue of Victory; 171. A clay statue of a child; 172. The Apollo Sauroctonos; 173. A painting of Hyacinthus; 174. A marble Hermaphrodite; 175. A painting of Danaë; 176. A German war mask; 177. A Hercules in Corinthian bronze; 178. A clay Hercules; 179. A silver Minerva; 180. A painting of Europa; 181. A marble Leander.

Mart. 14.172, fig. 7.18) and two Hercules figures (one a Corinthian bronze of Hercules as an infant strangling the serpents, another of him in clay) may have stood on either side of Nicias’ painting of Hyacinthus (Mart. 14.173), dedicated (p.264)

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Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps (p.265) by Tiberius here because the artist was one of Augustus’ favourites.99 A pair of pictures, those of Nicias’ Danaë (Mart. 14.175) and of Europa (Mart. 14.180) may have been displayed together, as will have been the marble reliefs of Hermaphroditus and Leander (Mart. 14.174, 181). In addition, there was a statue of a boy in terracotta by Strongylion (known as the Brutus, cf. Mart. 2.77) and a terracotta statuette by Vulca (Mart. 14.171) that were likely set up in conjunction with each other, and the same will have been the case for a golden statue of Victory and a silver one of Minerva (Mart. 14.170, 179).100 Somewhere within the collection was a terracotta statue of a hunchback (Mart. 14.182), while above the door there was a German war mask (Mart. 14.176).

Whether the entire collection was in place in the reign of Tiberius (the elegant, eclectic Fig. 7.18 This Apollo Sauroctonos (‘the array of objects may argue for lizard slayer’) is after an original that was his active involvement), or among the select sculptures that adorned whether it constitutes a brief the Temple of Divus Augustus. A Roman snapshot of the collection at a marble copy of a Greek bronze by given moment under Domitian, Praxiteles. c. 350 BC. H: 1.49 m. The there were nonetheless a Louvre, Paris. number of associations linking the collection to both the public and private persona of Augustus. The presence of Corinthian bronze, for example, a favourite collectable of the princeps, will have commemorated a more personal side of the emperor, whose fondness for Corinthian bronze was well known (see p. 70). It was with the express intention of honouring Augustus’ personal taste (as opposed to merely echoing the larger themes of his visual programmes elsewhere), that Tiberius dedicated the Hyacinthus (and possibly the Danae as well, Pliny, HN 35.131), a work that was probably brought by Augustus himself from Alexandria.

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Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps In terms of the connection to Augustan policy and ‘themes’ from his own time as princeps, the abundance of terracotta in the collection is striking, a material we know was favoured by Augustus as ancient and venerable, evocative of the pietas that stands out as a singular mark of his reign, such as we see in the fine archaizing head of Apollo from the Palatine (fig. 7.19; see above, p. 248). In an echo of his forum, we here again see Minerva standing watch over a world in miniature represented by a diverse array of cultural objects that encompass a historical span from the archaic period of Greek culture into the present, embodied in the talisman of the German war mask, set, as was the case of the Gauls in the Temple of Apollo on the Palatine, on the threshold, reflecting the dangers that lurked on the boundaries of empire, dangers made frighteningly apparent by the victory of Arminius in the Teutoberg forest in AD 9. (p.266)

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Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps The emphasis in this collection once again on liminality, whereby various boundaries are tested or rendered fluid, permeable, or threatening, is echoed by the depictions of Hermaphroditus and Hyacinthus, both of which are stories concerning sexual ambiguity and passion. Minerva and Victory, by contrast, will have stood as a reassuring presence, with Minerva qua virgo (and despite her own sexually ambiguous nature in her capacity too as ‘warrior’), as a bulwark against the sexual violence embodied in such subjects as Danaë and Europa. Their presence is supported by the two statues of Hercules who remind the viewer of the man Augustus had defeated in his early career (see p. 242), but simultaneously brought to mind a hero whose status was half human, half divine (hence once more testing and rendering ambiguous the boundaries of identity), and whose heroic efforts —with the divine assistance of Minerva herself—resulted in his assumption among the gods. There could be no more appropriate message for the Temple of Divus Augustus.

Fig. 7.19 Terracotta was a material much used in the archaic period and evocative of the antique and the venerable in Augustan Rome. This terracotta head of Apollo, found during the excavations of the Domus Tiberiana in 1980, is of a sort that will have no doubt adorned not simply the Palatine, but Augustus’ temple as well, and was well-suited to Augustus’ occasionally conservative tastes. H: .25 m. W: .23 m. Thickness: 3 cm. Museo Nazionale Romano, Palazzo Massimo alle Terme, Rome.

Tiberian Concordia There is a question concerning who had ultimate responsibility for the collection in the Temple of Concordia. Kellum, in her excellent discussion of the temple, has argued for a close relationship between its collection and Augustus’ (p.267) programme of peace and abundance, rightly noting that the collection should be viewed in one sense as reflective of the personality of Augustus himself, pointing to the place of Apollo in the temple, as well as the presence of Nicias, one of Augustus’ favourite artists. She notes, however, that Tiberius was responsible for the collection as well as Thrasyllus (his chief court astrologer), and focuses chiefly on the role of the latter and how his knowledge of astrology was put into use in the selection of objects for the temple; Thrasyllus, Kellum compellingly argues, wove a web of cosmic connections between Augustus and the artefacts housed within.101 Tiberius’ role is emphasized to a lesser extent, though we Page 33 of 65

 

Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps know that Thrasyllus and Tiberius had a close life-long relationship. Moreover, while restoration certainly began in 7 BC (Cass. Dio 55.8.2), the year before Tiberius went into self-imposed exile to Rhodes, the temple was not dedicated until 16 January, AD 10, well after Tiberius’ return.102 In addition, we know that Tiberius took an active concern in the selection of the temple’s collection; an offhand remark by Pliny also indicates that Augustus may have had less involvement in it than Tiberius, since he notes that Augustus made ‘a gift’ of four obsidian elephants to the temple. Certainly one can and should read Augustus into this collection; but the personality of Tiberius, himself an eager collector of Greek cultural objects (see pp. 70–3), left its mark equally if not more so, on this monument. The collection is all the more remarkable if one considers that Tiberius was notorious for his want of civilitas, and that part of this showed through his reluctance to undertake building projects.103 Indeed, apart from the Temple of Divus Augustus, his one major cultural project appears to have been the restoration of the Temple of Concordia rededicated as Concordia Augusta, and built from monies and spoils he obtained in his campaigns in Germany and Illyria (which also paid for his restoration of the Temple of Castor and Pollux).104.He remained actively engaged in the project, even while in exile in the East, for he compelled the Parians to give up a particularly fine statue of Hestia in order to (p.268) adorn the building.105 The temple and its collection made up a complicated assemblage in which ancient political ideologies, familial relations within the imperial house, and the interplay of the Greek and the Roman mirrored back Tiberius’ own personality, and ultimately the tragedy of his reign. The temple was first and foremost remarkable for its collection of Greek memorabilia that, if we can believe our sources, included the following: the aforementioned statue of Hestia (Vesta) from Paros, an Apollo and Juno by Baton, a Latona with her twin offspring by Euphranor, an Aesculapius and Hygeia by Niceratus, a Mars and Mercury by Piston, and a Ceres, Jupiter, and Minerva by Sthennis.106 There were also paintings which included a bound Marsyas by Zeuxis, a Liber Pater by Nicias, and a Cassandra by Theodorus.107 Additional objects included the above mentioned elephants presented by Augustus (possibly, as Kellum observes, symbols of triumph and victory) and a sardonyx belonging to Polycrates of Samos, a gift from Livia.108 If this represents how the building was adorned at the time, it was a virtual pantheon, with only two Olympians, Neptune and (perhaps remarkably) Venus, left off the list (though their inclusion cannot be excluded if our list is incomplete). Certainly the numismatic representation of the temple is something that itself appears ‘busy’ by virtue of all the statuary depicted on the coin stamp (see fig. 7.20).109

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Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps The temple looked back to the ‘republican’ ideology of concordia between the orders and transformed it into one that was, as Kellum notes, dedicated to the harmony within the imperial family, as well as that of the cosmos.110 The relationship between Augustus, his family, and the larger world order will not have been surprising for viewers familiar with the Temple of Apollo on the Palatine. Like other monuments from the period, it sought to place the new order in a larger historical and cosmic context. The history of the building itself was relevant in this regard. It was established after the passage of the Licinian laws in the early fourth century BC, representing a hard-won concord between the plebs and patricians. Refurbished by L. Opimius in 121 BC after the first serious disruption of Roman civic life following the ‘revolutions’ of the Gracchi and their (p.269) violent deaths, it was not restored until Tiberius undertook the project, and it will have been an appropriate choice.111 Since the temple represented, in a sense, the harmony of republican institutions and civic order, it may have suited Tiberius’ temperament, not to mention familial ideology (his father, brother, and nephew were all rumoured to have had republican sentiments).112 Moreover, Tiberius himself showed a distinct preference for republican institutions, a preference that ironically resulted in his reputation as a tyrant.113

In Tiberius’ day, the Temple of Concordia still reflected Cicero’s vision of political harmony between the orders. On the top front of the roof stood the Capitoline triad, the official state cult, and to either side of these Ceres and Diana,

Fig. 7.20 Tiberius’ restored Temple of Concord, shown on the reverse of this sestertius, gives an indication of just how ‘busy’ and ambitious its sculpture programme was; indeed, the temple functioned as a virtual museum in its own right, complete with a gallery annex. The British Museum, London.

both of whom had their own temples on the Aventine and who were particularly important to the plebs as well as to women.114 The stairs approaching the temple (p.270) were flanked with statues of Hercules and Mercury, both deities whose various associations included their importance to men as gods of travel and commerce, as well as the soldiery (which were not considered high occupations in our sources). Of further note in this regard is how the subjects of the collection’s paintings reinforced Page 35 of 65

 

Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps the rhetoric of the building’s ideological content. The two paintings by the renowned masters Zeuxis and Nicias depicted Marsyas and Liber Pater. Both these deities were important for the plebs, with whom they were identified; in addition, the presence of Liber Pater, a deity whose absence from Augustan collections has been noted by Galinsky and others, may be a further indication of the collection as a product of Tiberius’ own personality and predilections (whose nickname, Biberius Caldius Mero, mocked his heavy drinking).115 It is perhaps no coincidence in this regard that Tiberius conducted a number of restoration projects on temples with similar plebeian associations, including those to Liber, Libera, and Ceres (Tac. Ann. 2.49). The presence of such subjects amid Hochkulture appears to reinforce the building’s original rhetoric as a whole, that of concordia between the orders. Tiberius’ interest in Concordia may have had a familial element as well. Cassius Dio notes that Tiberius inscribed both his name and his brother’s on the temple, and their names appeared together when the temple was finally dedicated either in AD 10 or 12.116 According to Tacitus (Ann. 1.4), concerns were expressed towards the end of Augustus’ reign that male members of the family would potentially turn against one another when Augustus died and tear the state apart, repeating the catastrophe of the late republic. Tacitus specifically alludes to popular fears about Germanicus, Tiberius’ nephew, and to Drusus, Tiberius’ son. Tiberius’ commemoration of his brother Drusus may have been intended to give reassurance over the harmony now between Germanicus and his own son Drusus.117 As for the collection itself, such Greek masterpieces literally a stone’s throw from the umbilicus, the centre of the city from which all the world was measured, in a very real sense contains a Vergilian dimension of the tense relationship between Greeks and the Romans, (as descendants of the Trojans and as conquerors of the Greeks). There can now be concordia between the two because Troy has exacted its revenge, and brought into its sacred heart the spoils of its mortal (p.271) enemy, at the same time reconciling itself to its cultural domination by Greece since that culture has been appropriated and become an integral part of the Roman sphere. The reconciliation between the two was reflected in the temple’s very construction, which was possibly a combination of Roman money and motivation, but Greek planning and design.118 Given such cultural interplay, the potential for an ambiguous reading is therefore as great here as in the Augustan collections. Although arguably expressed in less violent terms than in the Portico of Octavia or the Temple of Apollo on the Palatine, culture remains something that is conquered and dominated but itself dominates in turn. The public could view and so symbolically subdue that on which it gazed, while in turn its vanquished enemy paradoxically colonized the Roman gaze by virtue of its very attraction and centrality. The emphasis here, however, is not on force, but harmony. The careful deployment of cultural objects constructing a narrative based on both violence Page 36 of 65

 

Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps and culture is notably muted in comparison to the Augustan collections discussed above. What it shares in common is a re-contextualization of Greek cultural property, in which the significance of material objects shifts as they become grounded in specifically Roman social and historical conditions. One suspects that the collection was a project very dear to Tiberius. He was, despite Nero’s reputation, perhaps the most avid philhellene of all our emperors with the possible exception of Hadrian (see pp. 71–2). His taste for things Greek and his conservatism both intersect here, since the collection and the rhetoric of the building reinforced one another with its blend of Roman republican ideology and Greek cultural identity, and in this sense is further reflective of Tiberius’ own court, with its mingling of Roman senators, Greek scholars, and diverse amici. Unfortunately for Tiberius, the building merely added one more layer of historical irony to his life and reign. In Tiberius’ final days all concordia between himself and his family, the senate, his Praetorian Praefect (L. Aelius Sejanus), and the people vanished. Consequently, while the collection stands as a genuine reflection of Tiberius’ own personal tastes, interests, even his ideology concerning the socio-political relationships he envisioned for a post-Augustan society, it also functions as a Greek chorus, inviting the audience to muse on the tragedy of his principate and his life. That life he ended more like a Hellenistic monarch than a stalwart republican in the tradition of a Fulvius or a Mummius, and was distinctly discordant from Concordia’s larger purposes.

(p.272) Vespasian and The (Re)Creation of The World We are little informed about what, if any, collections were newly gathered under emperors subsequent to Tiberius until Vespasian. We can assume, however, a lavish exhibition of Greek artworks in Nero’s Domus Aurea, some of them taken from other collections within Rome, though the majority of them were likely plundered from Greece (see pp. 55–6). Much of the collection eventually found its way into Vespasian’s so-called Forum or Temple of Peace, renowned for its collection of classical art and its display of spoils Vespasian and Titus brought home in triumph after the Jewish War in AD 70.119 Of late, the temple complex and its topography have received ample attention.120 The collection too has been of interest to scholars, but its eclectic nature has steered critics away from a comprehensive analysis.121 Yet its disparate nature may have been the very point: Josephus certainly viewed the complex and its collection as reflective of the Roman universe writ large, and tells us the forum and its cultural material constituted, in a sense, the world in miniature: ‘To be sure, into that temple were collected and contained everything which men previously travelled all over the world to see, eager to look at them individually when they were in different lands’.122 To understand the collection, a few words concerning the new princeps are necessary. In AD 70 Vespasian had a significant task to accomplish. He had to establish the legitimacy of his imperial government in the wake of the bitter civil Page 37 of 65

 

Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps war that took place in 69 after Nero’s deposition and suicide in 68. In addition, he had to reassert the sense of Roman control and confidence that the civil war and (p.273) its attendant provincial revolts had shaken. He was also compelled to look to the traditions and precedents set in place by the principate and follow those if he was to maintain power. It was a careful balancing act, since Vespasian was following close on the heels of Nero, an emperor who was extremely unpopular with the senate, but whose reputation with the people at large was far more favourable. His task—in which he succeeded admirably in the end—was to court favour with both segments of Roman society. Indeed, Vespasian’s forum did what Nero could not but what Augustus could: create a monument that would recall his own military successes and combine it with prestigious works that would establish his authority and legitimacy in visual terms. To do this he looked to what by his day had been established as a traditional, hence, legitimate use of a venue in the form of an imperial forum for public display of material objects, distinctly rejecting Nero’s use of artwork for a semi-private paradeisos.123 He thereby disassociated himself from Nero, at the same time linking himself to Caesar and Augustus by constructing a new forum, which was just one of several new projects he undertook, including the nearby Flavian amphitheatre. He also borrowed another page from Augustus, not building over any ancient buildings: here, however, he had the assistance of the fire of 64 and, of course, Nero himself, who had taken advantage of the catastrophe to begin construction on the Domus Aurea. In this sense, he was declaring a novus ordo by building an entirely new structure on the site for purely public enjoyment, while at the same time, by virtue of its distinct spatial relationship with Augustus’ older forum, he literally aligned himself in a larger topographical context with a popular predecessor (see map 7.1). As for the collection itself, Pliny the Elder, Josephus, and others give us a relatively detailed descriptions of its contents.124 Concerning the statuary programme, Statius mentions the cult statue of Pax that Domitian dedicated (Silvae 4.3.17), which may have been a replacement of the original (see fig. 7.21).125 Pliny also mentions (HN 36.27) a greatly admired statue of Venus by an unknown artist. There was also a well-known painting by Naukydes of the (p. 274)

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Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps athlete Cheimon who won the wrestling competition at Olympia in 488 BC.126 A bronze bull by either Phidias or Lysippus, and a calf by Myron, one of the most treasured pieces here, were also a part of the collection according to Procopius.127 Indeed, Procopius states that there were numerous (unspecified) works by both Lysippus and Phidias here still in his day. In addition there was a Ganymede sculpted by Leochares and a statue of Pythocles done by Polyclitus.128 Noreña notes that recently discovered statue bases associated with the forum also indicate the presence of statues by Praxiteles, Cephisodotus, and 129

Fig. 7.21 A denarius depicts the goddess Pax sitting naked to the waist and offering an olive branch. Although a popular issue on imperial coins, this one may take on a special significance, and the goddess may here be portrayed as she appeared in Vespasian’s temple. Reverse of a silver denarius issued by Vespasian. The legend reads PON MAX TR P COS IV (‘Pontifex Maximus with tribunicia potestas, consul for a fourth time’). The American Numismatic Society, New York.

Parthenocles. Many of these will have been objects looted from Greece for Nero’s pleasure palace, and (p.275) Pliny in fact gives a brief catalogue of material that Vespasian used in his forum taken directly from the Domus Aurea (specifically Nero’s sitting room, in sellariis domus aureae, HN 34.84) with a list of various artists who had depicted a battle of Attalus I and Eumenes fighting the Gauls (who invaded Asia Minor between 240–32 BC), including Isigonus, Pyromachus, Stratonicus, and Antigonus (copies of which may survive in the form of The Gaul

Committing Suicide with His Wife and The Dying Gaul in fig. 7.22 and 7.23).130 Pliny also mentions an infant Hercules embracing a goose by Boëthius, a work that also survives in copies. In addition, a (likely) Greek sculpture from Egypt was a remarkably sized piece of basanite (cf. fig. 3.4) representing the Nile with sixteen of the river god’s children (said to represent the number of cubits with the Nile at flood), in all probability similar to a reclining marble statue of the Nile covered with erotes and now in the Vatican (fig. 7.24).131

There were a number of well-known paintings that also graced the forum, such as the one of an unknown subject (though highly praised in execution) by Timanthes of Cynthus (or Sicyon, HN 35.74). Protogenes’ masterpiece, the Ialysus, was also on display here and no doubt one of the highlights.132 Pliny (HN 35.108–9) states that there was also a work by Nicomachus of Apollo and Artemis, and by the same artist, the mother of the gods seated on a lion, as well Page 39 of 65

 

Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps as a picture of Bacchants with satyrs sneaking up on them, and a Scylla. In addition, there was a painting of Alexander’s battle at the Issus by a female artist named Helena, something that, one imagines, might have appeared similar to the famous Alexander mosaic (fig. 7.25).133 In the case of most if not all these works, as with Augustus, we see Vespasian using a number of ‘big name’ artists to enhance his collection’s cachet. In addition to the artworks, we have a very detailed account of the spoils captured during the Jewish War and on display in the temple. While crushing the (p.276) (p.277)

Fig. 7.22 A Gaul committing suicide after having killed his wife. A Roman marble copy based on a Hellenistic original from Pergamum (230–220 BC) that may have adorned Vespasian’s forum, an appropriate theme for one who had battled and defeated northern barbarians. H: 2.11 m. Museo Nazionale Romano, Palazzo Altemps, Rome.

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Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps rebellion in Judaea, Vespasian’s son, Titus, attacked, plundered, and destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem, an episode for which our primary source is Josephus.134 In fact, of all the spoils Rome plundered in the course of its history, we are better informed concerning these than any other, thanks in part to Josephus and other sources as well, and they have been the subject of a recent and fine discussion in the context of triumphal display and Roman imperialism by Östenberg.135 Josephus tells us (BJ 7.158–62) that Vespasian deposited the vessels of gold from the Temple in his forum, but states that their law and the purple hangings from (p. 278) the Temple sanctuary were deposited and kept in the palace. The vestments of the high priest (worn when he entered the Holy of Holies) were also likely deposited in the forum. Josephus describes them as adorned with precious stones and gives a detailed description of their appearance (Procopius, probably referring to these very vestments, says they were covered in emeralds).136 At several points, both in the Jewish War and Jewish Antiquities, Josephus remarks the various vessels wrought in gold and studded with precious gems that the Romans looted; he includes an extended description during their procession in Vespasian’s triumph (with specific mention of the large numbers of precious stones set in gold crowns and other works, BJ 7.132–5).

(p.279)

Fig. 7.23 The ‘Dying’ or ‘Capitoline Gaul’, may have formed a part of the same group as fig. 7.22. The torque around his neck was a trophy Romans prized and dedicated for the construction of trophies and votives. H: .59 m. Palazzo Nuovo, Musei Capitolini, Rome.

Fig. 7.24 Sporting erotes run riot over a large statue of the river Nile, each representing a cubit of the Nile’s annual flood. Vespasian had a special affinity for Egypt, since it was here that he was declared emperor on 1 July AD 69. The statue is possibly after a similar one in Vespasian’s new forum. Braccio Nuovo, Museo Chiaramonti, Musei Vaticani.

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Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps Not all of the material was pure plunder. Some of it was handed over during negotiations for amnesty, if we can believe Josephus (and we should here maintain a healthy scepticism), who says that shortly after the sacking of the Temple one of the priests, Jesus, son of Thebuthi, negotiated a pardon from Titus in return for delivering up some of the sacred treasures: he handed over two lamp stands, along with tables, bowls, and platters, all of silver and gold (some of which, including the table of shew-bread with incense cups and two silver trumpets, are depicted on Titus’

Fig. 7.25 The famous Alexander Mosaic (possibly after a painting by Philoxenus of Eretria) from the House of the Faun in Pompeii, gives us a possible window into how the work of Helena, who executed a painting ofAlexander’s battle at the river Issus, might have appeared. H: 2.7 m. W: 5.2 m. Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples.

arch, see fig. 4.9).137 Josephus cites this table (BJ 7.148–50), along with the wrought lamp and the copy of the law, (all, again, depicted on Titus’ arch), as the highlight of the triumphal procession. Jesus also gave up the veils and the vestments of the high priests inlaid with the precious (p.280) stones. Phineas, the temple treasurer, further surrendered tunics and girdles belonging to the priests, and purple and scarlet kept for repairs to the veils, as well as a great quantity of cinnamon, cassia, and other spices for offerings, and various sacred ornaments.138

One of the major cultural artefacts taken by Vespasian on campaign, the veil of the Temple that screened off the outer from the inner sanctum and its curtains, was not for permanent public display, though carried in Vespasian’s triumph (BJ 7.132–5). Josephus had, in fact, already given a detailed description of the veil earlier in his work (BJ 5.210–14): it had hung in front of the Temple’s golden doors, a Babylonian tapestry with embroidery that was blue on linen of scarlet and purple and a work (reportedly) of extraordinary skill. The subjects depicted on it, according to Josephus, were symbolic of the universe, the scarlet symbolizing fire, the blue the air, the fine linen the earth (since flax was of the earth), and the purple the sea (since the dye was from the murex). In addition, the tapestry portrayed the whole heavens, except the Zodiac. This was to be a part of a private collection on the Palatine.139 The representations in the form of painted and other visual media of the campaign paraded in the triumph will have likely also constituted a part of the collection. These are described by Josephus who tells us that in Vespasian’s triumphal procession an unspecified number of elaborate movable stage devices (pēgmata) had been constructed, some of them three and four stories tall, many of which were covered with tapestries interwoven with gold, and all with Page 42 of 65

 

Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps framework of gold and ivory.140 As was traditionally the case, many of the depictions represented scenes from the war: the countryside’s devastation, the slaughter of the enemy, captives, men in flight, walls demolished by siege engines, fortresses overtaken, defeated suppliant enemies, temples on fire, and houses destroyed. On each stage during the procession there was ‘the general of the captured city (p.281) depicted in the attitude in which he had been taken’. Josephus emphasizes the realism of the depictions on these tapestries (hyphasmata), though he leaves it uncertain if these were all tapestries; it is possible that some may have been paintings or other media. The collection thus joined three worlds—in the form of defeated Judaea, conquering Rome, and Hellenistic culture—both on a metaphoric and literal level, and poses to us the inevitable question: how did the objects from these three disparate cultures interact? As for the collection of classical material, certain subjects will have decidedly resonated with the Flavian court and its supporters. This is the case for the Venus Pliny had mentioned in particular. During the conflict in 69, Vespasian had sent his son Titus to Paphos to consult Venus’ oracle, which spoke favourably concerning his father’s chances of success (Tac. Hist. 2.2–3). It is perhaps little wonder, then, that a masterwork (albeit anonymous) was sought out for this particular deity. Her place will have been important in terms of legitimizing the new court, granting it divine approval. Venus too was the ancestor of the now extinct court of the JulioClaudians; as such, she will also have provided continuity and a link between the previous dynasty that looked to establish its authority through divine lineage, and the new one that also sought validation in part through her oracle. The collection of sculptures from Pergamum that represented the Attalids’ struggle with the Gauls will have had their own special meaning for Vespasian as well. The forces of Vespasian in securing the provinces of Germany from the Vitellians had initially allied themselves with the Treveri, only to be betrayed when a massive revolt broke out amongst the tribes in that region under the leadership of Civilis.141 It was a hard fought and perilous battle, one the Romans eventually won; the grouping will have stood as a reminder of Roman domination, but also of the dangers on Rome’s northern frontiers, dangers that were never to subside under the Flavians as Vespasian undertook the annexation of the Agri Decumates, and Domitian, his son, found himself embroiled in wars in Britain, the Rhine, and the Danube. Vespasian wrote of his exploits in his war commentarii, and in his forum they were writ large in visual terms: he could boast that he set the world in order after Nero and the civil wars of 69, and the disposition of material in his forum was a reflection of that newly ordered cosmos.142 In addition, there was the by now de rigueur reference in Helena’s painting to Alexander. Vespasian thereby associated himself in a historical and visual context not only with Rome’s greatest generals, but also with history’s greatest conqueror.

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Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps (p.282) The large statue of the Nile will have been an equally important reminder for Romans of his successful claim to the throne and succession. Vespasian had been declared imperator on 1 July AD 69, in Alexandria, Egypt. More than simply a reminder of his dies imperii (‘date of accession’) and the place of his succession, the statue was also a vivid reminder of the direct benefits Vespasian had bestowed on the Roman people themselves in that annus terribilis. He had successfully secured the province, whose fertility fed the city, and whose sixteen erotes sporting on the Nile god will have stood as a reminder of his commitment to the city’s inhabitants. The Nile is further emblematic of fertility, and its location in the Forum of Peace is perhaps no accident; the association between peace and abundance is one found throughout the Augustan programme as well. Indeed, as Noreña notes, Vespasian’s Forum of Peace will have brought up associations with the Ara Pacis and Augustus’ own forum.143 The relationship is all the more readily apparent when we consider that Vespasian’s was the first of the imperial fora built after Augustus’. From this perspective the associations will have been unmistakable and stark. A relationship, therefore, between Vespasian and Augustus established itself through these various means and will have been readily appreciated by a Roman audience. The theme of legitimacy, and of the creation of a new order is picked up in yet another sense by Protogenes’ masterpiece: Ialysus was the mythical founder of Rhodes, and, as the founder of a new dynasty, viewers may have made the connection between the Ialysus as such and Vespasian, who made it quite clear early on that his sons would succeed him or no one, and that his reign signalled the advent of a new order (Cass. Dio 65.12). In addition, a famous legend that surrounded the work may have created yet another nexus between Greek and Roman historical circumstances. As the painting was executed in the course of Demetrius Poliorcetes’ long siege of Rhodes, so it was now admired and displayed by the man who had accomplished (though more successfully) the long siege of Jerusalem (a seemingly fanciful notion, unless we consider how wellknown Demetrius’ siege was in conjunction with the anecdote concerning the painting’s execution in antiquity).144 The material from Judaea carried a more cosmic significance. This comes from Josephus himself (BJ 5.216–19) who, in addition to relating the history of the (p. 283) objects, includes a summary of the symbolic significance of what he believed to be the three most valuable pieces, the table, the lamp stand, and the altar of incense: the seven branches of the lamps, explained Josephus, represented the planets, while the twelve loaves on the table represented the circle of the Zodiac and the year. The altar of incense adorned with thirteen spices from sea and land, with which it was replenished, signified that all things come from and are of God. Sea and land, space and time, and God and his sacred implements: all were present symbolically within the forum along with, we may presume, the visual narrative that related the history of how not only the Page 44 of 65

 

Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps symbols emblematic of the oikoumenē, but by extension the oikoumenē itself, came under Vespasian’s, and Rome’s sway. Moreover beyond the oikoumenē, the very heavens themselves stood poised for colonization by imperatores who garnered the posthumous appellation of divus, Vespasian among them. In this sense, the forum reflects Rome’s verging on the age of the dominate, where Vespasian’s son and successor would soon lay claim to the heavens as dominus et deus (Suet. Dom. 13.2). The nexus of items displayed, the ancient law, the vessels of the Temple, the symbolic nature of the spoils as representative of the cosmos and the divine, even of nature itself, and, very likely, the narrative of their conquest, all converge to create, as Josephus noted, a microcosm of the world, although a particularly Flavian one.145 Scholars have long argued that it was the private use of cultural objects and property by Nero that offended the senate and Romans at large and that Vespasian tried to change this by making things more public. Champlin’s recent study gives us an alternative perspective. There is arguably more continuity with Nero’s regime than a break with it in Vespasian’s collection. If we accept recent arguments that Nero’s Domus Aurea and its complex was intended as a much more public facility than previously thought, then Vespasian’s forum was just one part of an attempt to maintain and build on what Nero had started. Nero was a lover of spectacles and one who provided the city with them constantly. Both the Forum of Peace and the Colosseum built by Vespasian’s sons served as complexes that were all about spectacle, and in the case of the former, about the world, the divine, and the establishment of Flavian power and legitimacy. The Domus Aurea was similarly about the world, and was the supreme display of a Hellenism gone wild, one that sought to identify itself with the grand monarchs who succeeded Alexander.146 Vespasian’s forum rejected Nero’s brand of Hellenism by seeking to tame and reinterpret it, to confine it back within the bounds of the porticoes of the Forum of Peace, to make it a means by which Vespasian’s own legitimacy could be read and the world understood, in short, to establish rather than undermine his authority. Vespasian thus chose to follow a path similar to that followed by Augustus, with whom he consciously (p.284) associated himself, where conquest and culture, peace and triumph, communicated the stability of the new order and the worth of the new princeps.147As was the case with Mars Ultor, the Temple of Divus Julius, and other assorted monuments and displays under Augustus, Vespasian sought in the Forum of Peace, through the display of the spoils of war to establish his ‘military credentials’ in visual terms.148 For good measure, Vespasian added an exclamation point to his resumé as general with an expansion of the pomerium, the fact that his victories included those over rebels and fellow Romans notwithstanding.149 Finally, in case the message was lost, he closed the Temple of Janus as had Augustus before him, itself a symbolic realization of the peace his forum embodied.150 Vespasian’s forum was indeed a Flavian world in Page 45 of 65

 

Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps miniature: a world that had been subdued, collected, exhibited, and reassuringly tamed by Vespasian and his son Titus. His forum was a reflection of that over which he ruled: a microcosm of the empire that enclosed together Roman conquest, Greek culture, and the cosmos, a world the Flavians had reassembled after being torn asunder, and over which they, with the help of Venus, would be the sole rulers. Emerging from the year of struggle, Vespasian had proven victorious, like the wrestler Cheimon on display in his forum.

Epilogue: Aurelian and Empire Without End In AD 274 the emperor Aurelian returned victorious from the East, having crushed the breakaway empire of Palmyra in Syria. Several years before the rebellion he had dedicated a Temple of Sol, a building remarkable for its richness (p.285) and luxury (S.H.A. Aurel. 39.6; Eutropius 9.15.1).151 While the Historia Augusta is always a dubious source, the temple receives a fair amount of attention in several of the vitae. It may have already contained a silver statue of the emperor himself (S.H.A. Tac. 9.2). In addition, there was supposedly a portrait of Aurelian with his friend, Ulpius Crinitus (Aurel. 10.2). At some point, it is uncertain whether before or after his triumph, two massive elephant tusks from which Aurelian wanted to make thrones for the temple (a task left unfinished), were said to have been dedicated (S.H.A. Firm. 3.4). After his triumph over Zenobia the temple became a repository for spoils from the East.152 Now visitors could view on display oriental robes studded with jewels, as well as, possibly, enemy flags depicting dragons, elaborate head dresses, and garments of spectacular purple (Aurel. 28.5). Zosimus also tells us (1.61.2) that Aurelian adorned Sol’s temple with statues from Palmyra of Helios and Belos, but the finest object was a short woolen garment, the gift of the Persian King of Kings that came to him from India. It was of various purple hues and such that all others paled by comparison (Aurel. 29.1–3). We have now come, like Sol himself, full circle. Aurelian ruled for five years, among the most successful of the emperors who governed during the imperial crisis of the mid-third century AD. Yet he still adhered to traditional practices, whereby cultural objects could and did speak to the auctoritas of the princeps, and served, by virtue of that auctoritas, to legitimate a claim to title, rule, and power. His patron deity was not Venus, but the Sun, who both figuratively and literally looked over his empire. That empire was one that asserted authority over upstart eastern queens, as Augustus had three centuries before, and asserted its domination through the exhibition of her insignia, of her military and royal power, even of her gods: royal clothes that indicated her status, her war standards, and the statues of Helios and Belos, the former having been arguably restored or relocated to his rightful place, the Temple of Sol. And, like the battle rams at Actium that Augustus used to adorn the Forum, even the most powerful beasts of nature, elephants, had been metaphorically neutered, their tusks on display ready to be reduced to a mere symbol of Roman power. Finally, there was the dazzling (p.286) purple of India, surrendered by the Persian Page 46 of 65

 

Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps monarch that held out the token possibility that his royal power could eventually be taken not in the form of some symbolic gift, but literally, and that the horizon of Roman power could stretch clear to India. While the actual catalogue in the Historia Augusta may be fanciful, the effect and significance of such collections are not. Even in AD 274, Roman authors whether of history or historical fiction, still thought in Vergilian terms of imperium sine fine. They had the visual accoutrements to assure them of their power over empires, over the earth, its people, and its cultures. Notes:

(1) See now in general I. Östenberg, Staging the World: Spoils, Captives, and Representation in the Roman Triumphal Procession (Oxford 2009) for the triumph as display. (2) For M. Fulvius Nobilior’s triumph see p. 40 with n. 32; for Aemilius Paullus see pp. 40–1 with n. 34; for Pompey see Plut. Pomp. 45; App. Mith. 116–17; Cass. Dio 37.21; see M. Beard, The Roman Triumph (Cambridge Mass. 2007), 7–14, 36–41; for Caesar see Suet. Iul. 37; Plut. Caes. 55.2; App. B Civ. 2.101–2; Florus 2.13.88–9; Cass. Dio 43.19; see M. Gelzer, Caesar. Politician and Statesman (Cambridge Mass. 1968), 284; Beard, The Roman Triumph, 102–4, 136–7, 154–5; for Vespasian see Joseph. BJ 7.132; Suet. Vesp. 12; Cass. Dio 65.12.1a; see M. Beard, ‘The Triumph of Flavius Josephus’, in A. J. Boyle and W. J. Dominik (eds.), Flavian Rome. Culture, Image, Text (Leiden 2003), 543–58; F. Millar, ‘Last Year in Jerusalem: Monuments of the Jewish War in Rome’, in J. Edmonson, S. Mason, and J. Rives (eds.), Flavius Josephus and Flavian Rome (Oxford 2005), 101–29; Beard, The Roman Triumph, 43–4, 93–6, 99–101, 151–3. (3) See Livy 39.5; Plut. Luc. 37.2. (4) See e.g. J. M. Beaujeu, ‘A-t-il éxisté une direction des musées dans la Rome impériale?’, in Comptes Rendus de l’Academie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, Nov.-Dec. (1982), 674 noting specifically the temples of Ceres, Castor and Pollux, Diana, Fides, Apollo in Circo, Jupiter Optimus Maximus, Venus Genetrix, Caesar, Augustus, the Pantheon, the Curia, and the Forum of Augustus; cf. E. M. Orlin, Temples, Religion, and Politics in the Roman Republic (Leiden 1997), 132 n. 60, who cites also the temples of Liber and Libera, Salus, Honos and Virtus, and Felicitas. (5) For Pompey’s theatre see A. Kuttner, ‘Culture and History at Pompey’s Museum’, TAPA 129 (1999), 343–73 for an excellent detailed discussion of the collection that included paintings by Pausias (HN 35.126), Polygnotus (HN 35.58–9), and Antiphilus (HN 35.114); see G. Sauron, Quis deum?: l’expression plastique des idéologies politiques et religieuses à Rome à la fin de la République et au début du Principat (Rome 1994), 249–314 for a general discussion of the theatre complex; see esp. 266–80 for how the theatre embodies Page 47 of 65

 

Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps ‘l’heroisation’ of Pompey the Great; also see F. Coarelli, ‘Il complesso pompeiano del Campo Marzio e la sua decorazione scultorea’, RendPontAcc 45 (1971/2), 99– 122; M. Miles, Art as Plunder. The Ancient Origins of Debate about Cultural Property (Cambridge 2008), 231–7. (6) For the development of such venues see E. Thomas, Monumentality and the Roman Empire. Architecture in the Antonine Age (Oxford 2007), 2. (7) Pliny, HN 35.66; Ov. Fast. 6.797–812; for discussion see P. J. Holliday, ‘Roman Triumphal Painting: Its Function, Development, and Reception’, ArtB 79 (1997), 141–2, who notes the inextricable link between Fulvius’ programme in the Temple of Hercules Musarum and his attempt to construct himself through a nexus of ‘personal and national accomplishments through a complex interweaving of artistic, literary, religious, and political elements’. For the temple see L. R. Richardson, ‘Hercules Musarum and Porticus Philippi in Rome’, AJA 81 (1977), 355–61; M. Martina, ‘Aedes Herculis Musarum’, DialArch (1981), 49–68; F. Coarelli, Il Campo Marzio. Dalle Origini alla Fine della Repubblica (Rome 1997), 452–84. (8) Cic. Arch. 27; for discussion see E. S. Gruen, Culture and Identity in Republican Rome (Ithaca 1992), 109; also see above p. 207. (9) For the collegium poetarum see Val. Max. 3.7.11; Pliny, HN 34.19; Juvenal 7.38; Porphyry on Horace, Sermones 1.10.38 and Epistulae 2.2.91; see E. G. Sihler, ‘The Collegium Poetarum at Rome’, AJP 26 (1905), 1–21; Gruen, Culture and Identity (n. 8), 109 for discussion. (10) For his fasti see Macrobius, Saturnalia 1.12.16; see Gruen, Culture and Identity (n. 8), 109–13 for discussion. (11) For the location and function of the Atrium Libertatis see N. Purcell, ‘Atrium Libertatis’, PBSR 61 (1993), 125–55. For the collection see G. Becatti, ‘Letture Pliniane: Le opera d’arte nei monumenta Asini Pollionis e negli Horti Serviliani’, in Studi in Onore di Aristide Calderini e Roberto Paribeni, vol. 3 (Milan 1956), 199–210; J. Isager, Pliny on Art and Society: The Elder Pliny’s Chapters on the History of Art (London 1991), 163–7; A. Bounia, The Nature of Classical Collecting. Collectors and Collections, 100 BCE–100 CE (Ashgate 2004), 188–90; Miles, Art as Plunder (n. 5), 238–40. (12) Purcell, ‘Atrium Libertatis’ (n. 11), 144 argues that what has traditionally been identified as Sulla’s Tabularium is in fact the Atrium Libertatis. He also discusses its function as Rome’s first library (citing Ovid, Tristia 3.1.70–2); also see L. Casson, Libraries in the Ancient World (New Haven 2001), 79–81 for a related discussion.

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Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps (13) One could, for example, read the space as reflecting Asinius’ republican sentiments noted in our sources; was it coincidence that he had devoted himself to the Atrium Libertatis, and was associated with the essential quality of the republic, especially given Pliny’s remark at HN 36.33, Pollio Asinius, ut fuit acris vehementiae, sic quoque spectari monumenta sua voluit? If so, it evidently did not matter to Augustus. For Asinius’ associations with libertas and republicanism, see Horace, Carmina 2.1; Pliny, HN 36.33; Suet. Aug. 43.2; cf. Macrobius, Saturnalia 2.4.21; see R. Syme, The Roman Revolution (Oxford 1939), 5–7 for discussion; for his relationship to Augustus see A. B. Bosworth, ‘Asinius Pollio and Augustus’, Historia, 21 (1972), 441–73; L. Morgan, ‘The Autopsy of C. Asinius Pollio’, JRS 90 (2000), 65–68. (14) Other buildings independent of imperial patronage included those of Statilius Taurus, and Marcius Philippus, Tac. Ann. 3.72; for discussion see D. Favro, The Urban Image of Augustan Rome (Cambridge 1996), 122–3; A. Wallace-Hadrill, Rome’s Cultural Revolution (Cambridge 2008), 147–8, who notes that Vitruvius remarked (1 praefatio 2) that ‘the majesty of empire is augmented by architecture’, and that he arguably viewed such building as a central aspect of Augustus’ auctoritas. (15) Also see p. 58; see F. de Oliveira, Les Idées politiques et morales de Pline l’Ancien (Coimbra 1992), 177–9 for discussion of Agrippa’s speech in the context of Pliny’s political thought. (16) For general discussion of the forum see C. Ricci, ‘Il Foro di Cesare’, Capitolium, 8 (1933), 157–72, 365–90; R. Thomsen, ‘Studien über den ursprünglichen Bau des Caesarsforums’, OpArch 5 (1941), 195–218; G. Fiorani, ‘Problemi architettonici del Foro di Cesare’, Studi topografia romana, 5 (1968), 91–104; J. C. Anderson, Jr. The Historical Topography of the Imperial Fora. Collection Latomus 182 (Brussels 1984), 9–63; R. B. Ulrich, The Temple of Venus Genetrix in the Forum of Caesar in Rome. The Topography, History, Architecture, and Sculptural Program of the Monument (New Haven 1984); C. Amici, Il Foro di Cesare (Florence 1991); R. B. Ulrich, ‘Iulius Caesar and the Creation of the Forum Iulium’, AJA 97 (1993), 49–80; R. Westall, ‘The Forum Iulium as Representation of Imperator Caesar’, RhM 103 (1996), 83–118; for the forum’s larger urban context see Favro, Augustan Rome (n. 14), 67–73; for Caesar’s specific associations here with Venus Genetrix see S. Weinstock, Divus Julius (Oxford 1971), 80–7. (17) App. B Civ. 2.68; the name change was possibly due to Pompey’s use of the same name; for Venus Victrix and Pompey see Kuttner, ‘Pompey’s Museum’ (n. 5), 345–7; for the transition from Victrix to Genetrix see G. F. Koch, Die Kunstaustellung (Berlin 1967), 82–5; K, Galinsky, Aeneas, Sicily, and Rome (Princeton 1969), 186–8.

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Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps (18) Pliny, HN 34.18 says the temple contained a loricate statue of Caesar too; Augustus dedicated the same or another, crowned with the Iulium Sidus, Cass. Dio 45.7.1; also see Pliny, HN 2.93–4. (19) For the corselet see Pliny, HN 9.116; cf. Suet. Iul. 47; for the earrings see Pliny, HN 9.119–21; Cass. Dio 51.22.3; also see App. B Civ. 2.102 for Cleopatra’s statues; see Östenberg, Staging the World (n. 1), 106–8 for discussion. (20) They could also later be illustrative of Augustus’ aversion to luxury, as M. B. Flory, ‘Pearls for Venus’, Historia, 38 (1988), 498–504, has argued. For Cleopatra’s pearls and Augustus’ use of them see Pliny, HN 9.119–21; Macrobius, Saturnalia 3.17.18 (adorning a statue of Venus in the Pantheon); for discussion see B. L. Ullman, ‘Cleopatra’s Pearls’, CJ 52 (1957), 193–201. (21) Perhaps most vividly exemplified in the episode of Dido and Aeneas, but also in Catullus’ invective against Lesbia in poem 11; for the nexus in Catullus between Caesar, Lesbia, and geography see M. C. J. Putnam, Essays on Latin Lyric, Elegy, and Epic (Princeton 1982), 15–19; for the connections between sexual, geographic, and imperial conquest see Ov. Ars Am. 1.217–28 and the attempt of the sexual predator to seduce a young girl through his knowledge of geography at a triumph; see p. 119 for discussion. (22) See p. 70 n. 140. (23) See pp. 182–4; for an excellent discussion of the statue and its significance see D. E. E. Kleiner, Cleopatra and Rome (Cambridge Mass. 2005), 150–6. (24) For Venus’ associations with Aeneas and the Julian line see Galinsky, Aeneas, Sicily, and Rome (n. 17), 187, 219, 221; cf. p. 161 n. 7 for the connections between Caesar and Troy. (25) Cass. Dio 43.14.6; see M. Gelzer, Caesar (n. 2), 278; Weinstock, Divus Julius (n. 16), 80–90; P. Zanker, The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus. translator by Alan Shapiro (Ann Arbor 1988), 40–1; Favro, Augustan Rome (n. 14), 64–5; I. Gradel, Emperor Worship and Roman Religion (Oxford 2002), 69–72. (26) For the association between the gens Julia and their ties to Venus and Mars, see Zanker, Power of Images (n. 2), 193–201; for the conjecture that there was a physical connection between the two fora, in which the supposedly phallic shape of Augustus’ forum literally forms a conjugal relationship with Caesar’s, see B. Kellum, ‘The Phallus as Signifier: The Forum of Augustus and the Rituals of Masculinity’, in N. B. Kampen (ed.), Sexuality in Ancient Art (Cambridge 1996), 170–83. (27) See Pliny, HN 8.155; Statius, Silvae 1.1.84–6; Suet. Iul. 61; see R. Garland, The Eye of the Beholder: Deformity and Disability in the Graeco-Roman World (Ithaca 1995), 50 for discussion. Page 50 of 65

 

Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps (28) For Caesar’s associations with Alexander see Suet. Iul. 7.1; Plut. Caes. 11.5– 6; Plutarch’s pairing of their biographies is itself indicative of the evident connections between the two in antiquity. Pompey attempted to create similar connections with Alexander; see e.g. Pliny, HN 35.131–2 for Nicias’ portrait of Alexander in the Portico of Pompey; for Pompey’s associations see Plut. Pomp. 2.2, 46.1. Other Romans were also variously associated with Alexander; see R. Syme, Tacitus (Oxford 1958), 470–1 for Germanicus’ (Tac. Ann. 2.73) and Trajan’s (Cass. Dio 68.29.1, 68.30.1) associations with Alexander. Scipio Aemilianus may have similarly connected himself with Alexander, see Miles, Art as Plunder (n. 5), 98–9. (29) See above p. 226; also see Pliny, HN 7.126, 35.136. (30) Pacuvius and Accius both left plays entitled the Armorum Iudicium; Ennius wrote an Aiax Mastigophorus; Augustus also made an unsuccessful attempt on the subject, Suet. Aug. 85.2. (31) For a similar association see C. Edwards, ‘Incorporating the Alien: The Art of Conquest’, in C. Edwards and G. Woolf (eds.), Rome the Cosmopolis (Cambridge 2003), 60–2; cf. A. Stewart, Art, Desire, and the Body in Ancient Greece (Cambridge 1997), 217–20 for a different view. For Timomachus’ Ajax see Ov. Tr. 2.528; Anthologia Planudea 83 (anonymous); Philostratus, Vita Apollonii 2.22. (32) A duplicity succinctly encapsulated in Sallust’s dig at Caesar when comparing Cato to him, ‘[Cato] preferred to be than to seem good’, esse quam videri bonus malebat, Bellum Catilinae 54.6. (33) For ‘resistant’ reading see p. 181 n. 70. (34) Consider how Cicero attacked Clodia in Cael. 18, using Medea as a comparison; Romans could and did make immediate associations between myth and current affairs. (35) For reactions to the painting (or to copies) see Anthologia Planudea 135, 140 (anonymous); 136 (Antiphilus); 137, 141 (Philippus); 138 (anonymous); 139 (Julianus); 143 (Antipater); see Plut. Mor.18A for a description; for a detailed discussion of the history of the painting and reaction to it see K. Gutzwiller, ‘Seeing Thought: Timomachus’ Medea and Ecphrastic Epigram’, AJP 125 (2004), 339–86. (36) For Caesar as god see Weinstock, Divus Julius (n. 16), passim; Gradel, Emperor Worship (n. 25), 54–72; for Caesar as king see Gelzer, Caesar (n. 2), 316–21; for his statue among those of the kings see p. 153; for the statues themselves see LTUR 4.223–8; for Caesar as high priest see e.g. Suet. Iul. 13, 46; Plut. Caes. 7.1, 42.2.

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Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps (37) For the title see e.g. Suet. Iul. 76.1; see 53 for Caesar as the destroyer of the Republic. (38) Cass. Dio 56.29.1 says that during the Augustalia a lunatic sat in Caesar’s chair and donned his crown, indicating the objects might have been readily accessible. (39) Cass. Dio 44.7.1; on the connections between Caesar and Romulus as well as Quirinus see Cic. Att. 12.45.2, 13.28.3; Cass. Dio 43.42, 43.45; see W. Burkert, ‘Caesar und Romulus-Quirinus’, Historia, 11 (1962), 356–76; Favro, Augustan Rome (n. 14), 66, who notes that his ties to particular parts of the city were designed to associate himself with the city’s founder. (40) For a description of the Temple of Divus Julius, the cult statue and the Iulium sidus, based on the numismatic evidence see Zanker, Power of Images (n. 25), 34–6. (41) And Caesar exceeded even those; see Gradel, Emperor Worship (n. 25), 265 for discussion. (42) Suet. Iul. 79; Plut. Caes. 61.4–9; Cass. Dio 44.6.1; for Augustus’ association with Romulus see K. Scott, ‘The Identification of Augustus with Romulus– Quirinus’, TAPA 56 (1925), 82–105; J. Gagé, ‘Romulus–Augustus’, MÉFR 47 (1930), 138–81; also see above p. 166. (43) Ov. Ars Am. 3.401–2; Propertius 3.9.11; Pliny, HN 35.27, 91, 93; for ancient responses see Anthologia Planudea 178 (Antipater); 179 (Archias); 180 (Democritus); 181 (Julianus); 182 (Leonidas of Tarentum). It was no longer in the temple in Pliny’s time. For discussion see Isager, Pliny on Art and Society (n. 11), 121; K. Galinsky, Augustan Culture. An Interpretive Introduction (Princeton 1996) 349; for Caesar’s connection with Venus and his Trojan ancestry see p. 161 n. 7. (44) On Augustus’ exploitation of his Trojan connections and Trojan myth see A. Erskine, Troy between Greece and Rome: Local Tradition and Imperial Rome (Oxford 2001), 15–30, 198, 234–5, 244, 255–6. (45) For Julius Caesar’s place in Augustan Rome see J. J. Pollitt, ‘The Impact of Greek Art on Rome’, TAPA 108 (1978), 167; P. White, ‘Julius Caesar in Augustan Rome’, Phoenix, 42 (1988), 334–56; Favro, Augustan Rome (n. 14), 95–8. For the return of the ‘Golden Age’ in Augustan art and literature see I. S. Ryberg, ‘Vergil’s Golden Age’, TAPA 89 (1958), 112–31; Galinsky, Augustan Culture (n. 43), 90–121; for a general discussion of notions of the ‘Golden Age’ in classical antiquity see H. C. Baldry, ‘Who invented the Golden Age?’, CQ 4 (1952), 83–92.

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Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps (46) Strabo 14.1.14. Other works Augustus commissioned on the Capitoline include the Temple of Jupiter Tonans with a cult statue by the fourth century sculptor Leochares; see Pliny, HN 34.79; statues by Hegias of Castor and Pollux adorned its front and there were bells on its eaves (Suet. Aug. 91.2); for the temple, its dedication and adornment see Augustus, Res Gestae 19; Ov. Fast. 2.69; Pliny, HN 36.50; Suet. Aug. 29.3; Cass. Dio 54.4.2; CIL 6.432 = ILS 3046; CIL 6.2241; for a general discussion see LTUR 3.159–60. (47) See e.g. M. K. Jaeger, The Poetics of Place: The Augustan Writers and the Urban Landscape of Rome, PhD thesis, University of California, Berkeley (1990) for a good general study of the city and the literary tradition from the late republic through the Augustan era; also see F. W. Shipley, ‘Building Operations in Rome from the Death of Caesar to the Death of Augustus’, MAAR 9 (1931), 7–60; P. Gros, Aurea templa: recherches sur l’architecture religieuse de Rome à l’époque d’Auguste (Rome 1976), 18–19 on Augustus’ restoration of religious buildings; Favro, Augustan Rome (n. 14). (48) See Pliny, HN 35.27–8. The works included Nicias’ painting of Nemea personified, seated on a lion holding a palm branch (with the artist’s signature on it); Pliny also tells us that there was a noteworthy painting by Philochares depicting an elderly father with his son. (49) We give less attention to the Saepta Julia, a project of Agrippa’s. Dedicated in 26 bc, its west portico was known as the Porticus Argonautarum, named from a painting of the Argonauts, and was related to the Porticus Meleagri which depicted the hunt of the Calydonian boar; see Cass. Dio 53.23.1–2, 53.27.1, 66.24.2; cf. Mart. 2.14.5–6 (for the representation of Jason), 2.14.16, 3.20, 11.1.12; scholia ad Juvenalem 6.154; LTUR 4.118–19. The Argonauts were an appropriate commemorative for Agrippa’s naval victory at Actium, see Jaeger, Poetics of Place (n. 47), 14. There were two statue groups in the Saepta, both by unknown artists: Chiron teaching Achilles, and Pan teaching Olympus how to play the pipes (Pliny, HN 36.29); see Zanker, Power of Images (n. 25), 142–3 for discussion; for a detailed study of Agrippa’s building activities see F. W. Shipley, Agrippa’s Building Activities in Rome (St. Louis 1933). (50) Suet. Aug. 70.1; for the link between Augustus and Apollo see Galinsky, Aeneas, Sicily, and Rome (n. 17), 209–10, and, Augustan Culture (n. 43), 215–16. (51) For general discussions of the complex see J. Gagé, ‘Apollon impérial, Garant des «Fata Romana»’, ANRW 2.17.2 (1981), 566–9; B. Kellum, ‘Sculptural Programs and Propaganda in Augustan Rome: The Temple of Apollo on the Palatine’, in R. Winkes (ed.), The Age of Augustus (Interdisciplinary Conference held at Brown University April 30 – May 2, 1982) (Louvain-la-Neuve 1982), 169– 76; P. Zanker, ‘Der Apollotempel auf dem Palatin. Ausstuttung und politische Sinnbezüge nach der Schlacht von Actium’, in K. de Fine Licht (ed.), Città e Page 53 of 65

 

Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps architettura nella Roma Imperiale. Atti del seminario del 27 ottobre 1981, AnalRom Suppl. 10 (Odense 1983), 21–40; E. Léfevre, Das Bild-Programm des ApolloTempels auf dem Palatin (Xenia 24, Konstanz 1989); Galinsky, Augustan Culture (n. 43), 215–19; LTUR 1.54–7. (52) See Propertius 2.31.3–4; Ov. Tr. 3.1.61; see Galinsky, Augustan Culture (n. 43), 220–2 for the links between the Danaids and the conflicts Augustus faced in his early career. Cf. Kellum, ‘Sculptural Programs’ (n. 51), 173–5, who observes that the Danaids were of ‘giallo antico, yellow marble splotched with bloodred’, a suitable colour variation, she notes, for those who murdered their husbands. For a discussion of the ambiguity the Danaids posed for the viewer (as dutiful daughters and slayers of their husbands) see K. Milnor, Gender, Domesticity, and the Age of Augustus: Inventing Private Life (Oxford 2005), 51–2, 64–6. (53) Pliny, HN 36.32; for Avianius Evander’s work in metals see Horace, Sermones 1.3.90–1; cf. Porphyrio’s scholion to this passage. (54) See Galinsky, Augustan Culture (n. 43), 216–17; similarly, the three have a place on one of the terracotta plaques taken from the precinct, see Zanker, Power of Images (n. 25), 63–5; Favro, Augustan Rome (n. 14), 148; for a detailed discussion of the Sorrento Base see L. J. Roccos, ‘Apollo Palatinus: The Augustan Apollo on the Sorrento Base’, AJA 93 (1989), 571–88. (55) Pliny, HN 37.11; Pliny in the same passage says that Scaurus, Sulla’s stepson, was the first to own such a collection of gems; Pliny 37.13–14 also reports that Pompey dedicated a dactyliotheca belonging to Mithradates on the Capitoline; according to Pliny, Varro said Pompey’s was inferior to Scaurus’ collection. See p. 229 for Caesar’s collection; for the discussion of such jewels in a triumphal context see Östenberg, Staging the World (n. 1), 105–8. (56) The sons of Archermos, fl. 540 BC, whose work was quite popular and favoured by Augustus, Pliny, HN 36.11–13. (57) Pliny, HN 36.36; see F. Kleiner, ‘The Arch of C. Octavius and the Fathers of Augustus’, Historia, 37 (1988), 347–57; Favro, Augustan Rome (n. 14), 100. (58) On the literary response to the theme of revenge in Augustus’ forum and building programme in general see Galinsky, Augustan Culture (n. 43), 211. (59) Kellum, ‘Sculptural Programs’ (n. 51), 173 notes that the sons of Aegyptus may have been represented by fifty equestrian statues, citing Scholia ad Persium 2.56, though given the late nature of the source these may have been a post Augustan addition. (60) Propertius 2.31.12–16; see A. Laird, ‘Ut figura poesis: Writing Art and the Art of Writing Augustan Poetry’, in J. Elsner (ed.), Art and Text in Roman Culture (Cambridge 1996), 83–5 for discussion of the Propertius passage and its Page 54 of 65

 

Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps intersection with Roman visual culture and Augustan ideology; see Galinsky, Augustan Culture (n. 43), 219 for discussion of the doors. In addition to the tale of Niobe, both Apollo and Artemis were associated with other famous tales of retribution, such as (for Apollo) the stories of Marsyas and Corinna, and (for Artemis) Acteon. (61) And the Temple of Apollo was an appropriate place for such interplay of boundaries, reflected in the deity itself: Apollo, Greek or Roman? (62) For Antony as Hercules and Bacchus see Plut. Ant. 4.1–2, 24.3–4, 60.2–3; App. B Civ. 3.16; see Kellum, ‘Sculptural Programs’ (n. 51), 172–3; Zanker, Power of Images (n. 25), 44–7, 61–3, 245; Favro, Augustan Rome (n. 14), 98–100. Antony made no secret about his bibulous devotion to Bacchus, writing a treatise entitled De Ebrietate Sua, Pliny, HN 14.148. (63) See Galinsky, Augustan Culture (n. 43), 219; Sol also has a place on the breast plate of the Prima Porta Augustus, as do Apollo and Diana, underscoring his interests here, see J. Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer. The Transformation of Art from the Pagan to the Christian World (Cambridge 1995), 162–4. (64) See Galinsky, Augustan Culture (n. 43), 118–22, who notes that the ‘Golden Age’ of Augustus is not a utopian vision, but one grounded in the reality of toil, even lurking danger. On the relationship of imperial architecture to the cosmic see Thomas, Monumentality (n. 6), 16; the relationship is particularly apt for Vespasian’s Forum of Peace, see pp. 280–3. On the prominent role given to Artemis/Diana by Augustus and its theological significance see C. M. C. Green, Roman Religion and the Cult of Diana at Aricia (Cambridge 2007), 34–54. (65) See e.g. D. Spurr, The Rhetoric of Empire: Colonial Discourse in Journalism, Travel Writing, and Imperial Administration (Durham NC 1993), 109–24 for a good theoretical discussion of this process. (66) See Gros, Aurea templa (n. 47); M. Beard, J. North, and S. Price, Religions of Rome, Volume 1: A History (Cambridge 1998), 198–99. It was vowed due to a plague (hence Medicus) and dedicated in 431 BC, see Livy 4.25.3, 4.29.7. For the temple’s association with victory see F. Hinard, ‘C. Sosius et le temple d’Apollon’, Kentron, 8 (1992), 57–72; Galinsky, Augustan Culture (n. 43), 383–4; for the precedence that the Palatine temple eventually took over this one see Gagé, ‘Romulus–Augustus’ (n. 42), 564–6; for its sculpture see E. La Rocca, Amazzonomachia: le sculture frontale del tempio di Apollo Sosiano (Rome 1985); for the temple in general see LTUR 1.49–54. (67) In addition, an anonymous epigram celebrates a Niobe by Praxiteles; see Anthologia Planudea 129. (68) See Favro, Augustan Rome (n. 14), 91 for discussion. Page 55 of 65

 

Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps (69) See La Rocca, Amazzonomachia (n. 66), 71. (70) For discussion see D. E. E. Kleiner, Roman Sculpture (New Haven 1992), 86; cf. Galinsky, Augustan Culture (n. 43), 346–8; on the notions of Augustan peace as embodied on the Ara Pacis see H. Kähler, ‘Die Ara Pacis und die augusteische Friedensidee’, JdI 69 (1954), 67–100. (71) For the larger context of which see in general M. Fullerton, The Archaistic Style in Roman Statuary (Leiden 1990); also see Zanker, Power of Images (n. 25), 102–10; see 243–5 for Augustus’ predilection towards the archaic; also see Galinsky, Augustan Culture (n. 43), 342–4; for Augustus’ attitude towards religion in general see W. Speyer, ‘Das Verhältnis des Augustus zur Religion’, ANRW 2.16.3 (1986), 1777–1805. (72) On the diverse roles of Artemis/Diana in Roman religious thought and practice see Green, Cult of Diana (n. 64), 112–46. (73) Cf. S. E. Alcock, Archaeologies of the Greek Past: Landscape, Monuments, and Memories (Cambridge 2002), 91, who notes a similar cosmological significance in the Sebasteion in Aphrodisias; also see p. 202 n. 30. (74) See Galinsky, Augustan Culture (n. 43), 218, who suggests that Apollo as citharode indicates Augustus’ desire to emphasize the arts of peace. (75) For discussion of the lamp stand and its history see S. Carey, Pliny’s Catalogue of Culture: Art and Empire in the Natural History (Oxford 2003), 83– 4, who notes that its display in the temple ‘mirrors its earlier history’: as it was war spoil from Alexander’s capture of Thebes, and dedicated by him in Apollo’s temple at Cyme, so now it stands under Augustus in Apollo’s temple on the Palatine. (76) The most thorough study of the forum is P. Zanker, Forum Augustum: Das Bildprogramm (Tübingen 1968); also see J. Ganzert, ‘Der Mars Ultor Tempel auf dem Augustusforum in Rom’, RhM 92 (1985), 201–19; Zanker, Power of Images (n. 25), 210–15; T. J. Luce, ‘Livy, Augustus and the Forum Augustum’, in M. Toher and K. Raaflaub (eds.), Between Republic and Empire: Interpretations of Augustus and his Principate (Berkeley 1990), 123–38, with emphasis on the relationship between the forum and Livy’s text; Galinsky, Augustan Culture (n. 43), 199; see 197–213 for general discussion; J. Rich, ‘Augustus’ Parthian Honours, the Temple of Mars Ultor and the Arch in the Forum Romanum?, PBSR 66 (1998), 79–97; cf. Leach, The Rhetoric of Space: Literary and Artistic Representations of Landscape in Republican and Augustan Rome (Princeton 1988), 205–6. (77) For the inscriptions that accompanied each of the summi viri and stated their accomplishments see Pliny, HN 22.13; Suet. Aug. 31.5; Aulus Gellius Page 56 of 65

 

Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps 9.11.10; Cass. Dio 55.10.3; S.H.A. Alex. Sev. 28.6 (who says the statues were of marble). The collection may have offered later emperors, such as Alexander Severus, a proto-type for similar collections, see S.H.A. Alex. Sev. 25.9, and 26.4, 8; for discussion see P. Stewart, Statues in Roman Society: Representation and Response (Oxford 2003), 152–3 with n. 137. (78) See Zanker, Power of Images (n. 25), 196–7; Favro, Augustan Rome (n. 14), 127–8, 175. (79) See above p. 210 n. 54. (80) See pp. 132–3 with n. 27 for discussion. For the new temple’s celebration of revenge against the Parthians see Ov. Fast. 5.579–96; see Rich, ‘Augustus’ Parthian Honours’ (n. 76), passim for discussion. (81) HN 35.27–8; see R. Daut, ‘Belli facies et triumphus’, MDAI(R) 91 (1984), 115–23 for a conjectural discussion about the original composition of these works. (82) Pliny, HN 35.94; see P. Zanker, ‘In Search of the Roman Viewer’, in D. Buitron-Oliver (ed.), The Interpretation of Architectural Sculpture in Greece and Rome, Studies in the History of Art Vol. 49 (Washington DC 1997), 185 for discussion; cf. Galinsky, Augustan Culture (n. 43), 210; D. Kinney, ‘Spolia, Damnatio, and Renovatio Memoriae’, MAAR 42 (1997), 136–7. (83) Previously believed to have been of Alexander; see Galinsky, Augustan Culture (n. 43), 203 for discussion; cf. above p. 217 with n. 84. (84) Galinsky, Augustan Culture (n. 43), 204 is right to note the Periclean inspiration for the programme, but it is more than a purely historical or political reference back to Athens, and arguably carries divine associations. Caryatids were also a part of Agrippa’s construction of the Pantheon years before, and the connection between Athens and Rome was also reinforced by the sculptures that adorned it; see p. 102; also see B. Wesenberg, ‘Augustusforum und Akropolis’, JdI 99 (1984), 161–85 for the connections between Classical Athens (specifically the Acropolis) and Augustus’ building programme. (85) See Zanker, Power of Images (n. 25), 195–201 for discussion; the pediment, which had Mars at the centre flanked by Venus and Fortuna, and the whole flanked by Romulus and Roma, is represented in a number of sources, perhaps most notably on a frieze now in the Villa Medici in Rome. (86) For the connection between Alexander and Augustus see D. Kienast, ‘Augustus und Alexander’, Gymnasium, 76 (1969), 430–56; G. C. Marrone, ‘Imitatio Alexandri in età augustea’, A&R 25 (1980), 35–41; Isager, Pliny on Art and Society (n. 11), 121 with n. 394.

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Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps (87) The forum was a repository for cultural objects celebrating vengeance at least into Caligula’s reign, see p. 135. (88) See esp. Luce, ‘Forum Augustum’ (n. 76), for discussion of the relationship between the summi viri, virtus, and Livy’s history; see M. Bonnefond, ‘Transferts de fonctions idéologique: le Capitole et le Forum d’Auguste’, L’urbs, (1987), 251– 78, for its connection with military affairs under Augustus. (89) See P. Frisch, ‘Zu den Elogien des Augustusforums’, ZPE 39 (1980), 91–8; Luce, ‘Forum Augustum’ (n. 76); Galinsky, Augustan Culture (n. 43), 206. (90) It was with similar military and diplomatic success in mind that Claudius’ successor, Nero, was voted the honour of a statue in the Temple of Mars Ultor equal in size to that of the god after the Parthian evacuation of Armenia in ad 54, Tac. Ann. 13.8. (91) For discussion see B. Olinder, Porticus Octavia in Circo Flaminio. Topographical Studies in the Campus Region of Rome. Svenska Institutet Skriften 8.ii (Rome 1974); E. La Rocca, ‘Sul Circo Flaminio’, ArchLaz 12 (1995), 108–10; Favro, Augustan Rome (n. 14), 107; Galinsky, Augustan Culture (n. 43), 384. (92) See Livy, Periochae 140; Ov. Tr. 3.1.69–70; Pliny, HN 35.114, 36.22, 28–9; Plut. Marc. 30.6; Festus 188L; CIL 6.2347–49, 6.4431–35, 6.5192. M. Aemilius Lepidus originally vowed the Temple of Juno Regina in 187 BC at the end of his Ligurian campaign (Livy 39.2.11) and dedicated it in 179 when censor (Livy 40.52.1); the Fasti Antiates Maiores gives 23 December as its dedication day; see LTUR 3.126–8 for a general discussion of the temple. On the problems of the existence of a curia here see L. R. Richardson, A New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome (Baltimore and London 1992), 104. On the original portico’s architects see Vitruvius 3.2.5; Pliny, HN 36.42–3; see P. Gros, ‘Les premières générations d’architectes hellénistiques à Rome’, in Mélanges J. Huergon, L’Italie préromaine et la Rome républicaine. Mélanges offerts à Jaques Huergon, Collection de l’Ecole Françhise de Rome (Rome 1976), 394–7 for discussion of the Metellan portico’s construction; see Isager, Pliny on Art and Society (n. 11), 160–2 for the collection of the Metellan and later portico; in general also see LTUR 4.130–2 (for the Portico of Metellus) and 4.141–5 (for the Portico of Octavia). (93) App. Ill. 28; also see Suet. Tib. 16. (94) There was in addition an Eros by Praxiteles that had been looted from Thespiae by Caligula, returned by Claudius, and once more looted by Nero, Pliny, HN 36.22; Pausanias 9.27.3; see Miles, Art as Plunder (n. 5), 254–5.

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Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps (95) Gros, Aurea templa (n. 47), 29 with n. 102 argues too that this was designed to be a statement of imperial monopoly over triumphs. (96) See Livy 1.12; it should be noted, however, that this was not the same temple. This particular temple was vowed by Metellus during a moment of crisis in his campaign in Macedonia in 146 BC and constructed immediately afterward; see Val. Max. 7.5.4; Velleius Paterculus 1.11.3–5; Eutropius 4.14.2; see LTUR 3.157–9 for the temple within the Metellan portico; see LTUR 3.155–7 for the older temple and the cult’s introduction into Rome and its development; for the cult’s duration see Beard, North, and Price, Religions of Rome (n. 66), 260. (97) See D. Fishwick, ‘On the Temple of Divus Augustus’, Phoenix, 46 (1992), 232–55 for discussion of the literary and numismatic evidence, which suggests the temple was not fully completed and dedicated until Caligula’s reign; cf. LTUR 1.145–6 for its location between the Capitoline and Palatine hills. On the deification of Roman emperors in general see L. R. Taylor, The Divinity of the Roman Emperor, American Philological Association, Philological Monograph 1 (New York 1931, reprint 1975); Weinstock, Divus Julius (n. 16); Gradel, Emperor Worship (n. 25); for a good succinct discussion see Beard, North, and Price, Religons of Rome (n. 66), 140–9. (98) See K. Lehmann, ‘A Roman Poet Visits a Museum’, Hesperia, 14 (1945), 269; for discussion also see M. L. Thompson, ‘The Monumental and Literary Evidence for Programmatic Painting in Antiquity’, Marsyas, 9 (1960–1), 60; Bounia, Classical Collecting (n. 11), 233–6. (99) See Pliny, HN 35.131; Lehmann, ‘A Roman Poet’ (n. 98), 264 notes that the clay statue may be related to a famous Hercules fictilis noted in Pliny, HN 35.157 by the archaic Etruscan artist Vulca, concerning whom see A. Andrén, ‘In Quest of Vulca’, RPAA 49 (1976–1977), 63–83. (100) Lehmann, ‘A Roman Poet’ (n. 98), 261 argues that the Victory may relate to Domitian’s triumph over the Germans, but also concedes that it could be earlier. (101) B. Kellum, ‘The City Adorned: Programmatic Display at the Aedes Concordiae Augustae’, in K. Raaflaub and M. Toher (eds.), Between Republic and Empire: Interpretations of Augustus and His Principate (Berkeley 1990), 292–6; on Tiberius and the cult of Concordia in the context of his principate see J. R. Fears, ‘The Cult of the Virtues and Roman Imperial Ideology’, ANRW 2.17.2 (1981), 889–93; on Concordia in general also see P. Jal, ‘Pax civilis–Concordia’, RÉL 39 (1961), 210–31. (102) Ov. Fast. 1.640–8; Cass. Dio 56.25; see Kellum, ‘The City Adorned’ (n. 101), 278 for discussion.

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Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps (103) For Tiberius’ reluctance to build see Tac. Ann. 3.72; Suet. Tib. 47.1; for discussion of Tiberius’ building programmes in a larger imperial context see Thomas, Monumentality (n. 6), 21. (104) For the use of money from his German and Illyrian campaigns see Suet. Tib. 20. For a discussion of the history and contents of this temple in Tiberius’ day see G. Becatti, ‘Opere d’arte nella Roma di Tiberio’, AC 25–6 (1973–4), 18–53 esp. 30–42 (with a discussion of the numismatic evidence for a conjectural reconstruction of the statuary programme); cf. Kellum, ‘The City Adorned’ (n. 101), 278–9 for a related discussion. (105) Cass. Dio 55.9.6; see 55.8.2 for the date of Tiberius’ exile and return. (106) Pliny, HN 34.73, 77, 80, 89, 90. (107) Pliny, HN 35.66, 131, 144; Kellum, ‘The City Adorned’ (n. 101), 278–83 discusses the possible arrangement of the programme. For the collection in the Temple of Concord in general also see Isager, Pliny on Art and Society (n. 11), 159–60. (108) Pliny, HN 37.4 says that the ring was set in a golden horn and ranked last in a collection of highly esteemed gems; cf. HN 37.8. For the elephants in obsidian see HN 36.196; see Kellum, ‘The City Adorned’ (n. 101), 283–7 for discussion. (109) See Zanker, Power of Images (n. 25), 111 for discussion of the temple’s exterior based on the numismatic evidence. (110) See Kellum, ‘The City Adorned’ (n. 101), 278–9, who argues (279 n. 14–15) that the various deities symbolically represented cosmic harmony citing Manilius 1.7–10, 1.247–57, 2.60–83, 440, 442, 444–6, 3.48–55. (111) For the initial vow of the temple under Camillus in 367 bc see Ov. Fast. 1.641–4; Plut. Cam. 42.4, 43.2; nothing was built, however, until an aedicula to Concordia in 304 BC by Cn. Fulvius (as aedile, Livy 9.46.6; Pliny, HN 33.19); for the cult of Concordia under Camillus and in the early republic see A. D. Momigliano, ‘Camillus and Concord’, CQ 36 (1942), 111–20; Fears, ‘Cult of the Virtues’ (n. 101), 833–4; for Opimius’ new structure in 121 bc see App. B Civ. 1.26; Plut. C. Gracch. 17.6. See Kellum, ‘The City Adorned’ (n. 101), 276–8 for the historical background. (112) See Tac. Ann. 1.33; Seut. Claud. 1.4. (113) See A. J. Woodman, Tacitus Reviewed (Oxford 1998), 40–69. (114) Kellum, ‘The City Adorned’ (n. 101), 294 believes the Ceres in the temple is to be associated with Livia, citing CIL I2 p. 324; 10.7501; also see Dion. Hal. Ant.

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Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps Rom. 10.31–2; Livy 3.31.1. For discussion of the Aventine’s plebeian associations see p. 142 with n. 60. (115) For the ‘Biberius’ moniker see Suet. Tib. 42.1; for a good discussion of Marsyas’ and Liber’s plebeian associations see M. Torelli, Typology and Structure of Roman Historical Reliefs (Ann Arbor 1992), 103–6. (116) Cass. Dio 56.25.1 gives AD 10 as the date, Suet. Tib. 20 gives AD 12; Suetonius also notes that this temple and that of Castor and Pollux were dedicated in Tiberius’ name and in that of his late brother, Drusus. (117) To drive home the point of familial (and state) harmony, Livia also had constructed a Temple of Concordia in her eponymous portico, Ov. Fast. 6.637–8; on the fears of discord between the two despite apparent harmonious relations see Tac. Ann. 2.43. (118) See Kellum, ‘The City Adorned’ (n. 101), passim; the same was no doubt true, however, for any number of buildings in the city. See e.g. Pliny, HN 36.42–3 on the architects of the Portico of Metellus; see Gros, Aurea templa (n. 47), 394– 7 for discussion. (119) For the actual name of Vespasian’s forum see C. Noreña, ‘Medium and Message in Vespasian’s Templum Pacis ’,MAAR 48 (2003), 25–6, who notes that it was variously known as the templum (Pliny, HN 34.84; Suet. Vesp. 9.1), forum (Ammianus Marcellinus 16.10.14; Symacchus, Epistulae 10.78), aedes (Aur. Vict. Caes. 9.7,Ep. De Caes. 8.8), and temenos in Greek authors (Joseph. BJ 7.158; Cass. Dio 65.15; Herodian 1.14.2), hieron in Pausanias (6.9.3) and additonally Eireinaion in Cass. Dio 73.24.1. (120) For a topographical and general description see C. De Ruyt, Macellum: Marché alimentaire des Romains (Louvain 1983), 160–3; R. H. Darwall-Smith, Emperors and Architecture: A Study of Flavian Rome (Brussels 1996), 55; Noreña, ‘Medium and Message’ (n. 119); J. Packer, ‘Plurima et Amplissima Opera: Parsing Flavian Rome’, in A. J. Boyle and W. J. Dominik (eds.), Flavian Rome: Culture, Image, Text (Leiden 2003), 170–2. For the complex as a museum see Darwall-Smith (above), 65; for its possible administrative functions see Noreña, ‘Medium and Message’ (n. 119). (121) E.g. Zanker, ‘In Search of the Roman Viewer’ (n. 82), 187–8 argues that the collection is a non-programmatic, incoherent assembly of objects; cf. Miles, Art as Plunder (n. 5), 259–62. (122) BJ 7.162; see C. Edwards and G. Woolf ‘Cosmopolis: Rome as World City’, in C. Edwards and G. Woolf (eds.), Rome the Cosmopolis (Cambridge 2003), 2 for the forum qua cosmos. It is worth noting that the all-encompassing nature of Vespasian’s collection is reflected in Pliny’s equally inclusive Natural History at Page 61 of 65

 

Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps this period. As S. Carey has pointed out, (‘The Problems of Totality: Collecting Greek Art, Wonders and Luxury in Pliny the Elder’s Natural History’, JHC, 12.1 (2000), 1–13), the text itself constitutes a reflection of the universal collection and of the luxury of which Pliny was so critical. (123) See E. Champlin, Nero (Cambridge Mass. 2003), 205–6 concerning the public versus private nature of the Domus Aurea. Noreña, ‘Medium and Message’ (n. 119), 29 accepts with qualification the general interpretation that Vespasian sought to distance himself from Nero through the public rather than private use of Greek art. On the possibility of a more public function for Nero’s collection see K. E. Welch, The Roman Amphitheatre: From Its Origins to the Colosseum (Cambridge 2007), 147–60. (124) For discussion of these see Darwall-Smith, Emperors and Architecture (n. 120), 58–65, with an especially fine discussion of the temple’s cult statue (see esp. 61–3); cf. Noreña, ‘Medium and Message’ (n. 119), 27; also see L. S. Nasrallah, Christian Response to Roman Art and Architecture (Cambridge 2010), 161–4 for the interplay here of ‘peace and violence, culture and conquering’. (125) See Noreña, ‘Medium and Message’ (n. 119), 39–40 for a critical discussion of the numismatic evidence for the statue, who argues that the Pax type in the denarius issue of AD 75 is most likely representative of its appearance. (126) There were in fact two, one in Argos, another in Olympia; that in the forum was from Argos (Pausanias 6.9.3), possibly located in the library, concerning which see Aulus Gellius 5.21.9, 16.8.2; S.H.A. Tyr. Trig. 31.10. (127) See Procopius, De Bello Gothico 8.21.11–14 for his description of the collection. For Myron’s work here see Zanker, ‘In Search of the Roman Viewer’ (n. 82), 187–8. For discussion of the bull in the numismatic record see Darwall-Smith, Emperors and Architecture (n. 120), 61 noting that a heifer appears on an aureus issue of 74, and in 76 on both aureii and denarii of Vespasian and Titus (BMC 132, 176–8, 185–9), the later possibly intended to commemorate the forum’s inauguration, although he notes that whether this represents Myron’s calf as opposed to simply a sacrificial victim is problematic; for related discussion see J. Isager, ‘The Composition of Pliny’s Chapters on the History of Art’, AnalRom 6 (1971), 65. (128) On Leochares’ Ganymede see Anthologia Palatina 12.221; Pliny, HN 34.79; IG 16.1523; Juvenal 9.22–6 and its scholia; for the Polyclitus see EG III (1974), 419–21. (129) Noreiña, ‘Medium and Message’ (n. 119), 23; also see E. La Rocca, ‘La nuova immagine dei fori imperiali: Appunti in margine agli scavi’, MDAI(R) 108 (2001), 197–201.

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Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps (130) On the portrayal of Gauls see B. S. Ridgway, ‘The Gauls in Sculpture’, ArchNews 11 (1982), 85–104. Pliny may be referring to a single large statuary group from Pergamum, which survives in copies; cf. Dio Chrysostomus, Orationes 31.148 who notes Nero’s pillaging of Pergamum; for an excellent discussion of the Pergameme school in Rome and its significance (esp. in regard to the portrayal of the barbarian ‘Other’) see A. Stewart, Attalos, Athens, and the Akropolis: The Pergameme ‘Little Barbarians’ and Their Roman and Renaissance Legacy (Cambridge 2004), 136–80; see A. Kuttner, ‘Republican Rome Looks at Pergamum’, HSCP 97 (1995), 157–78, for discussion of Rome’s first contact with Pergameme sculpture in the context of its alliance with Attalus I and the importation of the Magna Mater in 204 BC. (131) Pliny, HN 36.58; see Darwall-Smith, Emperors and Architecture (n. 120), 60–1 for discussion of the statue (and cf. 140–2), who suggests that the Egyptian material in the forum was associated with Vespasian’s acclamation as princeps in Alexandria; for his acclamation there see A. Henrichs, ‘Vespasian’s Visit to Alexandria’, ZPE 3 (1968), 51–80. For the depiction of rivers in a triumphal context see Östenberg, Staging the World (n. 1), 215–18, 230–45. (132) Pliny, HN 35.102–3; cf. Aelian, Varia Historia 12.41 which says Protogenes spent seven years working on the piece; for Protogenes in Pliny see Isager, Pliny on Art and Society (n. 11), 130–1. (133) For Helena’s painting see Photius, Bibliotheca, PG 103, 149.28–33. (134) Concerning Titus’ sacking of the Temple and his involvement see T. D. Barnes, ‘The Sack of the Temple in Josephus and Tacitus’, in J. Edmonson, S. Mason, and J. Rives (eds.), Flavius Josephus and Flavian Rome (Oxford 2005), 133–7. (135) See Östenberg, Staging the World (n. 1), 111–19; cf. S. Weitzman, Surviving Sacrilege: Cultural Persistence in Jewish Antiquity (Cambridge Mass. 2005), 101–14 for discussion; for the destruction of the Temple and its larger significance for the Roman elite see D. Sailor, Writing and Empire in Tacitus (Cambridge 2009), 232–49. (136) De Bello Gothico 5.12.42; Joseph. BJ 5.231–6 gives a more detailed description. (137) BJ 6.387–91; scepticism of Titus’ clemency is warranted due to Josephus’ close proximity to Titus and Vespasian, see G. M. Paul, ‘The Presentation of Titus in the “Jewish War” of Josephus: Two Aspects’, Phoenix, 47 (1993), 56–66; for the spoils as portrayed on the arch see L. Yarden’s monumental study, The Spoils of Jerusalem on the Arch of Titus: A Re-Investigation (Stockholm 1991); also see F.

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Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps Kleiner, ‘The Study of Roman Triumphal and Honorary Arches 50 Years after Kähler’, JRA 2 (1989), 195–206. (138) Whether these were the same sacred objects presented to the Temple by Ptolemy Philadelphus is uncertain, but remains a possibility (see AJ 12.78–83). For Josephus’ elaborate description of the table of shew-bread designed for the Temple by Ptolemy Philadelphus and other gifts he sent, see AJ 12.60–84; see 12.40–2 for Ptolemy Philadelphus’ other elaborate gifts. Some of this material may well have been plundered and taken by Antiochus Epiphanes (AJ 12.248–55; see 12.318 on the refurbishing of the Temple with new implements). (139) By late antiquity, if we can believe Procopius, much of the treasure in Vespasian’s forum may have been removed to the Palatine for safe keeping. Procopius, De Bello Gothico 4.9.5–8 says that when Geiseric looted the Palatine there was royal treasure of silver weighing over one thousand talents, and that among these were the treasures from the Temple plundered by Titus and Vespasian; while not absolutely certain that this was the same material contained in Vespasian’s forum, it is likely. The material was ultimately repatriated to Jerusalem when Justinian had the treasures sent to the Christian sanctuaries there. (140) BJ 7.139–47; see T. Murphy, Pliny the Elder’s Natural History: The Empire in the Encyclopedia (Oxford 2004), 114–15 for discussion; see p. 221 n. 2 for Vespasian’s triumph; see Östenberg, Staging the World (n. 1), 253–5 for the suggestion that the pēgmata were possibly ‘multi-media’ representations. (141) See Tac. Hist. 4.12–37, 54–79, 5.14–26 for the most detailed account of the revolt. (142) For Vespasian’s commentarii see Joseph. Vita 342; see Syme, Roman Revolution (n. 13), 178 for discussion. (143) See Noreña, ‘Medium and Message’ (n. 119), 28, who also notes Pax’s prominence in Vespasian’s coinage; on the place of Pax among the imperial virtues raised to cult status under Vespasian see Fears, ‘Cult of the Virtues’ (n. 101), 899–902, who also notes its significant connections to the Augustan programme; the theme of Pax under Augustus is a well-trodden path; see e.g. Zanker, Power of Images (n. 25), 172–83 for discussion. (144) See Cic. Orat. 5; Strabo 14.2.5, who says that it was still in Rhodes in Augustus’ day, and so may well have been looted by Nero; Pliny, HN 35.81–3; Plut. Demetr. 22.2–4; Mor. 183B; it was destroyed in Plutarch’s lifetime by fire. (145) For the natural wonders making up a part of the collection see p. 214, with n. 75. (146) For the Domus Aurea as the world in small see Champlin, Nero (n. 123) 132. Page 64 of 65

 

Imperial Collections and the Narrative of the Princeps (147) Darwall-Smith, Emperors and Architecture (n. 120), 67 notes that the ‘bluff no-nonsense image’ we find of Vespasian in Suetonius (Vesp. 12), is offset by his larger patronage of art and culture; also see M. St. A. Woodside, ‘Vespasian’s Patronage of Education and the Arts’, TAPA 73 (1942), 123–9 for a more cultured side to Vespasian. (148) See Darwall-Smith, Emperors and Architecture (n. 120), 67 for discussion. It may have been for similar reasons that Vespasian undertook the restoration of the Temple of Honos et Virtus, Pliny, HN 35.120; see Darwall-Smith, 69 for discussion. In addition, triumphal arches were decreed to Vespasian and Titus (Cass. Dio 65.7.2); see Aur. Vict. Ep. De Caes. 8.8 who notes in general Vespasian’s building and restoration activities. For a general discussion of Vespasian’s building programme see B. Levick, Vespasian (London 1999), 124– 34. (149) Noreña, ‘Medium and Message’ (n. 119), 38 argues that the more dubious aspects of Vespasian’s victories were irrelevant; the increased pomerium advertised his military achievements all the same; for the importance of the pomerium in the imperial period see M. Labrousse, ‘Le “pomerium” de la Rome impéiale’, MÉFRA 54 (1937), 165–99; R. Syme, ‘The pomerium in the Historia Augusta’, Bonner Historia-Augusta-Colloquium, Antiquitas 4 series 13 (Bonn 1978), 217–31 = Historia Augusta Papers (Oxford 1983), 131–45. (150) For Vespasian’s closing of the temple see Orosius 7.3.7; for Augustus’ closing see e.g. Augustus, Res Gestae 13; cf. Cass. Dio 51.20 (29 BC), 53.26 (25 BC); Orosius 6.22 (dated to 1 BC). (151) The cult had been introduced under Elagabalus, see H. R. Baldus, ‘Zur Aufnahme des Sol Elagabalus-Kultes in Rom, 219 n. Chr.’, Chiron, 21 (1991), 175–8; for the temple under Aurelian see H. Kähler, ‘Zum Sonnentempel Aurelians’, MDAI(R) 52 (1937), 94–105; F. Coarelli, Roma (3rd edn., Rome 1983), 240–1; Beard, North, and Price, Religions of Rome (n. 66), 259; for a general discussion see LTUR 4.331–3. (152) See Beard, The Roman Triumph (n. 1), 321 for discussion of Aurelian’s triumph in 274, which she views as exaggerated, though not ‘sheer invention’; also see G. Zecchini, ‘I cervi, le amazzoni e il trionfo di Aureliano’, in G. Bonamente, F. Heim, and J.-P. Callu (eds.), Historiae Augustae Colloquium Argentoratense, Historiae Augustae Colloquia ns 6 (Bari 1996), 349–58 for a detailed discussion of Aurelian’s victory.

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Access and Upkeep

Ancient Rome as a Museum: Power, Identity, and the Culture of Collecting Steven Rutledge

Print publication date: 2012 Print ISBN-13: 9780199573233 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: March 2015 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199573233.001.0001

Access and Upkeep Steven H. Rutledge

DOI:10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199573233.003.0008

Abstract and Keywords This chapter examines the preservation and upkeep of Rome's cultural artefacts. It identifies three general trends. First, Romans, both individually and collectively, were willing to expend substantial resources in the upkeep of cultural property and the buildings that contained that property. Second, over time, in the interest of its preservation, Romans created an extensive bureaucracy through a series of offices in the interest of protecting such property. Finally, the task of cleaning precious objects, of upkeep, of restoration, even of removal of statuary could occasionally be one of the means by which one expressed one's political power and clout. Keywords:   Rome, cultural materials, artefacts, restoration, preservation

The value Romans placed on the preservation of cultural artefacts and their historical patrimony was long-lived. The age of certain objects (such as Romulus’ lituus), even if in fact its origins were unknown, indicates that this was true from a relatively early date. The care such cultural objects received went back at least as far as the Third Punic War, when Scipio took care to repatriate works looted by the Carthaginians back to the Sicilians (see above pp. 53–5), and extended throughout Roman antiquity, until quite late. The depth of importance for Romans of their cultural patrimony is expressed in such episodes as Tacitus’ lamentation at the loss of culturally and historically significant material during the fire in Rome in AD 64 (Ann. 15.41), and again during the destruction of the Capitoline Temple of Jupiter five years later in 69 (Hist. 3.72). The concern for preservation and upkeep abided into late antiquity, and it says much about Roman values that, even as the city became increasingly depopulated and Page 1 of 25

 

Access and Upkeep impoverished, a desire abided among the city’s inhabitants for the preservation of the reminders of Rome’s once glorious and now fading past. Perhaps as a result of Rome’s growing loss of prestige as a political capital, which was increasingly yielded to places such as Constantinople and Mediolanum, the impetus to cling to reminders of imperial domination and its divine sanction grew more intense. Procopius, for one (De Bello Gothico 8.22.5–16), reports that as late as the sixth century, in the midst of the disasters of that period, the Romans were eager to preserve and protect their valuable cultural treasures ‘that nothing of Rome’s ancient glory should be wiped out’. Even despite barbarian sway, the Romans still conserved buildings and their adornments well into the fifth and sixth centuries. However such preservation required resources, as did the initial outlay for any new project. The responsibility for this expenditure shifted between the state or powerful individuals and families depending on the nature of the monument or dedication. The imperative of preserving a monument or cultural artefact also depended on whether or not the object had been consecrated (which many had) or not. Because during the republic those charged with the various tasks connected with the housing and conservation of cultural property were generally the most powerful men in the state, construction often constituted an overtly political act in which competition for prestige had a significant role. Subsequently, during the (p.288) principate, the adornment of the city occasionally created a field of contention between the senate and princeps, where the tensions between emperors and senators sometimes played out. In terms of upkeep and restoration, as Procopius notes above, and as we may understand from Tacitus as well, much store was placed on cultural material during the empire, and its restoration and preservation were a matter of civic pride, and appear to have been a public trust. The case was similar with general maintenance, security, and access; the civil infrastructure for such care appears to have been extensive and the resources dedicated to it were by no means slight.

Construction: Responsibility, Financing, and Oversight What were the mechanisms by which historical commemoratives, monuments, and temples were constructed in Rome and subsequently filled with so diverse an array of material?1 That would depend first on the nature of the monument or structure: at least for religious buildings such as temples (and in some cases, even statues), it depended on whether they had been vowed by a general or whether it was a state matter, such as the fulfillment of something indicated in the Sibylline books.2 In general, moreover, E. Orlin has noted some of the inherent difficulties in understanding how temples were constructed in Rome. For example, should we assume that a general received no assistance from the senate—financial or otherwise—when constructing a temple in fulfillment of a vow?3 He further points out that numerous scholars have assumed that the temples victorious generals vowed were paid for out of spoils from their Page 2 of 25

 

Access and Upkeep campaign, but that this assumption needs modification, since construction of this nature was not exclusively religious and extended to other public buildings.4 In the republic, both private individuals and the state paid for the construction of buildings and (p.289) monuments. In terms of public works, it appears that the censors had charge of construction. Livy indicates (4.8.2) that the censors (under the year 443 BC) took charge of both the outlay of construction contracts and their expense (as well as of state revenue), which may indicate that, at least early on, they were in charge of letting out contracts for both upkeep and construction.5 There was, in addition, a two men commission, known as the duumviri aedi locandae (‘for locating the temple’) who let out contracts for temple construction, as well as a separate commission, the duumviri aedi dedicandae (‘for dedicating the temple’).6 Much of the oversight for temple construction seems to have been in the hands of these two commissions, since normally censors do not appear to have disbursed funds for new temple construction.7 Their authority may have extended to allocation of resources to the senate in its voting of public honours. The bestowal of such public honours, from the statue of Cloelia that stood at the head of the Via Sacra (Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 5.35.2, see p. 180) to the silver images of Antoninus and Faustina that stood in the Temple of Venus and Rome (Cass. Dio 72.31) was in the hands of the senate. However the censors also appear to have had authority over the disposal of gifts throughout temples and public buildings. Thus in 173 BC (according to Livy 42.6.11), King Antiochus sent his belated tribute to Rome along with five hundred pounds of gold vases; the censors were given the responsibility of putting the vases in whatever temple they so decided. Aediles as senatorial magistrates also had a place in the construction of new temples, the dedication of statuary, and the adornment of the city.8 A brief survey of the late third and early second century BC suffices to illustrate this phenomenon. We are told that the curule aediles of 295 BC, Cn. and Q. Ogulnius, put a number of faeneratores on trial and confiscated their property; they used some of the proceeds to build a bronze threshold for the Capitol and to provide silver vessels for three tables in the shrine of Jupiter. In addition, they erected a statue of Jupiter in a quadriga on the roof, and at the ficus Ruminalis set up a statue group of Romulus and Remus suckled by the wolf. In the same year the plebeian aediles, L. Aelius Paetus and C. Fulvius Curvus, used money from the fines of ‘grazers’ to furnish the Temple of Ceres with golden libation bowls (Livy 10.23.11–13).9 The (p.290) curule aediles of 192 BC, M. Tuccius and P. Junius Brutus, prosecuted a number of people for usury and from the fines set up four gilded horses on the Capitol and twelve gilded shields in the inner chapel of the Temple of Jupiter.10 The collection of fines also allowed the two plebeian aediles to set up three statues on the Capitoline, (Livy 30.39.8). The curule aediles additionally funded the casting of five bronze statues set up in the aerarium (Livy 31.50.2) with fines, while the aediles of 193 BC, M. Aemilius Lepidus and L. Aemilius Paullus, raised enough money through the prosecution of cattle Page 3 of 25

 

Access and Upkeep breeders (on what charge we do not know) to place a set of gilded shields on the pediment of the Temple of Jupiter (Livy 35.10.12). Similarly, Livy tells us (38.35) that in 188 BC the curule aediles, P. Claudius Pulcher and Ser. Sulpicius Galba, dedicated twelve gilded shields on the Capitol paid for by fines imposed on grain merchants for hoarding; in addition a statue of Jupiter was set up in the temple at the direction of the decemviri, and a six horse chariot overlaid with gold was set up by P. Cornelius on the Capitol stating it was the gift of the consul. Such measures, particularly on the part of lower magistrates just entering their cursus honorum, will have been reminders to the lower orders of their popular administration of justice and will have commemorated their services given on behalf of the populus Romanus. Such consecrated gifts will have further recalled the pietas of a particular official and (possibly) been intended by the official to assure the future favour of the gods and continuity of political success. It was not always smooth sailing though. Cicero’s Verrine orations indicate the problems that could arise in the construction of such new dedications. There Cicero tells us (Verr. 2.2.141 cf. 2.2.146) that the censors had given Verres two million sesterces for towns in Sicily to erect his statue. Not surprisingly, Verres appropriated the funds and forced a number of towns to set up statues to him out of pocket. As if that were not enough, according to Cicero (Verr. 2.2.150), Verres also exacted money from farmers in Sicily to set up a number of gilded equestrian statues (presumably of Verres himself) near a Temple of Vulcan in Rome; the inscription on one of them stated that it was a ‘gift’ from the farmers of the province. In terms of the sheer prominence of such dedications, Jupiter’s temple on the Capitoline was prime real estate (see fig. 2.1), owing to the level of activity at the cult site and its importance. The accumulation of material by decree was extensive, and we have cited only a few examples for what is a copiously documented phenomenon. The case is similar for the construction of temples, monuments, and the various dedications that were frequently set up at an individual’s (p.291) discretion in consultation with the senate and people. To cite but one example, in 181 BC M’. Acilius Glabrio dedicated a temple to Pietas in the Forum Holitorium when he was duovir and he placed within it a gilded statue of his father Glabrio.11 How much the senate regulated the location, size, and the type of construction materials is uncertain, though by Glabrio’s day custom and convention likely played a part. Livy (9.46.7) indicates that the people granted senatorial authority for regulation in the early period, stating that in 304 BC the people passed a measure lest anyone build a temple or altar without authorization of the senate or a majority of the tribunes of the plebs. Involvement of the populus Romanus in such authorization is supported by a passage in Cicero (Dom. 130) who says that Q. Marcius wanted to dedicate a statue of Concordia in the senate house and to dedicate the senate to Concordia itself. The statue was ultimately transferred to the senate house not by Marcius, but by C. Cassius Longinus, censor in 154 BC, after consultation with the Page 4 of 25

 

Access and Upkeep pontifical college, when the pontifex maximus (M. Aemilius Lepidus) gave his opinion that he did not think the dedication could be properly carried out except by the authority of the populus Romanus. As concerns the actual project itself, it appears that senators could conceivably oversee the construction themselves, as indicated by Cicero’s interest in the building of the Temple of Tellus, near which he set up a statue of his brother, Quintus (Q Fr. 3.1.14).12 With the advent of the principate, the senate and individual members of the aristocracy found it necessary either to work in conjunction with the emperor or at his behest, though occasionally they competed to award such honours to the princeps, helping to create what we might call a topography of adulatio (‘flattery’) throughout the city. Temple construction, artistic programmes, and the dedication of cultural artefacts had to be undertaken in cooperation with the imperial house, and the privilege of such activity became for the most part the exclusive province of the ruling family.13 The trend started with Julius Caesar. Cassius Dio (43.45.3) says that the senate decreed that Caesar’s statue be set up in the Temple of Quirinus with the inscription To the Invincible God and another on the Capitol next to Rome’s ancient kings. Such a piecemeal approach did not satisfy. Soon a senatus consultum decreed his statue be in every temple in the city (Cass. Dio (p.292) 44.4.4), as well as on the rostra representing him as the saviour of citizens.14 The senate, in fact, went so far as to grant Caesar the right to locate his tomb inside the pomerium, and it continued to take the lead under his successors in the decreeing of dedications designed to curry favour with the princeps.15 Hence, after the battle of Philippi, the senate voted Octavian the honour of a column topped with his statue cast in gold and wearing the garb he wore upon entering the city after the campaign. The column was to be adorned with the beaks of ships he had captured and it was to be erected in the Forum (App. B Civ. 5.130; cf. fig. 4.4). Later, after Actium the senate decreed that the foundation of the Temple of Divus Julius be decorated with the beaks of ships taken from that battle (Cass. Dio 51.19.2). Augustus himself famously took charge, often out of his own pocket, with beautifying the city, as did family members, such as Octavia, who built her eponymous portico and her libraries with the spoils of Augustus’ campaign against Dalmatia.16 However the burden was frequently shared with prominent members of the senate, as was famously the case with the Theatre of Balbus, the restoration of the Basilica Aemilia, and the adornment of the Temple of Apollo Sosianus’ pediment with Greek sculpture (see p. 224). We know that prior to his acceptance of the title Augustus the senate voted Octavian the honour of an equestrian statue on the rostrum in the Forum when they were courting him to fight against Antony in 43 BC (Velleius Paterculus 2.61.3), but that later in his reign the excessive number of silver statues dedicated to him by friends, flatterers, and well-wishers led him to melt them down into coin.17 He subsequently used the money to present a gold offering in the Temple of Apollo in his name and in the name of those who offered him the Page 5 of 25

 

Access and Upkeep silver statues (Augustus, Res Gestae 24). Augustus, though, was not the first to eschew such honours. Scipio Africanus was similarly loathe to accept these sorts of privileges, and forbade statues from being set up to him in the Comitium, on the rostrum, in the Curia, on the Capitol, and in the shrine of Jupiter; he further opposed a decree allowing his likeness (imago) exiting the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus in triumphal dress.18 Such honours could become a nuisance, or, as (p.293) Augustus seems to have viewed it, a useless or embarrassing expenditure. The emperor Claudius was of like mind.19 Disapproving of extravagant outlay on statues and votive offerings on the part of private citizens, and realizing that public buildings had become full of them in general, in AD 45 Claudius had them removed ‘elsewhere’ and forbade private citizens from such dedications except by permission of the senate or unless a public work was constructed or repaired at his expense (Cass. Dio 60.25.2–3).20 In neither instance do we know the fate of the statues and dedications that were removed. That Augustus and Claudius could act with so free a hand against imagines, many of which were presumably sacred, was no doubt due in part to their de facto position as pontifex maximus, who in the republic will have had some control over such matters, as in 180 BC when C. Servilius, as pontifex, was ordered to inspect the Sibylline books due to plague; he in turn ordered the consul to vow gilded statues to Apollo, Aesculapius, and Salus (Livy 40.37.2).21 Similarly, Livy (26.34.12) relates that when the aristocracies of several communities (Capua, Atella, and Calatia) of Campania were broken up and resettled in the Second Punic War and the property of its leading men confiscated, bronze statues and busts captured from the enemy were sent to the college of the pontifices for them to decide whether the material was sacred or profane. The emperor’s position as arbiter of state religion and sacred law put Augustus and Claudius in the unique position of determining the fate of certain pieces of cultural property. The princeps’ authority likely remained unchanged in this regard in the course of the empire. It was such authority that possibly motivated Pliny’s missive to Trajan (Ep. 10.8), in which he requested permission to move some imperial statues he had inherited from various bequests from his estate to Tifernum. He notes that he had intended to add Nerva’s statue and gained his permission before Nerva’s death, and asks in this letter to add a statue of Trajan himself, presumably because the ultimate authority for such a decision rested with the emperor. As was the case with consecrated statues, the princeps also reserved the right to make personal decisions on images that were banned or dubious. Titinius Capito, for example, had to obtain permission from the emperor (either Nerva or Trajan) to set up a statue of L. Junius Silanus (one of Nero’s victims) in the Forum.22 With this in mind we should be somewhat circumspect about the reported criticism launched against the emperor Elagabalus for his desire to remove (p. 294) numerous sacred objects from their original precincts into his new temple of Elagabalus; if true, the move may have had a legal basis (since Elagabalus Page 6 of 25

 

Access and Upkeep surely had the right as pontifex to effect such removals). Objections to Elagabalus’ relocation of the fire of Vesta, the Palladium, the shields of the Salii, inter alia, if indeed they occurred, were quite possibly based on long-standing tradition rather than on legal sanction.23 In times of stress, on the other hand, it appears that the sacred nature of cultural objects was simply neglected, as was the case after the Roman defeat at Cannae in 216 BC, when spoils consecrated to the gods were removed to be used either for warfare or its financing.24 Yet the senate still had some say in the adornment of the city, though more often than not, it was directed at honouring their patron, the princeps. The senate’s willingness to grant such honours, if we can believe Tacitus, did not always reflect well on that body. Senatorial competition could result in excess, embarrassing an emperor such as Tiberius, who derided the senate for their eagerness to honour Drusus, Tiberius’ son, for his holding of tribunicia potestas with ‘images of the emperors, altars of the gods, temples, arches, and other accustomed honours’ (Ann. 3.57). Tacitus saves his barbs in particular for M. Junius Silanus, who proposed that all public and private monuments no longer be dated with the consuls’ names, but by the names of those who held tribunician authority. Later, in AD 41, Claudius tried initially to limit the number of images dedicated to him, accepting only one each (in what context we are not told) of silver, bronze, and marble (Cass. Dio 60.5.4). Claudius’ successor, at least in the beginning, showed a similar modesty. In AD 55 Nero requested that the senate allow the building of a statue of his father Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus and his guardian, Asconius Labeo, though according to Tacitus (Ann. 13.10) he refused offers of statues to himself in gold or silver. Yet another decree indicates that the senate may have also had some say in the actual design of a dedication; decreeing altars to Mercy and Friendship, the latter was stipulated that it have statues of Sejanus and Tiberius on either side.25 In more ambitious endeavours, the princeps would even on occasion become personally involved in construction projects as was the case with Vespasian, who delegated the supervision of the Capitoline’s reconstruction (after its destruction by fire in AD 69) to L. Vestinus, a well-respected equestrian who had served as Praefect of Egypt from 59–62 (Tac. Hist. 4.53). Vespasian famously assisted in breaking ground for the new construction (Suet. Vesp. 8.5). His son Domitian (p. 295) was notorious as the emperor with ‘the building sickness’ (Plut. Publ. 15.5), and also took something of a personal interest in construction: Tacitus (Hist. 3.74) tells us Domitian built a sacellum to Jupiter Conservator and a temple to Jupiter Custos for his salvation from the Capitoline fire of 69 and the fighting that attended it. Well before the Flavians, however, as already discussed in detail, Caesar, Augustus, and Tiberius were personally involved in the design of various monuments and the assemblage of their collections. A full century after them similar involvement famously continued with the emperor Hadrian who had a particular interest in such projects, though in general the emperor, as

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Access and Upkeep patron, will have doubtless always worked in conjunction with the architect of larger urban projects, such as the Forum of Augustus or Trajan’s Market.26

Restoration of Artefacts and Monuments Statues, paintings, and other artefacts were all subject to deterioration, yet the process by which they were restored or preserved is poorly documented. Concerning the restoration of buildings with art collections and other material of cultural value we are better informed. While we are concerned here with the preservation of cultural artefacts per se, a short mention of the process of the management of building restoration is instructive since the method of management appears to reflect the process of the restoration of artefacts contained in the structures themselves. Note that we here refer to the management of restoration while we are somewhat less concerned with the actual physical process of restoration. This is due to the simple fac that we have very little information, especially in the area of painting, concerning how this process worked. If we can trust Livy, in the republican period the censors saw to the restoration and repair of public buildings through the distribution of public contracts.27 There are numerous instances of this in both the literary and epigraphic record and needs little elaboration here. However, Augustus’ Res Gestae indicate that buildings could stand in disrepair and neglect for some time (especially if the family in charge of the monument had fallen into poverty), though occasionally, according to Cicero (Div. 1.99), divine intervention could compel the restoration ofpublic monuments, as was the case with the Temple of Juno Sospes during the Social War, restored due to a dream of Caecilia, daughter of Q. Caecilius (p. 296) Metellus.28 The restoration of public monuments was not without its problems, and again, Cicero offers us a window into the difficulties that could arise if a dishonest official got his hands on a project. It was with this in mind that Cicero devoted much attention in one of his Verrines (2.1.130–54) to Verres’ corrupt and criminal conduct in the restoration of the columns in the Temple of Castor and Pollux. In the republican and even extending into the imperial period, buildings and monuments that had been set up as commemorations by individuals were the responsibility of that individual’s family and their descendants. This was still the case with the advent of Augustus, who as noted (p. 224) allowed others to adorn the city. Yet, by the time of his successor, imperial oversight had started to make itself felt. Thus, under Tiberius, Aemilius Lepidus felt compelled to ask senatorial permission to restore the Basilica Paulli, a monument his noble ancestors had built. On the other hand, major monuments of extinct republican families in need of restoration became the princeps’ responsibility, as was the case for the Theatre of Pompey, restored by Tiberius in AD 22 (Tac. Ann. 3.72). Tacitus deliberately notes that Tiberius allowed Pompey’s name to remain after his restoration. This was not the case for the Temple of Concord whose restoration Tiberius personally undertook (see p. 267), and which he dedicated with his brother, Drusus’ name inscribed on it. Emperors Page 8 of 25

 

Access and Upkeep generally took credit for repair and refurbishment depending on their own level of vanity and the nature of the restoration; Hadrian, as with Tiberius and the Theatre of Pompey, famously did not append his name to his restored version of Marcus Agrippa’s Pantheon. We are relatively well informed about the restoration of public buildings and monuments, in no small part because they were durable and a substantial number survive that tell us something about Roman techniques of construction and restoration. Concerning the restoration and repair of cultural property we are more in the dark. In the area of painting, outside of the literary record, we have almost no information. One of the most obvious ways the Romans apparently managed the deterioration of paintings was simple replacement. For example, as noted in the previous chapter (p. 234), Augustus placed two famous paintings by Apelles, the Dioscuri with Victory and the Venus Anadyomenē, in his forum and the Temple of Divus Julius. By Nero’s day these had deteriorated to such an extent that they were substituted with paintings (of unknown subjects) by Dorotheus. Time was a natural destroyer for such works, although incompetent attempts at restoration were also a potential hazard. A masterwork by Aristides’ of Thebes in the Temple of Apollo (a tragic actor with a boy) was ruined owing to a poor attempt at restoration when M. Junius as praetor commissioned a painter who (p.297) was not very skilled to clean it for the Ludi Apollinares.29 Cicero indicates for us what such restoration might have entailed in an analogy he makes between a painting and the state (Rep. 5.1.2): But our own age, although it accepted the state just as a renowned painting, but now has neglected to restore it as it fades due to age (evanescentem vetustate), not only has not cared to restore it with its original colours (coloribus eisdem … renovare), but does not even care to preserve its form (formam), and, as it were, its outlines (liniamenta servaret). The retouching of colour was possibly the central focus of restoration in antiquity, and favoured paintings subject to deterioration could be restored repeatedly. Protogenes’ Ialysus we know was restored on at least four occasions, something reflected in its number of coats according to Pliny.30 That Cicero makes a concession to form in addition to colour may—and only may—indicate that restorers could take some liberties with the original painting. Some works however, either through skilful restoration or luck, appear to have escaped damage due to age. Thus Petronius (Satyricon 83) refers to an ancient work by the painter Zeuxis as still relatively unharmed. Although a fictional account, it is credible enough, given that some artists used methods to preserve their works from the ravages of time and developed their own techniques, as was the case with Apelles, who somehow protected his works pulvere ac sordidibus (‘from dust and dirt’).31 Partial preservation was also an option if a painting had been seriously damaged or had deteriorated, as was the case when the Temple of Page 9 of 25

 

Access and Upkeep Ceres was restored in 27 BC (after a fire in 31): the embossed work on the wall (by two renowned artists, Damophilus and Gorgasus) was cut out and put in frames (Pliny, HN 35.154), while the remaining paintings on the walls were impossible to salvage.32 The fate of the newly restored material is unknown. Cornelius Pinus and Attius Priscus are praised as painters of Vespasian’s newly restored Temple of Honos et Virtus; while it is not absolutely certain that this constituted a restoration project as opposed to an entirely new one, Pliny’s language implies the possibility of the former.33 Statues, though more durable than painting, were also subject to deterioration and damage. Cicero noted in the Philippics (9.14) the forces that could take their toll on statuary, including weather, violence (presumably vandalism), and old age. It was with such deterioration in mind that Statius, for example, could assert (p.298) that an equestrian statue of Domitian would never suffer from the force of time as other statues do (Silvae 1.91–8). Some materials were naturally more fragile than others. To preserve chryselephantine statues such as that of Olympian Zeus, oil could be used to protect its ivory; similarly, water was sometimes employed as a moisturizer to preserve the statue of Athena on Athens’ Acropolis.34 An archaic ivory statue of Saturn in his temple in the Forum was similarly treated with oil to conserve it (Pliny, HN 15.32). But in terms of the actual process and methodology of restoration we know little. We do know, however, that statuary with minor damage was occasionally retouched with wax.35 The famous collector, Avianius Evander was a successful art dealer who managed to restore a decapitated statue of Diana by Timotheus in the Temple of Apollo on the Palatine (Pliny, HN 36.32), but we have no discussion, again, of methodology. However, there are ample broken and restored statues that clearly indicate the use of concrete along with other adhesives, and in the case of bronze, welding, which will have been the means used to repair damaged statuary. Such welding must have been used in the modification of the Colossus when Nero’s head was replaced with Commodus’ (and where Commodus was portrayed as Hercules, with the addition of a bronze club and lion at the feet of the statue).36 Such restoration in and of itself could be deemed worthy of recording, as was the case with a statue of Minerva, restored after it was damaged by fire.37 It could also provide political and even historical or commemorative ‘insurance’ for oneself, as Cicero’s remark to Caesar, that by restoring Pompey’s statues he had made his own (i.e., Caesar’s) more secure, indicates.38 As was the case with paintings, some attempts to modify statuary were quite detrimental, as when some restorers tried unsuccessfully to remove the gilding from a statue of Alexander; some gilding remained in the cavities, ruining the work’s beauty.39 For skilled restorers, however, there was the possibility of social (p.299) recognition. Vespasian, for one, was generous to artists and paid well

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Access and Upkeep the restorers of the Colossus and the Venus of Cos (consecrated in the Temple of Peace and an apparent copy of Praxiteles’ renowned work).40

General Upkeep, Access, and Security There were several ways in which cultural material of a public nature was monitored in ancient Rome. Censors had a general responsibility to care for temples, but they usually delegated this to the aediles or to special commissions, although the consuls were given the specific task of looking after the statue of Jupiter Capitolinus, and their first action upon entering office annually was the polishing of Jupiter’s cult statue and the care and feeding of the sacred geese.41 As noted above, individual families were in charge of specific monuments, but they were also in charge of their contents. For Romans, the tradition of familial maintenance was traced back to the mythical Nautius (Nautes in Vergil, Aeneid 5.704), the Trojan priest who arrived with Aeneas in Italy and was said to have brought with him the wooden statue of the goddess Athena from Troy (and been her priest); the Nautii, as a result, had the responsibility to guard the statue afterwards (Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 6.69.1). Similarly, when Fabius Maximus and T. Otacilius Crassus asked the senate’s permission to dedicate temples to Venus Eryx and to Mens in 215 BC (Livy 23.30.13), it appears that both were appointed duoviri for dedicating their respective shrines and were to be responsible for each (Livy 23.31.9). Cicero also indicates that upkeep may have depended on the family, stating in the Verrines (2.4.79) that it was mos maiorum that every man guards his ancestors’ monuments to stop further adornment by others. Our sources indicate that the responsibility for the general oversight of the contents of public buildings, at least during the republic, was widely distributed through several offices. Such care, as Strong notes, was first and foremost in the charge of the censors, whose role in caring for sacred objects both Pliny (HN 34.30) and Livy (42.6) note, and who also appear to have been in charge of inventory or to have appointed a commission of tresviri for the task.42 In addition to the tresviri, it also appears, if we can trust Dionysius, that some of the responsibility for the general care of sacred places was delegated to the aediles (Ant. Rom. 6.90.3), although the initiative invariably started with the higher (p. 300) magistracies. Livy tells us that M. Aemilius Lepidus, as princeps senatus and censor in 179 BC, contracted for the cleaning of the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus and the columns around it as well; Livy also says that he took down from the columns the shields and military insignia that had been affixed to them.43 In addition, Aemilius, along with his colleague in the censorship, M. Fulvius, opened up numerous shrines and public places (sacella publicaque loca) to the people which had been occupied by private individuals (40.51.1–3, 8). According to Cicero, the consuls had similar authority over the care and maintenance of such buildings, and he gives us some idea of how the work could be delegated (Verr. 2.1.130–2): in 75 BC the consuls, L. Octavius and C. Aurelius, had let out various contracts for temple maintenance. They did not have time to certify all the cases, nor did the two praetors, C. Sacerdos and M. Caesius, to Page 11 of 25

 

Access and Upkeep whom the duty had been delegated. The senate decided that the new contractors, C. Verres and P. Caelius, should be in charge of the oversight of the completion of all the contracts (though as noted above (p. 296), according to Cicero, Verres abused his power). The contractor for the Temple of Castor and Pollux was P. Junius, who died during his tenure, having been in charge of upkeep since 80 BC; the duty devolved to his son, who was still a minor. Verres decided that the contract ought to be transferred to the boy’s guardian, L. Habonius. According to Cicero, Habonius had to testify before Verres that he was taking charge of the oversight with the temple in good condition, with no statues or offerings missing. The type of inventory Habonius submitted will not have been unusual, and the keeping of such records in general will have been a necessary precursor for the care and upkeep of buildings (sacred and non-sacred) and their contents. The inventorying of goods taken in war ideally started at the source, with looted material catalogued after a city’s capture (see p. 45). A similar process of cataloguing in a civic context is indicated in Livy under the year 212 BC when the senate and people had the praetor urbanus create a commission of five men for examining ‘the sacred vessels’ and had another for making a record of temple gifts, with yet another commission for temple repair (25.7); the inventory may have been necessitated after monuments had been stripped of their adornments after the Roman defeat at Cannae noted above. Varro (De Lingua Latina 5.47) too clearly indicates that there were similar records of the city’s monuments kept during the republic, including priestly accounts (ex Argeorum Sacrificiis) which possibly listed a temple’s contents.44 A surviving papyrus fragment from Egypt appears (p.301) to contain a similar itemized inventory of statues, including their artists, and may even specifically mention the Farnese Hercules.45 By the time of the principate, such inventories, and the offices attendant with them, had become essential for the upkeep not merely of buildings but of their contents as well. Suetonius indicates that the trend of establishing such offices started with Augustus who created an office charged with the curam operum publicorum or ‘care of public works’ (Aug. 37). The office is well attested in both the literary and epigraphic record.46 The board of curatores, overseeing the care of public buildings and shrines, continued with his successors. Hence, to cite but one example, the future emperor Vitellius held a post as curator at one point, a post at which Suetonius tells us he proved himself incompetent.47 In addition to curatores there were sub-curatores known as procuratores operum publicorum (ILS 1430). These various grades had their own individual functions and duties, including, possibly, the cataloguing of individual buildings (sacred and public) and their contents. Indeed, Strong conjectures that Vespasian’s censorship may have included an attempt to account for works in Rome looted during Nero’s tour of Greece in AD 67, a task undertaken by the curatores; the product of their work may have furnished the basis for Pliny the Elder’s discussion of the various Page 12 of 25

 

Access and Upkeep artists and their works in his encyclopaedia.48 Tacitus’ father-in-law Agricola was among those appointed by Vespasian in the interest of undertaking just such an account, (ad dona templorum recognoscenda, ‘for reviewing gifts to temples’, Tac. Agr. 6.5). A similar ‘catalogue’ may have been at hand for Tacitus, or at any rate, one of Tacitus’ sources, in rendering his abbreviated account of those monuments and works destroyed in the great fire of AD 64 (Ann. 15.41). Moreover Pausanias conceivably had in mind curatores and procuratores when he made a general reference to the ‘keepers of the wonders’ (hoi epi tois thaumasin) in the city (8.46.5).49 It is likely that later in the empire such curatores became more specialized. As Strong notes, under Antoninus Pius there was an imperial freedman who was procurator of statues and paintings, and, under Antoninus and Commodus, an official called an adiutor rationis statuarum (‘assistant in charge of recording statuary’) and a procurator a pinacothecis (‘the procurator in charge of painting galleries’).50 (p.302) The office of a pinacothecis however, appears to have predated Antoninus, going back at least to the time of Trajan, and one suspects before, since, as noted in Beaujeu’s study, an inscription pertaining to the Temple of Aesculapius and Hygia refers to Flavius Apollonius as procurator Augusti, qui fuit a pinacothecis (‘the procurator of Augustus in charge of paintings’).51 Beaujeu notes too that there are indications of similar offices in the hands of slaves in the imperial house early in the empire.52 Under Augustus, for example, there existed a slave known as the a tabuliis (CIL 6.3970) and another known as the a statuis (CIL 6.4032).53 Tiberius may have had a similar office specifically for looking after images of the imperial family, an office ad imagines.54 We hear too that a certain Larensis was the pontifex minor and the procurator patrimonii, and that he was placed in charge of all the temples and sacrifices by Marcus Aurelius, (as well as in charge of all the Greek and ‘national’ rites in Rome, Athenaeus 1.2a).55 Presumably, this entailed delegating the supervision of upkeep of the material inside the temples as well. By the late empire (ad 335–7) a curator statuarum is attested as a subordinate to the praefectus urbi.56 Nearly twenty years later (356–7), Ammianus Marcellinus (16.6.2) refers to a certain Dorus as nitentium rerum centurionem sub Magnentio, that is, serving as centurion in charge of works of art in Rome. Yet despite the relatively meticulous care as indicated by the various offices pertaining to cultural property and artefacts in Rome (and its cataloguing), we also know that it could prove inefficient.57 The sheer quantity of material, sloppy record-keeping, and the regrouping or reworking of material all contributed to the confusion concerning the identification of objects deemed culturally significant. Pliny despaired at the situation in his own day, citing the vast amount of material as problematic for its identification (HN 36.27). The problem of an over-population of statuary—and its care and restoration—was an old and (p.303) endemic one.58 As early as 179 BC M. Aemilius Lepidus cleaned out the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, removing the statues around the columns.59 Page 13 of 25

 

Access and Upkeep Twenty years later in 158 BC the censors, P. Cornelius Scipio and M. Popilius, undertook a similar purge, removing all the statues of former magistrates except those set up by decree of the people or senate.60 Cassius Dio remarked the vast quantity of statuary that filled the city (60.25.2–3), referring to the ochlos (‘mob’) of images in the early first century. Augustus also may have spruced up the Capitoline of its clutter of statues, though his motive may have been to create a programme more in keeping with his imperial forum, rather than simply to neaten up the site.61 The result of this periodic cleaning and reassembling was that certain artworks could no longer be attributed to their original, individual creators. Pliny notes specifically the case of a statue of Venus that Vespasian had used to adorn his new forum—an admirable work whose artist was unknown (HN 36.27). One of the factors adding to the confusion was that statues could be brought to Rome without their base and the identification of a given work could be lost in the course of transport.62 Again, poor record keeping and importation methods likely led to the confused identification over the artists and their works in the Portico of Octavia, including a group of four satyrs, and another of two wind goddesses spreading their robes like sails (Pliny, HN 36.29). It was equally unknown who had sculpted the groups of Olympus and Pan and of Achilles and Chiron that stood in the Saepta Julia, even though they were so esteemed that those who guarded them put up surety of their lives for their safety (Pliny, HN 36.29). Pliny was equally uncertain whether Scopas or Praxiteles was the sculptor of the dying children of Niobe in the Temple of Apollo Sosianus (HN 36.28). By late antiquity the bronze bull which may have been part of a fountain in the Forum of Peace was identified variously as a work of Phidias, Lysippus, or Myron.63 Such confusion was no doubt the result on occasion of reconfiguration. Mummius, for example, inscribed statues of Philip II with the title of Zeus, and (p.304) the titles Nestor and Priam on the statues of two Arcadian youths, likely with the intent of reusing the statues in a new context64 Yet even in the waning days of the empire, there still was a concern to look after Rome’s cultural and artistic heritage despite Constantine’s despoliation of the city. Ammianus tells us (29.6.19) that Claudius Hermogenianus Caesarius, the praefect in 374, spent his time in office concerned with the restoration of numerous buildings or their improvement, a phenomenon that accelerated in the fourth century.65 The desire at this late date to maintain Rome’s cultural patrimony could be read in a number of ways. Continued civic pride, concern for the city’s waning prestige, nostalgia for the historical and spiritual centre of the Empire, all of these were surely at work. Refurbishment of the antiquities and protection of cultural heritage will have put Rome’s patrimony at the forefront; the expenditure of money and energy on its protection at a time when other priorities demanded urgent attention indicates the value placed on Rome’s cultural legacy.66 Page 14 of 25

 

Access and Upkeep With so many cultural artefacts adorning Rome’s temples and public buildings, how was access controlled and regulated, and how was such material protected? Access to various areas in Rome could be opened or restricted, depending on the nature of the site. Viewing access may have been relatively free, at least by day, throughout much of the city, since Strabo says (5.3.8–9) in his description of the Campus Martius that if one passed on to the Capitoline and saw the works of art there, as well as those on the Palatine and Livia’s portico, that one would become oblivious of all else outside. As concerns the Capitoline, there is reason to believe that access here was at least occasionally restricted, or that at the very least the place was closely guarded. Horace’s scholiast indicates that there was a general keeper of the Capitoline’s temples, and Pliny mentions the suicide of an aedituus on the Capitoline.67 Suetonius (Ner. 46.2) tells us of an occasion in which Nero, wishing to fulfill some vows on the Capitol, was delayed until the keys (Capitolii claves) could be found. Concerning access to Rome’s porticoes, we are (p.305) not very well informed, though an inscription, the Tabula Heracleensis indicates that the aediles and other magistrates (aedilium [e]orumve mag(istratuom)) maintained control over access to and activities in porticoes.68 These were no doubt duties aediles would delegate to lesser officers (such as those noted in the inscription).69 Despite the general protection of the city’s myriad of statues and monuments, their complete protection appears nearly impossible. Simply recall the graffiti on the Temple of Concord after the death of C. Gracchus, the filets and diadem placed on Caesar’s statues, the graffiti scrawled on the statues of M. Brutus’ eponymous ancestor, or that scribbled on statues against Nero for his matricide.70 One of the rare though perhaps unsurprising exceptions to this rule was when the senate voted that Caligula’s statues be guarded (Cass. Dio 59.26.3). We have no details on how this was to be put into effect, but it is likely that the vigiles or night watch would have had responsibility for this task. Late in the empire, we hear of an office called the comes Romanus, in charge of protecting artworks from theft or defacement, but it is difficult to imagine that something similar did not exist before then.71 We do know that vandalism was a sufficiently serious matter that it fell under a charge of iniuria.72 The main caretakers for temples and their contents were officials known as aeditui, who in general were probably public slaves and freedmen. While some appear to have been in charge simply of opening and closing the doors, others will have had more specific duties.73 Tertullian, for one, tells us that by law the aedituus was responsible for sanctifying and purifying temples (De Pudicitia 16), and this would accord with other sources which indicate the aedituus’ more general duties elsewhere, such as Varro (De Lingua Latina 7.12), who simply notes in vague terms that the word aedituus referred to one who was in general charge of a sacred building. Elsewhere an aedituus (who prior to Cicero’s time was called an aeditumus) was synonymous with the custos or ianitor templi, in his capacity as the gatekeeper.74 Under Augustus and the empire, these officials Page 15 of 25

 

Access and Upkeep came from the rank of imperial freedmen, such as T. Flavius, the aedituus of the Temple of Mars Ultor, known to us from a funerary inscription.75 According to a (p.306) scholiast of Horace’s Satires, sometime in the reign of Augustus a certain Petillius was given charge of looking after the Capitoline and its treasures. Under his watch a crown was reportedly stolen; he was accused but acquitted of the theft through Augustus’ intervention.76 It is entirely plausible that Petillius will have been a freedman of the imperial house as was T. Flavius. Not long after we hear of a certain Bathyllus, also an imperial freedman and the aedituus of the Temple of Divus Augustus and Augusta on the Palatine.77 A freedman of Claudia Antonia’s, Philippus Rusticus, apparently held an office known as the a sacrario, an office to which we also have reference in an epitaph to Successus Valerianus who held the identical title (a sacrario divi Aug[ugsti]) in addition to the title of aedituus.78 In addition to freedmen, it appears that servi publici could still fulfill the duties of aeditui. Thus Strabo refers to hierodouloi, and later Tacitus at least implies that a servuspublicus controlled access to the Temple of Vesta.79 On the whole, however, based on the epigraphic record, it seems reasonable to assume that most aeditui were freedmen; indeed, Tacitus notes (Ann. 13.27) that numerous assistants to the priests and magistrates, doubtless among them aeditui and the like, were recruited from among the city’s liberti. In addition to servi publici and aeditui, there existed, at least on a local level, palaestritae (‘managers of gymnasia’) who could also have responsibility for access and daily upkeep, as well as general accounts of statuary.80 On the whole, the aedituus who held the keys to the place was in charge of a relatively secure, though by no means impregnable structure, and theft was a problem, even though temples and public buildings were protected with formidable locks. One of the more detailed episodes of theft from a public temple occurred when Verres broke into the Temple of Hercules at Akragas. Cicero asserts that Verres’ men (a group of armed slaves led by Timarchides) had to use a great deal of force in breaking into the temple, actually wrenching the bolt then tearing the statue from off of its base.81 Nor was their task always tranquil: Verres tried to appropriate a much revered and remarkable statue from the people of Assorus from their temple dedicated to the river Chrysas which flowed through (p.307) their territory. Reportedly Verres dared not touch it but sent two minions, Tlepolemus and Hiero, to take the statue by force with a band of armed men. Unfortunately for them, the aeditumi custodesque raised the alarm, having apparently been alerted to Verres’ scheme. In addition, Juvenal indicates that the theft of gilding off of statues was problematic (14.256–62), and also refers to a theft of the helmet of Mars Ultor.82 Aulus Gellius also tells us that guard dogs were in use for the protection of the Temple of Capitoline Jupiter, along with an unspecified number of aeditumi.83 No doubt these were particularly diligent in their duties, that is, if we can trust Pliny, who tells us that there was a particularly fine statue of a dog licking its wounds in the cella of Page 16 of 25

 

Access and Upkeep Juno on the Capitoline and, since invaluable and irreplaceable, the guards were threatened with penalty of death if anything untoward should happen to it.84 As concerns the hours that aeditui, custodes, and other such officials worked, it appears unlikely that every temple had unrestricted access every day, at least in the republic. Plutarch tells us that when Aemilius Paullus held his triumph ‘every temple was open’ (Aem. 32.3) which would imply limited hours, possibly even days for access (a situation still familiar to anyone who tries to visit sites in Rome today). In addition to public spaces, there was also the matter of access to houses of the great, an area that arguably straddled the space between public and private (see above, p. 186). The level of access granted to homes with particular artefacts and collections is problematic, but it was certainly there. Holliday has argued that, at least during the republic, the houses of nobiles were open to all except in periods of mourning.85 The record however is not entirely consistent. Cicero, for one, criticizes Verres’ appropriation of art for private use in a domestic setting, rather than public display, and notes over and over in his prosecution that this was a central difference between Verres as opposed to M. Marcellus, Scipio Africanus, and Aemilius Paullus, who did not keep treasure for private enjoyment but distributed it for public benefaction (see pp. 36–50). However, Velleius Paterculus’ statement (2.14.3) that Livius Drusus sought to make his house as public as possible implies as well that this was not a universal principle, and that Livius had counterparts who tried to maintain a more private residence. We know the case of some in the republic—at least outside of Rome in a Greek setting—who did have cultural artefacts to which there was general access, as was (p.308) the case with Heius, a wealthy citizen of Messana to whose house a chapel was attached containing an Eros by Praxiteles, a fine statue of Hercules in bronze by Myron, and two canephoroi type statues in the front by Polyclitus. Romans apparently visited the place which was open daily to see these fine works, at least according to Cicero (Verr. 2.4.4–5). Elsewhere there is ample indication that the houses of the great during the empire were generally accessible as places that housed artworks and curiosities (see pp. 186–92). In such instances it is reasonable to suppose that access was regulated by the presence of a ianitor.

Conclusion: Expenditure and Values Three general trends stand out when considering the preservation of Rome’s patrimony in antiquity, and there is a distinct nexus between all three. First, Romans, both individually and collectively, were willing to expend substantial resources in the upkeep of cultural property and the buildings that contained that property. The expenditure on new construction, on upkeep, and on restoration was surely not inconsequential. Titus’ response after the fire of AD 80 is indicative of both the expense of such adornment and the Roman commitment to it:86 ‘During the burning of the city he proclaimed nothing publicly except that he was ruined, and designated all the adornments for public Page 17 of 25

 

Access and Upkeep buildings and temples and put in charge many of the equestrian order so that everything might be quickly completed’. Such commitment and effort devoted to ornamenta, in addition to infrastructure, is telling.87 A similar devotion to Rome’s patrimony was shown by his father’s commitment to the replacement of inscriptions of historical significance that perished in the destruction of the Capitoline temple in 69 (see p. 147). The collective use of state and individual funds, and later imperial and individual expenditure on projects ranging from the restoration of buildings to the repair of damaged paintings, was likely substantial. Second, over time, in the interest of its preservation, Romans created an extensive bureaucracy through a series of offices in the interest of protecting such property. Some of the offices such a bureaucracy entailed will have been of little consequence, such as the servus publicus who swept a temple. Others will have had more important functions, and constituted an aspect of imperial patronage, such as the aedituus who controlled access to the Capitoline. On a grander scale were the curatores and aediles whose task was delegated by the censors and the consuls variously to look after, keep (p.309) track of, and protect cultural property. Finally, the task of cleaning precious objects, of upkeep, of restoration, even of removal of statuary (as was the case with Augustus) could occasionally be one of the means by which one expressed one’s political power and clout. Aediles sometimes dedicated or displayed statues to adorn the city as a first step to higher office; Augustus boasted of clearing the city of statues dedicated to him; Vespasian handsomely rewarded the restorers of the Colossus and the Venus of Cos. Care of the city’s artistic, cultural, and religious patrimony was one of the ways in which the political class publicly expressed its power, and even perpetuated it. The energy and resources expended on the care of Rome’s cultural heritage, even late into antiquity, is a testament not only to the power of its political elite, but to the desire to maintain an identity that the city’s cultural treasures had, in a sense, constructed. (p.310) Notes:

(1) There have been numerous studies on the nature of construction in ancient Rome; see e.g. D. E. Strong, ‘The Administration of Public Building in Rome during the Later Republic and Early Empire’, BICS 15 (1968), 97–109; F. Coarelli, ‘Public Building in Rome between the Second Punic War and Sulla’, PBSR 45 (1977), 1–23; also see J. C. Anderson Jr., Roman Architecture and Society (Baltimore 1997), esp. pp. 68–118 on the organization of public building. (2) As was the case with the statues of Pythagoras and Alcibiades in the Comitium, set up by order of the Pythian Apollo, Pliny, HN 34.26; on the social background of the construction and finance of religious buildings of a public nature see J. Rüpke, Religion of the Romans. Translated and edited by R. Gordon (Cambridge and Malden Mass. 2007), 21–2, 27–8.

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Access and Upkeep (3) See E. M. Orlin, Temples, Religion, and Politics in the Roman Republic (Leiden 1997), 116–17. (4) See Orlin, Temples (n. 3), 124–6; for temples constructed from manubiae (socalled manubial buildings) see 127–39; cf. D. Favro, The Urban Image of Augustan Rome (Cambridge 1996), 82–6 for a list of manubial buildings dating between 44 BC and AD 14. (5) Livy 36.36 indicates that censors would farm out construction of new temples, but that the senate granted them their authority. For the censors’ role in new construction see Orlin, Temples (n. 3), 140–1. That Livy’s narrative at least for his very early history is only an indication of actual practices needs emphasis, since he may well be anachronistic, looking to practices in his own day. (6) See Orlin, Temples (n. 3), 147–58 for the creation and responsibilities of the two commissions; see 162–89 on the dedication of temples in general. (7) Ibid., 142. (8) For the aediles’ role in construction see Orlin, Temples (n. 3), 141, 143–4. (9) See J. Briscoe, A Commentary on Livy Books XXXI – XXXIII (Oxford 1973), 163 for the use of fines by aediles in the construction of public works; cf. J. Briscoe, A Commentary on Livy Books XXXIV – XXXVII (Oxford 1981), 160; for the religious and moral sentiment behind such fines see Rüpke, Religion (n. 2), 15. (10) A decade earlier, in 203 BC, the curule aediles C. Livius and M. Servilius Geminus dedicated a gilded four horse chariot on the Capitol, Livy 29.38.8. (11) See p. 151. n. 79 for discussion. (12) The maintenance and repair of buildings on the local level will have come out of the personal fortunes of local grandees or Roman patrons, as Cicero notes was the case for Arpinum, where wealthy individuals used income from estates in Gaul for the maintenance of sacred and public buildings (Fam. 13.11.1). For local patronage of a similar nature see Pliny, Ep. 3.6, 9.39, 10.8. (13) For the restructuring of this aspect of Roman religious life see M. Beard, J. North, and S. Price, Religions of Rome, Volume 1: A History (Cambridge 1998), 196–201; for imperial financing of public buildings see E. Thomas, Monumentality and the Roman Empire: Architecture in the Antonine Age (Oxford 2007), 38. (14) For a detailed discussion concerning the decrees that placed Caesar’s statues throughout a number of temples in Rome and the larger context of the dedication Invicto Deo, see S. Weinstock, Divus Julius (Oxford 1971), 186–8, who Page 19 of 25

 

Access and Upkeep is dubious concerning to what extent the decree even constituted an extraordinary honour. (15) See p. 233. (16) Cass. Dio 49.43.8; cf. Res Gestae 19–21 where Augustus boasts of adorning the city with new and restored buildings at his own expense. (17) Cass. Dio 53.22.3; cf. 54.35.2 where Augustus refused statues at public expense to himself, instead setting them up to Salus Publica (‘The Preservation of the Public Welfare’), Peace, and Concord. (18) Livy 38.56; triumphal vestments were particularly evocative; see Plut. Mar. 12.5: Marius elicited comment when he attended a senate meeting in such garb, the special preserve of privilege for triumphatores of exceptional note. Ultimately Scipio’s image was set up in Jupiter’s temple, see p. 108. (19) Cass. Dio 60.5.5; see P. Stewart, Statues in Roman Society. Representation and Response (Oxford 2003), 133 for discussion. (20) See Stewart, Statues in Roman Society (n. 19), 133 for discussion. (21) On the legal authority of the pontifex and some of the difficulties in our understanding of them see Beard, North, and Price, Religions of Rome (n. 13), 23–6, 29. (22) Pliny, Ep. 1.17; on Silanus’ execution in AD 65 see Tac. Ann. 16.7–9; for discussion see A. N. Sherwin-White, The Letters of Pliny: A Social and Historical Commentary (Oxford 1966), 124–6. (23) Herodian 5.6.3–4; S.H.A. Heliogab. 3.4; cf. 6.6–9. (24) See Livy 22.57.10; cf. Val. Max. 7.6.1b; Florus 1.22.23. (25) Tac. Ann. 4.74; Ann. 13.8 indicates that the senate could oversee the construction of statuary with specific detailed attention to its appearance; hence a decree after some successes in the East in 55 that a new statue of Nero equal in size to the cult statue be dedicated in the Temple of Mars Ultor. (26) For a good detailed discussion of personal imperial involvement in such projects see Thomas, Monumentality (n. 13), 29–52. (27) Livy 29.37.2; at 34.44.5 he states that the Atrium Libertatis and the Villa Publica were restored and extended by the censors in 194 BC. Cicero (Leg. 3.7) says that (ideally) censors should have charge of temples, streets, and aqueducts within the city; it is a fair presumption that this also included the contents of temples as well.

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Access and Upkeep (28) There were similar instances of divine warning for repair and restoration. See e.g. Cic. Div. 1.101, where a warning comes from a voice in Vesta’s sacred grove that walls and gates must be repaired or the city would be captured (by whom Cicero does not state). (29) Pliny, HN 35.100; see D. E. Strong, ‘Roman Museums’, in D. E. Strong (ed.), Archaeological Theory and Practice: Essays Presented to Professor William Francis Grimes (London 1973), 261 for discussion. (30) HN 35.102; see Strong, ‘Roman Museums’ (n. 29), 262. (31) Pliny, HN 35.97; see Strong, ‘Roman Museums’ (n. 29), 261 for discussion. (32) See Strong, ‘Roman Museums’ (n. 29), 262 for discussion. (33) Pliny, HN 35.120: Honoris et Virtutis aedes Imperatori Vespasiano Augusto restituenti pinxerunt, ‘They painted the Temple of Honos et Virtus for the emperor Vespasian Augustus who was restoring it’. (34) Pausanias 5.11.10–11; see Strong, ‘Roman Museums’ (n. 29), 261 for discussion; for a detailed study on chryselephantine statuary see now K. D. S. Lapatin, Chryselephantine Statuary in the Ancient Mediterranean World (Oxford 2002). (35) See e.g. Juvenal 12.87; see Strong, ‘Roman Museums’ (n. 29), 262 for discussion. (36) Cass. Dio 72.22.3 also says that he inscribed it with his titles with the following inscription: ‘Champion of the secutores; only left-handed fighter to conquer twelve thousand men’. Cf. Herodian 1.15.9; S.H.A. Comm. 17.9–10. (37) See Strong, ‘Roman Museums’ (n. 29), 263 for discussion; ILS 3132 (dated to AD 483). (38) Plut. Mor. 91A; cf. Mor. 205E. (39) Strong, ‘Roman Museums’ (n. 29), 262 remarks the ‘mania’ for this process in the late empire. He also notes that this activity could become quite specialized, as is the case with M. Rapilius Serapio, who made a living putting the eyes back into statues, citing CIL 6.9403. Plut. Mor. 348E also refers to dyers, gilders, and painters of statues. See Pliny, HN 35.133 for artists who specialized in painting statuary. For a detailed study see V. Brinkman and R. Wünsche, (eds.), Die Bunte Götter. Die Farbigkeit antiker Skulptur. Eine Ausstellung der Staatlichen Antikensammlungen und Glyptothek München in Zussamenarbeit mit der Ny Carlsberg Glyptothek Kopenhagen und der

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Access and Upkeep Vatikanischen Museen, Rom (Munich 2004) on the painting of statuary in antiquity. (40) Suet. Vesp. 18; for the Colossus’ removal to the head of the Via Sacra see Cass. Dio 66.15.1; the Colossus was again moved by Hadrian (S.H.A. Hadr. 19.12–13). (41) For delegation to the aediles see Strong, ‘Roman Museums’ (n. 29), 251–2; for censors and their duties concerning the cult statue see Plut. Mor. 287B–C; cf. Pliny, HN 33.112. (42) See Strong, ‘Roman Museums’ (n. 29), 250–1 for discussion. (43) Such items according to Macrobius, Saturnalia 3.11.6, were classified as ornaments since they were not consecrated at the same time as the temple itself. (44) See A. Wallace-Hadrill, Rome’s Cultural Revolution (Cambridge 2008), 260–4 for discussion of the Sacra Argeorum; cf. 290–301 for a similar cataloguing of the city’s inhabitants and building types. (45) See Stewart, Statues in Roman Society (n. 19), 153–4 for discussion. (46) See J. M. Beaujeu, ‘A-t-il éxisté une direction des musées dans la Rome impériale?’, in Comptes Rendus de l’Academie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, Nov.–Dec. (1982), 681 for extended discussion; cf. Strong, ‘Roman Museums’ (n. 29), 252–4; O. F. Robinson, Ancient Rome: City Planning and Administration (London 1992), 54. (47) Vit. 5; on curatores see Strong, ‘Roman Museums’ (n. 29), 252. See e.g. CIL 6.1585 on the curator of the column of Antoninus Pius. (48) See Strong, ‘Roman Museums’ (n. 29), 254. (49) For curatores and their status see Robinson, Ancient Rome (n. 46), 53. (50) See CIL 6.9007, 31053, 1708 (= ILS 1222); for discussion see Strong, ‘Roman Museums’ (n. 29), 253; Beaujeu, ‘Une direction des musées?’ (n. 46), 672–3 n. 2. (51) CIL 6.10324 = ILS 7213; see Beaujeu, ‘Une direction des musées?’ (n. 46), 671–2, who conjectures that his rank will have been equestrian; see 672 with n. 2. (52) See Beaujeu, ‘Une direction des musées?’ (n. 46), 672–3 with n. 4. (53) Ibid., 672 n. 4.

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Access and Upkeep (54) CIL 6.3972; see Beaujeu, ‘Une direction des musées?’ (n. 46), 672 n. 4 for discussion. (55) There was, similarly, a procurator Mausolei, see Thomas, Monumentality (n. 13), 196 for discussion. (56) See Strong, ‘Roman Museums’ (n. 29), 253 on this reorganization; Strong remarks that ‘it has been suggested (Chastagnol, 1960) that this office was created in 331 when the office of curator aedium sacrarum was suppressed by Constantine’. The curator statuarum would from henceforth be responsible for inventory of the national collections. Strong further notes (p. 254) that in ad 365 the Baths of Caracalla were beautified with a large number of statues by order of the princeps, with the praefect of the city overseeing the project (citing CIL 14 suppl. 4721 [Ostia]); ILS 5482, 5477, 5478; CIL 6.794, 1170–73a. Also see A. Chastagnol, Le préfecture urbaine à Rome sous le Bas-Empire (Paris 1960), 469 citing CIL 6.1708, 6.1159; Beaujeu, ‘Une direction des musées?’ (n. 46), 683; Stewart, Statues in Roman Society (n. 19), 155 with n. 148. (57) See p. 120; see Strong, ‘Roman Museums’ (n. 29), 250–1, who notes that inefficient inventory contributed to the problem. (58) On the occasional over-population of Rome with statuary and its need to be cleaned up, see Cic. Phil. 9.14; also see Dio Chrysostomus, Orationes 31 (for the over-population of Roman statuary on Rhodes) and Pliny, HN 35.4–5 (for the recycling of statuary); for discussion see Stewart, Statues in Roman Society (n. 19), 128–30, esp. 129 n. 40; L. S. Nasrallah, Christian Response to Roman Art and Architecture (Cambridge 2010), 4–5. (59) See Stewart, Statues in Roman Society (n. 19), 129 for discussion. (60) Pliny, HN 34.30; see Stewart, Statues in Roman Society (n. 19), 129 for discussion. (61) Augustus’ clean-up is questioned by G. Lahusen, Untersuchungen zur Ehrenstatue in Rom: literarische und epigraphische Zeugnisse (Rome 1983), 11; see Stewart, Statues in Roman Society (n. 19), 132 for the suggestion that Augustus was attempting to create a unified programme with his other projects. (62) Pliny, HN 36.28–9; see Strong, ‘Roman Museums’ (n. 29), 260–1; see above p. 47. (63) Procopius, De Bello Gothico 8.21.12–15; the same passage states the reason for the confusion: ‘Because there are numerous statues in this area which were the works of these two [i.e., Phidias and Lysippus]’. Concerning Myron’s bull see too Anthologia Palatina 9.713–42, 793–8.

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Access and Upkeep (64) Dio Chrysostomus (= Favorinus), Orationes 37.42; see Strong, ‘Roman Museums’ (n. 29), 255 for discussion. (65) For discussion see D. Kinney, ‘Spolia, Damnatio, and Renovatio Memoriae’, MAAR 42 (1997), 121, who notes that laws increasingly addressed the city’s despoliation in the fourth century; for a related discussion see J. Alchermes, ‘Spolia in the Roman Cities of the Late Empire: Legislative Rationales and Architectural Reuse’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 48 (1994), 167–8. (66) For the subsequent reaction to the city’s decline in this regard see Cassiodorus, Variae 7.13, 15; see Stewart, Statues in Roman Society (n. 19), 119, for discussion of Cassiodorus’ ‘pleas for the preservation of Rome’s sculptural heritage’, which he argues was problematic, ‘Divorced from the social and religious circumstances of their creation … the balance between intrinsic and symbolic value had tipped in favour of the lime-kilns and furnaces’. As Stewart notes, the underlying assumption of Cassiodorus (and his audience) is that the statues ‘deserve reverence on account of their aesthetic value, as works of art’, and that ‘they are valuable property of the community and the product of the whole world’. (67) HN 33.15; cf. Ov. Fast. 1.261–2 with his dubious reference to Tarpeia as keeper of the Capitoline. (68) See ILS 6085 = M. H. Crawford (ed.), Roman Statues (London 1996), i. no. 24, lines 68–72. (69) See Beaujeu ‘Une direction des musées?’ (n. 46), 672–3 n. 4 for discussion. (70) For Gracchus see Plut. C. Gracch. 17.6; for Caesar see Suet. Iul. 79.1; Plut. Caes. 61.8; App. B Civ. 2.108; Cass. Dio 44.9.1–3; for Brutus see Suet. Iul. 80.3; Plut. Brut. 9.6–7; for Nero see Suet. Ner. 45. (71) Cassiodorus, Variae 7.13; see Robinson, Ancient Rome (n. 46), 58. (72) Digesta 47.10.27; see Stewart, Statues in Roman Society (n. 19), 264 for discussion. (73) Such as cleaning temples; see Strong, ‘Roman Museums’ (n. 29), 251. (74) Or the templi vel aedis minister and ostarii similia (see TLL p. 934); cf. Aulus Gellius 12.10 who quotes both Varro and Cicero for the association between the custos and the aedituus; also see Servius, In Aeneidem 9.645 (cf.1.726), who simply says that the aedituus was ‘a loyal guardian of the threshold’ (fidusque ad limina custos), a post ‘of great honour among our forebears’ (in ingenti honore apud maiores fuit). (75) See CIL 6.8709 = ILS 4996. Page 24 of 25

 

Access and Upkeep (76) See Pseudo-Acro on Horace, Sermones 1.4.94, and cf. 1.10.25. Worse than the light-fingered aeditui were the pyromaniacs. See Obsequens (57, 83 BC) who asserts that the fire in that year on the Capitoline was ‘due to the treachery of the gatekeeper’ (Fraude aeditui). (77) See CIL 6.4222 = ILS 4995. (78) For Rusticus see CIL 6.2329 = ILS 4992. For Valerianus see CIL 6.2330a = ILS 4993; cf. CIL 6.2330b = ILS 4993a. (79) Strabo 12.3.37; cf. 12.3.34; Tac. Hist. 1.43. (80) See e.g. Cic. Verr. 2.2.35–7: a certain Heraclius of Syracuse had been left a legacy, one of the terms of which was that he set up certain statues (presumably of the deceased) in a palaestrum. One of Verres’ minions accused Heraclius of not erecting the statues, and the property was declared forfeit. (81) Cic. Verr. 2.4.94–6. Cicero says that the vigiles and custodes raised a cry– which indicates that the city had some level of policing. See Strong, ‘Roman Museums’ (n. 29), 259 for discussion. (82) See Strong, ‘Roman Museums’ (n. 29), 259 for discussion. Juvenal’s tale of theft is plausible enough though not (given the satirical nature of the passage) without its difficulties. (83) Aulus Gellius 6.1.6; cf. Pliny, HN 29.57; Livy 5.47.3. (84) Pliny, HN 34.38; see Beaujeu, ‘Une direction des musées?’ (n. 46), 672–3 n. 4 for discussion, who thinks these were also the ‘keepers of the wonders’ referred to in Pausanias. (85) See e.g. Seneca the Younger, Dialog 7.28.1,10.20.3,11.14.2; Lucan 2.22; Tac. Hist. 1.82; Ann. 2.82; see P. J. Holliday, The Origins of Roman Historical Commemoration in the Visual Arts (Cambridge 2002), 227 n. 98 for discussion. (86) Suet. Tit. 8.4; for discussion see Beaujeu, ‘Une direction des musées?’ (n. 46), 684. (87) See Stewart, Statues in Roman Society (n. 19), 145–6 for the definition of ornamenta: ‘Digest 33.7.12.16 draws a distinction between the ornamenta and instrumenta (‘equipment’) of a house, defining ornamenta in manifestly aesthetic terms as “ quae ad voluptatem [pertinent], sicut tabulas pictas”’.

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Epilogue

Ancient Rome as a Museum: Power, Identity, and the Culture of Collecting Steven Rutledge

Print publication date: 2012 Print ISBN-13: 9780199573233 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: March 2015 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199573233.001.0001

Epilogue Steven H. Rutledge

DOI:10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199573233.003.0009

Abstract and Keywords This Epilogue summarizes the book's main themes and presents some final thoughts. The present study has considered the ways in which material arrived in Rome, how it was cared for, and, through a series of admittedly artificial categories, has tried to excavate to a limited extent how various cultural property was expressive of Roman values and identity. This Epilogue concludes that prestige objects produced by top name artists, women with healing powers as purveyors of magic, idiosyncratic statues, place as conservator of historic memory, all abide in the modern as they did in the ancient city, complete with an extensive bureaucracy to preserve the city's cultural patrimony, rendering the modern city as much a place of memory and wonder as the ancient. Keywords:   ancient Rome, Roman identity, cultural materials, artefacts

By late antiquity the city had started to change. It was a transformation that was taking place even in Constantine’s day, though as Ammianus notes, it still had the power to impress a full generation after substantial portions of its cultural property started to be transferred to Constantinople.1 Nonetheless, as noted at several points in this study, Procopius, a late source, can himself still attest to the continued importance of cultural property in the fast deteriorating Rome of his day. That deterioration is vividly driven home in his recounting of Geiseric’s looting of the Palatine for its imperial treasures in AD 455, after which he sent the material to Carthage; in addition, he tore the bronze and gilded tiles off the Temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline (on which Domitian, according to our sources, had spent twelve thousand talents).2 Yet the unfortunate fate of the collection of cultural property in the city, while indicative certainly of the Page 1 of 5

 

Epilogue enormous stress Roman society confronted in late antiquity, also needs to be understood in the context of the cultural sea-change in the late empire, which fundamentally altered Roman identity and the centres of social power within Roman society. The focus had shifted from an aristocratic and pagan centre of power to one that was now Judeo-Christian, and the shape the city took and the cultural values that material culture expressed took on new shapes and new forms.3 In addition, political power had drifted away from Rome, in no small part as a consequence of external pressures in the eastern and on the northern frontiers, which necessitated long absences of any imperial presence away from the city. Consequently, over time even the most basic knowledge of the ancient (p.312) city was lost, as values were resituated during the processes of major political and cultural revolutions. It was in the process of this cultural shift, coupled with the enormous stresses of invasion, economic malaise, and periodic plague, during which knowledge of Rome’s ancient pagan patrimony was lost, leading to a general ignorance of the city’s past. Hence, the writer of the Graphia Aureae Urbis (26) located the tomb of Romulus in the naumachia across the Tiber, instead of its traditionally attested location in the Forum. Similarly, it led Magister Gregorius in his Mirabilia (6) to identify the colossal bronze head of Constantine and his right hand holding an orb (both now in the Capitoline collection) as portions of the Colossus of Nero. At the same time, however, the author of the Graphia Aureae Urbis asserts an intimate knowledge (of dubious accuracy) of Rome’s Judeo-Christian patrimony and the cultural objects reflective of it. The author therefore asserts that the ark of the covenant was to be found in the templum Pacis iuxta Lateranum (20), which allegedly contained (to name just a few of the more striking objects), the tablets of the covenant (tabulae Testamenti), the staff of Aaron, a golden urn containing mana, Aaron’s vestes et ornamenta, a gold candelabra with seven lamps, a tabernaculum, seven candelabra, seven silver chairs (cathedrae), Moses’ staff which he used to part the Red Sea, the vestments of John the Baptist, and the scissors used to cut the hair of John the Evangelist. Yet it is worth noting that here too, as was the case with the ancient Romans’ knowledge of their heritage and past, it is not the historical accuracy of the account, but what the account tells us about the Roman sense of self, and sense of the city in general. The Mirabilia, as is the case with the Graphia Aureae Urbis, is a work that focuses on the fantastic and on the marvellous, and both appear to attempt to set Medieval Rome within the context of Rome’s virtually mythic (and more authoritative) ancient past, in a sense reflecting Rome’s growing place as a spiritual centre, through a discussion of material culture that set that culture in a new historical, theological, and cosmic context. The city was no longer a repository expressing earthly triumph, no longer one with imperial collections attempting to impress or intimidate provincials or to assert legitimacy of rule or rights of governance. Rather the city came to reflect the divine mission and heritage of the Church, an institution that, over time, Page 2 of 5

 

Epilogue itself became a collector and recycler of the ruins of the ancient city.4 Over time, however, the Church came to leave a mark that in visual terms also sought to express a triumphalism both human and divine, that itself collected the world in (p.313) miniature, whose exhibitions and displays came to serve functions very similar to those of ancient imperial collections.5 It was also a theological repository of heaven collected and gathered by the rulers of the City of God, who —like their ancient predecessors—amassed the material cultures of the peoples of the world to whom it sought to spread its faith.6 Only now Apelles’ paintings, Praxiteles’ marbles, and German war masks were supplanted by such relics as the scalae Christi, the bones of St. Bartholomew, the manger in which Jesus slept, pieces of the true cross, and the myriad fragments of Rome’s ancient past, through which the city both in a literal and mnemonic sense ‘recollected’ itself. In the course of this study, we have considered the ways in which material arrived in Rome, how it was cared for, and, through a series of admittedly artificial categories, tried to excavate to a limited extent how a variety of cultural property was expressive of Roman values and identity. To stop at the sixth century AD is, in a sense, also artificial. The re-emergence of Rome as the centre of another world empire, that of the Church, has arguably had the result that the modern city now reflects, in a living sense, the ancient. This is true not simply in the crude reuse of spolia from ancient buildings in the subsequent construction of new ones, but in the accruing over time of a unique cultural heritage that has created, yet again, a museum city reflecting its ancient identity. Its churches, like its ancient temples, continue to function as significant repositories of cultural material in their own right. The church of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva is perhaps the finest example of such a site. Gothic in style (an oddity in Rome due to a regrettable nineteenth century restoration), it contains a splendid fifteenth century chapel (the Capella Carafa) frescoed by Filippino Lippi, a sculpture of Christ Triumphant by a young Michelangelo, a cloister where Galileo was put on trial, the tomb of Saint Catherine of Siena, who still today receives numerous pilgrims in her capacity as a healing saint, and boasts a delightful but diminutive elephant outside in front of the church sculpted by Bernini and carrying a small obelisk on its back (one of many imported from Egypt to Rome in antiquity). A number of popes are entombed here as well, and we could go on with the names of great artists whose works grace the church or who chose the church as their final place ofrest–Sangallo, Barocci, Fra Angelico, the list is no less impressive than that of Verres’ thefts. As Vespasian’s Forum of Peace represented a world in miniature, so too is the church a microcosm of Rome’s palimpsest cultural, intellectual, religious, and artistic history, spanning from its ancient past and embracing masterworks from the Renaissance and Baroque periods. The cultural property (p.314) (and history) that has accrued within Santa Maria Sopra Minerva and throughout the city in general is reflective today of contemporary Roman civic identity, with its layer of ancient, Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, and modern architecture, and the myriad Page 3 of 5

 

Epilogue masterworks those epochs encompass. Much of the material within the city is, in addition, reflective of the once great power of the Church and of the potency of the aristocratic families that competed for power during the Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque periods. How the material has accrued in the contemporary city, the ‘meaning’ and the ‘lessons’ which the material potentially communicates, have all changed markedly, and is fodder for another study altogether. Yet other things have remained the same: prestige objects produced by top name artists, women with healing powers as purveyors of magic, idiosyncratic statues, place as conservator of historic memory, all abide in the modern as they did in the ancient city, complete with an extensive bureaucracy to preserve the city’s cultural patrimony, rendering the modern city as much a place of memory and wonder as the ancient. The value imposed on the collective history and material within the city takes us back to chapter three and our discussion of ‘sacralization’, for it is noteworthy that today the Italians occasionally refer to Rome as ‘sacred Rome’. The city is still set apart as a collective reflection of Italian identity and of western identity as well, by virtue of the continuity of the ancient traditions the city embodies, its significant historical position, and its amalgamation with the West’s Judeo-Christian heritage in conjunction with its Classical past. Mnemosyne still abides as Rome’s parent and Rome itself, as a Museion, remains among Mnemosyne’s most enduring offspring. Notes:

(1) See R. Krautheimer, Rome: Profile of a City 312–1308 (Princeton 1980), 3–20 for a survey of the city in Constantine’s day; see 20–31 for the changes Constantine effected in the city; see 36 for his discussion of Ammianus’ passage on Constantius’ tour of the city. (2) For the looting of the temple and Palatine see Procopius, De Bello Gothico 3.5.3–4; for Domitian’s expenditure see Plut. Publ. 15.3–5. See Krautheimer Rome (n. 1), 35–7 for discussion of Procopius’ impression of the city in late antiquity. (3) On the survival of Roman antiquities into the Middle Ages and Renaissance see T. J. Greene, ‘Resurrecting Rome: The Double Task of the Humanist Imagination’, in P. A. Ramsey (ed.), Rome in the Renaissance: The City and the Myth (Binghamton 1982), 41–54; M. Greenhalgh, The Survival of Roman Antiquities in the Middle Ages (London 1989). (4) As when in 1606 Pope Paul V pulled down the temple of Minerva in the Forum of Nerva and used it in construction of the acqua Paola on the modern Gianiculo. On the gradual despoliation of the city and the reuse of architectural elements and sculpted relief see D. Kinney, ‘Spolia, Damnatio, and Renovatio Memoriae’, MAAR 42 (1997), 117–48. Page 4 of 5

 

Epilogue (5) One thinks here, for example, of the use of some of the first gold from the New World that adorns the ceiling of Santa Maria Maggiore. (6) See Krautheimer, Rome (n. 1), 7–40 for a good discussion of this transformation; for its complete transformation from a pagan to a Christian capital see 33–58.

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Bibliography

Ancient Rome as a Museum: Power, Identity, and the Culture of Collecting Steven Rutledge

Print publication date: 2012 Print ISBN-13: 9780199573233 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: March 2015 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199573233.001.0001

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Index Locorum

Ancient Rome as a Museum: Power, Identity, and the Culture of Collecting Steven Rutledge

Print publication date: 2012 Print ISBN-13: 9780199573233 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: March 2015 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199573233.001.0001

(p.339) Index Locorum Aelian Varia Historia 12.41: 275 n. 132 Aelius Aristides Sacred Discourses 3.47: 109 n. 97 Ammianus Marcellinus 14.6.8: 155 14.8.14–15: 47 n. 57 16.6.2: 302 16.10.13–15: 104 16.10.14: 272 n. 119 29.6.19: 304 Anthologia Graeca Anthologia Palatina 6.97: 49 n. 66 6.332: 117 9.713–42: 303 n. 63 9.793–8: 303 n. 63 12.221: 274 n. 128 Anthologia Planudea 16.26a: 55 n. 85 40: 188 n. 83 83: 231 n. 31 129: 244 n. 67 135–41: 232 n. 35 143: 232 n. 35 167: 55 n. 87 178–82: 234 n. 43 203–206: 55 n. 87 276: 49 n. 66 Page 1 of 35

 

Index Locorum Appian Bella Civilia 1.26: 142 n. 60, 269 n. 111 1.97: 151 2.68: 227 n. 17 2.101–2: 221 n. 2 2.101: 154–5 2.102: 182, 228 n. 19 2.108: 305 n. 70 3.16: 242 n. 62 5.130: 130, 292 The Illyrian Wars 28: 132, 259 30: 40 n. 30 The Mithridatic Wars 116–17: 221 n. 2 117: 134, 143 The Punic Wars 66: 142 n. 57 133: 53 n. 79 Aristotle Poetica 1448b1: 98 n. 61 1449b: 112 Arrian Anabasis 1.9.10: 191 n. 93 Epicteti dissertationes 2.24.7: 58 n. 96 Artemidorus of Daldis Oneirocritica 2.39: 109 n. 97 Asconius Commentary on Cicero Pro Milone 32–3: 106 n. 89 Athenaeus 1.2a: 302 5.187d: 23 5.207c: 131 n. 22 5.209e: 131 n. 23 5.210b: 113 n. 112 13.605f–606a: 113 Augustine De civitate Dei 3.17: 142 n. 60 (p.340) 8.23: 109 n. 99 15.23: 213 16.8: 193 Augustus Page 2 of 35

 

Index Locorum Res Gestae 13: 284 n. 150 19–21: 292 19: 161 n. 5, 235 n. 46 24: 292 34: 138 35: 254 Aulus Gellius 1.19: 179 n. 61 3.10.1: 106 n. 88 4.5.1–5: 136 n. 36 4.6.1–2: 168 n. 20 5.21.9: 274 n. 126 6.1.6: 307 n. 83 9.11: 136 9.11.10: 251 n. 77 12.10: 305 n. 74 16.8.2: 274 n. 126 Aurelius Victor De Caesaribus 9.7: 272 n. 119 14.6: 84 n. 18 De Origine Gentis Romanae 23.2: 167 n. 26 De Viris Illustribus 2.5–6: 179 n. 63 4.9: 180 n. 68 7: 211 n. 60 17: 191 n. 89 21.3: 142 n. 60 25.1–2: 125 n. 7 84.3: 187 n. 80 Epitome De Caesaribus 8.8: 272 n. 119, 284 n. 148 Callistratus Descriptions 6.4: 119 Cassiodorus Variae 7.13: 304 n. 66, 305 n. 71 7.15: 304 n. 66 Cassius Dio 5.19: 190 n. 87 5.22.1: 120 n. 144 11.13: 209 n. 53 37.21: 221 n. 2 40.48–9: 106 n. 89 43.14.6: 134, 198 n. 24, 230 n. 25 43.19: 221 n. 2 Page 3 of 35

 

Index Locorum 43.21.2: 134 43.42: 233 n. 39 43.45.3–4: 153 n. 83 43.45.3: 291 43.45.4: 153 n. 84 43.45: 233 n. 39 44.4.4: 292 44.6.1: 234 n. 42 44.7.1: 233 n. 39 44.9.1–3: 305 n. 70 44.12.1: 153 n. 84 44.17.2: 168 n. 30 45.7.1: 227 n. 18 47.40.4: 168 48.38: 187 n. 80 48.42: 156 48.43.4: 166 n. 24 49.43.8: 292 n. 16 50.8.2: 168 50.25.3: 242 51.17.6: 134 n. 28 51.19.2: 235, 292 51.20: 284 n. 150 51.22.1–3: 134 n. 28 51.22.3: 228 n. 19 53.22.3: 292 n. 17 53.23.1–2: 237 n. 49 53.26: 284 n. 150 53.27.1: 237 n. 49 53.32.4: 156 n. 95 54.4.2: 235 n. 46 54.8.3: 125 n. 7, 132 n. 27 (p.341) 54.29.8: 166 n. 24 54.35.2: 292 n. 17 55.8.2: 267, 268 n. 105 55.8.3–4: 204 n. 34 55.8.4: 214 n. 74 55.9.6: 50 n. 68, 70 n. 145, 268 n. 105 55.10.3: 251 n. 77 55.10.3–4: 132 56.25.1: 270 n. 116 56.25: 267 n. 102 56.29.1: 232 n. 38 59.26.3: 305 56.34.2: 206 56.46.3–4: 189 58.7.2: 67 n. 128, 171 n. 41 58.27.1: 210 n. 57 59.17.3: 51 n. 69 Page 4 of 35

 

Index Locorum 59.22.7: 135 59.28.3: 51 n. 70 60.5.4: 294 60.5.5: 293 n. 19 60.6.8: 55 60.25.2–3: 293, 303 63.11–12: 52 n. 74 63.25: 156 n. 96 65.7.2: 284 n. 148 65.12: 282 65.12.1a: 221 n. 2 65.15: 272 n. 119 66.15.1: 299 n. 40 66.24.2: 237 n. 49 68.29.1: 230 n. 28 68.30.1: 230 n. 28 70.2.3: 149 72.22.3: 298 n. 36 72.31: 289 72.33.3: 168 73.24.1: 272 n. 119 75.4.5: 206 n. 40 76.16.5: 210 Catullus 11: 229 n. 21 Censorinus De Die Natali 23.6: 211 n. 60 Cicero Pro Archia 27: 136 n. 39, 222 n. 5 30 : 87 Pro Balbo 53: 148 n. 71 Brutus 261: 102 Pro Caelio 18: 232 n. 34 78: 153 n. 81 De Divinatione 1.30–1: 168 n. 29 1.33: 170 n. 34 1.99: 295 1.101: 296 n. 28 De Domo sua 101: 191 n. 89 102: 153 n. 81 103: 153 n. 81 111–12: 153 n. 82 Page 5 of 35

 

Index Locorum 114: 153 n. 81 130: 291 Epistulae ad Atticum 1.1: 59 1.3–11: 59 1.4: 61 1.6: 60 1.8: 60 1.8.2: 60 n. 108 1.9: 60, 63 1.10: 60 2.1.11: 65 n. 122 4.9.1: 47 n. 56 6.1.17: 103, 117 n. 127 12.45.2: 233 n. 39 13.28.3: 233 n. 39 Epistulae ad familiares 5.12.1: 82 n. 9 7.23.1–2: 58 n. 96 7.23.2: 58 n. 96, 61 n. 112 7.23: 58 n. 97 8.16.4: 69 13.2: 58 n. 96 (p.342) 13.11.1: 291 n. 12 De Finibus 2.23: 65 n. 122 2.115: 110 n. 103 5.2: 86 5.3: 85 5.4: 85 5.6: 86 n. 27 Pro Lege Manilia 40: 46 66: 46 De Legibus 2.4: 87 n. 29 2.15: 110 2.26–8: 110 3.7: 295 n. 27 Pro Murena 31: 42 n. 38 De Natura Deorum 2.88: 37 n. 23 De Officiis 1.138–9: 64 2.76: 42 n. 38 Orator 5: 282 n. 144 36: 101 Page 6 of 35

 

Index Locorum 98: 101 n. 70 169: 101 232: 42 n. 38 De Oratore 1.5–18: 64 n. 118 1.113–14: 64 n. 118 1.127–8: 64 n. 118 2.266: 153 n. 81 2.357: 86 n. 27 3.10: 130 n. 18 3.195: 81 Philippicae 2.26: 153 n. 84 2.67–8: 187 n. 80 2.109: 70 n. 141 3.30: 70 n. 141 9.14: 297, 303 n. 58 11.24: 163 n. 12 13.11: 70 n. 141 In Pisonem 60: 206 Epistulae ad Q. fratrem 3.1.14: 291 De Republica 1.21–2: 37 n. 23 2.60: 190 n. 87 5.1.2: 297 5.7: 161 Pro Roscio Amerino 133: 65 n. 122 Pro Scauro 48: 163 n. 17 Pro Sestio 93: 155 Tusculanae Disputationes 1.4: 140 n. 48 2.32: 65 n. 122 In Verrem 2.1.11: 53 n. 79 2.1.46: 49 2.1.49: 48 2.1.53: 48 2.1.55: 40 n. 33 2.1.56–7: 45 n. 48 2.1.58: 46 n. 53 2.1.59–60: 155 2.1.130–54: 296 2.1.130–2: 300 2.2.4: 40 n. 33 Page 7 of 35

 

Index Locorum 2.2.35–7: 306 n. 80 2.2.46: 65 n. 122 2.2.50: 49 n. 65 2.2.84–5: 58 n. 98 2.2.85–6: 53 n. 79 2.2.86–7: 54 2.2.89–119: 54 n. 81 2.2.114: 149 n. 75 2.2.141: 290 2.2.146: 290 (p.343) 2.2.150: 290 2.2.158: 108 n. 92 2.2.160: 108 n. 92 2.2.167–8: 104 2.2.176: 47 n. 60 2.4.1–2: 49 2.4.3–7: 50 n. 67 2.4.4–5: 308 2.4.4: 50, 52 2.4.6: 156 2.4.12–14: 50 2.4.29: 49 2.4.30: 49 n. 63 2.4.32: 49 2.4.36: 47 2.4.60–71: 150 n. 76 2.4.72–5: 54 n. 82 2.4.73: 53 n. 79, 54 n. 80 2.4.79: 299 2.4.80: 54 n. 80, 82 2.4.82: 54 2.4.84: 54 2.4.84–5: 54 2.4.93: 54 2.4.94–6: 306 n. 81 2.4.97: 54 2.4.98: 55 n. 84 2.4.120–1: 40 n. 32 2.4.122: 49 n. 65 2.4.123: 110 2.4.126: 153 n. 81, 156 2.4.128–31: 35 n. 15 2.4.128–30: 49 n. 64 2.4.131: 118 2.4.133: 53 2.4.135: 53 2.5.124: 55 n. 84 2.5.127: 45 n. 47, 53 n. 77 Digesta Justiniana Page 8 of 35

 

Index Locorum 21.1.65: 112 47.10.27: 305 n. 72 Dio Chrysostomus Orationes 12.52–3: 109 n. 96 31: 303 n. 58 31.43: 105 n. 83 31.47–53: 105 n. 83 31.71: 105 n. 83 31.99: 105 n. 83 31.105–6: 105 n. 83 31.112: 105 n. 83 31.148: 73 n. 153, 275 n. 130 31.155: 105 n. 83 37.42: 304 n. 64 Diodorus Siculus 11.37.7: 190 n. 87 12.37.1: 191 n. 89 32.25: 53 n. 79 40.4.1: 205 Diogenes Laertius 5.51: 22 n. 59 6.72: 104 n. 78 Dionysius of Halicarnassus Antiquitates Romanae 1.68–9: 162 1.69: 162 n. 10 1.79.8: 166 n. 21 1.85.6: 167 n. 26 1.87.2: 120 n. 141 1.87.3: 167 n. 26 2.38: 179 n. 63 2.66.5: 162 2.66.6: 163 2.70–1: 170 n. 31 3.1.2: 120 n. 141 3.22.7: 180 n. 68 3.71.5: 170 n. 34 4.27.7: 171 n. 39, 171 n. 41 4.39.3: 198 n. 23 4.40.7: 171 n. 40, 171 n. 41 4.58.4: 147 n. 70 4.62: 179 n. 61 5.35.2: 289 5.36.4: 197 5.39.4: 187 n. 77 6.69.1: 299 6.90.3: 299 6.95: 148 n. 71 Page 9 of 35

 

Index Locorum 8.68–80: 190 n. 87 (p.344) 8.79.3: 190 n. 88 10.31–2: 269 n. 114 12.4.6: 191 n. 89 14.2.2: 168 n. 29 16.3.6: 140 n. 48 Ennius Annales 363: 40 Scipio 10–11: 81–2 Eutropius Breviarium 4.12.2: 53 n. 79, 262 n. 96 9.15.1: 284 Festus 85L: 174 n. 53 108L: 142 n. 55 180L: 120 n. 144 184L: 120 n. 141 188L: 131 n. 22, 258 n. 92 228L: 36 n. 17, 140 n. 49–50 258L: 211 n. 58 276L: 147 n. 70 332–3L: 165 n. 20 380L: 180 n. 68 496L: 168 n. 27 Florus 1.2.3: 162 1.5.10: 130 n. 17 1.13.27: 36 1.17.25: 190 n. 87 1.18.20: 209 n. 53 1.20.4: 129 1.20.5: 125 n. 7 1.22.23: 294 n. 24 2.13.88–9: 221 n. 2 2.18.4: 187 n. 80 Herodian 1.11: 176 n. 56 1.14.2: 272 n. 119 1.15.9: 298 n. 36 5.6.3–4: 294 n. 23 Historia Augusta Alexander Severus 25.9: 217 n. 85, 251 n. 77 26.4: 217 n. 85, 251 n. 77 26.8: 217 n. 85, 251 n. 77 28.6: 251 n. 77 Page 10 of 35

 

Index Locorum 41.6–7: 208 M. Antoninus 4.9: 84 n. 18 Aurelianus 10.2: 285 28.5: 132 n. 27, 285 29.1–3: 149, 285 33.3: 134 39.6: 284 Carus 19.1–2: 188 n. 81 Commodus 17.9–10: 298 n. 36 Firmus 3.4: 285 Gallieni Duo 19.4: 137 Gordiani Tres 2.3: 188 3.6–8: 188 3.6: 187 n. 80 32.1: 188 n. 81 Hadrianus 14.8: 84 n. 18 16.10: 84 n. 18 19.12–13: 299 n. 40 Heliogabalus 3.4: 294 n. 23 6.6–9: 294 n. 23 Maximinus 12.10–11: 140 n. 54 16.1: 190 33.2: 181 n. 69 Pescennius Niger 12.4–8: 189 (p.345) Probus 15.4: 148 n. 73 Tacitus 9.2: 286 16.2–4: 190 Tyranni Triginta 25.4: 189 31.10: 274 n. 126 Homer Iliad 6.92: 162 6.273: 162 Odyssey 8.83–8: 112 n. 106 Page 11 of 35

 

Index Locorum 12.212: 112 n. 108 Horace Ars Poetica 180–2: 86 n. 27 Carmina 1.14: 131 n. 21 2.1: 224 n. 13 3.30.1: 82 n. 9 Epistulae 1.6.17: 104 2.1.192–3: 42 n. 38 2.1.248–9: 100 2.2.91: 222 n. 9 Epodes 16.13: 120 n. 141, 170 n. 33 Sermones 1.3.90–1: 238 n. 52 1.4.94: 306 n. 76 1.5.52: 213 n. 70 1.10.25: 306 n. 76 1.10.38: 222 n. 9 2.3.16: 58 Hyginus Fabulae 261: 211 n. 59 Josephus Antiquitates Judaicae 12.40–2: 280 n. 138 12.60–84: 280 n. 138 12.78–83: 280 n. 138 12.248–55: 280 n. 138 12.318: 280 n. 138 14.34–6: 149 14.72: 46 n. 55 14.146–7: 148 14.188: 148 n. 71 14.266: 148 n. 71 19.7: 52 n. 71 19.10: 52 n. 71 29.3.2: 211 n. 58 Bellum Judaicum 5.210–14: 280 5.216–19: 282 5.231–6: 278 n. 136 6.387–91: 279 n. 137 7.132–5: 278, 280 7.132: 221 n. 2 7.139–47: 280 n. 140 7.148–50: 279 Page 12 of 35

 

Index Locorum 7.158–62: 277 7.158: 272 n. 119 7.162: 272 n. 122 Vita 342: 281 n. 142 Julius Caesar Bellum Gallicum 1.1: 203 n. 31, 204 n. 35 6.25–8: 193 Julius Obsequens 6: 168 n. 30 44: 168 n. 30 44a: 168 n. 30 47: 168 n. 30 50: 168 n. 30 57: 168 n. 30, 306 n. 76 Juvenal 1.48–50: 53 4.13–31: 213 n. 70 5.4: 213 n. 70 5.46–8: 213 n. 70 6.156–7: 119 n. 135 (p.346) 7.38: 222 n. 9 8.100–7: 48 9.22–6: 274 n. 128 11.100–7: 103 12.87: 298 n. 35 14.256–62: 307 Scholia ad Juvenalem 6.154: 237 n. 49 Lactantius Divinae Institutiones 1.6: 179 n. 61 1.20.27: 181 n. 69 1.22.13: 100 n. 65 2.7.11: 34 n. 11 2.16.11: 34 n. 11 Livy praefatio 4: 195 praefatio 10: 82 n. 9 1.4.5: 165 n. 20 1.11.6–9: 179 n. 63 1.12: 262 n. 96 1.18.1–2: 170 1.20.4: 170 n. 32 1.26.10: 126 1.26.13: 180 n. 68 1.26.14: 180 n. 68 1.33: 142 n. 60 Page 13 of 35

 

Index Locorum 1.36.5: 170 n. 34 1.45.4–5: 211 n. 60 1.45.4: 211 1.48.6–7: 198 n. 23 1.57: 174 2.10.12: 136 n. 36 2.13.11: 180 2.28.1: 142 n. 60 2.33.9: 148 n. 71 2.41.10–11: 190 2.41: 190 n. 87 3.31.1: 269 n. 114 3.50–4: 142 n. 60 3.57.7: 148 3.67: 142 n. 60 4.7.11–12: 148 4.8.2: 289 4.15.8–16.1: 191 n. 89 4.16.1: 191 4.16.3–4: 117 n. 127 4.17.1–6: 149 n. 75 4.25.3: 244 n. 66 4.29.7: 244 n. 66 4.32.4: 125 n. 7 4.32.11: 125 n. 7 5.21.1–4: 34 n. 11 5.22.3–8: 34 n. 11 5.47.3: 307 n. 83 5.53.8: 166 n. 23 6.4.2: 34 n. 12 6.29.8–10: 34 7.38.1–2: 148 n. 73 8.11.16: 148 8.14.12: 130 n. 17 8.20.8: 191 n. 91 8.40.4: 117 n. 127 9.40.16: 127 n. 11 9.43.22: 137 9.44.16: 217 n. 85 9.46.6: 269 n. 111 9.46.7: 291 10.23.11–13: 289 10.23.12: 166 n. 21 21.62.8: 182 22.37: 149 22.57.10: 294 n. 24 23.23.6: 127 23.30.13: 299 23.31.9: 299 Page 14 of 35

 

Index Locorum 24.16.16–19: 142 24.47.15: 171 n. 40 25.7: 300 25.39.12–17: 127 25.40.1–3: 37 n. 22 26.21.7–8: 37 26.21.7: 207 26.24.11: 48 n. 61 26.27.14: 163 n. 12 26.29–30.11: 37 26.32: 37 26.32.4: 155 n. 92 (p.347) 26.34.12: 293 27.16.7: 38 n. 27 27.16.8: 45 27.25.7: 38 n. 26 27.37: 182 29.11.13: 38 n. 26 29.14.5–14: 176 n. 56 29.37.2: 295 n. 27 29.38.8: 290 30.39.8: 290 31.50.2: 290 32.16: 40 32.27.1: 148 n. 73 33.27.3–4: 42 n. 40 33.36.13: 129 34.3–4: 33 n. 10 34.44.5: 295 n. 27 35.10.12: 290 36.35: 148 n. 73 36.36: 289 n. 5 37.57.13–14: 45 38.9: 40 38.35: 290 38.43.2–5: 45 n. 46 38.43.5: 40 n. 32 38.43.9: 207 38.44.5: 45 n. 51 38.44.6: 45 n. 46 38.56: 292 n. 18 39.2.11: 258 n. 92 39.4: 40 n. 32 39.5: 156 n. 97, 221 n. 4 39.5.13–16: 45 n. 50 39.5.14: 36 n. 17 39.6.7–9: 33 n. 10 40.29.2–14: 171 n. 38 40.34.4–5: 151 n. 79 Page 15 of 35

 

Index Locorum 40.37.2: 293 40.51.1–3: 300 40.51.8: 300 40.52.1: 258 n. 92 41.28.8–10: 199 42.6: 299 42.6.11: 289 42.12: 132 n. 24 42.20.1: 130 43.4.7: 40 n. 33, 140 n. 50 43.6.5–6: 148 n. 73 44.14.3: 148 n. 73 45.16.5: 161 n. 5 45.25.7: 148 n. 73 45.35.3: 131 n. 22, 132 n. 24 45.40: 41 n. 34 Periochae 51: 53 n. 79 52: 42 n. 38 140: 258 n. 92 Lucan 2.22: 307 n. 85 Lucian Amores 8: 119 13–17: 113 n. 113, 114 15: 119 De Mercede Conductis 1–2: 181 n. 70 De Domo 6: 88 n. 33 21: 88 n. 33 Hercules 4: 119 Hermotimus 86: 181 n. 70 Lucretius 1.1–27: 229 2.1–6: 112 n. 108 Macrobius Saturnalia 1.8.5: 171 n. 42 1.12.16: 40 n. 32, 223 n. 10 2.4.21: 224 n. 13 3.11.6: 300 n. 43 3.17.18: 228 n. 20 Manilius Astronomica 1.7–10: 268 n. 110 Page 16 of 35

 

Index Locorum (p.348) 1.247–57: 268 n. 110 2.60–83: 268 n. 110 2.440: 268 n. 110 2.442: 268 n. 110 2.444–6: 268 n. 110 3.48–55: 268 n. 110 Martial Epigrammata 1.108.1–4: 205 2.14.5–6: 237 n. 49 2.14.16: 237 n. 49 2.77: 265 3.20: 237 n. 49 6.13: 99 n. 64 7.84: 99 n. 64 8.44.6–8: 217 n. 84 9.24: 110 n. 103 9.43: 65 n. 123 9.44: 65 n. 123 9.59: 58 n. 96, 68 10.3.4: 213 n. 70 10.89: 110 n. 103 10.96: 213 n. 70 11.1.12: 237 n. 49 12.15: 77 n. 156 12.69: 65 n. 123 14.96.1: 213 n. 70 14.170: 263, 265 14.171: 263, 265 14.172: 263 14.173: 263 14.174: 263, 265 14.175: 263, 265 14.176: 263, 265 14.179: 263, 265 14.180: 263, 265 14.181: 263, 265 14.182: 263, 265 Orosius 6.22: 284 n. 150 7.3.7: 284 n. 150 Ovid Amores 3.2.30–1: 88 n. 36 Ars Amatoria 1.213–28: 119 1.217–28: 229 n. 21 1.223–4: 206 3.401–2: 234 n. 43 Page 17 of 35

 

Index Locorum Fasti 1.260–2: 179 n. 63 1.261–2: 304 n. 67 1.640–8: 267 n. 102 1.641–4: 269 n. 111 2.69: 235 n. 46 2.411: 165 n. 20 2.684: 193 3.183–8: 166 n. 23 3.601–74: 120 4.225–344: 176 n. 56 5.149–54: 168 5.551–70: 256 5.579–96: 251 n. 80 6.213–18: 174 n. 52 6.277–80: 37 n. 23 6.419–22: 162 n. 10 6.424: 162 6.436–54: 163 n. 17 6.477–8: 197 n. 21 6.569–72: 171 n. 40 6.609–10: 198 n. 23 6.613–25: 171 n. 40 6.613–26: 171 n. 41 6.637–8: 270 n. 117 6.797–812: 222 n. 7 Metamorphoses 14.775–7: 179 n. 63 Tristia 2.528: 231 n. 31 3.1.31–4: 211 n. 58 3.1.61: 238 n. 52 3.1.69–70: 258 n. 92 3.1.70–2: 223 n. 12 Panegyricus Latinus 5.20–1: 205 (p.349) Pausanias 1.15.4: 127 n. 13 1.25.8: 22 1.30.2: 22 n. 59 5.11.9: 109 n. 96 5.11.10–11: 298 n. 34 6.9.3: 272 n. 119, 274 n. 126 8.46.1: 210 8.46.5: 301 9.27.2–4: 55 n. 87 9.27.3: 259 n. 94 10.7.1: 73 n. 153 10.19.2: 73 n. 153 Page 18 of 35

 

Index Locorum Petronius Satyricon 28–9: 93 29: 116 46: 84 n. 18 50: 42 n. 38 81–83: 114 83: 100, 297 88–9: 119 88: 84 90: 93 126: 82 n. 9 Phaedrus Prologue 5.4–9: 65 n. 124 Philostratus Maior Imagines 1 proem 1: 83 n. 12 1 proem 4: 119 Vita Apollonii 2.22: 231 n. 31 Philostratus Minor Imagines proem 3: 83 n. 12 Pliny the Elder Historia Naturalis 2.93–4: 227 n. 18 2.200: 218 n. 88 3.16–17: 204 3.17: 205 3.18: 204 4.78: 204 n. 35 4.81: 204 n. 35 4.83: 204 n. 35 4.91: 204 n. 35 4.102: 204 n. 35 4.105: 204 n. 35 5.9–10: 204 n. 35 5.65: 204 n. 35 5.102: 204 n. 35 5.128: 210 n. 55 6.37: 204 n. 35 6.39: 204 n. 35 6.40: 204 n. 6.57: 204 n. 35 6.136–7: 204 n. 35 6.164: 204 n. 35 6.196: 204 n. 35 6.200: 209 6.207: 204 n. 35 Page 19 of 35

 

Index Locorum 6.209: 204 n. 35 7.20: 174 n. 53 7.34: 212 n. 64–5 7.35: 210 n. 57 7.74–5: 213 n. 66 7.75: 213 n. 67–8 7.85: 193 n. 2 7.97: 205 7.120: 176 n. 56 7.126: 231 n. 29 7.158: 213 8.31: 210 8.37: 209 8.155: 230 n. 27 8.194: 174 n. 54 8.197: 171 n. 41 9.11: 210 9.93: 209 9.116: 228 n. 19 9.119–21: 134 n. 28, 228 n. 19–20 10.5: 210 n. 57 10.141: 208 12.20: 214 n. 76 12.94: 214 12.111: 214, 214 n. 75–6 (p.350) 13.53: 244 13.83: 67 13.88: 179 n. 61 13.92: 67 n. 128 14.2–6: 84 14.11: 215 n. 77 14.148: 242 n. 62 15.32: 298 15.77: 165 n. 20, 170 n. 34, 215 n. 77 15.78: 215 n. 77 16.8: 130 n. 20 16.200: 214 n. 74 16.201: 214 16.214–15: 193 16.216: 215 n. 78 16.235–6: 215 16.237: 215 18.15: 137 18.16: 137 18.20: 187 19.12: 193 22.13: 117 n. 127, 251 n. 77 25.5–8: 214 n. 76 28.34: 174 n. 53 Page 20 of 35

 

Index Locorum 29.57: 307 n. 83 31.12: 193 32.22: 143 n. 63 33.3–4: 71 n. 147 33.15: 304 n. 67 33.19: 269 n. 111 33.112: 299 33.142: 46 n. 54 33.147: 67 n. 131 34.6: 68, 70 n. 144 34.10: 197 n. 21 34.11–12: 67 n. 129 34.14: 238 34.15: 190 n. 88 34.18: 227 n. 18 34.19: 222 n. 9 34.22: 170 n. 36 34.22–3: 179 34.26: 288 n. 2 34.28–9: 180 n. 64 34.29: 187 n. 77 34.30: 299, 303 n. 60 34.31: 176 n. 57, 261 34.32: 184 34.33: 135 34.34: 36 n. 17 34.36: 42 n. 38, 56 n. 93 34.38: 307 n. 84 34.39: 40 n. 30 34.40: 38 n. 29 34.43: 217 n. 85 34.47: 65 n. 124 34.48: 56 n. 93, 70 n. 144, 253 34.59: 100 n. 67 34.62: 70 n. 145, 71 n. 150, 113 n. 110 34.64–5: 41 n. 34 34.69: 43 n. 42 34.73: 268 n. 106 34.77: 268 n. 106 34.79: 100 n. 67, 235 n. 46, 274 n. 128 34.80: 268 n. 106 34.82: 71 n. 149 34.84: 56 n. 90, 73 n. 153, 272 n. 119, 275 34.89: 268 n. 106 34.90: 268 n. 106 34.92: 47 n. 58 34.93: 130 35.4–5: 303 n. 58 35.4: 105 n. 83 Page 21 of 35

 

Index Locorum 35.6–8: 106 n. 86 35.6–7: 127 35.6: 136 n. 38 35.9–11: 106 35.9–10: 224 35.12: 138 35.13: 138 35.14: 127 n. 13 35.20: 84 n. 16 35.22: 84 n. 17, 140 35.23: 99 n. 63, 154 n. 89 35.24: 42 n. 37 35.25: 104 n. 77, 153 n. 81 35.26: 58 n. 99, 67 n. 130, 226 35.27–8: 234 n. 48 35.27: 234 n. 43 (p.351) 35.51–2: 217 n. 86 35.52: 188 n. 82 35.58–9: 222 n. 5 35.65: 99 35.66: 40 n. 32, 222 n. 7, 268 n. 107 35.70: 71 35.74: 275 35.77: 84 n. 16 35.81–3: 70 n. 142, 282 35.85–6: 83 n. 13 35.88: 99 n. 63 35.91: 117, 234 n. 43 35.93: 234 n. 43 35.94: 253 n. 82 35.97: 297 n. 31 35.100: 297 n. 29 35.102–3: 99, 275 n. 132 35.102: 297 n. 30 35.108–9: 275 35.108: 143 n. 67 35.114: 222 n. 5, 258 n. 92, 259 35.115: 117 n. 128 35.120: 284 n. 148, 297 n. 33 35.126: 222 n. 5 35.127: 52 n. 72 35.128: 83 n. 15 35.130: 56 n. 93, 59 35.131–2: 230 n. 28 35.131: 265, 268 n. 107 35.133: 298 n. 39 35.135: 143 35.136: 231 n. 29 35.139: 259 Page 22 of 35

 

Index Locorum 35.144: 268 n. 107 35.154: 297 35.155–6: 68 n. 132, 99 n. 62 35.155: 223 35.156: 227 35.157: 171 n. 43, 265 n. 99 35.173: 156 36.11–13: 238 n. 56 36.13: 100 n. 67 36.14: 238, 259 36.20: 113 n. 113 36.22: 258 n. 92, 259 n. 94 36.24: 238, 259 36.25: 238 36.26: 156 n. 97 36.27: 92 n. 52, 273, 302, 303 36.28–9: 258 n. 92, 303 n. 62 36.28: 244, 259, 303 36.29: 237 n. 49, 261, 303 36.32: 119 n. 135, 238 n. 53, 298 36.33–5: 223 36.33: 224 n. 13 36.34–5: 244 36.35: 259 36.36: 239 n. 57 36.37–8: 76 n. 154 36.39: 91, 113, 207 36.41: 58, 206 n. 42 36.42–3: 259 n. 92, 271 n. 118 36.50: 235 n. 46 36.58: 275 n. 131 36.59: 210 36.114: 156 n. 98 36.163: 171 n. 41, 209 36.196: 209 36.201: 214 n. 74 37.4: 268 n. 108 37.8: 268 n. 108 37.11: 229, 238 n. 55 37.13–14: 238 n. 55 37.18–19: 209 37.27: 209 37.82: 70 n. 140 Pliny the Younger Epistulae 1.17: 108 n. 94, 293 n. 22 2.3.8: 213 n. 69 2.7: 138 2.11: 53 n. 78 Page 23 of 35

 

Index Locorum 3.1: 65 n. 122 3.6: 58 n. 96, 92 n. 48, 291 n. 12 3.6.3: 65 3.7.8: 108 n. 93 4.30: 194 7.27: 194 7.29: 104 n. 79 (p.352) 8.6: 104 n. 79 8.18: 65 n. 121 9.39: 291 n. 12 10.8: 291 n. 12, 293 Panegyricus 55: 33 n. 10 Plotinus Enneades 5.8.1: 109 n. 97 Plutarch Aemilius Paullus 6.8–9: 84 n. 16 28.5: 109 n. 96 28.11: 46 n. 54 30.2–3: 131 32–4: 41 n. 34 32.3: 307 Alexander 11.12: 191 n. 93 16.7–8: 41 n. 35 Antonius 4.1–2: 242 n. 62 21.2–3: 187 n. 80 24.3–4: 242 n. 62 60.2–3: 242 n. 62 Aratus 13: 150 Brutus 1.1: 153 9.6–7: 305 n. 70 9.8: 153 n. 83 Comparison of Brutus and Dion 5: 156 n. 95 Caesar 7.1: 232 n. 36 11.5–6: 230 n. 28 42.2: 232 n. 36 55.2: 221 n. 2 61.4–9: 234 n. 42 61.8: 305 n. 70 Camillus 32.5: 168 n. 29 Page 24 of 35

 

Index Locorum 42.4: 269 n. 111 43.2: 269 n. 111 Cato Maior 19.4: 155 n. 94 38: 47 39.1–3: 47 n. 57 Cato Minor 38: 47 43: 154 Cicero 7: 56 n. 93 Demetrius 22.2–4: 282 n. 144 Fabius Maximus 22.6: 38 n. 28, 29 Galba 26.4: 156 n. 96 Gaius Gracchus 4.2–4: 176 n. 58 13.2: 176 n. 58 15.1: 142 n. 60 17.6: 269 n. 111, 305 Tiberius Gracchus 1: 176 n. 58 Lucullus 37.2: 156 n. 97, 221 n. 4 39: 58 n. 99 39.2: 56 n. 93 41.5: 40 n. 31 42.1–4: 67 n. 127 Marcellus 6–8: 125 8: 125 n. 7 21: 33 n. 10, 38 n. 27 21.2–5: 38 n. 26 28.1: 38 n. 26 30.6: 258 n. 92 Marius 2: 153 (p.353) 12.5: 292 n. 18 17.1–3: 179 n. 62 23.5: 153 n. 81 32.2: 151 n. 80 40.1: 151 Nicias 28.5: 50 Numa 13: 170 n. 32 22.2: 171 n. 38 Page 25 of 35

 

Index Locorum Philopoemen 21.6: 55 n. 85 Pompeius 2.2–4: 182 n. 72 2.2: 230 n. 28 36.6–7: 47 42.3: 46 45: 221 n. 2 46.1: 230 n. 28 Publicola 15.5–6: 311 n. 3 15.5: 295 20.2: 187 n. 78 Pyrrhus 3.4: 174 n. 53 Romulus 4.1: 165 n. 20 9.4: 167 n. 26 11.1: 167 n. 26 17.2–5: 179 n. 63 22.1–2: 168 n. 29 23.3: 168 n. 27 Sulla 6.1–2: 151 n. 80 26.1–2: 67 Moralia 18A–B: 110 n. 104 18A: 98, 232 n. 35 91A: 298 n. 38 142D: 88 n. 34 183B: 282 n. 144 198B–C: 46 n. 54 198F: 155 n. 94 200B: 53 n. 79 205E: 298 n. 38 250F: 120 264C–D: 211 n. 60 271E: 174 n. 53 281D–E: 171 n. 39 287B–C: 299 n. 41 335A–B: 99 336C–D: 151 n. 78 346A–B: 83 346F–347A: 98 n. 61 348E: 298 n. 39 379D: 108 381D–F: 88 n. 32 394E: 118 395A: 118 Page 26 of 35

 

Index Locorum 399F: 88 n. 34 400C: 88 n. 34 400D: 118 401E: 118 472A: 83 n. 13 473F: 101 517F: 194 n. 4 520C: 194 n. 4 521B–D: 194 n. 4 559D: 150 575B: 82 674A: 111 n. 105 Polybius 1.2: 197 2.31.5–6: 129 3.26.1: 148 6.53: 106 n. 86 6.56: 110 9.10.1–12: 37 9.10.13: 37 n. 23 9.10: 40 n. 32 21.30.9: 40 n. 32 39.3: 55 n. 85, 103 39.6: 42 n. 38 Procopius De Bello Gothico 3.2.24: 188 n. 83 3.5.3–4: 311 n. 2 (p.354) 4.9.5–8: 280 n. 139 5.12.42: 278 n. 136 5.15.8: 210 n. 56 5.15.9–14: 163 5.25.19–20: 170 n. 36 5.25.19: 179 n. 60 8.21.11–14: 274 n. 127 8.21.12–15: 303 n. 63 8.22.5–16: 132 Historia Arcana 8.12–21: 216 Propertius 2.31.3–4: 238 n. 52 2.31.5–8: 238 2.31.8: 100 n. 67 2.31.12–16: 240 n. 60 3.9.11: 234 n. 43 4.1.1–10: 168 4.2.1–4: 36 n. 17 4.4: 179 n. 63 4.10: 125 n. 7 Page 27 of 35

 

Index Locorum Quintilian Institutio oratoria 2.13.8–14: 101 3.7.20: 191 n. 89 6.1.32: 155 n. 93 6.3.38: 153 n. 81 6.3.98: 56 n. 93 11.2.17–22: 86 n. 26 12.10.3: 90 n. 40 12.10.3–9: 90 n. 40 12.10.9: 90 n. 40 Rhetorica ad Herennium 3.16–24: 86 n. 25 Sallust Bellum Iugurthinum 4: 106 n. 86 Bellum Catilinae 11: 33 n. 10 54.6: 231 n. 32 Seneca the Elder Controversiae 1.6.4: 166 n. 23 2.1.5: 166 n. 22 8.2: 108 10.5: 100 n. 68 Seneca the Younger De beneficiis 2.33.2: 102 Dialogi 7.28.1: 307 n. 85 10.20.3: 307 n. 85 11.14.2: 307 n. 85 Epistulae 7.64.9–10: 108 n. 93 Ad Helviam 9.3: 166 n. 23 Servius In Aeneidem 1.294: 253 1.720: 181 n. 69 1.726: 305 n. 74 2.116: 211 n. 59 2.166: 163 n. 14 3.12: 161 n. 5 6.230: 215 n. 77 7.188: 211 n. 59 7.603: 168 n. 30 8.90: 165 n. 20 8.348: 179 n. 63 Page 28 of 35

 

Index Locorum 8.721: 206 n. 40, 207 9.645: 305 n. 74 In Georgica 3.29: 130 Silius Italicus 1.133: 125 n. 7 3.587: 125 n. 7 12.280: 125 n. 7 13.36–78: 163 n. 14 13.79–81: 163 n. 12 13.839–43: 179–80 n. 63 17.635–42: 206 (p.355) Solinus 1.21–6: 187 n. 77 1.26: 187 n. 77 Statius Silvae 1.1.84–6: 230 n. 27 1.91–8: 298 4.3.7: 273 4.6: 58 n. 96, 65 n. 123 4.6.59–88: 119 n. 135 Strabo 1.1.16–18: 204 1.1.23: 219 n. 91 2.5.13: 204 5.3.8–9: 304 6.3.1: 38 n. 27, 29 7.6.1: 40 n. 30 8.6.23: 42 n. 37, 65 9.2.25: 55 n. 87 12.3.11: 47 12.3.31: 134 12.3.34: 306 n. 79 12.3.37: 306 n. 79 13.1.41: 162 13.1.54: 67 n. 126 14.1.14: 55 n. 86, 235 n. 46 14.2.5: 282 n. 144 14.2.19: 50 17.1.8: 22 Suetonius Augustus 5: 189 6: 189 n. 84 16.2: 105 29.2: 132 29.3: 235 n. 46 31.5: 251 n. 77 Page 29 of 35

 

Index Locorum 37: 301 41.1: 50 43.2: 224 n. 13 43.4: 209 70.1: 237 n. 50 70.2: 70 n. 144 71.1: 50 72.3: 70 n. 143 73: 174 85.2: 231 n. 30 91.2: 235 n. 46 Caligula 5: 105 22.2: 52 n. 71 23.3: 213 n. 70 24.3: 135 52: 51 57.1: 51 n. 70 Claudius 1.4: 269 n. 112 21.6: 257 Domitianus 1.1: 189 3.1: 77 n. 155 13.2: 283 Galba 2: 137 n. 42 10.1: 154 n. 88 De Grammaticis 15.1: 187 n. 80 Divus Iulius 7.1: 230 n. 28 13: 232 n. 36 10.1: 156 37: 221 n. 2 46: 232 n. 36 47: 70 n. 140, 228 n. 19 49: 229 53: 232 n. 37 61: 230 n. 27 76.1: 232 n. 37 79: 234 n. 42 79.1: 305 n. 70 80.3: 305 n. 70 Nero 24.1–2: 52 n. 74 25.1: 134 32.4: 55 n. 88 38.3: 52 n. 74 Page 30 of 35

 

Index Locorum 45: 305 n. 70 46.2: 304 (p.356) 47.1: 71 n. 149 52: 84 n. 18 Tiberius 6.3: 73 n. 152 13.1: 156 n. 96 15.1: 188 16: 259 20: 267 n. 104, 270 n. 116 42.1: 270 n. 115 43.2: 71 44.2: 70 n. 145 47.1: 71 n. 149, 267 n. 103 61: 213 n. 70 Titus 1: 189 8.4: 308 n. 86 Vespasianus 8.5: 147, 148 n. 71, 294 9.1: 272 n. 119 12: 221 n. 2 16.1–3: 77 n. 155 18: 299 n. 40 Vitellius 1.2: 137 n. 42 3.1: 137 n. 42 5: 301 n. 47 8.1: 251 10.3: 135 Symacchus Epistulae 10.78: 272 n. 119 Tabula of Cebes 1.3: 119 Tacitus Agricola 2.1: 82 n. 9 4.2–3: 257 6.5: 55 n. 88, 301 10: 203 n. 31 21.2: 257 30–2: 214 n. 72 46: 106 n. 86 Annales 1.4: 270 1.8: 106 n. 89 1.33: 269 n. 112 1.73: 109 n. 101 Page 31 of 35

 

Index Locorum 1.74: 105 n. 83 2.33: 69 n. 138 2.37: 213 n. 67 2.43: 270 n. 117 2.47: 218 n. 88 2.49: 270 2.53–4: 87 2.73: 230 n. 28 2.82: 307 n. 85 3.23: 154 n. 87 3.36: 109 n. 101 3.55: 69 n. 138 3.57: 294 3.72: 224 n. 14, 267 n. 103, 296 3.76: 108 n. 94 4.13: 218 n. 88 4.64: 175 4.74: 294 n. 25 5.4: 154 n. 85 6.28: 193, 210 n. 57 12.24: 197 n. 21 12.49: 213 n. 70 13.8: 257, 294 n. 25 13.10: 294 13.27: 306 13.58: 166 n. 25 14.12: 135 n. 34 14.61: 154 n. 86 15.34: 213 n. 70 15.37: 208 15.41: 301 15.42: 217 15.45: 52 n. 74 15.53: 135 n. 33 15.72: 135 n. 34 15.74: 135 n. 33 (p.357) 16.7: 108 n. 94 16.7–9: 293 n. 22 16.23: 52 n. 73 Dialogus de oratoribus 28.5–6: 176 n. 58 Historiae 1.36: 156 n. 96 1.43: 306 n. 79 1.82: 307 n. 85 1.86: 169 2.2–3: 281 2.55: 154 n. 88 3.72: 187 Page 32 of 35

 

Index Locorum 3.74: 295 4.12–37: 281 n. 141 4.53: 294 4.54–79: 281 n. 141 4.61: 179 n. 62 4.65: 179 n. 62 5.14–26: 281 n. 141 5.22: 179 n. 62 5.24: 179 n. 62 Tertullian De Pudicitia 16: 305 Valerius Maximus 1.1.8: 38 n. 26 1.1.12: 171 n. 38 1.8.11: 168 n. 29, 171 n. 40, 171 n. 41 1.8.12: 176 n. 56 1.8 ext. 19: 209 2.5.1: 151 n. 79 2.10.2: 186 n. 75, 213 3.1.1: 137 3.2.5: 125 n. 7 3.4.3: 117 n. 127 3.7.11: 222 n. 9 4.4 praef.: 176 4.4.9: 46 n. 54 5.1.6: 53 n. 79 5.4.ext.1: 86 n. 27 5.8.2: 190 n. 87 6.3.1c: 153 n. 81, 191 n. 89 6.3.2: 120 n. 144 7.3.1: 211 n. 60 7.5.4: 262 n. 96 7.6.1b: 294 n. 24 8.11 praef.: 110 8.11.ext.4: 113 8.14.2: 136 n. 39 8.14.6: 140 n. 48 8.15.2: 108 n. 91 9.6.1: 179 n. 63 9.11.1: 198 n. 23 Varro De Lingua Latina 5.46: 36 n. 17 5.47: 300 5.54: 161 n. 8, 165 n. 20 5.66: 174 n. 52 5.152: 168 n. 27 5.157: 191 n. 89 Page 33 of 35

 

Index Locorum 5.159: 197, 198 n. 23 5.163–5: 198 n. 23 7.12: 305 7.57: 140 De Re Rustica 1.2.1: 199 1.2.10: 56 n. 93 1.59.2: 58 n. 101 3.5.9: 22 n. 59 3.5.12: 153 n. 81 Velleius Paterculus 1.11.3–5: 41 n. 35, 262 n. 96 1.13.4–5: 42 n. 37 1.13.5: 33 n. 10 2.1.2: 259 2.14.3: 307 2.39.2: 205 2.43.4: 151 n. 80 2.45.5: 47 n. 57 2.61.3: 292 2.77.1: 187 n. 80 2.81.3: 238 Vergil Aeneid 1.202–6: 112 n. 108 1.279: 219 1.378–9: 161 (p.358) 1.446–95: 112 1.451–2: 112 1.461–2: 112 2.171–5: 51 n. 70 5.704: 299 6.18–33: 90 6.836–7: 42 n. 38 6.855–59: 37 8.312: 19 n. 43 8.355–8: 19 n. 43 8.654: 166 n. 22 Vitruvius 1 praef. 2: 224 n. 14 2.1.5: 166 3.2.5: 259 n. 92 5.5.8: 42 n. 39 6.4.2: 102 6.5.1: 60 6.5.1–3: 64 n. 116 6.5.2: 58 n. 101 6.7.3: 102 7.5: 84 Page 34 of 35

 

Index Locorum 7.5.3–4: 102 7.5.5–6: 61 n. 114 8.2.6: 205 n. 38 Zosimus 1.61.2: 285

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